Lets get this out of the way first.

I do NOT own any Buffy or Scooby Doo characters. This is just for fun, and no money is being made from this. If I was making $ from it I'd update a heck of a lot faster. :p

This story is set during season Five. Between "Out of My Mind" and "No Place Like Home."

Review Responses:

(Ch12)

Setting Notes:

The chapter opens as Willow Giles and Anya are waiting at the door to be let in.

Chapter 13 What's going on here:

There was the awful scent of smelling salts assaulting his nostrils. And a voice saying. "Wake up Giles"

Giles was mumbling. "I've had the strangest dream."

The voice was insistent. "Giles open your eye's." Giles vaguely recognized the voice as Willows. Which he confirmed when he slittted his eye's open expecting to have been hit on the head. Yet again he thought ruefully.

Giles saw his charges arrayed around him. Buffy looked concerned while Xander had a twinkle of mischief in his eye's as he asked. "Was it to much for you to handle G-Man?"

"How many time have I asked you not to call me that?" Giles asked in exasperation. "And why isn't my head splitting as usual, when I'm knocked out?"

Buffy smiled at Giles unconscious joke on himself. It only seemed like he was getting knocked out all the time. (Actually there's' some truth in it.) She thought to herself. "You weren't knocked out. You…"

"Fainted cause you were so surprised." Dawn couldn't wait to put her two cents in. Even though all the older females, (other than Anya) present shot her a glare. Spike and Xander were trying somewhat unsuccessfully to stifle their snickers.

Willow spoke first. "Dawn it surprised me to. You guys broke him. It was just one surprise to many. After all it wasn't like he was surrounded by enemies."

"Will someone please explain to me what's going on! This is not a laughing matter." Giles was fuming about being kept in the dark.

Tara spoke up. "Well from all that I've heard of since I got let into the Scooby gang." Tara had a secretive smile on her lips. "it's simply amazes me that a talking dog caused you to faint."

Giles was confused. (A talking dog?)

Buffy called over her shoulder towards the kitchen. "You guys can come on out now."

Giles saw four teens and a great dane come out of the kitchen. One of them looked remarkably like Buffy. "Will someone Please tell me what's going on here?"….

One convoluted and constantly interrupted explanation later.

Giles was rubbing at his temples thinking. (At least this isn't an apocalypse scale problem. But the headache I'm developing would put it firmly on that scale.) "So your telling me that you lot are looking for a way to break the curse. Which brought you to Sunnydale. During which you've been assaulted by a virtual swarm of particularly weak minions led by some new master vampire. One thing you didn't make clear during your explanation was what the amulet was."

Tara blurted it out. "It was the amulet of Ho-San Giles." She said excitedly.

Willow and Giles both dropped their jaws. "Are you sure? It was supposedly destroyed in China nearly a thousand years ago." He asked with amazement, as he turned towards the newcomers. The rest of the Scoobies had looks of puzzlement on their faces.

Velma looking embarrassed at being the center of attention. "The amulet in question was found by us, in a hidden temple for lack of a better word in Mexico some years ago. The amulet was a teardrop shape a little smaller than my fist. It was on two intertwined chains of gold and silver. The amulet itself had the ideograms of the Chinese zodiac on the faces of a dozen different precious and semi precious gem stones. Not to mention all the warnings not to remove it from it's resting place in Mandarin. I have spent years researching it ever since it got away from us."

"Hum without more details I'd say it could be the amulet of Ho-San." Giles mused.

"Giles what is this amulet thingy? And why is it so important?" Buffy was puzzled why everyone was so interested in an amulet that no one had seen in years.

"I can answer that Buffy." Tara said as she turned toward the slayer. "Ho-San was a great wizard and scholar in China nearly two thousand years ago. His amulet is supposedly capable of boosting even a mediocre mages power to fairly high levels. A powerful mage could easily surpass Merlin in sheer magical power."

"Wow" Is all Buffy could say. Even the Scooby Doo gang looked intrigued.

"That alone would be more than enough to draw any dark mages to the amulet. But it had other rumored powers that I would have to research to tell you more about, other than the fact they were extremely malevolent." Giles told the amazed gathering. "I would truly like to know how someone who looks so much like Buffy came here to Sunnydale."

"All we were doing was going on a road trip. We were going to stay the night here. But then move on up the coast tomorrow morning. The breakdown of the mystery machine wasn't exactly planned." Daphne explained.

"They didn't know why I directed us to Sunnydale." Velma indicated the Scooby Doo gang. "I was just wanting a convincing reason for coming here. I was going to give it a little look see and come back after our trip to explore without dragging the gang into more mysteries." Velma said defensively.

"Yes from your story you work for Wolfram and Hart. And they encourage their employees to stay away from La Boca Del Inferno don't they?" Giles peered over his glasses at the uncomfortable looking Velma.

"I'm not a major player. I'm little more than an intern for the company. All of my cases are the normal ones that any law firm gets. It's only by keeping my ear to the ground…"

"Snooping you mean." Interjected Shaggy

Velma glared at him. "By keeping my ear to the ground I've found out all sorts of interesting things that someone in my position is not supposed to know. Sunnydale's special status is just one of them.

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Sorry it's been so long between updates. I'll try not to let it go so long between new chapters. Just any recreational writing seems to be consumed by Count Down to Judgment day. But I'll try to do better in the future.