A/N I wanted to apologize to the fans of this fic for two reasons. One for taking so long to update and two for having to do what I have to do now. I really want to get this fic over with and I've had writer's block on it for so long that this is the only thing I can do. Plus I lost almost all the info I was going to do for the other chapters.

There's gonna be a summary of events that led to not fade away at the end of this chapter. And there will be one more chapter after this.

Chapter 26

Not Fade Away Again pt.1

Circle of Blackthorn

Secret Chamber

Tara sat at the head of a long table casting distrustful looks at an assortment of demons. Propping her feet up on the table and leaning back in her chair, she waited for one of them to speak. Seeing that no one would say anything, she started off.

"You all wanted to see me?"

"Yes." Archduke Sebassis started. "We have much to talk about."

"But... let me be the first to say thank you for weakening the Wolfram and Hart beast. Because of you the Circle is now the true source of power of this world." the old archmage Vail wheezed out. The other members of the Circle seemed to nod or grunt out their agreement.

"But I can tell by the look in your eyes that you know that's not the only reason we called you here." the Archduke spoke up once again. "There aren't any secret's amongst the Circle. We've had a team doing some research on you and your past but we can't find much. All that we do know for certain is that your real name is Tara Antoinette Maclay and that you are from Shelbyville County, New Mexico. We were a bit shocked that you weren't actually born a Seraphim so we would all like to know what exactly happened to you?"

"I can't really explain it myself, but let's just say that I have problems with my soul." Tara answered.

"It wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a certain little prophecy would it?" Senator Brucker asked as she held up a scroll. "You've displayed signs of vampirism so we think the Shanshu prophecy applies to you."

(Angel do you think they're onto us?) Tara mentally asked.

(I don't know but get ready just incase.) he warned. Taking his warning seriously, she readied a fire ball in the palm of her hand under the table.

"We originally thought that it applied to the souled vampire Angelus, but since you ironically enough killed him then we think it falls on you."

"One might think that you were trying to manipulate the Circle in order to fulfill the prophecy and go back to being fully human." the Archduke interjected.

"And just why would I want to go back to being fully human?" Tara asked as she sat up a little straighter.

"Because of the temptation of having a normal life." Izzy the devil demon spoke up for the first time. "You're gonna live for a long time and you're gonna have to watch your friends die."

"I'm gonna live long enough to watch alotta people die." Tara said looking at them all in turn. "Gentlemen, I've lived a rough life but now I have power. I can be as big and bad as I want to be so I ask again why would I want to become human?"

"So you wouldn't mind signing this pesky little thing then." the Archduke asked as he put a scrolled document on the table and slid it towards her. Expecting to sign off the Shanshu prophecy she was surprised to find out that it was something else all together.

"What is this?"

"It's a document saying that your spirit will never enter the gates of heaven." Senator Brucker informed her. "If you're truly one of us then I don't see any reason for you to care."

"I don't." Tara said firmly as she pricked the end of her finger and dabbed some blood on a pen that was on the table.

(Tara don't do this!) Angel mentally yelled into her head. But it was already to late as she started to write her name.

"Now that that's settled." Tara started as Izzy took the document, held it in his hand and watched as it puffed into nothingness, to be filed away in who knows where. "I want all of you to share some wine with me." she said as she reached into her duster and pulled out a wine bottle. "I stole this from a vineyard in Sunnydale before it's collaspe."

Just saying that brought back the bad memories of her having to kill father Caleb, but she put a smile on her face anyway.

"What's the special occasion?" Izzy asked.

"Let's just say for being out with the old and in with the new." she replied as she poured a few glasses and passed them around the table. Showing good faith that the wine wasn't poisoned she took a sip out of her glass. Looking all throughout the room she noticed that the only person who didn't drink any was Vail and Senator Brucker.

Wolfram and Hart

Later that day

Tara stood in front of her window, wearing some black slacks and a black wife beater shirt overlooking the city with a pensive look on her face. Tonight was possibly going to be the last night of her life and she was afraid.

(Tara for the last time you need to involve the rest of your team in this.)

(And for the last time Angel, no.) Tara answered back. (I'm not gonna let any of them die like they did in the original timeline. The way everything worked out anyway all I have to deal with is The Fell Brethren, Hamilton, Vail, and Senator Brucker.)

(And the whole army of Archduke Sebassis.) Angel pointed out. (Tara that's why I had my team with me.)

(And that's why all of them died with you.) Tara angrily interrupted. (I'm sorry.) she amended knowing that she had gone to far.

(It's alright.)

"Hey boss you wanted to see us?" Chris Redfield asked as he, Alonna, Kendra, Spike, Illyria, Wesley, Fred, Leon, and Lorne walked into the room. He never thought in a million years that he would one day be working for her, but after she closed Umbrella with her resources at Wolfram and Hart he knew he had to follow her.

"Yeah, I did." Tara said with a smile as she turned around and sat on the edge of her desk. "I know that I've been running you guys ragged lately with all these missions and..."

"Tell me about it luv." Spike cut her off. "We haven't had a single day's rest since we've been 'ere."

"Which is exactly why I want you guys to take the rest of the night and tomorrow off." Tara informed him. And for the first time the group as a whole saw that something was a little off about her. As if she were hiding something.

"Kid are you alright?" Chris whispered into her ear.

"I'm fine." Tara replied as she put her hands around his head and kissed him on the cheek. "You know I love you right?"

"Yeah." he replied as he looked at her funny. Something definately was wrong.

"Now you guys get out of here." she said as she shooed them out of the room. "And Spike."

"Yeah?" he asked as he turned around and looked at her.

"Drink one for me." she said giving him a wink. Spike looked at her strangely at that and then walked out of the room closing the door behind them. Taking a seat at her desk Tara thought about all the happy times she had with her friends, because tonight everything was gonna end.

"Harmony." Tara said as she pushed a button on the desk intercom.

"Yeah, Bossy?" came Harmony's voice.

"When you see Mr. Hamilton send him to my office."

"Did any of you think that Tara was acting a little strange?" Alonna asked as she led the group down the hallway.

"Angelcakes alway's acts strange." Lorne joked.

"I'm serious." Alonna said as she pushed the button for the elevator. "I've never seen her like that before. She's been acting strange all week."

"I know what you mean." Chris spoke up.

"And we've seen this before." Illyria said as she turned to look at Spike. "Isn't that correct half breed?"

But Spike wasn't really paying attention to her, even as he got on the elevator. All he could think about was the way Tara winked at him. It made him think of long ago when Angelus would give him that same look and wink. He would always do that just before they would go into a major battle with someone. Then it hit him like a light and he knew what was going on.

"Spike?" Kendra asked, snapping him out of his dark reverie. "Are you alright?"

"Not really luv." he replied as his mind raced with a hundred thoughts. "There's some things I should tell you all."

"You wanted to see me Seraphim?" Hamilton asked as he walked into her office. He noticed that she looked at him strangely and that she was wearing her duster. "Going somewhere?"

"Not yet." Tara said as she stood to her feet. "Have a seat." as he sat down she walked around her desk and behind him.

"Was there a reason for you wanting to see me?" Hamilton asked as she ran her hand through his hair.

"Shhh... don't talk to loudly. What I have to tell you is of extreme importance." she said as she sat on his lap and started whispering in his ear. "I've uncovered a plot tonight that someone poisoned the Circle of the Blackthorn."

"What I have too..."

"It's too late." Tara cut him off. "Most of the members are already dead, but I want you to deal with the person responsible."

"Who is it?" Hamilton asked angrily.

With a smile on her face Tara leaned in close and whispered in his ear. "It's me." before he could react to what she had said to him, she reached around his head and brutally twisted and snapped his neck.

Before his now dead body could hit the floor, she grabbed it and tossed him out of the window, shattering it. Looking out of the now big hole, she kicked the rest of the glass out, reached into her duster for a grappling hook gun, fired it off and swung down onto a lower building. Touching the surface of it, she took off, jumping and rolling off of building top to building top.

Even later that night

Tara ran out of a dark building, carrying a bundle of something in her arms, with all the vampiric speed she could muster. As she ran up to a yellow cab the building behind her exploded in a ball of fire, nearly taking her off of her feet.

"Oh my God!" a woman yelled out as she rolled down the window of the cab. "My baby..."

"Is fine." Tara said as she handed the woman her baby, that was wrapped up in a blanket. "Now get out of here and don't ever hand your baby over to a demon cult again."

Watching as the cab drove away, Tara reached down to her stomach, looked down at her hand and saw that she was heavily bleeding.

(Tara are you alright?) Angel asked.

(I'm just running hot.) Tara said back to him. (I've killed Hamilton, The Fell Brethren, and Senator Brucker. I just have Vail to deal with now.)

(Be careful. He's an old demon but he's still full of power.)

Cyvus Vail's Mansion

Vail sat at his long elegant table, eating a soup composed of chopped up internal organs in a broth of blood. Putting the spoon in his mouth once again, he watched as a section of his wall exploded, sending wood and chunks of brick flying everywhere. With a smile on his face, he watched as a figure emerged out of the smoke and debris.

"I've been expecting you Seraphim." he said as Tara fully walked into the room.

"You're the last one Vail." Tara replied breathing hard.

"I already know that little one." Vail said as he stopped eating his soup and stood to his feet. Thanks to her, he would be the only one entitled to take over as the new senior partner. He just had to get rid of her first, however. "Did you really think that I was stupid enough to drink any of that poison from you? And did you really think I was a fool like the rest of the Circle? I've been watching you everysince you left this dimension."

"It doesn't matter now." she said as she brought her hands back, readying a blue energy ball in the palm of her hands. "Kamehame..."

"Ha!" Vail finished as he held out his hand and summoned Tara's attack in his palm, firing it as he did so. Jumping out of the way, Tara was barely able to dodge the deadly Kamehameha wave. "Come now Seraphim." Vail started as he walked around the table. "Surely you're more powerful than that." he said as he held out a hand making Tara levitate a few feet off the ground from his power.

"I'm glad you think so." Tara said with a wince as she summoned some of her power making her hair and eyes fade in and out into black. "Dragon Guanlets!" as the golden bracelet's materialized around her wrists, Vail lost his hold over her. Standing fully erect she slowly stalked up to the last of the Circle of Blackthorn.

"Take your best shot little girl."

Tara then swung a powerful punch at Vail's head, sending rivots of power through her arm, ultimately shattering the old demons head with the force of the blow. Watching as the now headless archmage fell to the ground dead, Tara turned to walk out of the room but saw something hanging on the far wall.

Taking the elaborately decorated katana out of it's sheathe, she ran out and into the night.

An alley close to the Hyperion Hotel

Tara ran down the alley behind the Hyperion, carrying her sword, running through the pouring rain. When she got to the chain-link fence at the end of the alley, she looked around nervously expecting the end. As the sky thundered above her, as the heavy rain continued, she heard a loud clammering sound coming from the other side of the alley.

"This is it." she said to herself as she clutched her sword a little tighter.

"Not quite luv." she heard a voice say behind her.

"Spike?" she asked as she turned to see the bleach blonde vampire climbing over the top of the fence.

"Yeah and I brought a little back up." slicing into the fence with his axe Gunn, Alonna, Chris, Leon, and Kendra walked up behind her.

"Guys what...I don't understand."

"Come on kid, you said you loved me." Chris said with a shrug. "It had to be an apocalypse."

"And we couldn't leave our girl hanging could we?" Gunn asked as he twirled his homemade axe in his hands. "Besides, I haven't kicked any demon ass in a long time."

"We informed your team of what happened in the original timeline." Illyria said as she jumped down from a neighboring building, splashing up water as she did so.

"Yeah and the last two wankers that's supposed to be here are late." Spike said clearly annoyed.

"I heard that deadboy jr." a voice said from the shadows. Stepping into the light, Tara saw something that she thought was a demon, that only turned out to be Xander and Dante. "We're here to back you up Tara."

Taking a look back at her friends, who had on their game faces and were readying their weapons, a tear formed in her eye. They were clearly ready and willing to give their lives not only to help her but to save the entire world. Hearing the sounds of the metal from the armored demons behind her snapped her out of her musings.

Turning towards the hordes of demons that clammered behind her a wicked gleam filled her eyes as she hefted up her katana.

"All right gang get ready." Tara said as the demons got even closer. Leon and Chris cocked their shotguns, while everyone else twirled their swords or axes.

"I'm so gonna slay that dragon." Dante said as he took his sword Rebellion off of his back and watched as a giant dragon flew angrily in the air.

"Not if I get to it first mate." Spike said over his shoulder.

"I've been waiting almost six years to say this." Tara said as the demon army attacked. "Let's go to work." she said swinging her sword.

Kendra's Apartment

Sametime

"I wonder what's taking Kendra so long to get home?" Amy said as she glanced at her watch and took a sip of her soda.

"Who knows." Jonathan said as he walked into the room and sat down beside her. The two had just flown from England after a Watcher's Council meeting and they wanted to surprise the gang. But Jonathan wanted to surprise his wife first since they haven't seen each other in awhile.

"Maybe that's her now." Amy said as they heard a knock at the door. Getting up and running into the hall Jonathan opened up the door and found it to be Drusilla with a new arm and a wide assortment of vampires and demons. But that's not what he saw when he opened the door. Thanks to Dru's power he was looking at his wife and all of their friends.

"Honey why are you knocking on the door?" Jonathan asked as he smiled at Kendra. "And what are the rest of you guys doing here?"

"I feel silly but I lost me key." Kendra said as she smiled widely at him. "Can me and de others come in?"

"Yeah this is our apartment remember?" Jonathan said as he stepped aside and let her and the others cross over the treshold. Giving her a kiss on the lips, he noticed that her lips were cold, but ignored it and walked towards the living room.

"Johnno who was at the door?" Amy asked as he walked back into the room. As she asked the question she had her back from him and was looking on their book shelf for a good book to read.

"It was Ken and the others."

"Not quite dear." Kendra said as she dropped her glamour, exposing herself to be Drusilla and her demons.

"Oh God!" Amy screamed out as she tried to activate her powers.

"God doesn't have any place 'ere." Drusilla whispered into her ear, as she used her vampiric powers to end up behind her. The last thing Amy saw before darkness claimed her were vampires holding down and feasting on Jonathan and the last thing she heard was her own screams as Drusilla shifted into her vampiric visage and bit into her neck.

A/N Tara had already taken the antidote to the poison she gave the Circle before she started the meeting. Also what will Tara do once she finds her friends? Stay tuned for the next chapter and find out.

But here's a summary of the events that lead to not fade away and there will be another chapter after this one.

After studying under Master Tao, he tells Tara that she's distributing too much power and that one day she would either be killed by her own power or become so powerful that she would destroy the world. He tells her of some witches in san francisco (The Charmed Ones) and that they can help drain off some of her power.

She drops the gang back off in Sunnydale and as she tries to go to San francisco to meet the charmed one's a portal opens above her car and Rembrant Brown from Sliders drops out of it (it takes place a minute after the series finale of Sliders and answers where Rembrant went when he went through that portal alone. So if haven't seen sliders before then you'll be lost on that crossover.) They find the doubles of Quinn and the professor in Tara's dimension and Quinn has another sliding device and gives it to Remy. When he opens it however, Tara gets sucked in and goes with Remy where he finds his friends. Using the other timer, she ends up in the wrong dimension and ends up meeting and fighting dante from the devil may cry game.

It turns out that the Senior partners are in the dimension he's in so they attack them only to find it to be a large demon with three heads. Not being able to kill it, because Tara's time in that dimension is almost up, they jumped out of a thirty story wolfram and hart building and onto a motorcycle. Opening up the portal, they go back to Tara's home dimension only to find out that they travelled over five years into the future. It turns out that in Dante's dimension time travels differently so every hour that passed in his dimension a year passed in her's.

Now this is what happened in Tara's dimension while she was gone. After noticing Tara was missing Kendra went into Tara's diary and found out about most of the big bads that were coming up. (Most of what was written was second hand info from Angel that he got from Willow when she would call and update him on things in the original timeline.) During season 3 when the Scooby Gang was defeating the mayor Faith was killed and Xander left, because of his possession by batman during halloween he got Bruce Wayne's business savvy, and he went to LA and later New York to start a company with David Nabbit. Kendra and Jonathon later get married. Cordelia also goes to LA and lives her dreams as a movie actress. During the night that Tara shows up, she heartbreakingly has to kill Caleb who has just broken the neck of a potential in his vineyard. Since season six didn't happen all the season seven stuff happened in that years place. And Sunnydale still sinks into nothingness.

Meanwhile in LA Spike took over what Angel was supposed to do and starts a new team. With him as champion, Anne as his seer, Lily from that episode of Anne on angel, Wesley, Lorne, and both Gunn's. It turns out that just like Angel went inside of Tara, Spike's esscence from the future went inside of his past self. Later a vamp version of Faith comes around and she and Spike fight, but upon having a physical attraction for each other the two have sex and Faith gets pregnant.

So she wouldn't have to dust herself Tara found a Mohra demon (the same demon that made Angel human once) and used it's blood to turn Faith back human, so she could have the baby. Which was a little girl with blonde hair that they named Kathy after Angel's little sister. Sahjhan then unleashes Holtz and convinces him to take Kathy. When Sahjhan opens the portal to Qurtoth, (Tara/Angel didn't think that Holtz would appear at all because they thought that the prophecy only revolved around Angel and Darla so she left town to handle other business not knowing that sahjhan had appeared and ressurrected Holtz.) instead of Holtz just taking Kathy, Anne runs to try to save her and goes through the portal herself.

Both children returned two weeks later, Anne a beautiful 21 year old and Kathy a mean spirited teenager. Holtz raised both of them and Anne tried to tell her little sister better but Kathy still hates her parents. She even has a little scar over her eyebrow like spike does. Holtz still dies. Making sure Jasmine never came about, Tara wants to take out the last of her opposition so she gathers her friends and takes over wolfram and hart from holland manners.

Fred, Alonna, Kendra, Spike, Wesley, Lorne, Leon, and Chris Redfield work for her. Willow, Buffy, Amy, and Jonathon work for Giles in his new Watcher's council. As for Anne and Kathy, wanting a better life for them Faith and Spike decided to have part of their memories erased (like Connor did during season four and five) except that they still remember that Spike and Faith are their parents and all about the supernatural. They were just made to forget everything that happened to them in Qur'toth and now they live in the good part of LA sharing an apartment together as sisters. With Anne in college and Kathy in school, also Faith went with them. Gunn reopened the hyperian hotel and made it a successful business while Xander runs his own corporation, and Dante starts his own demon hunting business thanks to the money Tara gave him. Also Alonna did the procedure to make herself a lawyer, not Gunn because he was still doing the hotel business and didn't join Tara's new team with Wolfram and Hart.

Wanting to put an earlier stop to Illyria, Tara gets rid of Knox and goes down to the customs part of the building to get rid of her tomb. When she touches it, it opens and Illyria's essence comes out. Using her magical abilities Tara stops it and makes her friends leave the room. Deciding to come for a visit at that exact moment Cordelia walks into the room making Tara loose her concentration and making Illyria's essence go inside of Cordy. When she reverts to Illyria, Cordelia remembers most of what was supposed to happen in the original timeline and she calls Tara half breed because she see's Angel inside of her. Tara also fire's Eve so Hamilton can come on board. Also there's no Lindsay because Spike had killed him years before. Tara also finds out from a source that the circle of black thorn finished her job for her and killed the senior partner beast. Now they want her to join their fold as one of them, which now leads to this chapter.

If you have any other questions about anything just ask away. Also the group with the exception of Spike and Illyria still don't know that Angel is inside of Tara. I have a picture of Cordy as Illyria so anybody that wants it, just send me an email. Also Harmony never got busy with Hamilton. Tara was more cautious in this timeline then Angel was, so he nor her team suspected anything.