Disclaimer: I own the name of the Coven, but I own none of its members, its villains, or their allies

Feedback: Very much on the 'must-have' list

Samyo: Here you are, and here is the requested explanation

Sean Malloy-1: Yeah, I saw it, but I won't be doing any crossovers any time soon

LeoLupin: I'll bear that in mind, and I'll definitely keep an eye out for the 'Spawn' movie, I assure you

The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Cole shut the door, turned around to face Leo, and, grabbing him by the shirt, hauled him to at least a full head above Cole.

"What the hell is going on here!" he hissed at Leo, as the other members of the Coven looked at their two new friends in surprise.

"Look, Cole…" Leo said, looking nervously down at the half-demon in question; whether he was good now or not, he knew very well what Cole was capable of, and he wasn't keen on being a first-hand recipient of one of Cole's energy balls. "This isn't really a good time-"

"Oh, and when will it be a good time, Leo; when we're dead?" Cole hissed, lowering Leo so that they were almost nose-to-nose. "Just answer the question, or we'll send you back to the Elders and handle this our own way."

"He has a point, Leo; we have a right to know what's going on," Hellboy said, looking down at Leo as he raised the Samaritan in his left hand; he didn't so much as point it towards Leo, but the implication was definitely there. "So, either talk now, or things get ugly later."

"What's it going to be, Leo?" Angel asked, casually giving Blade a slight nod as the hybrid laid his hand on his sword hilt.

"All… all right," Leo gasped. Cole lowered him to the ground and backed away, letting the rest of the Coven encircle Leo.

"So… what happened to me?" Cole asked, indicating the door they'd just been looking in. "I thought you said I was human now?"

"No; I said you became human," Leo corrected, holding up a finger to emphasise the point. "I never said you were still human."

Cole rolled his eyes. "Bloody loopholes…" he muttered, before looking back at Leo. "So, what happened?"

"The Source freed the Hollow," Leo said.

Cole's jaw dropped; if anything, he almost seemed as shocked as that as he'd been to see himself sitting in the throne.

"He did wh-!" he began to say, but was stopped by Blade clamping his hand over Cole's mouth.

"Stay quiet; we can't attract attention right now," he said, noting Cole's angry expression. He glanced over at Leo curiously. "What's the Source… and, come to that, what the hell is the Hollow?"

"The Source was the leader of all evil magic; one of the most powerful beings in the world, in his time," "As for the Hollow, it was powerful… anti-magic, I guess would be the best term for it," Leo explained, looking over at Blade. "Eons ago, when it was first released, it nearly decimated all magic; even with good and evil working together, all they were able to do was contain it. It was guarded by an angel and a demon for centuries, until the Source- the leader of all evil demonic magic- killed them and took the Hollow into himself to stop the Charmed Ones."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Why is it these guys never seem to care about the consequences of their actions?" he asked rhetorically. Then he looked back at Leo. "Since we're all still here, shall I assume something went wrong?"

"It did," Leo said. "The Seer- a demon with the ability to see the future- realised that the Source had gone too far, and formed an alliance with Cole that transferred the Hollow to him. He used it to return the powers the Source had already taken from us, and then drained off enough of the Source's magic so that he could be killed, before she and Phoebe then sealed the Hollow away."

"OK…" Cole said, looking at Leo in confusion. "So, what was the problem there?"

Leo sighed. "The Source's powers weren't destroyed, Cole," he said, looking at his old friend. "They were transferred… into you."

Cole could only stare in horror.

No way… he thought to himself. No way… he did not just say what I think he did…

"I… was the Source?" he asked, as though seeking a denial.

"Technically, not quite," Leo said, holding up a hand as though trying to placate Cole. "Although you were possessed by his power, we later figured out that your human soul, coupled with your love for Phoebe, sometimes gave the ability to fight off the Source's influence, or use his powers for our benefit; you even helped us save Paige when she was possessed by a demon power, and protected a past version of Phoebe when a spell Phoebe cast turned out in an unexpected manner."

Cole could only blink. Honestly, he thought to himself, they were right; it is not worth the risks to take a look at your future…

"Well… that's something, right?" Hellboy asked, looking at Leo. "I mean, if our guy here-" he said, jerking a thumb at Cole, "is still hanging in there, than maybe-"

"He's not like that anymore," Leo said, looking over at Hellboy. "We eventually figured out the truth, and we vanquished Cole, sending him to the Wasteland."

"The what?" Illyria asked, looking around at Leo inquiringly.

"It's where the kind of demon we regularly encounter goes after they're vanquished," Leo explained. "Cole lost his powers, but his human soul let him hang on, and he eventually learned how to absorb the powers of any vanquished demons in the Wasteland before using them to escape."

Cole sighed.

"And, let me guess, you couldn't quite bring yourselves to trust me?" he asked Leo, looking over at his old friend.

Leo blinked in surprise.

"I was a lawyer, Leo," Cole said, in response to Leo's suddenly rather confused expression. "I had to track down any minor loopholes in contracts if I wanted to make any headway in my work, and I noticed you saying 'later' when you explained about my soul taking control." Hands in his pockets, he sighed in an almost dejected manner as he stared at his old friend. "You only figured out I wasn't in complete control after I'd been back for some time, right?"

"Yeah…" Leo said, bowing his head in shame.

"So, what happened?" Hellboy asked, looking between the two men curiously.

"Well, Cole eventually began to fall apart after we continued to reject him; he even tried to access the power of the magical nexus that the house was built on, but we were able to fight him off," Leo said. "Eventually, Cole…"

He sighed and looked at Cole. "You altered reality so that Paige was killed before she could reconstitute the Power of Three."

Blade cocked his head to one side as he looked at Leo, an expression of surprise only just visible beneath his glasses.

"I'll take it that's not a good thing?" he asked, his voice as neutral as ever. "Or a normal power, come to that."

"Both correct," Leo said, looking over at the hybrid before turning back to Cole. "We don't know everything about the new history you created, but we do know that, in it, Piper had gone on a vendetta against Shax- a demon who killed her elder sister Prue," he said, in response to the blank stares of the rest of the Coven, "she and I were divorced, and you and Phoebe were married, but she still hated you, and you were… somehow… in charge of several demons."

Cole slumped against the wall in horror, his eyes fixed on Leo as he slowly slid to the ground.

"Oh my god…" he whispered, staring at Leo in horror. "I…. I was…"

"Still evil in that world, yeah," Leo said. "We'd probably all still be there if Paige hadn't orbed just as you cast the spell; as a result, she was outside of Time when history changed, and she managed to get through he change with her memories. She contacted this world's versions of me and Piper, and we figured out that vanquishing you would restore history- which wasn't all that hard, given that you were in the body of your other self, and he was still Belthazor."

"Wait a minute; his other self?" Hellboy asked, looking at Leo curiously. "I thought he just changed history; surely he shouldn't haven't been affected?"

"Time travel doesn't work like that, Hellboy," Leo said, looking over at the large red demon in question. "As near as we can understand, Cole didn't exactly create a reality; he just found a possibility and superimposed it over the real world, and then he- and Paige, of course- kind of… fell into it, I guess is the best expression."

"OK…." Angel said, looking at Leo with a worried expression on his face. "Where are you going with this?"

"It's confusing, but the essential points are simple enough," Leo said, looking around at the five other member of the Coven. "Our other selves vanquished Cole, and Paige was restored to our reality, Cole having gone. However, we never considered one little detail of the story at the time; if Cole had replaced his alternate self, where did his alternate go?"

Angel stared at Leo in confusion as he ran over the sentence in his mind, noting out of the corner of his eye that the others were doing the same, but he hit the answer first.

"You mean… Cole's other self went into his body?" Angel asked, indicating the door. "That's who's in charge here; an alternate Cole in the body of this version?"

"Yes and no," Leo replied, looking back at Angel. "His mind did go into our Cole's body, yes, but, unlike when our Cole entered his body, the transference wasn't voluntary, so he picked up certain traits from our Cole without realising it. He's still an alternate, but some of the strongest personality traits from our Cole's madness towards the end remained in the body with his powers, and they kind of… merged together."

"So… he's my alternate, but with some of my memories?" Cole asked.

"Not exactly," Leo said, looking back at Cole. "He has some of your personality traits towards the end, such as your fixation with Phoebe and your desperation to have her back, but his essential personality is his own; he wants to rule the Underworld and use Phoebe to conceive his heir. You…"

He shrugged. "For all your power, you knew what you wanted, and you stuck to it; you were never all that interested in getting any more power."

"So, Whitelighter, what does this… this merge give the half-demon?" Illyria asked.

"Essentially," Leo explained, "what we've got to deal with is a demented maniac with god-like magic powers, incredible healing abilities, and a fixation with making Phoebe become the mother of his magical heir, due to the power such a child would possess."

He looked around at the others. "As I told Angel and Hellboy on the way here, we have a potion to temporarily deprive him of his healing powers, but it'll only work for a few minutes; once it's gone, we're in trouble. He's got Piper, Phoebe and Paige in cells underneath this place, which is probably where he'll be sending the others, but we can't count on any help there; the cells are designed to stop them using their magic."

The Coven looked around at each other for a few moments, and then Angel turned to look Leo in the eyes.

"He's practically a god?" he asked.

Leo nodded.

"He knows every strategy I've ever used up to this point in time, and has more magical power than I've ever possessed?" Cole asked, raising an inquiring hand.

Again, Leo nodded.

"He possesses a demonic army of more strength than anything that exists in this time?" Illyria put in.

Leo nodded in confirmation for a third time.

"We've got little to no chance of success?" Blade asked, as he ran his finger over his sword before looking back at the Whitelighter.

Another nod.

Hellboy pulled out his gun, checked it for bullets, and smiled at the others.

"Shall I knock?" he asked, indicating the door with his stone right hand.

Cole shimmered into his Belthazor form, Angel shifted into his 'game' face, Blade drew his sword, Illyria tensed for action, and Leo accepted a short Japanese katana that Angel tossed over to him.

Angel nodded at the large red demon.

"We're ready," he said.

Hellboy grinned, and turned to face the door.

Cole Turner (AN: This is the one inside the hall, just to clarify) wasn't sure how things had changed so rapidly. One minute, he'd been preparing to question the intruders more fully about their purpose in his headquarters…

The next, the door had been forced open and a large red demon brandishing a gun had walked brazenly into the hall, taking advantage of the space left as demons had dived out of the way of the flying pieces of wood, and was grinning at everyone around him like this was all a big joke.

"Good afternoon, everyone," he said casually, as five more figures walked into the room, each one looking ready for combat. "We are the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals, and we're here to clean up the trash; if any of you want to die first, don't hesitate to let us know now."

"On the other hand," one of the other men said, looking at the demon briefly with a critical glare before turning back to the others, "you can just give us the Charmed Ones now, and nobody gets hurt."

Cole smiled at the sight in front of him.

He stood up and clapped his hands mockingly, drawing the eyes of the six figures to him.

"Bravo, Leo!" he said, grinning at his former brother-in-law from where he sat on the other side of the room. "I didn't think you had it in you!"

Leo shrugged. "Love makes you do the desperate, Cole," he said. Then his face hardened. "Now, just give up now, or this will have to get unpleasant."

"Oh, don't make me laugh!" Cole said, indicating the cage in front of him. "Your colleagues- I assume these are here because of you, by the way- barely even put up a fight! Why would you be any more difficult?"

A figure stepped out in front of the first member of the so-called 'Coven' who'd entered the room. He was tall, about Cole's height, dressed in a black costume, with red-and-black skin and not a single hair on his head.

Cole could only stare in surprise at the figure. He'd known he was in the group, of course- he couldn't have failed to know about this guy- but to actually see him…

He smiled.

"So, that's what I looked like back then?" he asked, smiling a mockingly dashing grin at his past self. "I really prefer this form, you know."

"Shut up," Belthazor growled, staring at his future self as he raised one hand, an energy ball clasped in it.

"You want to talk?" Belthazor asked him, staring his future in the eyes. "Or do you want to fight?"

He threw the ball at his future self, noticing Angel and Blade slash out with their swords out of the corners of his eyes as Illyria and Hellboy launched punches at their nearest foes…

And then they were surrounded by demons, and the battle was on.

"Take whoever you can find!" he heard his future self call out (And Belthazor could only pray he didn't sound like so much like a fanatical preacher when he was Cole). "Just remember; Belthazor is mine!"

Belthazor growled as he rammed an elbow into the jewel in the forehead of a nearby Mohra demon, lashing out a fist to catch a passing Lazarus demon in the face.

You want me, you bastard? he thought, as he leapt onto the chest of the falling Lazarus demon, vaulting himself into the air.

Come…

He could see his future self, standing there, just staring at him…

…and…

He began to shimmer, feeling the familiar traces of the swirling grey void enfold him…

…get me!

He materialized, facing his future self, and launched a punch at his head, grinning as he watched the man who had once be him reel back from the blow.

"You want a fight?" Belthazor asked Cole, only briefly thinking about how odd this was; it was one of the few occasions where he and Cole had been in complete agreement about something ever since they met Phoebe…

He grinned.

Good; at least this way neither of them would be disagreeing about something.

"Bring it on," he said, as Cole looked back at him.

Cole launched a retaliatory punch at his head, and the battle was on.