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The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals

As Angel blinked his eyes open and looked around himself, he was relieved to see that his gamble had paid off. As he'd rammed into Cole, he'd tapped into the powers that he'd taken from his earlier feast on Cole's blood and shimmered, but had taken care not to have a specific destination in mind as he did so. Angel had gambled that, without a destination, he and Cole would merely end up in whatever pocket dimension shimmering demons travelled through, and, until someone went one way or another, stay there, unable to attack anyone but each other.

Looking around at the vast greyness that now surrounded the two of them, Angel was pleased to see that his theory appeared to have been correct.

"What the…" Cole said, as he stared at Angel incredulously. "How did you do that?"

"How else?" Angel asked, smiling as he spread his arms out to indicate their surroundings. "I used your powers, Cole- or, at least, the powers that I took from you when I drank your blood. After all, where's the fun in an uneven fight?"

Glaring at the former half-demon, Angel shifted into a combat stance and locked eyes with Cole. "Now, are you going to give up and come quietly, or do we have to do this the hard way?"

"Don't try it, Angel," Cole replied, as he shifted his stance to match the vampire's. "You may have taken on some of my powers, but I'm still packing the full amount here. You're nothing more than a Jack Russell trying to take on a Saint Bernard, as far as power is concerned; you haven't got a hope!"

He chuckled as his eyes briefly scanned his surroundings. "Besides, aren't you forgetting something?" he asked, as he briefly relaxed and swept his hand around the grey dimension they were now standing in. "This is my kind's… 'habitat', if you will. We spend most of our time here."

He glared back at Angel, and chuckled slightly. "Down here, I make the rules. Down here, I make the 'threats'."

He drew one hand back and an energy ball appeared in it as he grinned wickedly at Angel. "Here… I'm God."

He threw the ball at Angel, and…

Well, Angel wasn't sure what happened. He didn't move, he didn't speak, and, looking back, he wasn't even entirely sure if he'd even thought. He'd just… decided, for lack of a better term, that the energy ball wouldn't hit him, and it dissipated right in front of him.

Glaring back at Cole, Angel clenched his fists as he prepared to strike again. Whatever kind of man Cole may once have been, whatever he might still be on some level… right now, for all intents and purposes, he was a monster.

And Angel intended to show Cole the cold-heartedness and ferocity that had made him into the Scourge of Europe before he got his soul back.

"No," he said simply, as he looked back at Cole. "You're deluded."

Charging forward, Angel launched a punch at Cole's head and smiled slightly as he felt the crunch of bone beneath his knuckles. He knew that, with Cole's healing powers, the damage would be repaired almost instantly, but Cole would still have to deal with the pain for at least a few moments, and that could make a great deal of difference in the fight.

As Cole staggered back, clutching his now-distorted jaw as he looked back at Angel in horror, almost unable to process that Angel had dared to strike him, Angel smiled at his foe.

"And you're going to be stopped," the vampire said, as he grabbed Cole by the throat and hauled him off his 'feet' (Although Angel wasn't sure what either of them were standing on right now). "Right here…"

He hit Cole's nose with another punch, sending the demon reeling back as he clutched at his bleeding nose, and the vampire smiled.

"Right now."

Charging forward, Angel lashed out at Cole again, smiling as he felt his fists strike his opponent. The welcoming crack and snap of bones resounded through the 'air' of this pocket dimension as the fight progressed, each new punch hurting Cole more and more…

"NO!" Cole yelled, as he leapt back and fired a bolt of lighting at Angel, who was only just able to escape it by raising his hand and firing off his own blast. "You can't take me down like this! I am the most powerful magical being in the universe! You haven't got a prayer of outmatching me!"

"Oh, really?" Angel asked, as he ducked to the ground and struck with a spinning kick that knocked Cole off his feet. "You may have the advantage when it comes to long-range attacks, Cole, but I'm the one with the greater physical strength! Add on my century or so of experience over you, and I think I can safely say that I've got the advantage in this particular showdown when it comes to close quarters!"

Quickly, Angel spun around and launched a rapid uppercut at Cole that caused an extremely painful-sounding crunch from the vicinity of the jawbone that sent Cole staggering back, clutching his mouth as he appeared to be trying to get his jaw back into the right shape.

"You… you…" Cole muttered through his damaged mouth, as Angel spread his hands and began to charge an electric blast. "You broke my mouth…"

"And if you don't stop this now, I'll do worse than that," Angel replied, glaring angrily at his foe, blue lightning crackled around his hands as he charged up a spell for his next strike. "Now, are you ready to give up, or does this have to get ugly?"

Cole growled in his throat as he stared back at the vampire.

"Never…" he grunted weakly. "I'll never give up… you'll have to kill me…"

Angel sighed as he raised his hands.

"Just remember, you caused this," he said to the demon, before he launched the blot of lightning back at Cole…

Who just raised his hand, caught it, and then appeared to absorb the energy into himself. As Angel watched in horror, unable to terminate the spell until it had run its course no matter how much he wanted otherwise, Cole's broken jaw rapidly healed itself and he smiled casually at Angel.

"Not a bad shot, Angel," he said casually. "I have to admit, I give you points for determination alone, if nothing else."

As energy crackled through the air, giving Cole the appearance of some demented Dr Frankenstein, the demon smiled, apparently invigorated by the voltage flowing through him. "But, in all fairness, these are my powers you're using; do you honestly think I wouldn't be able to harness their energy for myself?"

Then, as the electric blast finally died down, Cole sighed and stared at Angel with a pitying expression.

"Why are you doing this, Angel?" he asked, looking at the vampire who had –technically; he still couldn't remember it himself- once been his friend. "Can't you see that what I want is to make things better?"

Angel laughed harshly. "What, by setting yourself up as a god and changing history to suit your own warped desires? Some definition of 'better' for the rest of the world!"

Cole sighed. "You're really prepared to listen to the Elders after what you 'saw' Gideon do?" he asked. Noting Angel's incredulous expression, he smiled. "Oh yes; I was aware of that. I couldn't be certain, of course, but my little 'security system' detected the signal from the Powers to your cerebral cortex, and I was able to translate it at least partially by the time you and the rest of the Coven reached me."

Angel almost asked why Cole hadn't sent a team to stop them if he'd had an early warning of their escape, but then realised that he hadn't. After all, just because the Coven and the Halliwells had a better reason to escape than they'd had before didn't mean that they would escape; as far as Cole knew, the wards he'd erected around the cell prevented anyone in it from using their powers to get out.

"All I'm saying," Cole continued, looking at Angel all the while, "is that you can hardly trust the Elders if one of them was prepared to do something like that. How can you be sure that they told you the whole truth about me?"

Angel laughed harshly. "You want me to believe you, you shouldn't have killed Batman," he said harshly, staring back at Cole as he flexed his fingers, itching for another chance to attack his nemesis. "He may have been a Dracula-class vampire, but he was still a good man. You'll need something pretty convincing to make me believe what you're doing is for the best after that!"

"All right then…" Cole said, nodding thoughtfully. "How about… this?"

He raised an arm, swept it in front of him in a semicircular gesture…