Authors Note: Here's the next chapter. Fairly long one, but all my chapters of late have been pretty long.

Some stuff happens in this chapter! Very good, I think so anyway. There's a dream sequence though, that I'm not sure came out as clearly or as logically as I wanted it to, I was kind of having a writers block for the first half of this chapter, so if things don't seem to make any sense, that's why. Things are hotting up now. Now, in reply to reviews.

Darklight: Sorry, but I'm not gonna rush this story to get back to my other series. In My Opinion, this is better than my other series, and by the time I'm done, my ideas for the other series won't even compare to this one. I'm going to do this properly, and when I get done, I get done. Also, I can't really remember where I was going for the other one. I have a general idea. (There was gonna be 3 parts to it, each as long as the first part - ie, 70,000 words or so), and I know what going to happen at the end of each part of the series (ie, book 2, book 3), but I don't know the little stuff. When I get back to it, it may be awhile before the chapters start rolling in, because I got to go and read the whole thing again.

Queen B: It will be explained why there isn't much traffic around the hellmouth later on in the story. When you look at this whole series, about 1/5 of it so far has actually been in Sunnydale, and there's a reason for that. The explanation as to why will possibly be one of the biggest events to happen in this whole series here and probably one of the biggest things that I'm ever gonna write. Thanks for the reviews and the comments too! Really appreciated.

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And, another thing just to say to everyone in general. Don't ya just love it how everything's tying in together. ALL of this series has been about different people all the time, pretty much doing their own thing, and it was a bit hard to see how they were all related, except for everyone doing the same thing (Fighting The First/Doing The First's bidding etc etc), and that everything was pretty unrelated. Don't ya just love it how everything's tying in together. Like, the whole situation with Skye and Amanda and Samantha and Montague. Bet none of youse expected that to have ANYthing to do with a Slayer. Expect more things like this to happen!

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Chapter 21

Perfect Timing

They stood on the roof of the warehouse. Below them, they watched as the group moved into the warehouse, weapons raised and on the alert. He watched as his former group entered the warehouse, ready for anything that might be waiting. They were going to let them get the ball of energy back, after all they had done to retrieve it, and they were just going to let them take it back. Angelus didn't understand that fact. He could see the advantages, but after seeing what that tiny amount of energy could do earlier, he wasn't interested in giving up something that powerful so easily.

"Settle Angelus," a voice said behind him. A figure stepped up beside him and looked down at the same sight that Angelus was.

"Tell me again, why are we doing this?" Angelus asked. The figure of Buffy Summers just rolled her eyes and began to speak, all the while looking down on Angel's former group.

"Because, they are just doing exactly what I want them to do," The First said to him. Below them, the group walked up to the pentacle, where a small ball of blue energy was residing on the ground. Angelus watched as various members of the group formed around the ball, crossbows raised all on the alert for something to come at them. "They will think that they have had a small victory against us by retrieving Cordelia's energy, but they don't realise that I wish them to," the image of Buffy Summers said.

"But we're giving them something that we need," Angelus replied. "You're giving them back the biggest thing that we've taken from them." There was a long pause, as Angelus watched in amazement as small blue balls of energy seemed to form out of the air and congregate into the one place, forming a larger ball of energy. He watched as this took the form of a human, and then skin and details appeared, looking like Cordelia Chase.

"Amazing, isn't it?" The First asked, rhetorically.

"Yes, it is," Angelus replied. They watched as they all talked and mulled around and greeted their friend back. "We could take them now, kill every one of them in an instant," Angelus said.

"Yes, we could. But that would be no fun now would it?" The First replied.

"Oh. I think it would be quite fun. It would be a ball," Angelus replied. For a long time, nothing was said until the group below them started to leave.

"Yes, it would be wouldn't it. But, Angelus. You don't see the big picture," The image of Buffy Summers replied. Angelus watched as they entered the cars, and began to drive down the street. "You see, they're leaving. They're going to Sunnydale, where they think they're needed. What they don't know, is that by going there, the girl will be doing much more damage than what I would ever be able to coax out of her." Angelus watched as the cars rounded the corner and were out of the distance. He turned and looked at the Image of Buffy Summers. Even as Angelus, he was amazed by her. Or maybe it was the fact that this was the first time either he, or Angelus had seen the girl in the sunlight, even if she weren't really the real thing, the sunlight fell on her as if she were. "And then, when the time is right, we'll take her from them and bring her over to our side." The image of Buffy Summers said while standing on top of the warehouse with Angelus in the middle of the day.

He had now walked right around what left of the town, and it was literally in ruins. There wasn't one building that remained upright and not damaged in some way. Most of the buildings were in complete ruin; ceiling's caved in, walls destroyed and their rubble strewn all over the surrounding area. He didn't want to know what had happened during his time away. Spike figured that time must have gone slower in whatever dimension he was in before he came here; making the short time that he thought he was away actually take much longer in real time.

"That bloody driver," Spike cursed referring to the driver of the four-wheel-drive that only spoke in cryptic to him when he was in the desert place. He still wasn't used to the sunlight, it hurt his eyes. He looked up at the sky, squinting as he did so, and he noticed something very strange. The clouds and the sun were all blurred. "Pollution must have gotten really bad in the whole year I was missing!" Spike cursed out loud. Then, suddenly a thought came into his head trying to explain the blurred sky. Spike was only a couple of hundred yards from one of the roads leading outside of the town. He turned and set off with a new purpose and finally something to do.

An hour later, he was standing on the highway, the Welcome to Sunnydale sign two miles back or so. Ahead of him, he saw just what he expected; more highway, but, the image in front of him was blurred just as the sky had been. He walked on, and soon, he met a force that kept him back. He tried walking forward more, but the air shimmered and the more force that he tried to exert walking forward, the harder he was pushed backwards. He reached out his hand to touch the barrier that was in front of him. Unexpected, the air shimmered, and allowed his hand to go through. He pushed his arm through the barrier further and further and was surprised when it went straight through it like water. He pushed his arm through a bit more, but Spike quickly drew it back as his whole body was violently shocked by what seemed to be electricity.

"Bleedin' hell," he cursed. He stepped back from the barrier and picked up a fairly large stone which was at his feet. He threw it towards the barrier and watched as the air shimmered and the stone passed through it, but then was instantly vaporised. Spike just raised his eyebrows at that. That's when he saw something moving on the other side of the barrier. Four dark figures in the distance were moving along the highway, and they were moving very fast. He watched as they came around the curve and were heading straight for him. He backed away slowly as these shapes approached the barrier, and him at an amazing speed. But then, he remembered the stone that he threw at the barrier and how it vaporised, and Spike assumed that the barrier was either to keep things in, or keep things out. Right now, he hoped that it was both. He stood there, smug, as the shapes approached. But, he got the shock of his life when at one instant, he head the roar of a motor cycle, and the shapes came bursting through the barrier; revealing to be people dressed in black on black motor cycles. The barrier rippled where they came through, and before Spike knew what was happening, four motor cycles had come through the barrier, two of which had already sped past him.

He turned and looked behind him to see that the two people on motor cycles who had passed him were turning around, and that the two in front of him were slowing down. In a few seconds, Spike was surrounded. He watched as each figure pulled a weird looking weapon off their backs; it was the same kind of weapon that Spike had seen the figure on the motor bike attack him, and the big black thing with the previous night. It was like a rifle, or a crossbow, but at the front of it, there were four cylinders attached on each face of the rectangular barrel, and each cylinder had a hole at the end, and looked long enough to hold a couple of crossbow bolts each. Spike knew that they shot crossbow bolts, he had seen that the previous night, but he didn't know how.

"Don't move vampire," one of the figures said from behind a completely black helmet with a completely black visor.

There was nothingness. There wasn't any other way to describe it. It was just pure nothingness. Not black, now white, not grey, not empty, not full, not anything, not nothing. It was just nothingness. Suddenly out of the nothingness, her world came into view. She could see herself and countless others, all armed with weapons upon what seemed like an old battle field. There were bodies everywhere, some that were recognisable as human, and some that obviously weren't. Beside her, she could see her friends and companions. She could also see others standing with them, who she didn't know. She could sense in the air that everyone knew that the stakes were high, that there was far much more than their lives on the line. Around her, the sun beat down and made the conditions worse. She saw herself and her companions, bruised and bloodied, moving among the dead, seeing those that they knew and loved. She knew that there was no time for their dead, they had been through this before. As much as they wanted to mourn them and give them a proper burial, they couldn't. They had to leave them, they had to move on and be strong and not let their deaths get to them. Perhaps, after it was all over, there would be time to return and give their fallen companions their proper rights, but not until it was over. She could tell that everyone was tired and exhausted, but there was something that kept them going on. She saw others like her, but not like her at the same time. She saw another group arrive, like them, and she recognised the leader of the group. It was the other one like her, the one that had just returned. She was leading her own group against the dark.

The images faded, and above her, she could see a bright light and could hear voices. She could sense that she was moving.

"She's bleeding internally. We have to operate now," she heard a voice say. Slowly, her eyes opened and she saw a white ceiling moving along with white halogen lights. She struggled to keep her eyes open, but she couldn't.

She was standing on the top of a hill now, in the desert, the sun high in the sky, the same people around her; her friends and others with them, as well as others that had joined the fight out of their own will, or that were forced to because of circumstances beyond their control. Below them, she could see the others like her, fighting against the old and twisted vampires. She looked around at all of them, everyone loaded up with weapons. She was outside the scene, and she knew that she was just looking on whatever that was going on. She watched herself from a distance, pull a strange weapon off of her back which was strapped over the top of an other one and start to run down the hill. She watched as she raised the weapon, and in a quick succession, four arrows shot out of it as the front of the weapon spun around the handle. She watched as the four arrows hit one of the vampires squarely in the chest, sending it flying back into the ground. She watched herself bring the weapon to her chest and spin the front of it around in the opposite direction that it had just spun, and watched as she picked off targets with the strange weapon. She watched as the weapon ran out of ammunition and she discarded it, and pulled two short swords out of their sheaths that were hanging by her side. She watched herself as with skill, agility and strength that she never dreamed she would possess, as she cut through the vampires, leaving a trail of dust and blood behind her in her wake. She watched as others did the same as her, using the same moves and weapons, and as the vampires fell before them. She watched as her weapons were knocked out of her hands, and she reached for the last weapon strapped to her back. She watched in pure fascination as she twirled around with the weapon, leaving nothing alive around her. The weapon was like a staff, but had sharp curved blades on each end (like Gunn's axe in Angel, but longer and has those kind of blades on each end). She watched as she literally cut a vampire into pieces. She watched herself, a look of despair come over her as more and more vampires began to arrive. She watched herself, a look of pure horror cross her face when she saw someone float up into the air, and power just radiate off of her.

"No! Don't do this!" She heard herself scream. She watched as energy radiated off of this person, swirling red and black energy, going towards the vampires and turning them to dust. She watched as her friend's head was thrown back, and she fell to the ground, convulsing. She watched as she saw her friend's body violently shake around on the ground. She watched, as no one dared to get any closer, no one from their side, and not one of the remaining vampires. She watched as the convulsions stopped. She knew what had happened. There was no hope now. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another one of her friends approach her. She saw this friend turn into pure blue light and encompass her friend's body lying on the floor. She watched, as the blue light was pushed away, and the blue light form again into a person. She knew that that would happen, there was no hope now. She watched as her friend's body stood up and turned around and smiled at her.

"You lose Slayer," she heard come out of her friend's mouth. Instantly, red-black energy swirled around her, and instead of heading out for the vampires, it headed straight for them. The energy swirled around all of them, and within minutes, most of the people standing beside her and behind her were dead. She watched as two beams of swirling red-black energy entered her other friend, and as she exploded in a shower of blue light. She looked around her, bodies lying all over the ground and blood everywhere. She was literally standing in a field of bodies. All those around her that had once been alive, and that had once been her friends, weren't there any more. She felt a distinctly dark feeling in the pit of her stomach, which she knew was only going to get worse. But still, inside her, there was a spark, something struggling to not let everything get on the top of her.

She was the last one alive, and she had to fight.

"No one's bringing you back this time," the body of her last remaining friend said. She turned around, ready to fight against this thing; that she could finally fight against, but Buffy was met with oblivion.

Buffy could now hear sounds around her. She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn't quite get them open. She heard footsteps and the rush of feet.

"She's awake. B's awake!" She heard someone yell. She couldn't remember their name, but she definitely knew this person. She heard the feet come back into where ever she was, and heard more footsteps rushing towards her. She opened her eyes and saw that she was lying in her bed in her room, and that Faith was standing beside the bed. She saw Dawn and then Willow, Giles and Xander burst into the room, almost taking the door off its hinges.

Eventually, after everyone had finished mulling over her, and making sure that she felt okay, Buffy asked what happened.

"After those things attacked you, we found you and you were unconscious. We took both you and Faith to the hospital, and they said that you had internal bleeding. They agreed that they'd fix you right up and then let us have you. Giles says that some of the people in the hospital know who you are, and all he had to do was pull some strings," Willow explained. "And then we brought you back here, and you were unconscious for a long time, and then we took shifts watching over you, and I had to talk to Giles about some things, which we haven't done yet, and Faith agreed to watch over you…" Willow started.

"Willow… babbling," Xander said while touching her arm.

"Oh, right. Yeah, sorry," Willow replied.

"How long was I out?" Buffy asked.

"It's now, nine p.m.," Giles replied.

"I was unconscious for that long?" Buffy asked back, not needing an answer, just showing her surprise. There was a long silence as everyone didn't know what to do, Buffy had never been unconscious for that long or needed rescuing in the past. "What about the Hellmouth?" she asked.

"The, uh, Hellmouth, seems to have a barrier around it, preventing anything getting out," Giles replied. Buffy just furrowed her brows when Giles said that, thinking about something.

"What about those vamps Giles? You said you'd explain when B woke up," Faith said to him.

"What? You know about them?" Buffy asked her Watcher.

"Uh, yes. I do. They're called the Turokhan. Their origins are unknown, but they are believed by many to be another race of vampires, long extinct. There is also a theory that they are the first vampires. They are mostly animal like and very aggressive, and as you can see, very dangerous. No one has seen a Turokhan for around a millennia, and even then they were extremely rare," Giles explained. "They're re-emergence in Sunnydale must have something to do with the turn of events, and whatever is happening over the globe. I can not see any other reason for their presence." Everyone looked to him as they took in the information, letting it sink in.

"So, we've got some vamps that can kick both mine and Faith's asses without much effort… coming out of the Hellmouth?" Buffy said.

"One can assume that," Giles replied. Buffy opened her mouth to say something, when the a flaming arrow came in through the window way, not having any glass to face after Willow's outburst earlier that day had smashed all the glass in the house, and lodged itself in the ceiling of Buffy's room. Xander raced to the wall beside the window and stuck his head out far enough so he could see.

"There's vampires on the front lawn, about twenty or so," Xander said. "And they don't look happy," he added.

"They can't get in, right? We should be pretty safe," Dawn said, right before an arrow came in through the window, barely missing her and embedding itself in the wall. Xander put his head around the corner again and looked out.

"They're shooting through all the windows," Xander said to them all.

"Get out of the room, and get to the weapons," Faith said. Buffy moved to sit up, but she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her stomach.

"Ooh," she let out. "Giles!" she exclaimed. She watched as he turned around and looked at her. "Make sure the girls are okay," Buffy said, referring to the Potential Slayers. She slowly got up, keeping low to avoid the arrow that occasionally came in through the window.

Willow followed Xander downstairs and headed straight for the weapons chest. She hadn't remembered to keep low, and was reminded as an arrow went soaring past in front of her head. She grabbed a crossbow out of the weapons chest.

"There's more weapons in the basement," she said to the others, Faith mainly. She grabbed some bolts and loaded the crossbow. Taking cover behind the couch, she aimed at a vampire that she could see on the front lawn through the already shattered windows. She fired the crossbow bolt, and successfully hit the vampire, but not in the chest. She ducked behind the couch and reloaded her crossbow. She heard a body thump down beside her and turned and looked to see that it was Xander, also with his own Crossbow. Willow stopped and looked around. Taking cover behind the doors, and shooting out the windows in the doors was Faith. Dawn was beside Xander, while Giles was moving around, trying to get a good spot.

"Can't you do something?" Xander asked her. Willow looked up over the top of the couch and as fast as she could, she raised her crossbow and fired at another vampire that she could see, just missing his chest, the couple of years of practice making her fairly accurate. She ducked down behind the couch again, before replying.

"No, I can't do something," she replied while reloading her crossbow. She and Xander both aimed over the top of the couch and fired at different vampires respectively.

"Why not?" Xander asked her in reply, obviously wanting to know with desperate need.

"I can't. That's what I had to speak to Giles about. I can't do it any more, I'll lose control," Willow replied to him while reloading her crossbow. "Cassia!?" Willow yelled and asked. She didn't hear anything in reply and when she turned around, she saw that Cassia was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, chanting something. She couldn't hear what it was, but she lip-read for a while and she figured out what spell she was doing. "Cassia's doing a protection spell for the house, it shouldn't be too long," Willow told Xander and yelled to any one else who was listening.

"Cover me!" Both Willow and Xander heard someone yell. Willow looked up to see Faith holding a knife in one hand while a stake in another and looking at them. Both Xander and Willow's looks at her signified that they were going to do it. Willow waited until Faith had started moving and fired through the front lounge room window, Xander doing the same. Willow saw Buffy out of the corner of her eye coming up the basement stairs slowly leading the potentials and carrying another crossbow. Willow wondered how many crossbows they actually had with them in the house and realised that it must have been a lot. She looked back out the front window to see Faith fighting off two vampires at once, but having difficulty.

"Faith's injured," Willow said to no one in particular. "Her injuries from before are going to slow her down." Suddenly, a blue flash of energy passed in front of her vision, obviously outside the house.

"The Barrier's up!" She heard Giles yell from his point. He had over turned a table and was using that for cover against the arrows that kept streaming in through the windows. Willow looked up over the couch again and saw that Faith had left their line of fire, and she was amazed that she didn't' get hit by an arrow herself. Suddenly, there was a loud crack and the blue flash passed in front of her eyes again. Willow spun to look to where she had last seen Cassia, and saw that she literally took a blow.

"They've got magick users!" Willow yelled to everyone. She fired her crossbow again, hitting a vampire square in the head, right between the eyes, successfully incapacitating it as the crossbow bolt penetrated the skull and went into the brain. They were running out of options, Faith was their best hope at taking out some vampires, and she was no where to be seen. Buffy was out of the equation, she couldn't risk opening up her internal injuries again from the previous fight she had been in, and Willow was thankful that Buffy knew that.

"Faith get inside!" Buffy yelled. Willow had finished reloading her crossbow again, and when she looked up above the couch she could just see Faith. She, Xander and Giles let off a barrage of crossbow bolts at once, giving Faith enough time to come inside, but she dragged the vampire with her.

"Come in," She said before dragging it through the windows. She had bloodied it up a fair bit and it was helpless to her. She just about threw it on the floor, and Willow was surprised to see that it didn't get up again. Faith bent down and stuck the stake she had in one hand into her chest, but Willow saw that the Vampire didn't combust into a pile of dust. She saw Faith pull the stake out and this time, stab it into the vampire's stomach, then both her shoulders, arms and legs. She could hear the vampire's screams of pain each time. "You there, go get some rope and bind her," Faith commanded to one of the potentials. Faith watched as the Potential looked on at the vampire, obviously scared. "Look, she can't hurt you, just stay away from the mouth." Willow turned back and payed attention to the battle, aiming at the next vampire that she thought she had a clear shot at it's heart.

It was literally a siege. The vampires were outside the house and shooting arrows inside, not able to enter the house, while the occupants were laying low and firing back. Willow looked down to her crossbow and saw that she only had one bolt left. She stuck the crossbow above the sofa, and then peaked her head over the top, took careful aim, and fired. Successfully, she hit a vampire in the head, even though she was aiming for it's heart, but it was a fair way away. She looked down in horror and knew that she didn't have any crossbow bolts left. She looked to Xander beside her, who looked back at her.

"I'm out," he said.

"Me too," Willow replied to him. They weren't going to get out of this very soon. And, if Willow's brain was right, and the vampires were fairly intelligent, they'd get some kind of creatures that could come inside the house very soon, and then they would be in trouble. Willow just preyed that the vampires weren't intelligent. Willow sneaked a look out above the sofa, looking to see what had happened as the vampires had stopped firing arrows in through the front window. Suddenly, she saw three vampires turn to dust, and she saw all the vampires turn their attention away from the house. She saw vampires going flying through the air, and she saw a ball of green energy go and hit three vampires, sending them flying away and putting them to sleep at the same time. She noticed that the others were looking out at the scene in the front of the house too, taking notice of the recent events that were taking place. She heard an animalistic growl as she heard another vampire turn to dust. The sounds of physical combat could now be heard, and Willow saw Faith jump through the window, going back outside, quickly followed by Giles. Willow put down her crossbow and backed away to the weapons chest which was only a few feet behind her and pulled out an axe, and right behind her, Xander did the same instead he pulled out a short sword. They went after Giles and Faith out the window and Willow saw a sight she would never have expected.

There was a figure, cloaked in red robes, raising his hands to ward off a magickal attack as tree branches were snapped off of the tree out in the front of the Summers' house and sent flying towards him. She watched as a barrage of energy raced at the figure, but it effectively stopped it in its tracks. She saw two vampires go flying, some of the remaining few that stood and fought. She saw Faith and Giles attacking the last vampires that remained, while there was the sounds of a fight happening down the street. A vampire came running at her and Xander, and as if they were one person, Willow bent down and went to slice at the vampire's mid section. While the vampire was distracted by Willow's attack against it for a couple of tenths of a second, it didn't realise that Xander's sword was heading straight for its neck. The vampire was successfully decapitated, and it left a stunned Xander and Willow standing there, looking at each other.

"Now that was cool," Xander said.

"Uh huh," Willow replied back to him. She knew that it was only a fluke that that had happened like it had, there had been plenty of other times that proved so. She watched as the figure cloaked in red robes retreated onto the road and then backed away, trying to do as much damage as possible as it retreated. She saw chunks of bitumen go flying after it, which gave it all the incursion to get out of the area. Willow and Xander had followed it out onto the street, and Willow turned around behind her to see who it had been that had driven the red cloaked figure off. In front of she and Xander, stood two women. One had long auburn hair and was dressed in dark clothes, and the other had long red hair and was also dressed in fairly dark clothes. She could tell that both of these people were magick users, just by the way they held themselves, the air that surrounded them, and the fact that one of them had sent bits of bitumen flying after the red cloaked person. Behind her, she heard heavy footsteps approaching, and Willow spun around to see a hairy creature coming towards them, changing as it did so. She recognised something in it, and her eyes went wide as she saw the last person she had ever expected to see.

"Oz," Willow said in disbelief.

"Hey Wills. We thought you could use some help," Oz replied.

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So, that's the chapter. Next chapter coming up

Chapter 22 - Catching Up.

Thanks for the reviews folks.

Oh, yes, a little note about dream sequences… you've probably already made your assumptions about that dream, but just remember that dreams aren't always 100% accurate. Not all the details may be known, and some things aren't clear. And the person's brain that has the dream sequence usually skews things a bit. That's all I'm saying about that.