This chapter took a bit because I kept changing my mind, first I had Angel's crew going with Buffy and these guys taking over in LA and then I was figuring out how I would do season 5 differently and I finally came up with this - hopefully you guys like it.

Please read and review and if you have any suggestions you can always PM me as well . Thank you to everyone who has left reviews so far .

I am normally a one shotter or I abandon my stories due to lack of interest but you guys have driven me on and turned an off-hand idea into a series.

Tara was folding laundry while listening to Veruca Salt at full blast . That's one thing she didn't miss about the dorms , here she could have the music as loud as she wanted . Add to that the bonus of only having to share your bathroom with two people instead of fifty and this right here was bliss.

She wondered how well Buffy, Xander and Willow were doing. It was a big deal with the Council that they would now have their own in house Slayer along with two people who were in the trenches with her for an extended period of time . They had even been nice enough to find Joyce a position with a local very prestigious museum . She didn't know them that well but she did wish them the best of luck.

Luckily, Joyce had always been fond of Spike and after some argument from Buffy had allowed Spike to take over the mortgage on the house. They all thanked her up and down but Joyce just smiled and said the Council was giving her a home anyway and she was just paying it forward. Spike could see how close that Tara, Faith and Anya had gotten over the past month and offered the two a place to stay which was eagerly accepted. Giles was more than relieved that his spare room would stay just that and he would be left in relative peace. Tara laughed as she folded one of his black shirt, her poor little Big Bad didn't know what he was getting into living in a house with three other women.

Giles took the back pay that the Council had paid him for and purchased both the old Magic Shop and Joyce's former gallery and remodeled it quite well. The first level was the shop, the second a training room and the third was an extensive library. He had hired Anya on because the girl had proven quite adept on the subject of money and was quite knowledgeable when it came to magic as well. Though she looked young in age, Anya was quite the old soul and her stories were intriguing, Tara would show up at the shop to find it dead and Giles and Anya swept up so much in conversation that she had to cough to get their attention. The way they would blush as if being caught in some tryst warmed Tara's heart and always made her smile.

Giles was actually rather impressed with the text that both Anya and Spike either owned or were able to acquire and would remark with a chortle that he was used to researching with children and now, given a team that included a thousand year old ex-demon and a centuries old vampire and the knowledge they brought with them, he didn't know what to do with himself.

As a show of faith towards Spike and given all that the vampire had done for them,they had Giles pull a few strings and the entire building was outfitted with necro-tempered glass as well as the house and the Desoto. Giles knew a guy who knew a guy so the glass itself was only a little more costly than regular glass. It was all worth it when Spike found out, he thanked them all but when he and Tara were alone later she could tell he was overcome by the acceptance they had shown him. He said that in 150 years of life and unlife he had never felt as accepted as he did in that one night and he would forever be grateful.

Spike and Faith had become inseparable in a way that Tara would have almost been jealous had she not trusted Spike the way she did. They both were a bit rough around the edges, both loved a good drink and raced towards danger like it was a drug. She had seen them battle demons firsthand and they worked in unison with such fluidity that you could never imagine them fighting apart.

They could sit on the porch swing with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another and she would have to warn Spike to get inside before the sun got him. He would always bid Faith goodnight and apologize to Tara for getting caught up. He would quote her poetry and nuzzle her neck and give her assurances that he was hers only but Tara didn't need any, she knew that he loved her as much as she loved him. Not that she minded the fussing that much.

All of them were starting to be a pretty tight-knit bunch, Anya had joked that if Buffy's team was the clean-cut Scoobies then what would they be ... they were just a bunch of freaks, monsters and demons. Tara smiled as she looked up and said " I guess we're The Munsters" and everyone had a good laugh. Spike and Faith had decided the name should stick simply because of how angry Giles would get when he was called Marilyn.

They settled into a routine so comfortably that no one even noticed that five months just flew by.

Tara was in pounding away at her new project. Her classes were pretty easy this semester and she really wanted to contribute to the team. She decided to make an index of all the beasts that had been encountered in Sunnydale and store it online with a Cloud. Bring slaying into the 21st century and what not. She made sure not to copy text down verbatim and always made sure that if pages were to be scanned that they were thoroughly reviewed first, no one was in need of a homicidal robot cult leading boyfriend a second time around.

Tara had done a little bit on her own and had shown Giles the practical applications of it and soon what had been just her on a side project had all The Munsters sitting around on a Friday night looking up pertinent information. Man, that Englishman knew how to really have fun.

To be honest, it really wasn't all that bad . They had pizza and beer and stopped every once and a while to hear one of Anya's odd stories about the old days and encountering this demon and that. Then they would get back into the swing of this and she would enter the information while the others combed through the physical books.

Tara would chuckle to herself because every time she looked towards the others it seemed Giles would be so lost in his reading that he was oblivious to Anya stealing glances at him. Tara thought it was cute and Spike would just shake his head and wondered how such a stuffed shirt could attract women the way he did.

It was during one of her looks up that Tara became troubled, well more accurately Anya looked very troubled. She looked like she was reading and re-reading the page she was at and seemed to get darker and darker with every read. "Ummm, guys . We may have a problem … A really really big problem".

Giles jumped to her side and everyone followed , he grabbed the book and looked at it oddly. " I can't even interpret this" he said as he started to clean his glasses nervously.

"That's because it is Crimean Gothic, German …. disappeared in the 18th century" Anya replied.

" Another death prophecy probably, why can't they ever say I win the lottery, or get a really bitchin motorcycle or something?", Faith sighed and leaned over Anya, "So what's the happs?"

"I'm pretty fluent but it may not be that perfect"Anya took a deep breath and started reading

And in the Valley of the Sun atop the Mouth of Hell

The flame shall be passed from one guardian to the next

Turned from darkness to the light, by one sworn to kill her

And one sworn to protect will be born again to destroy

And when those lips touch the God fount

And the fragile vase that holds the power falls

The world shall drown in a rain of ash and blood

Riley was starving but knew better than to question his girl. She was crazy as a loon but there was always a method to her madness. He had been fasting for six weeks in preparation for some damned ritual or another and Riley was so hungry he would be willing to eat a rat. The meditation rituals that Dru had made them do stopped him from going crazy but, by God he was at the end of his rope starving and they had locked him up in this damn cell to stop him from slipping.

She had kept him well distracted and what she took away in hunger she made up for in lust. He had thought the Lowell House situation with Buffy had been daunting but Drusilla's desire had been unquenchable. She would tear valleys into his back with her nails and encourage her "Soldier Boy" with naughty whispers and promises in the dark. She said that he was her good boy, better than her Daddy or mean old Spike (He always growled at that name every time she said it). He may be half mad but with his princess mewling at his neck he was at least happy.

The chanting was a bit much though.

"Saint Vigeous, you who murdered so many, we beseech you, cleanse us of our weaknesses: mercy, compassion and pity."

He could sing it in his sleep. Too bad they didn't know Born in The USA or Thank God I'm A Country Boy.

That's when they brought them , the battered man and what looked like lepers.

"I don't have to eat them, do I ? I mean I really don't want to, but I'm too hungry to argue" He looked at Dru with his game face on and the starving hunger dancing across his eyes,

She caressed his ridges and kissed his cheeks " No , no … my boy only has to eat the middle nummy, but be sure to drink it all up or mummy will be cross. It will help you to grow up big and strapping" she sang to his ears.

The chants got louder in his ears and he approached the fallen man. The man was so weak that he offered no resistance and Riley was a little disappointed that he tasted of herbs mixed with average joe blood. He thought the herbs were doing something weird to him as the body shifted under his teeth and the death throes took on a more feminine quality. Then it had started.

The struggle was fierce but as the power hit his tongue he knew he was going to drain her. He felt his rib shatter under her elbow but that just made him clamp down on her neck tighter .

This was POWER. Pure and absolute POWER. He now had no equal . He was more than man or vampire. More than life or death. He was a GOD and the world would KNEEL.

His veins were on fire and his roar resounded through the cavern, almost shaking the very stone.

Drusilla's minions fell on one knee without question as their sire draped herself across their new masters chest, mewling seductively in submission. The power crackled in his golden eyes as he surveyed all before him and the scabbed ones in chains quaked under his eye.

"Given the alternative of dying , I would like to speak for us as a whole when I say we now live to service you in whatever way you see fit, oh you most magnificent and sculpted like a Ken doll-ness"

The chuckle sat deep in his throat. The world would fall and he would become King but first, Spike was going to bow at the feet of the monster in this man.

Faith and Spike had went out on patrol and Tara had class in the morning so that left Anya and Giles studying the books to find any other information on the prophecy. Hours and hours passed with no further pertinent information coming to light.

Giles was getting quite irritated with the lack of progress and alternated between polishing his glasses and gulping down massive quantities of tea. He was nearing the end of his rope.

Anya dropped the book she was reading and sighed looking at Giles, " You seem irritated Rupert, I think some sexual intercourse would help us alleviate some of that stress"

Giles started choking on his tea like he had swallowed his tongue beforehand as Anya stood up

"After all, we are consenting adults …" Anya started sliding off her underwear underneath her dress. As Giles sat frozen "Both freshly out of relationships and in need of some tension relief" She made her way over to a statue like Giles and started straddling his lap "So what is the problem?"

Giles started to sputter and protest as she started pulling off his glasses. "But...but...what of appearances... you are... a former partner of a boy I thought of as my son … and ...and … you are a … child!"

"Honestly, Rupert" She chortled as she started undoing the buttons of his shirt and easing off his suspenders " You act as if no one ever heard of a May December romance before" She lifted herself off his lap to undo his zipper " and I didn't think I'd have to remind you about how old I am, I have sweaters older than you , silly man"

Any further protests were silenced by her lips smashing onto his as she returned herself slowly down to his lap.

It was almost morning when Spike and Faith started returning home. They were both in need of a long shower and Spikes couldn't feel his left arm. Had to love running into two Fyarl demons in one night. Gotta love that paralyzing mucus. Faith was concerned about fact that after months of a vamp here and a demon there that they would run into two very powerful demons so she wanted to see if there was any other mojo about this day with Giles.

Spike had just lit up a smoke when a very pale and shaken Faith grabbed it out of his hand, started puffing away and made off towards home without him.

Spike was doubled over by the time he got home. Poor Faith had been traumatized by seeing Giles' lily white British ass as he held Anya against a wall getting his jollies and the more Faith was disturbed by the more Spike roared with tears in his eyes. The only thing that kept him moving was fear of the oncoming sun. He was happy the old dodger finally worked a little bit of the tension out. He figured as much the way Anya had been glancing at the Englishman like he was a piece of cake over the summer.

He flicked his cigarette into the drain before going down the walk to the front of the house and Faith just shook her head as he entered the house. He was chuckling as he entered the house but stopped as he saw his Glinda sitting with her arms crossed looking scornfully at the girl with one too many tattoos , five too many piercings, and an odd fascination with her Doc Martens currently.

He looked on in irritation before opening his mouth.

"What has the prodigal daughter done now ?"