The Satan War

by Marcus_S_Lazarus

Summary:

When the Coven's newest enemy launches his attack, the Coven must gather their forces for a final battle that will shake the world to its very foundations as they confront the ultimate evil on its home ground

Notes:

For Buffy and her group, this is set basically some time after "Not Fade Away", but anything you know about the Season Eight comics can be ignored; for "Charmed", this can be set towards the end of Season Five- possibly even around the beginning of an AU Season Six where Leo isn't an Elder and Chris never came back to the past because his future was never an issue given the events of the first part of this trilogy-, the BPRD come from a point between the first "Hellboy" movie and "Golden Army", and other crossover timings will be clarified when we reach the point where they're introduced

This only takes place a couple of hours after the last story as far as the Coven are concerned; they'll appear in the next chapter

Chapter 1: Launching the Assault

They said that the world would end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

They were wrong.

When I am involved, I will settle for nothing less than a grand finale...

---

There were times when Buffy had to wonder if setting her sights as high as she had was actually a good thing. Setting out to bring all the activated Slayers together was definitely a worthwhile goal, she wasn't denying that- they'd already managed to score significant damage to almost every major demon-related activity in the areas where their Slayers were active as far as she knew-, but the sheer effort involved was exhausting. Even with the Slayer 'tracking spells' that the old Council had used before in the event of the line passing to a Potential who hadn't been discovered earlier, their resources and effective magic-wielders were limited, and even after finding the Slayers in question there was only so much they could do to train them with so few Watchers still active...

"Problem?" Willow asked as she walked into the room that was unofficially Buffy's 'office' in the new Council headquarters (By which they meant that everyone called it an office except for Buffy; she disliked the implications of the word).

"Just... work stuff," Buffy said, sighing as she glanced over the latest reports from the field about their latest Slayer-related discoveries (Giles generally handled the worst of the administration, but there were still occasions where he 'delegated' to Buffy if he felt the situation required her Slayer-based insight) before looking back at Willow. "Talking of, any further along on that whole Los Angeles mess?"

"Nothing," Willow confirmed, shaking her head apologetically. "I've gone through every sensory spell I can think of, and I still don't know what happened there; we just went from what seemed like mass darkness reigning down on the whole city to... well, it wasn't."

"Yeah..." Buffy muttered, her expression grim as she turned over the implications of that particular event in her mind.

Even with her currently-ambiguous thoughts on Angel's position in that city- she trusted him to know what he was doing, but taking charge of the law firm that had spent most of his time in the city trying to corrupt him over to their side was a lot more 'morally ambiguous' than she was comfortable with-, she'd never wanted him dead, but the more time passed without any news about him- particularly when Wesley's body, as well as the body of Angel's friend Gunn, had been discovered at a couple of the most prominent sites of mystical energy with no clue about what had happened to the others-, the more she was forced to consider the possibility that the attack on Los Angeles had killed him.

Angel...

One vampire with a soul might not make much difference in a world where they were setting up an army of Slayers, but when she considered what he had accomplished in his time in Los Angeles- freeing slaves in another dimension, defeating a rogue Higher Power that sought to eliminate free will, all the individual people he'd helped-, it was hard not to miss-

The sight of a green samurai-esque demon crashing through her window riding a monster that looked like a dog with snakes around its neck broke off any thoughts she might have had about Angel's current absence; right now, the fight was all that mattered.

It was only when Buffy stood up and reached for a weapon that she realised that the weapons cabinet was on the other side of the room from her current location, with the dog and the samurai in between her and them.

Oh, crap...

---

There's always been reasons for me to delay my ascension, of course; the right moment never came along, the supernatural balance was always so even it never seemed like I'd have an interesting enemy to defeat, the right candidates for the main job weren't present...

But then, even after the world where I was to strike first had been hovering on the fine line between the balance for so many years, all that changed with the creation of the Coven, the first ever example of a supernatural 'black ops' team.

A team of heroes so dedicated to fighting evil because they know evil... know its power and seduction with an intimacy that no other champion could understand... and have nevertheless resolved to fight that power with everything they are...

They might have been created merely as a diversion for Gideon- that oh-so-intriguing case; an Elder willing to do evil in the name of good-, but they have become something truly dangerous in the aftermath of their original mission...

---

"Still no word from Leo, huh?" Paige asked as Piper walked down the stairs from Wyatt's bedroom, the newest member of the Halliwell family having only just been put down for his latest nap.

"Not so much as a peep," Piper replied, shaking her head with a sigh as she sat down at the table opposite her sister. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I get that he needs this- it's not exactly fair for us to expect him to just hang around with us without a single guy friend, after all-, but I'd still like to see him a bit more regularly..."

"Well, it had to happen some time," Paige said, shrugging slightly before she looked up in slightly amusement. "Still, you have to admit, it's a bit ironic, when you think about it..."

"What, the fact that our Whitelighter brother-in-law's closest guy friends are a bunch of 'reformed' demons?" Phoebe asked, looking over at her sister with a pointed stare.

"Y'know, it's not like they're all like Cole, OK?" Paige said, turning to glare back at her older sister, her mind flashing back to the tales that Leo had told them about his new 'team's' history after they'd stopped the other Cole's plans; Phoebe might have 'forgiven' that past version of Cole for what he was 'about' to do, but that didn't mean that she'd totally moved past her old demon-related issues from what Cole had done to her before. "Angel definitely isn't the same person he was back when he was killing people- Leo made it pretty clear that his type of vampire lose their souls when they're turned-, and Hellboy and that 'Blade' guy haven't even done anything evil on their own apart from not being human..."

"As weird as it is for me to think anything positive about that situation, I have to agree with Paige," Piper said, looking at Phoebe with a slight shrug. "The Coven might not exactly have a great background, but... well, it gives Leo a chance to do some good outside of just being with us- we've spent most of our lives since getting our powers trying not to be defined by our magic; why shouldn't he have the same chance?-, and then there's-"

Whatever Piper was about to say was cut off when the window of the room they were sitting in suddenly exploded inwards, Paige instinctively orbing to another part of the house to save herself only to hear Piper and Phoebe's screams of pain as soon as she reappeared.

"NO!" she screamed, running towards the room that she'd so recently abandoned, hating herself for her inability to have done the same to help her sisters while praying she could still do something, even as she knew when running that she wouldn't get to the room in time...

---

When the Coven first came into existence, it seemed a minor threat- their actions would result in a long-term benefit for my side by eliminating my competition, after all-, but with them rapidly establishing themselves as a powerful force on this world beyond their first mission, after so many other plans that would have aided me on that world had been thwarted...

The failure of the First Evil's plans...

The destruction of the Source...

The destabilisation of Wolfram & Hart caused by the expenditure of resources required to try and destroy the former Angelus before his recruitment into the Coven...

Rasputin's permanent demise and the subsequent destruction of his 'god'...

The complete negation of the future where the child of the Charmed Ones would rule in my name...

I could stand by no more.

The Coven's potential power was too great for me to ignore; with their presence shifting the balance of that Earth- that oh-so-unique Earth- so completely, I had to take action...

---

"Typical..." Liz Sherman, pyrokinetic agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence, muttered as she stared at her hand, flexing her fingers as she worked to keep her fire active without overdoing it. "Start a relationship with a guy, and what does he do? He starts hanging out with his new friends and taking you for granted..."

"I hardly think Red takes you for granted, Liz; he's just... enthusiastic about the new opportunity the Coven presents him," Abe put in from where he was drifting in his tank, casually studying some of the books before him as he did so. "After all, he said himself that they're mostly independent; just because he enjoys not having to worry about the bureaucracy we deal with here doesn't mean he doesn't still want to be here..."

"Tell me about it," John Myer's voice suddenly added to the conversation, the young agent walking into the room with a grim expression on his face and various files in his hands. "Just once, I'd like to deal with a case where we didn't have to fill out a mass of paperwork afterwards about what kind of demon or ritual we interrupted; how do people even come up with some of these definitions?"

"Classification of supernatural excursion varies depending on such factors as nature of our alert about it- prophecy or a simple point of concern-, the circumstances of its awakening- deliberate or unintentional-, the nature of the-" Abe began.

"Rhetorical question, Abe," Liz interjected, smiling slightly as she looked over at her blue-skinned aquatic teammate before looking back at John; the young agent might still have some rough edges- and the awkwardness of their brief few days of 'not-quite-dating' made any kind of friendship difficult-, but they were making good progress to a certain friendship for all that.

"Anyway," John said, his attention turning back to the files in front of him, "Manning asked me to bring you these; he wants us all to-"

Further conversation ceased being practical when the door to the room suddenly flew through the air, narrowly missing Liz and John as John saw it coming and pulled Liz down to the floor with him. As the door hit the ground, Abe began to swim for the exit for his tank, the two other BPRD agents getting to their feet just in time to see a large figure with rock-like skin standing in the door with a grim smirk on its face.

Even as Liz raised an arm to launch a fireball at the new arrival, she knew that the attack wasn't going to do any damage; the only question right now was whether the three of them would be able to hold their attacker off long enough for them to figure out what would kill it.

---

And so, with the Coven having been kept... otherwise occupied... thanks to my little Gathering of psychotics drawing their attention away from me as I gathered my team, the time was right to strike.

With the Charmed Ones unprepared for an assault on this scale after their narrow defeat of Cole Turner's darker half, the Slayer army still more focused on gathering other Slayers rather than fighting off an assault of the type that I plan to unleash, the BPRD used to foes that have left more signs of planning and preparation than I have...

Only the Coven, with their ability to teleport to any location almost the moment they become aware of danger... the Coven, who channel the power of evil to fight the creatures who made them what they are... the Coven, whose abhorrence of what they have become or done drives them to destroy everything that reminds them of their past sins...

Only they could have truly defeated me, and I have already passed the point where my plans could be stopped.

Staring out at the flaming city before him, the screams of fear and pain from the dead and dying as good as music to his ears, Satan smiled.

The world is mine, he reflected with satisfaction.

And now, it's time for the Coven to learn the extent of their failure.

Chapter 2: After the Fall

Notes:

Warning in advance; main characters ARE going to turn up dead here, but it's necessary to effectively demonstrate the scale of the villain that the Coven are now up against

"Ugh..." Spike muttered, clutching his head as he leant back to stare up at the blank ceiling; it might not be much to look at, but at least it provided something simple for his eyes to take in after so long reading. "How long do I have to do this...?"

"As long as it takes to find what we're looking for," Angel said, looking over at Spike with a pointed glare even as he continued to scan through the newspaper articles before them. After they had returned to their 'headquarters' after the last fight with the Gathering, Leo had orbed back to Earth had ended to grab a few papers from the various supernatural 'hotspots' in the world to better determine if there had been any significant activity there that they should have been aware of. Constantine and Hellboy had checked in with their own sources in case they knew anything that wasn't known to the more public sources of information- Papa Midnite's cross-dimensional knowledge might have been limited, but limited wasn't the same as nonexistent-, but so far neither side had been able to find anything new they could use.

"Damn..." Cole muttered, looking over the copy of The Bay Mirror.

"Anything interesting?" Spawn asked with a grim tone that fitted his burned appearance (Something that the rest of the group were still trying to get used to; during the recent mission Spawn had mainly worn his 'mask', and the sight of his burned appearance wasn't entirely comfortable even if the Coven members all acknowledged that it didn't detract from him as a person).

"Well, my ex is continuing to dispense definitely effective advice in her column, but that aside?" Cole said, shaking his head as he looked over at Spawn. "Nada."

"Always tough to know they can move on, isn't it?" Spawn said.

"What- oh, your wife, right?" Cole said, unable to stop himself from wincing at the momentary devastation that crossed his new teammate's face after that comment. "Sorry about that; that wasn't-"

"It's OK," Spawn muttered, nodding briefly at his new ally. "I've got to face it if I'm ever going to get anywhere like this. It's not like she left me, after all; I was dead for five years and she's a young, healthy woman with no reason to believe I'd come back when I did, I couldn't expect her to have stayed single for all that time..."

"I know what you mean," Angel said, nodding sympathetically at the former black ops soldier, recognising the resignation behind Spawn's words. "You can try to move on as much as you want... you can tell yourself that all you want is for her to be happy... but even if you think she ended up with someone who deserves her, you still can't help but wish that it could have been you she ended up with in the end."

For a moment, the three men simply sat in silence, looking at each other with the experience and sympathy that could only come from the shared experience of losing a loved one to someone else, until Illyria broke the silence.

"Enough," she said, her tone abrupt even as her voice demonstrated a slightly sympathetic tone that Angel and Spike couldn't help but share a surprised glance at; the sympathy was minor, but it was still the first time they'd heard something like that from Illyria. "We must continue with our research."

"Right..." Spawn said, nodding briefly at Illyria as he picked up the paper again, glancing over at Angel with a raised eyebrow. "Is it always like this between missions? I already had one job involving a helluva lotta paperwork being dealt with just to allow me to kill people; last thing I want is-"

"Oh God..." Leo suddenly whispered, his eyes widening as he stood up, his face turned upwards as though looking at something only he could see.

"Leo?" Constantine asked, turning to look curiously at the team's only purely 'good' supernatural member. "Are you OK?"

"Something's wrong..." Leo said, his voice still low as he looked back at the others, the sudden tenseness of his appearance suddenly putting the others in mind of a child who was afraid to say what was wrong in case the problem would just go away if he didn't recognise it was there. "Paige... my sister-in-law... she's calling for my help, and whatever it is..."

He shook his head as he raised one hand to hold it, as though trying to make some sense out of what he was receiving, his gaze almost automatically fixing on Angel. "We have to go down there."

"Hold on; we?" Spike said, raising a hand as he looked pointedly at Leo. "As in, all of us? We've got issues of our own here, you know-!"

"Do you really want to take a chance that whatever's happened to the Halliwells isn't connected to what we've been looking into lately?" Angel said, shooting his own glare over at Spike. "It might be a guess based on nothing more than timing, but unless you've got something better it's all we've got."

"Exactly," Leo said, a brief expression of gratitude on his face as he looked at Angel before it became apprehensive once again. "Anything that can make Paige as terrified as I'm currently sensing she is can't be good..."

"Eh, I've gone into fights with less hope of finding something useful than what we've got," Blade put in grimly as he glanced around at the other Coven members while automatically reaching under his coat to pull out his weapons. "Add in the fact that we owe them for their help in bringing this band of fuck-ups together, and I say we go for it."

Brief nods from the rest of the Coven were all that was required to confirm their willingness to accompany Leo in responding to Paige's call. Without even talking about it, the Coven automatically placed their hands on Cole and Leo's shoulders- or on top of each other's hands, such as when Hellboy's large flesh hand completely covered Cole's left shoulder and left Spawn with no other choice but to cover that hand with his own- before the two teleporters summoned the lights that would take them and their allies to the source of Paige's cry...

---

"Paige!" Leo yelled, running forwards almost as soon as the Coven had regained corporeal form, leaving the rest of the Coven staring in shock at the burning mansion before them.

"Oh my God..." Spawn muttered, his eyes widening in horror as he took in the other houses around them, the entire street in varying states of destruction, flames burning around the streets as the buildings around them lacked any sign of walls or . Halliwell Manor had clearly been the epicentre of whatever attack had just taken place, given that the buildings around it seemed to gradually become less damaged as you moved your vision away from the manor down the street in either direction, but the devastation was still significantly greater than even the more powerful demonic attacks could cause.

When factoring in the attackers' evident lack of concern about the fate of innocent bystanders- even the more powerful demons currently active tended to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves by murdering people on this kind of scale; secrecy was one of the few reasons that magic had survived this long-, it was definitely starting to look like they had found the situation that the Gathering had been created to distract them from.

"Come on," Angel said at last, his tone grim as he issued the order before he ran towards the remains of Halliwell Manor, the rest of the Coven close behind him. It might be slightly selfish not to be investigating the other houses for survivors, but when dealing with something powerful and dangerous enough to cause this kind of damage, it was more important to gather their forces than search for whatever was left of anyone who'd been caught in the crossfire.

It only took a moment after entering the manor's shattered remains to fully process the scale of what had happened. Practically the entire interior of the house had been virtually gutted, piles of rubble and debris lying against what remained of the exterior walls amid a few small fires located near the mansion's electronics systems, and the scent of blood was obvious even for those members of the Coven without enhanced senses.

"Oh, shit..." Blade whispered, his eyes widening beneath his glasses as he saw a small arm sticking out from under a pile of rubble, the decaying scent of blood taunting his nostrils making it clear that there was no point trying to dig the child out. "Leo mentioned he had kids, but..."

His voice trailed off, the normally emotionless Daywalker unable to finish what he'd been saying, but his teammates understood him well enough; knowing that Leo was a father was far from the same thing as seeing the dead body of a child who'd barely even really had a chance at life.

Trying to push the matter from their minds, the Coven turned their attention to trying to find other survivors, but a quick moment of silence as those members of the Coven who possessed enhanced senses used them was all that was needed to confirm that there weren't any. Aside from the Coven themselves, there was one other heartbeat in their vicinity, and that was in the same room that Leo was in, and was doubtless already the subject of his attention; everyone else was clearly beyond help.

Entering the room apprehensively, the Coven couldn't help but stare in horror at the sight before them; Leo, standing sorrowfully over Paige's badly-battered body, his hands glowing as he worked to heal her various lacerations and broken bones, the barely-visible rising and falling of her chest the only indication that she was still alive, Piper and Phoebe's bodies lying against the remnants of a wall in such a brutally still manner that it was clear that none of the Coven could help them.

"Oh no..." Cole whispered, his eyes widening in horror as he crouched down beside Phoebe's virtually-mutilated body, his hands hovering over the various injuries for almost a minute before he finally accepted that there was nothing that he could do for her.

Unwilling to break the silence that had settled over their friends in their shared grief, the rest of the Coven simply stood off to the side as Leo finished healing Paige and moved over to Piper, clearly still determined to at least try and help his wife even if the rapidly-cooling entrails practically dripping out of her mutilated stomach made it clear that what had happened had been far too devastating for him to do anything.

"What... the Hell... happened here?" Spawn asked at last, looking around at the devastated street with a grim stare. "We get caught up in dealing with the Gathering for a few hours, and then something gets out that can do this?"

"We do not know that-" Illyria began.

"You know, Blue, as much as we get that you're recognising that everything that happens here doesn't have to revolve around you and yours, this isn't the time to start thinking that," Spike said with a pointed glare at their ally. "Add in the fact that two of us worked with these sods- even without the fact that we were brought together just to rescue 'em in the first place, even if it was all rigged-, and we're definitely involved in whatever happened here..."

"Ugh..." Paige muttered, cutting off further speculation from Spike as she sat slowly upright, blinking weakly as she held one hand to her head. "What the hell happened to me...?"

Her eyes widened as she saw who was standing over her sister's body.

"YOU?" she yelled, a brief glance of shock at her sisters' bodies all the sign that she'd registered their presences before she turned her attention back to her old enemy.

"Oh, crap..." Cole muttered as he turned to look at the half-Whitelighter. "Paige, I know how this looks, but-"

For a moment all further sound in the room was cut off as Paige screamed in rage and charged towards Cole, only to be halted mid-charge when Spawn extended his chains and wrapped them around Paige's waist, taking care to keep the spikes withdrawn as he did so.

"Sorry 'bout this," he said, turning Paige so that she was facing the rest of the Coven, "but we've got a bit too much crap going on right now to deal with your issues with-"

"ISSUES?" Paige repeated, looking incredulously at Spawn. "After what he did- ANGEL?" she began, only to be cut off at the sight of the vampire standing alongside her current captor.

"Yeah, it's me; the rest of the Coven are here too," Angel said, looking awkwardly at the young witch; evidently his role in saving her life in their last meeting counted in his favour, but that wouldn't help him unless he could convince her that Cole was on their side. "Sorry about Al's attitude- this is Al Simmons, by the way; he's our newest member-; he's bonded to a semi-sentient demonic armour that tends to react to things before he can tell it not to do things that way..."

"Uh... right..." Paige said, momentarily confused before her eyes narrowed as she regained her original train of thought and pointed urgently at Cole. "But that still doesn't explain what he's doing here; you killed him-!"

"And I came back," Cole said, shrugging slightly as he looked back at Paige with a simple yet pointed stare. "Believe me, I wasn't expecting this any more than you were, and I get that this whole situation's really awkward, but we don't exactly have much choice; whatever attacked you and your sisters could have done the same thing to our friends-"

"Our friends?" Paige said, clearly trying to get the current conversation back on a level that she could more easily understand. "Hold on a minute; the last time we saw you- you you, not past you-, you were trying to-!"

"He got better," Blade said, his usual blunt manner making his point clear as he looked at Paige, his stare somehow all the more effective with his glasses rather than the glasses detracting from its intensity. "Trust me, you weren't the only one surprised to see this guy come back after what the motherfucker he became in the present did to us last time, but the guy's proven his worth 'far as I'm concerned; he's back on the team, and he's... well, he's not the same as he was."

"Huh?" Paige said, her anger momentarily surpassed by her confusion at Blade's last comment; something in his tone made it clear that he wasn't just referring to Cole's new attitude. "What does that mean?"

"Long story, and we don't have time for it right now," Hellboy said briskly as he turned to look at Angel, a slight apprehension in his voice and stance that the Coven only noticed because they'd been working with him for so long. "Something this big goes down, I don't think whatever's behind it would just attack these three; we need to check in with the Bureau and see-"

"Hold on; the Bureau?" Spike interjected, looking incredulously at Hellboy. "As in, the sodding Bureau that 'employs' you to tackle demons? Red, from everything you've told us I wouldn't trust those sods to fight my minions back in the bad old days; we're going to need a few Slayers-!"

"Yeah, a bunch of amateurs with a load of oomph who've been doing this for a year; really threatening, Spike," Hellboy spat back at the vampire disdainfully. "Manning might be a pen-pushing prick, but he's got a team that knows what they're doing most of the time; just because they're human doesn't mean they're useless-!"

"Look," Angel said, stepping forward before the confrontation between his teammates could degenerate any further, "in the end, you both make good points; the Bureau has more experience, but the Slayer headquarters has more people who can actually help us if things get physical, given that most of the BPRD are only human-"

For a moment the vampire paused, evidently uncomfortable with the implications of what he'd just said, before he turned to look awkwardly over at the Coven's most human member. "John, I didn't mean-"

"I get it, Angel," Constantine said, nodding reassuringly at his friend with his trademark grim expression. "Humans can do some useful stuff in a fight, but you'd rather make sure the superhumanly-strong Slayers are all right before you worry about a bunch of human spies without any major talents themselves, right?"

"Good strategy, anyway," Blade said grimly as he glanced over at Hellboy. "Red and I'll take Blue, Spike and Leo to check things out at the Bureau- whoever we're up against is less likely to send anything really heavy there if he was only dealing with humans-, and the rest of you can see about the Slayers; you'll probably need healers more there anyway."

"Blade," Angel said, looking over at the Daywalker in exasperation, "firstly, I thought that I was the team leader here?"

After a moment's silent staring between the two, Angel smiled, breaking the momentary tension that had settled over the group in the face of a possible power struggle between the two vampires. "Secondly, good strategy."

"I do what I can," Blade said simply, the brief apparent tension dismissed as quickly as it had arisen, the two exchanging a brief smile as the Coven began to split into the groups that the Daywalker had suggested.

"All right," Angel said, looking between the two groups, "if you find anyone there you can clearly identify as an enemy, just incapacitate without killing, and try and save anyone you can; we need information and allies more than we need our enemies dead right now."

After Angel's words had been met with a confirming nod from his teammates, the two groups vanished in gold and white light, leaving the Halliwell mansion and its deceased inhabitants to burn as its few surviving residents sought the people who had caused such devastation in the first place.

---

As soon as he had arrived at their next destination, Angel's eyes widened in horror at the burning building before them; even without actually seeing the newly-established Slayer headquarters, he'd received a few photos of their new facilities from a few of his independent operatives- he might have respected Buffy's independence, but he also wanted to make sure that she was taking care when setting up something like this-, and the majestic structure that he'd approved of upon first seeing it had been completely decimated by a similar attack to the one that had destroyed Halliwell Manor.

Unlike the manor, however, the large structure before them- almost resembling a castle more than a school, although there were enough modern adaptations such as additional wings to the main building which showed that it had undergone recent refurbishment- was seemingly filled with bodies, as though the person responsible for its destruction had simultaneously gone out of their way to ensure that the inhabitants were killed in the most brutal way possible. Even a cursory glance over the remains as the small group walked through the shattered corridors was enough to confirm their demise in most cases, no sign of life being found until they reached the main office of the building, Angel and Spike instantly recognising one of the bodies lying before them.

"Oh, no..." Angel whispered, his voice filled with a pain that none of the Coven had ever heard him express before as he knelt down beside a small figure that had been reduced to little more than a head, an arm, and half a torso. The hair on the figure's head was only just recognisable as blonde through all the blood that had covered the woman, and her body had been torn apart to such an extent that hair length and the vague shape of a breast were all that allowed her to be identified as female, but the rest of Coven didn't take long to realise who this was.

"Buffy?" Constantine said, awkwardly shrugging as the vampire turned to look sharply at him, leaving Constantine feeling uncomfortably like he'd just interrupted a private farewell between Angel and the woman before them.

"Look," he said, trying to show his regret while making sure his team's leader remained focused on their current task, "I'm sorry about... well, all this..., but if we're going to do anything-"

"NO!" another voice suddenly screamed, a dark-clad figure leaping out from behind the shattered remnants of what had once been a wall to charge at the Coven, its attempt to decapitate Constantine with its sword only just being averted when Spawn parried the blow with a blade that had suddenly erupted from his armour.

"BASTARDS!" the figure screamed, its voice and figure now identifiable as female as she rapidly launched blow after blow at Spawn, the former assassin only just managing to keep on the defensive. "You killed most of us already; you don't-!"

The yells were cut short when Spawn suddenly changed tactics and extended his chains to swiftly and smoothly bind the woman's outstretched wrists, twisting them just enough to make her lose her grip on her sword without causing any further damage.

"OK then, lady; who the hell are you?" Spawn asked, hauling his new captive up so that he could see her face better. "We came here looking for some Slayers, and-"

"Oh, you got one, you fucking bastard; the last 'Chosen' One, if you wanna get 'technical'!" the figure yelled, spitting at Spawn in disgust. "So get the fuck off-!"

"Hold on; you're Faith?" Cole asked, snapping his fingers as recognition hit him; he knew he'd recognised that face from the dream he- or at least his insane alter ego- had given Angel before Angel had killed him. "How the hell did you get through something like this in that kind of shape; you don't even look like you're scratched-?"

"Fell behind some debris when those dogs attacked, OK, asshole?" Faith spat at the Goldlighter. "What is this, your friends missed me- what the HELL?"

Paige was the only person present who needed to look to know who had prompted that reaction from the new arrival, and she made a mental note to ask about Angel's history with this woman as soon as she could; this situation was difficult enough without adding in any more mystery to it.

"Yeah, it's me," Angel said, looking back at Faith with a grim expression tinted with regret. "I'm sorry I wasn't here before, Faith-"

"STOP IT!" another scream suddenly sounded, a wave of energy hurtling towards the Coven almost before Cole could erect a protective energy barrier to protect himself and his teammates from the assault.

"Oh God, what's attacking us now?" Cole said, lowering the barrier to try and generate a less potentially hostile appearance as he looked in the direction of the last attack. "Look, whoever-you-are, if you were here when this attack took place, we're not here to fight you-"

"NO!" the new voice said, another wave of magic hurtling towards them before Cole was able to stop it. "You can't do this-!"

"OK, you know what?" Constantine said, rolling back his sleeves as he raised his arms, revealing two elaborate half-circle tattoos on his forearms as he held them up in front of him, the tattoos coming together to make a whole one as he did so. "I've had enough of this; into the light I command thee!"

He acknowledged even as he did this that it might not work- the rules of magic in this dimension compared to his own were something the Coven had never really studied in depth; spells weren't something they used that often, and his natural weapons tended to work fine whatever world he was in-, particularly since whoever they were dealing with may just be hidden naturally rather than concealed by any kind of glamour, but it was the best he could come up with.

"Into the light I command thee!" he repeated, glaring in the direction that the magic blasts had come from "Into the light I command thee!"

Before he could repeat himself again, the world around them seemed to shake, and the group found themselves facing a pale, red-haired woman in somewhat tattered clothing, looking at them with a shaken expression of fury and fear.

"Red?" Faith said, looking at the new arrival incredulously.

"Faith," Willow said briefly, before her eyes narrowed as she looked at Angel. "And what are you going here, Angel... or is it-?"

"Not Angelus," Cole said, his tone resolute as he looked at Willow, Constantine raising his shotgun slightly as Spawn and Cole shifted into a subtle combat stance, each clearly ready if either of the two women tried to attack their leader.

"I still have my soul, Willow," Angel said, looking earnestly at the witch as he tried to ignore the memory of Buffy's mutilated corpse even as her blood continued to tease his nostrils; he had to stay focused right now if they were going to get anywhere. "I know I probably just... dropped off the map after the incident in Los Angeles, but-"

"NO!" Willow yelled, staring angrily at Angel with a sudden intensity he wasn't sure he'd ever seen her display even in her long-ago yelling about coffee after Buffy's near-disastrous frat party incident. "You don't get to just... show up after vanishing and say that you were doing stuff! We needed you here- we needed help; we weren't ready for something like this-, and you had to go and disappear on us for months, only to show up with... with that-"

"Firstly, without getting into a 'who did what' argument, you did leave us alone first; I called you for help when Fred was possessed, remember?" Angel countered, allowing his bitterness over their abandonment at that period of their lives to briefly shine through before he forced himself back on track; even if she hadn't shown up to help when Fred was dying, this was hardly the time to start holding grudges. "And second, these are my friends, John Constantine, Al Simmons, Paige Matthews, and Cole Turner; they might look a bit... rough..., but we're here to help-"

"'Help'?" Willow interjected, looking at the vampire incredulously; Angel wasn't sure if she wasn't bothering to respond to his comment about Fred or if she just didn't want to. "Now you want to help? You vanish off the face of the Earth, leave us spending months looking for you, and then you show up after Buffy and most of our army's been torn apart by a bunch of demon dogs-!"

"OK, so vamp-boy here wasn't there for you; most of the time he's been away he's been dealing with some serious shit and just hasn't had time to check in," Constantine interjected, his eyes narrowing and the Holy Shotgun raising slightly in his grasp as he stepped forward to stand between his leader and the two women in a subtly defensive manner. "Right now, we can either play the goddamn blame game, or we can get to work on finding out who the hell did this and work things out from there-"

"'Work things out from there'?" Faith repeated with a sarcastic glare at the exorcist. "That's your big plan, gun-boy? We're dealin' with something that tore our army apart-!"

"An army that you've barely been training for over a year and that you were probably never expecting would have to fight something on this scale; I'm not saying it wasn't tough, but it probably had the edge given that you weren't prepared for it while it was prepared for you," Spawn interjected with a brief shrug. "Got the full details from Angel here when we started working together; your girls were probably good, but you weren't training for something capable of doing this to you."

For a moment, Willow and Faith simply stared at the man before them, his red cloak waving slightly as he looked back at the two women, his arms folded in a grim stance that effectively added to his message even with the obvious handicap of his face being concealed by his 'mask', until Faith groaned in resignation.

"Point..." she admitted briefly, holding up a hand to stop Willow saying anything about that. "You gotta admit, he makes a good point, Red; you said yourself that we didn't exactly cover what to do after this kinda attack in training..."

After that brief comment, the two women were once again left to silently contemplate what had just been said, leaving the Coven to do nothing but wait for them to be ready to continue before doing so.

"OK," Willow said, sighing slightly as she looked between the small group in front of her before her eyes narrowed as they settled on Angel. "Just so you know, even if you're here now, I'm still not happy about you running out on us like that, and I'm definitely going to want some info about where you've been before we start being all 'pally' again..."

"Don't worry, we'll answer any questions you might have when we get the chance to talk about them," Angel said, as he looked solemnly at the woman a part of him would always consider a kind of sister. "What matters right now is that we find out who's behind this and work out our next move; I've got some allies who might be able to help us find what we're looking for, but any help you can give us would be appreciated right now."

"Help?" Faith yelled, waving a hand at their immediate surroundings in exasperation. "Have you even seen what we've got left here, Angel? The Academy's been decimated and we're down to under a tenth of what we had before, and that's just what happened here; we were getting reports of other attacks on our other HQs before the system went down-!"

"Yes, it's a larger problem than we're used to dealing with, but if the alternative is to just give up I know that I'm definitely more interested in fighting than sitting back and waiting for something else to happen," Angel said, staring at Faith with a renewed intensity. "Simple question, Faith; are you with us, or not?"

"And keep in mind that if you're not interested, you're staying here while we head off to our next destination," Spawn put in, his voice somehow sounding even grimmer than usual as he looked at her. "We've got such serious shit going down that somebody stuck eight of history's most indestructible psychopaths together just to stop us getting involved in it earlier; we don't have time to play nice and comfort the victims."

Faith's only response to Spawn's comment was to glare at him for a few moments and then grab the nearest weapon of a large axe and tighten her grip on it, glaring at the former Al Simmons all the while.

"If it means ass-kicking, I'm with you all the way," she said simply.

For a moment, Willow simply looked uncertainly at the group before her, evidently still shaken at what had taken place before their arrival, before she raised both arms and clicked her fingers, sending what looked like electricity crackling between them as she glared at the Coven.

"You think you can find who did this?" she asked.

"We'll be trying, anyway," Constantine said with an affirming nod.

"Then I'm with you," Willow said resolutely, her eyes narrowing with a dark intensity. "And when we find this thing..."

"Trust me, Willow," Angel said, briefly swinging his sword as he looked grimly at the red-headed witch, fully in agreement with her implied threat, "when we find whatever did this, the challenge will be getting our piece of it before everyone else does."

As Willow nodded in satisfaction, Paige and Cole placed their hands on their colleagues' shoulders, vanishing into white light once again...

---

After seeing what had happened at the last two locations they'd visited, Angel supposed that he shouldn't have been surprised when he arrived at the location where Hellboy had lived and worked for so many years before he joined their team, but the sheer precision of the destruction still surprised him.

If anything, the damage here was comparatively less than what it had been in the last two locations. With the Bureau's 'offices' primarily located underground, it would have almost been easier to destroy the facility before them, but the damage sustained here appeared to have been delivered in such a manner as to prevent the base from collapsing in on itself while also making it clear that whoever had been here had no interest in leaving anything standing afterwards.

Most of the walls had been totally smashed through even as the support pillars between them remained standing, various shattered and damaged weapons- both modern and ancient; the ancient ones were most likely some of the supernatural relics that Hellboy had said the Bureau had gathered over the years- were scattered around the floor, evidently having fallen from their owners' hands in the last fight, and there were more than a few bodies lying around as well.

Spotting a blue-skinned form lying against one wall that was almost certainly Hellboy's old colleague 'Abe Sapien'- shortly after first coming together, the Coven had made a point of sharing what they could about their previous lives and enemies with each other in case it ever became necessary to contact their friends for assistance or fight someone that someone else had already fought-, Cole walked over to the battered body and knelt down to try and heal it, but a few seconds was all he needed to confirm that Abe had died too long ago for him to do anything about it now.

"Damn..." Faith muttered, the slight tension in her stance the only sign of fear visible even to those who knew her as well as Angel liked to think he did as she grimly took in their new surroundings, clearly shaken by the scale of the destruction before her. "What the hell-?"

The sound of an almost agonising roar cut off what the dark Slayer might have been about to say, sending the Coven running down the corridor, drawing their weapons in preparation for a fight, only to arrive at the room at the end of the corridor- evidently originally a library, judging by the damaged and torn books scattered around the floor- and find the source of the roar.

Hellboy was crouching in the middle of the room, his head lowered as Spike, Illyria, Blade and Leo looked in sorrow at their teammate's massive red form as he held a still body in his arms, the left side of the body badly burned as though it had been directly exposed to an intense fire while the shapelessness of the limbs on the right side made it clear that the body's bones had sustained serious damage in whatever had happened to it.

"Oh no..." Angel whispered, Hellboy's stories about the Bureau helping him almost instantly realise who Hellboy now held in his arms; the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman, the woman Hellboy loved.

Judging by the still-present-but-fading flames on some of the books in her immediate vicinity, Liz had evidently put up quite a fight against whatever had killed her, but it nevertheless failed to change the fact that she had clearly died when whatever had done this had attacked the Bureau (Angel wasn't sure what to make of the burns, however; the idea of something capable of generating enough fire to burn a pyrokinetic was definitely not an encouraging image).

"What-?" Hellboy began, his eyes momentarily narrowing in rage as he looked up, only to soften slightly when he saw that it was only his teammates. Faith and Willow briefly tensed up at the sight of the large red-skinned demon, but the evident grief and pain in his eyes as the state of their surroundings was evidently enough to convince the two new arrivals that he wasn't one of the demons responsible for the current state of affairs.

"Oh... you're here," the being who had once almost been the Nazis' secret weapon said, his tone doing an admirable impression of concealing his still-evident pain as he laid Liz's body back on the ground before him and stood back up, squaring his shoulders as he looked at his teammates.

"Yeah, we're all here all right; the question is, is anyone else here?" Blade asked, raising his sword slightly as he carefully studied his surroundings, trying to spot something that he might have missed earlier. "This is the third location we've been to since Paige called to Leo for help, and so far all we've done is find where this thing's been; we might get that it's tough, but we still don't even know what it is-!"

"Allow me to answer that question, Daywalker," a new voice suddenly said from behind them.

Spinning sharply around, the group were surprised to see a man standing amid the rubble who hadn't been in the base earlier. Dressed in a black suit and tie that somehow went fairly well with the blood-red shirt underneath, the man had slicked-back black hair and a casual smile as he studied the Coven with his arms folded, as though he was waiting for them to get the joke.

"I am the 'it' that is responsible for... recent events, shall we say?" he asked, raising a casual eyebrow as he looked at the various men, women and demons before him. "And as for who or what I am..."

He shrugged casually, his bored expression suggesting that he was surprised that the Coven hadn't figured out the truth of his identity already. "I am Satan."

Chapter 3: The Last Temptation of the Coven

The name was all that the group sitting there needed to hear to prompt them into action; even those members of the Coven with the most limited knowledge of the wider supernatural world knew that anything calling itself Satan couldn't be there for a good purpose, and his presence at the scene of such a cataclysmic destruction was only further proof of that.

Acting virtually on instinct, Paige extended one hand and turned a destroyed bookcase nearby into white orbs before hurling the orbs towards the new arrival, the impact leaving him slightly singed as the orbs passed over him. While Satan was still shaking his head from Paige's attack, Leo followed up the attack by orbing from his current location to stand behind the demon, resulting in similar burns as the white light that Leo had become came in contact with him.

Encouraged by this current success, Spawn launched his chains to bind Satan's arms, the sharpened chains holding the demon in place long enough for Constantine to draw his gun and fire several rapid shots at his chest. As the exorcist's gun clicked on empty, Blade drew his own pistols and continued the rapid burst of gunfire against their opponent, drawing his sword as the guns clicked on empty.

"GET HIM!" Angel roared, all thought of a plan pushed aside at the sight of the bleeding and injured form in front of them; with Satan's proclamation that he was responsible for the current state of affairs, questions about his long-term plan had to be pushed aside in favour of taking advantage of this opportunity.

Whatever Satan's plan had been by launching this attack in the first place wasn't something Angel could bring himself to worry about right now; if they could take him out now they could stop him ever completing it in the first place...

Then Satan lashed out at the Coven with one casual sweep of his arm, sending his would-be attackers flying backwards into the library walls with such force that they left indentations in the stonework when they fell back to the ground, each of them wincing in varying degrees of pain.

"A laudable effort, my friends," Satan said casually as the Coven staggered back to their feet, looking nonchalantly at them as though he was a teacher complimenting some of his dimmer students on a particularly impressive bit of work compared to their usual standards, his previously-received wounds already closing as the Coven looked at him. "Ultimately, however, it was a foolish one; do you truly believe that I could be defeated by a mere physical assault?"

"Just another demon..." Hellboy grunted as he glared at the creature before him, ignoring the slight throbbing in his chest that indicated an as-yet-unidentified wound of a type that Hellboy was sure he hadn't suffered in any fight before.

"Oh, on the contrary, my boy," Satan said, nonchalantly looking back at the large red demon, "I am far from 'just another demon'; I am the demon."

"Yeah, yeah, you're the first of the Fallen, the Angel who rebelled against God and tried to kick his ass, we get that-" Faith practically spat in anger.

"Actually, Miss Lehane," Satan said with a slight smile as he studied her, "you 'get' very little."

"What?" Spawn asked, glaring at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I am not just a Satan, my good Colonel Simmons," Satan said, looking back at the disfigured assassin. "I am the Satan; the Satan who fell from Heaven into Hell before we introduced such concepts as 'free will' into the equation, the Satan of whom all other Satans or other such demons that you may have encountered are nothing but mere shades of..."

He smirked briefly as he studied the Coven. "The First, the Source, the Satan who cured Mr Constantine over there of his cancer, the demons who fathered the one who would deny his heritage? All mere aspects of what I was and am, I assure you."

"OK, so you're the first Satan, right?" Angel said, only giving the other demon enough time to nod before he continued. "So, if you're the 'prime' Satan, you can access every alternate world and dimension in existence?"

"Ah, and you wish to know why I chose this one in particular to get involved in an Apocalypse?" Satan asked, smiling slightly at Angel. "An excellent question, Angel- I may call you Angel, mayn't I?"

When Angel didn't respond, Satan simply shrugged and continued. "Anyway, to answer your question, my reason is simple; your Earth is the supernatural nexus of the multiverse-"

"We're the wha?" Paige asked in confusion.

"Essentially, Miss Matthews, of all the alternate Earths out there in existence, this Earth has more supernatural activity than any other," Satan clarified. "After all, there are you and your sisters, the Slayers, your large and red-skinned teammate over there, a rather unique ghost, a certain 'spirit of vengeance'..."

He shrugged dismissively. "You'd be amazed at how many supernatural secrets this world holds that you all never knew about; most people keep fairly quiet about it, but-"

"OK, so we're the supernatural hot-spot of the multiverse; what does that have to do with you attacking us here?" Cole asked in frustration. "I mean, if we've got that many supernatural fighters available as you're implying, then-"

"Of course..." Angel said, snapping his fingers as he looked at Satan with a faintly horrified understanding. "You take out this Earth- an Earth where you can... gain more power from the magic that's already on it, right?-, and the others fall more easily..."

"Excellent deduction, Angel," Satan said, nodding at the vampire. "It would apply on any Earth, of course- I take control of it and I absorb the power present on that world and grow ever stronger-, but with a foothold established for my forces on this Earth- no easy task, I assure you; the chaos caused by the Gathering provided a good distraction-, I can then draw on its power to supplant and enhance my own, thus allowing me to spread my influence from this Earth on to others-"

Roaring in rage, Spike lunged towards Satan with his sword drawn, only for Satan to effortlessly grab Spike by the throat as he flew through the air, subsequently hurling Spike back towards the Coven with such force that Blade, Paige and Illyria were sent hurtling to the ground before they could move out of his way.

"Did you really think that would stop me?" the powerful demon asked, raising a critical eyebrow as the fair-haired vampire glared back at him. "I just informed you that I am now drawing on the supernatural potential of this entire Earth for my own strength, and all that you do in response is attempt to attack me?"

"Bigger they are..." Spike muttered grimly, his voice hoarse as he tenderly rubbed at his bruised throat.

"It was a noble effort, don't get me wrong, but unfortunately I am far too powerful for any such methods to be effective against me now," Satan said with a nonchalant shrug. "Your entire power combined mean very little to a being who can channel the energy of such a powerful magical Earth as this one; right now, even the combined power possessed by all of you put together means very little to me..."

"Then why the hell are we still alive?" Faith asked, glaring in frustration at Satan. "You already trashed everything else-!"

"And yet, of all of your allies, you are the last ones standing," Satan said, smiling briefly at them as he looked at the various members of the Coven. "Granted, in some cases this was because I arrange to... keep you out of the way- your presence would have made things a bit more complicated than I would have liked; I'm not saying you would have been able to stop me but you'd definitely have made it harder than it was-, but that is no reason to ignore what you are all capable of..."

"Quit with the praise and get to the fucking point," Spawn practically spat.

"Very well then," Satan said, smiling slightly at the group as they stood before him. "I will give you this one chance-"

"A 'chance'?" Leo repeated, looking incredulously at the man before them. "You just destroyed everything we've been trying to protect for years-!"

"And yet, even after all that destruction, you and your associates are still alive," Satan said, smiling at them once again. "As I was saying, in respect for the strength and ingenuity you have shown in opposing my various assorted minions over the last few years, I will give you all one chance at a very unique offer; when I continue my campaign across the other worlds of this multiverse, I want you to join me."

For a moment the group simply stared at him in silence, before Paige voiced what they were all feeling.

"Go and screw yourself, asshole," she spat angrily (It was a bit cruder than her usual language, but given the current situation Paige felt that it was also justified).

"Oh, you and Mr Wyatt over there would need to go through a couple of... changes... before you could be on my team, of course- and we'd have to take Mr Turner back to an earlier stage of his development rather than leave him as is, naturally-, but otherwise you do make excellent candidates for my side," Satan said casually. "After all, individually all of you have the potential to be great warriors for either side in this conflict-"

"And we're on the side that's spent its existence kicking your sides' butt; why should we just quit and defect now?" Constantine asked grimly. "Just because you're not the Satan we know doesn't mean we're going to follow you-!"

"On the topic of defection, is it really defection when your side doesn't exist any more in the strictest sense of the word?" Satan asked, shooting them the casual smirk that the entire Coven were coming to loathe; he almost looked like a teacher trying to prompt his class to answer a question where the answer should be obvious to anyone who could think.

"If you fight against me, you will die, and nothing will change; I will simply move on to another world and kill everyone there" Satan continued, his eyes briefly flaring red as he studied the Coven, before he assumed a slight smile once again. "However, fight alongside me, and I assure you, you will be treated well as generals among my forces."

"If you think we'd ever agree to that-" Blade began.

"What choice do you have, Daywalker?" Satan interjected dismissively, briefly raising his hand before he stood back with a casual smile. "I will give you a day to make up your minds one way or the other- you'll even be left alone by my forces so long as you don't engage them yourselves first-; afterwards..."

He shrugged. "Well, it's your decision, really."

With that he turned around and walked down the corridor out of the Bureau's library, vanishing a smoke-like whirl as he did so, leaving the Coven to exchange grim glances with each other before Angel spoke.

"I assume nobody here is interested in that deal?" he asked.

"What do you think?" Willow asked, glaring over at Angel as though the vampire had offered her a glass of blood.

"Had to be sure," Angel said briefly, before he looked around at his team. "All right; we've got one day to prepare, so we need to move fast. Our first priority is-"

"Hold on a minute here; first priority?" Hellboy repeated, walking over to look incredulously down at Angel. "We just got our heads handed to us when we tried to fight that guy, and you're saying we have a priority apart from 'run like Hell away from this guy'?"

"And where would we run to?" Angel said, looking grimly back at the Coven's physical powerhouse before he looked around at his team. "You heard what he said; once he's finished cleaning up on this Earth he's going to move on to another, and from then he'll just keep on moving until he's absorbed too much power for anyone to stop him-"

"We're talking about Satan here, Peaches!" Spike yelled over at Angel, walking over to grab the other vampire's shoulder and spin his grandsire around to face him. "The man fought God himself and he's still here; what the hell are we going to do to stop... this?"

"Working on that," Angel said, holding up a hand to forestall further questions from Spike as he looked around at the rest of his team, a solemn expression on his face. "I think- I repeat, think- that I've got a plan, but I'm going to need time to sort out the fine details, and I need to talk with a couple of people about some of the technical aspects anyway; right now, all you need to do is focus on finding out if anyone else is still alive and fighting in this mess and get them to us as soon as you can."

"Recruitment drive?" Blade asked, raising one eyebrow inquiringly after a moment's silence throughout the Coven as its members contemplated Angel's words. "Find who else came through Hell on Earth intact and bring them on board for the big showdown?"

"Basically, yeah," Angel confirmed. "Willow, John, I'm going to need your help on sorting out the first stages of my plan; the rest of you, just... see if you can find anyone alive in this mess."

"And then what?" Faith asked grimly. "We mount everything we've got to make one last stupid-yet-heroic stand against the bad guys before we're all dead and stuck in Hell for eternity?"

"If I'm right, we'll have a chance at avoiding that," Angel said, looking resolutely back at the dark Slayer. "I'm not saying this isn't a long shot, and I don't even know if it's going to work, but if it's a choice between trying and failing, or taking his offer and helping him do to other worlds what he's done to this one..."

He trailed off as he looked around at his allies, not even needing to finish the sentence to see that everybody around him was in full agreement with his last statement.

Whatever Angel's plan was, if it gave them any kind of chance to strike back against the man who had caused this kind of devastation- particularly when the alternative was far from appealing to them on any kind of moral level-, they were going to take it.

"Let's go," Spawn said, speaking for them all as he looked around at his allies. "What's up first?"

"Finding people who meet the criteria Angel just gave us," Paige said, before she smiled slightly as she looked at the others. "Does anyone know where I could find a map of the world?"

Notes:

Well, I've got a few candidates lined up for the upcoming 'recruitment drive'- the movie version of Ghost Rider, Danny Phantom, Dante of "Devil May Cry", variations of Raven and Etrigan (None of the DC-comics-specific information will be included in their histories but their basic origins will remain intact)-, but if anyone has any other ideas who the Coven could recruit at this point let me know; all that matters is that they be a supernatural character with some darker elements in their history while also being powerful enough to last for any length of time on a world where the Devil has taken charge...

Chapter 4: Recruitment Drive

Notes:

Just to get this out of the way, the Etrigan who appears here is just a variations on his DC comics counterpart with no connections to other heroes- and he owes more to his animated counterpart than his comic one as the animated version didn't speak in rhyme that much; I lacked confidence in my literary skills to try and portray Etrigan as a rhyming demon-, Ghost Rider is based on the movie starring Nicholas Cage, Danny Phantom's history matches the cartoon series (Although this takes place before "Phantom Planet", for obvious reasons), and Dante can be from whatever time period works best (My knowledge of him is limited)

Looking out at the small town before them, Spawn had to admit that it was far from what he'd been expecting; the place seemed like it had been a fairly quiet area to live before Hell had come to Earth, rather than the kind of place that could produce anyone capable of surviving after Hell came to Earth...

On the other hand, when he thought about the fact that they were dealing with Hell on Earth in the first place, he supposed that somewhere small would probably be a good place for anyone like this guy to hide out; nobody would really expect someone from some place that the rest of the world had probably never even heard of to put up that much of a fight.

"So, this is where Glinda tracked the guy?" Spike said from alongside Spawn, the vampire studying the town with a critical eye; Paige's criteria when scrying for assistance had apparently focused on finding anyone with a particular level of supernatural power while also possessing essentially good intentions, but she had admitted herself that this wasn't her field of expertise. "Looks a bit like Sunnydale to me..."

"That place that was over the 'mouth to Hell' or something like that, right?" Spawn asked.

"Yep," Spike confirmed, nodding briefly back at Spawn before he turned his attention back to the town. "I mean, that place was packing a serious amount of magical oomph and practically nobody outside the demon world knew about it; doesn't seem impossible that this place could have something interesting-"

The sight of a bright green light in one of the streets, followed by what sounded like an explosion, was all that the vampire and the soldier needed to answer the question of where they should start looking. Grabbing Spike's arm, Spawn leapt into the air, his cloak spread out like a glider as he tore through the air towards the street where the light blared before them.

As they approached, the two caught sight of the current combatants; a young man- apparently a teenager- with pure white hair and vivid green eyes, dressed in a black-and-white jumpsuit of some kind, hovering in mid-air as he fired blasts of green energy at a creature that looked like a floating robot of some kind, large guns on the robot's shoulders firing at the kid.

"The kid?" Spawn asked.

"Considering the sheer amount of guns the other guy has, I'm guessing it is; when was the last time you saw the bad guy playing defensive like that?" Spike pointed out. He acknowledged that he didn't know much about the two combatants before him- he wasn't even sure what they were-, but the kid seemed to be spending more time trying to block his opponent's various blasts, while his own attacks were more evidently focused on power and speed, suggesting that the metal guy wanted to draw this out and have fun during the fight while the kid just wanted it over. "Shall we?"

"Yep," Spawn said, before he dived down towards the street, releasing his grip on Spike to let the vampire hit the ground as he thrust one arm forward to strike the mechanical-looking figure in the back with one of his blades.

"ARGH!" the figure yelled, falling to the ground as Spawn withdrew the blade and looked at the other figure, who was staring at Spawn as though trying to decide whether he should attack or not.

"This guy bothering you?" Spawn asked, trying to sound reassuring despite his obvious physical disadvantages in making such an attitude convincing.

"Well... just trying to hunt me like he always is, really..." the young boy- he couldn't be much older than his mid-teens- said, looking slightly apprehensively at the former assassin, clearly wondering if he'd just traded the apparently-familiar enemy for the definitely-unknown one.

"Hold on; this sod hunts you?" Spike asked, looking inquiringly at the boy as he walked up to stand beside his teammate, Spawn pausing briefly to wrap a couple of ectoplasmic straps around their latest opponent's wrists to tie him to the ground in case he regained consciousness during their 'chat'. "Why the sodding hell'd he want to do that?"

"Uh... you mean you don't know who I am already?" the boy asked.

"Should we?" Spawn asked, after a brief glance at Spike confirmed that the vampire didn't know what he was talking about either.

"Well... I'd... kind of assumed anyone I met would know about me; I... look, it's not like I'm arrogant, I just haven't met any opponents yet who didn't already know me by reputation..." the kid said, looking slightly uncomfortable as he looked at the two new arrivals. "I mean, it's not like half-ghosts are something you find every day-"

"Hold on; half-ghost?" Spike repeated incredulously. "As in... you're half dead?"

"Well, it's not exactly like that; I was exposed to a load of ectoplasmic energy from one of my parent's machines- they hunt ghosts and design machines to study them-, and it... basically, it gave me a whole bunch of ghostly abilities," the boy explained, shrugging awkwardly as he spoke, before his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the two men before him. "Anyway, who are you two?"

"He's Spike, and I'm Spawn," Spawn said, indicating his teammate with a brief wave of his hand. "He's a vampire, I'm a former general in Hell's army- I quit when I didn't like the deal he gave me-, and, if you're interested, we need your help in kicking Satan's ass."

For a moment, the self-proclaimed half-ghost could only stare at the two men before him in stunned silence, his eyes wide and his mouth slowly opening and closing as he tried to process what he'd just heard, before he finally spoke again.

"Uh... let me get this straight..." he said, holding up a slightly shaking hand. "You're a vampire and a demon-"

"Actually, I was human, but I was killed and went to Hell before I came back with demonic powers; it's a long story that's not really relevant right now," Spawn corrected him with a slightly dismissive shrug.

"OK, vampire and demonically-enhanced-dead-guy, and you want me to help you stop the... the Devil?" the boy finished, a slight edge of confused panic in his voice as his hands began to generate a faint green glow that suggested he was preparing himself in case he had to attack them. "I mean, aren't you meant to be on his side-?"

"In a nutshell, we quit working on his side a long time ago, and we're now part of a team that tries to fight what we used to be whenever we can find them," Spawn said, looking at the boy with what he hoped was a reassuring expression; given his physical state since his 'demise', it was hard to be sure he wasn't just creeping the half-ghost out. "It's a long story; what matters right now is that the Devil has triggered the Apocalypse, and the only chance we have to stop this is to gather as many people together as we can to try and make a stand against the bastard before it's all over. You interested?"

"I'm in," the boy said resolutely, flying over to the other two and holding out his hand for them to shake, a cool certainty on his face.

"That's it?" Spike said, raising a critical eyebrow as he looked at the young man who had essentially just become the Gathering's newest member. "Not that I'm complaining that you want to come along, but-"

"When everything went to Hell, I had to watch my entire family, my best friend, and the girl I... liked... get torn apart by a bunch of murderous ghosts who make the worst villain I ever faced look like the Box Ghost," the boy said, looking over at Spike with a hard stare that made his green eyes flash. "Even if you're not serious about having a plan, you're the first people I've met who've offered me any chance of getting back at whoever started this whole mess off; even if you're lying, I'll get a chance to hit something before I go."

"Good enough for me," Spawn said, holding out a hand to their new recruit. "Welcome to the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals, Mr...?"

"Phantom," the boy replied simply. "Danny Phantom."

---

"So," Faith said, looking at Paige with a slight smile as the two walked along the streets where Paige had sensed her last possible 'ally'- she'd insisted on checking this one out herself because something about the scrying had been a bit 'off', so she'd wanted to come along in case she needed to search again-, "your dad was an angel, huh?"

"Technically an angel, Faith; he didn't have wings or anything like that, he just... kept an eye out for Mom when he could..." Paige began, only to be interrupted when a loud roar from above prompted the Slayer and the witch to duck out of the path of a suddenly-descending shadow. As they both quickly leapt to their feet, they found themselves facing a large green demon dressed in armour that reminded them both of Japanese samurai, a glowing red gem in the centre of the demon's forehead and a prominent sword in its hand as it stared at them.

"Ah, nuts..." Faith muttered, glancing over at Paige. "Seen this before?"

"No," Paige replied with a shake of her head.

"Me neither," Faith replied, before smiling as she turned back to the creature in front of her. "Which means we've got something new to deal with."

Before Paige could stop her, Faith had charged forward and launched a powerful kick at the demon's chest, the creature only just managing to duck out of the path of the Slayer's foot before it spun around to strike her with the flat of its sword blade. With Faith momentarily off-balance- Paige didn't know why the creature hadn't just killed her new friend, although she was guessing that it wanted to enjoy the fight or something like that-, the creature grabbed her shoulder and hurled her into the nearest wall, the dark-haired Slayer wincing as she hit the surface behind her.

Acting on desperate instinct, Paige leapt forward as the creature thrust its sword forward in a manner that would have impaled Faith in the shoulder if it had made contact, her foot making contact with the demon's blade with just enough force to knock it off-target and scrape along the wall beside the Slayer.

Seizing her opportunity, Faith thrust one leg up in a move that struck the demon in what would have been the genitals on a human being but appeared to have no more obvious effect on her opponent than making him mad, the figure spinning around to slash at Faith's face with his sword before a sudden fireball hurtled past Faith's face at such close range that it almost took the skin off the tip of her nose as she watched the sword shatter under the blow.

As she and her opponent both turned to look in the direction that the fireball had come from, Faith wondered if she had been better off with the samurai-esque demon; the new arrival almost looked more dangerous than her previous opponent. A large muscular creature with yellow skin, the creature was dressed in a strange red long-sleeved one-piece that left its- his, Faith corrected herself; this guy was definitely male- legs bare apart from blue 'shoes' in a similar colour to the tattered cape he wore around his shoulders, small horns on his forehead along with webbed ears, red eyes and sharp teeth completing the image.

"Excuse me," the creature said, glaring at the green-skinned demon as it turned to face him directly, the Slayer and the witch apparently forgotten, "but I think you came for me."

Before the original creature could react, the new arrival thrust one fist forward and struck the gem in the middle of the creature's head, causing its entire body to erupt into white light and explode into nothing, leaving the creature to look at the two women with a smile.

"Good job," he said with an approving nod. "Few people can hold their own for any length of time against a determined Mohra demon... although I'm sorry you had to fight it; I'm fairly sure it was sent to eliminate me."

"Uh... no need for the apology, but thanks," Paige said, exchanging an uncertain glance with Faith before she looked back at the creature. "I'm Paige Matthews, and this is my... friend, Faith Lehane; you are?"

"Etrigan the demon," the creature replied briefly.

"And... what else?" Paige asked, raising a pointed eyebrow as she studied the creature before her.

"What else?" Etrigan repeated, looking critically back at her.

"Look, in a nutshell, we found you when I was looking for people who... fit a certain criteria..., and right now, even though you look pretty demon-y to me, what I picked up when I was scrying makes it pretty clear there's more to you than that," Paige said, folding her arms as she stared at the creature before her. "Add in the fact that, if that thing was sent after you, there's definitely something going on because you are definitely too powerful for that thing given how quickly you took it out, I have to ask... what's your secret?"

After the two had spent a few moments staring intently at each other, Etrigan stood back with a slight smile.

"This," he said, spreading his arms and raising his head slightly as he began to speak.

"Gone, Gone, Oh Etrigan,
Resume Once More
The Form of Man."

As soon as those words had been spoken, the demon seemed to shrink into himself as he was enveloped in fire before he finally vanished, leaving in his place the form of a tall, human man dressed in a sharp suit with a piercing gaze, seemingly normal in appearance apart from a white streak in his dark red hair despite the fact that his physical appearance suggested that he was only in his mid-thirties at the earliest.

"Whoa..." Faith said, blinking at the transformation she had just witnessed taking place. "Nice."

"Thank you," the man said, nodding at her with a slight smile.

"So, lemme guess; that thing was meant to take you out like this rather than when you're... Etrigan?" Paige asked, looking slightly uncomfortable as the man turned his gaze towards her. "I mean, you're not exactly a slouch, but Etrigan struck me as the kind of guy you'd be more likely to want on your side in a fight..."

"Quite," the man said, nodding at her in confirmation. "I am more skilled at the general practise of magic, but in terms of direct combat, my... other half... has his advantages; the demon you fought was doubtless intended to catch me off-guard in this form, and would have succeeded in its goal if your encounter with it had not brought me time to transform."

"Happy to help," Paige said, trying to sound nonchalant despite her recollections of Cole's last fight as Belthazor- not an experience she wanted to repeat; at least Cole these days didn't have a demonic 'alter ego'- as she continued to address the other man. "So... what's your name?"

"Jason Blood," the man replied, nodding briefly at her. "I have been bonded with Etrigan since the fall of Camelot as punishment from Merlin for my role in its fall-"

"Hold on; Camelot?" Faith said, holding her hands up and staring incredulously at the new arrival. "You're from Camelot?"

"And was punished by Merlin for my role in its fall by being permanently bonded to Etrigan for the last thousand years," Jason Blood said, nodding in grim confirmation at the Slayer. "I have some degree of control over him- he won't kill the innocent, as an example, even if his methods are more... ruthless... than what I might do-, but I assure you that it is far from a pleasant experience..."

"Yeah, I know someone in a similar position; you should join the-" Faith began, only to stop and smile at her own comment.

"What?" Blood asked, looking at her in confusion. "What's so amusing?"

"Just... what I was about to say kind of ties into the reason we're here in the first place," Faith explained, smiling slightly at the man before her. "Tell me, Jase, would you or your demon have any objections to helping a team of like-minded individuals kick the crap out of Satan?"

---

"DAMNIT!" Cole roared, throwing another energy ball at the mass of demons surrounding him and Hellboy; they'd barely arrived at the location where Paige claimed to have identified another possible candidate for the their latest 'recruitment drive' and found themselves almost automatically in the middle of a mad hoard of demons of all kinds of shapes and sizes, seemingly determined to attack something in the building in front of them. He'd caught glimpses of something appearing at the various windows to fire a gun at the surrounding demons before it ducked back into the building and out of sight, but right now he didn't have the time to worry about things like that; the important issue right now was staying alive long enough to approach the contact.

"Do these things ever stop?" he asked, glancing over at Hellboy in frustration as he launched a couple of quick fireballs at the things that looked like massive puppets with strings attached to seemingly nothing, quickly burning them into ashes as he kicked out at something that resembled a red bat with a fish's tale.

"Got me there, Goldie," Hellboy said, his stone hand slamming into the head of a large spider-like demon even as his flesh hand yanked off a couple of the creature's sharp legs and began to thrust them at the other monsters around them like swords. "They might not be tough, but there's a hell of a lot of them!"

"Tell me about it; who the hell is this guy that he's got this many monsters gunning for him?" Cole asked, narrowly avoiding a blow from a creature that looked like a thin man on all fours with a fifth limb on his back, following up the evasive manoeuvre by kicking the creature in its face before launching another energy ball that took it out of the fight.

"You mean you haven't heard of me?" a third voice said, sounding slightly amused despite the content of his words. "I'm hurt."

Looking up, Cole and Hellboy saw the speaker standing in one of the windows. He was a pale-skinned, apparently human figure with white hair, dressed in a long dark red leather coat over black leather trousers and what seemed to be a black waistcoat with thick gold buckles. A long sword was strapped to his back and two significantly-sized handguns were in each hand, the weapons in question aimed at the mass of demons before the other two figures.

"I'm Dante," the man said, smiling slightly at the other two before his gaze narrowed as he looked at the small army around them. "I take it you're not with these guys?"

"Actually, we're here to talk- just talk- with you, if you'd care to help us out with these suckers," Cole said, indicating the mass around them.

"Sure thing," Dante said, nodding at Cole before he leapt off the roof, his handguns blazing in his hands as he neatly eliminated demons during his descent, hitting the ground feet-first with no discernable pause in his motion. As casually as others would have closed their mobile phones, Dante slid his guns into their holsters under his coat, drew his sword from his back, and began to almost effortlessly slash his way through most of the surrounding monsters, ranging from the bat or puppet lookalikes to what appeared to be flying human skulls, drawing his guns only occasionally to target the black cat-like creatures that didn't appear to be vulnerable to anything else.

Finally, after a moment that could have been minutes or hours- although Cole's personal sense of time was more inclined towards minutes-, the demons around them had fallen, leaving only Cole, Hellboy and their potential new ally standing as they studied their surroundings, energy balls ready to launch in Cole's hands as Dante and Hellboy took in the surrounding territory with their guns.

"Looks quiet," Hellboy said, nodding at the other two after a brief period of silence as he holstered his weapon once more.

"I second that," Dante said, nodding in agreement as he lowered his guns and turned to look at Cole and Hellboy, a slight tension in his stance showing that he was ready to fight while making it clear he didn't entirely expect one. "So... you two are?"

"Cole Turner- I'm a Goldlighter; kind of a 'warrior angel', if you will-, and this is Hellboy, a demon who was rescued and raised by humans from infancy to protect humanity after a bunch of Nazis tried to summon him to Earth," Cole explained, hoping that the casual tone would relax Dante more than anything else. "Yourself?"

"Dante, half-human son of the Dark Knight Sparda," Dante replied with an equally casual shrug.

Cole and Hellboy could only blink at that.

"Hold on; Sparda?" Hellboy repeated, his mind flashing back to some of the tales his father had told him about other demons back when he was a child. "As in, the demon who sacrificed his powers to seal the path to Hell for the sake of humanity? That Sparda?"

"That's dad," Dante said with a nonchalant shrug. "Been a while since then, of course, but I like to think I make up for what he's lost in terms of physical prowess since then..."

"And... you continue his mission, huh?" Cole asked.

"I work to protect humans how I can," Dante confirmed, before his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the two. "And if you have a problem with that..."

"Why should I?" Hellboy said, looking at Dante with a slight smile. "If anything, I should welcome to the club for children of powerful demons; from what I know about my past, I'm pretty much in the same boat as you."

Cole didn't bother to mention his own demonic heritage; not only was it not valid now that his original body had 'died', but Elizabeth Turner had been a fairly low-level demon compared to Sparda or whoever had fathered Hellboy, and bringing her up wouldn't serve any purpose right now.

"What you know?" Dante asked, looking at Hellboy in surprise. "Does that mean... you don't know who your father was?"

"Either parent, really," Hellboy said with a slight shrug. "I was summoned to Earth in some Nazi ritual towards the end of the Second World War when I was just an infant and got rescued by an American team that had infiltrated the base; the guy who adopted me had a few ideas about where I came from, but he was never sure of anything..."

"Ah," Dante said, looking Hellboy up and down for a moment before he shrugged and slid his guns back into their holsters. "Well, in any case, since you came all this way not to kill me, shall I assume you have a reason you want to talk to me?"

"We wanted to ask you to join our upcoming assault on Satan for what he's done to this world," Cole said, raising an inquiring eyebrow as he looked at Dante. "Are you interested?"

"Interested?" Dante repeated, smiling at the other man. "Cole, I wouldn't consider it an exaggeration to say that you'd have to shoot me to stop me participating in this fight!"

"Good to know," Cole said, smiling back at the other man before he assumed a more serious expression. "Anyway, we'd better be off; no point hanging around in one place longer than we have to."

---

Studying the sight of a man who looked for all the world like a flaming skeleton tearing through a large gathering of vampires and other assorted demons- this part of the country apparently hadn't had enough in the way of supernatural defenders for Satan to feel it worthwhile sending anything stronger; judging by the flaming bike some way off from the fight the guy in front of them probably spent too much time travelling to call any area his home-, Blade had to admit that Paige had done pretty good despite her own concerns about her skills.

Paige had admitted that her scrying abilities weren't as good as they could be- apparently her immediately-older sister had been the 'expert' in that particular field of magic in her family- but Blade had heard her mention to Angel that it wasn't actually that hard to do what he was asking her to do in this environment. With Hell having literally come to Earth, the number of people even willing to take defiant action was relatively limited, and when the sheer scale of the attack they were facing was taken into account, anyone with that kind of mentality who was still alive probably automatically qualified for Coven membership.

Good thing she told us there was someone here fitting that criteria, Blade reflected as he studied the fight before him. I walked in on this on my own, I'd probably think that this was just some test for a new guy.

A part of him couldn't help but feel surprised at his easy acceptance of the world he now found himself in- the vampires he'd faced back home had been dangerous, but everything about them had been clearly based on a scientific background; the idea that Angel and Spike were the way they were because of a curse was something he still sometimes found a bit weird-, but after everything he'd been through since joining the Coven Blade had long ago decided to stop questioning the realities of his world; he'd adapted his thinking to cope with the situations he faced now, and that was the important thing.

Besides... with the kind of difference he was able to make now?

Hunting vampires had made a difference back in his own world, but the scale of the dangers he'd faced with the Coven...

He could save entire worlds by eliminating the foes he took out alongside the Coven.

Even if the upcoming fight was his last, if it meant protecting more innocents, he would not go down easily.

"So..." Leo said from beside him, the Whitelighter's voice breaking into the Daywalker's train of thought, "I take it that's the guy we're here to recruit?"

"Fits the facts, anyway," Blade said, raising his sword as he looked over at Leo. "Get out your stakes; might as well give this guy a hand while we're here."

Before Leo could voice any potential objections, Blade had leapt down into the fray and begun to hack away at the vampires around him, his sword almost effortlessly severing heads from bodies as he moved through the mass of vampires around him. Leo did what he could to help, slashing out with his own sword in an efficient-but-amateurish attack- as much as the team liked Leo, they all freely acknowledged that his main strength was his orbing and healing powers rather than combat skills-, although he occasionally varied by orbing through some of the smaller groups of vampires around them, the holy energy he released burning the vampires as he passed through them before his rematerialised form slashed through his opponents before they had the chance to get their bearings.

The flaming skeleton might have been able to cope with the numbers around him on his own, but it seemed like a safe guess that it would have taken him far more time to deal with the numbers that he was facing on his own than it took when he had the assistance of the other two. In a matter of moments, the wave of vampires around them had been defeated, leaving nothing but piles of ash as Blade and Leo turned to look at their potential recruit, who was staring at them with a surprisingly quizzical expression for a face that shouldn't be able to express anything.

"You..." the leather-clad skeleton said, looking at Blade with what a part of Blade wanted to call a pointed stare despite the lack of anything for the skeleton to stare at him with.

"Yeah; me," Blade replied, meeting the other being's stare with one of his own. "What about it?"

"Your soul is stained..." the skeleton said, a grim, contemplative expression on its face. "But the blood... is evil blood... slain in defence of others..."

"You can see that?" Leo said, looking at the man in surprise.

"I am the Ghost Rider," the skeleton said, looking between the two men with what could have been called a smirk if he'd had lips. "I see the sins of the evil... and, when those who commit those sins have a soul, I condemn them to relive that pain a thousand-fold..."

"As well as that stuff with the flames, huh?" Blade said, indicating the various piles of dust that had once been vampires lying around them with a slight smile.

"Among others," Ghost Rider said with a nod. "I was the Devil's bounty hunter before I forsook my calling; he gave me many... unique... abilities."

"The Devil's bounty hunter?" Blade said, looking at the being before them in surprise. "And you quit?"

"If I was cursed with this power, I swore that I would use it against him rather than risk another taking it who would care less about innocents than I did," Ghost Rider replied, his expression once again becoming slightly quizzical as he studied the other two men. "Why are you here?"

"Well..." Leo said, looking at Ghost Rider with a slight smile, hoping that the other man would appreciate the direct approach he was about to attempt, "in a nutshell, if you're interested in striking against evil, we're assembling a team to mount an assault against Satan; care to join us?"

For a moment, Ghost Rider appeared slightly surprised at the offer, but then he seemed to smile slightly and the flames around his head receded back into his skeleton, flesh swiftly covering the now-exposed bone to leave a man apparently just a little older than Blade and Leo's physical ages, with a narrow face and a prominent forehead.

"You've got yourself a recruit," he said, walking over to them and holding out his hand with a slight smile. "Johnny Blaze; former motorcycle stuntman and current Ghost Rider."

"Leo Wyatt; Whitelighter and guardian angel," Leo replied, shaking the offered hand. "And this is Blade; he's a part-vampire vampire-hunter-"

"Long story that this isn't the time to tell you, trust me," Blade said, noting the surprised expression on Blaze's face; explaining why he was a part-vampire if Blaze's only contact with vampires were the ones from this reality was something he doubted any of them had time for. "Shall we go?"

"Just let me grab my bike and I will be," Blaze said, indicating the bike in question with a brief nod before he walked over to the machine, leaving Blade and Leo to smile in approval at each other at their successful 'recruitment drive'.

They might have little idea what they could do in this situation, but if Angel had a plan, they at least had a chance at victory...

Chapter 5: Talk with a Stranger

Notes:

For Angel, Willow and Constantine, this takes place during the events of the last chapter as the other members of the Coven are on their 'recruitment drive'; other information will be introduced as it becomes relevant

"Well... that's the plan," Angel said, looking between his old friend and his still-new teammate, the most potentially audacious plan he'd ever come up with still fresh in their minds. "What do you think?"

After a moment's silence, Constantine spoke.

"Are you nuts?" he asked.

"No more than anyone else would be after what's happened," Angel replied, trying to smile slightly at his admittedly poor joke before Willow's incredulous expression made him decide against it; given how little contact they'd had over the last few years, he didn't want her to start panicking that he'd gone evil by having her misinterpret the reasons for the smile. "I know it's a bit... extreme, but-"

"No, 'extreme' would be suggesting we extract your soul and let Angelus out to try and deal with this situation; you're several levels past extreme right now!" Willow yelled, staring incredulously at her old friend. "Do you even realise the power we'd need to pull something like that off? It's just-!"

"Look, Al's armour grants him the ability to access various dimensions of existence so long as he knows what he's looking for, and Cole and Leo can go to other worlds as well," Angel explained, looking impatiently at Willow. "We've already got three people who can teleport themselves naturally, which gives us something to start us off; all we need to do is give them enough of a boost so that they can teleport us through the dimension we need to travel through right now-"

"And then... what?" Constantine asked, still looking sceptically at his team leader. "Even if we get there, I had a hard enough time lasting there for two minutes, and that was on the outskirts; you're talking about going into the depths-"

"I've been there myself, John; I know the risks, but I also know that this is probably our only chance," Angel countered, looking resolutely at the exorcist. "You heard what Satan said; right now he's bonded to this Earth and is drawing on its power to supplant his own. If we don't try this, the only alternative that I can think of is to release this 'Hollow' thing Leo told me about once-"

"The what?" Willow asked, her shock at Angel's plan momentarily pushed aside by her new curiosity at the idea of learning something new.

"Basically, Cole described it as this 'black hole' of magic that drained away any spell or magical power used against it and had the potential to destroy all magic before Good and Evil teamed up to seal it away," Constantine clarified grimly. "Damn thing was apparently released by this old enemy of his and Paige's in some desperate attempt to kill Paige's sisters; sucker was so out of control after he took it into himself that his own seer turned against him before his use of it could destroy everything..."

"Exactly," Angel said, nodding briefly at Constantine before he continued. "My point is, if Satan is drawing on Earth's own natural magical energy, using the Hollow could stop him by disrupting his link to that magic, but it's just too risky to be sure that it would pay off; we'd potentially destroy everything on this Earth if the Hollow turned its attention to the rest of the world after it had devoured magic, there's no way to make it 'focus' on what's powering Satan over everything else- which would potentially mean that it could kill us before we could lock it back up-, and even if it did take Satan out, if we failed to seal it away afterwards we'd never know if it had been contained to this Earth or if it had been released upon everything else..."

For a moment, as Angel's voice trailed off in contemplation, Willow and Constantine could only look at their friend with a slight apprehension; they might both recognise the value of being pragmatic in combat, but the fact that Angel had actually given apparently serious thought to a means of defeating their current enemy that would have destroyed their world...

"But... you're not doing that, right?" Willow asked.

"No," Angel said, looking resolutely back at the witch who had twice restored his soul to him. "Even if there's nothing left on this world to save, I won't take away the chance to bring something back if there's another way."

"A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all, huh?" Constantine said, looking slightly quizzically at his friend.

"As far as I'm concerned, anyway," Angel confirmed with a solemn nod. "If we're going to win this, we're going to win this; we're not just going to win by making sure that Satan loses."

The intensity of Angel's words left the other two sitting in silence once again as they studied the vampire, turning over his proposed plan of attack in their minds once again before they felt comfortable speaking.

"If..." Willow began, swallowing slightly as she looked at Angel before continuing. "If I have a pure source of magic to act as a focal point for any ritual I'd be attempting to stop... him... getting involved before I'm finished... If I know precisely where I'm aiming for... if your friends' powers work the way you've described them... and if we're very, very, very lucky... I think I can do it."

Angel smiled.

"Thanks," he said, nodding at the witch.

"Hey, I'm not saying it's possible, I'm just saying that-" Willow began.

"Willow," Angel said, looking reassuringly at her. "You've proven yourself worthy to be trusted with my soul; if you say that you think you can pull this off, there's nobody else I'd rather have casting this spell than you."

"And your choice is good, Angel," another voice said from behind them.

Leaping to their feet, Angel, Willow and Constantine spun around to face the speaker, finding themselves face-to-face with an unfamiliar man dressed in a long dark blue cloak with a high collar over what looked like an old-fashioned black waistcoat- the cloak concealed most of it from view- and a white shirt, while a wide-brimmed hat in the same colour as his cloak cast a shadow over his face that made it hard for even Angel's night-active vision to pick up anything about the man's appearance from his nose upwards.

"Don't worry," the man said, raising his hands to reveal that he was wearing white gloves. "I am a friend."

"And your name is?" Angel asked.

"I am the Phantom Stranger," the man replied, spreading his arms slightly as though giving them a better chance to look at him.

Willow blinked.

"The 'Phantom Stranger'?" she repeated, looking slightly incredulously at the self-proclaimed stranger before them. "Uh... no offence, but... that'syour name?"

"It is the only name I have known for a very long time," the man replied, showing no sign that he had been offended by the question. "It has been my duty and curse to walk the Earth until the time comes when my duty will be discharged, aiding others where and when I can."

"And... who gave you that duty?" Constantine asked.

"God," the Phantom Stranger replied, prompting an incredulous blink from the three watching him.

"Hold on; God gave you that job?" Constantine said, staring at the man in front of him as though he couldn't decide how he felt about this latest revelation; the potential power level he sensed suggested that the guy wasn't lying, but even assuming that his story was true didn't mean it was any easier to take in. "What made him stick you in that kind of role?"

"It was my burden and penance for my role in the crucifixion of his son," the Phantom Stranger said, his tone briefly grim before he looked more pointedly at the other three in a manner that discouraged any thoughts they might have had about asking for him to elaborate on that last comment. "But my past is not what is important now; what is important is that I have come to offer you my assistance."

"And what 'assistance' would that be?" Angel asked, staring grimly at the new arrival. "No offence, but we're already working on gathering our forces-"

"And your plan is valid, but even your witches' best scrying efforts can only pick up so many potential allies with the world the way it is," the Phantom Stranger clarified, smiling slightly at the vampire under his hat. "I have a few other possible candidates in mind who may be able and willing to assist you in this endeavour, and there are even some in Hell who might be willing to provide you with aid, but I thought it best to alert you to my presence rather than-"

"Hold on, go back to the part where you said that Angel's plan was valid," Constantine said, looking at their strange guest with renewed focus. "As in, you know what we're planning to do?"

"One of the many little talents that our Lord blessed me with when he set me on this path; a varying degree of omniscience," the Stranger explained, cutting off the suddenly shocked expressions with a firm shake of his head. "I don't know everything, I assure you; when the situation calls for it I am... the best way to describe it is that I know what I need to know about the people I approach. Your choices are your own, I promise; all that I can do is be aware of some of the implications of those choices-"

"Hold on a minute; can I just clarify something here?" Willow asked, suddenly apprehensive as a worrying thought occurred to her. "If you know what we're doing when you're just... well, no offence, but if you're just some guy who was given some extras-?"

"You wish to know if your enemy knows of them as well," the Phantom Stranger finished for her. "He might suspect something, Miss Rosenberg, but while Satan possesses many powers, omniscience is not one of them; he prefers relying on his minions to keep an eye on things for him, while his own natural intellect and arrogance blind him to the possibility that others might attempt to fight against him in such a manner, particularly not when the odds of victory are so slim and he has already given you such a... tempting offer."

Despite the grim nature of the current conversation, Angel smirked.

"He doesn't know people very well, does he?" he asked.

"The price of arrogance, Angel; with the power that Satan possesses- even before his latest 'upgrade'-, he feels that he does not need to know more than what he believes he knows already," the Stranger said, shrugging briefly before his eyes narrowed under his hat as he looked at Angel. "However, in his case, his arrogance is not without merit; even if your plan should succeed, he will only be slightly more vulnerable than he is now, and even then you will require a significant number of allies in order to achieve your goal. That is why I have come here; I have a... the best term for her is that she is my pupil, for I have been honoured to call myself one of her teachers in the use of her powers... who has gathered her own forces to launch her attack against Satan, and she has expressed an interest in joining your team."

"OK," Angel said, nodding slightly in contemplation as he looked uncertainly at the Stranger. "And the reason she didn't just come here herself is...?"

"She has an... unusual heritage, shall we say?" the Stranger replied, a slight smile on his face at his word choice before he continued. "While she is aware that your team is hardly one that judges people on their pasts, she felt that she would be more comfortable if I came to inform you that she could be trusted herself, rather than simply showing up on her own and expecting you to trust her on her own."

"Plus, the fact that a guy who was granted omniscient knowledge by God telling us that we can pull something off should help to give us a bit of a confidence boost doesn't hurt, huh?" Constantine asked with a grim smile.

"Essentially, your assessment is correct," the Phantom Stranger replied, before he looked back at Angel. "So... shall I let her know she can come?"

"If she can contribute anything to this mess," Angel replied, looking solemnly at the Stranger, cold resolution in his eyes, "then she can come."

Nodding in response to Angel's statement, the Stranger raised his head slightly- somehow still keeping the upper part of his face in shadow despite the change in position-, followed by a sudden bright flare in the middle of the room as what seemed to be a large golden bird-shaped shadow appeared in front of them.

As the three watched in shock, a tall, muscular, blue-skinned figure with prominent horns emerged from the light, dressed in a tight black T-shirt and dark blue jeans carrying a trident, followed by a creature that seemed to be a human shape composed primarily of plants and branches apart from its red eyes. A skinny man dressed in a tight, dark red suit with pale skin and no hair on his head followed, floating in mid-air above the rest of the new arrivals, while the last arrival was dressed in a simple black long-sleeved shirt and black trousers, along with predominately white facepaint accompanied by some black around his eyes, followed by a large black crow that landed on the man's shoulder after flying out of the golden shadow.

Before the three Coven members could ask about the relevance of the crow, the golden bird had seemingly withdrawn back into itself, leaving in its place a young woman, apparently only a teenager, dressed in a long dark blue cloak and hood that covered at least half of her face, also wearing what seemed to be a leotard and knee-high boots underneath the cloak and fingerless gloves of an undeterminable length. Although younger than the other new arrivals, she carried herself with an authority that made it clear she was the 'leader' of this new group in every way that mattered, looking around the room with an appraising stare even before her gaze fixed on the Stranger as she gave him a slight smile.

"Ah, Raven, you made it," the Stranger said, smiling briefly back at the young girl before he turned to look at her gathered allies. "And these are your forces?"

"As many as I could find in the time available, anyway," the girl apparently known as Raven confirmed, the girl's voice a neutral tone that reminded Angel and Willow briefly of Oz's traditional monotone from the old days back in Sunnydale. "Boston Brand, AKA Deadman, Daniel Cassidy, AKA Blue Devil, Swamp Thing, and Eric Draven, known in some circles as 'the Crow'."

"The Crow?" Constantine repeated, looking sceptically at the man in question as he indicated the aforementioned bird now sitting on his shoulder. "What, were you bitten by a radioactive crow or something?"

"Or something," Draven replied, looking grimly back at Constantine. "According to... certain sources..., after I died- my fiancé and I were murdered on Halloween some years ago-, my grief was so great that the crow which was meant to carry me to the afterlife- according to some ancient belief I don't remember much about- was so weighed down by my own pain that it ended up taking me back to Earth so that I could dispose of what had caused that pain by hunting down my killers."

"You're the living dead?" Willow asked.

"I prefer to think of myself as the 'differently-living'," Draven replied, indicating the crow. "From what I've gathered over the months I've been active, the crow and I share a bond of sorts; I can see through his eyes, and so long as he stays safe, I'm pretty much unkillable, but any injuries to the crow itself, and..."

He shrugged. "Don't think I need to say any more, huh?"

"Not really, no," Angel replied with a brief nod of understanding- even among apparent allies, some people would never be comfortable revealing all their secrets this early in their relationship-, before looking at the others. "And... you guys?"

"Long story short," the man who'd been introduced as Blue Devil said, leaning slightly on his trident as he spoke, "I was wearing this costume for a movie I was filming when a couple of the special effects guys tried to summon an actual devil. I tried to stop it- the costume was an exoskeleton that gave me some degree of increased strength; it was actually kind of comfortable-, but the demonic blasts I took in the process triggered some kind of freaky mutation that made me into an actual demon by bonding me to the suit; damn trident even turned into an actual weapon and my skin burns if I so much as set foot inside a church."

"Ouch," Angel said, wincing in sympathy as he looked at the other man.

He might have to experience a fate like that, but at least a part of him had always been able to feel like he deserved it for following Darla down that alley in the first place; from what 'Blue Devil' had just told them, all he'd done was try to help and he'd ended up stuck with a fate Angel wouldn't wish on anyone.

"And... you?" Willow asked, looking at the floating figure in red.

"As the girl said, name's Boston Brand, though I'll also answer to Deadman," the figure explained with a casual smile. "I was a circus trapeze artist back when I was alive, but I got shot by some guy with a hook during my last show; some spirit of existence I can't explain gave me the power to 'walk among humanity'- essentially allowing me to hang around and possess people- until I found my killer in order to right some kinda 'cosmic balance' that got knocked off-kilter when I got shot like that..."

Noting the slightly sceptical stares he was attracting, the former circus artist shrugged. "Hey, I don't get why I got this role myself; all I know is that I'm here and I've gotta work with it, so here I am. I found my killer a while back, but... well, stuff happened... so I'm still hanging around here."

"Well... good to have you on the team, anyway," Willow said, smiling briefly at the ghost before she looked at the plant-like figure. "And... you are?"

"Call... me... Swamp... Thing," the figure said, its voice slow and gradual as it spoke, as though it was forced to draw on a distant memory of how to communicate rather than recent experience. "I... control... the... plants... and... animals... around... me; I... was... fused... with... the... Green... after... an... accident."

"Ah," Angel said, looking the figure over for a few moments in silent contemplation before he shrugged. "Well, you're different, but it's nothing we can't work with... and you are?"

"As my old teacher said, I am Raven," Raven replied with a brief nod. "I was conceived by Trigon the Terrible- a demonic lord of a distant dimension- to serve as his gateway into this realm-, but I was taken from his followers when I was young and raised in another dimension to prepare myself for the day when he would come to this world. The Phantom Stranger was one of my many teachers of magic during this time, but..."

She shrugged. "Well, with Satan himself having beaten my father here, I felt that the best way to use my training now is to assist you."

After Angel and Constantine had exchanged brief glances, the two shrugged and Angel walked over to offer Raven his hand.

"Well, the Stranger vouches for you, and you're hardly the first person we've recruited who was sent here to destroy the world," he said, smiling slightly at her. "Welcome to the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals, everyone."

"Glad... to... be... here," Swamp Thing said, smiling slightly at the vampire.

"Think you can safely say that about all of us," Blue Devil added casually.

"So," Deadman asked, looking at the vampire with a slightly nonchalant smile, "now that we're all here, what's your plan for dealing with the mess that Earth's become?"

"Simple," Angel said, as he looked grimly at their new allies. "We're going back in time and breaking into Hell."

Chapter 6: The Plan of Attack

Notes:

This takes place a relatively short while after the last chapter; Satan's deadline is approaching and the Coven are preparing to put Angel's plan into action, but I won't say any more to avoid giving away more spoilers than are necessary

"Angel?" Cole asked, looking uncertainly at the vampire as he and the newly-returned Coven members took in the unexpected sight of their team leader sitting in the middle of their Coven's base with some new arrivals who apparently hadn't come with the previously-dispatched reconnaissance teams. "Who the...?"

"Oh, sorry," Angel said, standing up and looking around at his colleagues as he indicated the other new arrivals with an apologetic smile. "This is Raven, half-human daughter of the demon Trigon the Terrible, Boston Brand, also known as the body-hopping ghost Deadman, Blue Devil, former actor Michael Cassidy before his interference in a summoning had unexpected side-effects, Swamp Thing, controller of all plant life in his vicinity and more or less indestructible to his knowledge, and Eric Draven, immortal and indestructible thanks to a bond to a supernatural crow; they were directed here by the Phantom Stranger-"

"The Phantom Stranger?" Leo repeated, looking at Angel incredulously. "He's been here?"

"You know about him?" Constantine asked in surprise.

"Well... only vaguely; he's generally not something the Elders like to talk about more than they have to," Leo replied, shrugging slightly as he looked around at his teammates. "From what I remember, he's a kind of 'intervening agent' between the Elders and... higher powers... who can step in and countermand the Elders' orders if he thinks it's appropriate-"

"Sorry to interrupt, Mr... Wyatt, correct?" the man Paige and Faith had introduced as Jason Blood said, walking forward slightly as his gaze fixed on the hooded form of Raven. "However, before we proceed any further, I have some... questions... for this girl."

"Such as?" Raven asked, looking coolly back at the older man.

"You were telling the truth when you identified your father as Trigon, correct?" Blood asked, his expression betraying no emotion even as a slight gleam in his eyes hinted that he was ready to strike if necessary. "As in, the Eighth Lord of Hell, seeks out new worlds to conquer by impregnating residents of those worlds with his children, resolved to rule all that is, that Trigon?"

For a moment, the rest of the Coven simply looked silently at the two new members, before Faith broke the silence.

"Interesting family history you got there, Rae," she said, smiling briefly at the hooded girl. "How's about your mom's side of the tree?"

"I don't know; my mother and I were raised in the mystical kingdom of Azarath so that I could learn how to control my powers in preparation for my father's assault on this world-" Raven began.

"Can we get back to the fact that your father exists to destroy everything, Raven?" Jason interjected, his eyes narrowed as he glared at the young woman. "Granted, he probably isn't that interested in this world now, but the fact remains that-"

"The fact remains that I am not my father, Jason Blood," Raven said, her eyes narrowing as she glared at him. "And given your own history, I hardly feel that you are one who should be critical of someone based on their past; after what you yourself did that resulted in you being bonded with Etrigan in the first place, pointing fingers is hardly something you should be doing in your position."

"I have spent my life since then making up for that-!" Jason began.

"Enough," Angel said, stepping forward to glare at the two new arrivals. "We've all done things in our pasts that we aren't proud of- that was the reason the original bunch of us were brought together in the first place-, but this isn't the place to talk about that; right now, we have a serious problem to deal with, and arguing amongst ourselves just limits the numbers we've got to stop it."

For a moment, the two magic-wielders looked grimly at each other, and then Jason nodded slightly and stepped back, Raven smiling slightly back in response.

"Good," Angel said, indicating the chairs in the room as he looked around at his newly-assembled team. "Well, we've got a lot to do, so let's start with the obvious details of introductions; I'm Angel, I'm a vampire, formerly known as Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, until I was cursed with my soul as a punishment for a recent murder and found myself forced to cope with the resulting conscience for the next century until I was convinced to get my act together and act the hero."

"Spike," Spike added, nodding around at the rest of the team. "Got sired by a vamp made by Peaches over there, got a chip stuck in my head that stopped me from killing humans a few years back, and got my soul back about a year ago."

"I am Illyria, former God-King of the Primordium," Illyria said, taking up her story. "My soul was restored to existence when I was released from my prison in the Deeper Well to possess this shell, but with my original body destroyed and no way to regain my former power and glory, I have decided to work with the half-breeds to do what I can."

"Leo Wyatt; I'm a Whitelighter- basically a guardian angel; I was a medic during the Second World War and was given the chance to continue helping others after my death-, originally assigned to the Charmed Ones, three of the most powerful witches alive, but I've been working with the Coven as their 'contact' with the higher powers of good on the side as well."

"Paige Matthews, surviving Charmed One; part-Whitelighter and part-witch with the powers of both- healing, orbing, summoning stuff to me, that sort of thing-, and not too shabby at the potion or spell-improv thing."

"You can call me Blade; my mother was bitten by a vampire in the ninth month of her pregnancy- slightly different vamp than the ones that made Spike and Angel what they are-, and I ended up inheriting all their strengths and none of their weaknesses; been hunting 'em ever since."

"Cole Turner; started out as a demon with a human father, ended up getting killed after I was nearly driven insane following a mass infusion of demon powers, and then got a chance to come back as a Goldlighter- basically a more combat-capable version of Leo- because I sacrificed myself to stop myself being a danger to anyone else."

"Willow Rosenberg; I'm a witch with... well, I've got a not-insignificant amount of power thanks to a combination of training and a few mistakes; let's leave it at that."

"Boston Brand; once worked at a circus as a trapeze artist under the name 'Deadman' before I got shot and ended up with the power to possess other people while I tried to find my killer."

"Faith Lehane; vampire Slayer with a formerly dark past who's working to make up for it after Angel helped me get over the issues I had with my life and my role."

"John Constantine, exorcist and private detective in various demon-related matters; don't ask me to cast spells to help in a fight, but I do all right when you want me to shoot things, and I can do OK when preparing rituals for before the fight

"You... may... call me... Swamp Thing; I... control... the green... around me... after... an... accident... took... place."

"Daniel Cassidy, also known as Blue Devil; got stuck in this battlesuit and turned into an actual demon when I interrupted a summoning ritual at a movie I was working on, armed with this trident and the enhanced strength of the suit."

"Johnny Blaze, but those I hunt tend to call me the Ghost Rider; I sold my soul to the devil to try and save my father from dying of cancer, and was forced to become his bounty hunter in exchange, but I retain greater control over the Ghost Rider, along with its various powers such as the ability to control and generate fire, because I sold my soul for someone else rather than to get something exclusively for myself."

"Name's Al Simmons, but everyone can call me Spawn; I was a black ops assassin before my boss betrayed and murdered me, after which I was merged with this armour- stuff generates various bladed weapons and a few long-range things that I can use in a fight- and sent back to Earth to become the general of Hell's army before I told my new 'boss' where he could stick it."

"Daniel Fenton, but most people call me Danny Phantom when I'm in action; I was exposed to a 'Ghost Portal' made by my parents that allowed them to access another realm known as the Ghost Zone, and it resulted in me becoming part-ghost, gaining all of their powers- flight, ghost blasts, intangibility, invisibility, things like that- without actually having to... y'know, die."

"Jason Blood, also known as the demon Etrigan; I was bonded to Etrigan by Merlin for my role in the fall of Camelot as punishment, and he and I now share an existence, although I've also learned a fair amount of magic in my own right."

"Eric Draven; from what I've been able to gather, I was brought back to life by some supernatural crow that carries the dead to the afterlife because I was too heavy with grief for it to take me, and as a result I'm pretty much invulnerable unless you shoot the bird."

"Call me Dante; I'm the half-human son of the Dark Knight Sparda, a demon lord who decreed that humanity should be left in peace from his fellow demons, although I myself generally simply work as a private investigator into demon-related manners."

"My name is Raven, daughter of Trigon the Terrible; I was conceived to serve as his means of accessing this world, but I have been trained all my life to control my powers- primarily consisting of psychokinesis and emotional manipulation, although I can also teleport others through the projection of my soul-self- to resist his influence if he should come to claim me."

As the last introduction was made, Angel gave his newly-assembled team a moment of silence to contemplate what they had learned about each other before he turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"All right," he said, standing up and walking around to stand behind his chair, so that he could address the group with better authority. "Now that you're all here, I presume that the new arrivals have already been filled in on at least the basics of what we're up against?"

"Satan conquered this Earth and he's going to use the power he's drawing from it to attack virtually every other Earth in the multiverse, right?" Danny said, shaking his head slightly as he looked at the vampire before his gaze shifted upwards. "Man, and I thought I had high stakes when I was up against my psychotic future self..."

"You fought your what?" Leo asked.

"Time for that later," Angel said, looking firmly at the half-ghost and the Whitelighter before he continued to address the others. "The point is, we've gone over everything we could try, and it's clear that stopping Satan now is virtually impossible; he's gathered too much power to himself for a conventional attack against him in the present to have any chance of being successful."

"So... we're trying for an unconventional method of attack?" Blaze asked, looking uncertainly at Angel. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, he already gave us some of the basics of what he's planning; trust me, this guy is good," Deadman said, smiling at the team from his position floating above them while apparently 'sitting' cross-legged and upside-down.

"You told them?" Cole asked, looking at Angel in surprise.

"Just the basic details; given that they came here just on the Stranger's recommendation, I thought I should give them some evidence that I was worth the effort," Angel clarified, looking apologetically at the Goldlighter before he continued. "The important thing right now is that, according to everything we know, Satan's indestructible now, so our only chance of stopping him is to go back in time to a point before he became unstoppable."

The eyes of those who hadn't already heard the plan widened incredulously.

"Wait a minute; you mean-?" Spike began.

"Yep," Angel confirmed. "We're going back in time and breaking into Hell."

Those nine words caused a temporary uproar in the room around them before a sudden intense burst of fire erupted from Blaze as he transformed into the Ghost Rider, the flaming leather-clad skeleton glaring at the people around him.

"SILENCE," he said, in a deep voice that clearly wasn't interested in hearing arguments, before he returned to his human form and looked back at Angel. "Uh... there anything else about that plan we should know?"

"There is," Angel said, nodding briefly in gratitude at the stunt-biker before he continued. "Look, I know that it seems like a stretch, but that kind of time-travel is possible; I've done it myself at least once, and Leo and Cole have both mentioned a few occasions where Paige's family travelled back themselves-"

"Yeah, not meaning to rain on your parade, Angel, but that was done to stop history changing; I'm not exactly used to doing this kind of thing when I'm the one changing history..." Paige pointed out uncertainly.

"Doesn't matter; that still shows us that it is possible to change history, and that's what counts right now," Angel said resolutely. "I already know that Leo, Cole, Paige and Spawn are capable of teleportation on their own, I know for a fact that Spawn at least can get us into Hell, and John tells me that he knows a ritual that allows him to go on a 'spirit walk' in that dimension that he could modify to send us there directly if he had enough power-"

"Which we would be getting from where, exactly?" Dante asked.

"I'm willing to give it a try at least," Willow put in herself. "Paige and anyone else with the right kind of power can contribute their energies if they want; all I really need is a pure magical vessel to serve as the focus for the portal generation so that I won't get... well, contaminated by the energy I'm channelling, along with access to someone whose powers include the ability to create a means of direct access to Hell, and I should be able to pull this off."

"And... the time-travel factor?" Blade asked, slightly awkwardly; the Daywalker still wasn't comfortable with that kind of situation, given his own more scientifically-based vampiric origins.

"Oh, I've got a couple of time-travel spells we could probably use to pull that off," Paige said with a reassuring smile at her new friends, before she turned to look at Willow with a slightly broader grin. "Talking of this spell, if you need a pure magical vessel, would Excalibur work; I'm pretty sure we have it in the attic-"

"Hold on; you have Excalibur in your attic?" Danny repeated, looking incredulously at the half-Whitelighter.

"Well, it was destined for my nephew, but he's only three; we had to keep it somewhere until he's old enough to carry the damn thing..." Paige said, smiling briefly at the teenage part-ghost before her face fell as her brain caught up with what she was saying; the nephew she was discussing would now never carry Excalibur for himself unless this plan succeeded...

"OK, that's the focus; all we need now is the necessary time-travel spell to send us back to the time we want, and we're sorted," Angel said, looking over at Willow and Paige. "Think you two can do it?"

"As I said, I've got experience with a few time-travel spells; I should be able to do it... I think," Paige confirmed, swallowing slightly at the intensity of the vampire's stare. "I mean, it won't be easy, but-"

"Do what you can," Angel said simply, before he looked back to the others. "The point is, once we're there, our only chance is the fact that, if Satan's gathering his power for an attack on Earth, he won't be prepared for an attack waged directly against himself in his own realm; if we can catch him off-guard-"

"Hold on a minute; just to make sure we're clear on this, you're suggesting that we kill SATAN?" Deadman asked, flipping around to stare directly at Angel. "Damn ambitious plan, don't get me wrong, but is that even possible? I mean, he's Satan-"

"If I've learned anything from my life, it's that anything can be killed; the difficulty is in figuring out the way to do it," Angel responded grimly as he looked back at the ghost. "What I'm proposing relies on a hell of a lot of variables and question-marks about the nature of his existence that I can't answer right now, but it's also the only chance we've got to save the world; if we strike Satan when he's not expecting an attack, and has also put most of his energies into preparing for the apocalypse, that should be enough to give us a chance."

"And if you're wrong?" Spawn asked grimly.

"If I'm wrong... what have we got to lose?" Angel replied, indicating the white void around them. "This is all we've got left as a home that hasn't been destroyed by Satan's assault, and it's not going to take long for him to try and attack it if we refuse his offer. Unless any of us want to help him destroy everything we've fought for all these years, this is the only alternative that I've been able to come up with; if anyone has another plan that doesn't involve surrendering and letting him win, I'd like to hear it."

After a moment's silence as the group exchanged glances, Raven looked back at Angel with a slight smile.

"We'd prefer a plan with better odds of success," she said, "but if this is what you've got to offer us... we'll take it."

"Thanks," Angel said, nodding in gratitude at the young empath before he began to address the others once again. "OK, we don't have a lot of time until Satan's expecting us to respond to his demand, so our immediate priority right now has to be working out how we can all work together. Everyone break off into groups, work out what your partner's capable of, and figure out an attack formation that lets us all work to each other's strengths while compensating for our respective weaknesses. Any questions?"

The silence was all the confirmation Angel needed that everyone here was in agreement regarding his battle strategy.

It wasn't perfect, and it was definitely risky, but it was a plan that would save the people they cared about; right now, after they'd seen the state of the world after Satan's attack, that was more than they could have asked for originally.

Angel just wished he could get past the obvious problem in his plan; no matter what they'd gain from their victory, the possibility that they'd erase themselves from existence if they averted the apocalypse was not something he wanted to think too much about.

They'd save the world, and with that action they would save all the worlds that ever were; compared to that, their own personal existences didn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things...

Chapter 7: Forming the Portal

A few hours later, their training session complete and Satan's deadline only a few minutes from expiration, the newly-expanded Coven stood around the centre of their training area as Angel prepared to address them.

"Good work," he said simply, his tone solemn as he addressed his new and old teammates alike; the training had been rushed, but all of the assembled team now had a few interesting ideas and stratagems about how they could work together that should be interesting to see in action when the time came. "Just so there's no misunderstanding later, this is likely to be a one-way trip either way; if we succeed, there's a possibility that there won't be anywhere for us to come back to, and if we fail... well, given our destination, we're probably going to be stuck somewhere fairly unpleasant on top of everything else we'd have to deal with. If anybody has any objections, or wants to stay behind, say so now, and we won't hold it against you."

The silent stares he received from the rest of his team told Angel everything he needed to know about his team's commitment to the task at hand.

None of them might have any definite idea what they could do to Satan when they got down there- or even if what they were about to attempt would make any kind of impact on anything-, but it was better than doing nothing and letting the world be destroyed by the personification of everything they'd always fought to defeat.

"Are we going to do this," Hellboy asked, checking his gun one last time before he fixed his gaze intently on the vampire in front of him, the cold rage at the thought of facing the people who'd murdered his teammates at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence obvious in his eyes, "or are we just going to talk about it?"

"We're doing it," Angel confirmed, before he turned to nod at his team's teleporters. "Let's go; we've got a spell to cast and only a limited amount of time to launch our attack before Satan's expecting us to respond to his offer."

Nodding in response, Leo, Cole, Paige, Spawn, and Raven reached out to take hold of the other members of the team as they triggered their various methods of teleportation, Spawn and Raven's cloaks spreading out to envelop their assigned 'passengers' while the other three merely shimmered into light...

---

As they arrived outside the remains of Halliwell Manor, Paige tried not to show too much emotion at the sight of the building that had become her home lying demolished around them; it was bad enough that she had to live through it, she didn't need to see it too (Particularly since the brief glimpse she accidentally caught of an arm out of the corner of her eye made it obvious that nobody had moved her sisters' bodies yet).

"It's upstairs," she said, awkwardly indicating the remnants of the stairs leading up to the attic, before an ominous creaking sound prompted her to glance apprehensively at the damaged ceiling. "That is, unless the part of the floor it was on fell down already; there's really no way to know what's still standing after the kind of beating we took earlier..."

"I'll scout around, see what I can find; I'm not much use if things get into a fight here, and I can't make anything fall down if something bad happens up there," Deadman added, flying up towards the ceiling as he vanished through the wood.

"Right," Angel said, drawing his sword as he looked around at the others, "Willow, Paige, Spawn, you and the teleporters get to work on preparing the portal; everyone else, fan out around the building and establish a defence perimeter-"

"Isn't that a little sodding optimistic?" Spike interjected, raising a hand as he glared at Angel. "I mean, hate to sound like a cynic, but if we're dealing with Satan here-"

"Anything we can to do establish some kind of means of slowing him down when he shows up can't hurt our chances," Angel said resolutely. "With time the way it is, any kind of barrier we can set up might make the difference between success and failure when we start preparing that spell; just because we don't think it will do much good doesn't mean we can't try."

"Can't fault that logic, anyway," Constantine said, checking his Holy Shotgun's ammunition before he headed off towards the nearest door, the rest of the group heading off to other parts of the house as Angel, Paige and Hellboy stood around Willow and Spawn. The large red-skinned demon hadn't liked the thought of waiting behind when the greatest potential for a fight was outside the house, particularly given his own strength level, but if anyone came to the Manor before they were ready, keeping Hellboy inside was the best way to stop anyone registering that he was there; Johnny Blaze had also agreed to remain in human form until the fighting started to avoid attracting more attention than they needed, despite the potential risk if he was caught off-guard.

"On the bright side," Deadman said, drifting back down from the ceiling to join the small group in the middle of the manor's remains a few moments after the rest of the group had left the building, "everything seems to be intact up there; I wouldn't want to stay longer than I had to if you're sending someone up there, but if I was right about what sword in a stone's Excalibur, should be safe enough to orb it down here."

"Well, we don't have an abundance of that kinda thing in storage, so I'll assume you're right," Paige said, smiling slightly at the ghost as she waved her hand. "Excalibur!"

As soon as she'd spoken, a burst of white lights flowed down from the ceiling to settle in front of the group of six, coming together to form a large rock with a simple sword sticking into the side of it, a brown handgrip with a golden hilt at the end of a simple metal blade.

"Anything we should know about this thing before we start trying to use it?" Spawn asked, glancing inquiringly over at Paige.

"Well, I'm not sure if anyone can actually pull it out of the stone right now- Wyatt was meant to be the guy who was destined to wield it when he grew up and Piper was the new 'Lady of the Lake' after the original was killed before we got custody of it; according to the old Lady, anyone else who tried to wield it would get corrupted by its potential to conquer if they could get it out in the first place-, but it should be able to be that 'focus' you said you needed; it's pure enough on its own from what I've seen," Paige said, looking over at Willow with a slight shrug. "Sorry I can't give you any better news..."

"It's fine," Willow said, nodding at Paige with a reassuring smile. "Like you said, the sword itself is intended to be used for a pure purpose, which is the main thing I need for charging a spell like this; since we're not actually going to be using it, I don't think we'll have a problem with... the other stuff."

As Willow turned her attention back to the spell at hand, Angel made a mental note to adjust his plan regarding his brief speculation about using Excalibur as more than the conduit for Willow's energy. He didn't know Paige that well, but after everything Leo and Cole had told him about her capabilities as a witch, he trusted her judgement enough to be fairly certain that she was telling the truth about the side-effects of sing that sword if you weren't its destined wielder.

Great... Angel reflected to himself, looking at the sword with a slightly frustrated glare as he took in what he'd just learned. We find one of the most legendary weapons in the world, and we can't even use it.

He still believed that his previously-conceived plan was the best chance he had of stopping Stan's conquest of this Earth and the planned reign of terror he was intending to unleash on the multiverse, but that didn't mean that he couldn't wish they had a few extra tools available for when the real action started...

"You OK, boss?" Hellboy said, the large red demon walking over to stand beside Angel.

"Yeah, I'm fine; just... apprehensive, I guess," Angel said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked at the rubble around him. "I mean, we're going up against a guy who can do this, with pretty much everything in existence at stake, and... well, what are we but a bunch of demons who got stuck together to keep some guys occupied while some paranoid archangel killed a baby?"

Noting Hellboy's indignant glare, Angel raised his hands in a halting gesture. "I know that we've become more than that- we've definitely pulled off a few interesting saves since we started working together on a full-time basis-, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm basically taking a bunch of reformed demons into Hell to try and turn the tables on the guy who basically created us; I think I'm entitled to be a bit worried..."

"Yeah, you're entitled; take an idiot not to be scared right now," Hellboy said, slipping his gun back into its holster as he looked at the vampire. "Let me ask you something, Angel; you ever wondered why I take orders from you?"

"Uh... well, you never objected to me taking charge when we first came together..." Angel said, suddenly feeling awkward; when he actually verbalised his thoughts on the issue of Hellboy taking orders, he realised that he'd taken the demon's willingness to be part of a team for granted.

"Yeah, I didn't," Hellboy said, his gaze resolute as he looked at Angel. "Look, I'm not one for speeches, so I'll just come out and say it; I took orders from you- and even took time off from the Bureau to take them- because you were worth taking orders from."

"Really?" Angel said, looking at Hellboy in surprise.

"The guys I work with at the Bureau are fine, but ever since my father died everyone in charge back there's been prats at best; always about giving orders to put me in situations that the paper-pushing bastards're never going to deal with themselves," Hellboy clarified with a dismissive shrug. "You, on the other hand- and as you can see, I got a pretty good other hand- know what it's like out there, know what it takes to get through this kind of crap, and don't give a shit about playing 'nice' with official paperwork or regulations so long as the job gets done."

"You know, under normal circumstance, I do prefer us to avoid attracting more attention than we have to..." Angel began.

"Hey, I'm pretty good with that too," Hellboy, nodding at Angel in a brief confirming manner. "My point is, you tell me everything up-front and don't just give me what you think I need to know to pull it off; like everyone else here, I'm part of a team that's accomplishing something good, and I'm treated as just part of the group rather than the guy you only bring in when you need me. You give the orders because we know you can give good ones, and we obey you because we trust you'll see us through whatever crap we're up against; stakes might be higher now, but that just means we need that bit more faith in you."

Despite the still-grim situation they were facing, Angel smiled back at the large red demon.

"Thanks," he said.

"I try," Hellboy replied.

Angel was turning around to ask how much longer Willow and Paige were going to take preparing their spell when the sound of what was probably not a 'conventional' thunderclap resounded throughout the mansion, followed by a powerful sensation in Angel's brain that something profoundly evil had just appeared outside.

"Shit; he's here," Hellboy said, voicing Angel's own thoughts as he looked back at the two witches and the armour-clad ex-black-ops operative. "Don't suppose you're done yet, huh?"

"Just need a few more minutes..." Willow muttered, her gaze fixed on a point between her and Paige, just a few inches above Excalibur, where a small orange-black hole was beginning to appear, Spawn's armour occasionally shooting bursts of green energy at the portal that served to make it gradually larger. "We've got the where; we just need to ensure that we've got the when..."

"Well then," Hellboy said, raising his gun as he looked at Angel with a smile, "shall we go and see if our 'guest' is in the mood for a chat?"

Drawing his sword, Angel smiled slightly at Hellboy before his gaze returned to the others.

"We'll try and buy you what time we can out there," he said. "Just focus on the spell and let us know when you're ready."

"Sure thing," Spawn practically grunted, his concentration focused on maintaining the portal before them.

As Angel and Hellboy emerged from the manor, Angel was only slightly surprised to see Danny, Raven and the now-transformed Ghost Rider were standing in front of the others, their hands outstretched and supporting a massive barrier of flaming green and black energy. Judging by the sound of things hitting the other side of the barrier- along with the slight 'ripples' Angel could see being generated by the impacts on this side-, Satan had brought a few associates along to help him out in his attempt to 'recruit' the Coven to his side, but right now Angel had more immediate issues to worry about than that.

"Everything OK?" he asked, as he and Hellboy hurried over to join their teammates.

"Been better, but I've been a hell of a lot worse too; why?" Blue Devil asked, smiling over at the vampire in a manner that was probably intended to be more nonchalant than it appeared.

"Just checking," Angel said, before he turned his attention back to the barrier in front of them. "Satan!"

With that call, the assault died down, leaving the two children and former biker to lower their barrier as the black-clad form of Satan stood nonchalantly in front of a large group of assorted demons and warlocks, various energy attacks and weapons obvious in their hands as he stared at his opponents.

"So, Angel," he said, looking nonchalantly at the vampire as he walked up to the original location of the barrier, "have you considered my offer yet?"

"No offence, but attacking us right off the bat isn't exactly the best way to win me over..." Angel pointed out.

"Oh, that was just a show of strength; you weren't in any actual danger, I assure you, I just wanted to make sure you knew that you were siding with the winning team when you made your choice," Satan said, smiling slightly at the Coven members before his eyes narrowed. "Well, the time I gave you is up; will you take my offer?"

A last glance at his teammates was all that Angel needed to confirm that the rest of his team were in total agreement with him about their next course of action.

"You want our answer?" the vampire said, his grip tightening on his sword as he and his teammates glared at Satan. "Here's our answer; we'll never join you."

For a moment, Satan simply stared at the vampire who'd gone by the name of Liam when he was alive, until he sighed dejectedly.

"You know," he said, shaking his head in an exaggerated sense of disappointment, "you just keep disappointing me..."

"Y'know, we've made careers out of disappointing your kind of people; why should that change just because you 'won'?" Danny interjected, his hands blaring with brilliant green energy as he glared at their latest opponent. "You killed practically everyone we ever cared about; you really think we're going to just sit back and take that?"

"Well, I'd think that you would be more... inclined to my way of thinking, Mr Fenton," Satan said, looking at him with a slight smile. "After all, you already did go that way in one timeline-"

"What he did in another version of history doesn't count; what matters is what he does in this one," Raven said, her gaze solemn as she looked at the powerful demon. "We've all made mistakes, but we're not going to repeat them just because it looks like we don't have a choice; we might not be human, but we don't have to live like demons just because we're partly demonic -"

"You don't 'have' to live like demons?" Satan repeated, rolling his eyes as he looked at Raven. "You cannot go from one side of this particular metaphorical fence to the other and expect to be completely unaffected by it, my dear Raven; you will always be affected by your demonic heritage-"

"We are influenced by our paths, Satan; that does not mean that we have to be defined by them," the Ghost Rider said, the flames around his head briefly intensifying as he stared at their foe. "We have stumbled on the path at times, but what we are does not define who we are and what we do."

"He's right," Blade said, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he tightened his grip on his sword. "We're not perfect, but we'll never give up trying to stop anyone else going through what we went through-"

"Why?" Satan yelled, laughing almost sarcastically at the small Coven in front of him. "You've already lost; there's nothing you can do to stop me-!"

"Like I said months ago," Angel said, his eyes narrowing as he flexed his fingers over the sword handle in his hands, "the people who don't care about anything... will never understand the people who do."

"In other words," Deadman said, floating over to stand beside Angel as he extended one arm forward to give Satan the finger, "get lost and stop trying to understand what you'll never get, you prat."

It was unquestionably the tone of Deadman's voice that prompted such a violent reaction from Satan for such a minor insult. As soon as the last syllable had passed Deadman's lips, Satan's forces had once again resumed their previous attack, leaving the Coven with no other choice but to re-erect their barriers and grit their teeth against the barrage.

"PAIGE!" Leo called back into the manor as the rest of his allies prepared for the inevitable fight that would ensue once those maintaining their makeshift barrier ran out of power to do so. "We're running out of time here; we need to get that portal up and running NOW!"

"Working on it!" Paige called back. "We just need a few more minutes-!"

"We can barely give you ONE minute-!" the former army medic began to yell.

Before he could say any more, the world around the Coven suddenly seemed to stop, the pressure on the barrier that they had erected ceasing along with the sound of the previously-attacking demons.

"Huh?" Spike said, looking around at his teammates in confusion. "What the Hell just happened?"

"I just gave you the time you needed... along with a few other things, of course," a voice said.

Spinning around, the Coven found themselves staring at a figure dressed in a light purple-coloured robe with blue skin and red eyes, his appearance shifting between a young child, a well-built adult, and an old figure with a long white beard, a long staff in his hand with a claw-like shape with a clock in between the two parts on one end, smiling at them in a reassuring manner.

"What the... Clockwork?" Danny said, looking in surprise at the figure.

"You know this guy?" Faith asked, voicing the thoughts of the rest of the Coven as they looked at their new teammate.

"Yeah, he's like the 'Ghost Master of Time' or something like that; I met him during this thing where he set up this whole thing where I'd be able to stop a timeline where I'd become a destructive psycho after my family were killed because I screwed up..." the teenage ghost replied, before he shook his head in exasperation as he looked at Clockwork. "That's not important right now; what the Hell are you doing here, you're-?"

"A bit late to help you save anyone?" Clockwork finished for Danny, a solemn expression on his face as he addressed the young boy. "I apologise about that, but I had no advance warning; Satan is one of the few beings in this world capable of concealing himself from my sight, and now that he has achieved full power he is too strong for me to confront him directly even if I was permitted to do so-"

"OK, can we get past the bit where you talk about what you can't do and focus on what you can do?" Dante said, shaking his head in exasperation as he looked at the ghost. "I mean, if you just came here to give us time to catch our breath, as much as we appreciate the rest-"

"I can focus the time spell you were planning on using so that you reach your target date now," Clockwork replied, looking over at Willow and Paige. "It would have worked on its own, I assure you- you had already 'aimed' it for the correct dimensional location despite the odds; you shall arrive on the barrier between Hell and Purgatory-, but it will have taken more time than you currently have available to you; with the damage Satan's presence on this Earth is causing the fabric of the multiverse, every second that you can spare is vital."

"So... does that mean this plan'll pay off?" Danny asked, looking slightly apprehensively at the time-controlling ghost. "I mean, I get that you probably can't know what's going to happen if all that stuff you said about Satan's true, but-"

"You have a chance," Clockwork said simply.

After a moment's silence as the Coven looked expectantly at the new arrival, Blue Devil shrugged.

"Well, anything that gives us an extra shot at victory in a mess like this is good with me," he said at last, looking grimly over at his new teammates. "Let's get on with it."

"Of course," Clockwork said, pointing his clock-headed staff at the small portal that Willow, Spawn and Paige had already generated, shooting a quick burst of blue energy into the swirling vortex that made it grow even larger and more defined around the edges than it had been before.

"Is that-?" Spike began.

"Secure and stable, as far as we can tell," Willow said, Paige and Spawn nodding in confirmation of the red-haired witch's assessment of their creation.

"That simple?" Deadman said, smiling in approval at the enlarged portal. "Nice..."

"Thank you," Clockwork said, before he moved back slightly so that he could more easily address the entire Coven. "Good luck down there, Coven of Reformed Supernaturals; the foes you are about to face will not fall easily, but you will have more allies down there than even you could expect."

"We'll... keep that in mind," Angel said, nodding briefly at Clockwork before he turned back to address his team. "Is everybody ready?"

"I shall weave a crown from Satan's spine," Illyria said solemnly.

"Bit more elaborate than what I was thinking, but the sentiment's sound enough," Eric added with a slight smile, his crow landing on his shoulder as he looked at his team. "Let's rock!"

As though the immortal ex-singer's words had been a cue, the Coven all dived through the portal, Clockwork fading away back into his realm as time started up again...

Satan barely had time to register that the Coven had gone before he ceased to exist in the state that he had existed in previously.

From outside of time, one of the most powerful ghosts in existence could only sit and wait to see how things would unfold from here on in...

Chapter 8: Recruiting from Purgatory

As he emerged from the other side of the portal they'd created, the rest of the Coven only a short distance behind him, Angel quickly took in the immediate details of the sight in front of them.

The portal had apparently taken them to the end of a long metal bridge over what could best be described as a flaming sea, leading up to a massive fortress-like structure or wall at the other end, illuminated by a persistent red glow that Angel would have recognised as hellfire even without his own personal experience. Behind the area where the portal had opened was another large wall, with two large demons standing on either side of a massive door that seemed to be almost the size of the Wolfram & Hart building, which looked briefly at him before turning away as though he wasn't relevant.

Angel didn't bother to try and ask them what they were doing here; judging by the fact that the fires behind the fortress-like structure seemed to give a pretty clear indication that Hell was at the other end of this bridge. Assuming that his religious background was accurate, he felt relatively comfortable in assuming that the door immediately behind him led to either Heaven or Purgatory- most likely Purgatory judging by the somewhat barren nature of the door; he liked to think that the entrance to Heaven would look more pleasant than this-, but what that meant for their chances to gain access to the fortress before him he didn't know...

"Whoa..." a voice said from behind Angel. For a moment, Angel thought that one of the demons had responded to his presence, but then he turned around and realised that it was just Danny, the half-ghost floating alongside Deadman as they took in their surroundings.

"Impressive," Jason Blood said as he took up position alongside the vampire, Hellboy and Spawn joining them. "We hit the outskirts of Pandemonium."

"The capital city of Hell?" Hellboy asked, looking over at Jason inquiringly. "How'd you know that?"

"Etrigan was one of the higher-ranking demon lords of Hell," Jason replied, looking grimly over at Hellboy. "From what I understand of your history you were conceived and kept in 'stasis' until Rasputin brought you to Earth, so you left when you were too young to remember anything about this life, but Etrigan was raised in Hell until Merlin bonded him to me; I assure you, his knowledge of this place might be out-of-date, but it's accurate enough."

"Doesn't look much like the Hell I encountered when I snuffed it," Spawn muttered, glancing grimly at the city before them. "Lot more organised, for one thing; all I had were a bunch of floating rocks going pretty much wherever they wanted with a bunch of people yelling at me from them..."

"Yeah, the Hell I encountered didn't really look like this either," Cole added as he emerged from the portal, "but at least in my case there's a possible explanation; I didn't exactly go to a place where souls are found on a regular basis."

"Oh yeah, that 'Wasteland' place where your class of demon goes when it dies, right?" Spike said, glancing over at the current Goldlighter. "So, what; demons don't get the same afterlife as us souled sods?"

"Or at least they don't go to the same area under normal circumstances," Angel said, his grim expression enough to convince even Spike to remain silent for a few moments at the brief flash of pain in his grand-sire's eyes at the memory of his own experience in Hell.

"So," Dante asked, shrugging slightly as he took in the area around them while checking over his weapons, the portal behind them discharging the last members of their small strike force before it closed, "what's the plan? Storm the gates and kick some ass until we get to wherever Satan stays in there?"

"There's that," a new voice suddenly said, prompting the Coven to spin around in surprise at the source of the voice. Standing at the door that Angel had noticed upon his arrival, now slightly opened- although the two demons on either side of the door didn't appear to be that interested in him; Angel supposed that they weren't that bothered about anyone trying to get out of purgatory in this direction-, was a tall, well-built man with a well-developed physique, dressed in a simple black shirt and jacket, a large bag apparently filled with various guns alongside him.

"Alternatively," the new arrival replied, shrugging slightly as he looked at the group before him, a nonchalant expression on his face, "you could wait until the guys who know where we're going get here to help show you the way."

"Huh?" Constantine said, looking in confusion at the well-built man in front of them. "Sorry to be rude, but... who the Hell are you?"

"Jericho Caine; let's just say that a... stranger... of our mutual acquaintance popped in recently and told me that I should expect you," the man replied, nodding at the Coven with a slightly polite smile that was let down by the vaguely haunted look in his eyes that was obviously inspired by the current topic of discussion. "I had a crisis of faith while I was alive- along with a willingness to defend people who were basically scumbags- that would have prompted most people to stick me in there-" he indicated the walled city in front of them with the hand carrying the bag, "-but some stuff I did when I was still alive was enough to get me 'reassigned' to here rather than there."

"Ah," Spawn said, looking the other man over for a few moments before he decided to ask the obvious question. "What... 'stuff' would that be?"

"I prevented the Devil from conceiving the AntiChrist at the turn of the millennium and conquering my reality by destroying his host and killing myself when he tried to use me instead," Caine clarified, the statement delivered as though he was simply revealing what the weather had been like the day before.

"That'd do it," Constantine said, smiling at the other man with an approving nod (Clearly, nobody present saw any reason to assume that Caine was being anything less than truthful; what would be the point in lying about something like that in Hell?). "Welcome to the club."

"Glad to be here" Caine replied, before he indicated the door behind him. "Oh, and I've got one or two other friends willing to help out if you're interested; they're not exactly perfect- and I can't bring much more than a few or... well, the guy who told me you were coming just said that 'the wrong people might notice'-, but they get the job done."

"Not like we're perfect ourselves," Blade added, smiling slightly grimly at the other man (He might find this supernatural shit weird, but he knew enough to know willing help on this kind of mission was a plus no matter who it was). "You want to bring anyone else in, we're not gonna say no to it; more the better in a situation like this."

"Right then," Caine said, smiling slightly before he turned around to open the door further. "Come along; they're ready for you."

With that instruction, three other people walked out of the door, looking casually at the group of people in front of them, followed by another two who slightly hung back from the previous group, only for their efforts to maintain an apparently low profile being quickly ended when the Coven's original eight members recognised one of them.

"Batman?" Leo yelled, voicing the thoughts of his teammates as the partially-decayed form of the vampiric superhero came into full view as he emerged from the door to Purgatory, a grim expression on his dried-out face as he looked at his former teammates.

"Yes, Leo... it's me," the former Dark Knight said, his tone solemn as he looked at the varying degree of smiles on his teammates. "Turns out that the fact that I killed people wasn't quite enough to send me all the way to Hell..."

"You only ever killed people who would have killed others, Bruce," Angel said, walking forward to clasp the Dracula-class vampire by the hand with a reassuring smile; he might not be a conventional vampire by any standard, but that didn't mean he hadn't missed his friend. "You're not perfect, but that doesn't mean you deserved Hell; it just meant that you made mistakes."

"Serious mistakes..." Batman muttered grimly, only to be hit in the back of the head by a slight slap from an arm covered in what looked like purple fur.

"Knock it off, will you?" a female voice said, the slight purr to her tone obvious even before the speaker emerged from the shadows behind Batman to reveal herself to be a purple cat-like creature, apparently naked apart from the fur, long black hair around her head interrupted only by the points of two large cat-like ears. "I keep telling you, I'm still fairly sure that half the reason we're here is what we are as creatures rather than what we did; it's not like I didn't make a few legally-questionable calls while I was human-"

"Would your name be... Selina Kyle?" Illyria suddenly interrupted, looking piercingly at the other woman as she stepped forward.

"What?" the cat-woman said, looking back at Illyria in surprise. "How...?"

"The body that I dwell in dated a 'fan' of the comics chronicling our former teammate's... adventures," Illyria clarified, a slight smile on her face at Fred's old memories as she indicated the woman's appearance. "Your current form is naturally not the same as the costume your counterpart wears in those stories, but the similarities are... suggestive."

"Oh yes; he told me about those 'comics' about him when he came here..." the woman Angel assumed he had to think of as 'Selina' said, her subsequent smile exposing sharp white teeth.

"Hold on a minute here; you guys know Batman?" Danny said, his eyes wide as he looked around at his new allies.

"An alternate version of the Batman you are acquainted with from the comics of your world," Batman clarified, looking solemnly over at the half-ghost. "In my world, I became a vampire to save Gotham from an army of vampires lead by Dracula himself, but... my thirst proved to be too great a foe for me to overcome-"

"But you did retain enough control to focus on your enemies rather than just attacking anyone who was in the area," Angel interrupted, looking resolutely at the Dark Knight as he spoke. "If you were the monster you're convinced you are, Bruce, you would have just gone off and started killing everyone indiscriminately; the fact that you even tried to resist your thirst and use it in an even remotely positive manner says enough about who you are for me."

Even if Bruce's expression remained grim after Angel's attempt to compliment his old teammate, the corners of his mouth seemed to turn upwards in a slightly appreciative smile- it seemed that way, anyway; the state of decay that the other vampire had experienced before he'd joined them apparently hadn't been 'repaired' once he arrived in Hell, although Angel was guessing that this was more psychological than anything else-, and that was enough for Angel given the circumstances.

"OK, so that's three of you introduced; what about the rest of you?" Dante asked, looking inquiringly over at the others.

"Captain Jack Sparrow, former Pirate Lord of the Caribbean sea," the new arrival dressed in distinctively seventeenth-century-pirate attire replied, smiling at the group despite a slight sway in his step as he walked. "Good to meet you all, mates."

"Great," Spike muttered, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "We've got a drunk on our team..."

Further comments that Spike might have made were cut off when Jack pulled out his sword and made a series of complicated movements around Spike's head, the tip of his blade practically whistling around Spike's face before pausing with the tip of the blade directly in front of the vampire's nose.

"You were saying, mate?" Captain Sparrow asked.

"Uh... welcome aboard?" Spike said, giving the pirate an awkward smile.

"Thank you," Sparrow said, smiling briefly at the vampire before he slid his sword back into his belt.

"And... you are?" Dante asked, smiling slightly as he took in the appearance of the next man along, this man possessing a high forehead and a receding hairline while wearing black trousers and a long leather coat.

"Lucian," the man replied, with a clear, strong, slightly British accent despite his attire resembling something that Angel would have expected to see at a punk rock concert. "Leader of the Lycans."

"Lycans?" Jason said, looking at Lucian in surprise. "As in... lycanthropes?"

"Not quite the kind that you are familiar with from your world, Jason Blood- from what I have seen of your realm in... this place... your lyans possess no control over their transformations save in specific circumstances, whereas I and my brethren are merely more ruthless rather than actually being feral-, but you are essentially correct, yes," Lucian replied with a brief nod.

"So... you're a werewolf who can control himself when he's a wolf, right?" Constantine asked, raising his eyebrow with a slight edge of apprehension in his eyes as he studied the other man.

"To a degree, yes," Lucian confirmed with a nod. "I am obviously more ruthless in my lycan form, to say nothing of being significantly stronger, but I will not randomly attack others unprovoked, if that is your concern; I retain my human mind in both forms and can make rational choices whatever I look like, although I am naturally more... brutal... in my lycan state than I would be as I am."

"If you can get the job done, that's enough for me; we can work with anything else later," Angel said, nodding at Lucian in approval before he turned to the last figure. "And you are...?" he began, only to trail off as he took in the sixth new arrival in surprise.

"Hey," the blond-haired man said, nodding at the vampire with a slightly sheepish grin before his gaze flicked over to Johnny Blaze as he stepped forward, his resemblance to the Ghost Rider's human form swiftly becoming obvious to everyone around him. "John Milton; I got sent to Hell for various crimes I'd committed to support my family, but I broke out to save my baby granddaughter from being sacrificed to some deranged cult, and the lengths I went to for somebody else- coupled with my willingness to come back here- were enough to get me transferred here..."

"Uh... right," Blaze said, nodding slightly awkwardly at the other man who shared his face, the two men simply staring silently at each other for a few moments before the motorcyclist spoke again. "Look... not meaning to sound self-centred here, but... well, could we be...?"

"Related?" Milton finished with a shrug. "Could be; I lost track of most of my family after I went on the road when I was younger, and I never really knew my father's side of the family even before that shit happened..."

"And I was pretty much on the road for the duration of my childhood; maybe you're a... cousin or something..." Blaze said uncertainly.

"Or a half-brother?" Spike added with a shrug.

"Pardon?" Johnny said, turning to look sharply at Spike.

"Well, as you said, your dad was on the road a lot; maybe he-" Spike began.

"Let's... not get into that, OK?" Danny asked, holding up both hands in a halting gesture as he looked awkwardly around at his teammates. "I'm having enough trouble dealing with this whole mess as it is without wasting time figuring out why two of our teammates look alike, no matter how freaky it is-"

"OK, hold on; you're on a team with three different types of vampire, a couple of witches, guys who've been bonded to demons, a demon who was brought here by the Nazis to destroy us, and a former god, and the fact that two of our guys look alike is what you define as 'freaky'?" Deadman asked.

"Hey, if you don't focus on the conventionally strange stuff, you'll just go nuts," Danny said, looking back at his fellow ghost with a shrug.

"Good attitude," Caine said, nodding in approval at Danny. "It's what I did when I found myself dealing with the supernatural, anyway; I focused on what I had to do without worrying too much about why I was doing it."

"Look at it this way," Faith added, shrugging as she shot the teenage boy a brief smile. "Gives you something to figure out when we get out of here."

The vampire slayer's attempt to encourage optimism might have been basic, but the 'halfa' clearly appreciated it nevertheless; in a situation like this, they all needed every bonus that they could get.

"So," Captain Sparrow asked, looking over inquiringly at Angel, "what's the plan here, gents?"

"We're breaking into Hell to try and kill Satan before he can start the Apocalypse, Captain Sparrow," Angel replied. "Anything else... well, we'll work that out when we get there."

"Fair 'nough," Sparrow replied, before he smiled approvingly at Angel. "And thank you for remembering the 'Captain'; always hate it when people forget that part."

"No problem," Angel said, before he turned to look at the Coven's current 'heavy hitters', indicating the stone bridge leading up to the main gates of the walled city before them. "Anyway, now that we've got the immediate introductions out of the way, Hellboy, Spawn, would you care to knock?"

Smiling in approval at the request, the former black ops assassin and the only government-employed demon began to walk along the bridge, the rest of the Coven behind them as they studied their surroundings. The flaming 'river' below them was definitely unnerving, but at the same time it wasn't anything that those present hadn't been expecting, and even the secure door in front of them wasn't that bad; the 'ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE' above it was depressing, but at the same time it was almost to be expected.

"Big, ain't it?" Hellboy commented, smiling slightly as he looked at the door in front of him; he was the tallest member of the Coven present and this thing looked like it was at least ten times his height.

"The bigger it is, the harder it is to get through, I suppose," Dante said, shrugging nonchalantly before he turned to face Hellboy directly as he waved impatiently at the door. "Well, are you going to open it or not?"

Hellboy didn't bother responding to the part-demon's query. After exchanging glances with Spawn, the two walked up to stand on either side of the door, drew back their right fists- Spawn's armour generating some additional mass around his arm to provide himself with that extra boost- and then thrust their arms forward in two powerful punches, shattering the door on both sides and sending the two large pieces of wood flying into the large courtyard on the other side.

"Knock knock," Spike said, a smirk on his face that was so casual only Angel's long experience with Spike allowed him to interpret as a mask for the near-blinding terror the other vampire felt at the moment.

Planning to break into Hell was one thing, but actually doing it...

They were definitely in trouble right now.

Chapter 9: The First Circle of Hell

As he took in the sight that awaited them on the other side of the door they'd just broken down, Angel tried not to wince at the sound of screams that now reached his ears; even knowing that some of the people here had probably deserved what happened to them didn't change the fact that he knew there were also some good people here who'd just made bad choices at certain times.

The entire courtyard before them was filled with all kinds of torture implements, ranging from racks and iron maidens to elaborate 'torture machines' covered with various instruments, ranging from straightforward knives and whips to what Angel assumed were vats of acid- some of these last were connected up to tables with needles pointing at them, most likely to inject the acid into the victims' bodies- and the conventional fiery pits, people practically lined up near the various implements as stereotypical demons- red skin, horns, and goat-like feet- used the machinery on them, broad, sadistic grins on their faces making it clear that they enjoyed their work. There were simplistic buildings and walls in a few parts of the courtyard, but even a quick glance confirmed that the habitats in question hadn't been designed with anything more than basic accommodation in mind.

"Hi there," Faith said, waving at the vast array of demons in front of them with a casual smirk as the torturers and their victims stopped their routines and turned to look at the new arrivals. "We're the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals, and we're here to kick Satan's ass; anyone got a problem with that?"

Angel wasn't sure if he wished that Faith had been less blunt or was grateful that she had decided to get the obvious details out of the way first; he'd never kidded himself into thinking that they could just sneak into Hell, but he'd wondered if they'd at least have the opportunity to try and get through the first few stages without having to deal with whatever demons were in here...

As the torturers abandoned their work to charge towards the Coven, thoughts on their ability to use stealth in this situation were pushed aside in favour of the immediate task of survival. Drawing his sword, Angel neatly decapitated the first attacking demon, the rest of the Coven flying into action as though they had just been waiting for their leader's cue. As gunshots and energy blasts filled the air around the combatants- Angel just hoped that Blade, Dante and Hellboy had enough ammunition for what they were up again, although he was fairly sure that Blaze, Milton and Caine wouldn't have to worry about reloading given that their guns here were probably manifestations of their will rather than actual physical weapons-, the rest of the Coven lashed out with physical assaults, swords and fists flying as they tore through the first wave of demons.

Angel wasn't sure if he should be concerned about the obvious glee on the demons' faces as they tried to claim the Coven, but after he'd killed what he thought was his seventh adversary he stopped thinking about it too much; these things might look intimidating to the layman, but clearly they weren't expecting anyone to actually try and fight back against them once they arrived here. Paige and Leo were actually causing the demons' skin to burn just by coming into physical contact with them, and some of his stronger teammates, such as Hellboy, Illyria and Spawn, were managing to shatter the demons' skulls with a few well-placed punches, while the rest were making relatively quick work of their own enemies. Angel even saw a few of the former torture victims turn on their former torturers as the fighting continued, their seemingly broken spirits rallied by the opportunity to fight back against the demons who had tormented them for so long.

"Oh yeah!" Spike yelled, spinning his sword around himself as he slashed out at the approaching demons; those that weren't killed by the attack were knocked back into their previous victims, who took advantage of their weakness with an almost disturbing glee. "Now this is what I'm talking about!"

"They are simple adversaries, but it is inordinately satisfying to eliminate them," Illyria said, grinning as she kicked out at the nearest demon, seemingly flattening whatever it had in the way of ribs with the force of its punch.

"Tell me about it," Blue Devil added, as he blasted a couple of attacking demons with his staff. "Always good to have something to hit after all this crap we've been dealing with for the last few hours..."

"Oh yeah!" Danny added, shooting a few quick ghost rays at the demons nearest him (Angel noted the ghost-boy wince slightly at the sight of his enemies being blown apart like that, but to his credit he continued the fight despite that; he might be more used to fighting ghosts rather than physical enemies, but the fact that the demons were so blatantly not human probably helped the kid cope with this more physical style of violence). "Take that, you... freaky horn guys!"

"Less talking, more blasting!" Spawn yelled, launching a few of his chains to impale the immediately surrounding demons through the chest, the spikes on the chains expanding outwards to virtually rip the demons apart from the inside.

"OK, as fun as this is, does anyone see any way to stop these guys coming at us?" Dante asked, rapidly alternating between his sword and his gun as he blasted away at the surrounding demons. "We're not exactly going to get anywhere if we're stuck fighting the minions-!"

Before Dante could finish his sentence, the various demons around them paused in their assault and turned to look in a certain direction, as though they had just heard something that drew their attention away from the matter at hand. For a moment the Coven tensed, ready for whatever their enemies might do next, but then the entire demon 'army' turned and ran towards the buildings around them, slamming the doors behind them and leaving the Coven alone with their former victims.

"Am I the only one thinking that that was too easy?" Paige asked, looking apprehensively around herself.

"They probably just decided to save on sending minions after us so that they could get a better idea about what it would take to bring us down," Cole pointed out with a grim smirk. "After all, it's not like anyone would really feel a need to stop anyone breaking into Hell; who'd be dumb enough to try something like this under normal circumstances?"

"It's like Man in the Iron Mask; 'Of course, there's no trouble getting in. The problems will come when we want to get out'!" Danny added, the broad smile on his face belying the obvious terror in his eyes at the thought of what they might be about to face.

"Crude, but pretty accurate, yeah," Angel confirmed, before he turned his attention to the group of tormented souls around them.

"OK..." he said, looking awkwardly at the former victims of the demons' torments- from his own experience of Hell, he wasn't sure how much of their sanity would remain intact, but he had to try-, "as Faith said, we're looking for Satan; can anyone... direct us to...?"

The shaken expressions on the faces of everyone around him made it clear that he wasn't going to get anything out of the people around them; the initial thrill they'd felt at rebelling against their masters had probably been more than could be expected from most of the people before them, particularly after everything else that they must have gone through before the Coven arrived.

"Uh... moving on?" Deadman asked, looking awkwardly at the vampire.

"Yeah... probably should," Angel admitted, nodding awkwardly at the ghost before he turned around and began to walk down the 'street' before him, the rest of the Coven quickly falling into place behind him.

"So..." Faith said after a brief pause, looking uncertainly around herself, "what'd people do to end up here?"

"Probably nothing major; most likely they just did a few questionable things that they subconsciously felt they should be punished for more than they were up on Earth," Jason said, shrugging slightly as he looked back at the dark Slayer. "The problem with Hell, Miss Lehane, is that it was primarily shaped by the desires and expectations of the people who came here; some particularly religious or moral people only come here because they feel they should come here."

"Hold on; Hell's based on accepting people who feel they should be in it?" Blue Devil asked, looking indignantly upwards. "Someone really needs to re-think this system..."

"No, you're generally allocated to an appropriate division based on your actions in life," Dante added. "They'd only let people in under those circumstances Blood described if the person really feels a personal need to be punished for something even if others think otherwise, and they'll let you off after a bit anyway; you just need to reach a point where you feel you've suffered enough based on whatever it was that you did-"

"And what about if you committed atrocities for what you think were good reasons and everybody else regards as evil?" Spawn put in, looking grimly over at the half-demon. "Does self-perception count then?"

"Not if the actions you committed were bad enough, no," Leo said, shaking his head as he looked at Spawn. "That's one reason Cogliostro was able to escape Hell's 'radar' before you met him, really; you'd both committed questionable actions, but you were both already doubting that you'd done the right thing before you even went to Hell, so it didn't have as great a claim on you as it might have done because you both wanted to be more than a demon where it really counted."

"Ah," Spawn said, walking along in contemplative silence for a short while before he smiled grimly. "Good to know..."

"Encountered a few bad eggs when you were alive, I take it?" Cole asked.

"More than the occasional terrorist who used religious crap to justify what he was up to, anyway," Spawn confirmed.

"You ran into terrorists?" Batman asked, looking over at Spawn uncertainly. "Who... what... were you in life?"

"Black ops assassin," Spawn clarified, looking grimly back at his predecessor (The Coven had never really talked much about Batman- he'd been on the team for too short a time to really bond with anyone-, but what they hadn't said had been almost as telling as what they had said as far as Cole was concerned).

"Ah," Batman said, before his eyes narrowed in confusion. "But... if what you say is accurate, why were we sent to purgatory?"

"Well, in Caine's case," Leo explained, turning to look at the other man, "he rejected a belief in God and most of your old morals, but he'd probably still have just ended up in this kind of area even if he hadn't died under the circumstances described because he never actually harmed any innocent people; saving the world from the AntiChrist just pushed him to Purgatory."

"So... because I never did anything to someone who wasn't trying to do something to me first- and often do something unpleasant to other people while he was at it-, I get relocated there rather than here?" Captain Jack asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," Leo said, nodding in confirmation at Jack before he looked over at Batman, Catwoman and Lucian. "And as for you three, Catwoman's theory that you were there because of what you were was basically accurate; you've killed people in your transformed states that you wouldn't have killed if you were human, but from what you've told us you never killed anyone who wasn't actually trying to kill you first... or, at least, had already killed others..."

"Guys?" Constantine said, the Holy Shotgun out in front of him as he studied their surroundings. "Might be barking up the wrong tree, but this doesn't look like what we saw earlier..."

Looking at their surroundings, the Coven quickly noted that their resident exorcist had a point. While this area of Hell was still filled with the usual fiery pits and the uncomfortable scent of brimstone, there was also a significant absence of the instruments of torture present when they'd originally arrived here. This new part of Hell was filled with various small buildings, each one a straightforward grey block with a thick-looking wooden door and nothing else around it.

"What's this place?" Hellboy asked, looking uncertainly at their surroundings. "I get that I haven't been here much, but this looks a bit more... comfy than the last bit?"

"Trust me; if anything, this place is worse," Milton said, looking grimly at one of the buildings. "We're in my old section now."

"'Your section'?" Blue Devil repeated, looking at Milton in confusion. "What do you mean, 'your section'?"

"What we went through out there was just for people who did a variety of bad things for no particular reason that just kept adding up; this is where they kept people who did a whole lot of bad things for the sake of it," Milton clarified, looking grimly over at the blue-skinned demon. "We've got your fire and brimstone here, sure... but it's what they show you on the screens inside those rooms that are the worst."

"The screens?" Hellboy asked.

"The screens showing you the family and friends who are still alive up on Earth," Milton explained, grimly indicating one of the constructions around them. "Every time something bad happens to someone you care about... every time your daughter's raped, every time your wife suffers from the tumour in her brain, every time your grandson gets picked on at school... you're stuck in one of those things, forced to watch as it happens, and unable to do anything about it, knowing that you could help while being stuck in a position where you can't actually do anything about it..."

He paused for a moment, a faint trace of what looked like tears in the corner of his eyes as he stared at one of the nearer buildings, before he shook his head and turned to look at Angel. "Trust me, there's no point questioning anyone in those things; all they know about is what their loved ones are up to up on Earth, and that's only if they're going through crap."

"Right..." Angel said, nodding sympathetically at Milton before he turned around to look at the space around them. "So, if you've... 'lived' in this area, where do we go from here?"

"To get to Satan?" Milton said, smiling slightly as he indicated an area in front of them. "Just look there."

"Oh yeah..." Hellboy muttered, his heat-adapted eyes spotting what Milton was indicating before the rest of them.

"Well, at least the guy's ego seems to be about what I've come to expect in this kind of situation," Danny said, shrugging slightly as he glanced back at his new friends while indicating the large castle in front of them, surrounded by even thicker walls and obviously well-defended battlements compared to what they had encountered outside.

"Looks pretty strong," Blade commented, looking grimly over at his teammates. "Guess they're more concerned about people getting into that thing, huh?"

"I broke in once, but I was on my own and I was just trying to recover this weapon from the armoury; given that we're trying for a bigger target, I somehow don't think that's going to help much now," Milton added, shrugging apologetically at his new associates.

"Tell me about it; breaking into somewhere by yourself isn't the same as leading a team into somewhere..." Spawn grimly muttered.

"Well, we're just have to-" Cole began, before the sound of a rock moving nearby prompted them to spin around, Cole raising an energy ball as others drew their various weapons.

After a few seconds of observation, the source of the sound was identified as a small group of tortured souls from the last section, each of them looking around the Coven as though they were searching for something.

"What... are... they... doing?" Swamp Thing asked, looking uncertainly at the group before them, even as he stepped closer to Hellboy; he'd been lucky so far, but clearly their new teammate wasn't allowing himself to forget that he was made of plants even if he was capable of repairing most damage he might sustain.

"They..." Leo began, lowering his sword as he looked at the group before him in confusion. "They're... looking at... Illyria."

"Illyria?" Spike repeated, quickly following the direction of the creatures' gazes to confirm that they were looking at the blue woman in dark red leather. "Somethin' you want to tell us, Blue?"

"I am as... uncertain as you are, half-breed," Illyria replied, looking at the creatures around them with the same confusion as her teammates. "I have never been to this realm even when I was in my true form..."

"And you definitely haven't been here since you started using Fred's body, because we'd know about it," Angel finished for her, looking thoughtfully at the tormented victims around him before he finally focused on one that seemed to have a slightly clearer expression in its eyes than the others. "Look, sorry if I'm being rude, but... is there something wrong?"

He wished he'd thought of a better way to phrase that question- the Coven were living beings in Hell; how much more 'wrong' could you get?-, but given their current situation he didn't have time for delicacy, and it would probably be best for them to try the direct route to get answers for why they were attracting so much attention at this time.

"How...?" one of the figures suddenly said, its body and the remaining scraps of clothing so covered with blood that it was difficult to determine its gender, its gaze fixed on Illyria as it spoke.

"'How' what?" Milton asked, looking at the creature in obvious frustration.

"How... did you... escape?" the thing that had been human before the torture asked, still looking in confusion at Illyria as he indicated an area with what seemed to be slightly larger versions of the buildings in their current location. "You were... in there... and now... you're here... with them..."

If it was possible, Angel's blood became even colder as he looked over at Spike, both of them quickly realising what this man must be referring to.

This thing- this guy, whoever he'd been in life- thought that he'd seen Illyria in Hell.

Illyria had never even had a near-death experience.

But, on the other hand, someone had died to bring her into this world...

"Could it...?" Angel began, unable to finish the sentence; if he said what he thought had happened and it turned out to be wrong, he wasn't sure what he'd do.

"Ain't possible; everything we had said..." Spike tried to protest, but the gleam of hope in his eyes was something that neither of them could shake; the possibility that it was nothing was strong, but the chance that there was something they could do to make up for their greatest failure was something they couldn't overlook.

"What?" Deadman asked, looking between the two vampires curiously. "Something wrong?"

"To say the least..." Angel said, his eyes narrowing as he and Spike began to run in the direction that the creature had indicated, the rest of the Coven soon following them.

As they reached the building at the end- one of the more elaborate facilities in the current wasteland; Angel noted a few symbols above the door that the other buildings had lacked, but this wasn't the time to take in more detail beyond the fact that they matched what he was looking for-, the two vampires kicked the door open. As they led the Coven into the room, they barely seemed aware of their teammates' presences as their eyes were instantly drawn to the trembling form kneeling on the floor in front of them, chains attached to her wrists and ankles, two tall demons that looked like a bizarre kind of bug dressed as samurai warriors, the girl herself dressed in a dark brown T-shirt and dark trousers as she looked up at them.

Even with her visible skin covered in dried blood, the girl's eyes still seemed to light up as soon as she saw who had come to her.

"Handsome man..." she said, smiling weakly up at Angel. "You saved me..."

"Oh my God..." Angel whispered, unable to take his eyes off the girl before him. "Fred?"

"Yep..." Winifred Burkle replied, smiling back at her friend. "It's me..."

Chapter 10: Recruiting the Physicist

That shaken confirmation was all that Angel and Spike needed. Shifting into their vampire faces, the two ensoulled vampires surged into battle with a ferocity that would have surprised even the soulless versions of themselves, tearing through the two demons on either side of Fred before the creatures could even draw their weapons.

After a blur of motion that even the Coven's other physically-enhanced members had trouble following, the two demonic warriors were lying on the ground, their exoskeleton-esque armour having been torn away by Angel and Spike's bare hands and their exposed flesh torn and bleeding, as the vampires crouched down beside their friend.

"Oh God, Fred..." Angel whispered, unable to stop the tears he felt trickling down his cheeks as he looked at the young Texan physicist, restored to existence when everyone had assumed that her very soul had been destroyed. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... it's been months..."

"It's OK..." Fred said, weakly reaching up with one chained arm to wrap it awkwardly around Angel's back, the other arm reaching over to assume a similar position around Spike. "You're here... that's what matters... you're here..."

Here...

It was the repetition of that word, more than anything else, that reminded Angel and Spike of the anomaly of where they were and what they were dealing with; Fred, whose soul had allegedly been totally destroyed by the being they had only reluctantly accepted as an ally, was still in existence, but trapped in Hell itself...

"But..." Angel said, turning to look back at the rest of the Coven before his gaze focused on Illyria, studying the blue-skinned counterpart of the woman beside him for any sign of how she felt about this turn of events. "But everyone told us that Illyria taking your body destroyed your soul..."

"Destroyed... permanently cut off... pretty much the same thing..." Fred replied with an weak, uncertain shrug. "I was stuck... in this section... of Hell... cut off from... everything else... I had a few moments... where I saw... what Illyria saw... something about my parents... but nothing major..."

"Hold on; you were here all this time?" Spike said, his eyes widening in shock before he spun around to look at Illyria. "And you couldn't have mentioned that, Blue?"

"I was certain that I had consumed Winifred Burkle's soul in my resurrection," Illyria replied with a solemn nod. "I had access to all of her memories when I awoke and I possessed no knowledge of any connection that I might have to this place; the description of my present state that I gave to Wesley upon awakening seemed like the most accurate assessment at the time."

"And the possibility that you'd just stuck her soul down here was something you never thought of?" Spike yelled, standing up and walking over to glare at the ex-God-King. "You can't just-!"

"Angel?" Fred interrupted, her voice small as she looked awkwardly between her former body and the vampire now crouched beside her. "What... is that... Illyria?"

"Yeah," Angel said, nodding awkwardly at Fred; evidently, knowing that your body was still active out there and actually seeing it were two different things even for someone as smart as Fred. "After you... well, when Spike and I got to the Deeper Well, the only way to save you was to summon Illyria back to the Well, but Illyria's essence would have basically killed thousands of people when it became 'airborne' on its way back..."

"Thanks," Fred said, placing a hand on his arm as she smiled reassuringly at him, shaking her head in quiet understanding. "I... I get it."

It wasn't much of statement to ease the burden of guilt that Angel had felt ever since he'd made the decision not to have Drogyn draw Illyria back into the Well, but the knowledge that Fred did understand why he'd done what he done certainly helped.

"So... she's that Texan science whiz Cordelia mentioned?" Cole asked, looking at Fred in slight surprise (Angel had almost forgotten about Cole's contact with their deceased teammate). "I was expecting someone a bit... dumpier, I guess."

"Making an effort... not to be insulted..." Fred muttered, even as the teasing grin on her face made it clear that she wasn't really that angry about what Cole had just said.

"I'm sorry, can we get a bit of backstory here?" Danny asked, raising a glowing green hand to draw attention to himself as he looked between Fred and Illyria. "Who is she, and why does she look like Illyria?"

"Do you remember how I informed you that I came into existence in this shell after the destruction of my original form?" Illyria asked, turning to face the half-ghost.

"Yeah..." the half-ghost replied, nodding slightly uncertainly at her.

"What we did not tell you," Illyria continued, her usual blunt manner giving no indication that she was concerned about how some of the Coven's newer members might react to this news, "was that this body was once the body of Winifred Burkle, a friend and ally of Angel and Spike, before my essence consumed her own to make room for me in this shell. At the time, we presumed that my resurrection destroyed her soul, leaving only remnants of her memories within me, but..."

"I think I can fill in the rest," Constantine said, stepping forward slightly as he looked grimly between Illyria and Fred. "Your 'possession' of Fred's body actually transferred her essence into this bit of Hell, you probably maintained some kind of 'link' to this area that let you access her memories while thinking you just got them after you consumed her soul, those demons kept Fred 'contained' until we got here..."

Noting the surprised looks he was getting from his allies, Constantine shrugged. "Hey, I spent twenty years thinking that I was destined to go to Hell; you think I wouldn't have researched the Hell out of the place trying to find some way to escape it?"

"Who...?" Fred asked, looking uncertainly at the man in the black suit.

"This is John Constantine; he's an exorcist and supernatural detective," Angel explained, looking at Spike with a brief, awkward shrug before he looked back at Fred. "He's... well, he's on our team."

"'Team'?" Fred repeated, her strength apparently returning to her as she slowly got to her feet, looking at the group assembled around her with a slight smile. "Y'all have a team?"

"We were brought together shortly after you... left... and went on a kind of 'recruitment drive' recently; it's... look, it's a long story, and this ain't the best place to tell it," Spike said, shrugging slightly as he began to indicate the group around them. "To get the obvious bits out of the way- since you already know Willow and Faith-, these guys are Leo Wyatt, our 'guardian angel', Cole Turner's basically a warrior angel, Paige is a witch, Spawn's a former black ops assassin who rejected the offer to become a general in Hell's army, Blade's a half-vampire- different species from us; long story-, Hellboy's a demon who was raised by an anti-demon government branch, Dante's part-demon and works as a private investigator, Danny Phantom's part-ghost after some kind of accident, Jason Blood shares his body with the demon Etrigan since Camelot fell, Raven's the half-human daughter of a demon lord called Trigon, Blue Devil was an actor who got fused with his costume after an accident, Johnny Blaze became the Devil's bounty hunter when he sold his soul to save his dad, Jericho Caine stopped the Antichrist being born by killing himself, Captain Jack Sparrow's a pirate, Deadman's a circus acrobat who can possess people, Batman and Catwoman come from another world where they were turned into a vampire and a were-cat respectively, Eric's immortal unless you kill his crow, Lucian's a kind of werewolf, and John Milton's an ex-con."

Fred blinked in surprise as she looked at the assembled variety of supernatural creatures and warriors before her, before she finally smiled as she turned to look at Angel.

"Did well for yourselves then, eh?" she said at last.

"We... do our part," Angel said, before his expression became notably grimmer as he looked at his friend. "Fred... look, we can't take you back to Earth right now, but if you want to stay-"

"What's the situation?" Fred asked, her gaze possessing a new intensity about it as she looked at her vampiric boss.

"The situation?" Angel repeated.

"You didn't know I was here, so you didn't come here just for me; why are you here?" Fred clarified, her posture somehow demonstrating a focus that made trying to avoid answering her question impossible despite the chains that were still wrapped around her.

"In a nutshell?" Faith said, swallowing slightly as she looked at the girl she'd only briefly met during Angelus's last return to the fold, Fred's gaze shifting from Angel to the dark Slayer. "We're trying to kill Satan to stop the Apocalypse, but there's this whole time-travel thing which means we might not even exist if we pull it off-"

"Get me out of these chains," Fred interjected, her face grim as she turned to look back at the vampires still standing on either side of her.

"Huh?" Dante asked, looking at the woman before them in surprise.

"And if something could get be a good weapon or two- sword or gun would be fine; I just need something that doesn't depend on upper-body strength to be really effective-, that would probably help; I get the feeling that you're going to need every hand on deck-"

"Hold on; you want to help?" Jericho asked, looking at the woman before them in surprise. "You don't exactly look-"

"I survived for five years in a dimension where humans were treated as nothing but cattle and I faced the threat of getting my head cut off or blown up until Angel and his original team came and rescued me; I am not backing out just because of a potential existential crisis," Fred said, turning to look at Angel as she impatiently shook her manacles. "Can you break these chains, or should we get someone else in?"

After a few moments, Angel turned and waved Hellboy and Spawn over.

"Snap these chains, could you?" he said, smiling slightly at his team's powerhouses. "We've got a physicist to recruit."

Hellboy just smiled in response.

"The more the merrier for this kind of excursion," he said, nodding at the vampire as he walked over to pull the chains apart, Spawn following up his friend's actions by generating a green glow that destroyed Fred's manacles.

As she picked up a sword from the remains of her former captors and gave it a couple of testing swings, Fred smiled in satisfaction.

"This will do," she said solemnly, before she looked back at Angel with a hopeful smile. "Shall we?"

Chapter 11: An Army in Hell

Notes:

Last new member of the Coven will be introduced here, but I warn those readers familiar with her in advance that I've taken a few liberties with her character, such as tweaking her origin and motives, to help my own plot, rather than using a pre-existing version of her...

Still, I hope her presence meets with your approval anyway; once I read a bit about her, I felt that she was definitely worth including at this stage of the proceedings

"Look," Dante said, his voice low as he addressed Spike and his gaze constantly flicking to the woman standing in the centre of the group that was even now marching patiently through the fields of Hell, "I get that she's your friend and she's been through a lot, but are you sure bringing her is a good idea?"

"Why'd you ask?" Spike asked, glancing back at the part-demon P.I.

"I mean... well, she's not exactly imposing, is she?" Dante said, staring back at Spike despite the vampire's intense gaze; he might have encountered a lot of things more powerful than Spike in his career, but the vampire could deliver a good stare like nobody's business. "Milton and Caine might be in the same position as her, what with them being dead humans who made an impact on the right people and all that, but at least they look like they could do some damage in a fight; this Fred girl-"

"Survived for five years in a dimension where she was a slave to a whole race of demons who could've blown her head off if she'd screwed up, stayed on the run from a Higher Power that was trying to make humanity do nothing but worship it all day and commanded most of the city she was in at the time, and killed more than a few vamps and demons in her time," Spike interjected. "Granted, I wasn't present when she did most of that, but I got it from pretty reliable sources that she did that stuff, so let's not start questioning her competence just because she doesn't look like she can beat Big Red in an arm-wrestling match, OK?"

"Can we focus on the immediate problem?" Spawn asked, glaring impatiently over at the vampire and the part-demon. "We've got a lot of distance to cover until we can get to that central castle, no idea how time's passing here compared to how it's going back on Earth, and we've still not really got any real idea how we're going to put Satan down when we get there..."

"Actually, that's a good point; how were we planning on taking out the Devil?" Captain Jack asked, looking curiously over at Angel. "I fought an immortal or two in my time, and both times I only won because of my knowledge of a subtle but interesting little weakness of theirs that they took care not to make too public; we don't have that advantage here and Satan's probably got a lot more tricks than what they demonstrated at the time..."

"The current plan is to go for an overwhelming show of force and hope for the best," Angel said, looking grimly back at the rest of the team. "It's not a perfect plan, I know, but at a time like this I think we should focus on the fact that we're alive to carry out any kind of plan in the first place and worry about the fine details when the time comes."

"Better than anything I've got, anyway," Milton muttered grimly as he looked over at the vampire. "I was able to steal a weapon that might be useful against him last time I broke out, but he took it back when they took me back, and I don't know where it is now anyway..."

"He has a weapon that could kill him?" Caine asked, looking over at the former criminal in surprise. "What was it?"

"The God-Killer," Milton said, his tone even grimmer than it had been previously as he looked over at his fellow Purgatory resident. "A gun that only a few bullets were ever forged for, with one very distinctive power; if it was fired at you, it completely destroys your soul."

"Completely?" Leo repeated, looking back at Milton with an almost incredulous glance. "As in... you're totally gone?"

"Everything about your soul ceases to exist if one of the bullets from that thing hits you," Milton confirmed grimly, before he sighed slightly in frustration. "Of course, just because I know where it was is no guarantee that I can find it again; he might have even destroyed it..."

"In other words, keep an eye out for the thing but don't go out of our way to look for it; gotcha," Cole said, nodding briefly at Milton before he groaned in frustration. "We can never get it easy, can we?"

"We're a bunch of part-demons, ex-demons, reformed demons, human-raised demons, weird vampires, and a few dead guys fighting to save humanity from the Apocalypse after said event has taken place; I think we should probably assume that something's weird if things were going easy for us," Eric said, shrugging as he looked around himself with a slightly teasing smile.

"Talking of going places, how much of this are we going to have to go through?" Raven asked, her expression grim as she took in the stretch of land in front of them. "I know that we have to stay low to stop attracting attention to ourselves before we get too close, but this is taking way too long..."

"Well, considering our location, and the nature of the area that we're currently trying to get across, and the potential amount of demons and tortured souls we might have to face between here and there..." Angel said, trying to sound flippant before he shook his head in grim frustration. "Quite frankly, transportation-wise, we've got a problem; we're not exactly moving that fast, and I don't think we've got any way to cut down on the time it'll take us to get there."

"Tell me about it..." Johnny muttered. "Even if I could get the bike going, that only gets me where we need to go; I can't take more than one or two people with me when I get started without people getting burned..."

"I might be able to get a car or two together, but that still doesn't take us that far, and the power I'd need to get it would probably just draw attention to us anyway," Milton added, grimly looking over at Angel. "Anyone else got any tricks?"

"You know..." Faith pointed out, looking around at her teammates as though she was trying to figure out why she was the first person to realise that they had that as an option. "We do have a few teleporters available-"

"And use of those powers would send up a proverbial red flag that would alert Satan to our presence here pretty much instantly," Cole pointed out grimly. "The minor demons we've run into so far probably won't say anything to him, but if we keep on attracting attention to ourselves that's not going to last."

"Cole's right," Spawn said with a grim nod. "Surprise is one of the few advantages we've got in this mess; we start using magic to get there quicker, we increase the chance that we'll get attacked before-"

Spawn's insights were cut short when a creature that resembled a large armoured insect suddenly crashed into him, knocking him to the ground as its mandibles tried to tear at his face before Spawn knocked it away. The ex-Black Ops assassin had only just gotten back onto his feet when he found himself facing a renewed assault from the creature, now flying in the air as it snapped at him.

The rest of the Coven quickly found themselves facing a variety of similar creatures, some of them looking more like animals than insects and wearing a metallic armour, while others looked similar to the tortured souls that they'd encountered earlier, but these figures were wearing armour and generally appeared to be in far better shape, even if the healed scars on their visible skin made it quickly obvious that they'd been through a great deal at some point. Some of this last group even appeared to be using modern weapons such as guns, although the weapons in question somehow gave the impression that there was something abnormal about them despite the fact that they looked relatively normal-, but all of them clearly enraged and ready to strike at their intended prey.

"What the Hell?" Faith asked, ducking as a dog-like monster charged at her, fangs nearly biting into her arm before she was able to duck underneath the creature's leap, using her sword to essentially gut the creature as it jumped over her. "What are these things?"

"Apart from the obvious, you mean?" Jason Blood said, glancing over at her as he kicked out at the nearest creature. "Mostly hench-demons and assorted minions; whoever's controlling these must have found us! Everyone stand back!"

"What...?" Swamp Thing began from where he was ducking around an attack by one of the apparent former victims of Hell- the sword couldn't do any permanent damage but it was clearly still annoying-, only for his eyes to widen in shock as flames began to blaze about Jason's form.

"Gone, gone, the form of Man," Jason began, fire seemingly consuming his body as he spoke, "Arise the demon... ETRIGAN!"

With that incantation, the ancient magician vanished, leaving only the large, powerful form of Etrigan, who instantly leapt back into battle, hurling fireballs at some of the more distant demons as he also began to physically grapple with the creatures nearest to him.

All around, the various Coven members were attempting to employ their respective strengths against this latest assault. Spawn's chains were practically invisible as they rapidly moved around him, neatly knocking various demons off their feet and hurling them into their fellows, while Hellboy used his bulk to his advantage as he ploughed through the creatures facing them, using his arm to block their more damaging attacks as the transformed Ghost Rider cut through them with chains or incinerated them with his Hellfire blasts (evidently he could generate a greater burst of heat than what people were used to even down in Hell). Lucian and Selina had followed Jason's example and transformed, his lycan form and her were-cat strength tearing through the creatures around them with ferocious ease, while Danny and Cole launched various blasts at their opponents as Illyria and Faith slashed and hacked their way through the field witht heir own weapons, Deadman diving into various demons to provoke them into knocking each other out before he 'jumped ship' into the next available body. Blue Devil, Willow, Raven and Dante released their own unique blend of physical violence and long-range assaults on the creatures around them, taking care to protect Swamp Thing from fiery counter-attacks as he used what little plantlife existed around them to his advantage- it might seem dead but there was evidently enough life in it for his powers to take effect- while Caine, Milton, Paige, Fred, Leo and Eric were doing what they could with their respective weapons despite a lack of physical enhancements. As for the team's vampires, while Batman was relying on an aerial bombardment as he dived down to slash at his foes before returning to the sky, Angel, Spike and Blade moved rapidly around the field of combat, taking on each new opponent with a speed and strength that had made vampires history's most infamous supernatural beings, channelling their strengths and exploiting the absence of their weaknesses in the current environment.

"There's too many of them!" Blue Devil yelled, his trident setting a couple of demons on fire even as he used the rod at the other end to knock those in his immediate vicinity back. "We need some kind of plan to clear the field!"

"Like what?" Blade yelled, his sword narrowly deflecting a blow that could have cut his throat if he had missed it. "Just beating the crap out of these guys isn't going to do anything, and we need to save something for the final fight; we didn't come this far to get worn out fighting the goddamn minions!"

"If you've got any bright ideas I'm open to suggestions- knife!" Paige yelled, a knife that had been about to impale Fred in the chest suddenly vanishing in a swirl of white orbs to reappear in Paige's hand. "OK then; let's-"

"HOLD!" a voice suddenly yelled, prompting what seemed to be every demon in the area to come to a halt, the Coven pausing in their own fights as they registered the fact that their enemies were no longer trying to kill them.

Looking in the direction of the voice that had just given that order, the Coven were surprised to see a tall, majestic-looking woman standing there, her skin and hair totally white and her body virtually nude apart from what looked for all the world like a black bikini, although elbow-length gloves, knee-high boots and a long cloak in the same colour made the outfit appear more modest. Her hands rested on the handle of a sword that hung in a scabbard on her left side, but she seemed to be looking at the Coven in a thoughtful manner that didn't encourage the idea that she was planning how best to kill them, even if the manner in which the various demons surrounding them stopped their attack made it clear that she was their leader.

"Who the Hell are you?" Etrigan asked, looking pointedly at the woman before them.

"I am Lady Death, Etrigan," the woman said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the yellow demon, the obvious contempt in her stance tempered by a more-than-slight curiosity at the same time.

"I take it you're in charge of these goons?" Hellboy muttered, indicating the array of demons that currently surrounded them, still but equally clearly still ready to go into action.

"Indeed I am, Amun-" the self-proclaimed 'Lady Death' began.

"Hellboy," Hellboy interjected, glaring at the white-skinned woman.

"Trust me; you don't want to say his name," Batman put in with a slight shake of his head as he landed on the ground beside his old teammate. "He has been known to get... angry with those who use that name."

"I don't like what it does to me," Hellboy clarified as Lady Death looked sceptically at him.

"I... see," she said at last, before she turned to look at Angel. "You are... Angelus, are you not?"

"I go by 'Angel' now, but I was Angelus once, yes," Angel said, nodding briefly at her.

"And... you lead this group?" Lady Death continued.

"Out of the lack of anyone else who could do the job like he could, anyway," Spike said, even as the slight smile he shot at his grandsire took any potential sting out of his words.

"I... see," Lady Death said, looking briefly at Spike before she focused her attention back on Angel. "Your group includes demons, yet you travel with at least one being who possesses powers of a holy nature; how is this?"

"If you're talking about me, I'm actually one of three; Leo's a Whitelighter and Cole's a Goldlighter," Paige interjected, indicating the two men in question before her eyes narrowed as she looked at the speaker. "And who are you, anyway?"

"You may call me... Lady Death," the woman said.

"We already got that; I think she was more curious about what you're doing with an army of demons who suddenly aren't trying to kill us," Danny clarified.

"To put it simply," Lady Death said, looking around at the Coven with a slight smile, "I am the descendant of both the high angels and the fallen ones; my father was distantly connected to the angels who rebelled against God, while my mother's bloodline was so pure that it reached to Heaven itself."

For a moment, the Coven could only stare, until Selina broke the silence.

"Is that possible?" she asked, looking curiously over at Etrigan (Evidently Jason didn't feel relaxed enough to return to human form yet).

"Likely? No," the yellow demon said, red eyes narrowing as he stared at the woman before them. "Possible, on the other hand... well, nothing's impossible, shall we say?"

"It was possible enough for me to be burnt at the stake as the Devil's consort after my father was chased out of our village for his cruel dominion over the people," Lady Death replied grimly. "When I faced execution at the stake, I attempted to escape with an incantation that summoned a demon to aid me, but the result transformed me into the shape you see before you as I was brought into Hell. My father offered me freedom if I swore my allegiance to him and his master, but I broke away from him, and have been gathering an army to mount an offensive against Satan himself to break the curse that I placed upon myself; only Satan or the first among his fallen may rescind the conditions that I find myself in restore me to humanity."

"Ah," Blue Devil said, wincing slightly as he looked at the group of demons around them before he turned his attention back to her. "So... you thought that we were..."

"Further agents of Satan, yes; you are a fairly wide collection of demonic and darkly supernatural 'talent'," Lady Death said, her grim expression shifting slightly as she looked at Paige, Leo and Cole. "But... if you travel with holy beings..."

"You're at a loss, huh?" Eric said, smiling slightly at her. "Well, Angel's really the man to ask about that; he's the leader of our little group."

"We're... well, the guy who brought us together called us the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals, so we've generally gone by that name ever since," Angel explained, as Lady Death turned to look at him. "We're basically a group of demons or demonically-enhanced humans who, for various reasons, ended up fighting against our demonic natures to try and help innocent people; Leo was our contact with the higher Powers when we first came together, Cole was killed on our first mission and returned as a Goldlighter, and Paige... well, she's a new addition for this mission."

"Which is?" Lady Death asked.

"Long story short; we're here to kill Satan," Spike said, shrugging slightly as he looked at the other woman. "You interested in helping out?"

"What-?" Spawn said, turning to look at the vampire.

"If you believe that you can do damage in your assault, I will be grateful to join you," Lady Death said, smiling slightly at Spike's offer. "You may consider my forces at your disposal in your assault; my forces are considerable, but I require some more powerful fighters to serve as leaders than what I possess at the moment."

"You want us to lead your army?" Deadman asked.

"I would like you to help me lead it, anyway; what you precisely do to assist me is your call," Lady Death said. "I can provide you with the means to reach Satan's palace in a short amount of time- I have equipment salvaged over the years that will make it easier for us to reach the castle fairly quickly-, but we must move quickly; I have noticed that he is gathering his forces to him recently, so we must strike-"

"Can you just... give us a minute?" Spawn asked, raising a hand to halt Lady Death as he glanced back at Angel, the vampire already beckoning the rest of the Coven over to talk to him.

"Of course," Lady Death said, nodding in brief understanding at the ex-black-ops assassin as she turned her attention back to her army. "Withdraw for a moment; our new allies must... discuss things."

"She's already calling us her allies?" Eric asked, looking between the group as his crow flew down to land on his shoulder. "Does that seem a bit cocky of her, or am I just being paranoid?"

"Given the possible intellect of some of her minions based on what I can see of them here, she may just be giving them a basic explanation that they can understand," Jason said, having transformed back from Etrigan as the demons withdrew from around the Coven, turning his attention to the others. "I don't suppose anyone could tell whether or not she was lying for definite?"

"I have some degree of empathy, but it's not something I've explored in detail; I can tell that she believes what she's saying, but that doesn't automatically extend to accounting for her motives," Raven said, looking slightly apologetically over at Etrigan.

"Well, it's more than we'd have otherwise," Hellboy said, checking his gun before he turned his attention over to Angel. "Your call, boss; what do you think?"

"She doesn't appear to know about the planned Apocalypse, which at least suggests that she's not officially aligned with Satan at the moment-" Angel began.

"You sure about that?" Blade asked.

"What would an army this size be doing all the way from Satan's palace with the apocalypse virtually imminent?" Spawn pointed out to the Daywalker. "She's here because she doesn't want to go over there until she has to; Raven things she's telling the truth, and I've picked up a few things about telling when people are telling me crap, so the situation seems straightforward enough to me."

"OK, so she's being honest about wanting to help; does that mean we can trust her?" Faith asked, glancing between her new teammates. "She sold her soul; ignorance of what she was doing or not, am I the only one who's worried about that?"

"I'm not exactly happy about that part of her history either, Faith, but in case you hadn't noticed, we don't exactly have a lot of options available to us right now," Angel said, looking over at the Slayer. "If we had a quicker way to get to Satan's castle, I'd take it, but we don't; add in the fact that she's got an army, and the means of transporting that army, and she's probably the best chance we've got of getting there in time to do what we came here to do."

"That does not mean that we should neglect the possibility that she could turn on us," Illyria said, looking solemnly over at the white-skinned woman for a moment before she turned her attention back to Angel. "I will keep an eye on her as we travel, and take action if it is appropriate."

"Good," Angel said, nodding briefly at the former God-King before he looked over at Willow, who looked like she was about to object. "It's not a matter of trust, Willow, it's a matter of practicality; we can't afford to trust anyone we meet here without question when we've got so much at stake."

Willow still didn't look like she was totally satisfied at the vampire's assessment, but the grim, accepting nod she gave him in response indicated that she accepted his reasoning even if she didn't entirely like it.

Angel just hoped that they didn't need to resort to those methods; the last thing they wanted was to have to deal with a power struggle for control of Lady Death's army on top of the fight that awaited them...

Chapter 12: Discussions on the Road to Hell

As they hurried along towards their destination in the mystical sled-like contraptions that Lady Death's forces had provided- they were towed by a few of her minions and also came equipped with a kind of 'jet' that apparently generated hellfire to enhance the speed of the demonic horses towing it-, the Coven were all just grateful for the chance to sit down a few moments.

It might be taking place in Hell, but after the events of the last few days, anywhere that they could take an opportunity to rest for a while was welcome to them; they were about to go into the fight of their literal existences, and any opportunity they had to take the weight off their feet was welcome in a situation such as this. Lady Death had divided the Coven into three groups that would each ride in a 'carriage' to Satan's palace through some of the areas where Satan paid less attention- she was even riding in one of the carriages with Angel's group-, and had expressed a confidence that they would reach their destination in time to prevent Satan's current plan of attack, but that didn't stop Angel from worrying.

Still... as he glanced over at where Fred was currently sitting near to him, the young physicist smiling at the feel of the 'wind' on her face- fortunately this part of Hell was relatively clean and unused by the demons, so they didn't have to worry about the smell-, he had to admit that a small part of him was already chalking this trip up as a victory.

It might be a minor success, but the knowledge that Fred did still exist apart from whatever remained in Illyria's body was something that made him feel a great deal better about those last few months at Wolfram & Hart, even if he still regretted that she was down here in the first place...

"So," Lady Death asked, looking at Angel with a slight smile, her voice drawing him out of his somewhat-bleak train of thought, "how did you come to be the leader of such a... unique group of individuals as this?"

"What; the Coven?" Angel said, shrugging slightly as he looked around at his team. "It just... happened, really; we came together, I found myself being the one giving the orders, nobody had any major objection to it..."

"Mainly because he's the only person with the right kind of people experience to take charge of a bunch like this," Hellboy put in, smiling over at Angel from his position at the back of the cart. "Some higher power brought us together to break into some demon dimension in secret- sending in anyone on the side of good would've set off too many metaphysical alarms- and we decided to stick together after the mission, but Angel here's the one who kept us coordinated in the field when dealing with the kind of crap that needs us to band together."

"He has led all of you?" Lady Death said, looking at the vampire in more than slight admiration after taking a quick glance at the groups in the other two carts

"Well, to be honest, only about seven of us were on a regular team for longer than a few days; we went on a bit of a... well, a recruitment drive after the apocalypse to rally some extra firepower for this assault before we came down here," Angel said, shrugging slightly as he indicated the distinctive forms of Blue Devil and Ghost Rider in their own carts, the two of them using their own respective hellfire powers to boost the cart's 'jet' to an even greater level as they travelled; their own cart was only keeping up because Lady Death claimed to have installed some 'extras' when she had her cart made.

"Basically," Constantine explained as he looked around at the other carts, indicating the relevant individuals for his evidently uncomfortable leader, "for a couple of months, the team was me, Angel, Hellboy, Spike, Illyria, Leo and Blade hunting various large-scale demons and dark magic practitioners trying to end a few of our worlds- Blade and I came from different worlds from the rest, so we maintained a multi-universal front even if our activities were focused on their world-, and we did a decent job of it..."

He sighed slightly as he indicated the surrounding carts with a more general sweep of his hands. "Then Spawn showed up and Cole came back as a Goldlighter- he'd been a half-demon before he'd died on our first mission together- a few days ago, and we had to stop a group that was apparently created solely to be our psychopathic 'counterparts' before they killed too many people, leaving us so busy dealing with them that we couldn't work out what the real threat was up to..."

"Which was?" Lady Death asked, with a tone of voice that suggested that she already knew what the answer was going to be and was just asking the question to be sure.

"Basically, Satan sent up the Gathering- that was what the other group called themselves; the Gathering of Supernatural Psychopaths- to keep us focused on stopping them so that he could do what he wanted while we were busy," Hellboy said, shrugging slightly. "Sucks that it worked, of course, but you had to admire his ambition in a sick way-"

"Hold on; a guy created the evil version of your team just to distract you?" Danny said, looking over at Hellboy in shock. "But... I mean, even if it was just you guys, the kind of bad guys he'd need to keep you that focused...?"

"With all the resources of Hell at his command, he could probably afford it," Lucian said, looking grimly out at the landscape surrounding them. "Besides, I spent almost my entire life fighting a man who was able to arrange for his entire species to attempt to kill mine because of nothing more than a perceived insult to his own purity; people can do incredible things in the name of their own egos."

"I wonder if there's some kind of scale to measure how large someone's ego has to become after they become evil," Fred said, looking over at Angel with a slightly awkward smile. "After all, Angelus is a lot more full of himself than you are-"

"Should I take that as a good thing or a bad thing?" Angel asked, looking slightly uncertainly at Fred.

"Good; I meant that you know when you can't handle something on your own, but Angelus would go into all kinds of situations just because people wouldn't think that he could do it even if he really couldn't pull it off," Fred clarified, smiling slightly at him. "I mean, he went after the Beast without any real plan other than to insult him and only found a useful weapon by chance; you might have tried to fight the Beast if you had to, but you wouldn't have gone looking for a fight unless you were confident you'd accomplish something beyond just satisfying some slight against your ego."

"She makes a good point," Constantine said, nodding at the physicist with a smile as he looked at Angel. "It's one reason we all followed you down here, Angel; you wouldn't have proposed something this dangerous if you didn't think we at least had a chance of pulling it off, no matter how risky it might be."

"I didn't come down here with that much of a plan..." Angel said, looking slightly awkwardly at the group around him.

"You had the idea about how to get down here now in the first place; when you remember that everyone else was just freaking out about Hell on Earth, that puts you a bit above anyone else in my book," Danny said, smiling reassuringly over at the vampire. "It might have been a long shot, but we're here now and we've got some extra back-up; compared to what we started with, we're doing great, and we've got the advantage that nobody expects us to be here."

The halfa just wished he felt as confident as he sounded; a surprise attack was good in theory, but they were still up against a demonic hoard that would actually destroy Earth in the not-too-distant future unless they stopped it here.

Even if he'd spent the last few hours before they'd come to Hell learning about what his new teammates were capable of or what they had done before he'd joined them, he was allowed to be a bit jumpy about going into action against the Devil himself with nothing but a bunch of unfamiliar renegade demons as allies; just because he trusted them didn't mean he couldn't be unsure about how they'd work as a team...

---

"You OK there?" Spawn asked, glancing over at Willow as the red-haired witch sat in a corner of the cart that they were using, looking silently ahead of herself as they proceeded towards their destination.

"Huh?" Willow said, looking back at the black ops assassin before she smiled briefly at him. "Oh... yeah, I'm fine; just... a little freaked, I guess."

"Not used to fighting in this kind of environment, I take it?" Jason asked, looking at the witch with a slightly understanding smile.

"Well, I've fought demons before, don't get me wrong- even stood up to a god once, although then there was this whole thing with her lacking most of her powers that people really shouldn't ignore before you get any ideas about what I can do-, but I've always fought them when they were trying to attack my current location on Earth," Willow explained, looking slightly awkwardly at the older man. "It's just... going up against the demon in his home dimension..."

"You know, Satan is technically an angel rather than a demon," Raven pointed out with a neutral tone that didn't do much to help Willow's mood.

"Not helping, Raven," Willow said, looking over in slight exasperation at the part-demon empath. "That just leaves me thinking about all kinds of questions about whether trying to kill him counts as blasphemy or something, and I've made enough mistakes in my life without something like that hanging over me..."

"Hey, how do you think I feel?" Selina asked, her purple fur bristling slightly as she looked over at Willow. "I spent a couple of days fighting vampires before my death, and that's it for combat experience; I don't even know why anybody bothered to bring me into this-"

"You were brought along because the man dressed like a bat vouched for your worth, and as strange as his word was to me it was evidently enough for this fine if unusual assortment of people before us," Jack suddenly said, looking between the other group with an uncertain shrug. "Me, I'm just a man who had a few interesting experiences involving mystical swords, cursed gold, heartless fish-men and the Fountain of Youth back when I was alive; my field of expertise involved sailing and fighting in ships against cursed men more than fighting this kind of threat..."

"Hey, at least you had combat experience; I started out as an acrobat before someone shot me to prove he was good enough to get into some loony cult of assassins and I ended up like this," Deadman said, shrugging slightly as he floated casually above the cart, some aspect of his control over his state allowing him to remain in position above the cart even as it kept on moving. "But you've gotta think positive, I suppose; if the Phantom Strange brought you in, you must have something that you could contribute to this mess, given that the guy never does anything without a reason."

"On that topic, who is this 'Stranger' guy anyway?" Blade asked, looking up at Leo from where he was examining his sword. "You mentioned that he sometimes stepped in to talk with those 'Elder' guys you and those sisters took a few pointers from, but who actually is he?"

"Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about where he came from, Blade," Leo said, shaking his head apologetically as he looked at the Daywalker. "His origins are a mystery to pretty much everybody in the supernatural world; he's been around for centuries, and possesses powers and abilities beyond most normal magical beings, but he's bound by unspecified rules not to use those abilities unless he absolutely has to do so- he tends to provide others witht he information they need to sort out some problems themselves-, and most people aren't even sure when that kind of situation would arise given the kind of things he's helped others deal with."

"Uh... he mentioned when he came to visit me, Angel and John that his role was the result of him being punished for the part he played in the crucifixion of Jesus; does that help anyone get some answers?" Willow asked, raising a hand as she looked between the two men. "I mean, he might have just been doing the whole 'enigmatically-providing-you-with-a-clue-that-doesn't-mean-what-you'll-initially-think-it-means' thing, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possibly valid... right?"

"It does not concern us," Ghost Rider said, his voice somewhat distorted compared to Johnny Blaze's usual tone as he continued to generate concentrated hellfire into the cart's 'engine' systems. "He is not acting against us; in a situation like this, we must take all the allies we can find."

"But he-" Willow began.

"The flaming biker makes a good point; whoever the 'Phantom Stranger' really is, we all know enough about him to know that he's here to help us," Selina said, shrugging slightly as she looked around at the other members of the group. "I may be out of my depth here, but given the scale of what we're up against, it just seems kind of pointless to start poking holes and asking questions about him when we know we don't have a hope in hell of getting an answer."

After a few moments of silent contemplation as the others took in what the ghostly acrobat had said, Blade decided to break the silence.

"Point," he said, nodding briefly at the ghost. "Guess I'm just not used to this kind of shit; back home I just took out the nearest vampire stronghold and then moved on to the next one, but fighting for these kind of stakes..."

"Hey, you think any of us are used to this?" Spawn asked, smiling grimly over at Blade. "I was a black ops assassin who was having doubts about my career before I became Spawn; killing's one thing, but taking on an army on this kind of scale is something else."

"The larger the stakes the more insane you have to be to attempt them, which gives us the advantage as nobody would believe that any of us could be insane enough to attempt what we're about to attempt here," Jack said, smiling slightly over at the rest of the group as he spoke.

"Uh... strange point, but a well-made one," Leo said, nodding briefly at Jack before he turned his attention back to the distance that they still had to cover before they reached their destination.

---

"So, Blue," Spike said, looking at Illyria with a slightly awkward smile, "how're you feeling about seeing Fred?"

"I have little feeling about seeing the shell in person, Spike," Illyria said, looking briefly over at Spike before she returned her attention to the terrain before her. "It is an unexpected anomaly, but that is all; we are here, and we must adapt to it."

"What happened to that 'adaptation is a compromise' stuff?" Spike asked, his original smile becoming slightly teasing as he looked at his most unusual teammate.

"With my strength depleted, I have learned that... not everything is about compromise," Illyria said, her tone slightly reluctant before she reassumed some measure of her usual confidence. "It is the mark of a good leader to know when what they were will not suffice; those who do not change will die."

"Good philosophy," Milton said, shrugging slightly as he looked over at Illyria with a small smile. "If I learned anything from when I went back up to Earth to save my granddaughter, it's that sticking to the same routine can just get you killed; you've got to think smarter if you're going to cope with this kind of situation."

"You're a grandfather?" Eric said, looking over at Milton in surprise.

"Only family I've got left; my daughter fell in with this lunatic cult after I died, and I broke out of Hell to save her daughter after the cult leader killed her mother and planned to sacrifice her as part of some sick plan," Milton said, shaking his head slightly grimly at the memory before he turned his attention back to the group with a slight smile. "It wouldn't have worked, of course- apparently my world doesn't lend itself to that kind of ritual magic; me just being there caused a few problems-, but it was enough for me to break out, and I was able to take out the cult and give my granddaughter to a friend before I had to come back here."

"Always good to know things can work out even if we go to Hell," Blue Devil said, where he was still focusing on using his trident to generate the necessary excess hellfire to boost the power of their cart, before he turned way to look slightly apprehensively at the others. "On the topic of changing stuff, has anyone given any thought to what we're going to do about the possibility that we're about to change history?"

"Huh?" Faith asked, looking curiously at the large blue man.

"I mean, if this works out, we'll be stopping the Apocalypse, and I'm all for that, but has anyone considered the fact that we'll probably be erasing ourselves in the process?" Blue Devil asked, his expression becoming increasingly apprehensive as he continued to speak, as though only just realising the implications of what he was saying himself. "We're all only here because the Apocalypse happened; if we stop it happening... what happens to us?"

"Well, when I changed history once- I'd had a major power upgrade and it drove me more than a bit insane; it's a long story and I'm past that phase now- Paige came through the change intact because she orbed at the moment I changed history-" Cole began.

"Is that really relevant?" Dante asked.

"Relevant in the sense that she came through the change in history with her memories and life intact despite the fact that she was now in a world where she was dead," Cole clarified, looking pointedly over at Dante before he turned his attention back to the group at large. "The point is, Paige came through what I did intact because she was outside of time when history actually changed; given that we're not exactly in our normal plane of existence, maybe we'll-"

"Come through intact and end up in a world where your other selves are still living their lives back on Earth," Batman said, looking grimly over at the Goldlighter. "The Phantom Stranger told us that you came from the future; Caine, Milton, Lucian, Jack, Winifred, Selina and I may all be living these events for the first time, but for you, you are all attempting to erase what has already taken place. Even if you succeed, in a best-case-scenario, you will return to a world-"

"A world where we have no place because we'll already be there in the form of the versions of us that exist now that what happened originally didn't happen; we get that, Bruce," Spike said, glaring over at the other vampire.

"But..." Swamp Thing added, smiling slightly as he looked at the other man, "if... we... do... nothing... we... will... be... the... only... survivors... of... the... Apocalypse."

"And speaking as the guy who's fairly used to being the last one standing in most situations," Eric said, indicating where his bird flew above them before he returned his attention to the current topic, "that kind of role sounds a lot cooler than it actually is."

"Yeah, but we don't even know if that's what's going to happen," Blue Devil said, his tone insistent while somehow avoiding being forceful. "OK, if we still exist afterwards, that's great- we can probably find somewhere to settle down in this wacky universe we exist in-, but what if we're... well, erased?"

Once again, the small group in the cart fell into silence, unable to do anything but exchange uncertain glances with each other as they contemplated a question that none of them could answer, until Cole shrugged.

"Eh, if it works out, we'll cease to exist averting the end of existence," he said, looking over at his teammates with a grim smile. "I might not want that fate, but if we have to give up our existential privileges to ensure that everyone else keeps them, there are worse ways to go."

"And there's always hope, huh?" Faith added, glancing at the Goldlighter with a smile. "I mean, it's not like we're automatically going to cease to exist; time-travel's tricky stuff..."

"Indeed," Illyria said, nodding at the dark Slayer. "Speaking as one who has manipulated time in the past, it is a difficult thing to understand; all that we can do at this time is focus on accomplishing our self-appointed task and hope for the best at its conclusion."

With that simple but nevertheless solemn vow, the Coven exchanged grim smiles with each other before they turned their attention back to the territory ahead of them, their transportation coming ever closer to their final destination.

None of them could be sure what they'd find when they reached the castle that they were heading towards, but they were all sure of one thing; whatever they found themselves up against when they got there, they would give the upcoming fight everything they had.

What would happen to them at the conclusion of this fight was something that they would find out when the time came for it to be an issue.

Chapter 13: The Four Horsemen

Notes:

I decided not to bother describing too many demons in the army- it's a large group with a lot of monsters in it; as with Cole's army in the first story, specific description isn't entirely necessary-, but there are a few figures who will merit more personal attention...

"So," Angel said as he stepped out of his cart, the rest of the Coven moving over to join him as they took in the sight of the large fortress that now stood before them, "this is Satan's Keep, huh?"

"As good a term for it as any, I suppose," Lady Death said, smiling grimly at the large structure that her army and the Coven had been riding towards for the past few hours, her forces gathering behind her as their mistress studied the massive structure before them. "It is the centre of Hell itself, and in it he is said to keep only the most powerful of demons and the most evil of human souls."

"Last I heard he was meant to keep Hitler in there for when he was feeling particularly bored," Milton added, smiling slightly as he studied the building before them.

"Really?" Hellboy said, looking over at the ex-convict with a smile of his own at that news (Not that anyone could blame Hellboy; those who knew of his history knew that he'd been raised to hate the Nazis and Hitler given his Second-World-War origins). "Anyone else?"

"I heard some reports that Rasputin got sent there recently, and there may be a few religious figures who took their jobs a bit too seriously- to say nothing of other members of the Nazi party, but that's all I can immediately think of right now; as I said, Satan only allows people in there if they've committed serious sins on a large scale while they were alive, and there are a few cases like Caligula and Doctor Mengle who are exempt for reasons of insanity or an insufficient amount of crimes committed or organised, even if they were unquestionably evil in themselves," Lady Death explained, before she turned to look at Angel. "You are certain that you wish to do this?"

"Backing out?" Angel asked, looking back at her with a pointedly-raised eyebrow as he gave his sword a couple of preparatory swings.

"Checking to see if you will," Lady Death replied grimly. "This is no small feat that you are attempting to accomplish, Angel; you are about to wage war against Satan himself-"

"I've come this far, and I know what will happen if I fail; even if we can't stop him now, maybe we can weaken him enough so that he's less of a threat to the rest of the world when he gets up there than he was originally," Angel said, shrugging slightly before he turned around to look at the rest of the Coven, continuing to talk in a louder voice. "OK, guys, we're here, but before we go through that door, I want to re-affirm to everyone that there is no pressure or obligation to be here; what we are about to attempt is highly dangerous and highly unlikely even to succeed in the first place. You've come this far, but nobody would blame you for wanting to leave now-"

"You think we're sodding cowards or something, Peaches?" Spike asked.

"I just want to make sure nobody's harbouring any misconceptions about what we're dealing with here," Angel said, looking grimly at his grandchilde. "We've got as much of a chance to surviving in this fight as we'd have if we had stayed up on Earth to fight Satan right there. He might just be gathering power right now compared to what he'll have later, but he's also got direct access to the army that he'd spread out over Earth by the time we tried to fight him, and you've already heard that this is where he reserves his worst tortures; I wouldn't blame anyone who's scared of facing something like that in the least."

"What?" Lady Death asked, looking at him in near-hostile confusion as the rest of the Coven exchanged contemplative whispers. "You said that you would not back out-!"

"And I'm not, but I want to make sure everyone else here wants to do this; I made too many decisions on the behalf of my old group before I became the leader of this one, and I promised myself I wouldn't repeat my past mistakes," Angel said, looking grimly over at her for a moment before he turned back to address the Coven. "That's the situation, and our odds of getting out are slim; they're better if we're all here, but if anyone wants to take their chances elsewhere-"

"They'd be a bunch of goddamn idiots," Caine said, cocking his weapons as he nodded resolutely at Angel, his statement being met with similar confirming nods from the rest of the Coven gathered around them. "We're all here because we wanted to be here, and we're following your cue because you're the best person to get us out of this mess alive- or still existing, in some cases-; we're not going to fucking back out now if we've got a chance to stop that goddamn choir-boy, so stop asking us if we want to, clear?"

Despite the grim mood of their current environment, Angel couldn't help but smile at the other man.

"I wish I'd known you when you were alive," the vampire said, a slightly wistful tone to his voice.

"You wouldn't have liked me much; after my family got killed, I was an asshole up to the last few days when I ended up getting involved in that mess with Satan that I told you about," Caine replied, smiling slightly at Angel before he indicated the wall in front of them. "So what's the plan; break and enter?"

"Reconnaissance first," Angel corrected, shaking his head before he looked back over at Spawn, Batman, Raven, Deadman and Danny. "OK, you guys are our fliers-"

"I can reconnoitre with my crow as well," Eric put in, looking over at Angel with a slight smile. "If I concentrate, I can see through its eyes while it flies; I can't do anything myself while I'm like that, but it could be helpful, right?"

"It's something, anyway," Angel said, nodding at Eric before he looked back over the other members of the Coven for a moment before he focused on Blade and Lucian. "OK, of all of us, you two are probably our best tacticians at taking on large numbers single-handedly; Danny, Boston and Raven can take you two and me up somewhere where we can take a look at whatever forces we're up against, while Batman, Spawn, and Eric's crow take a better look at the fortress itself and see if they can spot any obvious weaknesses in its structure."

"Abandoning the direct attack, huh?" Milton asked.

"It has its merits as a strategy; I just don't want to resort to that kind of thing unless I know what we'll be up against," Angel clarified, before he turned to look over at Spawn and Batman. "I figured that your past careers probably included attempting break-ins like this on your own when going after specific targets; think you can adjust your strategies to include getting more people in?"

"Considering that we're not going to be worried about people knowing we were there after we're done, I think we can work with that," Spawn said, exchanging a brief, grim smile with Batman before he turned to the wall before him, crouched down for a few moments, and then leapt up into the air, green energy from his hands aiding his ascent before his cape spread out to form glider-like wings. Batman didn't hesitate to follow his replacement in the Coven as bat-like wings emerged from underneath his cape and lifted him into the air to follow the armour-clad would-be general, leaving Eric's crow to desperately flap its smaller wings to rise up after the other two as Eric himself sat down on the ground and closed his eyes in an almost meditative stance.

"Right," Angel said, turning to look at the remaining three fliers with a slight smile. "Gentleman, lady, if you please?"

Danny smile briefly at Angel in response before he flew over and picked Angel up under the arms before he began to fly upwards to the top of the fortress walls, Deadman grabbing Lucian in a similar hold while Raven did the same for Blade. The lycan leader appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable with this method of transportation, but to his credit he simply allowed the former trapeze artist to lift him up into the air with only a slight tension around his shoulders, although Blade and Angel appeared more comfortable with the concept of flight after their longer time serving on the Coven.

As they reached the top of the wall, the six members of the Coven's reconnaissance team could only stare at the sight that awaited them on the other side of the wall. The fortress contained a massive courtyard that seemed to be literally filled with all kinds of demonic warriors, ranging from what seemed to be humans with slightly twisted faces to larger, more inhuman demons that put Angel in mind of sketches he'd seen of Illyria's true form (He briefly wondered if he should be worried about her allegiance, but pushed that thought aside; from everything he'd heard, the Old Ones hadn't gotten along with each other even when they were all active, so it was unlikely Illyia would like any of them now when she was so much weaker than she had been).

"Oh my God..." Danny whispered, his eyes wide with horror as he took in the sight before them. "There's... there's so many..."

"In other words, we need to hit them with something big, powerful and fast before they have the time to realise they're under attack if we want to make a good impact on them," Lucian said, a slight smirk on his face as he looked over at Angel. "I take it you have a few candidates in mind for such an assault?"

"Let's just say I know who can hit hardest and leave it at that," Angel said, his gaze briefly flickering over to Raven and Danny before he turned his attention back to the army before them. "OK, the demons mostly seem to be congregating with their fellows, so we can probably divide our resources up to focus on those each of us can best cope with; I'm seeing a few demons over there with heavier armour that Hellboy would probably be best-equipped to take on, Etrigan, Willow, Paige and Blaze would be the best candidates for the warlocks, and-"

"Oh my God..." Danny suddenly said, his whisper somehow overshadowing Angel's voice due to the sheer terror in his tone as he looked at something at the end of the hall. Following his gaze, the rest of the small group saw what seemed to be a small platform towards the end of the hall, a group of approximately four figures standing around a large empty throne that was so ornately designed that it was almost certainly intended for Satan.

It didn't take the rest of the Coven long to join him as they took in the villain who had just grabbed Danny's attention. He was larger and more muscular than Danny, and his hair seemed to be a pure white flame, but he was wearing a costume that seemed remarkably like Danny's apart from the addition of a ragged white cape with a black inner lining, and there was even a slight resemblance to Danny about the face apart from the skin being a kind of pale green colour rather than Danny's normal skin tone.

"I take it that you know who that is?" Lucian asked, looking inquiringly at Danny. "Are we dealing with an older brother you neglected to mention earlier?"

"Actually, he's... well, he's my psychotic alternate future self," Danny replied, shrugging slightly awkwardly as the rest of the Coven looked at him.

"He's you in the future?" Blade said, a hard glare apparent on his face despite his sunglasses at the half-ghost's words as he stared intensely at the teenager.

"Me in a possible future that I erased; long story short, something I did resulted in my family dying in an explosion, and an accident involving me and my arch-enemy separated my ghost half from my human half and drove my ghost half pretty much psychotically insane to the point where people from the future were trying to kill me so I wouldn't become him," Danny explained, shrugging slightly as he looked between the other members of the Coven, indicating his other self as he spoke. "That's actually how I met Clockwork; he set things up so that I'd be aware of the accident before it happened, and I was able to manifest a new ghost power a decade before he did so that I could stop him from trying to make his timeline happen by catching him by surprise..."

"Ah," Raven said, nodding slightly as she looked contemplatively at Danny before she finally shrugged. "Well, you're not him now; that's the main thing."

"OK, so that's one; what about those other three?" Deadman asked, indicating the three figures standing alongside 'Dark Danny', only for Angel's to widen in horror at the sight of the next figure along.

"Oh, shit..." Angel said, staring intently at the large figure that looked like a stone version of the traditional devil with his large horns and hoof-like feet, save for the fact that his larger bulk suggested a devil who'd either taken a steroid overdose or had spent a great deal of time at the gym. "It's the Beast."

"The what?" Raven asked.

"That's what we called it, anyway; it was basically a minion for some unnamed higher power that tried to 'conquer' Earth a couple of years ago by setting up the circumstances that would allow it to be born into our world," Angel explained. "The Beast itself didn't have much in the way of tactical skills, and it was actually kind of slow in a fight, but it was virtually indestructible and had more raw strength than almost anything else we'd encountered by that point; I was only able to kill it with a weapon it had forged from its own bones, and that was only picked up because the Beast was busy fighting Faith."

"OK, so we know two of those guys; how about...?" Blade began, scanning the remaining two figures before he let out a low growl as he took in the third one. "Fuck..."

"You know that one?" Lucian asked, looking at the figure in question; unlike the more obviously inhuman nature of the other two figures, this one appeared to be a normal human, dressed in a dark blue shirt and trousers with long brown hair, except for the fact that his skin appeared to be an unusual pale shade of red.

"All too fucking well," Blade said grimly. "Deacon Frost; he's the bastard who bit my mother."

"Oh, I- wait a minute, he bit your mother?" Danny said, looking sharply over at the Daywalker. "As in-?"

"As in he's the reason I'm what I am today, yeah," Blade confirmed, nodding grimly at the halfa. "As if that wasn't enough, after we both found out how we were connected- we'd known the other guy existed for a while; we just didn't know that he was the one who'd bitten my mother-, the bastard tried to use me as a sacrifice to turn himself into some vampire blood god so that he could take charge of my world's bloodsuckers; I only just managed to kill the bastard, and even then I had to kill my goddamn mother at the same time..."

"Hold on a minute..." Angel said, looking over at Blade as a horrified inspiration began to spread across his face. "When you say this guy turned himself into a blood god... what were his powers?"

"Stronger, faster, and more powerful than your average vamp, and he was able to pull himself back together if you tried to stab or slice him apart because his body was pretty much made of blood to a point," Blade answered, looking curiously over at Angel. "Why'd you ask?"

"I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this..." Angel said, before he turned his attention to the fourth figure standing around the throne. "Anyone recognise the last guy?"

Looking closer at the fourth member of the group, the six figures carefully took in what they could see of him. He was a tall, well-built individual, mostly naked apart from what looked like a white loincloth with a brown belt and a gold buckle around his waist, and black gauntlets on his arms. The most distinctive detail of his appearance was the fact that he was apparently completely hairless apart from his eyebrows, with his legs, chest and even head being seemingly completely smooth.

"Possibly..." Raven said, her eyes narrowing slightly as she took in the sight of the bald man standing at the end of the line in front of them. "I've never seen him in person myself, but I think I recognise him from some of my lessons on magical history..."

"Who is he?" Deadman asked, looking curiously at the demon/human hybrid.

"If I'm correct," Raven explained, looking over at the others, "his name is Im Ho Tep, and he was an Egyptian priest who became the only person who was ever subjected to the curse of the Hom-Dai."

"That sounds... ominous," Danny said, looking awkwardly at the half-demon girl.

"It's meant to be," Raven said grimly. "Im Ho Tep was once a high priest in an Egyptian court, but, for sleeping with the Pharaoh's mistress and attempting to resurrect her, he was subjected to an ancient curse known as the Hom-Dai, which would keep him trapped in a perpetual state of immobilised un-death after he was eaten alive by sacred scarabs. The catch of this ritual, however, is that, if someone read from the sacred golden Book of the Dead, Im Ho Tep would be reborn, with command over the elements and the Ten Plagues of Egypt, as well as the obvious secondary bonus of being functionally immortal unless someone read from the Black Book of the Living and banished his soul from his body-"

"Hold on; you wake this guy up by reading the Book of the Dead, and kill him with the Book of the Living?" Danny repeated in confusion. "How does that make sense?"

"The specifics of that don't matter," Angel said, waving a hand dismissively as he returned his gaze to the group standing around the throne. "The point is that that guy controls the Plagues of Egypt, which included turning water into blood and releasing frogs or insects to damage the Egyptians' crops- in other words, causing famine-, Deacon Frost is apparently a personification of blood, which weall know can serve to spread disease, the Beast is possibly one of the most powerful fighters and warriors I've ever fought, and Danny's future self is a ghost, and therefore already dead..."

His voice trailed off as he looked at his five teammates as they stood around him, a grim smile on his face as he spoke again. "You get where I'm going with this?"

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?" Raven said, her eyes widening in horror at the implications of Angel's theory. "We're up against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?"

"Geez, and I thought Satan was going to be bad enough; tackling those guys on top of him?" Deadman said, shaking his head as he stared at the four figures standing around the throne, now apparently issuing orders to the demonic army around them. "Damn, we're in trouble..."

"Not quite," Angel said, smiling grimly. "So long as we pick the right people for the right job, and hit them before they have time to properly react..."

"We have a chance?" Danny finished for him, smiling hopefully at the vampire.

"It's not much of a chance, but it's a chance," Angel confirmed grimly, before he turned back to look at the rest of the group. "Come on; we need to get back down there and fill everyone else in on what we've got so far."

He just hoped that his currently-sketchy plan of attack would still be viable after he had more information about the territory they were about to attack; he hadn't seen much sign of other ways in or out of the courtyard when he was up there, but that didn't mean that Batman, Spawn or Eric's crow wouldn't see something that would force them to come up with an alternative plan of attack.

Still... whatever else happened now, at least he and the rest of the Coven knew what they were up against, even if the sheer scale of the numbers before them made an attack a difficult prospect at best even with Lady Death's army as back-up.

They'd come this far, and Angel for one wasn't going to stop now; by the time this fight was over, they would have at least made some kind of impact on Satan's army that should make it easier for Buffy's Slayer army or the Charmed Ones to fight back against it...

Chapter 14: Planning for the Horsemen

"You're kiddin' me, right?" Faith asked, looking slightly incredulously between Angel and Danny. "We're up against the Four freakin' Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and one of them's his future self?"

"There's also the Beast, the vampire who bit Blade's mother, and a potentially invulnerable Egyptian priest; you can't really forget them-" Angel pointed out.

"I'm not forgetting them; I'm just focusing on the bit of this mess that's really freaking me out," Faith interjected, waving a frustrated hand at Angel even as she focused her attention on Danny. "You went nuts in some alternate future, and that guy just... what, came back to try and kill you?"

"Actually, I found out about him when some ghosts from that future came back to try and kill me to stop me becoming him, I ended up following them to Clockwork's base and saw the future where I'd gone psychotic and was trying to destroy the city, he went back to try and ensure that the events that led to me becoming him happened the way they had originally," Danny said, waving a hand in an awkwardly dismissive manner that made it clear he wasn't ready to talk about the obvious issues the presence of his other self introduced to this equation. "Look, it's a whole complicated thing and we really don't have the time to worry about that right now; we've kind of got bigger problems right now."

"Danny's right," Cole said, looking sympathetically at the young half-ghost- he still remembered how he'd felt when he'd learned that they were fighting his future self during his original mission with the Coven, and he'd had the added 'excuse' that he was partly possessed by an alternate version of himself and partly insane from an overload of demonic power; from what Danny had told them, the other guy was just him with some extra power from another ghost thrown in- before he focused on talking to the others. "The important thing right now is that we know who and what we're up against; how these 'Horsemen' gained their power isn't as important as the fact that they're here and we have to stop them."

"Yeah, about that, what happened to the Four Horsemen Piper and Phoebe told me about?" Paige asked, looking over at Leo. "Didn't you guys encounter four Horsemen who were just four horsemen about a year before I showed up?"

"Those were just the four Horsemen of our world, and apart from being rather powerful they were otherwise fairly generic; it's possible that Satan wanted to recruit more distinctive fighters for this kind of assault," Leo said, shrugging uncertainly at Paige's sceptical expression at his theory. "Well, it's not like we've got a lot of past experience to draw on here; apocalypses don't really happen on this kind of scale that often!"

"Can we just focus on the fucking crisis we've got to deal with right now, OK?" Blade said, glaring over at the witch and the Whitelighter. "We've got enough problems without you trying to work out where this bastard got his forces from; they're here, we're here, and we don't want them going up there, so let's just take the bastard out and worry about the goddamn fine print like where he went while on a recruitment drive later."

"Precisely," Angel said, nodding in agreement of Blade's assessment before he turned his attention to the rest of the Coven. "OK, our first priority is to work out which of us attacks what groups once we're in there. Hellboy, you're our physically strongest member in one-on-one combat; you can tackle the Beast."

"Any recommended strategy?" Hellboy asked with a slightly grim smile.

"Hit him 'til he can't get up any more; guy's tough, but his combat style's pretty basic, and he's slow to boot," Faith said resolutely, a nod from Angel confirming his agreement with the Slayer's strategy.

"Perfect," Hellboy said, clenching his stone fist and flexing his fingers as he checked his gun with his other hand; Angel wasn't sure what the weapon could do against the Beast's hide after he'd seen the thing take shotgun blasts from Wesley's gun during their first fight without any real sign of damage, but he wasn't going to underestimate what the guy could do with his own equipment.

"Illyria, you can go after Im Ho Tep," the world's first vampire with a soul continued, looking over at the former Old One (He briefly thought about ordering Swamp Thing to help her, but decided against it; given the creature's plant-like nature, he didn't want to risk Im Ho Tep summoning a hoard of flies or toads to eat Swamp Thing if things took a turn for the worst). "If he's Famine like we think he is, you're strong enough to fight him and anything else he has to throw at you, and you don't actually need to eat, so any additional powers he might have shouldn't affect you."

"I shall do so," Illyria said, giving the same slightly sadistic smile that had always unnerved Angel even without Fred's true appearance alongside her to provide a direct contrast between the two women.

"Danny, Deadman," Angel continued, turning to look at the ghosts to try and take his mind off that particular issue, "the two of you see what you can do about fighting... Dark Danny; maybe two ghosts combined together can generate the kind of power necessary to do some damage to that guy."

"I don't really have much offensive abilities; all I've ever really done is possess people-" Deadman said, looking awkwardly at the vampire.

"Try going into Danny; even if you can't attack yourself, maybe you can... give him a boost or something," Angel said, shrugging slightly out of a lack of anything else to suggest in that regard- he had a plan and he'd stick with it; he couldn't afford to start second-guessing his strategy now-, before he continued talking. "Lucian, Spike, Blade, you're up against La Marga; Spike's pretty much immune to conventional disease, I'd assume that Lucian's physiology gives him a similar strength given that he's virtually immortal, and Blade's prior experience with what the guy's capable of could be an advantage."

"I'm better with disease than humans, but since I was never in a position to be exposed to anything serious I can't know-" Lucian began, looking slightly apologetic as he addressed Angel.

"Right now you're one of the best guys I've got for tackling something like that; just do what you can, back out if you think he's having an effect on you, and we'll worry about other details later," Angel said, nodding reassuringly at the lycan as he turned to more effectively address the rest of the Coven. "Al, Blaze, Willow, your powers make you best equipped to handle large groups; you'll be our front line of assault when we're going up against the army. The rest of you... just do what you can in the fight and try and stay alive; I'm not sure what happens if you die in Hell, but this isn't the time to find out."

The rest of the Coven nodded grimly at their leader, solemn smiles on their faces as the relevant Coven members drew their weapons, while those with powers began to test their respective abilities in preparation for the upcoming attack.

"And the first stage of your plan is?" Lady Death asked, her tone grim as her army looked expectantly at her for their next orders; Angel wasn't entirely sure if her forces would even acknowledge the Coven as independent entities if it wasn't for her.

"Simple; we'll break down the main courtyard door while Eric and Batman lead your army to those back entrances they discovered so that they can take Satan's army by surprise while they're focused on us," Angel said, looking back at Lady Death with a slight smile. "We might be fighting on their turf, but that doesn't mean we have to give them the chance to use that knowledge against us; if we can keep them contained, that gives us a chance to get the upper hand against them."

"Sounds like a plan," Cole said with a smile, raising his hands to generate a pair of energy balls that he tossed casually between his palms in a juggling-like motion before he brought his hands together, releasing a brief burst of golden energy. "Let's do it."

"It's all or nothing, and we're going to make sure those guys leave with nothing," Willow said resolutely, energy crackling around her fingertips as her eyes briefly darkened at the thought of the power she was about to unleash. "They will not destroy Earth and get away with it."

"You can say that again," Angel said, nodding in confirmation of Willow's assessment of the situation- so long as she retained her focus on using her power against their enemies, he had faith in whatever amount of power she had to use right now- before turning to look at Lady Death. "If you could...?"

"Of course," Lady Death replied with a confirming nod as she turned to look at her army, drawing their attention with almost natural ease. "My fellow warriors, follow the ones called Eric Draven and Bruce Wayne; they will take you to where you must travel in order to successfully penetrate this facility. You are to obey their commands as though I was issuing them to you myself; the stakes are too high for me to be the only person to be issuing orders at this time."

The sounds of confirmation from the assembled demonic forces around them were far from individually distinct, but it conveyed their intentions effectively enough as Lady Death's army followed Batman and Eric along the walls on either side of the main door.

Glancing around at the rest of the Coven, Angel allowed himself a slight smile at the sight of Selina not-so-subtly hurrying after Batman while Constantine moved over to join Eric, but he didn't bother objecting to the sudden improvisation. Given what Batman had told them about his relationship with Selina before her death in his world in the short time he'd spent on the original Coven, he didn't have the heart to separate them, and with the current stakes facing them he felt more comfortable knowing that Constantine- a 'permanent' member of the Coven, rather than one of the many reserves they'd just assembled for this mission- was present to monitor Eric's team's progress as they prepared for the upcoming attack.

"So," Spike said, looking over at Angel with a slightly awkward smile after a few moments had passed, Lady Death's forces now down to a comparatively small portion of their original numbers around the remaining members of the Coven as the rest of her army followed their temporarily assigned leaders to their positions, "think that this is going to be it?"

"The big, anti-Apocalyptic stand that prophecy said we'd make?" Angel said, shrugging uncertainly at Spike's query, his manner creating an almost dismissive attitude towards the prophecy that had once defined his existence. "Maybe it will be and maybe it won't; right now, the only thing that matters is stopping this guy."

"I'm not meaning to sound like I'm poking holes in this plan, but you do know that we'll probably have to kill Satan to ensure that he doesn't try this again in a few months after we've stopped this attempt, right?" Caine asked, looking slightly sceptically over at Angel. "I mean, I only stopped this guy when I fought him because he had a limited amount of time to do the job in..."

"All we can do is take out as many of his forces as possible, hit him hard and fast when he gets here, and hope that it's enough," Angel interjected, looking resolutely over at the ex-cop. "I've already said that we're taking a gamble just trying something like this, but if you've got a better idea-"

"No better ideas come to mind; I just want to make sure we all know it's all or nothing," Caine said, looking back at Angel with grim resolution practically chiselled into his features. "I was willing to kill myself to stop this guy when I still had doubts about religion and the afterlife in general; don't doubt that I'm in this to the end if you think we've got a chance."

"We've got a chance," Spawn confirmed, blades sprouting from around his wrists as he clenched his fists in grim preparation for the attack that he was about to mount. "We just took down a bunch of the supernatural world's best killers before we came down here; we can handle anything a bunch of random demons can throw at us."

"That's the kind of attitude I like," Milton said, grinning over at Spawn's comments, the ex-convict briefly checkubg his gun for bullets before he turned his attention back to Angel. "Shall we?"

"No time like the present," Angel said, after a brief glance at his watch and a quick mental calculation confirmed that Eric and Batman's forces should be approaching a useful position by now. Turning to look at the remaining members of the Coven, he smiled and indicated the large door before them with a wave of his hand. "Gentlemen, if you please?"

Nodding in resolution, Hellboy, Illyria and Spawn walked up the door in front of them, drew back their hands, and launched their most powerful punches at the solid surface, followed by Cole hurling a couple of energy balls as Danny fired green ectoplasmic blasts and Ghost Rider shot a burst of hellfire from his hellfire-enhanced shotgun.

For a moment, the door remained standing, hinges and edges blacked and cracked by the assault but otherwise intact, but then Blue Devil and Etrigan launched their own fire-blasts at the door, along with a quick blast of dark psychic energy from Raven. After a few seconds of standing uncertainly in its arch, the door finally collapsed, leaving Angel and Lady Death standing in the middle of the now-open arch as the rest of the Coven took up position behind their leader and their new ally, drawing the attention of the vast demonic army inside the courtyard as they turned to stare incredulously at the new arrivals.

"What the Hell-?" Dark Danny said, floating up into the air from the middle of the room to look at the source of this new attack, his eyes widening in an almost comical fashion as he took in the new arrivals. "You?"

"Yep," Danny replied, waving briefly at his other self with a smile that looked more confident that the halfa probably felt; it wasn't every day that people had to face an enemy force on the scale that they were currently up against with such a comparatively small opposing force. "And I brought some friends."

"Hi," Angel said, waving in a mockingly polite manner at the powerful ghost even as Dark Danny glared incredulously at him. "I'm Angel, and this is the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals; I believe you boss is aware of our existence?"

"Angelus?" the Beast's voice said, followed by the large creature's head appearing above the swarm of demons around the room; Angel assumed that his old foe was standing on the throne to get a better look at them. "We were informed that you would be... otherwise occupied."

"We found out that we had more immediate priorities to occupy our time right now," Angel said, concealing the slight fear he felt at the sight of the Beast- after the beatings he'd received from that thing the last couple of times he'd fought it, and the obvious lack of the weapon Angelus had used to kill it in their final fight, some apprehension was to be expected- as he focused on the task at hand. "What's important right now isn't how we all got here, but what we're going to do now that we're here; we will accept your unconditional surrender if you want to end violence now."

"You really think that is going to stop us?" Dark Danny asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow as he smirked at the vampire with a casual arrogance that put Angel in mind of Angelus's old certainty that he was going to prevail in his self-assigned challenge.

"Not really, but I had to give you all the chance," Angel replied, raising one hand in preparation as he looked back at his team, smiling as he saw the distinctive glow around Cole and Willow's hands as the rest of the Coven aimed their weapons at the surrounding army; whatever was about to happen, the Coven were all ready for it.

"You really think that you can stop us?" Dark Danny asked, smirking enthusiastically as he stared at the vampire, indicating the army around him with a broad sweep of his hand, the other three Horsemen visible from the centre as Deacon Frost and Im Ho Tep used what Angel assumed were their powers to raise themselves up over the heads of their followers, the distinctive gleam of splashing blood around Frost matched by the faint swirl of sand around Im Ho Tep. "You have barely a fraction of the army we have-"

The sound of two near-simultaneous crashes on either side of the rear area of the hall was enough to stop the powerful ghost mid-rant, glancing back just in time to see a figure in a long black cloak with massive bat-like wings flying into the air from a side door, grinning as he took in the surrounding army before he tossed an evidently fresh corpse down amongst them.

"Hello," Batman said, a satisfied grin as he glared at the black-and-white clad ghost before he indicated the additional forces coming through the door after him. "I thought I heard someone accuse us of a shortage of resources; I simply felt a need to clarify that there's more to us than you think."

It might be a small difference in the grand scheme of things, but the slight apprehension that appeared on the faces of some of the nearby demons helped to reassure Angel of one thing; whatever opponents they were up against, they still had some doubts about their chances of victory.

With Batman and Eric's forces having cut off the immediate possible avenues of escape, these guys were now trapped in a confined area with enemies on all three sides at the possible doors they could use to escape; it didn't totally level the metaphorical scales, but it was more than they might have had otherwise.

"You may still have the numbers edge, but there's a lot more to winning a fight than numerical superiority, and, as you can see, we currently have the territory fairly securely under control," Angel said, staring grimly as Dark Danny turned away from Batman to look at him with a new sense of uncertainty about him.

"We're only going to say this once more, Frost," Blade said, clearly just as aware of the Horsemens' new sense of uncertainty as Angel was, his gaze fixed on the man who'd made him what he was. "Call off the goddamned apocalypse, and we might be willing to let you all stay down here and keep whatever passes for your lives; keep this up, and we will destroy you."

The subsequent roar of rage as Dark Danny charged towards them might have been expected, but that didn't mean that Angel had to feel satisfied about it; planning a fight against completely unfamiliar opponents was always a tricky prospect. He barely had enough time to shift into a combat stance before Danny had charged toward, intercepting his other self's attack with a ramming motion as Deadman seemed to literally leap into Danny's body, infusing the younger ghost with a subtle red glow as he and his future self flew apart while continuing to glare at each other.

"You already lost to me once, old man," Danny said, his hands glaring with green/red energy as he glared at his future self, a slightly doubled tone to his voice as he spoke as though he was suddenly two people talking at once. "Care to try that a second time?"

"GO!" Angel yelled, charging into the mass of demons in front of him before any of their current enemies could take their eyes away from the sight of the two Dannys about to face off, his sword taking two demon heads away from their bodies before anyone around them could say anything, the other Coven members already hurrying towards their assigned or personally chosen targets.

The battle was on, and Angel had literally no idea what the final result was going to be; right now, his priority was to lead him and his team to take down every hostile demon around him before Satan emerged on the scene and hope for the best.

Chapter 15: Let the Battle be Joined

Notes:

Hope you all like this; working out what everyone can do in a mass fight scene like this one was NOT easy- the obvious disadvantage of bringing in too many characters, really-, but I think I managed to include a reference to what each member of the Coven were doing at least once

I'll mention in advance that when Im Ho Tep speaks in italics, he's actually speaking Egyptian; I'm just assuming that Illyria's powers include some degree of awareness of other languages, given the range of followers she must have had when she was alive in her true form and the variety of languages they must have spoken

As he stared up at the man he once would have been, Danny could only just resist the urge to shudder; even the knowledge that he'd stopped the timeline that would result in him becoming this man didn't make it any easier to accept his existence; the fact that there was a part of himself capable of becoming this guy...

Right now, however, he had to focus on the current fight as just a fight rather than think about the wider issues; this guy had been a tough enough opponent the first time they'd fought, and if Danny had picked up anything from Tucker's sci-fi movies then there was a good chance that back then the guy had been holding back because he didn't want to actually kill Danny and potentially erase himself from existence.

Still, at least he had a couple of advantages over the guy compared to the last time they'd fought; not only had he picked up that freeze power- he didn't know if the other guy had it, but at least, if the Ghostly Wail was any example, his foe might not expect him to have it-, but there was even the added bonus of his 'back-up' to take into account.

"All right then, old man," he said, grinning as he spread his hands to generate the ectoplasmic balls that were his usual weapons in ghost combat, his usual confidence overshadowing his fear as he started at his would-have-been future self, "let's do this."

Before his future self could retaliate, Danny launched the balls at him, barely registering the feeling that his arms felt like there was some additional force moving them before he realised with slight surprise that the usually green balls were now tinted with some kind of red energy. He barely had time to process this unusual twist before the balls struck his foe, sending his other self falling to the ground with a roar of pain that Danny had never heard from him before.

Oh yeah! a voice suddenly yelled from the back of Danny's mind. Now THAT is what I'm talking about!

"Boston?" Danny said, his voice low as he recognised the accent of the voice he'd just heard; even if he could probably just think his question, it made him feel better to voice it verbally, particularly since he had the chance to do so while his future self was off-balance. "Is that... was that... you?"

Packing heat and giving you a boost; you'd better believe it's me, Danny, the ghost known as Deadman 'replied', sounding extremely satisfied with himself as he 'spoke'.

"Ah," Danny said, nodding in brief understanding as he took in this new information. The sensation of Boston Brand 'hanging around' in the back of his mind was a bit strange- he was used to overshadowing people himself, but he didn't often experience it from the other side; the fact that Boston wasn't actually trying to control him almost made it weirder-, but he was pleased to note that Angel's theory about Boston enhancing his powers even if the other ghost didn't have any offensive abilities of his own seemed to be accurate.

May not have any 'oomph' myself, but I've been around enough to pick up a few neat tricks if the situation calls for close-quarter-combat, Boston said, the joviality fading from his tone as he turned his attention back to their still-somewhat-off-guard opponent. Now then, what say we get back to business and take this guy out?

Whether their combined power would be enough to make the kind of impact Danny was going to need if he was going to win this fight was another issue altogether- particularly since virtually everyone else who might be able to help was already busy with other stuff; he could see that 'Raven' girl blasting away at a group of demons who seemed to be trying to fight against her with similar powers that she was only just able to deflect-, but judging by the enraged and slightly dazed expression on his other self's face as he leapt back into action, he felt fairly sure that the guy had already taken a bit more damage from that blow than he'd taken from any of Danny's non-Wail attacks in their last battle.

The stakes in this fight might be impossibly high, but at least they had some kind of plan to get the outcome they wanted...

---

Looking at the large stone creature before him, Hellboy had to admit that he was somewhat impressed by this 'Beast'- as Angel and Faith had named it-; it might not be as wide as him, but the thing had fairly sturdy muscles, and its rock-like 'skin' definitely didn't strike him as something that it would be particularly easy to crack.

In other words, it was going to be a challenge, but at the same time one that couldn't just run away when things got ugly; exactly the kind of opponent Hellboy liked.

"So," the Beast said at last, raising a critical eyebrow as it looked at him, an amused edge to its voice as it spoke, "you are an associate of Angelus?"

"Could say that," Hellboy replied, grinning at his enemy as he clenched his fists, his gun hanging at his side in case he needed it. "Anyway, enough talk; shall we do this?"

The Beast didn't bother replying, the massive rock creature simply charging towards Hellboy with full force, the more flesh-based demon only just managing to deflect the initial attack as he ducked to the Beast's right, spinning around as he moved to strike the Beast in the back with his stone fist. The blow didn't seem to do much more than knock the Beast off-balance, but the slight cracks Hellboy noticed forming on the Beast's back were enough for the Bureau-raised demon to confirm his more realistic hopes.

The guy's skin might be hard, but it obviously wasn't totally invulnerable; hit him with enough force- although it was obviously far more force than anything that Angel or his original team could have brought to bear against this bastard in their original fight-, and something was going to give, and Hellboy was going to make sure that it was going to be this guy rather than him.

He just wished that Constantine was available so that they could try a double-shotgun blast against this sucker's thick hide- mystically blessed bullets had to do something against somebody this evil; anyone else using guns tended to rely on more straightforward bullets-, but considering that the exorcist was otherwise occupied and relying on the holy knuckledusters more than the Holy Shotgun to bash the other guy's heads in, Hellboy was reluctant to try and attract the guy's attention unless he had to.

Given the numbers that they were currently up against, it would be best to let Constantine focus on the bad guys he was dealing with on his own right now and think about bringing him in later if the Beast was still standing when the right time came to ask for his help...

"So," Hellboy said, his attention turning back to the Beast as he smirked and raised his fist as though showing off his weapon, thoughts of asking for back-up later reserved for whenever it became necessary to consider them again, "now that you've got a taste of the old 'Right Hand of Doom', ready to back down before things get nasty?"

"That will not be happening," the Beast said, chuckling slightly as he looked at Hellboy. "I am actually surprised that you would be a part of this fight on the side that you have chosen; surely your heritage-"

"Means nothing more to me than a fluke of biology," Hellboy countered grimly; he'd had enough of this crap during that thing with Rasputin- Myers might have been a bit annoying, but the man'd had a damn good point about his father giving him the chance at a choice to be more than just a demon who was here to destroy everything-, and he had absolutely no interest in hearing any more on that topic at a time like this. "I'm who I am because of what I chose, not because of what I was born as; I'm definitely not going to do what I'm meant to do, whatever that was."

"I see," the Beast said, smirking slightly as he shifted into a new combat stance, a slightly dismissive expression in his eyes as he looked at Hellboy, clearly not expecting the other man to be that much of a challenge. "Let us... as you say... do this."

As the Beast launched another punch, Hellboy casually redirected the blow- his teammates on the Coven might not be as strong as this guy, but their speed advantage had forced Hellboy to work on improving his own reflexes during their practise sparring sessions- before he struck out with a kick to the creature's chest, noting that the kick didn't cause the same crack that his stone hand had delivered even if it still sent the Beast staggering slightly.

Repeated punching with the stone hand wouldn't accomplish that much- the Beast wasn't exactly stupid, and that hand was still relatively slow compared to what the rest of his limbs could do; stick to it too much and he might give the Beast the chance to grab it, and he really didn't want to find out the hard way what would happen if someone broke that thing-, but so long as he kept on the go and kept his opponent on his toes, he might manage to wear the bastard out with blows from his regular limbs while throwing in the occasional stone punch.

It would take a while, but considering that he was up against a Horseman of the Apocalypse, Hellboy thought that he was fine focusing on the fact that he had any kind of strategy for taking on somebody who operated on this sort of scale.

He just hoped that he could figure out a way to take the guy out for good before he became too tired; he might be the Coven's most physically powerful member- Spawn was probably just as tough, but the ex-assassin had a few long-range tricks that he didn't, and he didn't know enough about the other new guys to really know how tough they could be-, but it wasn't like he'd ever had the chance to fight a foe who might be tough enough to wear him out...

---

Ducking under the first blow from her assigned adversary of Im Ho Tep, Illyria had to admit that she enjoyed the simplicity of the current situation. Ever since she had joined the half-breed's 'team', she had found herself experiencing emotions and attachments that she had never even contemplated were possible when she was in her original state, and that was without taking all the new 'rules' about what kind of damage she could do to the surrounding area or other figures when she was engaged in a fight.

Right now, however, in this fight, she had nothing to worry about but the scale of the powers currently arrayed against her; her opponent was strong, but her training sessions with Spike had taught her even before joining the Coven that even the strongest warrior could be defeated by n adversary with the right plan of attack...

As Im Ho Tep launched into battle, it didn't take Illyria long to know that she would have an easier time in this fight than she had initially expected. While Im Ho Tep was at least as physically strong as she was, his knowledge of hand-to-hand appeared to be far more basic compared to hers; given his background as a priest, she suspected that he had relied on others to fight for him before acquiring his powers. His physical strength would give him an advantage over most regular opponents, and he still had some degree of skill, but it was a relatively basic level of skill compared to some of the people she had been training against for the past few months.

She was aware that he had additional powers beyond his strength, but so far he seemed reluctant to use them; even if he could control the elements and the Ten Plagues, such powers would definitely require greater space than either of them possessed right now. Im Ho Tep and the Horsemen might command a large army, but Illyria doubted that even such arrogant beings would attempt any kind of attack that had just as much chance of taking out their followers as it would have of injuring the Coven; when mounting an attack like the one they were planning, every man would count.

Despite her usual faith in her strength and capabilities, Illyria was grateful that Im Ho Tep didn't seem to have much of an interest in summoning those allies to assist him in his current fight. Whether that was due to his own natural arrogance, the fact that the rest of the Coven and their new allies in Lady Death's army were keeping the demon army fairly occupied, or the simple knowledge that his followers wouldn't be able to do anything to her because Illyria was so much more powerful than most of them, Illyria didn't know, but this wasn't the time to wonder about something like that.

All that mattered right now to Illyria was that she was up against an opponent that she could release her full strength and frustration against, and she was going to take full advantage of this opportunity (The part of her that would always be her 'shell' noted that she still had some issues about the restrictions that had been placed on her after she was transferred into this body, but the rest of her just enjoyed the thrill of the fight).

"Why do you fight?" Im Ho Tep asked, looking at her with a mocking smirk to his voice after his last attack knocked her back a few crucial feet. "You are nothing now compared to what you were before you met them-"

"And I have made peace with my weakness," Illyria countered, her eyes narrowing as she stared at her foe. "I will never be what I once was, but I have found a home of sorts here where I am able to use what abilities I do possess against those who would use such powers to seek power and authority that they do not deserve."

"And what standards do you use to judge whether or not they deserve such power?" Im Ho Tep asked, launching another punch that Illyria neatly sidestepped- even without her time-bending abilities, her reflexes were still far sharper than the former priest's-, grabbing the arm and hauling Im Ho Tep forward with her right hand before she rammed her elbow down onto the back of his neck, sending him staggering forward with a roar of pain.

"For one thing, I know that you are not one who deserves such power," she said, looking scornfully at the cursed priest as he turned around to look at her, his mouth opening and closing in dazed shock as blackened blood leaked from his lips. "And for another, I find that, whether it is from the influence of my body's memories or from my own weakness, I find that I am... fond... of those who I fight alongside."

It was something that Illyria had never even put into words for herself before- even her choice of phrasing surprised her; she had already accepted the continued existence of Winifred Burkle as something natural, despite her previous belief that she had destroyed the woman's soul-, but, now that it had been said, she found that it was true; she genuinely liked the people that she currently fought alongside.

They might be inferior beings by the standards of the enemies and allies she had possessed when she existed at the height of her power, but she had known few of her fellow Old Ones who possessed the courage and resolve that the Coven had demonstrated time and time again in their battles with their enemies.

If being a part of that meant that she had a chance to fight such diverse enemies as these 'Horsemen', than she would be more than content with that; her standards might be lower physically, but her teammates all possessed such strength of will that they were more than her equal spiritually.

---

Lucian didn't need to see Frost apparently effortlessly pulling his own body back together after Blade's first surprise attack sliced him in half along the waist- the Daywalker might not be as fast as an Elder, but he was still really good at what he did; Lucian doubted any lycan younger than him could have seen that blow before it struck if Blade had been a Death Dealer- to know that the current situation was almost ridiculously out of his league.

He'd barely prevailed against Viktor in their first fight after Sonja's execution when he'd had the advantage of daylight on his side, and now here he was, fighting what could best be described as an 'uber-vampire' with only a half-vampire and a vampire unlike anything he'd ever encountered fighting alongside him. The idea that he was up against something that could come back from the damage he'd just witnessed his new 'ally' inflicting wasn't an encouraging thought, even if he was willing to ignore the part of his mind currently panicking at the thought of relying on vampires to do anything.

"You really think that's going to stop me?" Deacon Frost asked, laughing mockingly at the three combatants around him. "I am the manifestation of the Blood God himself-!"

"Kicked your ass once already, you son of a bitch," Blade said, his glare visible despite his traditional sunglasses covering his eyes, his grip tightening on the sword in his hands as he stared down his enemy. "You really think I can't do that again?"

"I'm not the inexperienced over-powered fool I was in our last clash, Daywalker," Frost countered with a slight smirk, spreading his arms as his fists seemed to swell to twice their original size. "I possess the power of eons of blood and vampires in one form, along with the additional strength and power of the Horseman of Pestilence; do you truly believe that you three can vanquish me?"

"We've handled bigger, mate," Spike said grimly, raising his own sword as he studied the other man, a dismissive glare in his eyes as he stared at Frost. "I'm not going to back down just because you're too cowardly to take a few shots in a fight-"

"Cowardly?" Frost said, his confidence replaced by annoyance as he glared at the other vampire. "You dare to-"

"He has a good point," Lucian said, smiling slightly as he quickly understood Spike's new plan of 'attack'; when you couldn't be sure you could defeat someone physically, do what you could to undermine them psychologically. "You might have acquired exceptional power, but all it really seems to do for you is make it hard for someone to hit you; what can you actually do to us offensively with that whole 'blood god' schtick apart from annoy us by being hard to kill-?"

Roaring in rage, Frost thrust a hand forward and launched a torrent of blood at Lucian from the sleeve of his shirt, only for Lucian to neatly dodge the blast as he allowed his lycan side to emerge while he shed his coat.

If Frost was as 'invulnerable' as he appeared to be, he'd enjoy seeing how the vampire coped with an attack of this kind; he had to wonder how many times he'd need to rip the vampire apart with his teeth and claws before Frost's body simply lost the ability to put itself back together?

It wasn't the most sophisticated way to win a fight, but as much as Lucian preferred more strategic battle plans, sometimes practicality and necessity had to take precedence over style.

From what he'd seen and heard about Frost's current abilities, his best chance of winning this particular fight seemed to be to use his lycan strength- along with Blade and Spike as back-up- to tear this piece of crap apart until Frost couldn't put himself back together.

---

A part of Leo couldn't believe that he was doing this; as a Whitelighter he was meant to provide support and advice for witches when facing demons, and here he was, actively taking part in a conflict that would decide the fate of the entire world as one of the key participants in the fight?

It wasn't that he felt like he had been forced into this situation- he'd made a choice to become the Coven's contact with the forces of good magic, and he'd been accepted into the fold by all of them-, and having Paige and Willow fighting alongside him at least helped him feel less out of place than he might have felt- Willow might not have been a charge but she was still a witch- but it didn't mean that he found it any easier to deal with the sheer scale of what they were up against right now.

For all the training that his new allies had given him over the last few months, his combat skills were still relatively limited compared to theirs, and Paige and Cole could do pretty much everything he could do in this fight without the issue of lacking any actual offensive powers...

"LEO!" Paige said, suddenly orbing an axe from a nearby demon's hands and slashing at a winged rat-like creature that had been about to bite Leo's face. "Focus, will you?"

"Sorry; little caught up in something," Leo said, attacking an approaching creature that looked vaguely like some kind of overgrown ant with his sword, vaguely noting Etrigan and Blue Devil torching a large swarm of demons that put him in mind of armed dragonflies with their respective pyrokinetic abilities. "This is really getting tiring..."

"Not exactly your forte, huh?" Paige asked, grunting briefly as she kicked out at the nearest demon.

"I'm really not sure how I ended up in this whole team; I'm just their liaison-" Leo began, wishing that he could have a moment to talk about this without the need to fight for his life at the same time.

"I know Angel, Leo," Willow said, looking over at the Whitelighter with a brief, pointed stare before she turned her attention back to the current fight, launching a rapid series of energy blasts at approaching demons even as she continued speaking. "He likes working in teams these days- even if he was a bit of a loner when I originally met him-, but he wouldn't keep someone around if they couldn't contribute something; you might not be in your element here, but you are on his team, and you've clearly proved yourself as such if you're still here."

For a moment, Leo wasn't sure how to respond to that, but then he saw a distinctively large demon approaching- he was fairly sure it was a Haxil beast- and he didn't hesitate; orbing over to stand in front of the creature, he orbed rapidly back and forth through it until it collapsed to the ground, screaming and roaring in pain as it clutched at the burns that constant contact with Leo's good magic had inflicted.

"Nice..." Paige said, looking at the downed demon with a smile.

"Fighting may not be my first choice, but I picked up a few tricks over the years," Leo clarified with a slight shrug before he took up his axe and hacked off the creature's head. Another quick blow from the axe sliced the severed head in half before he kicked one half into another part of the hall, ending any possibility of the body trying to put itself back together; decapitation might not kill a Haxil normally, but after close exposure to his orbs the removal of the head should be enough to finish the job.

Whatever his doubts about his own skills, Leo had to admit that Willow had made some valid points; he wouldn't be in the Coven if the others didn't think he could contribute anything to the fight, and suffering from self-doubt in a fight like this wouldn't bring his wife and family back to him in any form.

If the likes of Winifred Burkle and Jericho Caine could keep on fighting down here despite their lack of any kind of actual powers- he could see Fred neatly side-stepping a Polgara's attempt to stab her before she brought a just-stolen mace down on its bone-like claw-, he had no reason to back down just because this wasn't the kind of work he was used to.

---

Lashing out wildly with his chains, the part of Blaze that was still in control of the Ghost Rider reflected how comparatively refreshing it was to be able to really let rip at a time like this. Normally, when he was back on Earth, he had to be careful about what he did with his powers to stop himself hurting anyone else- the street damage he'd caused in his initial transformation was an unpleasant memory these days; he was just grateful that he'd been in a relatively quiet area of town at the time-, but right now, with the Coven relatively spread out across a large area, he could feel free to let rip with a far greater amount of force than what he would have been capable of back then.

As he launched one chain through the chests of at least four nearby demons, Blaze spun around to swing his second chain in a powerful motion that neatly tore through the necks of another small group of demons, kicking out as another demon tried to sneak up behind him. Still standing astride his bike, Blaze activated the bike's engine to blaze a flaming trail through the nearest group of demons, leaping off the bike when he found himself approaching Angel as the vampire duelled with two swords simultaneously to eliminate the immediately-present wave of attackers.

"Nice weapon!" Blaze said, parking the bike at Angel's back as he drew the Hellfire Shotgun and fired it at the head of the nearest demon, taking it down just before its scaled hand could take hold of the vampire.

"Grabbed it off one of the first guys I killed," Angel said, as Blaze took up position standing back-to-back with Angel, the bike secure between them. "It's not my usual style, but given the numbers we're up against, anything to make the job a bit quicker, right?"

"Any idea where Lady Death's forces are in this?" Blaze asked, launching a couple of fireballs at the nearest target before using his chain to yank a couple of axes out of the hands of the nearest demons.

"Not obviously, no," Angel said, a brief tone of regret in his voice before he turned his attention back to the fight even as he continued talking. "I think the best we can do is keep an eye out for anyone who's attacking another demon and leave them to sort it out if we don't know which one's on our side."

Even without an actual military background and a personal desire not to hurt anyone who wasn't trying to hurt him first, Blaze couldn't really blame the vampire for his abrupt attitude towards their allies. It might be a slightly cold way to treat Lady Death's forces given how she'd helped them get to this fortress in the first place, but in a fight like this, with the kind of stakes they were dealing with, there really wasn't the time to worry about which demon was on their side in that kind of scuffle.

"Any plan about how we handle the big guy when he shows up?" Blaze asked, turning his thoughts to more positive matters as another fireball incinerated the nearest demon while singing his immediate comrades. He briefly noted Eric Draven neatly take out a few people with a quick blow of his sword while his crow hovered overhead in a more distant part of the battle, but he didn't have the time to look more closely at what the rest of his allies were up to right now; with the crow acting as lookout, the guy should be all right from what Blaze remembered of his history.

"Right now, I'm focused on creating enough of a dent in his forces so that he does show up; after that, it's really getting beyond any kind of plan I could come up with up there," Angel said, ducking under another attempted axe blow and following it up by stabbing the creature through the mouth as it roared in rage. "Still, at least we already took out the Gathering; that's bound to put a few holes in his arsenal."

"The who?" Blaze asked, the fight briefly forgotten as he looked back at Angel before a sword to the side brought his attention back to the fight at hand, turning around to punch his attacker's head off with a flaming blow; he might be mostly bones as the Ghost Rider, but attacks like that could still hurt on some level.

"Satan tried to keep me and the rest of the original Coven distracted by bringing a bunch of deranged and powerful supernatural killers together," Angel explained, somehow managing to maintain the conversation while duelling with two bladed demons simultaneously. "They didn't really do anything apart from kill a lot of people, but they were extremely powerful and highly; given that most of them were immortal by any standard, we only managed to stop them all by making a deal with two of them-"

"Sounds interesting; too bad we don't have the time talk about that more," Blaze interrupted, grimly turning his attention back to the fight as he thrust his chains through another couple of skulls (It might be bloodier than what he'd do back on Earth, but it got the job done and it wasn't like these guys were humans that he could deal with them the other way).

Still, even if he couldn't hear the full detail of the story right now, hearing stories like that at least gave him some hope that he'd made the right choice by sticking with the Coven; if they'd won against a team of deranged supernatural psychos in the past, maybe they could pull off another victory this time around...

---

Spawn hated to admit it, but while this wasn't anything like the type of fighting he was used to- he was really more comfortable working in the shadows; as much as he'd hated what his work had made him when he was alive, he had developed some habits that were hard to break-, he was really rather enjoying this fight. Something about this environment already seemed to be having a positive effect on his suit, allowing him to unleash a wider variety of chains and blades than what he had been capable of back on Earth, while the relatively straightforward nature of his enemies meant that he didn't have to worry that much about them coming up with an effective counter-attack.

He acknowledge that there were some demons who could think about more than tearing human beings apart and feasting on their bone marrow or something like that, but so far he hadn't encountered anything like that in this room apart from the Horsemen themselves. While the optimistic part of him wanted to think that it was because the Horsemen hadn't wanted to bring in any soldiers who could think too much, the rest of him was more inclined to think that they were keeping their smarter minions- probably a few other Hellspawn at least, in a worst-case scenario- somewhere else so that they could save them for the main assault on Earth.

Whatever the reason for the lack of rational thinkers in this situation, Spawn wasn't going to waste time thinking about that; he had a task to do right now, he had people to kill that he had no compunctions about eliminating whatsoever, and he was going to put down as many of these bastards as it took to prevent that apocalypse he and the Coven had witnessed earlier (Or should that be later, given the time-travel factor in what they were doing?)...

"Oh yeah!" Cole's voice suddenly yelled, Spawn risking a glance over just in time to see Cole hurling a series of energy balls at the demons around him, grinning as each ball disintegrated its target at the moment of contact. "Now that is what I'm talking about!"

"Don't get cocky, Turner!" Spawn yelled over at the Goldlighter, lashing out with a chain to impale a demon through the head before it could retaliate; as much as he was coming to like the Coven as friends, their lack of professionalism could get to him at times. "They're not great tactical thinkers, but there's a lot of them; you can't throw those things forever!"

"True," Cole said, pausing just in time to grab an axe that one of his opponents had dropped earlier and swing it through the nearest demon's neck at the same time. "But I didn't get where I was when I was Belthazor by lacking the ability to improvise when things turned against me!"

"Good to know!" Spawn retorted, blades intercepting a sword-thrust that could have impaled him in the head before he was able to turn the weapon back on its owner. "We really need some goddamn improv skills right now; this fight is fucking ridiculous!"

"To you, maybe," a third voice said, Spawn glancing up just in time to see Batman dive down, the former human vigilante's bat-like wings sending various demons flying as he spread them out after landing to use as a rather effective pair of 'clubs', simultaneously releasing the feral purple-furred form of Catwoman from her position on his back to attack the surrounding demons. "I spent most of my human life training to cope with large numbers of foes on my own, and one of the first things that I learned was simple; when you're outnumbered, your foes don't try that hard because they all expect the others to take the risks for them."

"Good in theory, hard to put into goddamn practise!" Spawn said, grabbing a nearby demon under the jaw and tearing its head off before it could escape, subsequently using the head to knock out another attacker. "You may have trained for something like this, but I know I didn't; my focus was always on taking out the other guy so he didn't even know I was there until it was over most of the time! We're outnumbered and outgunned-!"

"And we're holding the line; we just have to keep trying!" Cole yelled, hurling another energy ball at a demon that had been about to impale Captain Jack Sparrow as he neatly manoeuvred around his current adversaries (Spawn hated to admit it, but Jack's 'drunken' combat style was surprisingly effective; it was frustratingly hard for anyone to actually focus on him when he kept moving about like that). "We've already taken out some of his army; take out too much and his plan can't work!"

"Here's hoping that's close to accurate..." Spawn muttered, turning his attention back to the fight while trying to avoid the temptation to just break down and panic.

As much as he trusted that his new friends were capable combatants, the fact remained that they were up against some seriously powerful demons with a large amount of back-up with the Coven's only real advantage being the element of surprise and possibly a couple of 'holy' warriors; chances weren't terrible, but for all of Batman's arguments about his training and their strategy, the odds weren't that good either.

---

As he blasted his way through the hoard of demons surrounding him, Milton wondered why the hell he'd signed up for this mess; trying to save his granddaughter from a loony cult was one thing, but what the Hell was one guy meant to do when faced with the goddamn apocalypse?

It wasn't like he was going to give up, of course, but he really had to wonder what he was actually accomplishing here; even with a weapon that didn't need to reload because he was used to it always being loaded, there was only so much he could do in a fight like this...

"Self-worth freak-out, huh?" a grim voice with a distinctive accent said after the immediate wave of attackers had been driven back, prompting Milton to glance over at the sight of Jericho Caine taking up position behind him, the other man still holding his own weapon as he smiled grimly at the former criminal.

"In the sense that I don't know what I'm doing here, yeah," Milton replied, nodding in confirmation at the other man. "I mean, I broke out of Hell, but that was just because I wanted to rescue my granddaughter-"

"Hey, I just set out to save one girl and ended up stopping the End of Days back when I was alive," Caine said, smiling reassuringly at Milton in a manner that somehow seemed all the more sincere for its obvious awkwardness. "We never know what we can do when we're involved in this kind of situation; all we can do is help out where we can and hope that it'll be enough-"

For a moment, the sound of a shotgun blast close to them had Milton and Caine looking anxiously at each other, but when they confirmed that neither of them had been injured they glanced up to see Fred advancing towards them, a gun grimly clasped in her hands as she looked at the fallen form of a demon that had been sneaking up behind the two dead men.

"Stay alert," she said, looking grimly at her new associates before she spun around to hit a demon that put the other two in mind of some kind of zombie in the face with the butt of the gun, the demon's fragile form shattering under the impact of the weapon. "You might be dead, but that doesn't mean these things can't hurt you if they get lucky."

"We'll keep that in-" Caine began, only for the sudden sensation of a short, sharp burst of something that could only be dark magic even for those who didn't know what they were feeling washing over the room cut off further conversation for a moment as all the combatants paused mid-attack to observe the source of the energy burst.

It didn't take long for them to identify the source of the blast as Im Ho Tep's now-deceased form, Illyria having neatly punched her fist through his face and out the back of his head while he was temporarily in a flesh form, delivering so much damage to his brain in so little time that even the near-immortal Im Ho Tep couldn't react quickly enough to stop himself being killed by the blow.

As the other combatants watched, Im Ho Tep's mouth dropped gormlessly open, Illyria's punch having driven a hole in his face where his nose and eyes had been, before his body fell to the ground, the top half of the former priest's head virtually shattered from the force of the ex-God-King's blow.

From his position off to one edge of the battlefield, Angel wasn't sure if he should feel satisfied or anxious about this new turn of events; they might have just taken out one of the Horsemen, but he had a feeling-

The sudden roar of rage from all around them was all the confirmation that Angel needed that his main goal and secret fear was about to be realised.

Chapter 16: The Devil Will Rise

Angel wasn't sure if the roar had included some kind of pre-arranged signal, or if the army they'd been facing were just scared, but it didn't take the other members of the Coven long to realise that their initial preparation for a renewed assault was unnecessary as their opponents suddenly stopped fighting, leaving Angel and his allies to step back and catch their breath- those of them who needed it, anyway- after eliminating the demons immediately around them.

"Ideas?" Blaze asked, reverting to human form and grimly glancing over at Angel as the Coven tried to move towards each other without making their intentions too obvious.

"We fight," Angel said resolutely.

"No offence, but the last time you used something like that as a plan, we ended up needing these guys to bail us out," Spike muttered as he joined his grandsire, indicating some of the other Coven members with a brief wave of his hand. "We're pretty much stuck for back-up right now, in case you hadn't noticed; we get in over our heads, nobody's coming to bail us out..."

"Which is the way it should be," Lady Death said, looking resolutely at Spike. "We have come this far, and we shall go further; all that matters now is that we vanquish our enemy, regardless of the cost to ourselves."

"Just focus on not dying and we'll take everything else from there, OK?" Fred said, smiling slightly shakily at the people around her. "Speaking from personal experience, dying is even less fun when you're losing..."

"Hey, some of us are dead; does that mean we can't get killed in this?" Deadman asked with a slightly hopeful smile, the former trapeze artist separating from Danny as they took advantage of the temporary lull in the fighting (Angel just hoped that the slight tension he saw around their shoulders was just due to immediate discomfort at being separated; if merging caused them pain, they ran the risk of losing one of their best weapons in this fight).

"Let's just assume we don't want to know for sure and try and stay alive," Caine said, cocking his weapons as he stared grimly at the centre of the room, the Horsemen and the other demons rapidly pulling back as some kind of hatch began to open around the raised platform where the Horsemen had been standing when the Coven entered the room. "I get the feeling that suicide isn't going to be an option for stopping the bastard this time..."

"Just remember Rule One, and we'll be fine," Faith said, flexing her shoulders as she stared resolutely at the opening hatch in front of them.

"Rule One?" Raven asked curiously.

"'Don't Die'," Faith clarified, smilingly grimly at the half-demon empath. "First rule for Slayers, but I figure that it can apply in all situations..."

The dark Slayer's voice trailed off as a figure began to emerge from the opening hatch in front of them, silence falling over both sides of the fight as the demons witnessed their commander rise from wherever he'd been waiting and the Coven could only watch as their enemy came forth to confront them for their recent defiance.

Any hopes from those Coven members who'd come down here from Earth that they'd be facing the man in the white suit that they'd encountered earlier- or later, from the perspective of the rest of the world- quickly vanished as two massive bat-like wings emerged from the new hole in the ground, the wing-flaps an orange colour that somehow evoked a mental impression that the wings had suffered from some kind of disease in the past while the wing's edges appeared to be a deep mottled brown. As the creature's main body emerged, two large, muscular arms, each one about as thick as Hellboy's chest, were revealed underneath the wings, although with a head that looked vaguely like a badly-burned ram's skull with bat-like ears in place of its horns and hollowed eyes instead of eyeballs, somehow glaring in their direction despite the lack of anything that it could actually glare at them with in the first place.

"You..." the thing that could only be Satan said, glaring at the Coven as they raised their weapons in preparation for whatever was about to happen.

"Yep," Angel said, swinging the sword experimentally in his hands as he glared at their foe.

"You surprise me, Coven of Reformed Supernaturals... and associated allies, I presume," Satan said,

"I had assumed that you would be... occupied... at this time..."

"One thing you should have learned about us," Jason said, grinning slightly as he mockingly smiled at Satan. "We've made a reputation out of not doing what's expected of us."

"True..." Satan said, nodding in grim contemplation before he smiled slightly as he looked around at the Coven. "But still, regardless of what other allies you possess, you must realise now that you have chosen to attempt a hopeless task?"

"Oh, I don't know about that; we've done some damage already from where I'm standing," Milton said, cocking his gun as he took aim at Satan, a slightly grim smile on his lips as he nodded in a contemplative manner at the familiarity of the current situation. "One Horseman down and a hell of a lot of demons slaughtered, and not much more than a few losses on our side; I'd say we've got the edge."

"Plus, of course, given the damage you caused with your big 'distraction', I think it's safe to say that we're not in the mood to talk," Paige added, clenching her fists as she fixed the demon with a glare of pure hate. "Despite your best efforts, we're here, we're mad, and we're really ready to kick you all the way back down into that goddamn pit unless you want to call off this whole 'apocalypse' plan you've got cooking."

"Would you care to explain how my 'big distraction' backfired?" Satan asked, smiling slightly as he looked casually at the Coven, apparently unconcerned about the threats that he had just received (Not that any of them could blame him; it wasn't like any one of them could pose a threat to him, even if they were betting that strength in numbers would make a more direct impact when the actual fight started).

"Sure thing; we just... oh wait; we're not egomaniacs who need to let the other guy know how we got to the point where we can kick his ass," Blue Devil said, rolling his eyes sarcastically. "How thick do you think we are, you overgrown bat?"

"And how foolish are you, my 'friends'?" Satan asked, a smile passing across its pitiful excuse for lips as it let out what could only be its twisted version of a chuckle as it looked at the various members of the Coven. "I have gathered the largest army of evil ever assembled in the multiverse in this place, and it is even now preparing for an assault against your world; my plans have progressed too far to ever be halted-"

"Considering that you're the fucking master of lies, you'll forgive us if we're not inclined to take your word about that," Caine said, glaring resolutely at the creature that had already killed him once.

"You might be a ridiculously powerful individual, but you wouldn't have tried to stop these people if they weren't a threat to you as we were," Jack said, shrugging slightly as he smiled confidently at the being who was once known as Lucifer. "You've gone to a not inconsiderable amount of trouble to stop them getting here, and you're trying far too hard to deter them from the idea that they can do anything to you here now that they are here, so evidently there's something that they can do here-"

"The point," Dante said, rolling his eyes slightly as he glared over at the pirate captain before he looked back at Satan, "is that our demands are simple; call off the apocalypse, and we'll let you go."

"And why should I do that?" Satan asked.

"Because if you don't," Constantine said, cocking his shotgun and aiming it at Satan, "we'll make sure there's not enough of you left to put in an urn."

Satan simply chuckled at that statement, looking scornfully at the Coven as they stood assembled before him, cradling their weapons in preparation for whatever assault he had to throw at them.

"Do you truly believe that you can stop me?" he asked, sounding sadistically amused at what he had just heard. "I am the most powerful being in this world; God Himself chose to banish me rather than slay me even at my weakest-"

"Guy was just starting out and he had a merciful streak that we don't," Spawn said, his armour randomly sprouting various blades as he glared at the large creature before them. "We're not going to cast you down to reflect on your fucking sins or whatever reasoning he had for sticking you in this place; you fuck with our world, we are going to put you down so goddamn fast you won't even know you're dead until you've stopped."

"Besides," Lucian added, smirking slightly as he studied their foe, his body shifting slightly even as he retained his human form, "you wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of keeping these men distracted unless they could pose a threat to you, and there's a lot more of them now than there were when you wanted them out of the way."

"In a nutshell," Cole added, generating a couple of energy balls in his hands as he smirked at Satan, "you can withdraw now and we might let you live, or continue trying to fight us-"

"AND KILL YOU!" Satan roared, leaping from the pit to fly towards them, exposing thick goat-like legs before Cole struck him in the face with both of his newly-generated energy balls, followed by a series of fire and ectoplasmic blasts from all the Coven members whose powers included the ability to attack at long range.

"Danny, Boston, Hellboy, Spike, Blade, stick with the Horsemen; Lady Death, you and your forces keep his army occupied," Angel said, tightening both hands around his sword as he took an urgent look at the rest of the Coven. "As for the rest of you, show him what real Hell is!"

The affirmative roar of rage as the Coven charged towards Satan was all the confirmation that Angel needed that they were still willing to go along with his plan.

It might be the most insanely dangerous thing he'd ever attempted, but if he was going to die here, charging into battle against Satan himself, in the depths of Hell, with no guarantee that they'd live to enjoy the fruits of their labour even if they won, even if they won, at least he was going to die fighting side-by-side with some of the noblest fighters and truest- if strangest- friends he'd ever known.

He might have never earned the Shanshu, but he would be saving innocent people, and delivering a blow that would prove, once and for all, that evil could never prevail as long as someone tried to fight back.

Here goes nothing... Angel reflected grimly, as he lashed out with his sword at his enemy, delivering a slight cut to one wing before a punch to the chest knocked him back, leaving the rest of the Coven to swarm over their adversary...

Chapter 17: Beating the Devil: Round One

Hellboy wasn't sure what it said about him that he would have preferred to fight Satan at this point for the variety of the experience; the Beast was a challenge, to be sure, but he was really starting to get a better handle on how to cope with the bastard when it came down to an actual fight.

The guy still wasn't paying much attention to the cracks in his skin that Hellboy had left with his earlier punches so far, and he still hadn't had the chance to see what his gun would do to the bastard- with so many other demons crowding around them he couldn't get far enough away to draw his gun and be sure of taking a clear shot, and he couldn't afford to let his guard down long enough to draw the gun in close-quarter combat-, which left Hellboy stuck with his original plan of hitting the guy hard and using his stone arm to absorb the Beast's attempts to counter-attack.

On the bright side, the cracks that Hellboy had caused earlier appeared to be hampering the Beast's movement, with the stone-like demon apparently reluctant to move too quickly or stretch himself too far in case he made the damage worse than it was. He was still capable of delivering some serious blows, of course- Hellboy was fairly sure a chunk had been knocked out of what remained of his horns, and he definitely had a few cuts and some bruised ribs even if he had managed to avoid taking any bone-breaking damage so far-, but for the moment Hellboy was able to push himself a bit further than the other guy, and that was all he needed right now.

"Havin' trouble there, Rocky?" he asked as he ducked under another punch from his adversary; he might be as large as this guy, but he was definitely one hell of a lot faster than he was, even if he was still a bit more tired at the effort he was needing to put into this fight than he was trying to let on.

"No more than you are, Amung," the Beast replied, stepping back slightly to smirk as he looked at his opponent, the faint gleam from the cracks in his chest giving his face a disturbing additional illumination that Hellboy didn't like-

"Oh God, you too?" he said, rolling his eyes as he registered what the Beast had just said, pulling back from his planned punch to more directly address his foe. "Y'know, if you're going to try that whole thing about offering me answers to my 'destiny' if I let you live, just stop now and save us both a lot of time; I moved on from the phase of my life where I might have given a crap for that kind of thing so long ago it's not even worth remembering."

"You may deny your past all you wish, 'Hellboy', but it will inevitably come back to haunt you-" the Beast began, staring at him with a confidence in his manner that was somehow supported rather than lessened by the damage he'd sustained so far.

"Since that means I'll probably have a life after this for that bit of info to haunt me in the first place, I'll take that challenge," Hellboy said, grinning as he launched another stone punch at the demon's face, grinning as he saw a small chip of the Beast's nose fall away. "At least I'll have the Coven to stop me if that time comes."

It wasn't something any of the Coven had discussed in detail, of course, but it was something that they'd always been silently agreed on since they first started working together; if any of them 'reverted to type' and started to attack innocent people, the rest of them would put their former teammates down with extreme prejudice as quickly and efficiently as possible.

They didn't like to think about it, but with people like him and Spawn on the team, and the prophecies or rumours- or, in Spawn's case, the explicit information he'd received from that 'Malebolgia' bastard- about the reason they had been sent to Earth in the first place, that kind of rule was something they had to establish once they started working together; their initial fight against the evil Cole might have brought them together, but it also forced them all to recognise how dangerous they could be to others if things changed in the future.

"Right now, though," Hellboy continued, grinning as he caught the Beast's latest punch, "I'm focusing more on making sure you don't have any time after this fight's finished."

The subsequent kick wasn't as damaging as it could have been, but it knocked the other guy off-balance for a few moments, and that was all that really mattered in this kind of situation; keep the enemy on his toes until he could take the bastard down for good.

---

Danny had to hand it to Boston; the guy might not have much experience fighting like this, but he picked up on it far more quickly than Danny had when he'd first developed his own ghost powers, and he was helping Danny kick his future self's ass with relative ease.

Admittedly, it wasn't like his other self was a complete pushover- he still had ten years of experience to draw on that Danny himself wouldn't possess any time soon, and Boston's inexperience at this kind of combat could slow him down in a fight as well-, but it was still a lot more even than a direct fight would have been back when this guy first attacked him.

"DIE!" his future self yelled, hurling a blast of ectoplasmic energy at him with such force that Danny was only just able to raise a shield to deflect the worst of it away from him. Ducking to the side while his opponent was distracted, Danny launched his own attack, the shift in direction knocking his opponent off-balance long enough for Danny to fly up to him and unleash a quick series of physical blows that he'd picked up during the Coven's brief pre-Hell training session after they'd learned what Angel was planning.

It wasn't that much of an attack, of course- Danny had enjoyed the lessons he'd had with the Coven but he was still essentially an amateur at this kind of thing; you couldn't go from zero to expert in the time they'd had available-, but with the combined experience of Danny and Boston, they had at least a bit more knowledge than might be expected, and that seemed to be enough to throw his future self at least slightly off-balance.

"Not really willing to oblige you in that regard, buddy," Danny said, trying to sound more casual than he was as he floated slightly upwards, luring his future self away from the battle waging below them; given the scale of the shots they were starting to fire at each other, he wanted to be sure that he could limit the possibility of his teammates becoming victims of collateral damage. "How about you?"

"NEVER!" his future self yelled, charging forward with such speed that Danny briefly wondered if he'd teleported before he felt the other ghost's hands around his neck, the snake-like tongue flickering over his face as the nightmarish vision of what he could have been dominated his view.

"I failed because of you," his adversary practically hissed, the dementia in his gaze more extreme than anything that Danny had witnessed during his entire half-ghost existence. "You are nothing... you are a complete failure... and I will crush you like the non-entity you are!"

"Get over it, buddy!" Boston's voice yelled from Danny's mouth, ramming his feet into the creature's chest before diving back, pushing the two half-ghosts away from each other as Danny/Boston launched another blast of ectoplasmic energy at the creature. "Maybe Danny screwed up once when he became you, but he avoided that mistake, and he is not going to do that again!"

"There's no point talking to him, Boston," Danny said, retaking control of his mouth even as he began to circle his other self. "He's too caught up in trying to blow up everything that doesn't fit his vision of what should be to listen to anything; I mean, I saved my family, and he probably still wants them dead-"

"They are MEANT to be dead!" Dark Danny roared, duplicates forming around the younger Danny that he only just managed to evade thanks to an aerial manoeuvre that had to have come from Boston. "Your world is a LIE!"

"We reshape the world all the time we do something, pal," Danny said (He couldn't quite bring himself to refer to his other self by name, and he wasn't even sure if the other guy would consider himself 'Danny' any more anyway), drawing on some of the stories he'd already heard from some of his new 'teammates'- he still found it hard to believe that there was a team of people that he could fight alongside, even if he still felt a bit out of place- to support his words. "Maybe it's meant to be, or maybe it wasn't; all that matters is that what's here now is what is, and we're going to live in it."

The fact that his other self just roared in rage and continued to fire at him made Daniel reflect that he should have saved his breath, but at least he could say that he'd tried to talk the other guy down; now, all that remained was to keep the guy on his toes and hope for a lucky shot sooner rather than later.

He and Boston might be more powerful together than apart, but given that the other guy still had ten years of experience and nearly all of Danny's powers- he hadn't seen anything to suggest that the guy had mastered the freezing ability, but that could mean anything-, that really wasn't going to help unless they get some back-up soon...

---

Blade hated to admit it, but this whole mess was starting to get repetitive.

There might be something somewhat therapeutic about beating up the guy who'd ruined his life before he was even born, but there was only so much joy you could get out of beating the crap out of a guy when he couldn't actually feel any of the damage being inflicted upon him. He'd managed to land a few good bows on Frost so far, and Spike was certainly helping him keep up the pressure by ensuring that Frost never got a chance to rest even if Blade needed to take a break to breathe, but there was still only so much he could do without Karen's serum to trigger the same explosive reaction in the blood that he'd used to stop Frost last time...

"You really don't know when to quit, do you?" Frost said, leaping back after Blade's last attack to land on the edge of the open area that their combat had been taking place in- it was almost disturbing how everyone around them wanted to give the Horsemen a wide berth as the three remaining Horsemen fought the various members of the Coven; Blade wondered if it just reflected how even their own sides were scared of these bastards, but soon concluded that it didn't really matter so long as he didn't have to worry about getting stabbed in the back while he was otherwise occupied-, grinning nonchalantly at the Daywalker he'd created so long ago.

"Don't think I ever learned the meaning of the goddamn word," Blade said, staring grimly back at Frost. "You killed my mother before she could do any of that, you bastard."

"Kind of pathetic, when you think about it," Spike added, smirking a little as he stood alongside his teammate to glare at Frost. "You go to all the effort needed to make yourself some kind of screwy blood god and lead your people to dominance over the humans, and your biggest achievement's still creating the guy who's your kind's greatest enemy; what does that say about you?"

"I executed the old council-!" Frost began.

"Who, according to what Bladey here's told me, weren't even the true masters of the vampire nation and were stupidly out of date with the world around them anyway; big victory there, you prat," Spike said, rolling his eyes despite Blade's temporary glare in his direction. "You know, you're not going to get anywhere if you keep going on about how great you are without actually doing anything to back all that crap up; right now you're all noise and not a single bit of substance to show for it-"

"SILENCE!" Frost roared, both arms extending forward to pin Spike to the ground, the rest of Frost's body temporarily liquefying to flow into position pinning Spike to the ground, Frost's fangs bared as he glared at his foe before Spike head-butted him in the nose. Taking advantage of Frost's presently corporeal nature, Blade drew his gun and fired a quick bullet at Frost's head- any more bullets and he ran the risk of hitting Spike if Frost fell the wrong way-, smiling in satisfaction when the round penetrated and Frost screamed in rage.

"UV-illuminated tracer round, with a little touch of holy water; I've been expanding my arsenal," Blade explained, smirking as Frost turned to look at him, one side of his head already turning into ash even as his body's incredible healing abilities fought to protect it. "You might be able to handle conventional sunlight like this, but given that you're a goddamn demon right now, that kind of blow's going to hurt even when you don't have a body any more."

"You CANNOT-!" Frost began, ignoring the fact that the left side of his face wasn't completely finished repairing itself and his words therefore came out slightly mangled.

"Actually, the list of stuff we can't do as a team is virtually nonexistent," Spike interjected, smirking as he glared at Frost. "The list of stuff we can do definitely includes beating you up, by the way."

Neither vampire mentioned that the list included the possibility of their death; the warrior who went into battle unaware of the fact that they could die was an idiot, and the Coven were anything but foolish.

Right now, however, their only priority was to defeat this nightmare that had once been a vampire before he could do anything permanent to them; it wasn't going to be easy, but Blade and Spike were going to make sure that this bastard suffered before they were done with him.

---

As the Coven swarmed over Satan, the various members of the team were barely thinking about what their teammates were doing except to ensure that they weren't anywhere near the area that the rest of the team were presently attacking; the bastard might be large enough to keep them all occupied without anyone trying to attack the same bodypart, but that wasn't going to last against something this powerful.

Unfortunately, him being so large was both an advantage and a disadvantage to the Coven in a situation like this. While the obvious bonus of his size was that there was so much of him to hit that all of the Coven could strike at him without having to worry about getting hit by one of their teammates by accident, his size also meant that their attacks had relatively little impact on him even when they did make contact. The Coven members who relied on physical weapons to do damage were essentially causing little more than pinpricks to his hide even when they managed to make contact with his 'skin', and of those who used energy attacks, only Cole's energy balls had more long-term effects on him due to their 'good' nature, with everything else just causing the same minor scratches as the physical attacks.

The team were definitely holding their own, but with Satan taking care to protect his head from assault- the closest thing he had to a weak spot, given that his eyes and other sensory organs were in that area-, they weren't going to get anywhere when their only option was a 'death by a thousand cuts' strategy that might not even work; Satan hadn't shown any signs that he could heal so far, but given how minor the wounds were maybe his body just didn't consider it worthwhile healing those or something like that.

Angel hadn't expected this fight to be easy, but it was currently looking like things were going to be far harder than he'd ever expected; he'd hoped that the energy Satan would need to expend preparing for his assault on Earth would have made more of an impression on his personal power reserves than what it had apparently done so far...

"OK, does anyone have a strategy for what we do when it comes to killing this guy?" Blue Devil asked, using his staff to vault over another blast of hellfire as he tried to retaliate with a shot of his own at the same time.

"You cannot kill me, Daniel Cassidy!" Satan said, chuckling with amusement at the mere suggesting as he looked at the blue-skinned warrior. "I have existed since Existence itself began, and I will dwell on after you are all DUST-!"

"Goddamnit, will you just stop talking already?" Cole asked, hurling another energy ball at Satan, smiling at the burn that practically erupted on the Devil's skin as it made contact; his weapons might not do that much damage, but as objects of good magic their effect was still more significant than most. "We did not come here to hear you rant about yourself-!"

"Since the only other reason that you came here must have been to die, I find that hard to believe, Belthazor!" Satan said, laughing as he launched a blast of lightning at Cole, the Goldlighter swiftly orbing away even if he still seemed to twinge from the shock as he reappeared a short distance from his prior location.

"Damn, he's fast for such a large piece of shit!" Constantine yelled, another blast from the Holy Shotgun only skimming the bastard's wing despite his best attempt to aim; if he didn't score a lucky shot soon, he was going to have to find something else to fight with...

"Well, he's not exactly about to slow down for you, you know!" Faith yelled, her own blades slashing desperately at whatever parts of Satan she could reach despite the obvious futility of hoping that such small weapons could do any serious damage to such a large foe. "We need something that'll hold him still, and I don't think anyone's got that kind of power-!"

"I have an idea!" Danny's voice suddenly yelled from off to the side. The Coven had only just turned around to look in the direction of the voice- the older Danny was still active, but he seemed to be out of it after hitting a wall- before the black-clad half-ghost dived through the air and into Satan before any of his teammates could stop him.

"NO!" Angel yelled, only peripherally aware that some of the other members of the Coven were making similar proclamations of denial. "Danny, get out of there!"

"We... can... hold... it..." Satan muttered, his usual voice now a strange amalgamation of his voice with Danny and Boston's (Angel wasn't sure if it was the surprise factor or the simple fact that Satan couldn't have expected someone would try to attack him like this that was allowing Danny's gambit to pay off, but either way he wasn't going to complain if it was going to keep him still). "Just... hit... him... now..."

Angel didn't have time to voice his thoughts on the ghosts' strategy before others had picked up on his plan and begun the assault; if it worked, he could just hope that their friends would survive it. Spawn and Dante were swiftly tearing away at Satan's hands as they now lay on the ground while the rest of the Coven focused their attacks on his main body, slashing and firing with virtually everything they had at their powerful foe while their ghostly allies kept him immobilised.

For a moment, as Spawn's latest attack tore away two of Satan's fingers, followed by Blue Devil driving his trident firmly into Satan's inner elbow on his other arm while one of Constantine's shots blew a significantly-sized hole in one of Satan's wings, Angel thought that Danny's gambit would pay off; maybe they'd been keeping Satan too distracted for him to throw Danny off now that the 'halfa' had an established 'foothold' in the devil's mind...

Then Danny was thrown out of Satan's body, he and Boston splitting back into their separate identities as the rest of the Coven were thrown away from the clearly-enraged demon lord, and Satan's fist was hurtling towards the temporarily-immobilised ghost with a roar of rage-

"NO!" Angel yelled, forcing his own pain aside as he dived in between Danny and Satan's blow, the Lord of Hell's powerful punch tearing Angel's head away from his shoulders before the vampire could do anything to try and defect the attack.

Chapter 18: The Heaven Bomb

Looking back, none of the Coven were entirely certain what they actually saw. Most of them had been fairly certain that they had witnessed Angel collapse into dust, followed by the bright flash of light that none of them could identify the origin of, while others- mainly the mystic members of the group, such as Willow, Leo, Swamp Thing, and Raven- were certain that the flash and Angel collapsing into dust had happened instantaneously, as though their senses had been more attuned to what was happening than the rest of their teammates.

Some of the demons in closer proximity to the battle between the Coven and Satan seemed to have been dazed by the blast, and even the three Horsemen momentarily stopped what they were doing as though suddenly overcome by the need to clear their minds, but the Coven appeared to come through the attack relatively unharmed; a few of them, like Hellboy, Blue Devil, and Spawn, seemed to wince at the sight of the blast, but otherwise the explosion only seemed to have any real effect on the demons while leaving the Coven comparatively unharmed. Even Satan appeared to have been injured by the blast, his hands seemingly burned where they had been in contact with Angel's body before he tore the vampire's head off, with the two fingers that had delivered the fatal blow now missing their tips.

Whatever the case, one moment Angel had been decapitated, and, after the apparently demon-damaging flash had faded from their vision, the next thing all the combatants were sure of was that there were suddenly two of him, each one somehow slightly transparent, one Angel lying on the ground below where he had just lost his head while the other was flying upwards towards the sky before he was suddenly caught by Boston Brand, the acrobat quickly taking the vampire back to the ground.

"What the-?" Leo asked, looking at Angel in confusion.

"Fight now; talk later!" Hellboy said, launching a powerful punch at the Beast's face, the powerful rock-demon seemingly dazed at the explosion that had just taken place.

It was only when Hellboy's stone fist literally went through the demon's head and out the other side that the primary agent for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence realised that more had just taken place than an interesting light show; he'd struck the Beast no harder than he had on previous occasions, and he'd never done that kind of damage.

Regardless of the lack of explanation for their sudden fortune, the rest of the Coven were far from inclined to question it, with the other Horsemen-occupied combatants seizing on the distraction caused by the Beast to increase their own efforts. As Boston dived back into Danny, the combined ghosts turned another series of ectoplasmic blasts onto the larger ghost that was Danny's future self, the energy blasts tearing through the older ghost like high-powered bullets tearing through human flesh. As their opponent screamed in pain, Danny/Boston dived towards him, thrust their hands into his wounds, and pulled as hard as they could, literally tearing Danny's future self apart as his body came to pieces around his past self's fingers, the deranged ghost's last scream echoing around the hall.

Meanwhile, Blade and Spike swiftly found themselves facing a Deacon Frost who had lost his former ability to alter his structure and was now confined to a solid state, allowing them to shatter his outstretched arm like he had suddenly become a moving statue before following it up with two simultaneous kicks to his face. As Frost's head shattered like rock, the two vampires and the ghosts turned around to face the seemingly-dazed form of Satan, Hellboy joining them in their charge as the entire Coven launched themselves at their foe as he stared in shock at his burned hands. Before Satan could do more than raise his arms in front of himself, the entire Coven had literally crashed into him, their combined power sending Satan staggering backwards before he threw them back with a scream of rage, his body now sporting significant cuts that hadn't been there before. Encouraged by this fresh sign of weakness, the Coven all shifted into a combat stance, ready to

"Hey!" Fred yelled, looking anxiously up at her teammates as she crouched down beside the vampire who had saved her life so many years ago, Angel looking weakly at his surroundings as though trying to work out what had just happened to him while the small Texan physicist was the only member of his team to have gone to him rather than press their attack. "As much as I appreciate the urge to kill that guy, Angel needs help right now!"

A brief exchange of glances was all that the Coven needed to confirm what they were about to do; defeating Satan might be important, but if they allowed the opportunity of victory to make them forget everything that Angel had done for them, then they might as well have forgotten why they had defected from evil in the first place. Without even needing to speak, the Coven had split into three groups in a matter of moments, powerhouses such as Spawn, Hellboy and Blue Devil focusing on Satan while the rest turned their attention to the demons surrounding him, leaving only some of Angel's earliest allies in the Coven to gather anxiously around him as Fred helped him to his feet.

"OK," Fred said, looking uncertainly at the Angel she now held uncertainly in her arms while Blade kept a suspicious eye on the still-unconscious version lying nearby. "I know that these aren't exactly normal circumstances, but... getting your head cut off does kill you, right?"

"It did," Angel said, staring bemusedly at his hands as he spoke, his voice echoing slightly but otherwise apparently normal. "I... I mean, the last time that happened- when I was turned, you know; losing my soul when my clause was triggered feels very different from actually dying-, I don't really remember what I was thinking when I died- everything after Darla bit me and before I emerged from my coffin's a blur-, but it felt the same..."

"OK, so that establishes what happens if you die in Hell, but does anyone understand... well, what happened to him?" Paige asked, looking uncertainly between the vampire and where Satan was now struggling with obvious effort to hold back Hellboy's stone arm as the smaller demon tried to punch him. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it sucks that you're dead, but I don't really get how you dying could weaken Satan like that-"

"I... I think I know what happened," Willow said, swallowing slightly as she looked over at the vampire, guilt clear on her face despite the fatigue that had prompted her to take a break to 'recharge' in the first place. "Angel, when you were killed, I... I think you were going to Heaven."

"Hold on; Heaven?" Spike said, looking incredulously at his grandsire. "What about all that stuff about how your get-out-of-Hell bit was just a reprieve rather than a release?"

"I... I thought it was..." Angel said, looking down at himself in confusion before he looked back at Willow, shaking his head as though trying to process what he'd just been told. "But... but I don't understand; if I'm dead- and if you're right-, what...?"

"That explosion," Cole said, smiling slightly as he orbed into being beside Angel, looking in satisfaction at his vampire friend. "I knew I'd seen something like that before, but it took a few moments to recognise it; when I was trapped in the Wasteland, that kind of explosion always preceded a deceased demon arriving there."

"It did?" Paige asked, looking slightly sceptically at the Goldlighter, trying to ignore the sounds of combat still waging behind them; she hated to sound insensitive to the fact that Angel had apparently just died, but if whatever had happened to him had somehow hurt Satan enough that only half of the Coven was needed to keep him down while weakening the rest of the demons around them enough for Lady Death's army to keep them occupied, they had to figure out if there was a way to repeat the process.

"Ask Phoebe; she saw it herself once," Cole said (For a moment, Paige thought about reminding Cole that Phoebe was dead, but pushed that aside; in this situation, it was more likely that Cole was trying to think positively and hope that they were going to succeed in their current mission, resulting in Phoebe being alive again for them to ask her about that in the first place). "It wasn't as bright, of course, but I think the fact that we were dealing with an actual soul here probably made a difference; I'm guessing that the explosion essentially represented the soul 'tearing' reality to allow it to travel to whatever afterlife it's meant to go to."

"OK, so the explosion we saw represented reality 'tearing' itself to let Angel go to Heaven..." Boston said, nodding uncertainly as he looked at the vampire. "So... when Angel died at Satan's hands like that, the spiritual explosion was like a... 'Heaven Bomb'?"

"That's... probably the best analogy we're going to come up with for what happened, so let's go with that, yeah," Willow said, nodding slightly awkwardly at the ghost. "Add in the fact that he died for someone else, and... well, the blast probably released the strongest wave of good energy that Hell's witnessed down here for centuries; the only reason he didn't go to Heaven is because Boston stopped him going all the way..."

"If it means I'm still here to help, I'm good with that," Angel said, with a tone that made it clear no argument would be accepted; as always, the greater goal took precedent over anything that Angel himself might have wanted.

"But how come it did so much damage to Satan's demons and didn't affect any of our side?" Fred asked. "I mean, OK, I know that I'm only here because of some unfortunate fluke involving Illyria, I recognise that any sins anyone's committed in the past doesn't mean that they aren't good people now, but... look, I'm not meaning to sound prejudiced, but we do have demons on our side here..."

"But they're not going to Hell," Faith said, an uncertain but rapidly-growing smile on her face at that thought.

"What?" Constantine asked, looking sharply over at the Slayer.

"Well, Freddie's got a point- some of this team were affected because they were demons- but I'm guessing that the demonic members of your pow-wow weren't affected as much as the other demons because they wouldn't go to Hell if they died," Faith said, a broad smile on her face as she looked around at her current allies. "We've earned our forgiveness; if we go to Hell, it's because of stuff we'll do in the future; as we are, the blast couldn't affect us as strongly as the demons, because we belong in Heaven..."

For a moment, the various members of the Coven standing around Angel could only look at each other in silence, stunned at the spiritual implications of Faith's last simple statement.

Even after all that they had done, some of the Coven still found it hard to believe that they would ever be able to move on from what they had been in the past to become fully accepted by the side that they had chosen to swear their allegiance to in an attempt to atone for old sins; the knowledge that they had been forgiven for their sins to the point that they would go to Heaven unless they really screwed up before their deaths...

"OK," Faith said, grinning a somewhat pained grin as she looked around at her teammates, "let's do this; first priority is to set off a few more of those bombs-"

"No," Constantine said, looking firmly over at the leather-clad young woman.

"But if we could-" Faith began.

"Suicide is the only thing that gets you a one-way ticket to Hell; trust me, I tried it once," Constantine said, looking grimly back at his new teammate and debating opponent. "Even if you die for good intentions, it wouldn't work; we only got that kind of 'angelic' result from Angel because he hadn't been intending to set off that blast when he did it."

"We wouldn't be dying for ourselves, we'd be dying to help others-!" Fred protested.

"Still counts as going into action and making a conscious decision to die; sacrificing yourself for others in a split-second decision is fine, but what you're proposing is way too morally questionable to pull off what you're thinking," Constantine said, staring firmly at the physicist before he relaxed slightly, giving her a brief, reassuring smile. "It's a noble idea, but if you trying doing that, all you'll accomplish is yourself ending up dead at best and ending up here at worst; it's only got a chance at working if you don't do it on purpose."

"OK, so our best weapon's useless; let's just get back to focusing on what we can do and worry about that later," Blade said, cocking his gun and turning back to look at Satan. "We've got this bastard on the fucking ropes; let's show him why he wanted us kept out of this mess-!"

The sound of a loud roar of rage from Satan cut Blade off before he could finish his sentence, leaving the entire Coven staring at their enemy in shock as he raised his arms above his head, eyes flaring with the brilliant red gleam of hellfire.

"I grow tired of your interference, Coven of Reformed Supernaturals!" Satan roared, rage obvious despite his wounds. "Now... taste my ULTIMATE weapon!"

Chapter 19: The Demon Bullet

To their credit, the Coven didn't even need to think to react to this new threat; even as Satan was ranting at them about his new attack, the Coven were already abandoning their current foes to hurry towards each other, each of them recognising that the raw power Satan was currently generating was best suited for a large-scale attack that could only be blocked by a concentrated group effort rather than individual efforts. Quickly dispatching their immediate opponents in the cases of those members who were still fighting individual demons, the entire team ran for the area where an approximate third of the team had already congregated around Angel.

As fire began to appear above Satan's raised arms, Willow, Paige, Danny, Blaze, and Raven held up their hands to generate a new barrier similar to the one that they had used to delay Satan when back on Earth, the barrier encompassing the entire Coven just as Satan launched a burst of fire at the Coven. As Blaze took point, the witch, the half-ghost boy and the part-demon girl erected a massive barrier in front of the Coven, the energy creating a barrier that served as a strange combination of blue and green and red and flame, shielding the Coven from a blaze that none of them doubted could have easily scorched the skin from their bones if it had made contact.

"Oh my God..." Cole whispered in horror, Boston already diving into Danny to give the half-ghost the power boost that had become so vital to their mutual contribution to the Coven during this crisis. "That's hellfire!"

"I assume there is a distinction between Hellfire and the more conventional fire we're all familiar with?" Jack asked, the pirate looking over at the Goldlighter with a slight apprehension in his manner at the obvious fear in the other man's voice.

"If nothing else, Hellfire incinerates you down to the spiritual level; does that answer your question?" Cole said, turning to glare at Jack Sparrow. "If that stuff hits you, you'll not only die, your soul is consumed by it to such an extent that you won't go on to any sort of afterlife!"

"Oh... so that's... why it feels... so weird..." Ghost Rider said, looking back at them with a slightly grim chuckle, the flames that were normally focused around his skull and hands flickering all over the rest of his body.

"Hold on; feels weird?" Milton asked, looking uncertainly at the man who might be a relative; evidently, like many of the other Coven members familiar with violence, he found himself comparing the flaming skeleton's last chuckle to the kind of laugh a man let out when they realised that they had just been stabbed or shot. "As in... are you doing something with that stuff?"

"Absorbing it... mostly..." the skull-headed biker said, looking over at the others with a slight smile, even as the flame around his head turned blue as the heat increased. "I cannot take it all... but it's enough to make things easier..."

"Can you please stay quiet?" Willow yelled in frustration, the strain of her current actions clear on her face as she held up her hands. "We're parasols in a hurricane here; we BLINK and this thing collapses!"

"Just hold it together!" Blade yelled, staring anxiously at the demons gathered around the hall outside of their current barrier; he could just make out Lady Death ht the head of a group of demons retreating in another direction, but otherwise it looked like whatever Satan was doing was indiscriminately killing everyone around in his desperate desire to kill the Coven. "This thing kept us alive before; we can do it again!"

"Hellboy, Leo, Cole, Spawn, you've all got the ability to manipulate energy to some degree; see if you can help out!" Constantine said, looking urgently over at his friends (Angel didn't bother arguing; they might not be natural magic-wielders, but those four had shown an ability to absorb power under the right circumstances that none of them could afford to ignore right now).

"On it!" Hellboy said, hurrying over to place his hands on Ghost Rider's shoulders, wincing as the biker's now-flaming aura suddenly extended to cover him, singing the edges of his coat even as he continued to hold on to his teammate.

"Just hold it together!" Leo said, looking urgently at the others as he repeated Blade's words from earlier, taking a firm grip on Paige's arms as he fed his Whitelighter energy to his sister-in-law, praying that sheer numbers would make up for their obvious disadvantage in terms of the raw power they were currently facing. "We can do this!"

For a few moments, the eight Coven members- nine if Deadman's presence inside Danny was counted- fought to maintain the barrier they'd just established, their allies taking up positions around the barrier's interior as they struck out at the surrounding demons with whatever long-range weapons they could use- bullets could pass through the barrier easily enough, and so long as the target wasn't far enough away for them to melt before reaching it the hellfire actually added an extra edge to their attacks-, but it swiftly became clear that they weren't going to be able to maintain this barrier for long.

"It's no good!" Danny swore, his usual dual-toned merged voice absent even as the reddish glow around him increased; Angel guessed that Boston was trying to channel all the energy he could into maintaining the barrier at the cost of his own ability to maintain some degree of awareness while he and Danny shared a form. "We can't keep this up forever!"

"We don't need to keep it up forever!" Spawn began, tightening his grip on Danny's shoulders as they channelled their mutual energy into the barrier. "We just need to do it long enough to-!"

"To what?" Lucian growled, glaring over at the former soldier, his leather coat occasionally straining as though the wolf within him was fighting to get out even as he kept his human side in control; whether it was the danger of the current situation or the demonic blood being spilled around them, something in Lucian clearly wanted to get out and react to this situation even if the rest of him knew that anything that part of him tried would be useless at best. "With the best will in the world, Simmons, we are a random assortment of demons, ghosts, vampires and witches up against the single most powerful demon in existence; I find it unlikely that we can stand against the kind of power that he can unleash against us for long, even if all of us could do something to hold him back!"

Despite his most optimistic views, Angel knew that they were right; the barrier they'd just established wouldn't last.

They might be able to hold their own for a bit longer with Blaze and Hellboy taking on the worst of the Hellfire while the witches and other magic users maintained the barrier, but even that could only keep them safe for so long.

With the demons gathering around them growing ever bolder, and Lady Death's forces dead or retreating, the facts were obvious; even if they went down fighting, they were going to go down here and now, and Satan would still unleash the Apocalypse on their Earth (He might not do as much damage- they'd definitely made a sizeable dent in his army just by being here-, but that wouldn't stop him launching the attack).

"Is there any chance that the amount of energy he's generating against us right now is going to be doing anything to him?" Caine asked, indicating the massive demon as he fired another bullet at an approaching demon.

"What, you mean like he's going to be lowering his defences because he's channelling this much power into his offence?" Fred asked, glancing briefly back at Satan before she turned her attention to answering Caine's question. "It's possible- particularly given that it took him a bit of time to gather the energy needed for this attack in the first place-, but it's not going to do us any good; we can't exactly hit back without being incinerated by the Hellfire between us and him-!"

"Hey, if a heavy hitter's what you need, just let me out of here and I can take some of it!" Hellboy yelled over at the physicist, looking back at Angel with a grim-but-hopeful smile as he indicated the barrier in front of him. "After all, I'm fireproof, remember-?"

"Not at this intensity!" Jason Blood yelled over at the other demon before Angel could voice his thoughts. "This is hellfire we're talking about here, Hellboy! You can take it better than we can, but it gets hotter the closer it gets to the source; you'll be totally incinerated before you can reach Satan in time to do any damage to him, and Etrigan's too human because of the time he's spent bonded to me to pull it off either!"

"Couldn't we give him a boost-?" Paige asked, her stance becoming ever more tense as she tried to pour more energy into the barrier before them.

"What would you suggest?" Willow asked, glaring over at the other witch even as sweat trickled down her forehead, her body starting to tremble and her hair turning black from the power that she was being forced to channel. "He's too damn big for us to spare the energy that would be needed to protect him long enough to get there and do some damage, and nobody else is strong enough to do anything useful in the time facing us right now!"

"What about trying for a smaller target higher up?" Batman asked, looking over at the witch with a suddenly hopeful expression. "If you could grant me some protection, I could fly up and-"

"Same problem, different parameters," Willow said, shooting Batman a brief glare before returning her attention to the matter of the barrier even as she continued her explanation. "Your body's definitely smaller, but protecting those wings would still take too much energy; add in the fact that they're so thin that they'd probably start burning fairly quickly...""And Hellfire's meant to be so painful to experience that you'll probably collapse once your wings ignite, so, even if you lasted long enough to reach Satan, you probably wouldn't be in much shape to get back afterwards," Constantine said, glaring at the demons around them in exasperation as he was forced to reload his gun; the unintentional Hellfire bullets were hurting the demons around them, but there was no way that could last for long. "Damnit, we don't have time for this crap..."

"And we can't take anyone away from the barrier because that would just mean the rest of us would have less time before the Hellfire breaks it and incinerates the rest of us..." Lucian said, cursing as he looked reflectively at the fire surrounding them before another thought occurred to him. "What if we threw someone-?"

"Even if we could give them enough protection to reach their target, they'd get vaporised from the intensity of the Hellfire after doing any kind of damage before any of us could get there in time to help; I am not going to condemn anyone to nonexistence on a chance that might not pay off while there's still the possibility of something else!" Angel yelled, glaring resolutely at the rest of his team while trying to conceal his fear; if there really was no other choice, he'd volunteer for the role of weapon, but he really didn't want to have to do that unless he absolutely had to. "Give me options, people; we're running out of time and there's nothing here we can use-!"

"What about that?" Jack Sparrow asked, indicating something on the ground. Glancing down in the direction of Sparrow's gesture, the Coven were surprised to see the still body of the other Angel that could only be Angelus, lying on the ground before them with a wide-eyed expression of horror on his face that none of those who knew who the other vampire was had expected to see him ever show to anybody.

"Huh?" Fred said, looking uncertainly over at her former boss, thoughts of the danger they faced briefly forgotten now that Angelus's anomalous condition had given them something else to think about. "What... why's he like that?"

"He knows he's in Hell," Angel said grimly, looking at the vampire he'd almost forgotten was there.

It was funny, really; Angelus had been so quiet since they came down to Hell that the transition to his current ghostly and independent status almost hadn't registered to him, but clearly Angelus was not only fully aware of what had happened to him, but had also been forced into complete catatonia from the trauma of what he was preparing to experience.

"Care to clarify why that would actually be an issue for the bastard?" Spawn asked, grunting slightly even as he focused further energy into helping Raven support the barrier. "I mean, he's a demon too-"

"Look," Angel said- he was just grateful that he'd given the newer members of the team some information about his history even if they didn't have the specifics yet-, "when I was going to... well, going to Heaven... I felt something... I didn't have time to really think about it, but it felt... good; it was like I was experiencing the kind of peace and safety I haven't experienced since I was human..."

"Like the equivalent of those near-death experiences people talk about?" Caine asked, chuckling slightly at the irony of a dead man talking about near-death experiences.

"Basically, yeah," Angel said, nodding at the ex-cop in confirmation. "Anyway, the point is, if I experienced that, maybe Angelus experienced the... hell-bound equivalent?"

"Oh, I get it," Spike said, smiling over at his ghostly grandsire as he nodded in understanding. "You're thinking that, while you felt whatever you feel like when going to Heaven, he experienced whatever you experience when going to Hell?"

"And he... what; lapsed into a catatonic state because he didn't want to be back here?" Willow asked, looking uncertainly at Angel. "I mean, he was already here when you came down-?"

"But he still had a chance of getting out so long as the two of us were together," Angel said, his tone grim as he looked back at the witch who'd twice restored him and imprisoned the vampire demon before them. "Trust me, Angelus doesn't want to be back here any more than I do; he knows that, even if I have a chance of getting out, he doesn't."

"I have a feeling whatever he'd experience here would be worse for him than it could ever be for you..." Jason said, chuckling grimly at the sight of the traumatised vampire.

"OK, so Angelus can't do anything himself right now; what I want to know is if he could last long enough out there to do what we need right now," Blade said, looking firmly over at Cole and Leo. "You're our afterlife experts; if we threw Angelus at that bastard, would he reach it before he was incinerated?"

"We might need to divert part of the shield to protect him, but it could work..." Cole said, looking thoughtfully between the vampire and the fallen angel still trying his best to destroy them. "Actually, given that he isn't a soul, he'd probably last a bit better out there than the rest of us; Hellfire burns human souls, and while Angelus is based on a soul, in the end he isn't one."

"Willow and I could try a couple of spells to create a basic shield around him-" Paige began.

"We don't just want him intact; we want him to cause damage," Faith said, looking with clear loathing at the vampire before she looked over at Ghost Rider with a sudden smile. "Any chance we could let him 'borrow' a bit of your flame-power for this stage of the attack?"

"Turn him... into... a larger bullet?" Ghost Rider asked, chuckling slightly at the thought as he moved one hand away from the barrier in front of him to point it in Angelus's direction. "Please... allow me..."

Even as the former stunt biker spoke, Willow and Paige had turned around slightly so that each had one palm facing Ghost Rider, the two witches chanting quickly under their breath while Danny focused even more of his power into the barrier before them, the witches returning their attention to the barrier as Ghost Rider's flames changed to a strange green colour similar to the colour of the energy being used to generate the barrier. As the Coven watched, Ghost Rider pointed one finger at Angelus and fired a burst of that strange green flame at the vampire, the flames enveloping Angelus's body before they died down, leaving him glowing green but still otherwise unchanged and immobile.

"He's ready?" Faith asked, looking at the vampire with a slight ruthlessness to her stare that would have unnerved Angel if he didn't feel a version of it himself.

After everything that Angelus had done to him over the years they'd spent as one entity, taunting him with thoughts and images of what he'd like to do to the people that Angel had become close to- to say nothing of him replaying their mutual memories of some of Angelus's more brutal kills-, the knowledge that they were about to end his entire existence, once and for all...

Angel knew that there was a chance that what they were about to do would forever prevent him from returning to Earth, but if it meant that they could defeat Satan and avert the Apocalypse that they had witnessed earlier/later, that was a price he was willing to pay.

"So," Hellboy said, stepping back from the barrier to pick up the glowing vampire's body in his stone hand as he experimentally flexed his elbow, "shall we do this, or not?"

"Do it," Angel said, glancing apprehensively at the rest of the group standing around them; if this didn't work, they couldn't maintain that barrier much longer, no matter how much effort they put into it...

Nodding in resolution, Hellboy hurled Angelus's body through the barrier towards Satan's head, the vampire starting to burn the second he left the barrier even as the sheer speed of Hellboy's throw left him relatively straight and focused on the target. For a moment Angel worried that the plan wouldn't work as Angelus's body began to smoke mid-flight, but then his other half struck Satan directly in the face, the force of the impact and the Hellfire covering the vampire's body sending Satan reeling back with a scream of pain, the Hellfire that had previously been targeted at the Coven dying out as Angelus's body finished burning to collapse into ashes around the powerful demon, his body blackened by the backlash caused between the moment when Angelus's impact cost him control of the Hellfire and the moment when he managed to shut it down.

"GO!" Angel yelled, the rest of the Coven leaping for their foe before the surrounding demons could react to the absence of the barrier- the Coven's more physically superhuman members lifting as many weaker teammates as they could to carry them safely over the dying embers of the hellfire that still blazed around the circle where the barrier had been-, weapons drawn and powers blazing as they prepared for this last strike.

An attack like this might be crazy, but it was the only thing left for them to try; if they couldn't put the bastard down when he'd taken that much damage, they were never going to have the power to stop him for good.

Chapter 20: Satan Falls

As they leapt towards the massive demon, Angel wasn't sure any of them had a real plan of attack at this point; with their enemy already injured by their last attack, all they were really trying to do right now was hit him as hard and fast as possible before he could retaliate, the backlash of Hellfire caused by his momentary loss of attention having left Satan with at least some burn-damage to his hands.

With the rest of Satan's forces kept occupied by a combination of Lady Death's remaining minions and a desire to stay away from the Hellfire that he'd been using against them earlier, there was literally nothing to distract the Coven from their current task of unleashing everything they had against the source of the evil that they'd come here to destroy.

With most of the Coven's long-range weapons low on ammunition, the Coven's most physically powerful members restricted themselves to more direct attacks, swords and fists slashing and hitting away at Satan's now-exposed legs as he tried to walk towards the Coven, allowing the fliers to bombard him from above- occasionally giving the weaker fighters a quick lift to drop them towards Satan as an attack strategy-, leaving the long-ranger 'specialists' to do what they could at keeping their foe back.

"OH YES!" Jack said, smiling broadly as he landed on his feet after delivering a powerful slash to Satan's wing, neatly vaulting off the demon's leg on the way down to land comfortably on his feet.

"Keep it up!" Cole yelled, hurling a rapid series of energy balls at their foe, the sheer barrage of holy attacks having more effect on Satan even if the balls themselves were too small to do serious damage. "We've got him on the ropes now!"

"NEVER!" Satan roared, lashing out with a fist that almost struck Batman before Catwoman landed on his arm, the impact of the were-cat knocking the blow just enough to miss its original target. "YOU ARE NOTHING! I AM THE LORD OF DARKNESS! I HAVE BEEN PRESENT SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME!"

"Which is probably why you're due to retire, you sanctimonious piece of crap," Blue Devil said, grinning as the blast of energy from his trident was accompanied by Dante vaulting off his shoulders to stab Satan in the lower leg, Fred and Eric providing Faith with a leg-up so that she could do the same to Satan's other leg.

"Yeah; stay in the same business long enough, you're bound to lose your edge," Faith said, grinning up at Satan as she vaulted upwards- grateful that Satan appeared to have some kind of flaps of skin around his waist; it might have made an interesting target, but the last thing any of them wanted to see right now was Satan's literally goddamn privates-, using her temporarily borrowed swords to swiftly haul herself towards the demon's chest.

"Nothing to be ashamed about," Dante continued, mimicking Faith's earlier actions to leap up onto Satan's chest opposite Faith, both of them using their swords to leave massive gashes in the demon's chest before they vaulted away from the demon just before Satan's next blow could reach him. "We all reach a point where we want to get out of the game-"

"I CAN NEVER DIE!" Satan roared, kicking out at the nearest Coven members, knocking most of their number aside and cutting Dante off mid-sentence even as he pinned Swamp Thing to the ground with one clawed foot. "THE THOUGHT OF ME IS FOREVER IN THE MIND OF MAN!"

"People... think about... a lot... of things... that no longer... exist," Swamp Thing replied, glaring disdainfully up at Satan as he moved to grab one of his foe's long claws- Satan's feet appeared to be a combination of the stereotypically-assumed hooves and lizard-like talons- before he sharply bent the offending appendage back, knocking the creature over with a loud scream. Extending his now-badly-torn wings, Satan was able to halt his descent towards the ground, but his temporarily-lower position gave Caine and Milton the perfect opportunity to draw their guns and fire some of their remaining bullets at Satan's wings.

"How do you like that?" Caine asked, grinning as more holes were left in Satan's already-tattered wings, the pain of the impact leaving Satan to collapse on the ground with a scream of pain. With his wings momentarily spread out as he lay on the ground, Etrigan grabbed one while the now-wolf Lucian grabbed the other, the demon and the lycan pulling sharply on the wings and tearing the membrane even further; Lucian even tried to swallow a piece, but spat it out when the taste fully registered. Roaring in rage at this new defiance, Satan extended his battered wings, throwing his immediate attackers off-balance as he raised his upper body once again, his gaze focused on the single cop in front of him as he did so.

"Not very much," Satan said, looking at Caine with a cold intensity as he got back to his feet, the former cop quickly reloading his gun even if he clearly knew that it wouldn't do anything to help him against this powerful foe. "But I SHALL enjoy this; you shall all die, and I shall-"

"Go to nothing," Willow said, her gaze cold as Satan looked away from Caine to focus on where she was standing a short distance away, Paige and Raven on either side of her with their hands on her shoulders and an intense glare on their faces as the three magic-wielders stared at their target.

For a moment, Satan only watched as his senses registered the power transference that was taking place, the two hybrids channelling their own magic into Willow, but that moment was all that Willow needed to complete the process and launch a blast of raw magic at Satan. The sheer power of the attack, lacking any focus or refinement behind it, was enough to knock Satan completely off-balance, the raw energy of three such different types of magic concentrated into a single blast, without any kind of spell behind it that he could disrupt, causing further damage.

"I WILL NOT-!" Satan began, trying to get back to his feet, only to be interrupted when Danny- glowing with the familiar red tint that indicated that Deadman was sharing power with him- became intangible and dived into Satan's chest, erupting from the demon's main body a few moments later in an explosion that reminded the more pop-culture-savvy members of the Coven of the chestbursters from the Aliens franchise, except that whatever passed for Satan's entrails were also visible, lying on the ground around Satan as he weakly clutched at his mangled torso, rather than the cleaner burst from the movies in question.

"OK," Danny said, wincing in revulsion as he looked over at his spectral partner while the two of them floated above their enemy, "am I the only one who thought that was the grossest thing either of us have ever done?"

"I don't know what we were looking at in there, but I do know that I don't want to repeat that," Boston agreed, shuddering as he glanced down at the black sludge that appeared to be what passed for Satan's blood, lying scattered around them. "God, am I glad I don't pay attention to that kind of crap when I'm going through people normally..."

"This... is not... OVER..." Satan growled, staggering back to his feet despite the massive hole in his chest, one hand struggling to hold his ravaged body intact as he glared at his foes.

"You're right," Ghost Rider said, the skeleton's flames a brilliant blue as he stepped forward, his teammates instinctively falling back as the demonic biker raised his arms. "But, now that I'm confident about my ability to focus this stuff, what you gave me earlier should end it."

"NO-!" Satan roared, only to be met by a blast of hellfire from the demon side of Johnny Blaze, the energy that he had absorbed during Satan's earlier attack now released in its full intensity onto the demon lord before him. The Hellfire that Ghost Rider launched at Satan was weaker than the blasts that he had been using against the Coven earlier, and he expended the energy he'd absorbed after a matter of moments, but it was enough to send Satan staggering once again, the mangled wounds Danny and Boston had inflicted to his chest made even worse by the subsequent fire damage.

"I think it's time we tried that move we were thinking about earlier," Leo said, looking resolutely over at Hellboy as Satan desperately gasped for air to try and steady himself.

"You sure?" the large red demon asked, looking cautiously at the Whitelighter. "It's not exactly our best manoeuvre..."

"After the scale of the last few attacks, I don't think we can hit him with anything else that would make him weaker," Leo replied, shrugging slightly at his friend. "If you're ready, I'm ready."

"Right then," Hellboy said, giving Leo a moment to crouch down and curl himself into a makeshift ball before he picked the Whitelighter up in both hands, aiming him at the now-rising form of Satan. "Hey, big guy; batter up!"

Just as Satan had turned to look in the direct of the voice, Hellboy hurled his teammate towards Satan's head, Leo turning into the familiar white orbs the moment before he struck Satan in the face, passing right through the powerful demon's head and exiting out the back, leaving some very significant scorch-marks on the devil's horns and face. Screaming in renewed agony, Satan fell to his knees as he clutched at his head, the pure good of Leo's orbs doing far more damage to Satan's corrupted essence than anything that the Hellfire could have done to him, followed by Spawn hurtling down to land on Satan's back with all the power at his disposal.

"Right then, you goddamn bastard," Spawn said, blades and sharp-edged chains sprouting from all over his armour as he stared at the demon below him, "time to try an oldie, but a goodie..."

With those words, Spawn's chains wrapped themselves around Satan's neck and began to rapidly spin, chewing through the flesh of the neck as Angel, Blade and Constantine took up position on either side of the first demon, the vampires' swords raised as they prepared to bring them down while the exorcist aimed the Holy Shotgun at his face.

"You CANNOT do this..." Satan gasped, his voice far weaker even with the distraction caused by what the man once known as Al Simmons was doing to his neck, staring weakly at the vampires and the exorcist standing around him. "I am eternal... I am the First Shadow... I am the Fallen One... I... AM... EVIL...!"

"And we made it our life's work to kill shit like you," Blade said, tightening his grip on his sword as he stared at the creature that had tried to destroy the world.

"So, since we're all here, I guess Evil's going to need to find a new boss," Angel added, before both vampires brought their swords down, slicing through the neck so accurately that their swords seemed to pass within millimetres of each other. As Constantine fired a blast from the Holy Shotgun, one horn and a sizeable chunk of head vanished into nothing but black-blooded fragments, but the head still remained attached despite the now-all-but-nonexistent fragments of mangled neck that remained underneath the still-chewing chains, as though the dark energy that had maintained Satan for so long refused to give up its old on life even as everything about his appearance made it clear that sustaining himself any longer would be virtually impossible.

For a moment, the jaw moved weakly, as though trying to say something, but then Hellboy stepped forward, taking a firm hold of Satan's remaining horn with his stone arm while his flesh hand took a tight grip on Satan's upper jaw from inside his mouth.

"You're dead," he said simply, glaring at the other man.

With that statement, he pulled as hard as he could, and literally tore Satan's head in half, the upper part of the skull coming away in Hellboy's stone hand. For a moment the rest of the body simply twitched in Satan's hands, and then everything went still, the demon that had ruled the wastelands of Hell for so many centuries finally silent as the Coven watched, ignoring the anxious, fearful stares of the few demons left standing around them.

The apocalypse had been averted, and Satan, the lord of all that was evil since recorded history could recall, was dead.

Chapter 21: Gifts for the Coven

As they stood over Satan's body, for a few moments, the Coven could do nothing but stare at the sight in front of them, the sheer scale of the victory that they had just won enough to send all of them into silence.

"So... that's it?" Danny asked, looking uncertainly over at his friends. "I mean, I took out the Ghost King back home once, but even with this power-enhancing suit my parents made the best I could do was lock him back up in this casket thing that had been keeping him prisoner earlier; we just killed Satan that... well..."

"Feels a bit too easy, huh?" Spike said, looking over at Danny with a slight smile as he indicated the fallen army of demonic corpses around him, the remaining mobile demons having either surrendered or being dealt with by Lady Death's followers. "Don't worry about it, kid; just keep in mind that he'd probably expended a bit of his energy bringing this bunch together in the first place, and it all makes a bit more sense."

"But... what about his replacement?" Faith asked, suddenly looking over at Leo and Cole. "I mean, this is the freakin' King of Hell we're talking about here; even if we stopped this apocalypse now, won't the next guy-?"

"He made this role, Faith," Cole said, looking solemnly over at the Slayer. "Maybe someone'll take charge as a figurehead to keep things running relatively smoothly, but it'll take them millennia at least to get the kind of power necessary to try and pull something like this off again; setting up an apocalypse on this scale, with all the demons that would need to be involved in the mess in the first place, would require far more time and effort than most of us will live for, and even the immortal members of our merry band will have to wait centuries before he can threaten them again."

"With the exception of those of us who're already deceased, of course," Jack added, looking slightly grimly over at his fellow recruits from Purgatory, before his gaze settled awkwardly on Angel. "And... well, there's those of us who died here..."

"Actually," Willow said at that moment, looking around at her friends and teammates in a grimly awkward manner, "I hate to sound picky, but has anyone considered what we're actually going to do now?"

Looking over at the rest of the Coven, it didn't take long for the witch to realise that she'd just targeted the one question that none of the rest of their makeshift team knew how to answer. Thwarting the apocalypse might have been a noble goal, particularly when they'd thwarted it after it had already happened, but it still left them with the question of what they could do now that they'd just won.

Not only was there the issue of Angel having died in Hell and deliberately not taken the opportunity to return to Heaven- did that mean that he couldn't go there, or just that he couldn't go there right now?-, but there was also the fact that they were currently in the past of the world they'd left behind; even if they were only from a few hours in the future, that still meant that, with the exception of Lady Death and their recruits from Purgatory, there were currently two versions of them in existence right now, and no possibility that their 'past' selves would be exposed to the chain of events that led to them becoming their present selves...

"Bugger," Spike said simply.

"That is putting it mildly," Constantine said, looking solemnly around at his friends. "I mean, I get that what we just did saved countless lives from experiencing the conquest of everything by the forces of Hell, but given that we're pretty much stuck here now-"

"Oh, come on," a voice said, its tone sounding almost amused at what the exorcist had just said, "you didn't think we were going to just let you off that easily after everything you did, did you?"

"Cordelia?" Fred said, her eyes widening in shock as she looked upwards, the dull red fires of hell parting to reveal a brown-haired woman dressed in white 'walking' down towards them, accompanied by a young man with wings- actual large white angelic wings- and a sleeveless top, an older woman with darker, shorter hair in more regular attire, the blue-clad form of the Phantom Stranger, and the purple-robed figure of Clockwork, now looking at the Coven with a slight smile rather than the grimmer expression he'd displayed earlier.

"Oh my God..." Paige said, her eyes widening as she took in the sight of the older woman before them. "Are... are you...?"

"Prue?" Leo and Cole said, stepping forward to stare incredulously at the woman they'd seen die almost three years ago.

"That's me," Prue Halliwell said, smiling casually at her Whiteligher brother-in-law and formerly demonic ally, before she turned to look at Constantine. "And I take it you know my friend?"

"What...?" Constantine began, before he turned to take in the winged figure behind them and his face took on the expression of someone who'd just been kicked in the diaphragm. "Chas?"

"Chas as in Chas Kramer?" Leo said, looking at the angel in surprise. "Didn't you say he died?"

"I did," Chas said with a shrug as he looked over at Leo. "But, with Gabriel having been kicked out, God made me his replacement- the whole 'trying to stop the Antichrist' thing wins you a few points, after all-, and here I am."

"Good to know," Constantine said, smiling briefly at his former apprentice.

"OK, so that... probably explains what they're doing here; what are you doing here?" Leo said, looking sharply at Prue. "Cole told us that you'd turned down the offer to become a Goldlighter?"

"I did," Prue said, nodding in confirmation at Leo. "But that doesn't mean that I didn't still have the chance to help people; you don't become part of a mystical destiny and then lose that just because I died."

"Long story short, she became a higher power on a level similar to myself," Cordelia said, smiling nonchalantly at Angel and Fred. "I mean, we're not exactly the higher powers, but we've got a fairly significant amount of authority up here compared to what we could have been; like Chas and the Phantom Stranger here, we basically provide the higher-ups with the human perspective that the likes of Jasmine and Gabriel lacked, give them a better insight into the human cost of what they're doing or what they might try to pull off, that kind of thing."

"Nice gig," Blue Devil said, nodding in approval at the other woman.

"We like to think so," Cordelia said, smiling back at the former actor before she turned back to look at the Coven as a whole. "And so, because of that, we were able to convince the Powers that you all deserved a reward or two for thwarting the apocalypse and saving virtually the entire Multiverse into the bargain."

"A reward or two?" Blade asked, looking sceptically at Cordelia; he'd heard some stories about Angel's old friends- with old contacts of Angel's making up a sizeable portion of the 'core' team of the Coven it was hard not to discuss them-, but given the circumstances that had brought the original Coven together, it was hard not to be slightly suspicious of what higher powers might consider a reward or be willing to offer them. "What are we talking about here?"

"Oh, simple enough," Prue said, smiling over at the part-vampire. "Those of you who were in Purgatory when this all started will be granted automatic access to Heaven, and those of you who came down here from Earth will be merged with your past selves and re-integrated into your lives- as Danny can confirm, Clockwork here is capable of that kind of thing-, but, before you go back, those of you who are going to Earth get one wish each."

"Uh... not meaning to sound rude, but..." Fred asked, looking awkwardly at Cordelia.

"Oh, you'll be going to Heaven with them, Fred; now that they've found you here- and I promise you, Angel, I didn't know she was down here any more than you guys did until you found her; Hell isn't something we look at regularly up here, after all-, I made it clear that you getting the chance to get taken up was non-negotiable," Cordelia said, smiling warmly at the physicist before she looked over at Angel. "And before you ask, brood-boy, you're going back to Earth too; you might have died here, but you're still alive up there, and that's what counts."

"All of us... are going to Heaven?" Batman said, looking around at his fellow recruits from Purgatory before his surprised gaze settled on Cordelia. "But-"

"You did the wrong thing for the right reasons, Bruce; you might not have all been perfect- and a few of you were definitely cursed-, but, when push came to shove, you did the right thing and didn't harm anyone who didn't deserve it," Cordelia said, smiling over at him. "Don't get me wrong, your decision not to kill while you were human was commendable, but we're having a talk with the people in charge to reconsider their allocation system on a larger scale; you shouldn't go to Hell for killing to save lives or a little thing like being cursed if you use that curse to help others, after all."

"Uh..." Leo said, looking awkwardly at the new arrivals. "Look, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the chance to go home, but if we just merge with our other selves like that-"

"Your morality is appreciated, Leo Wyatt, but your concern for your other selves is unnecessary; the other yous will merely gain extra memories and experiences, but you and they will both essentially still exist," Clockwork said, smiling reassuringly at the Whitelighter before he addressed the rest of the Coven. "Now then, as Miss Chase stated, you are all entitled to one wish, which will be fulfilled regardless of whatever handicaps or difficulties you might have faced in trying to receive it back on Earth- although to those whom it concerns, anything you might receive as a result of prophecy will have to wait until you have fulfilled said prophecy, and we can't do anything to affect a person's free will-, but I will warn you to choose carefully; once you have made your choice-"

"Save Astra," Constantine said firmly, his expression making it clear that he would accept no argument or suggestions to the contrary.

"Huh?" Chas asked, looking over at his former teacher.

"When I attempted one of my first exorcisms, I made a mistake and banished the soul of a girl called Astra to Hell," Constantine said, looking solemnly at the group before him. "If I can have anything I want... anything at all... I want to know that she's in Heaven; even if I can't bring her back to her parents, she doesn't deserve to suffer for my mistake."

Smiling at Constantine in understand, Cordelia raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

"Done," she said, looking reassuringly at the exorcist. "She's in Heaven."

"It's that simple?" Blade said, looking sceptically at the five people before him.

"Under normal circumstances, no, but you have just accomplished a truly great deed, Blade," the Phantom Stranger said, smiling slightly at the part-vampire warrior. "Given what you have accomplished, it was considered... appropriate... for our superiors to make it easy for us to grant you your desired rewards; it's hardly fair to expect you to accomplish such a great deed without anyone thanking you for the lives you have saved, after all."

"OK," Blade said, looking firmly at the Stranger. "In that case, I wish that I didn't have to cope with my thirst while retaining my other abilities."

"Done," the Stranger said, nodding resolutely at Blade. "You will no longer have to worry about drinking blood."

"You just- whoa," Blade said, reaching up to touch his throat as he stared incredulously at the rest of his team. "I just... my throat feels... cool."

"As in... you're not thirsty any more?" Angel said, looking curiously at Blade; he knew that the Daywalker's vampire side had trouble coping with animal blood that meant that he had to use a serum to control his thirst for human blood, but he'd never really thought about just how serious it was, given that their pocket dimension kept Blade supplied with the serum anyway...

"Not even a bit," Blade said, a slight smile on his lips as he looked over at the team leader. "Looks like they're serious about the gift thing."

"As I said, you ask and they'll grant; it's pretty straightforward, really," Prue said, smiling over at the Daywalker.

"Can I..." Faith began, her entire appearance suddenly giving the impression of someone who was torn between asking the question or not asking the question, until she finally blurted out her final decision as the four beings turned to look at her. "Can I talk to Diana?"

"Your Watcher?" Angel said, looking at Faith curiously.

"Look, I'm not askin' anyone to bring her back to life or anything, I just..." Faith said, swallowing slightly as she spoke, her lip trembling as though she was fighting to stop herself from crying. "I want to say sorry."

Angel didn't bother to tell Faith that there was nothing for her to feel sorry for; after what had happened during Faith's original fight with Kakistos- based on what she'd told him in those rare occasions during their prison visits when she felt like sharing such information-, she was dealing with the kind of guilt where it would take a lot more than just her accepting that she couldn't have done anything to accept that she wasn't responsible for what had happened on that dark day.

"Tricky, but not impossible," Clockwork said, smiling at her in understanding as he raised his staff and waved it, creating a green-edged portal in the air that opened up into a large room filled with strange large gears. "If you will just accompany me, I can see about arranging that; I have a feeling this is something that you would prefer be done in private?"

"Really?" Faith said, looking at Clockwork with the tremulous expression of someone who was almost afraid to hope. With a final nod, Clockwork stepped forward to guide Faith through the portal, following her through for a few seconds before he re-emerged, the portal sealing behind him just as Angel glimpsed a woman in her mid-forties dressed in a suit jacket and skirt giving Faith a motherly embrace.

"She'll be back once her conversation has concluded; as I said, I thought it best that she get the chance to spend that time in private," he said, the powerful ghost briefly turning into an old man as he addressed Angel. "I can send you to a different part of my tower for your meeting if you want?"

"Huh?" Angel said, looking at Clockwork in surprise.

"You're going to ask to have a conversation with Kathy, correct?" Clockwork said, smiling slightly at the vampire before he looked over at Spike. "Since your mutual first choice involves Drusilla, I thought it best to head that off before you both asked for it, since everything else Spike wanted wouldn't work."

"Drusilla?" Willow said, looking over at Spike in confusion. "But-"

"Look, just 'cause I moved on doesn't mean I'm over Dru," Spike said, looking firmly over at the redhead. "She was a big part of my life for over a century; that doesn't just stop just because she ended it."

"Yeah, love can make you do the whacky sometimes," Cordelia said, exchanging a brief smile with Angel before she focused on Spike. "Anyway, speak the words and we'll take it from there."

"I want... well, I want Dru to have a second chance," Spike said, looking uncertainly at their guests. "I don't quite know what that should be, but if you could make her sane, give her back her soul, find some way for her to have a life away from this..."

"With her memory or without?" Prue asked.

"Without," Spike said firmly, looking over at Angel to receive an approving nod from his grandsire. "Nobody should have to remember what she's done and care about it if there's a choice."

"Done," Chas said, nodding at the vampire with a slight grin as he waved his hand.

"Before I open this portal," Clockwork said, looking over at the other Coven members with a smile as he raised his staff, "does anyone else want a chance to talk with anyone?"

"Well, considering my other wish wouldn't work out, my parents," Dante said, his expression resolute. "It's a bit complicated, but..."

"Things with our kind of parents always are," Prue said, smiling in understanding at the half-demon. "Just out of curiosity, what was your other wish?"

"You wouldn't be able to do anything for my twin, would you?" Dante asked. Seeing the look on her face, he looked a little downcast. "Didn't think so; the 'free will' thing, eh?"

"He already had his soul when he did those things, and we can't make him feel anything he doesn't have the capacity to feel already," Prue said, shaking her head apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"You have a twin?" Milton asked.

"Had a twin. His name was Virgil. We had a seriously messed up relationship; he embraced the demon side of our heritage more than the human part, and did some rather nasty stuff near the end of his life... In the end, we die as we've lived," Dante said, a melancholy expression on his face before he shrugged and looked at Clockwork. "Okay. I'm ready."

"Can I..." Willow began, starting to step forward even as Angel and Dante went through their portals, before she shook her head and stepped back once again. "No."

"'No', what?" Prue asked, looking curiously at the other witch. "If you think we won't grant it-?"

"I believe that you'll give us what we ask for, but I... I can't ask for this," Willow said, shaking her head firmly. "I did that once, and it just caused more problems than it really solved; even if it won't cause that kind of... problem..."

Willow swallowed and stood in silence for a moment, her inner conflict obvious on her face, before she finally shook her head in resolution. "She's at peace now; even if I can't see her again, that's the important thing."

"That is a commendable attitude to possess, Willow," the Stranger said, smiling slightly in approval as he looked at the young woman. "So... what do you wish, since you have recognised that your first choice is... impractical?"

"I..." Willow began, looking uncertainly at her teammates for a moment before she looked back at their benefactors, simple resolution on her face. "I want Amy Madison to be sent to the coven I studied with in England."

"Huh?" Cordelia asked, looking at her in surprise. "Amy Madison? As in that girl who got turned into a rat when Hansel and Gretel attacked us?"

"She's human again, but she has a lot of issues; it's... complicated," Willow said, shrugging slightly. "The point is, she's made some mistakes, but I don't think she's completely beyond help yet- that time she spent as a rat probably made her a bit mad, but she also had this whole 'addicted-to-dark-magic' phase that couldn't have helped her-, so if you could... put her somewhere where she's given a chance to change..."

"Just so long as you are clear that we cannot force her to change," the Stranger said, looking solemnly at Willow. "Your request is a fair one, but we can give no guarantees that Miss Madison will accept the chance you give her."

"Just make sure that she can't reject it immediately or anything like that- do something to ensure that she can't just walk away from the coven until they've had a chance to convince her to listen to them-, and that's fine," Willow said nodding in understanding at him.

"Good," the Stranger said, before he turned to look at the rest of the Coven. "Now then, while we're waiting for those three to come back, what do the rest of you want?"

"I..." Illyria said, looking uncertainly at the group around her for a few moments, before she finally looked at their benefactors. "I wish for a soul."

"A soul?" Chas repeated in surprise. "I thought you were some demon king-?"

"I am no longer a demon, and as such do not wish to remain reliant on others to form moral opinions for my... benefit," Illyria said (Angel had to admit that he was impressed; the old Illyria would never have admitted to needing others in any way). "What remains of Winifred Burkle within me shapes my reactions and perceptions of the world I exist in to a certain degree, but that will only take me so far; if there is anything that you can do to make it... easier..., I would be grateful."

"A soul is a tricky thing, Illyria," Cordelia said, smiling slightly at the being that used the former body of the woman who had been her last serious female friend in her life. "Some cultures say that we receive one because we're human, others say that we receive it as we live... some of us lose it and regain it under unique circumstances... but, while the first one is the most common case, there are still those cases where we can earn it as we live, and you're on the right path for that already."

"You've planted the seed already," Chas continued, smiling at the blue-skinned woman as he, Prue and Cordelia raised their hands, "but if you want us to finish fanning those flames..."

He raised his hand and waved it briefly in her direction, smiling as a faint glow was suddenly visible in Illyria's eyes, stepping back with a satisfied nod as the glow faded, leaving Illyria staring at him in surprise.

"It's done," he said, nodding at her. "What potential you had for a soul has been enhanced, and we also modified your body slightly to allow you to better channel some degree of your original power; you won't be transforming completely into your old state any time soon, but you can manipulate time and dimensional portals to a greater degree than you could before now, anyway."

"Ah," Illyria said, smiling at the angel as she studied her hands, flexing her fingers as though she could feel the new power she possessed.

"And, of course, you can be assured that these powers will cease should we believe you to be a threat," the Stranger added, looking pointedly at her.

"That... is acceptable," Illyria said, her smile faltering slightly even as she appeared satisfied with this development; evidently some part of her approved of the idea that she wouldn't be a threat if she turned against them at some future point.

"Can I..." Eric asked, looking uncertainly at the group before him, before he took a deep breath and finished his sentence. "Can I... go to Heaven?"

"What?" Danny said, looking at the pale-skinned man in shock. "But-"

"I know I can go back to Earth, but... I don't really want to," Eric said, looking solemnly at his teammates. "Don't get me wrong, I've lived having the chance to work with you guys, but... I want to see my family again."

"You mean you wish to see her again," the Stranger said, nodding in understanding at Eric. "It is acceptable, Eric; you have remained for so long only because you had not been killed, and you have more than fulfilled the Crow's purpose to deliver justice."

"Thanks," Eric said, smiling gratefully at them.

"Hold on; you're just going to-?" Danny began.

"It's not suicide when you know that there's something waiting for you afterwards," Eric said, smiling reassuringly at the younger boy. "I've enjoyed working with you all here, but... what's waiting for me is more important."

"And it feels a bit 'off' being back like this, huh?" Chas asked, smiling slightly at the other man.

"Catch of being brought back by the Crow, I suppose," Eric said with a brief shrug as he looked at the angel. "You know that you have to do something now that you're back on Earth, but you still feel disconnected once it's done even if you only have the option of going back to Heaven; I'm only still here because I took out everyone I was after without sustaining serious damage and didn't really think I'd get anywhere by killing myself."

"Ah," Danny said, looking slightly sadly at the other man before he turned back to face the four people standing in front of the Coven, pausing for a moment of contemplation before he continued to speak. "Personally, I think that I might have already attended to this, but... well, I have this clone-"

"You have a clone?" Spike said, looking sharply over at Danny. "Why'd you get a clone?"

"My fruit-loop of an arch-foe tried to create his own version of me when I wouldn't be the half-ghost son he wanted; long story, but the net result is that virtually all of the clones died apart from one who's basically a younger female version of me," Danny said, shooting out a brief ectoplasmic burst to cover Spike's mouth while he looked at the others. "The point is, I've done what I can to stabilise her condition, but... well, if you could just make sure she'll be OK- maybe even see what you can do about giving her a soul if she doesn't have one already..."

"Done and done," Prue said, nodding in confirmation at the half-ghost.

"I know this seems a bit... odd," Blaze said, looking slightly awkwardly at the angels before him, "but... well, I've been getting a better handle on controlling the whole 'Ghost Rider' thing most of the time, but-"

"You wish for the ability to transform whenever you desire rather than simply being able to transform in darkness," Clockwork said, smiling slightly at the biker. "It can be done, Johnny Blaze... and I can assure you, whatever harm you did your soul by selling it to Mephistopholes, you have more than made for it by what you sought to gain by selling it in the first place, to say nothing of what you have done with that curse since then."

Blaze could only nod in understanding at that comment, even as he and Milton exchanged brief sympathetic glances with each other.

"It's probably going to sound somewhat selfish, but..." Leo began, sighing slightly before he looked firmly at Prue. "I want to be able to have your sisters as my only charges, and be able to grow old with them."

"Really?" Prue said, looking at him with a slight smile. "But-"

"It's not that I don't care about my other charges; it's just that... well, as it is I can't exactly focus on them and my family," Leo said, his manner initially awkward even as he grew more confident while he continued speaking. "I'd like to retain my powers so that I can continue to actively help them, but as far as I'm concerned you can take my immortality and Whitelighter duties for whatever you want; so long as I can stay with Piper, that's all I need."

"I wouldn't trust anyone else to care for them," Prue said, smiling at Leo before she turned to look at the half-sister she was just meeting for the first time. "And as for you, Paige... after everything you've done to help Piper and Phoebe cope without me, what else could I give them?"

"Uh... a few minutes with you?" Paige asked.

"What?" Prue said in surprise.

"Just... when we get back to Earth, could you just... stick around to talk to them for a little bit?" Paige clarified. "I mean, they've been coping without you, but I think if they could just talk with you for a bit..."

Glancing over at her colleagues for confirmation, Prue smiled and nodded as she turned back to Paige.

"Just let us finish here, and I'll be there," she said, smiling warmly at her youngest sister.

"Personally," Blue Devil said, indicating his trident with a brief wave, "I don't want to lose the power of the Blue Devil itself- that's actually fairly useful-, but if you could maybe... I dunno... make it so that I'm not in pain when I go into church any more?"

"Done," Prue said, snapping her fingers and smiling at him. "You can now freely switch between human and demon forms at will, and will not be subjected to pain when you're in your human form in holy areas."

"Thanks," Blue Devil said, smiling gratefully at the witch.

"As for what I want," Cole said, looking solemnly at the group before him, his gaze focusing on the Stranger, "I have to know; was what my mother told me about my father true?"

"It was, Cole Turner," the Phantom Stranger replied.

"Then I want his soul to be freed," Cole said simply. "He doesn't deserve to be kept trapped because he made a bad call when he got married."

"Done," Chas confirmed, snapping his fingers as he spoke; some of the Coven wondered if their benefactors made more gestures if they felt that the request would be more complicated to grant, but the rest of them didn't worry about it.

"I know... that I... am not... Alec Holland," the Swamp Thing said, looking awkwardly at the divine five gathered before them, "but... would it... be possible... for me... to be able... to assume... a human form... for a time?"

"Why?" Prue asked.

"I want... to feel... like I... belong... again," Swamp Thing said, smiling slightly despite his still-awkward manner. "It is... complicated..."

"Not at all," Prue said, smiling in understanding at him. "Just because you technically aren't human doesn't mean you should be cut off from them; it might take a little time for us to weave the necessary spells into your physiology, but give us some time and you'll be able to become human for a time if you want."

"Any chance I could get that too?" Hellboy asked, smilig slightly at them. "I mean, I'm fine with being what I am, don't get me wrong, but there comes a time when you want to be able to get out and about without attracting stares all the time just because you've got red skin, you know?"

"Again, difficult, but not impossible; just give us a bit of time to weave the right spells, and you'll get your wish," Prue said, smiling reassuringly at the demon before she glanced over at Spawn. "I take it you'd like something similar?"

"I'd settle for just being able to shift into my old form, really; the armour's good, but it sucks after a while," Spawn said, indicating his costume with a wave of his hand that was almost too dismissive. "Plus, well, while the burns at least ensure people talk to me because they like me, it doesn't make it easy to have people start screaming at you when you're going down the streets..."

"No problem," Prue said, nodding in confirmation at Spawn. "Give us a few minutes- you're already adapted for shape-shifting to a degree; all we really need to do is enhance what's already there-, and you're set."

"This is a bit of a complicated request," Raven began, the four beings turning to face her as Spawn smiled gratefully at them, "but... well, even after all my training, my control over my emotions is still... difficult. I was wondering... would it be possible for you to give me the ability to consciously turn my powers on and off, so that I may... feel without the risk of my powers acting up at the same time?"

"Nothing wrong with wanting the chance to vent," Cordelia said, shrugging casually at the young half-demon with a warm smile. "Just... give yourself some time to adjust, OK? Don't just dive into something to feel; make sure you know what you want."

"Of course," Raven said, smiling hesitantly but warmly back at the older woman.

As though that last gift had been a signal, three portals re-opened in the air before them and Angel, Dante, and Faith walked out. The half demon had a smirk on his face, while he looked a bit more scuffed up, while the vampire and the Slayer looking back to smile at the figures on the other side of the portals before the holes in the air sealed up once again, leaving their teammates to look curiously at them.

"So... you OK?" Danny asked, shrugging awkwardly.

"We're good, thanks," Angel said, smiling back at the half-ghost.

"I think... we all said what we needed to say," Faith said, exchanging confirming nods with the vampire and the demon standing on either side of her.

"Good," Clockwork said, as he raised his staff once more. "Once again, congratulations, Coven of Reformed Supernaturals; you have done a great thing on this day."

With those words, the world around them suddenly blurred...

Chapter 22: Prophecies Fulfilled

As the blur cleared, the Coven's original eight members found themselves standing in their pocket dimension headquarters once again, looking around themselves and their five benefactors as they did so.

"Whoa..." Blade said, the normally stoic Daywalker taking in their surroundings with a slight smile before he looked at the five non-Coven members in the room. "Getting out of Hell's that simple?"

"Well, the fact that you just killed Satan helped; for the moment, the rules are in flux, so we're free to make a few minor changes," Chas explained with a nonchalant shrug. "We'll probably have to work out new terms for maintaining the balance between both sides later, but there's people higher up to deal with that, and we've still got to wait for the demons to settle things among themselves before we can negotiate with anyone."

"Ah," Blade said, nodding in understanding.

"Hold on..." Angel said, looking in confusion at Cordelia as he raised one hand to his head, cupping it slightly as though he was trying to listen for something. "Angelus... he's-"

"Gone?" Cordelia said, smiling at him as she finished his sentence. "Of course he is; he was completely spiritually destroyed down in Hell, and the past version of him isn't needed up here any more now that you've got a human soul to maintain your existence. It might be a bit harder for you to access 'vamp face' than it was, but your soul's been capable of sustaining your body without Angelus for a while; unless you lose it, that's not going to be an issue."

"What about the others?" Constantine asked, indicating the rest of the room, where the Coven's recent recruits were conspicuous by their absence. "I get what happened to everyone we picked up from purgatory, but where's everyone we recruited on Earth gone?"

"They've all returned to where they were when this situation started; you can get back in touch with them later," Cordelia said, smiling reassuringly at the exorcist. "Everyone's back to where they were before the apocalypse struck, remember? You were here, but that means that everyone else is back where they were before you- or the Stranger- picked them up and brought them here."

"And... Fred's in Heaven now?" Spike asked, looking hopefully at the former cheerleader.

"Oh yeah; she and Wesley are back together for good now, I promise," Cordelia said, grinning over at the pale-haired ensoulled vampire before she looked over at Hellboy and Spawn. "We'll be sure to let you know when your magic's ready to give you your new appearances, assuming you don't realise it yourselves; keep in mind that nobody's done anything like this before, so we don't know how you'll react when it happens, even if we're sure that it won't cause any negative consequences."

"Sure thing," Hellboy said, grinning at the woman with the warmest smile even his teammates had ever seen the large red demon express. "And... thanks."

"No problem," Prue said, before she turned to look at the Goldlighter. "Oh, and Cole? You can deliver that other gift we talked about now."

"Wha-?" Spike began, only for the entire group of higher power representatives to suddenly vanish from view, the Phantom Stranger's cloak expanded to envelop the other three before fading into thin air.

"'Other gift'?" Hellboy said, looking over at Cole in surprise. "What 'other gift'?"

"Oh, nothing much," Cole said, grinning as he turned to look at Angel, his hands now glowing with golden energy. "Just a prophecy that needs fulfilling."

Before Angel could say anything else, Cole had placed his hands on Angel's shoulders, and the vampire was surrounded by a brilliant golden light for a few moments before the Goldlighter stepped back, grinning at him. Angel was just about to ask what Cole had done when he suddenly felt the urge to take a deep breath, his hands on his chest to confirm the sensation that now filled his body.

"Oh my God..." he said, his eyes widening incredulously. "My... my heart..."

"Your heart?" Spawn said, looking sceptically at Angel. "You're a vampire; you don't have a-"

"JUST A SODDING MINUTE!" Spike said, walking over to glare at the Goldlighter in frustration, even as the other members of the Coven looked at Angel with increasingly-broadening smiles as they realised what had just happened. "After all that effort, he gets the sodding Shanshu? What did he do that I didn't?"

"Led a team of assorted demons and reformed supernatural criminals in a one-of-a-kind assault on Satan himself with the objective of thwarting the apocalypse even when all available evidence suggested that he and you wouldn't be able to enjoy the fruits of your victory even if you got it, and also sacrificed his life for another just because he wanted to rather than because he honestly thought that it would accomplish anything, to say nothing of turning down a chance at Heaven to help the rest of you," Cole said, looking pointedly over at Spike. "Nobody's denying that you're a capable Champion, Spike, but in the end, Angel earned it more."

"Sorry, but could we clear this up for me, please?" Spawn asked, glaring in frustration between his teammates; while on one level he was flattered that he'd fitted so easily into the group that none of them were even fully aware that there was a time he hadn't been there, at the same time it was slightly frustrating not to know what they were talking about. "What the hell is this 'Shanshu' thing you're talking about?"

"It's a prophecy, made so long ago that even the source of it has been lost to virtually everyone," Leo explained, looking apologetically over at Spawn; the former assassin had so quickly become a part of the Coven's 'core' team during the fight with the Gathering that they'd almost forgotten that he was a relatively new addition to the group. "Basically, according to prophecy, the vampire with a soul- that was the only information we were ever given for definite; it would be the vampire with a soul-, having achieved his destiny, would shanshu as a reward; the technical translation of 'shanshu' was a bit complicated, but it basically boils down to the prophecy revealing that, having fulfilled his destiny, the vampire with a soul will 'live to die' by becoming human and living to die a mortal death-"

"And there was nothing to suggest that it was going to be him over me, so why the hell didn't I get it?" Spike asked, glaring over at Leo and Cole in exasperation as he waved an indignant hand at Angel. "I bloody died to save the world-!"

"You did it for Buffy," Cole said.

"Huh?" Spike asked, blinking in confusion.

"I'm not saying that you haven't improved since then to recognise that being a champion goes beyond that these days," Cole said, looking solemnly at Spike as he explained the situation. "The fact that you died to save the world isn't something that can just be overlooked, and you've definitely shown that you're willing to help people primarily to help them rather than because you want to win points with someone else since you started working with Angel... but, regardless of how you've changed recently, the fact is that you started out on the path to become a vampire with a soul because you wanted to be better for Buffy; proportionately, you had less to overcome, and most of your changes were forced on you anyway-"

"Hold on; you're saying I'm less of a champ because I wanted to become this?" Spike said, looking indignantly at Cole. "I was certain that I was going to have to die to stop the sodding First; he's never dealt with-"

"That's the other problem; you've done one big thing on your own and you think that's all you need," Cole said, shaking his head slightly as he looked at Spike.

"Huh?" Spike said, looking at the Goldlighter in confusion. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Redemption's like anything worthwhile in this world of ours, Spike; when it really counts, you get it when you're not trying to," Constantine said, looking solemnly over at the vampire. "I spent most of my life after my first suicide attempt trying to atone for my original sin by exorcising demons and saving lives, but because I was always doing it to win points with the guys upstairs I couldn't change where I was going; the only way that I could get out of going to Hell was when I did something that I was absolutely certain wouldn't benefit me in any way, shape or form, and that only happened when I had absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by taking action. Even if you thought you were dying, what you've told me suggests that you were still doing it to prove yourself to someone; it's good, but it's not what they're looking for."

"Plus," Faith said, smirking slightly as she looked over at the other vampire, "no offence, but speaking from personal experience, three weeks of insanity doesn't really compare to a near-century of self-loathing; you weren't even really aware that you were suffering, so you haven't quite gotten past the worst of the soul thing yet in my book, and probably a few others."

For a moment, Spike could only stare in frustration at his teammates, before he finally sighed and slumped down into the nearest chair in resignation, glaring over at the former vampire as he did so.

"Figures," he said, rolling his eyes in exasperation even as his posture made it clear that he had given up on the previous argument. "You have to do everything first, don't you?"

"Actually, Darla did become human before me-" Angel began.

"By accident; that doesn't count," Spike said, glaring at Angel for a few moments before he shrugged. "Well... guess the best man won, right?"

"But... hold on, how did this happen?" Angel asked, his initial move towards Spike halted as he looked over at Cole in surprise, another thought having just occurred to him. "I signed it away-"

"Firstly, you can't sign prophecies away- there's too many other issues to take into account for anyone to just 'invalidate' such an ancient prophecy as that one-, secondly, the Partners had never tired to invalidate a prophecy this old and were underestimating their abilities to deal with something that mysterious, and thirdly, there's the fact that they didn't have the time to file the 'resignation' anyway before you destroyed the Circle," Cole said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Upper-level management; there's always too many bits of paperwork for them to spare time to deal with the minor details, isn't there?"

"Quite," Hellboy said, smiling slightly at the Goldlighter.

"So," Constantine said, smiling over at the former vampire, "if you're human, what now?"

"If it makes a difference, you've still got at least some of your old powers; you're just a bit more breakable now," Cole said, shrugging at his friend. "Does that help?"

Looking around at the rest of the Coven, Angel smiled.

"What else are we going to do after we just saved the world?" he said with a grin. "Go out for a celebratory drink."

---

The following night found Angel sitting alongside the rest of the Coven's core seven members sitting around a table at the P3 nightclub in San Francisco, with the rest of the Coven's expanded members standing around the nightclub.

With the Coven having made contact with the rest of their expanded members, it hadn't taken long for them to make the necessary arrangements for this party. With Paige and Leo willing to make the necessary recommendations, the other Charmed Ones had been willing to keep P3 closed for the night in order to give the Coven members the chance to have a final relaxing party with each other to celebrate what they had accomplished. Even Hellboy and Spawn were present, the two of them now in their new human disguises and enjoying every minute of it. Spawn's appearance was apparently based on the way he'd looked while he was originally alive- although he noted that the full beard was apparently a new addition, most likely to help him look different if anyone who knew him back then happened to see him and started asking questions about how he was still alive-, while Hellboy had a shaved head and a neat black beard around a weathered-looking face, each of them dressed in dark leather jackets and dark trousers.

Boston had contemplated borrowing a body for the party, but had eventually decided to just hang around and slip into the rest of the team at least once when he wanted a drink; even if the host wouldn't be aware of his activities while he was in control, everyone present felt that this was something that should only be shared with those who had to know. Some of the Coven had decided to bring along a few dates or friends- Danny was accompanied by a Goth girl around his age called Sam Manson, Johnny Blaze was with a dark-skinned woman in a blue dress he had introduced as Roxanne Simpson, Hellboy had been joined by Liz Sherman, Cole was exchanging glances with Phoebe, Leo was sitting in a chair with a place saved alongside him for Piper-, but in general only those who had returned to Earth after the fight in Hell had come to the current party, with the exceptions being those who their partner felt certain could be trusted to be here; Faith and Willow in particular had avoided revealing the full extent of what had happened to the rest of the Slayer Organisation, even if Willow was already looking into a few changes that could be made to the current training regime and defensive preparations to ensure that something like the recent apocalypse couldn't happen again.

As far as the planned party itself went, the younger members of the group were obviously forbidden to have any alcohol- even if they had proven themselves responsible fighters, there were certain things that the Coven would prefer to avoid- but otherwise the bar was open to the entire Coven; after they'd saved the world, the Halliwells had felt that giving them free drinks for the night was the least that anyone could do.

"Hello, everyone!" Piper Halliwell said, smiling as she looked around at the large group of people sitting around them, giving Leo a particularly warm smile before she continued to address the Coven as a whole. "My sisters have informed me about your victory over Satan and your thwarting of the Apocalypse, so, now that you're here, consider this your post-Apocalyptic celebration party; drinks are all on the house, the club is your own for the rest of your night, you can feel free to ask us to play whatever you want music-wise... if it's in our power to deliver it, we'll give you it."

"Good to know," Angel said, nodding at the witch before he stood up to address the rest of the Coven, raising his glass as he looked at them.

"I may not know some of you as well as I know the others," he said, smiling at his assorted teammates, "but even before we won this fight, I was proud to know that I was going into battle with such a dedicated group; we were waging war against one of the most powerful beings in existence, and we pulled through because we believed in each other and what we could accomplish as a team, and refused to give up no matter what the odds were again us."

He smiled wistfully as he looked at the assorted demons and magic-users around him, each of them grinning in approval and pride at his own pride in them.

"Some of us might have played a bigger part in this fight than the rest of us did," he continued, still taking care to address everyone in the club around him at the moment- he wasn't going to single anyone out for special treatment-, "but the end result is that we couldn't have done anything if all of us hadn't been there, and we only came through this mess because we know that we could trust each other, regardless of how little time we'd had to train together before things came to a head. We had to face a great deal in a short amount of time, facing stakes on a scale that even the most experienced among us couldn't have faced before, but we came through, and we all owe each other a great deal; personally, even if I hope we never face something that dangerous again, I hope that you all know that you can all feel free to call on me for assistance in the future if you want it."

"Just so long as you remember the same," Constantine said, grinning as he nodded at the vampire with a broad grin, raising his glass at his leader. "You might be human now, but I think I prove that you can still do a good job at the but-kicking even if you don't have your old powers; whatever you are after the shanshu, you're still our leader."

"And you always will be," Spike said, a solemn expression on his face as he looked at his sire, their old rivalry abandoned and forgotten in the face of this newest, greatest victory. "To Angel."

"No," Angel said, shaking his head as he looked at the group around him, raising his own glass as he gave his toast. "To the Coven; we were an unorthodox team and concept, but we made it work and we saved the world while doing it."

"To the Coven!" the assorted group said, raising their glasses to accompany the ex-vampire's toast, broad grins on their faces as they did so.

"So... what are you going to do with yourself now?" Faith asked, smiling slightly at Angel as he sat down at a nearby table as the music started up, leaving the Coven to dance or mingle according to their preferences. "Back to B. for you, huh?"

"Actually... I don't know," Angel said, shaking his head slightly as he looked at Faith, the dark Slayer now sitting beside him.

"Huh?" Faith said, her eyes widening in confusion. "But-"

"It's not that I don't care about her, Faith- nothing could change that-, but... well, we've spent more time apart than we ever spent together, and that's even if you consider us as having been 'together' from the first time she kicked me down in the alley behind the Bronze to when I left Sunnydale," Angel said, sighing grimly as he took another sip from the beer in front of him before he sat back once again. "I just... we're getting along better than ever before, but I don't want to be like Spike, you know?"

"Oh, you don't wanna give the impression that you did everything for her, huh?" Faith said, smiling slightly at him in understanding.

"Well... basically, yeah," Angel confirmed, before he indicated the group gathered around the club that they were currently sitting in. "Besides... after everything I've been through with the Coven..."

"They're your family now," Faith finished for him, smiling in approval as she looked over at one table where Hellboy and Blade were engaged in an arm-wrestling competition; evidently Hellboy had decided to test his strength in his new human body. "I can get that; they're an interesting bunch."

"Yeah," Angel said, smiling to himself as he looked at the group of people around him.

He'd had a family in Angel Investigations, of course, but it definitely become more of a business in the last few months before the Coven came together; even if part of it had been the necessity of setting things up for his plan to strike at the Circle to pay off, the sheer size of the operation they'd taken charge of at Wolfram & Hart had made it hard for them to get the chance to spend time together as individuals without worrying about their business.

In the Coven... well, it was larger than the Angel Investigations team had ever been, but it was still small enough for him to feel like he had a chance to get to know everyone in it, and he found himself able to relate to them more than he had been able to relate to the old group.

Not only did each of them have to deal with a destiny or powers of their own, but they'd also all been outsiders from humanity because they weren't human; even Constantine, the most 'normal' of them all, had been able to see what others couldn't from virtually the moment of his birth...

"Hey," Paige Matthews said, walking over to sit beside the Slayer and the ex-vampire, smiling over at the two of them as Angel turned his attention back to the present as he turned to look at her. "You OK?"

"Just... thinking, really; there's been a lot on recently," Angel said, smiling slightly as he looked at Leo's sister-in-law. "How about you?"

"Well," the red-headed witch said with a shrug, "the time-travel aspects of this mess gave me a headache that I'm not going to get over any time soon, but in general I think we did a good job; I just... well, you're not who you were before all this, are you?"

"No," Angel said, nodding briefly at her in acknowledgement of her statement, raising one hand to feel the still-strange thumping of his heart as he spoke. "But... in the end, I think I'm OK with that. It'll take a while to get used to, but, as Constantine said, I'm still able to play a part in the fight I've spent my life in; what's happened to me has changed what I am, but it doesn't have to change who I am."

Even as Angel spoke, he found himself wondering if he'd be that comfortable with his humanity if it hadn't been for his time with the Coven. When he'd first heard about the existence of the Shanshu prophecy, he'd mainly seized upon it as evidence that he could be redeemed of his past- even after his brief period of time as a human on the Day That Wasn't, he'd not exactly spent much time considering the implications of returning to human life full-time and on a long-term basis-, but now that he was actually here, a part of him had to wonder if he would have just tried to 'escape' the fight if he'd become human with his old team, given that he'd have lacked his most obvious asset in a fight situation.

Working with such a diverse group as the Coven, each of whom brought different strengths and weaknesses to the team that came together to form the force that had killed Satan himself...

It had helped Angel recognise that his limitations and involvement in the fight were only limited if he wanted to limit them. He might not be as strong or durable as he was in the past, but that didn't make him helpless; he still had his experience, and that was the main thing.

He'd spent the last few months leading a bizarre but effective team of outsiders, and they'd found a place in the world for themselves; if he had to re-learn what he was these days, he couldn't think of anyone or anywhere he'd rather be as he explored what he had become.

He might not have his full vampiric strength any more, but the centuries of training he'd gathered as Angelus meant that he wasn't exactly a slouch even without what parts of his strength he'd retained, and there was still the question of what he was going to do about rejoining the world he'd left behind so long ago now that he had a more definitively human persona, but at least he had a wide group of friends willing and able to help him figure out the answers to those questions...

"Makes a change, anyway," Faith said, smiling over at the vampire. "Last couple of major changes I went through introduced me to this whole lifestyle; nice to know that we can change again without losing what we were."

"Amen to that," Paige said, nodding at Faith before she looked over at Angel with a slightly curious smile. "And, talking of what you were... the whole vampire thing aside, what was your life like before you joined up with this group?"

"It's a long story," Angel replied, even as he found himself smiling in response to Paige's query, settling himself in to tell her the story that she'd asked for.

The future might be an open and confusing book, but, right there and then, as he casually sat alongside Paige, the beautiful half-Whitelighter smiling at him as he smiled back at her and began to tell her his story, he couldn't think of anywhere else that he'd rather be.

Notes:

Well, that's the end of my 'Coven of Reformed Supernaturals' trilogy; hope you liked it, and thanks to everyone who's stuck with this series from the beginning to the end.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals