Dispatches from the War: The Great War of Wolf and Ram (1/1)
The Great War of Wolf and Ram
Starring: Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Wesley, Illyria, Angel, Connor, Faith, Spike, Gunn, Vi, Oz, Hamilton and a few OCs. There are plenty of ships in the background; the foreground is gen.
Part of the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU. It is part of Dispatches from the War, and follows the Prologue and The Taming of the Hart
Rating PG13
Word Count 5000
Warnings Character death, though if you've read later Rulesverse stories this won't be a surprise
Verse recap that may help the Rulesverse went AU after Chosen, and in particular Not Fade Away didn't happen exactly as in canon. (Hence: living Wesley and Cordelia, among other things.) So there never was a final battle to the death in the alley behind the Hyperion, with the dragon from the sky and all that, though the broad outlines of canon AtS still apply. There was just a hugely nasty fight, which left Angel Inc battered but free of their links to W&H. Otherwise, it's probably enough to think of the Slayer Council as a global organisation, with personnel including pretty much all the Scoobies/Team Angel who were still alive after Chosen, and a whole lot of other characters, most of them only sketched in. It's not a tiny band of desperadoes: it's srs business.
Slayer Central, the Scottish Highlands, June 2016
Giles watched Buffy closely as the news started to roll in.
They all shared that dragging sense of dread, of course, so her tired eyes and drawn features were hardly surprising. This was the start of the war proper. But he thought she was quieter, less responsive these days. The spark that she'd always had seemed dimmer. The more they talked about fighting, the more stories came back from those who were in the conflict, the less she responded. Their own attack drill this morning had barely raised a flicker, and that terrified him. If she couldn't do more than go through the motions when practising to save her own children, what could they expect her to do in the wider world?
Giles had tried. Naturally. Kept her busy with weapons practice and planning for the castle's own security. Had been understanding and let her slip away from that when she couldn't face it. But he had to focus on the war now. Buffy would understand. Whether she would slip further, he couldn't help but fear.
He coughed, gently, to bring her mind back. "This really seems to be it, Buffy. Multiple reports of supernatural happenings that aren't on anyone's prophecy radar. We're pretty certain the Wolf and the Ram are rising now."
She mustered enough of the old Buffy to roll her eyes. "This just gets funner. Why won't the bad guys ever just sit quietly?"
"You know perfectly well why," said Giles, letting a smidge of non-understanding-and-supportive tone slip out. "We have predicted from the start that they would use the Hart's foolishness to draw power to themselves. Illyria tells us they will feed off the Hart (not literally, there's no need to make that face), and become stronger themselves."
"I thought the whole Wolfram and Hart thing was interdimensional evil? Like, indivisible trinity-type stuff. I never got how they could fall apart like this."
They had in fact discussed this quite a lot in recent months, often with Buffy present. Giles couldn't tell whether this disconnect was a further symptom of Buffy's depressed state or just her usual capacity to switch off when theoretical discussions went on too long. Either way, it was irritating. He went for the simple version. "They can't free themselves of the trinity totally, but the power balance can shift. They do have personal ambition, it seems. In some dimensions, one of the three rules with the other two as henchmen, or even as virtual slaves. (One suspects Glory's dimension was one such, and she a personification of one of the animals.) In this dimension, they have tended to feel stronger as a trio, but now things have altered and the Hart is weak, the Wolf and the Ram will be temporarily strengthened and able to do things as individual players that they couldn't do before. They may even turn on each other, though we must hope not."
Buffy buffed a fingernail, absently. "Wouldn't it be cool if they beat each other into the ground? Then we could just all go back to how things were and stop worrying."
Yes, Buffy. That's exactly what you need to be thinking about now. "It would indeed be… er, cool. However, it will not happen. Their power will never collapse completely. To believe anything else is a fairytale. The best we can plan for is to weaken them and return them to a stable, relatively quiet trio whose effects we can mitigate. Now, if you don't mind, I need to stop lecturing and start organising."
He had run out of supportive for today. The Wolf and the Ram were very likely arranging some major shows of force to try to cow the Council from the outset. More portals were probable, and alliances with the more organised demons were inevitable. There were rumours of a vampire coalition looking to take advantage of the conflict. There was magic in the skies. Someone had to hold this together, and it wasn't apparently going to be Buffy.
*
Everywhere, June 2016
When the war broke, it was everywhere.
Vi felt pretty lucky. Very much in her comfort zone for an office jockey sent out to battle: thank the goddess she was only fighting vampires. Her Slayer squad were pretty cool for a makeshift bunch of ex-specialist-squadders, and she'd been enjoying Cape Town till the call to arms came. So now they were lined up near Table Mountain, waiting for this crew of vampires to show. It would be fine. They could do vamps, and the vamps supposedly didn't know they were here. All that needed to happen was a lot of dusting, and a lot of other squads dusting other vamps in about three hundred locations in the next couple of weeks, and this part of the menace would be fixed. That was all. Vi checked her weaponry for the nineteenth time, kept her hand on one reassuringly ready stake, and breathed calmly as she waited.
--
The prophet was looking bloody about the ear canals, which meant Connor was going to have to stop soon if he really wanted that intelligence. No point going to all this trouble capturing one, then not getting him to talk, after all. So he tried again. "You're going to tell me about the White Room. Is something rising?"
The prophet shook his head. Connor was considering whether one more blow would damage him too much when a voice spoke softly in his ear. "He can't talk, son. Not won't."
"Angel!" There was a moment when they almost hugged, but things were never as simple as that for these two. "I wasn't expecting you. Is everything okay in Cleveland?"
Shrug. "Okay is relative. Things are pretty hairy, but we're going with it so far. But we heard a rumour that LA might be going bad. Your rumour. Want to fill me in?" Angel ignored the bleeding prophet as Connor dropped him and took a seat in one of the ergonomic office chairs Harmony had installed when the Slayer Council officially decided to use W&H-LA as one of its bases. (She'd be pissed if they lost the furniture when this building turned evil again. Which it probably would.)
"It's been tough. We only have the one Slayer." No point hedging to spare Angel's feelings, Connor calculated - this was a field report, not a father-son chat. "The vampires massed a couple of times, and there were some breakouts to the north. But we've been mainly doing okay. There are plenty of demon fighters here, you know, even if they aren't with the Council."
Angel's frown had lightened a little during that, but he couldn't really avoid the next question. "So why are you pulverising this guy?"
"I need information. But I think there's a weakness in this building. I think the White Room is active again. If I'm right, Wolf and Ram could be planning to reoccupy their old offices. We need to move the operational staff out, and we need backup. I can fight demons, but this could be magicks."
Their gazes caught, for a second, and they could almost-nearly laugh. "And I know how you love the magicks." Angel nodded towards the prophet. "They'll have tongue-tied him; won't be able to speak of the White Room. Let him go. We'll get some bigger guns onto this. Get everyone out to the Hyperion and prepare for backup. You've been on your own too long out here."
--
Spike was fighting. Fucking awesome. Real in-the-face blood-and-bones and green-squishy-things fighting. Technically, he was supposed to be leading this assault, and shouldn't have been in the front line, but he'd looked so pleadingly at the Slayers that Rosa had agreed to take strategic overview and let him get his fangs wet. Didn’t get too many night-fighting opportunities in this war, and he wasn't going to miss out.
Felt good to be working the kinks out of his shoulders, born of far too many teleconferences and far too few moments like this. These demons beheaded so nicely, too, hardly any splatter. Made a bloke feel lucky to be undead.
There was a Slayer to his right, moving as Slayers do. Gorgeous to watch, rhythm and poise all there as she flipped her long blonde hair back and gored the Artifex neatly through the heart. Wonderful sight.
But she wasn't Buffy.
Wrong time to have that thought, Spike. You're not as battle hardened as you thought.
It was fine. Just a stake through the lungs, and not as if he'd been using them much lately. But it hurt. And he had to go back to sodding strategy for a bit.
---
Sometimes all you could do was find a high point and watch. Faith had run, and shouted and tried her hardest, but not all the shoreline was evacuated, and now those beach umbrellas and food-sellers' vans were being overwhelmed. The wave was bigger than she'd hoped; whole towns would drown too, far beyond the beaches. Tsunami sounded awesome. This was somehow pedestrian; a grey-brown surging sea already full of filth and sludge. Didn't make it less of a disaster, for those people who hadn't run.
Wesley and Gunn saw the first sinkholes for themselves, dashing round Cleveland trying to give warnings and get people away from the danger spots. But later, as the sinkholes spread beyond the city limits, they couldn't witness all the destruction in person. Could hear it, though, in the panicked local and later national news, stories of towns in Ohio-the Midwest-the East Coast-the Great Lakes, eventually across the continent, dropping and sliding. Two of the lakes broke their bounds, just a little, just enough to terrify with what might be yet to come if the sinking went on spreading.
Then they heard reports from Australia, China, Siberia, Nigeria - more sinkholes. As though the Earth was collapsing from within. As though Wolf and Ram were pulling down the pillars of the temple of Dagon on their own heads and the heads of everyone in the global congregation.
Magicks in the skies… crackling unchallenged. At first, merely thunderbolts and lightning strikes across the globe, but it was pretty obviously just a feint before bigger things. What could the Council throw back against Wolf-Ram? The answer, from a dozen witches across the world, was, "Not enough."
--
Dawn and Illyria watched too, and planned. And eventually told the Council that their way was how it had to be.
It was time for Willow. But she didn’t have to be alone in this.
*
On the coast of Ecuador, July 2016
Willow was sitting in the centre of the room. Legs crossed, arms loose, mind centred. She was calm. She was calm.
It was the rest of the world which had gone mad.
Talia was packing, and crying a little. She knew they would be going, but she feared what that meant. Talia wasn't built for warfare. She was warm, domestic, centred. Her calm was rocking.
Willow's calm relied on Talia's light, warm, happy support. Which was why now would be the worst possible time for someone to ask Willow to pick up the magicks again. Which was exactly what someone had done.
Oz was on the phone. Oz was emoting. Vocally. On the phone. So many things wrong with that sentence. Willow relied on Oz to keep her centred, grounded, calm. Oz and anger were words which shouldn't come together any more.
"Willow doesn't have to do this. So long as we're clear." Hearing Oz be forceful was one of the things Willow loved. But it was rare. Hearing it now… brought home the war. Of course, they had Council updates, and the news was full of happenings which could hardly be other than disasters brought by a silent demonic war. But it was something they feared, not something they could control.
Except Willow, and now Willow was being asked to step up. With a gulp, and a tremor, and the certain knowledge that if the magicks took her this time, she would never come back. But this was war. You didn’t sit out because you were having a bad day. You didn’t even sit out because you were scared of dying. That was kind of the point.
On the flights to Europe, they sat as three, Willow in the middle, flanked by her civilian loves, who'd never asked to be warriors. They didn't speak much, and they never left her alone. Her mind was already very far away.
*
Everywhere, July 2016
"Hey kid, good to see you. Grab a stake and get stuck in."
Vi kind of liked working with Spike. He might technically be sort-of family, but he didn't waste time on anguish and the fate of the world, or on the fact he hadn't seen her since six months ago in Scotland till she'd suddenly turned up at his side in India bearing Slayers.
Not important. There were nightstalkers to be killed, and they both knew how to do that. Initiative-based armaments had been tweaked just a little with one of Erik's special surprises, and they popped the limbs right off those suckers.
"Oh, and watch your back, pet. Bunch of werewolves outta Mysore keep coming to join the fun. No getting bit, if you please."
Urgh, werewolves. Vi hated the furries. But she knew how to kill them. Right now wasn't the time for philosophy, so she tried not to remember they were just people in the dog-suits. They were dangerous, they were working with the enemy, they had to die. Easy.
Just don't die, okay? said her inner voice. They'd been taking too many hits lately, and she'd lost a little confidence. But Spike's easy violence was a pretty good antidote to that, so she grabbed a stake as directed and faced the hordes.
___
"So we need to check on the Old Ones again - perhaps Illyria could schedule that for today? We certainly don't want any disruption to the Well, do we?" Giles gave an unhappy little huffle, as though making a joke. Which he so wasn't.
There was a noise at the door of Slayer Central control, and Buffy was just antsy enough to interrupt the vital scheduling for it. "Yuh? Who's out there?"
"Um. Me." It was Willow.
The control room was never silent now. Not with constant intel, scanners, scramblers, the open channel for emergency comms, the SSO backups running daily ops. Still, it fell pretty much silent.
Oz and Talia followed Willow into the room. Talia's cheerful hellos a little more muted than usual. Oz barely even nodding in greeting.
"So you came." Giles sounded so frozen hostile, Buffy had to be the one to warm up.
"Thank you. Will, seriously, thank you." They hugged, though it felt foreign. "I know you didn't want this. We've tried so hard to keep you safely out of here. But you've seen the news, right?"
Everyone nodded. It was good they'd left Ecuador when they had. More sinkholes, all round Quito and beyond.
"We're winning the actual fighting." Buffy couldn't repress that titbit, because it was awesome. Go team Slayer! "But we're losing the world." Which was the not so good news. "If you can help…"
Willow braced up, letting Oz and Talia drop back. "I'll try. We'll try. We've been working on anchoring me, and it feels pretty good, but you know when I take the magicks back it hits like… lightning, thunderbolt, wildfire, pick a cliché… And it's been three years since I had any magicks at all, so…"
This time you probably *will* have to kill me.
Buffy could hear those unsaid words, and they might be horribly true. But, "Dawn and Illyria have a thought about that."
She hoped to hell Dawn was right that this wasn't some evil scheme of Illyria's.
She noticed, as she talked, that she didn't feel quite so frozen any more. There was something there, that she'd assumed was gone. A little, fighting quiver that said You're part of this. This matters. You might even win this.
She had a feeling Giles saw it too.
___
Xander's feelings about Faith were complex and difficult. Partly on account of attempted murder way back, when that kind of thing still surprised him, and a whole lot because of Cordelia. Can you say unresolved issues?
But seeing her here - in the emptiest part of Sudan he'd yet encountered apart from several thousand interdimensional demons - heading a squad of Slayers, witches, warriors and medics… Well, he'd have kissed her if not for a very large audience. He settled for a cautious non-intrusive hug, and a situation report that made her eyebrows rocket upwards.
Surprising Faith with military prowess: sweet, sweet satisfaction.
"Man, we thought you'd be besieged in here. Can't believe your casualty rate's so low. Do you even need us?"
Oh, how he longed to be able to send the cavalry packing, with a merry "Thanks for the offer guys, but we're beating hell itself here, one hand behind our backs." However, not so much with the survive-y-ness if he did that.
"Hell, yeah, we need you. Every hour or so they attack, and they're getting craftier. I do not know what's trying to get out of those caves, but it can't be a good thing. You got any explosives?"
Faith's grin, briefly and scarily, reminded him of her face when she held the knife, all those years ago. This woman did love her weaponry. "We got plastique, we got TNT, and we got some of the most fun mystical shit you ever saw in your short little life, Xander Harris. Won’t even know we were here if we use that, 'cept for all the itty bitty demon pieces you get to clean up."
They beat back the waves and sealed this one portal in only a week and with barely ten major casualties. Then Faith gave Xander's squad a lift back to Khartoum and set off for an emergency in Mongolia. Xander took one night's sweet, sweet rest, and headed for a firepit exploding in Mali.
Just another day at the war.
--
"It’s coming." People say those words with many different intonations. Pride, apprehension, lust, abject fear… Wesley was rather proud that his voice expressed little more than interested observation. It was, indeed, coming, whatever it was. It was rolling through the skies above what they had to think of once again as Wolfram (and possibly Hart) LA. Magic in the skies again, roiling with demons. When it touched down, there would be a massacre.
How many times had they stood here, facing this threat?
Well, in literal terms, just the once, way back. But in this city, against Wolfram and Hart… So many occasions. To his right was Angel, who hadn't changed since the last time, except a little around the hair design. Gunn to his left, out of his now-normal professional gear and in jeans and a hoodie, just like the old days. Okay, no longer the lanky kid Wesley first knew, but very reminiscent as he whooped and wound up a serious battleaxe.
A dragon burst from the magic cloud. The rent it left allowed more demons out, cascading into the streets.
What had changed was everyone else who was here. Connor was leading the group, carrying a sword and a hunting knife, and looking like a simply lethal weapon in his own flesh. An even dozen Slayers, and all their additional firepower. Even Harmony, with a crossbow for some reason. (Wesley felt his first quiver of fear. He really didn’t want her behind him.)
He watched Connor leap - two-three-four, huge strides, up the side of a building and onto the dragon, hacking at its neck almost before it took flight. Watched Angel fight like the champion he might just be. Gunn cutting swathes through the demon horde. Wesley was fighting too, with - he suddenly realised - not enough of his attention focused on the creatures focused on trying to kill him.
Blasts from a shotgun, sharp, efficient stabbing, some fairly nimble footwork for a middle-aged warlock, the occasional spell when he had sufficient leisure… Wesley found ways to pass the time.
--
It worked. Oh goddess, how it worked. Illyria and Dawn together in her mind provided more than just the balance Willow needed - the three of them together had powers that verged on goddesshood. They worked without words, three psyches fusing into one sustained movement of magic.
Slanting through space, Illyria's fighting skills combined with Willow's magic and Dawn's powers of location to throw single, perfect spells into spaces where they wrought inter-dimensional damage to Ram and Wolf, yet left untouched the oblivious civilians of Earth.
It was intoxicating, this blue-green world above humanity.
For those on the ground, it was good. It was enough to contain the enemy, and stop the Earth's collapse. The rent in the California sky sealed, and portals closed across the dimension. But still the Council could not break the enemy.
What would it take? Willow had no more to give, and she couldn't last forever.
*
Slayer Central, the Scottish Highlands, August 2016
It was a moment of calm in the control room before Buffy finally snapped. The fighting that was happening was happening in the expected places. It seemed to be a little less intense than yesterday. They were getting pretty good at fire fighting on a global scale.
Upstairs, Willow was personally saving the world, with just the help of Dawn and Illyria. Who, Buffy hoped, were still working as her safety net. She was almost jealous. Nobody gave Buffy a safety net when she was saving the world. Just a 'watch your back'. Or an 'I got your back', even. (But that was from Spike, who wasn't here. She didn't have his back, and he'd been gone far too long.) And, of course, she still was saving the world. But… differently. In a more Giles-like way.
It may have been that thought that caused the snappage.
Or it may have started yesterday, when Annie had cheerfully said over sandwiches, "When are you going to fight, Mom?" And why not? It felt like everyone else in the building had. Giles's damn nanny was off fighting undead ninjas somewhere north of Morioka, and she wasn't halfway qualified.
Buffy had swallowed back the words I have one leg. One leg! Who the hell fights with one leg?, which Annie didn't deserve. She'd gone the squishy mommy route. "I get to stay home and keep you guys safe. It's the most important job in the world." Which it was, in some ways…and she hidden behind that thought till now. But now, unless and except were starting to swarm.
Unless, in her absence from the fight, the world was sucked into hell or something for want of one gimpy Slayer. Except, this castle would almost certainly now be the last place in the world to fall to evil, given the powers of magic being unleashed on the upper floors. Except she'd been listening to her guys fighting and dying for years now, and she hadn't put herself on the line for them. While Giles would probably go frantic trying to look after four kids as well as running the war… that wasn't enough.
That wasn't being a Slayer.
Everyone understood. Since Spike left to fight (and a little before that, when he finally gave up), nobody had nagged at her or told her to get off her ass and fight like a woman.
Maybe somebody should.
"Giles." He looked up. A moment passed between them, and he started to smile. (How could he know? Did she look different already?) "Where's the scythe?"
"With Faith." Of course.
"I'd like to use it one more time."
Maybe she was insane. The leg thing wasn't just an excuse: she didn't have the balance of old. But she could shoot, she knew her way round all kinds of pointy weapons, and she had not, dammit, killed her last vampire one-on-one.
Buffy Summers was going to war.
*
Everywhere, September 2016
Mystical powers are a wonderful thing. But sometimes, people are more amazing.
It didn't take anything more mystical than a cellphone network to send the power through the army. "Buffy's back." "Buffy has the scythe." The power grew. "Buffy's gonna do something awesome." "I knew she would! I knew it was all some big fake out plan!" As it happened, they were wrong. But in the end, it didn’t matter.
In her castle sanctum, Willow could feel the Slayers rising. Their collective brainpower focused on Buffy and the scythe - and Willow knew this tune. Used that ripple of ancient power and current strength to slingshot just a little more, a little further than she'd ever done. That little bit further began to bite.
Across the dimensions, the power rippled outwards. Wolf and Ram lost their connections with other wolves, rams and harts. Lost a vital source of strength.
Across the world, Slayer spines were a little taller, SSO arms a little stronger, moves a little sharper. Belief a hell of a lot greater. Demons died. Lots of demons.
Spike, in the lower Himalayas still, caught the rumours, and in an access of happy savagery took out half a battalion of Fyarls single handed. Laughing.
Faith, wishing she still had the scythe, was running operational control and almost literally dying to get back into action as the reports came in and in, of victories. "Check, check, got it. All continents report improved positions. Enemy showing weaknesses. Tide is turning. Repeat: tide is turning. Seriously, guys? I think we might even win this."
Angel walked into the White Room at the former Wolfram and Hart LA, and said to the blankness, "You hear them? You hear them winning? You hear us?"
The blankness said nothing.
Angel waited. And waited. "We will negotiate your surrender. Start thinking of your terms. You have one week."
A very tall, very well-suited man emerged from the whiteness. "Very well, Slayer Council. You'll be hearing from us."
*
Outside the Hyperion, Los Angeles, September 2016
In the end, saving the world is not a gradual process. In the end, one man, or one woman, one demon or god, gets to do the deed that sets the keystone in the arch of achievement. Then people (or demons) can stand back, and say Yes. The world is saved.
Charles Gunn was the man who did that. He did it not with an axe, or a crossbow or stake. He did it with a pen. (Also, quite a lot of computers and peripherals, and clerks and research assistants, but let that go for now.) He did it despite all that Hamilton and his minions could pull, and despite his constant nasty feeling that Big Evil had better tailoring (which: a feeling Gunn hadn't had in a long while). He did it.
Gunn was trying to pretend his knees weren't shaking as he parked up behind the Hyperion and prepared to go inside. Already imagining saying the words to the assembled company of Slayers and SSOs who'd wanted to be here for the Armistice. (Also, as a not-subtle reminder to the newly resubdued Wolfram and - yes - Hart that the Slayer Council was ready for war again, if need be.) It's over. We won. They agreed to our full terms.
He was trying to compose the right phrases. Not too pompous - he wasn't a damn Watcher of the old Council, and they weren't going back to that world any time soon. But not too juvenile - after all, he had kids and employees to impress with his Serious Business, and running in shouting "Whoop! Whoop! We beat the bad guys!" was going to do him no good there. Plus making himself sound like a twelve-year-old girl was something he wanted to skip, even if they were the words that would have come most easily. So he was going for simple, with a side of dignity and remembering what they and the world had lost.
Except, when he saw Wes and Angel coming out of the old hotel building, obviously wanting to be the first to greet him, he couldn't stop grinning.
He never did know what hit him.
(The Council later determined that the half-crazed Thr'v'nak was acting alone and probably didn't even know who he was pretty much cutting in half with his viciously sharp foreclaws. There was no plot. It wasn't Wolfram and Hart trying to renege on the painstakingly-negotiated surrender. There was just one demented interdimensional demon too many on the streets of Los Angeles.)
Gunn died where Darla had; where Connor was born; where the Beast rose; where they fought the armies of evil to a stand the time before this latest time. As though time was just an endless circle of death and rebirth, good fighting evil. Wesley and Angel, on their knees in the alley one more time in the inescapable cycle of their lives, couldn't staunch the blood and didn't care about the single demon Connor was killing behind them.
So the war of the Hart, the Wolf and the Ram ended, not with a whoop, but with a sob, and to the sound of Wesley lying: You’ll be fine, just need a little patching up, you’ve had worse than this, hell I’ve had worse than this and you didn’t even try to be sympathetic.
Because in war, good people die. And that's the simple truth.
*
Four Slayers. Thirteen Support Officers. Charles Gunn. [Censored] members of the Initiative. One hundred and seventy two thousand, six hundred and twelve civilian human beings.
They would bear the price of this. But their world was cracked open all the same. Scar tissue would form. Just now, the wounds were ugly.
*****
Dispatches from the War, especially this bit, is my entry for Barb's Nertz to You Joss Whedon ficathon. With luck, the epitaphs will be done by the time the deadline passes...
Why is this Nertz to You, Joss Whedon? Well, in the Rulesverse, some people are alive who are not alive in comics-world. But more importantly, I think a global Slayer network needs infrastructure and organisation (which is the basis for most of the non-shippy Rulesverse stories: admin!fic ftw!). And I also think that (though accepting commercial realities made this impossible in comics) treating Angel's world and Buffy's world as though they don’t intersect and affect each other makes no damn sense. There is no Angel-Rulesverse - he and his crew just function in parts of the wider verse.
Also, no one has sex in space. Because that's just unhygienic.
Starring: Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Wesley, Illyria, Angel, Connor, Faith, Spike, Gunn, Vi, Oz, Hamilton and a few OCs. There are plenty of ships in the background; the foreground is gen.
Part of the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU. It is part of Dispatches from the War, and follows the Prologue and The Taming of the Hart
Rating PG13
Word Count 5000
Warnings Character death, though if you've read later Rulesverse stories this won't be a surprise
Verse recap that may help the Rulesverse went AU after Chosen, and in particular Not Fade Away didn't happen exactly as in canon. (Hence: living Wesley and Cordelia, among other things.) So there never was a final battle to the death in the alley behind the Hyperion, with the dragon from the sky and all that, though the broad outlines of canon AtS still apply. There was just a hugely nasty fight, which left Angel Inc battered but free of their links to W&H. Otherwise, it's probably enough to think of the Slayer Council as a global organisation, with personnel including pretty much all the Scoobies/Team Angel who were still alive after Chosen, and a whole lot of other characters, most of them only sketched in. It's not a tiny band of desperadoes: it's srs business.
Slayer Central, the Scottish Highlands, June 2016
Giles watched Buffy closely as the news started to roll in.
They all shared that dragging sense of dread, of course, so her tired eyes and drawn features were hardly surprising. This was the start of the war proper. But he thought she was quieter, less responsive these days. The spark that she'd always had seemed dimmer. The more they talked about fighting, the more stories came back from those who were in the conflict, the less she responded. Their own attack drill this morning had barely raised a flicker, and that terrified him. If she couldn't do more than go through the motions when practising to save her own children, what could they expect her to do in the wider world?
Giles had tried. Naturally. Kept her busy with weapons practice and planning for the castle's own security. Had been understanding and let her slip away from that when she couldn't face it. But he had to focus on the war now. Buffy would understand. Whether she would slip further, he couldn't help but fear.
He coughed, gently, to bring her mind back. "This really seems to be it, Buffy. Multiple reports of supernatural happenings that aren't on anyone's prophecy radar. We're pretty certain the Wolf and the Ram are rising now."
She mustered enough of the old Buffy to roll her eyes. "This just gets funner. Why won't the bad guys ever just sit quietly?"
"You know perfectly well why," said Giles, letting a smidge of non-understanding-and-supportive tone slip out. "We have predicted from the start that they would use the Hart's foolishness to draw power to themselves. Illyria tells us they will feed off the Hart (not literally, there's no need to make that face), and become stronger themselves."
"I thought the whole Wolfram and Hart thing was interdimensional evil? Like, indivisible trinity-type stuff. I never got how they could fall apart like this."
They had in fact discussed this quite a lot in recent months, often with Buffy present. Giles couldn't tell whether this disconnect was a further symptom of Buffy's depressed state or just her usual capacity to switch off when theoretical discussions went on too long. Either way, it was irritating. He went for the simple version. "They can't free themselves of the trinity totally, but the power balance can shift. They do have personal ambition, it seems. In some dimensions, one of the three rules with the other two as henchmen, or even as virtual slaves. (One suspects Glory's dimension was one such, and she a personification of one of the animals.) In this dimension, they have tended to feel stronger as a trio, but now things have altered and the Hart is weak, the Wolf and the Ram will be temporarily strengthened and able to do things as individual players that they couldn't do before. They may even turn on each other, though we must hope not."
Buffy buffed a fingernail, absently. "Wouldn't it be cool if they beat each other into the ground? Then we could just all go back to how things were and stop worrying."
Yes, Buffy. That's exactly what you need to be thinking about now. "It would indeed be… er, cool. However, it will not happen. Their power will never collapse completely. To believe anything else is a fairytale. The best we can plan for is to weaken them and return them to a stable, relatively quiet trio whose effects we can mitigate. Now, if you don't mind, I need to stop lecturing and start organising."
He had run out of supportive for today. The Wolf and the Ram were very likely arranging some major shows of force to try to cow the Council from the outset. More portals were probable, and alliances with the more organised demons were inevitable. There were rumours of a vampire coalition looking to take advantage of the conflict. There was magic in the skies. Someone had to hold this together, and it wasn't apparently going to be Buffy.
*
Everywhere, June 2016
When the war broke, it was everywhere.
Vi felt pretty lucky. Very much in her comfort zone for an office jockey sent out to battle: thank the goddess she was only fighting vampires. Her Slayer squad were pretty cool for a makeshift bunch of ex-specialist-squadders, and she'd been enjoying Cape Town till the call to arms came. So now they were lined up near Table Mountain, waiting for this crew of vampires to show. It would be fine. They could do vamps, and the vamps supposedly didn't know they were here. All that needed to happen was a lot of dusting, and a lot of other squads dusting other vamps in about three hundred locations in the next couple of weeks, and this part of the menace would be fixed. That was all. Vi checked her weaponry for the nineteenth time, kept her hand on one reassuringly ready stake, and breathed calmly as she waited.
--
The prophet was looking bloody about the ear canals, which meant Connor was going to have to stop soon if he really wanted that intelligence. No point going to all this trouble capturing one, then not getting him to talk, after all. So he tried again. "You're going to tell me about the White Room. Is something rising?"
The prophet shook his head. Connor was considering whether one more blow would damage him too much when a voice spoke softly in his ear. "He can't talk, son. Not won't."
"Angel!" There was a moment when they almost hugged, but things were never as simple as that for these two. "I wasn't expecting you. Is everything okay in Cleveland?"
Shrug. "Okay is relative. Things are pretty hairy, but we're going with it so far. But we heard a rumour that LA might be going bad. Your rumour. Want to fill me in?" Angel ignored the bleeding prophet as Connor dropped him and took a seat in one of the ergonomic office chairs Harmony had installed when the Slayer Council officially decided to use W&H-LA as one of its bases. (She'd be pissed if they lost the furniture when this building turned evil again. Which it probably would.)
"It's been tough. We only have the one Slayer." No point hedging to spare Angel's feelings, Connor calculated - this was a field report, not a father-son chat. "The vampires massed a couple of times, and there were some breakouts to the north. But we've been mainly doing okay. There are plenty of demon fighters here, you know, even if they aren't with the Council."
Angel's frown had lightened a little during that, but he couldn't really avoid the next question. "So why are you pulverising this guy?"
"I need information. But I think there's a weakness in this building. I think the White Room is active again. If I'm right, Wolf and Ram could be planning to reoccupy their old offices. We need to move the operational staff out, and we need backup. I can fight demons, but this could be magicks."
Their gazes caught, for a second, and they could almost-nearly laugh. "And I know how you love the magicks." Angel nodded towards the prophet. "They'll have tongue-tied him; won't be able to speak of the White Room. Let him go. We'll get some bigger guns onto this. Get everyone out to the Hyperion and prepare for backup. You've been on your own too long out here."
--
Spike was fighting. Fucking awesome. Real in-the-face blood-and-bones and green-squishy-things fighting. Technically, he was supposed to be leading this assault, and shouldn't have been in the front line, but he'd looked so pleadingly at the Slayers that Rosa had agreed to take strategic overview and let him get his fangs wet. Didn’t get too many night-fighting opportunities in this war, and he wasn't going to miss out.
Felt good to be working the kinks out of his shoulders, born of far too many teleconferences and far too few moments like this. These demons beheaded so nicely, too, hardly any splatter. Made a bloke feel lucky to be undead.
There was a Slayer to his right, moving as Slayers do. Gorgeous to watch, rhythm and poise all there as she flipped her long blonde hair back and gored the Artifex neatly through the heart. Wonderful sight.
But she wasn't Buffy.
Wrong time to have that thought, Spike. You're not as battle hardened as you thought.
It was fine. Just a stake through the lungs, and not as if he'd been using them much lately. But it hurt. And he had to go back to sodding strategy for a bit.
---
Sometimes all you could do was find a high point and watch. Faith had run, and shouted and tried her hardest, but not all the shoreline was evacuated, and now those beach umbrellas and food-sellers' vans were being overwhelmed. The wave was bigger than she'd hoped; whole towns would drown too, far beyond the beaches. Tsunami sounded awesome. This was somehow pedestrian; a grey-brown surging sea already full of filth and sludge. Didn't make it less of a disaster, for those people who hadn't run.
Wesley and Gunn saw the first sinkholes for themselves, dashing round Cleveland trying to give warnings and get people away from the danger spots. But later, as the sinkholes spread beyond the city limits, they couldn't witness all the destruction in person. Could hear it, though, in the panicked local and later national news, stories of towns in Ohio-the Midwest-the East Coast-the Great Lakes, eventually across the continent, dropping and sliding. Two of the lakes broke their bounds, just a little, just enough to terrify with what might be yet to come if the sinking went on spreading.
Then they heard reports from Australia, China, Siberia, Nigeria - more sinkholes. As though the Earth was collapsing from within. As though Wolf and Ram were pulling down the pillars of the temple of Dagon on their own heads and the heads of everyone in the global congregation.
Magicks in the skies… crackling unchallenged. At first, merely thunderbolts and lightning strikes across the globe, but it was pretty obviously just a feint before bigger things. What could the Council throw back against Wolf-Ram? The answer, from a dozen witches across the world, was, "Not enough."
--
Dawn and Illyria watched too, and planned. And eventually told the Council that their way was how it had to be.
It was time for Willow. But she didn’t have to be alone in this.
*
On the coast of Ecuador, July 2016
Willow was sitting in the centre of the room. Legs crossed, arms loose, mind centred. She was calm. She was calm.
It was the rest of the world which had gone mad.
Talia was packing, and crying a little. She knew they would be going, but she feared what that meant. Talia wasn't built for warfare. She was warm, domestic, centred. Her calm was rocking.
Willow's calm relied on Talia's light, warm, happy support. Which was why now would be the worst possible time for someone to ask Willow to pick up the magicks again. Which was exactly what someone had done.
Oz was on the phone. Oz was emoting. Vocally. On the phone. So many things wrong with that sentence. Willow relied on Oz to keep her centred, grounded, calm. Oz and anger were words which shouldn't come together any more.
"Willow doesn't have to do this. So long as we're clear." Hearing Oz be forceful was one of the things Willow loved. But it was rare. Hearing it now… brought home the war. Of course, they had Council updates, and the news was full of happenings which could hardly be other than disasters brought by a silent demonic war. But it was something they feared, not something they could control.
Except Willow, and now Willow was being asked to step up. With a gulp, and a tremor, and the certain knowledge that if the magicks took her this time, she would never come back. But this was war. You didn’t sit out because you were having a bad day. You didn’t even sit out because you were scared of dying. That was kind of the point.
On the flights to Europe, they sat as three, Willow in the middle, flanked by her civilian loves, who'd never asked to be warriors. They didn't speak much, and they never left her alone. Her mind was already very far away.
*
Everywhere, July 2016
"Hey kid, good to see you. Grab a stake and get stuck in."
Vi kind of liked working with Spike. He might technically be sort-of family, but he didn't waste time on anguish and the fate of the world, or on the fact he hadn't seen her since six months ago in Scotland till she'd suddenly turned up at his side in India bearing Slayers.
Not important. There were nightstalkers to be killed, and they both knew how to do that. Initiative-based armaments had been tweaked just a little with one of Erik's special surprises, and they popped the limbs right off those suckers.
"Oh, and watch your back, pet. Bunch of werewolves outta Mysore keep coming to join the fun. No getting bit, if you please."
Urgh, werewolves. Vi hated the furries. But she knew how to kill them. Right now wasn't the time for philosophy, so she tried not to remember they were just people in the dog-suits. They were dangerous, they were working with the enemy, they had to die. Easy.
Just don't die, okay? said her inner voice. They'd been taking too many hits lately, and she'd lost a little confidence. But Spike's easy violence was a pretty good antidote to that, so she grabbed a stake as directed and faced the hordes.
___
"So we need to check on the Old Ones again - perhaps Illyria could schedule that for today? We certainly don't want any disruption to the Well, do we?" Giles gave an unhappy little huffle, as though making a joke. Which he so wasn't.
There was a noise at the door of Slayer Central control, and Buffy was just antsy enough to interrupt the vital scheduling for it. "Yuh? Who's out there?"
"Um. Me." It was Willow.
The control room was never silent now. Not with constant intel, scanners, scramblers, the open channel for emergency comms, the SSO backups running daily ops. Still, it fell pretty much silent.
Oz and Talia followed Willow into the room. Talia's cheerful hellos a little more muted than usual. Oz barely even nodding in greeting.
"So you came." Giles sounded so frozen hostile, Buffy had to be the one to warm up.
"Thank you. Will, seriously, thank you." They hugged, though it felt foreign. "I know you didn't want this. We've tried so hard to keep you safely out of here. But you've seen the news, right?"
Everyone nodded. It was good they'd left Ecuador when they had. More sinkholes, all round Quito and beyond.
"We're winning the actual fighting." Buffy couldn't repress that titbit, because it was awesome. Go team Slayer! "But we're losing the world." Which was the not so good news. "If you can help…"
Willow braced up, letting Oz and Talia drop back. "I'll try. We'll try. We've been working on anchoring me, and it feels pretty good, but you know when I take the magicks back it hits like… lightning, thunderbolt, wildfire, pick a cliché… And it's been three years since I had any magicks at all, so…"
This time you probably *will* have to kill me.
Buffy could hear those unsaid words, and they might be horribly true. But, "Dawn and Illyria have a thought about that."
She hoped to hell Dawn was right that this wasn't some evil scheme of Illyria's.
She noticed, as she talked, that she didn't feel quite so frozen any more. There was something there, that she'd assumed was gone. A little, fighting quiver that said You're part of this. This matters. You might even win this.
She had a feeling Giles saw it too.
___
Xander's feelings about Faith were complex and difficult. Partly on account of attempted murder way back, when that kind of thing still surprised him, and a whole lot because of Cordelia. Can you say unresolved issues?
But seeing her here - in the emptiest part of Sudan he'd yet encountered apart from several thousand interdimensional demons - heading a squad of Slayers, witches, warriors and medics… Well, he'd have kissed her if not for a very large audience. He settled for a cautious non-intrusive hug, and a situation report that made her eyebrows rocket upwards.
Surprising Faith with military prowess: sweet, sweet satisfaction.
"Man, we thought you'd be besieged in here. Can't believe your casualty rate's so low. Do you even need us?"
Oh, how he longed to be able to send the cavalry packing, with a merry "Thanks for the offer guys, but we're beating hell itself here, one hand behind our backs." However, not so much with the survive-y-ness if he did that.
"Hell, yeah, we need you. Every hour or so they attack, and they're getting craftier. I do not know what's trying to get out of those caves, but it can't be a good thing. You got any explosives?"
Faith's grin, briefly and scarily, reminded him of her face when she held the knife, all those years ago. This woman did love her weaponry. "We got plastique, we got TNT, and we got some of the most fun mystical shit you ever saw in your short little life, Xander Harris. Won’t even know we were here if we use that, 'cept for all the itty bitty demon pieces you get to clean up."
They beat back the waves and sealed this one portal in only a week and with barely ten major casualties. Then Faith gave Xander's squad a lift back to Khartoum and set off for an emergency in Mongolia. Xander took one night's sweet, sweet rest, and headed for a firepit exploding in Mali.
Just another day at the war.
--
"It’s coming." People say those words with many different intonations. Pride, apprehension, lust, abject fear… Wesley was rather proud that his voice expressed little more than interested observation. It was, indeed, coming, whatever it was. It was rolling through the skies above what they had to think of once again as Wolfram (and possibly Hart) LA. Magic in the skies again, roiling with demons. When it touched down, there would be a massacre.
How many times had they stood here, facing this threat?
Well, in literal terms, just the once, way back. But in this city, against Wolfram and Hart… So many occasions. To his right was Angel, who hadn't changed since the last time, except a little around the hair design. Gunn to his left, out of his now-normal professional gear and in jeans and a hoodie, just like the old days. Okay, no longer the lanky kid Wesley first knew, but very reminiscent as he whooped and wound up a serious battleaxe.
A dragon burst from the magic cloud. The rent it left allowed more demons out, cascading into the streets.
What had changed was everyone else who was here. Connor was leading the group, carrying a sword and a hunting knife, and looking like a simply lethal weapon in his own flesh. An even dozen Slayers, and all their additional firepower. Even Harmony, with a crossbow for some reason. (Wesley felt his first quiver of fear. He really didn’t want her behind him.)
He watched Connor leap - two-three-four, huge strides, up the side of a building and onto the dragon, hacking at its neck almost before it took flight. Watched Angel fight like the champion he might just be. Gunn cutting swathes through the demon horde. Wesley was fighting too, with - he suddenly realised - not enough of his attention focused on the creatures focused on trying to kill him.
Blasts from a shotgun, sharp, efficient stabbing, some fairly nimble footwork for a middle-aged warlock, the occasional spell when he had sufficient leisure… Wesley found ways to pass the time.
--
It worked. Oh goddess, how it worked. Illyria and Dawn together in her mind provided more than just the balance Willow needed - the three of them together had powers that verged on goddesshood. They worked without words, three psyches fusing into one sustained movement of magic.
Slanting through space, Illyria's fighting skills combined with Willow's magic and Dawn's powers of location to throw single, perfect spells into spaces where they wrought inter-dimensional damage to Ram and Wolf, yet left untouched the oblivious civilians of Earth.
It was intoxicating, this blue-green world above humanity.
For those on the ground, it was good. It was enough to contain the enemy, and stop the Earth's collapse. The rent in the California sky sealed, and portals closed across the dimension. But still the Council could not break the enemy.
What would it take? Willow had no more to give, and she couldn't last forever.
*
Slayer Central, the Scottish Highlands, August 2016
It was a moment of calm in the control room before Buffy finally snapped. The fighting that was happening was happening in the expected places. It seemed to be a little less intense than yesterday. They were getting pretty good at fire fighting on a global scale.
Upstairs, Willow was personally saving the world, with just the help of Dawn and Illyria. Who, Buffy hoped, were still working as her safety net. She was almost jealous. Nobody gave Buffy a safety net when she was saving the world. Just a 'watch your back'. Or an 'I got your back', even. (But that was from Spike, who wasn't here. She didn't have his back, and he'd been gone far too long.) And, of course, she still was saving the world. But… differently. In a more Giles-like way.
It may have been that thought that caused the snappage.
Or it may have started yesterday, when Annie had cheerfully said over sandwiches, "When are you going to fight, Mom?" And why not? It felt like everyone else in the building had. Giles's damn nanny was off fighting undead ninjas somewhere north of Morioka, and she wasn't halfway qualified.
Buffy had swallowed back the words I have one leg. One leg! Who the hell fights with one leg?, which Annie didn't deserve. She'd gone the squishy mommy route. "I get to stay home and keep you guys safe. It's the most important job in the world." Which it was, in some ways…and she hidden behind that thought till now. But now, unless and except were starting to swarm.
Unless, in her absence from the fight, the world was sucked into hell or something for want of one gimpy Slayer. Except, this castle would almost certainly now be the last place in the world to fall to evil, given the powers of magic being unleashed on the upper floors. Except she'd been listening to her guys fighting and dying for years now, and she hadn't put herself on the line for them. While Giles would probably go frantic trying to look after four kids as well as running the war… that wasn't enough.
That wasn't being a Slayer.
Everyone understood. Since Spike left to fight (and a little before that, when he finally gave up), nobody had nagged at her or told her to get off her ass and fight like a woman.
Maybe somebody should.
"Giles." He looked up. A moment passed between them, and he started to smile. (How could he know? Did she look different already?) "Where's the scythe?"
"With Faith." Of course.
"I'd like to use it one more time."
Maybe she was insane. The leg thing wasn't just an excuse: she didn't have the balance of old. But she could shoot, she knew her way round all kinds of pointy weapons, and she had not, dammit, killed her last vampire one-on-one.
Buffy Summers was going to war.
*
Everywhere, September 2016
Mystical powers are a wonderful thing. But sometimes, people are more amazing.
It didn't take anything more mystical than a cellphone network to send the power through the army. "Buffy's back." "Buffy has the scythe." The power grew. "Buffy's gonna do something awesome." "I knew she would! I knew it was all some big fake out plan!" As it happened, they were wrong. But in the end, it didn’t matter.
In her castle sanctum, Willow could feel the Slayers rising. Their collective brainpower focused on Buffy and the scythe - and Willow knew this tune. Used that ripple of ancient power and current strength to slingshot just a little more, a little further than she'd ever done. That little bit further began to bite.
Across the dimensions, the power rippled outwards. Wolf and Ram lost their connections with other wolves, rams and harts. Lost a vital source of strength.
Across the world, Slayer spines were a little taller, SSO arms a little stronger, moves a little sharper. Belief a hell of a lot greater. Demons died. Lots of demons.
Spike, in the lower Himalayas still, caught the rumours, and in an access of happy savagery took out half a battalion of Fyarls single handed. Laughing.
Faith, wishing she still had the scythe, was running operational control and almost literally dying to get back into action as the reports came in and in, of victories. "Check, check, got it. All continents report improved positions. Enemy showing weaknesses. Tide is turning. Repeat: tide is turning. Seriously, guys? I think we might even win this."
Angel walked into the White Room at the former Wolfram and Hart LA, and said to the blankness, "You hear them? You hear them winning? You hear us?"
The blankness said nothing.
Angel waited. And waited. "We will negotiate your surrender. Start thinking of your terms. You have one week."
A very tall, very well-suited man emerged from the whiteness. "Very well, Slayer Council. You'll be hearing from us."
*
Outside the Hyperion, Los Angeles, September 2016
In the end, saving the world is not a gradual process. In the end, one man, or one woman, one demon or god, gets to do the deed that sets the keystone in the arch of achievement. Then people (or demons) can stand back, and say Yes. The world is saved.
Charles Gunn was the man who did that. He did it not with an axe, or a crossbow or stake. He did it with a pen. (Also, quite a lot of computers and peripherals, and clerks and research assistants, but let that go for now.) He did it despite all that Hamilton and his minions could pull, and despite his constant nasty feeling that Big Evil had better tailoring (which: a feeling Gunn hadn't had in a long while). He did it.
Gunn was trying to pretend his knees weren't shaking as he parked up behind the Hyperion and prepared to go inside. Already imagining saying the words to the assembled company of Slayers and SSOs who'd wanted to be here for the Armistice. (Also, as a not-subtle reminder to the newly resubdued Wolfram and - yes - Hart that the Slayer Council was ready for war again, if need be.) It's over. We won. They agreed to our full terms.
He was trying to compose the right phrases. Not too pompous - he wasn't a damn Watcher of the old Council, and they weren't going back to that world any time soon. But not too juvenile - after all, he had kids and employees to impress with his Serious Business, and running in shouting "Whoop! Whoop! We beat the bad guys!" was going to do him no good there. Plus making himself sound like a twelve-year-old girl was something he wanted to skip, even if they were the words that would have come most easily. So he was going for simple, with a side of dignity and remembering what they and the world had lost.
Except, when he saw Wes and Angel coming out of the old hotel building, obviously wanting to be the first to greet him, he couldn't stop grinning.
He never did know what hit him.
(The Council later determined that the half-crazed Thr'v'nak was acting alone and probably didn't even know who he was pretty much cutting in half with his viciously sharp foreclaws. There was no plot. It wasn't Wolfram and Hart trying to renege on the painstakingly-negotiated surrender. There was just one demented interdimensional demon too many on the streets of Los Angeles.)
Gunn died where Darla had; where Connor was born; where the Beast rose; where they fought the armies of evil to a stand the time before this latest time. As though time was just an endless circle of death and rebirth, good fighting evil. Wesley and Angel, on their knees in the alley one more time in the inescapable cycle of their lives, couldn't staunch the blood and didn't care about the single demon Connor was killing behind them.
So the war of the Hart, the Wolf and the Ram ended, not with a whoop, but with a sob, and to the sound of Wesley lying: You’ll be fine, just need a little patching up, you’ve had worse than this, hell I’ve had worse than this and you didn’t even try to be sympathetic.
Because in war, good people die. And that's the simple truth.
*
Four Slayers. Thirteen Support Officers. Charles Gunn. [Censored] members of the Initiative. One hundred and seventy two thousand, six hundred and twelve civilian human beings.
They would bear the price of this. But their world was cracked open all the same. Scar tissue would form. Just now, the wounds were ugly.
*****
Dispatches from the War, especially this bit, is my entry for Barb's Nertz to You Joss Whedon ficathon. With luck, the epitaphs will be done by the time the deadline passes...
Why is this Nertz to You, Joss Whedon? Well, in the Rulesverse, some people are alive who are not alive in comics-world. But more importantly, I think a global Slayer network needs infrastructure and organisation (which is the basis for most of the non-shippy Rulesverse stories: admin!fic ftw!). And I also think that (though accepting commercial realities made this impossible in comics) treating Angel's world and Buffy's world as though they don’t intersect and affect each other makes no damn sense. There is no Angel-Rulesverse - he and his crew just function in parts of the wider verse.
Also, no one has sex in space. Because that's just unhygienic.