WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK

Professor Xavier gazed at the bedraggled team seated before him in the War Room. Not one of his students had escaped the wrath of their opponent that night. What he had believed to be a routine investigation of suspicious characters around the local cemetery had apparently turned into an outright brawl. All were nursing wounds of some type, many of which appeared to be slashes of teeth and claws.

"I don't know what happened, Professor," Cyclops said, breaking the silence. All seemed to be in a state of shocked disbelief. "There were only four of them, and eight of us, but we were completely overwhelmed. Their sheer ferocity was incredible."

"What exactly did they look like? Were they mutants?" the professor asked.

The team members all glanced at each other, waiting for someone else to speak up.

"Um, they were big," Iceman volunteered.

"An' fast," added Gambit.

Rogue glanced up at the professor, before dropping her eyes once again to the gashes in her arm. "An' they were strong. Ah mean, Ah held my own for awhile, but they were just too strong." Hearing this from the strongest, not to mention nearly invulnerable, member of the team sent a chill down the others' spines.

Storm was next to speak up. "I do not know what these creatures were, Professor, but they were not any mutants I have ever seen or heard of. They were more like monsters. They were a dark gray color, and their skin was very tough…almost like stone. But their faces, Charles, their faces were things of nightmares. Their eyes were large and utterly black, devoid of any possible feeling. Their teeth and claws were enormous and razor-sharp, and nothing short of demonic," she finished her description with a shudder.

A flicker of recognition passed behind the professor's eyes, gone unnoticed by all.

"They were demons, weren't they?" All except Wolverine.

Professor Xavier took a deep breath, looking contemplative.

"What is it you're not tellin us, Chuck? Now I don't know what the hell those things were, but I know two things. They weren't human, and they weren't mutant. Didn't smell like either one. They smelled like evil."

Xavier regarded the man for several moments before replying. "Jean, would you bring me my directory from my study? I also need the dialing code for Bath, England. It's time I called an old acquaintance."

**********************************************

SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA

Buffy sat at the research table with Willow and Xander, all of them decidedly not researching. They didn't really have much of a reason to at the moment.

"I still can't believe it's over. I mean, not that it was ever really a dire situation, considering who our nemesisis-ses were, but still. It's weird. We didn't even have to do anything!" Buffy suddenly burst out.

"I know, it's like, I feel cheated out of something," Xander added.

"Who would've thought that Jonathon would turn himself in, along with his little buddies. I guess having the weight of a murder on your conscience would do that to you," said Buffy.

"I can't help but feel kinda sorry for the little guy, you know?" said Willow. "I mean, he was always kinda the underdog, and then he actually does something right, and he has to go to jail, and he made his friends mad at him."

"I think he actually got some kind of deal with the D.A. for being the one to bring himself in and turn in the other two. Like a reduced sentence or something," Xander said.

"Well I, for one, think the little monkeys got what they deserved," exclaimed Anya, suddenly popping up from behind the counter. She began sorting through the financial documents she retrieved. "They wreaked a lot of havoc on my shop while they were trying to kill Buffy, or annoy her, or whatever they were doing. They're lucky I haven't taken any vengeance on them for putting the Magic Box in peril."

"That's my girl," Xander grinned. "Always the voice of reason."

The bell above the door tinkled and Dawn walked into the shop, followed by Tara, who had picked her up from her last day of school before winter break.

"Hey Dawnie," Buffy greeted, smiling warmly. "Any teachers decide to be cool and throw a party before break?"

"Only if you consider midterms to be a party," she replied coldly.

Buffy's smile wavered, but she tried again. "I remember a few times we got to do something fun before school was out. It always made the two weeks vacation start off nice."

Dawn met her sisters gaze. "We get a whole month off now. Remember I told you about how the high schools were changing their formats to be more like college?"

"Oh yeah," she said, though her frown revealed her confusion. "Boy it would've been nice if they had prepared us like that, huh guys?"

"You don't even remember me telling you, do you?"

"Dawnie, I--"

"Hey Dawn, come on, we all know how tied up Buffy's been lately…" Willow said, trying to smooth out the situation.

"Huh?!" Buffy's head shot straight up, eyes wide, simultaneously dropping her hands to her lap below the table.

"…what with the nerd trio terrorizing us and patrolling and her job. She's had a lot on her mind lately. But hey! You know about Jonathon turning them in, so now we can all relax a bit, together. Right, Buffy?"

But Buffy's attention was on her wrists, on the still-healing red rings encircling them. She tugged her sleeves down, further covering them. Who would've thought handcuffs would leave such angry marks? Although, when you're straining against them while someone is licking y--

"Buffy!"

"What??" she snapped to attention at the sound of her name being called, or more accurately, yelled. She tried to pinpoint which voice it had belonged to.

"You seemed like you were in your own little world there," Willow smiled weakly. "I was just saying how, now that the nerds are all behind bars, we could afford to take some time off, to, you know, just relax, hang out together."

"Oh. Yeah, absolutely. Perfect opportunity."

Dawn regarded her sister for a moment, before huffing and turning to go sit on the stairs leading up to the stacks. She pulled her portable CD player out of her book bag, slipping on her headphones as she thumbed through one of her teen magazines. The muffled sounds of some nondescript pop music entered the shop as she turned up the volume, effectively cutting off the rest of the world.

Buffy leaned her forehead into her palm, squeezing her eyes shut. If she could only somehow make her understand…

"Um, Buffy?" Tara's quiet voice penetrated her thoughts. "I, um, I looked into that thing that you, um, asked me to look into," she managed to get out, glancing quickly up at Buffy, then at Willow, before trying to find anything at all to look at besides her former lover.

"Oh, um, great, thank you Tara. Um…" Buffy trailed off, not quite sure how to slip away so they could discuss what she'd found in private.

Willow looked between Buffy and Tara. "Hey guys…what's going on? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, n-no, Buffy just needed me to--"

"I needed her to look into something magical for me. I would've asked you, but well, you know," Buffy glanced apologetically at her friend.

"Oh! Well, hey, don't worry about it. I mean, if you needed something, then you needed something. It's not like I expect you all to just stop needing some magical research just because I can't really do it anymore. Seriously it's okay," she reassured her friend. "So what did need help with? I mean, I may not be able to do anything directly, but I may know some stuff that could be helpful."

"Really, Will, it's nothing big. Just kinda something that had piqued my curiosity."

Willow's brow furrowed, sensing that she wasn't quite being told the whole truth. But she decided to let it go, despite the hurt that accompanied Buffy's apparently shutting her out.

"W-well, um, if you wanted to talk about it--" Tara gestured to the door that lead to the training room. Buffy nodded and rose from her chair to follow her.

Just then the bell above the door announced someone's entrance, and Buffy spun around, anticipating the sight of a cursing vampire beneath a smoldering blanket.

She did not, however, anticipate the sight that greeted her.

"Giles?!?!" the voices in the room all exclaimed in unison.

There stood her former watcher, though he was not alone. Next to him stood a tall, exotic woman with mocha skin and long white hair.

"Hello, everyone. I must apologize for my unannounced visit, but something rather important has come up. As much as I wish my seeing all of you again came under better circumstances, I'm afraid this is a business call. I would like to introduce you all to Ororo Munroe, and she has quite a story to tell you.