Disclaimer and all pertinent info in first parts.
*Author's note: The Latin words used in the magick parts should be fairly easy to translate and rather obvious, but just in case someone is confused: Willow's call is to Earth, and then North. Wesley's is to Air and East. Giles's is South and Fire, and Tara's is West and Water.*

"The Hellmouth is going to open." Giles said without preamble as Buffy and Angel reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh, is that all?" Buffy quipped. Not that they hadn't done this a bunch of times before.

"This time will be rather, different, I'm afraid." Wesley said.

"How's that?" Angel asked.

"It will be opened from the inside." Giles answered.

Angel and Buffy just stared at him in shock. The others in the room had about the same look on their faces; obviously they had already heard this and gone into panic mode.

"How?" Buffy asked Giles.

"It appears, um, the stars are aligned in a way they are every thousand years. People who feared the year 2000 would be the end were apparently correct, their predictions were just about six months early."

~Here it comes, millennium~
~And everybody's talkin 'bout Jerusalem~
~Is this the beginning, the beginning of the end~
~Well I've got other thoughts my friends~

"So, how do we stop it?" Buffy asked, going into Slayer mode.

"We don't." Wesley whispered. "There's no way we can…"

"There's always a way." Angel retorted, taking Buffy's hand in support without even thinking about it. "We just have to find it."

"Well, according to the prophecy, 'The End of Days shall come when the Chosen One and the Lost One stand side by side. Thrice bonded, they shall stand over the mouth of Hades itself and their bond, which has been forged by the powers since the beginning of time, shall close it forever.'" Willow translated out of a book she had just finished looking at. "The problem is that we have no idea what that means, so there's nothing we can do.

~We don't need all the prophecies~
~Tellin us what's a sign, what's a sign~
~Cause paranoia ain't the way to live your life from day to day~
~So leave your doubts and your fears behind~

"I think I know what it means." Angel replied, looking at Buffy, his eyes lighting up.

"You do?" Giles turned to face Buffy and Angel, a look of hope on his face.

"I don't know how the bond will close the Hellmouth, but I think I know what the 'thrice bonded' part means." Angel replied.

"When do the stars align to open the Hellmouth?" Buffy turned back to Giles.

"Um…" He had obviously been expecting more of an explanation on the bond, and her question threw him for a loop.

"Tonight." Willow at answered softly, her voice seeming obscenely loud as silence suddenly descended on the room.

"Do you know when exactly?"

"The witching hour." Willow said after glancing over her notes.

"Huh?" Cordelia still didn't understand the translation.

"Midnight." Tara answered softly. "Midnight tonight."

"Which gives us about 18 hours to figure out how this bond will stop the End of Days." Wesley replied, going over to the stack of books the AI team had brought with them.

"Then let's get started."

~Nothing to fear, no doubts and no tears,~
~Millenium sound to motivate the future years~
~And you can either be scared or be prepared~

*Almost Midnight*

"This is it, everyone." Buffy said as they walked through the burnt down halls of Sunnydale High. "Remember, everyone else just concentrate on the vamps and demons. There're a lot of them in there, I can feel it."

"Probably hoping to keep us away from the Hellmouth until it opens far enough that we can't close it." Angel said from Buffy's side.

"Oh, are they in for a surprise." Buffy grinned, looking back to the gang that followed them. Xander, Cordelia, and Anya each carried enough weapons to equip a large army. Tara, Willow, Giles, and Wesley all held magickal supplies, and the four of them glowed with the magickal link they had already established. They had a few very nasty things planned for any creatures that tried to stop them this night.

"Everyone ready?" Buffy asked softly as they came to what was left of the old library doors.

There were affirmative answers all around, and the group quickly spread out into what was to be their attack/defense formation.

Willow was the first to step into the room, drawing the immediate attention of every creature of the night that was in the library.

"Terra." She called out, the ground under her shaking. "Nortis."

The creatures in the room immediately backed away from her. They could feel the power radiating off of her, and it made them nervous.

Willow walked a few steps forward, Buffy following her into the room. Angel and Xander came right after Buffy, standing close together as they walked through the center of the doors.

Tara and Wesley appeared next, as far apart as they could possibly be while still fitting through the doors. "Aeris." Wesley called out as they entered, causing a huge wind to rise up. It pushed the demons even further away. "Oriens."

Cordelia and Anya followed close behind them, walking together in the middle of the doors.

Giles followed them, directly in the center of the two swinging doors, the southern focal point of a circle that would protect the other five non-magick users as long as they stayed within it's boundaries. "Ignis." He called out, and suddenly there were flames all around the group. " Meridianus." None of the fire penetrated the magick circle, and they watched as many vampires outside the circle were burned to a crisp.

The group continued to walk forward, uncontested as they moved towards where Buffy could feel the Hellmouth starting to open.

"Aqua." Tara said as rain started to pour down upon both groups present, making seeing and fighting difficult. "Occasus." She stood at the west point of the circle they had completed around the Hellmouth.

The four magick-users stood at the four points of the compass, forming a circle at least fifteen feet in diameter. The other five stood within the circle, forming a pentagram directly over the Hellmouth.

~Against all odds I bet you never would've dared~
~To make these moves and take flight like me~
~To come through for the world prophecy~

They stood like that for several minutes, the four magick-users casting their particular element at any creature that got too close to the circle.

Then Buffy felt the first rumblings of the Hellmouth beneath her.

"We're weakening, Buffy." Tara turned her attention away from the creatures around them for a split second. "We can't keep them away from the five of you much longer.

"Xander, you guys go!" Buffy said in reply, knowing the other three humans weren't doing much in the center of the circle than lending their energies.

Xander, Cordelia, and Anya immediately grabbed their weapons from the floor and headed out of the circle. All three fought with the creatures of the night, trying simply to keep them away from the circle. They didn't worry about killing all of them. Buffy and Angel could worry about that once the Hellmouth was sealed.

Buffy and Angel slid into new positions inside the circle, Buffy standing in the southeast between Giles and Wesley, who controlled the masculine elements in the circle, and Angel moving to the northwest and the feminine side of the circle.

Buffy reached her right hand over the beginnings of the Hellmouth, feeling the ring she once again wore begin to grow hot on her hand. "Amicitia, fidelitas, amor."

Angel reached over the Hellmouth, his palm facing the ceiling so that the symbols on their two rings touched. "Amicitia, fidelitas, amor." He repeated, feeling his ring grow hotter.

The battle raged all around them, kept from them only by their three friends who fought for them and the four friends who kept the enemy from approaching. But even if the others hadn't been there, Buffy and Angel would barely have noticed. The magick of the spells and the power of their bond so consumed them that all they felt was each other.

'Friendship, loyalty, and love.' Buffy thought as she continued to chant the Latin words Angel had taught her how to pronounce.

The Hellmouth had stopped opening, and was slowly retracting in on itself like a balloon that had a slow leak in it.

Buffy and Angel continued their chant, the magick around their bond growing to a white light that streamed down into the remnants of the Hellmouth. It continued to shrink, although not nearly fast enough for Buffy, who was rapidly losing her strength from the intensity of the magick that she was unaccustomed to.

Finally, when Buffy and Angel both felt on the verge of collapsing, the Hellmouth finally closed. They felt the energy around them get sucked down in to the earth, creating a seal that wouldn't be broken ever again.

The demons and vampires that were still standing around them let off a scream as they felt the supernatural pull of the Hellmouth vanish, and knew it was gone forever.

Suddenly all the vampire and demons in the room started screaming, screams wrenched from the very cores of their being.

Angel's scream joined the others, and suddenly a cloud of darkness filtered out of his body. Buffy ran to him in concern, but he seemed to be alright.

Giles and the others watched in amazement as the demons' solid forms melted away to reveal the shadows of the demons, and finally those shadows themselves melted away into a huge cloud of darkness, a darkness so pure that no light could penetrate it. Everyone watched in awe as the cloud was pulled down into the earth and sealed away forever. Without the energy of the Hellmouth and the demon dimension to feed and sustain them, they could no longer exist in this world.

~See i'm talking about the future y'all~
~And the future looks bright~

Coming slowly out of their amazed states, and with all their enemies suddenly gone, the Scoobies were left to look around and see if they were all still standing.

Giles was the first to notice that they all weren't.

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