Ch.30

Peace reigned on the surface until World War One but under the surface the Ten Rings were dealing with humans turned magical vampires, real vampires, humans cursed into werewolves and real werewolves alongside a great many other creatures of demonic origins or simply mystical by nature. The Vampire Diaries weren't some girl's journal log, I'd met Damon and Stefan Salvatore, Lexi and a few others. The Ten Rings was filled with powerful centuries old witches and by the early nineteen hundreds, there was just over two hundred thousand members world wide ready to fight and die to protect humanity.

We were the boogeyman of demons. Not even a real story with names, just a whisper, a rumor that surrounded the disappearance of demons that weren't taken out by slayers. Not even the vampires that could compel could find anything on us whereas we knew everything about them and had in fact helped destroy Cade and his hell dimension with the fallen Bennett coven.

Not even the spirits could track or find us because we could hide from their gazes on the other side. We watched the world wars kick off and killed the vampires and demons that interfered, nearly killing Marcel Gerard and his group alongside the rest of the vampires that participated. By then Eleanor and Max had grown tired with Anne.

They learned I'd used magic to prevent conception because I had enemies and it was extremely dangerous if I became attached to them or my children I could have. Idelle had moved on and married long ago so they did the same, knowing they only had less than a century before the Extremis loses it's effects.

I was alone, but by choice now. I lied to Anne long ago about not fearing anything. I'd feared being alone and alive when Whistler sent me back in time with the PTB. They'd hoped the old ones or something would kill or trap me. I'd gone crazy, insane and savage beyond words, giving into the animal instincts to preserve whatever remained of me over the billions of years.

On the bright side I was no longer afraid of being alone and I no longer wanted to die. No, I wanted revenge and I feared not getting it. I built the cloaked city of Atlantis as a hub for our organization under the sea away from prying eyes. It was a city ship and since the organization had grown, it needed a main base and during the sixties, our satellite network spanned the planet while cloaked.

We had demonic satellite tracking as well as magic concentration tracking with men at all the hellmouths except Sunnydale. With safe houses across the globe, when the early 2000s came, we interfered in a big way. While I watched cloaked as my past self fell to earth onto Glory, Max and Eleanor led the men to the prison worlds to take all their resources including the seeds of wonders inside those dimensions. The resources for the Ten Rings tripled by the time they finished dealing with the Gemini coven.

Soon after that the other side was destroyed by me since I had months of time to go. They'd freed the heretics under the conditions that they help turn the spelled vampires back to human or kill those that refused or simply couldn't be turned back to humans. Mikael was dead by the white oak stake he had while his ashes and the soil of his homeland was gathered.

Kai had agreed to my terms so when he betrayed and tried to kill me, he exploded with a very big bang trying to take in the magic from my body.

It was gory, messy and took a bit of time to clean up. I sent the message to Jo, the twin of Kai and told her what happened. She was baffled but relieved the danger had passed. I was disappointed because I'd planned to take his power but then I didn't really need it.

The four seeds of wonder and three slayer scythes along with all the magical artifacts, supplies and books were added to the Ten Rings power base alongside all the natural resources that were taken into copies of my ring. The infinity stone gauntlets and the extremely dangerous shit was put in my single ring while the raw resources and magical weapons were put to use.

While they were off dealing with the magical vampire population, I took the slayer scythes still in stones. They came free upon my touch which surprised me. Still, I had no use for them personally so I stored them in my ring and waited until Whistler made his move. The moment my past self fell through the time portal, I uncloaked and shoved my claws through Whistler's heart.

He teleported away and coughed before healing. "How?"

I growled. "The long way. You sent me to the past. I'm immortal dumbass, I survived and because I did, I'm going to kill you."

I made a move and he hit me, making me back up a few steps as he spoke. "You may be immortal, but you aren't smart. I'm half old one and my heart isn't that easy to destroy."

I growled as I went to open a portal inside him and he sensed the danger before teleporting a distance away before saying I should watch whom I tried to kill. He lost his head as his body was consumed by a portal from the inside out. He was very dead and I didn't care if the gods were pissed for it. Buffy was dumbfounded as she asked. "The long way?"

I grunted. "Suffice it to say it's been a long time and I'm not the same man you knew. Three billion and four hundred million years have passed for me. I've literally met dinosaurs and since I can't open a portal through time easily, there was no coming back fast."

I sat down and told her a very long story ending with the Ten Rings out there dealing with tons of other demonic and magical problems on a scale that left her baffled. She asked to see Atlantis and I took us there through a portal before telling her we couldn't stay or we'd be in the way. I didn't tell her about the serums yet, but the rest including Sineya and my animal side that was pure instinct was entirely laid out for her.

Hell, she knew of Max, Anne and Eleanor who were happily married and had grandchildren now. She asked if she was even necessary and I scoffed. "There are thousands of hell realms with billions of demons. The old ones can't be permanently killed, only sealed away and there are other issues that the watchers council doesn't concern themselves with so the Ten Rings deals with. Ass it is most of those who serve in the Ten Rings spend their lives like you do, fighting to keep the world from going to shit."

I waved a hand. "They don't even have the manpower to protect this hellmouth or half the US. Most of them are in the East and the old countries stopping Armageddon. You and the scoobies are the only guardians of this hellmouth. Now that I've spent billions of years to get my revenge, I'm done with suicide so if you still want me here, I'm in. The Ten Rings will survive with or without me and it's mission makes it an ally if we need it, but they're busy elsewhere cleaning up the mess of some dark witches that affects the world."

We headed back to her place and I sat on her bed, asking if she still wanted me here. She touched my cheek and called me an idiot be fire rolling her eyes and taking off her shirt, kissing me and telling me to figure it out. Later that day I'd moved back in and told the scoobies of everything that happened. Xander was happy, saying it was good because my wanting to die shtick was a bit of a downer.

I shrugged and told him. "I decided when I came back to sanity that there was no changing what can't be changed, just rolling with it and living despite my path seemed better than brooding. Then vengeance on Whistler seemed a far better plan for the future since I couldn't change what was by killing him early if I wanted the world not to be torn apart by a temporal fold that crushed this reality into a dark matter. Basically time travel sucks so don't do it at home kids."

Xander snickered while Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes. Anya perked up. "That's where I know you from! I've been trying to figure out where I'd seen you before ever since we met. You're the guy that started that demon hate group."

I grunted. "It's not a demon hate group. It's essentially a supernatural police force built of two hundred thousand trained witches worldwide. They kill demons that start trouble on hellmouths or anywhere, but they also put down dark witches that sacrifice babies and shit. They're non judgmental and hate anyone evil equally."

Anya deflated. "Ex evil here."

I shrugged. "Not caring here. They don't have the manpower to cover the west half of the US. Hell, even Kakistos was too big a threat for their numbers spread so thin. He killed fourteen of their members because his den in Boston had over a hundred vamps. They managed to take most of the vamps out, but he was gone before they could get to him. That's how he ended up here by the by. They don't have the resources to chase a handful of vamps across the country when they have bigger issues to deal with. For the last century a war between demons, magical vampires and magical werewolves has been raging."

I told them how the dark witches made a vampire species based on magic instead of demons and cursed a werewolf species into existence. I told them how the originals were being tracked to hopefully use the two curse and hopefullh turn at least two lines of vampires into humans using a lineage spell to spread the cure.

I waved a hand saying more cures were being made for the rest as well so hopefully soon no magical vampires would exist. They'd simply all be humans again and that we could live with. Willow was in the doghouse for nearly getting Dawn killed and going magical cold Turkey now so she couldn't help, but I did ask Tara to help with the lycanthrope curse Inadu made.

I gave her the samples of the original seven alphas blood before telling her I had people looking into it scientifically as well as magically and combined as well but the more eyes and ideas the better if we hoped to break the curse and free the witches cursed by the moon. Tara agreed to do what she can to help out so I gave her a cellphone. "The number is to the lab in Atlantis. Feel free to call and swap theories, ideas and tips for it with the people there. Just remember that they're working on a lot more stuff so it could take time to get the spell or cure right."

She nodded and the Scooby meeting was adjourned.