Author's Note: And so the story begins! We're flashing backwards and forwards in this story. I hope it's not too confusing. Hologram-Dawn is always the one telling the story to Buffy, and otherwise, it's in the past.

Anyways.

Hope you like this start! I tried to make this honor what they said in the Torchwood series. Although I love Xander's nickname for the aliens (it strikes me as being very Xander).

On a random note, anyone know if British people say "field trip" or have a special word for it? It'd be useful for another story I'm working on.

...

The metal sphere Buffy had gotten in her mailbox — as if it had just appeared there, out of thin air — clicked open.

And a holographic projection of Dawn popped up, in front of her.

"Hey," said Dawn, sitting back on the couch in the tree-house looking space ship. She tucked some hair behind her ears. "I told Seo I was recording this as a warning for you. And I wasn't lying about that. I'm just… not warning you about what she thinks I'm warning you about."

Buffy frowned.

"There's something wrong with Seo," said Dawn. "Mega wrong. And I'd never have known what… if I hadn't met Gray."

...

On an alien planet, Dawn chased Seo through the maze of twisting alien markets and stalls and bazaars. Caught her up by the wrist, and spun her around.

"What was that about?" Dawn demanded.

Seo looked down at the ground. Her eyes still burning. "I don't like it when people call me 'Cupcake'," she muttered. "That's all."

"I've got a lot of annoying nicknames, too," Dawn said. "But they usually don't make me slam the guy against the wall and threaten to kill him if he ever calls me that, again." She stepped back. Crossed her arms. "So spill. What's really going on?"

Seo hesitated. Opened her mouth to answer, but Dawn got in, first.

"And don't say it's nothing, because I know that's not true!" Dawn continued. "If you were fine, you wouldn't keep wandering around the 51st century, hoping you'll run into that Crazy-Guy-Hart, again."

Seo bit her lower lip.

"I mean, is this just a hormone thing, or what?" Dawn asked. "Because I can't get why you keep falling for guys who want to hurt you — and most of the rest of the universe!"

"That has nothing to do with anything!" Seo retorted.

"Yeah?" asked Dawn. "Because I think it does! I think this is all related! I think—"

They were cut off by the sounds of screams, and rushing footsteps. People pointed into the sky, at the great big fleet of battle ships, looming over the planet. The dark signature emblazoned into the bottom of the ship hovering just over them.

"Run!" shouted a woman to her children. "Run! Run! Run!"

And then they came.

The large, black creatures lumbered forwards, their eyes glinting red, long fangs protruding from their jaws, their very stance showing nothing but malice and threat.

Dawn froze, when she saw them. "Oh, God."

"What?" asked Seo.

Dawn didn't answer. Just grabbed Seo by the arm. Turned.

And ran.

...

"See, the thing was — I recognized those aliens," Hologram-Dawn explained to Buffy. "During the Demon Civil War, this… alien came through the Hellmouth. It was the kind of creature you'd expect to find in Hell. A… Yugzode. No one knew how it got in the Hellmouth, or where it came from, but… we all saw what it did." She shuddered. "I still get nightmares about that."

...

Dawn ran. Ran fast as she could. Ran for her life. For Seo's life. Ran until she thought she had no more breath to breathe, until she could hear her heart drumming in her ears and the world was swimming around her in a haze of sheer panic.

"What—?" Seo tried, again.

Dawn shushed her, swung her into a hiding spot, in the basement of an abandoned building. "I've… met one of those things, before," she whispered. "At the Slayer Institute. What it did… in Cleveland… was… just…" She shuddered. Then turned to face Seo. "If that was what one did, I don't want to know what a battle fleet does."

Seo's face bent into sudden animated curiosity. And Dawn had the unnerving feeling that she'd have to wrestle Seo away from the door, so Seo couldn't poke her head out and try to see for herself.

"Don't!" Dawn hissed. She could barely stop herself from shaking. "Really. Don't. These things… they feed off pain and fear and misery. They torture people, feed off their negative emotions until the people become just empty shells. Then discard the husks."

It was a memory that still gave Dawn nightmares. Seeing those ruined, tortured people. A memory she wished she could forget.

"It called itself a Yugzode," said Dawn. "Xander called it a Mean-Not-Green-Soul-Eating-Machine. Mega defenses, almost impossible to bring down with hand-to-hand or alien weaponry. And battle only makes it stronger — it grows from the aggression and misery and desperation on the battlefield."

They could already hear the screams coming in from outside. Echoing through the basement doors — those horrified, pained, terrible screams.

"Ria only managed to get rid of it using the Tech Demon army," said Dawn. "They were demons — they thought of pain differently from humans. The Yugzode couldn't feed off them. Ria used the demons to maneuver the Yugzode right to the entrance of the Hellmouth, as it opened. Swallowing the creature back up." She shuddered. "Only this time, there's a whole army of them. And we've got no Hellmouth or demon hordes."

But… oh, no.

Because Seo had that look on her face, again. That small smile, her eyes glittering just a little, as if the spark of an idea were coming to her.

Then her face lit up, and she grabbed Dawn, yanking the doors open, and dragging her outside. "Oliver! Come on!"

"But…!"

There was no arguing with Seo when she was like this, though. They darted around, the screaming, dying people surrounding them, the creatures spilling across the city like an icy black stream of death.

They turned a corner, and raced into Oliver, shutting the doors behind them. Seo was already frantically flipping and switching and poking and prodding, racing around the central console with a feverish determination.

"There!" she said, with one final press of a button. She looked up, grinned at Dawn. "It's on automatic timer. Stay here, and it'll take you up to their spaceship. Trust me, it's all part of the plan."

Dawn's eyes went wide, her jaw dropping open. "Take… me? What about you?"

Seo strode out the door, a grin on her face and a bounce in her step. "Me?" she said, opening the door. "I'm going to let myself get caught."