Part 1: Arrival

Fourteen-year-old Dawn Summers shivered with pain, fear, and nausea.

She stood upon a high tower, overlooking a construction site that held a number of mind-numb cronies created by the hell god, Glorificus. All this god wanted was to go home, but to do that, she needed Dawn's blood.

And it would seem that Glory had gotten her desire. There were several cuts, long enough to cause her pain, shallow enough not to spill all her blood instantly, running horizontally along her abdomen. Her hands and feet were bound with chains and manacles. Tears ran down the youthful face that was struggling to emerge into maturity.

Doc, the demon that had formerly tried to help her raise her mother from the dead, and had just thrown Spike over the edge, had just finished his last cut and blood fell through the grates of the tower and out into the air.

He was an old, grandfather-like man, and once Dawn had trusted him.

She was going to die. But that wasn't what scared her the most. Because of her so many terrible things had happened. Tara, Willow's friend, had all but lost her mind, Spike had been beaten to a mass of swollen bruises, and Giles had nearly died.

And now, after all their efforts to protect her, she was still going to die...and she was going to take the rest of the world with her...down into hell.

That thought made the tears flow harder.

"Dawn."

Beneath the glimmer of salt water, Dawn saw the image of her sister. "Buffy!" Her voice cracked on her sister's name.

Doc spun to face Buffy, his smile, once kindly, was the smile of the devil himself. "This should be interesting."

But Buffy was in unstoppable slayer-mode, she took steady strides forward and tossed the old demon man off the tower as easily as Dawn would have thrown her old dolls. Buffy's slim hands went to the manacles at Dawn's hands and feet, prying them apart with the preternatural strength of a Slayer.

"Here," she said, grasping Dawn's hands to balance her.

The pain in Dawn's stomach flared like lances of fire. "Buffy, it hurts."

More blood trickled down to the air below .

"It's okay. I got it. Come on. We've got to get you off this tower."

They staggered to the towers exit, that would lead down to the scaffolding. Dawn limped aside Buffy, her older sister holding her up. They were going to make it. They would go home and Buffy would bandage their wounds. And maybe she could have pizza with anchovies.

Hope was beginning to fill the young girl, when something like a burn flooded through Dawn. It was like she was more then just the Key, she was also the lock. "Buffy, it's started."

Turning together, they found a white swirling pool of energy, bolts of lightning shot out from it, and everywhere it struck something evil and hellish took its place. Cries echoed up to them. Blood from a morbid wound. Soon those lightning bolts would change the world as they knew it, decimating everything in its path.

It was the hell Glory had wanted.

Dawn's head went down. "I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Buffy tried to console her. This wasn't like her sister. Buffy had suffered too much of late and because of this had lost her usual edge. She was ready for death and whatever that brought with it.

But Dawn wasn't ready to let the world die. She started towards the portal, remembering Glory's words. The portal would continue until the blood stopped. Until Dawn's blood was stopped. She headed back for the edge of the tower, ready to leap into the belly of that swirling light. For some reason she wasn't afraid.

Buffy caught her though, held her close.

"What are you doing?" her older sister asked, aghast.

"I have to jump. The energy," Dawn stumbled over the words.

Buffy's eyes were wide. "It'll kill you."

Dawn couldn't quite meet Buffy's eyes. "I know." She swallowed, steeling herself. "Buffy, I know about the ritual. I have to stop it."

"No!"

As if to punctuate Buffy's denial, the tower shook underneath them, metal rattling ominously. Another lightning bolt, another crucial change, a wound in reality where it wasn't hell or heaven, but where you got to choose.

"I have to. Look at what's happening." Out from another burst of jagged electricity, popped a dragon, it sailed through the darkened sky, a feral shout torn from its razored beak. "Buffy, you have to let me go. Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it'll never stop."

Slack-jawed, Buffy starred at her, turmoil written on her beautiful features.

"You know you have to let me. It has to have the blood."

A light suddenly sparked in Buffy's green eyes and she looked at the blood still pooling at Dawn's waist to the portal and back again. When her eyes came up to meet Dawn's azure gaze, there was a look of peace.

And Dawn suddenly knew what Buffy was going to do. "Buffy, no!"

"Dawn, I have to."

"No!" Dawn gasped again on a sob.

"Dawn listen," Buffy pleaded leaning close to her. "Please, there's not a lot of time, listen."

Buffy cupped her head between two hands and leaned close to her ear as though to bestow a secret, when the tower was struck by a bolt of lightning, sheering it in two. Dawn let out a scream as the broken tower fell towards the portal as if called to it.

The Slayer grabbed her with one arm, while seeking for a hand hold with the other. They continued to slide down inch by inch. But it was no use. It was as if something inside of Dawn was being pulled by an unseen tether into the belly of the portal.

"Buffy let go," she cried, afraid she was leading her sister into a death she couldn't avoid.

They dropped into the air, free-falling into the portal and then there was only pain.

"What is that horrendous thing?" Padme Naberrie asked, as a large winged creature flew overhead.

Qui-Gon Jinn looked up, squinting against the bright sun. "It's a Krayt dragon, though its strange to see them out at this time of day. We must hurry, young handmaiden."

The girl rolled her eyes and Qui-Gon kept an eye on the creature overhead, while urging his eeopie forward. They were nearly to the ship and he wanted to get Obi-Wan working on replacing the parts before setting back to, hopefully, gather Anakin Skywalker.

There was little doubt in his mind that the boy was the prophesied Chosen One. He just had to convince the Jedi Council of that. Which was easier thought then done. Even with the Force's obvious guidance, the Council had become heavily rule bound and blinded to the will of the Force.

The Force. Yes, there was a shift. Not a subtle disturbance.

By some instinct, he glanced up in time to see the Krayt dragon pop out of existence. Incredulous, he froze and so did the eeopie. "By the Force," he whispered. And that's what it had to be. He blinked several times, wondering if Tatooine's heat had finally gotten to him. The Krayt dragon did not reappear for a long while.

And when it did, Obi-Wan had reached his side.

And when it did reappear, it fell into the air, it's large wings spreading pushing into the wind.

And right behind hit, falling as dead weight, were two figures.