Key Change

Disclaimer: As before.

Chapter 2: Of Energy and Potatoes.

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After the Slayer school had got over the initial shock and the usual searching but failing to find any way to turn them back was over, everything returned to normal and Dawn got used to her new eyes. Actually she thought they were rather pretty, being a beautiful deep green which seemed to change shade with the light.

Willow was the most concerned. The others believed it was a magic spell gone awry, but Willow, practically a goddess of witchcraft, knew no magic was involved in this. And it scared her. Dawn was different somehow. She needed to know why.

A couple of months later, things changed again. 'Willow, can you call up a portal to send this demon home?' Buffy asked. The demon hadn't done anything, he'd simply got lost, wandered through a portal and emerged in their dimension. He meant no harm, and been rescued by one of the older slayers, who'd brought him to Buffy.

'Of course,' Willow agreed and began to chant in the room specially designed for this purpose. The group watched her. Occasionally she needed extra energy, and those in the room stayed willingly.

As the flickering beginnings of a portal started in front of her, Dawn felt a tug. The images were beginning to flood her head again – no, memories – and she felt every rip, every tear that the witch was making through the dimension walls. Didn't the witch know there was an art to doing this? It was like she was using a hacksaw instead of a scalpel. It hurt. She remembered. She remembered everything.

'Willow, stop,' Dawn said quietly but the witch ignored her. 'Willow, stop!'

Willow kept chanting, absorbed in her spell. Dawn, now absorbed in her turn, walked forward, through the nascent portal which dissolved around her and threw Willow out of the circle. To the group's astonishment, she brought her fists up then pulled them apart. The portal opened instantly. The grateful demon stepped through and Dawn dropped her arms, closing it before studying the ground. The room was silent.

'Dawn?' Buffy stepped towards her sister hesitantly. 'Dawnie, what did you do?'

Dawn brought her head up and her green glowing eyes stared straight at her sister. 'The witch butchers my walls. She will not do so again. I am the guardian of dimensions. I am the Key.'

'I butchered your walls?' Willow said from her position on the ground. 'But how-?'

'You show no delicacy towards the walls I have established between dimensions,' Dawn rounded on Willow. 'You hack at them with your magic. You show no subtlety in creating doorways. I have locked you out witch. You will never again be permitted to interfere with dimensional walls.'

Willow looked stunned. Giles tried to make sense of everything he had just seen. 'Are you still Dawn?' he asked. 'Or is she gone and we are only speaking to the Key?' Next to him, Buffy looked at her Watcher in horror, before back at her sister.

'I am always Dawn,' Dawn replied, calm now and with her eyes returned to simple green, 'but my true nature has woken up and entwined around it. I am Dawn and I am the Key. I remember my life before you and the powers I have.'

'You have powers?' Giles questioned.

'I am the guardian of dimensions. I create and maintain the walls between them, yet I can move through them at my will. I can summon and destroy portals. My true form was confined to this vessel, but now I can transform. But none of this makes me any less your sister Buffy,' Dawn said simply.

'Can you leave her?' Buffy asked, already knowing the answer.

'No. The Key and Dawn can't be separated. We are one being. I made myself into Dawn because events had to play out. But my nature can never be fully suppressed. I suppressed myself long enough that I would re-emerge when my vessel was adult.'

'I knew it!' cried Willow suddenly. 'I knew your eyes weren't the result of a spell. It just wasn't possible!'

'Wait, events had to play out?' Buffy asked sceptically. 'You became human just to let Glory almost destroy the world, kill me and assist in obliterating the Slayer line?'

'I had to play my role in events, just as you do,' Dawn answered.

'Did the Powers that Be order you to be such an obnoxious sister?' Buffy smiled.

Dawn snorted. 'I don't work for the Powers. Or Evil,' she added quickly. 'I am beyond them. And in my natural state, I am neutral.'

'I don't understand,' Buffy said.

Dawn smiled at her mortal sister. 'You can't, so don't worry. All you need to understand is that I am the Key. I am whole again.'

'Whole?' Giles asked.

'When the monks,' Dawn shuddered, 'pressed me into this form they cut me apart from myself. The "Dawn side", if you like, became an avatar for me and my Key side was just the compressed energy in my blood. Now they are joined up, as they should be.'

'So what happens now?' Willow asked.

'Firstly, I want your promise you will never try to get around the lock on your spells,' Dawn said angrily. 'If I catch you doing so, I will throw you into a hell dimension where no amount of magic can save you.' Then, in a completely different tone of voice she said, 'After that I might make some food and visit Xander. What about you?'

Buffy looked at this new sister, and realised that she didn't really know her at all. 'Someone has to stay with you,' she ruled. 'Until we know you're not going to destroy Willow for practising magic.'

Dawn turned a hurt look towards Buffy, who regretted her statement immediately. But before she could smooth things over, Dawn spoke. 'And what makes you think you could contain me anyway?' she asked, as she turned into green energy and disappeared.

A scream at the other end of the building sent the group running towards the kitchen, where they found one of the new slayers stood in a corner staring at Dawn, who was unconcernedly making a jacket potato. The sheer absurdity of this was too much for Giles; the greatest and oldest being in the room staring at a microwave timer while a slayer cowered in fear. He burst out laughing and went over to Dawn. 'Is there another potato left?' he said.

'Sure,' Dawn answered. 'Knock yourself out.'

And this is how Rupert Giles, the last of the Old Watchers, sat down to a jacket potato with the Key.

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Wasn't actually expecting the end of that chapter. Will probably write one more, just to wrap it up. In the meantime, please review!