Xander crept out, ears at the ready. Moment he heard the sound, he spun around, aiming at the sky, and shot with a futuristic-looking gun.

A screeching demon cried out.

Then slammed down onto the sidewalk, beside them.

"Stop that!" Seo demanded, trying to wrestle the gun from Xander. "What did that creature ever do to you? You didn't have to—!"

A blue-skinned fanged monster lunged at them, growling, its claws raised. Willow only just had time to erect a magical force-barrier around them, before it reached them.

They were safe.

For now.

Xander shoved Seo away, grabbing back his gun. "They have no souls, no thoughts, no nothing — just animalistic evilness," Xander snapped at her. "If we don't kill them, they'll kill us."

"And that's precisely the kind of thinking that starts needless wars!" Seo insisted.

Willow chuckled, beneath her breath. "She sounds like the Doctor did, before he changed his face."

Xander spun Seo around, by the shoulders. "Look out there," he said. "Look at the world. That's what we're up against. That's what Elizabeth did to us."

Seo looked.

And saw chaos.

Demons and monsters throughout. Little ripples of space-time eddies, springing up across the planet's surface. Heard the sounds of distant gunfire. The screams of people being torn apart, just out of sight.

"It's anarchy, out there," said Xander. "The apocalypse. The end of the world." His voice grew dark, biting. "And Elizabeth caused it. All of it."

Seo couldn't believe it.

One human being — not even a Slayer-powered one — causing all this!

"How?" said Seo.

"It began with the aliens who came to our world, demanding children," Willow explained. "No one knew how to stop them. Some tried to fight back, but a biological agent wiped them out in minutes. So the governments gave the aliens what they wanted."

"Willow and I didn't know anything about the deal until it was too late to stop it," said Xander. "But… Elizabeth did."

"She exposed what happened," said Willow. "Made sure everyone knew about it. Knew every detail. Especially about how their governments and UNIT betrayed them. The people rose up. Overthrew their governments. Stormed UNIT."

"Allowing Elizabeth to escape," said Xander. He clenched his fist around his gun. "But that wasn't enough for her."

Seo looked out at the landscape. "She released monsters?"

"Every monster she could find," Willow agreed. She gestured into the distance. "Starting with the Cardiff Rift. Abaddon's still storming through Eurasia, his shadow draining the life out of people."

Seo shuddered.

"She used the distraction to escape England," said Xander. "But not before she'd gotten her hands on some powerful weapon that had been buried beneath the ground for ages. We still don't know what."

"But she needed that weapon in Sunnydale," said Willow. "She needed workers and slaves she could call on, there, to do her dirty work. So she found a weak spot in space-time, and opened up… something called… a Hellmouth."

Which explained all the demons and things.

"Why's she still alive, then?" said Seo. "I've seen the sorts of people who release monsters, like this. They always wind up getting overpowered and destroyed by the very same monsters they released in the first place!"

"Because she controls them," said Xander.

"The machinery beneath Sunnydale," Willow agreed. "She altered it. Activated it. Brainwashed every evil thing out there to obey only her commands. Even Abaddon."

Seo felt a shiver run through her.

All this… from an alternate-timeline version of her mom?

Was this how Aunt Dawn saw her? Was that why Aunt Dawn didn't trust her so much, anymore? Because she was an evil alternate-timeline version of…?

Seo banished the thought from her mind.

That wasn't helping.

Not at all.

"If these things are under Elizabeth's control," said Seo, "and they're attacking us… that means Elizabeth doesn't want us near her. She wants Mom for something. To do something even worse to you two and all the other poor people still alive, on Earth." She stood tall, ready for any challenge. "And we have to stop her."

Willow sighed.

"That's the idea, yeah," Xander agreed. "Get rid of Elizabeth. Get rid of anything she's planning. End the craziness."

"But how," Willow insisted. "That's the problem! We can't even move without being attacked on all sides by evil baddies. How are we going to…?"

Seo stepped forwards. "Release the barrier," she said. Slipping down into a fighting stance. "Time to use what I learned from Mom. And slay the monsters."

Another clap of lightning.

Then a sudden burst of fire, in the distance. Mud splattering down around them, as the ground shook and the sounds of knights screaming seared through Dawn's mind.

And the roar kept getting louder.

The knights looking around, then diving out of the way, as a single headlight shone through the darkness, swerving through the knights and skittering to a stop just in front of Dawn.

"Hop on!" shouted an English-accented voice, from the driver.

Dawn didn't have to be told twice.

Jumped onto the motorcycle, just behind the driver. As the knights regrouped, and began to lunge forwards, to strike at Dawn, again.

"The link must be severed!" shouted the knights.

"Yeah, yeah!" said the woman driver. Starting up the motor, and tearing the top off something small with her teeth. "Tell it to the Nitro Nine!"

Then tossed the canister over her shoulder.

And zoomed off, on the motorcycle. The two zipping into the rain, as the sound of a roaring explosion slammed them forwards even faster.

"Woo-hoo!" cried the driver.

Dawn clung to the driver's waist, tight as she could. Trying to repeat to herself… the Key… not human… just the Key…

"What did those oversized lightning conductors want with you, anyways?" said the driver. But before Dawn could answer, the driver looked in her mirrors. "Actually — hold that thought."

Then punched at a button on the bike.

And a shimmering force-wall surged into place, around them. Just before a flood of arrows impacted, then bounced off it.

"Supposed to hold off Dalek firepower," the driver said. "Should stop arrows no problem." She swung the bike around, to avoid hitting a charging horse with a knight on horseback. "Too slow, MacDuff!" she shouted. Then swerved, to avoid another knight. "I really want to know what they're all doing out here. And what they want with you."

Dawn kept trying to keep her mind fixated on what Seo had told her.

She was the Key… she was the link… she wasn't human, just energy wearing a human form…

But there was something else sneaking in, through that. Something weird about the driver. Her voice.

"Have we met before?" Dawn asked.

"Could have!" said the driver, as they approached the edge of the Sunnydale crater. "I meet lots of people. Hold on tight!"

She revved the engine, and they slammed forwards.

The bike bursting over the edge of the muddy slope with a kind of traction it really shouldn't have had. Zooming through the air, and then landing with a definitive thump down on solid ground, above the crater.

The driver skidded the bike to a stop.

Looking out over the crater's edge, at all the gathered knights. "Oh, and you can all tell your mums," she called out to them, "that they make rubbish costumes, and they better get some sewing instructions before they start making your Star Wars cosplay outfits!"

Then, with a laugh, she kicked the bike into action, and zoomed off.

"Who… are you?" said Dawn.

"You first," said the driver. "Name. What you're doing. And why they want to kill you."

"Dawn," said Dawn. "Dawn Summers. I'm saving my family."

"Yeah? Well, my name's Ace," the driver introduced herself. "And this is my bike." She grinned down at it. "Time motor's burned out, but it still makes a handy getaway tool. And right now, we need one."

Ace…

Dawn knew that name… from somewhere…

Then realized they were speeding away from Sunnydale. Away from the link she was trying to keep open.

"No!" said Dawn. Trying to grab out at the handlebars, turn the bike around. "We've got to go back! We've got to keep the link open!"

"Link?" said Ace.

"I'm the Key — I'm the link!" shouted Dawn. "My family's on the other side! They're going to appear in mid-air, any minute, and then tumble down to their deaths, surrounded by medieval knights."

"Wait, wait, wait!" said Ace, skidding the bike to a halt and disabling the force field. She turned to Dawn. "Link with what? What are you going on about?"

"No time to explain!" said Dawn. "Please. My family's in danger. They're going to be appearing right over that crater, back there, and I need to be around, or they're all doomed. That's what I am! The Key! The Link! What's stabilizing everything!"

Ace shook her head.

"It's true!" said Dawn. "Look there's this… other-timeline. With an evil version of my sister. My real sister's been kidnapped by the evil version. So Seo and I set up a kind of tunnel thing to that world, so we could rescue her, and…"

But Ace's head-shaking was getting faster and faster. Shaking more and more.

Lightning flashed, again.

Showing Dawn a glimpse of the Sunnydale crater. Where every single Knight of Byzantium had frozen, as well. Their heads shaking in exactly the same way as Ace's.

And something began tearing through Dawn.

Trying to make her shake.

Trying to pull her inside out, trying to… to…

The crack in the sky began to glow, just the way the portal had in 2001, when it had gone unstable. A sizzling energy seeping out around the edges, getting ready to strike at reality around it.

And Dawn focused her thoughts.

"No! I'm the Key!" Dawn shouted at herself. "I'm not a human being! I'm just the Key!"

The crack stabilized.

And so did every other person around her.

As, with another flash of lightning, Dawn found herself surrounded — not by the Knights in the Sunnydale Crater, not by Ace on her motorcycle, but by…

"Harold Saxon!" Dawn cried.

Hundreds of copies of Harold Saxon, all around her. Wearing the other people's clothes, like every human had morphed into him. His eyes just as insane as when he'd killed the President, up on the Valiant. His grin just as manic.

As every Saxon copy looked around himself, getting used to his new surroundings.

Dawn didn't have time to think.

Just elbowed the Saxon-copy in Ace's clothing off the motorcycle, and revved the engine. The bike squealing through the mud, as it gained traction and raced into the distance.

Dawn had no idea what had just happened.

Or why.

But the faces of Harold Saxon made her remember the nightmares she'd made herself forget. The nightmares about the end of the world. The nightmares that showed this. And Dawn was certain… that she'd only been spared the changer, herself, because she was the Key — just for this little while. That every other human on Earth had changed into… Saxon.

The Master.

"The guy who tortured and traumatized Seo, Jack, and Martha's family," said Dawn. "Gave this world over to those Toclafane things. And made Elizabeth totally nutso." She pushed the bike as fast as it could go, heading it towards the house that Buffy had bought, outside the Sunnydale crater. "And that means… I'm gonna need mega weapons."