Author's Note: Lots of mystery in chapter one, huh? Well, hold onto your horses, because the answers to all your questions are coming. For now, let's look at contemporary-to-this-time Seo, and see what's going on!

Keep reading!

The Time Vortex.

There was a difference, Dawn noted, between being a sulky human teenager — who didn't actually have any real power, and just shouted and screamed a lot — and a sulky part-hell-goddess has-her-own-time-machine teenager.

Because the second kind didn't have to shout.

"Look, maybe just… read… one chapter," said Dawn, trying to make it sound less like a plea. "Just so you don't make out with any more mass murderers."

Seo crossed her arms. Leaning against the central console. Refusing to touch the controls.

"Or so we don't wind up in the middle of anymore wars?" Dawn suggested. "I mean, you can see the logic in that."

"Those books are boring," said Seo, evenly. "I'm not reading them. And if you don't stop bugging me about it, I'll let us float in the vortex indefinitely."

Oh, God.

Wasn't this supposed to be the other way around?

"It takes you, like, five minutes to read a book!" cried Dawn. "Wouldn't it be easier to just take the five minutes, do your homework, and actually know something about the time period we're landing in?"

Seo hummed to herself, tapping her foot against the ground, being stubborn.

Dawn sighed. "You're not going to back down until I say you don't have to do it, huh?"

Seo beamed.

Dawn felt like hitting her head against the wall. Maybe she should be the one reading history books and learning about this stuff, instead of Seo. But… then again…

Those books were seriously boring.

Dawn was sure as hell not reading them.

"Okay, fine!" Dawn decided. "Don't be all responsible and grown-up like. But if you make out with another psychopath, I promise I'll—"

The ship lurched, violently, throwing them both to the floor.

The console suddenly flickered with tons of lights, levers throwing themselves, dials spinning, readouts racing by faster than anyone could process them. The lighting around them began flickering, the colors of the vortex growing more and more vibrant, around them.

"What did you do?" shouted Dawn, over the racket.

"Nothing!" Seo insisted. She jumped back to her feet, grabbing onto the console, and trying in vain to regain control of the ship. "Oliver's doing it all by himself! He's on remote control or something!"

"But who could…?" Dawn trailed off. A suddenly delighted grin spreading across her face, as she worked it out. The only person out there with a more powerful time machine than Seo. And burst out laughing. "Oh! Your father found out you weren't doing your homework, huh?"

Seo frantically tried to slam on the breaks, but the power to the rest of the ship died, and the thing just kept hurtling, unable to be governed or controlled at all.

"Now this is a chew-out session I have to see," Dawn said.

Seo glared at her, as the ship echoed with an ever increasing mechanical whine, then jolted and bucked once more, and then…

The whole thing went silent.

The outside world looking white and featureless, around them.

"A nothing-dimension," Seo gritted through her teeth. "Brilliant. Put me on time out why don't you?"

Dawn got back to her feet. Gestured at the door. "Well," she said. "Guess we better get out there and hear what he has to say."

"I'm not going," said Seo, stubbornly.

Dawn buried her face in her hands. Gave a long, annoyed sigh.

"I'm serious!" Seo insisted. She leapt up onto the non-functioning central console, and sat cross-legged on the top, hands in her lap. "If he wants to yell at me, he can break in here, first. I'm not budging an inch."

"Well," said Dawn, opening the doors, "maybe I'll let him in, myself, then!" She stepped outside, faded into the white with only a few steps. Her voice still echoing back. "And if you've wired up the door to do something massively annoying to him the moment he enters, you'll be in…"

Dawn's voice stopped.

Then, a confused, "Wait, who are…?"

Then she screamed.

Seo sprung up from her spot on the central console. "Aunt Dawn?"

No answer.

She raced forwards, bursting out of her ship, hearts racing. "Dawn!" she called. "What…?"

She stopped, as she saw the small, wooden doll of Dawn, frozen in place, wearing the same clothes and with the same expression as her aunt, but… in her eyes… there was terror. Complete and utter terror.

"Lovely, isn't she?" said a man who emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, grabbing up the Dawn doll and cradling it in his arms. "A beautiful little toy for my collection." He glanced at Seo. Then blinked. Stared, a little harder. "Oh. Now that's different."

Seo reached out to grab Dawn away, but the man snapped his fingers, and the doll was gone, in a flash.

"What are you?" the man asked.

"Someone you don't want to make angry," said Seo. Stalking towards him, her fists clenched. "So give me back my aunt."

"I was expecting a Time Lord," said the man. "Or a human. Something identifiable." He grinned, clapping his hands. "Oh, but this is marvelous! You'll be a lot more fun."

Seo reached through the dimensional folds of the universe, snatching him up and jerking him in just the way she needed to make him really struggle and gasp and writhe. Her eyes boring deep into his, her teeth gritted.

"Wanna know who I am?" Seo asked. Her voice lowered. "I'm Seo. I'm the god-killer. I'm the one person in the universe that makes your sort tremble with fear. So give me back Aunt Dawn. Or I'll kill you."

"Kill me, and she'll remain a doll forever!" the man gasped out. "My realm will collapse, and you'll be flung into deep space. You'll die, too."

Seo let him go. Stepped back, looking around herself, hesitantly.

Her ship, she realized, was gone.

No escape, even if she did get Dawn back.

"What do you want?" Seo asked, warily.

The landscape shifted, around her, suddenly transforming into a games room, strewn with different toys and board games and sports paraphernalia.

"My dear child," said the man, spreading his arms in greeting, his ornate robes glimmering in the non-light of his realm. "I am the Celestial Toymaker. I want nothing… but amusement."

"You're a higher dimensional entity," Seo sighed. "Bored out of your mind. Who's using the unique geometry of your realm to make sure you can see me." She shook her head. "How are you even still here? With dimensional separation, all you higher dimensional sorts should be stuck outside the universe."

The Celestial Toymaker's face grew that much darker. "I have… a history… with someone too clever for his own good," he growled. "Someone who dared to stick me in a nearly impenetrable trap. A trap I've only just managed to escape. At which point, I found myself stuck here — on the wrong side of the dimensional barrier."

Seo took in a sharp breath.

He'd dragged her ship here, hadn't he? And had been expecting a Time Lord…

"I'm not killing for you," Seo warned. "I'm not your weapon or revenge tool."

The Celestial Toymaker laughed. "Oh, dear girl! What kind of an entity do you take me for?" He spun around, indicating the games room. "I told you. I want distraction. Amusement. A second player for my many games." He turned back to her, eyes twinkling. "Best me at a game, and I'll give you back your aunt. Easy as that."

Seo hesitated.

"No tricks!" said the Celestial Toymaker. "No strings attached. You win, and you get her back. Provided, of course, that you follow the rules of the game. I don't put up with cheaters."

"And what if I lose?" asked Seo.

"Then we play again!" the Toymaker replied. "And again. And again."

"Until I win?" Seo asked.

The Toymaker said nothing, grinning.

No. Clearly not.

"Until I stop amusing you," Seo corrected. "And you get bored with me and throw me away."

"But I'm guessing you'll be plenty amusing," the Celestial Toymaker said, clasping his hands behind his back. "Someone as… unique as you."

"And why shouldn't I just beat you into a bloody pulp until you do what I want?" Seo asked. It was sounding like a better and better option, every minute.

"Oh, come now!" said the Toymaker, with a little pout. "We're both civilized, rational people. Such savagery is beneath us. All I'm proposing is a little game between friends." He gestured towards her. "I'll even let you pick the game."

Seo looked around herself. At all the various different games and items, scattered around this Toymaker's realm.

"What do you choose?" said the Celestial Toymaker. "Backgammon? Checkers? Cribbage? Poker? Monopoly?"

"I've never played any of those," said Seo. Her hearts beating a little faster. "I've never played any of these games. I wouldn't even know how."

The Celestial Toymaker's expression fell.

"Sorry," said Seo, who, as it happened, wasn't feeling sorry about it at all. "I grew up in a higher dimension of the universe. A prison. I had my own games." She crossed her arms. "I doubt you'd know them."

The Toymaker's cheer perked up, again.

And Seo had the horrible feeling… she'd just mucked this up. Big time.

"Your own games!" the Celestial Toymaker cried. "Games I've never even heard of, before! New games, with a new opponent, and new rules!" The landscape around her faded back into the white nothingness, once more, as the Toymaker advanced on her. "Oh, but that'll be marvelous. What fun!"

"I don't…" Seo began.

But the landscape around her was changing, again. Whirring through different scenes and scenarios, as if flipping through a book. Scenes and scenarios, Seo realized, with some alarm, that were being taken from her own mind.

"I'll just let my realm pick out the rules and game-play instructions from your mind," said the Celestial Toymaker. "Let this environment shape itself to whatever game you think of." He stepped forwards, again. His voice lowering, a hair. "It should be easy, shouldn't it? Beating me at a game you know better than I?"

With a boom sound, the landscape settled around her. Seo spun. A cemetery. At night. Creepy-looking, the headstones looming around her, stone mausoleums covered in cobwebs and grime.

A breeze rushed through her hair, and the sound of inhuman laughter trickled up, around her.

"Oh, good choice!" the Celestial Toymaker applauded her. "A game you used to play all the time, as a child. This will be quite amusing."

"But I didn't think of anything!" Seo insisted.

"Your subconscious did," the Toymaker replied. He tilted his head to the side. "Oh. And I think… you'll be needing this." A wooden stake appeared in his hand, as he gave it to her.

And Seo, stake in hand, suddenly realized what game she was playing.

Oh, no.

"Good luck!" said the Toymaker, as he faded out of the environment, replaced by about five pursuing vampires, fangs bared, all hissing at her.

"Slayer…" the vampires said, pointing.

Seo's eyes went wide. As she stumbled backwards.

Then turned, and ran.

Raced through the cemetery, fast as her legs could carry her, chased on all sides by pursuing vampires, grabbing for her, fangs bared and growls issuing from their mouths.

Oh, this would be so much easier with Aunt Dawn around!

Seo just barely rolled out of the way, as one of them leapt at her, popping back up to her feet and staring up at the sky. "This isn't how the game's played!" she shouted. "I'm supposed to have a Scooby or two, helping me out! Like Buffy did!"

A vampire darted at her, and Seo ducked out of the way, grabbing it up by the arm and forcing its trajectory to go round in a circle, colliding with all the other vampires.

"Give me back Aunt Dawn," Seo shouted. "She's my Scooby!"

A rippling chuckle, from all around her, as the Celestial Toymaker mused the proposition over, in his mind. "You need a Scooby," he said. "I'll give you a Scooby. Don't say I refuse to play by the rules."

London, 1971.

Alison Korjensky had the Nimopod alien cornered. He'd been armed with a vaporization gun, but Alison had somehow managed to strip him of that, and was now holding it, herself. Pointed directly at the alien.

He gargled at her, preparing to spit venom, and she took a shot — that turned into more of a warning shot.

These things were hard to aim!

The alien stopped.

"Right," said Alison. "So. I think it's time we talk over this invasion-of-Earth scheme you lot keep going on about. You up for that?"

But the alien's face had turned suddenly pale. The Nimopod screamed, pointing at something behind Alison.

Alison turned. Stared, as she backed away from the looming, living shadow behind her. "What the…?"

It sprung at her.

And she disappeared.

Second Author's Note: You can see why everyone at UNIT assumed she was dead. From their perspective, Alison went after a Nimopod alien armed with a vaporizer gun, a shot was heard, and when they arrived, Alison was gone.

Obvious conclusion to come to, really.

Bonus points to the person who knows how the Doctor worked out that Alison had survived!