The next Saturday had Xander heading back to the lab to see what the repository had to say about dimensional keys. What he found had him shaking with rage.
"Xander? What's wrong?" Cordelia asked, when he arrived back at their apartment. Kari was fortunately at Joyce's gallery again.
"The Alterrans knew what a dimensional key is, alright. They made it. They made what the monks put in Kari. They gathered dimensional energy and formed it, in order to open the dimension they were trying to access to use as a local source for Potentias. At some point, they must have lost it. It ended up in the dimension this Hell goddess comes from and the other Hell gods used it to banish her here to our dimension. I'm thinking that probably alerted the Ascended Alterrans to it and they got it back and gave it to these monks to protect. At some point, the Hell goddess found out, it was here on Earth and went looking for it. Idiots! How could they not realize she knew what it is and does and would want to use it to get back what she's lost. Kari may exist because of their stupidity, but she's also in danger because of it. Yet again, they didn't stop to think something thru and we're having to deal with the fallout!"
"Oh gods." Was the best Cordelia could manage in response to that information.
The gang was gathered at the Magic Box to discuss some recent developments.
"Some damn weird shit's going down." Faith said. "More then twenty people are dead at the hospital. Suffocated by something shoved into their mouths and down their throats. It looks like it was liquid that hardened. They all had something in common. They were all insane. But apparently they all went insane real fast. The stories we were hearing, say that one minute they were fine, then someone would see them again just a few minutes later and they would be bat shit insane."
"Could this be related to the Hell goddess?" Amy asked.
"Most likely." Giles said. "According to the information in the sources the Watchers Council left us, being in this dimension is seriously weakening to her mental state. She drains the energy that binds the human mind into a cohesive whole in order to sustain herself."
"Then someone's probably trying to cover her tracks." Xander said thoughtfully. "Willow, could you track where these patients were found? It's possible she's staying in one area and feeding on people around her. If we can figure out that area, we can at least narrow down where she is. I know we still need to figure out a way to deal with her, but finding her needs to be on the to do list, too."
"I would have to hack the hospital records. They'd have recorded that information themselves since they'd be thinking chemicals or gas or something caused it. Not hard to do."
"Do it, Willow." Giles said. "Xander's right, we need to figure out where she is. In the meantime, we need to research a strategy for dealing with her."
Before they could come up with a strategy through, they ran into some damn weird medieval dressed knights.
"So you want to explain why you're invading our town?" Xander asked, eyeing the knights. More crazies, just another form.
"We are following the trail of destruction the Beast has wrought." The guy who introduced himself as General Gregor said.
"Uh huh. And what's this trail look like and what is this Beast you're looking for?" Faith asked.
"The Beast is a Hell goddess. The trail of destruction is, the destroyed minds she leaves in her wake."
"We've heard of the Hell goddess. We don't know where she is, but we've also seen her trail of destruction." Cordelia offered.
"What do you plan to do when you find her? Do you have a means of stopping her?" Giles asked, wondering if they could work together.
"The Key is the link, the link must be severed, such is the will of God." General Gregor answered. Not an answer anyone in the Scooby Gang wanted to hear.
"And how do you plan to severe this link?" Xander asked.
"The Key is energy. It must be destroyed."
"That's not possible. There is no way for either Magic or science to destroy energy. The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be moved, it can be gathered, it can be transformed, it can be dispersed. But it would take the powers of a god to either create it or destroy it. Do you have the power of a god? Or is your god planning to destroy it for you?" Willow asked.
The knights looked confused. "There must be a way to destroy it. It is God's will!"
"Did your god tell you that or did you just decide this was the best way to handle it?" Xander asked.
"We are taught that, this is how it must be." General Gregor said.
"Well then, why don't you go figure out a way to destroy it and then come back. You can't do anything if you don't have an end plan." Xander suggested. The next morning the weird knights were gone. "Guess, they realized there was a serious flaw in their plan."
The others agreed. Since Willow hadn't yet tracked a location on the Hell goddess and the Scoobies hadn't yet come up with their own strategy for dealing with the Hell goddess and Xander had finished a uv grenade, they decided to test out raiding a vampire nest instead.
Xander's plan for the raid worked perfectly. They succeeded in dusting a nest of eight vampires. Faith got a new leather jacket, that made both Buffy and Cordelia jealous. Willow found the keys to a nice little Accord and since she and Tara needed a car, transferred the title into their names. Xander was happy to see, his uv grenade worked and so did his plan.
The $5,000 they found went to a homeless shelter in L.A. run by Anne, formerly known as Sunshine, a former vamp groupie. She put it to good use helping people.