The sun is shining. She can feel it, baking her skin. The sea breeze is perfect, the sound calming. There’s nobody else around, and Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer, is on a beach towel, taking in the sun’s rays. She’s blissful. Nothing could possibly disturb her. She’s alone, in the middle of nowhere.

A voice asks is she’s Buffy Summers. In a doze, she doesn’t even open her eyes. “Depends,” she says, “If you’re anyone other than Daniel Craig, then no, never heard of her.”

“Well, that works out for everyone, then.” Daniel Craig, wearing the tiniest trunks known to mankind, is standing there. Buffy sits up in shock, but Daniel Craig tells her that he didn’t mean to startle her, but she’s turning a bit red in the sun. And he has some lotion, if she would like him to apply it?

“That’s it?”

Willow gapes at Buffy’s suggestion. Buffy asks what’s wrong with Daniel Craig. Willow says it’s not the person that’s the problem, it’s her boring, generic fantasy. It’s a game of ‘anywhere but here’ – and it’s supposed to be imaginative. Buffy, who’s holding onto Willow from behind, says that would be fine, but right this second, she’s having some difficulty concentrating and dreaming of a far-off place whilst doing what they’re doing. Willow grins. She’ll go faster.

They’re flying – well, technically, Willow is flying and Buffy is hanging on, but they’re soaring high above the ground, through the clouds. Buffy is not having the best time. Willow points out that recently Buffy has been throwing herself out of helicopters, so what’s the difference? According to Buffy, helicopters are closer to the ground. As Willow feels their target getting closer, she begins her descent – a little too fast for the Slayer’s liking.

In Scotland, Xander has a surprise for Dawn. As she opens her eyes, it’s clear she’s delighted. Xander has realised how Dawn must be feeling, so he had some of her stuff brought in from college – specifically her clothing chest. Since they can’t currently shrink Dawn, the best thing is to enlarge her clothing. Result. In her excitement, mostly looking for her boots, Xander falls into the large open crate, buried in clothing and muffled.

An avalanche rages outside on a wind-swept mountain. Willow helps television’s Tina Fey into a cabin and insists that they must find a way to keep warm. Okay. That’s solid. Buffy’s impressed by Willow’s fantasy. And then puts her foot in her mouth by asking after Kennedy. Willow retorts that the game is about fantasy not reality – which gives Buffy a sign that reality is still a concern: Willow explains that she and Kennedy simply haven’t had time to catch up lately, and, honestly, that’s all there is to it. Buffy makes sure, and then, feeling awkward, asks if they’re there yet. They are, thankfully for Buffy, and the witch brings them down – Buffy with a bump – near a small house. This, Buffy questions of the innocent looking building, is the lair of Sephrilian?

Their mission is to locate the demon Sephrilian, who walks between worlds. As a result, where he walks, reality tends to buckle slightly. This slightly destabilises the very fabric of reality, so there’s usually a Minder on site where the breaches occur, to prevent a cataclysm. This house is one such breach and, outside the house, is a tall, lithe whisper of a woman, whose black hair shines in the sunlight and whose voice is like silk. The Minder greets Willow by name, and Willow responds by calling her Robin. Buffy is confused – they’ve already met? Willow says no, not yet, but she will.

Buffy is already scratching her head – this is going to get slightly crazy and mind-bendy isn’t it, she asks. This is presumably what happens when she dozes off during Giles’ lectures – she misses the important things. Robin tells them that Sephrilian is not in the best of moods at the moment and may very well not want to see anybody. Buffy says they’re here to help – they’re just here to talk. Robin warns Willow that there’s no magic where she’s going, but Buffy assures the Minder that if things become too dangerous, she’s prepared to get dicey.

Robin tells her she may have to. She tells them that the important thing is that they rescue the prince – but Willow and Buffy have no idea what she’s referring to. Buffy assumes that reality leaks around the Minder, and her mind is different as a result. Willow confirms this, and also that Giles said she was sometimes awake. Buffy feels sorry for Robin – it must be hard, she thinks, to sign up for a gig like this, where madness is the order of the day. Willow opens the door of the house and they enter. She tells Buffy that Minders aren’t volunteers. They’re Chosen.

Entering the building, they find a large, impossible cavern, with stone steps leading to some distance away. An endless staircase. As they continue their winding down into darkness, Buffy is getting slightly more jumpy – she’s had a hard time of it of late with soldiers and Faith – she’s not overly happy with the dark. Willow says that she’ll have her back, and, to lighten the mood, suggests to Buffy that they play a game.

In Scotland, Dawn is going through her now super-sized laundry, and admiring the softness of her socks. Xander asks if he did good then, and then Dawn asks him if he’s okay, considering how big the crate is. He says he’s fine – he’s snug as a bug in the nice, silky, lacy, frilly… He freaks out, thinking it’s Dawn’s underwear and tries to get away. Dawn chuckles – it’s only a camisole, but when she finds Xander, he’s found something else: there’s a large oversized framed picture inside her crate, underneath her clothes – it’s of her and her boyfriend Kenny.

As Buffy tries to tell a tuxedoed Christian Bale to dance with her while stable-boy Christin Bale sorts the horses out, Willow compliments her. “Now you’re pulling from the top shelf. That’s beautiful. I don’t know where to start.” Buffy stops her friend’s teasing and abruptly says “I like Kennedy you know.” Willow looks at Buffy confused, but Buffy says that she’s trying to talk, but Willow’s being cagey about things. Just before Willow can respond, a giant claw tears through them – it’s Sephrilian and he asks the two of them how they can dare to enter his domain.

Before Buffy can speak, he booms at them: “You reek of lies!” Buffy settles him down and gets up off the floor where they landed: no magic, Willow reminds her. She looks up at Sephrilian and holds her arms out in a gesture of peace. “We need your help. You walk in reality and with the Old Ones – you’re part of the demon elite.” He knows that there’s an imbalance happening at the moment. Sephrilian doesn’t disagree – he calls it “Twilight.” Willow asks him if he knows what that means and he tells her. “The end, of course. Of the struggle. Of the Hellmouths. The final triumph of the base humans over the demons. It’s your life goal achieved, Slayer. It is the death of magic.”

Willow is silent.

In the castle, Dawn tells Xander that it was all her fault: the giant thing. Xander doesn’t think so – she was just being a teenager. But then Dawn looks down at him and admits that she lied to Willow. She never slept with Kenny, she slept with his roommate.

Sephrilian, elsewhere, is telling the Slayer more. He says that all of mankind is made from delusions, lies and gross simplifications. They lie to each other all the time. Here, he says, take a look.

Suddenly, Willow and Buffy are standing looking through the smoke – they can see a bank vault. Inside the bank vault is Buffy, along with a group of Slayers. She tells the girls to hurry – they haven’t got long before the guards wake up. The vision disappears and Willow looks straight at her friend: so the Slayer Organisation – and the anonymous donors you told me about – are actually funded by stolen funds from the Federal Government? Buffy thinks it’s a victimless crime, but Willow says that money changes things. She points to where the images were: “This is where it all starts Buffy. What your enemies saw: Slayers acting above the law and endangering their most precious thing: their possessions. This is the first domino.”

Another image appears before them – it’s Willow having an intimate moment with a green-skinned demon with a tail instead of legs and long-flowing ethereal white hair. Buffy is stunned.

In Scotland, Dawn finally starts telling the truth. Kenny was a lovely guy, perfect, a proper gentleman. But one night, at a party, his roommate Nick arrived. She drunkenly made her mistake and confessed to her boyfriend. The curse on her giant-butt is the result, she sadly admits. Xander scoffs at her. This guy Nick, was a band-member right? Slightly bad boy-esque, smoker, dirty hair, leather jacket? Dawn confirms that’s correct. He tells her that she’s not guilty of anything except being a teenage girl-cliché – did Buffy ever tell her about Parker Abrams? His point is that the magic used can now be solved with more research and she feels better having gotten everything off her chest.

Inside Sephrilian’s realm, Robin appears. They’re shown another vision, but Robin is surprised that Sephrilian is showing them this one. They see a tomb, and there’s obvious signs of a major battle. Buffy is on the floor, crying, shaking, and covered in bruises and wounds. Willow and Buffy ask Robin what happens here, but Robin looks down to the ground in sorrow: “Betrayal. The closest. The most unexpected.”

As Robin disappears, Willow suggests that they try to get out of there, because the demon is starting to play games with them. Buffy stops her and asks her: “Is it you?”

Willow shakes her head. No, it’s not her that betrays Buffy. She already did that. A new vision appears: it’s Kennedy and Willow, in their apartment. They’re arguing.

Kennedy believes Willow is ashamed of her and that’s why Willow seems to avoid any gatherings with her friends. And she’s not subtle about it. Willow says it’s not about Kennedy. Kennedy guesses what it’s about. It’s about Tara.

Willow admits that yes, she has kept Kennedy from Buffy. But until recently, she hadn’t realised that subconsciously she’s been deliberately distancing herself from Buffy for a while. She has also since found out Warren Mears is alive. She explains that when Buffy died, although she didn’t want to admit it, Willow and Tara were happy. Buffy was in Heaven, happy. They could even have raised Dawn by themselves and moved anywhere, anywhere in the world.

But Willow couldn’t do that. She had to bring Buffy back. No matter what it took, what the cost, she had to bring her best friend back, for her and her world. But instead, chaos ensued. Buffy wasn’t happy having been ripped from paradise. Warren and the Trio. If they’d gone, and not brought Buffy back, they could have been fine.

But as far as Willow is concerned, their decision to stay, no, her decision to bring Buffy back, put Tara in the path of Warren’s bullet. That’s what happened the last time she chose Buffy over the woman she loved. She’s keeping Kennedy away, because she doesn’t want to lose Kennedy – to Buffy’s mad, bad world. So she distanced them.

Sephrilian’s voice booms at them. “All the faces are there to see, but humans, you have too many. I would be rid of your kind. I welcome this war.” Buffy takes this as a sign that their little chat is over and throws herself up the nearest wall, punching the demon in the head. Willow briefly summons up some magic, and Buffy hacks a limb off the demon for good measure. As Buffy and the demon hit the ground, the room starts shaking: Willow’s use of magic is destabilising the reality field and the place is going to…

As the house explodes, Buffy and Willow are only just thrown clear. They land at Robin’s feet, who with a wave of her hands, and a ethereal glow from her eyes, folds back time and restructures the damaged house, sealing the barrier – all back to as it was before they’d even entered the property. Willow apologises for the magic use, but Robin shrugs it off: the field is stable now. She’s also been reassigned, which she’s grateful for. She apologises if the experience was rough on them. Buffy shrugs and looks at Willow. “It was demons,” she says as she walks away. “Playing games.”

And as the Slayer walks away, Willow is silent – and walks away in the opposite direction, their friendship uncertain, their trust gone, perhaps forever.