I hate history. Not the subject – I always loved it at school: the French-Indian War, the Medici’s, 1066 and all that. History is all romantic adventure stories. Until you live it. Until you live long enough to be a part of it.

It’s the 23rd Century. Willow Rosenberg, the Black Hope, is staring at the empty book shelves and wanders, slowly, deliberately, and perhaps a little nervously, over to the centre of the room, her black gown dragging behind her, making a rustling sound that is starting to bother her. She places her hands, long black nails, veins showing through her skin, white and withered, stretched tight, onto the face of Buffy Summers. She’s on a chair, unconscious, chained. They’re in Melaka Fray‘s home – her Watcher’s Antiquary. Willow almost feels at home. She looks at Buffy square in the face.

She whispers, possibly to her companions, more than likely to herself. “I’d forgotten her excellent nose.”

Melaka stands with her sister Erin, watching the creepy madwoman. What’s the plan? Cuz I’m not killing a Slayer. Willow turns back, only half looking at them, her dark, bulging, black eyes, focussing on nothing in particular. “You won’t have to,” she explains. “You just have to keep her here. The rift will open here. I remember an extraction attempt.” Erin looks slightly more relaxed. So they just send her back? Then why are we worried? Melaka looks solemnly at the ground. “Because she’ll end the world. She’ll change the future, now she’s ocked it. No more now. No more us.”

Willow lifts her gown, silencing that godawful rustling. Fray continues. “She goes back and a tick past midnight, we’re all what coulda been.” Willow looks sadly at her.

A high-pitched shriek jostles them all back to the centre of the room. Buffy must be awake, Willow knows.

“Oh, my God! You went dark again,” Buffy is stunned. Not speechless, but epically peeved! “You are so in huge trouble for going Dark. How could you even…” she stops, dead in her tracks, a look of horror slowly coming into view on her face. “Is Kennedy okay?”

“It’s been two thousand years, Buffy. How do you think she is?” Willow says, quietly, almost sarcastically. Almost like two old friends, bantering. Buffy has more important questions, certainly the first being ‘why is she tied up?’ but, before anyone can tell her, a voice, gravelly as the dirt, echoes around them.

“First, how come all my friends are having a party without me? Second, what has that witch been telling you?”

It’s Harth, standing above them, peering in through the skylight. Willow looks up at him, almost annoyed. “You should have been patient, Harth.”

Harth is not having that, his eyes yellow with fury, penetrating through his spectacles like a laser. “You told me Buffy’s coming here would cause our world to be. You told my sister the opposite. You’ve been spinning us all.”

Willow looks around at everyone, one by one. “Yes, well. I’m dark that way,” she confesses. Harth asks her why, but she simply answers: “Death, of course. You see what I’ve seen, you come and go as I have, you realise the most important thing about death isn’t who dies.” Her voice drops, deeper, more menacing, more commanding and, Buffy remembers hearing it before, darker. “It’s who kills them.”

Mel swings her Scythe around her arm, battle ready. She already told Willow that she wouldn’t kill Buffy, but Willow uses the fact that if Buffy goes back, Melaka will simply cease to exist. Mel questions her, tells the madwoman she’s lying, but Willow confirms that she is lying, to someone. “Would you bet your whole world it’s you?”

Harth shouts down from above. “I have a solver. I kill everyone and – well I don’t really care about the rest.” Willow turns her back on him. She tells him that the night isn’t his. He should be very careful when choosing his enemies. Harth scoffs at her. She can’t stop him and his vampire army all by herself.

Willow allows herself a slight smile on her twisted, blackened lips. “Don’t plan to.”

Up above the Antiquary, hover cars zoom up to the top, surrounding Harth and his vampires, dowsing them with rays of sunlight. At the control of the leading craft, sits Gunther, relishing the payback he’s dishing out. “Three? You think three Lurks can best me? On my surf? You insult me.” He continues firing away, vampires exploding into ash, vaporised as soon as the light hits them!

Erin turns at Buffy calling her name. As she turns, Buffy kicks her down, Gates, the nefarious spider-monkey having loosened Buffy’s bonds for Willow, as instructed. “That’s for the ‘Puffy’” she states, as she grabs Erin’s sidearm from her holster. She aims it – square at Melaka’s head. “I’m leaving. I don’t care about your world. I have to save mine.” She fires the weapon, the electric charge surging through it, almost knocking Buffy backward and off her feet, and putting Mel down for the temporary count. As Buffy grabs her Scythe and races out, Willow slips into the shadows behind her. “Not just yet, Buffy. You’re not done here,” she teases maniacally from the dark.

In the 21st Century, in the lush, green woodlands around what’s left of Slayer HQ, Lorelahn is directing various woodland creatures, all magical in nature, into a march, towards the incoming ghost soldiers pursuing Xander and Dawn. Xander, who has a make-shift helmet on his head – made from an oversized acorn – doesn’t think they have much of a chance. Dawn, sword at the ready, tells him that they have to make a stand sometime. Xander teases her about Lorelahn – Dawn seems rather taken with him. She tells him that she hopes he dies first – with the most wounds.

As the soldiers attack, their magical weapons slice through the woodlanders easily, Xander suggesting over the din that they retreat and regroup – they’re not going to win here. As he looks cornered, a blue mist suddenly begins blowing through the trees. It removes the magics empowering the soldiers, reducing them to simple, ordinary lizard demons.

Xander is stunned to see the Slayer army emerge from the other side of the clearing, Rowena in command, skilfully commanding her squad into position and coming to the aid of Lorelahn and his people. “F*%# ’em up,” she shouts loudly.

As Xander watches on, Dawn nudges him. “That’s your Squad, Xan,” she smiles. His face is full of pride. It energises him and he starts to fight back even stronger, plunging his blade into the nearest lizard. The battle roars throughout the woodland, battle cries echoing across the Highlands on a cold Summer’s morning.

In the future, Buffy clings for dear life onto a passing hover car, trying to get back to her original starting point for the portal. She needs to move quickly. She doesn’t look back the way she came. She’s focussed. At least, she lost the Fray girl, she thinks – as she collides head first with Melaka on the rooftop she’s just climbed.

“I can’t let you go.” Buffy reasons with her. Didn’t she hear Willow? It’s about who kills who – we’re being pitted against each other. Mel doesn’t care: can Buffy guarantee that if she goes back, her future will still happen? She’s not asking for just her life, but her world. Her entire reality.

Buffy says she can’t. Mel quotes Buffy back to her: “The Big Picture.” Buffy nods “The fate of the world.”

Mel looks up at her, locking eyes. “Fate of the world made sense – when there was only ONE!” She launches herself at Buffy, taking her completely by surprise with a mean left hook. Buffy flips herself around and kicks Mel in the face. Now they’re into it, Scythe’s clashing against each other, each of them determined, matching each other, blow after hammering blow. Willow looks down at them. “So close…”

Buffy is trying to strategize, as she weaves and dodges Mel’s blows. She’s stronger than me. On her home turf. And she knows what she’s fighting for. But I’ve dreamed every battle a Slayer’s ever fought, and she hasn’t. I’m outgunned. But she’s outnumbered. Buffy swerves out of the way of Melaka’s next blow, which brings a water tower down, the liquid pouring down the side of the building, sweeping Mel with it. She flips herself up, back onto a gargoyle protruding from the side, and starts bounding back up towards Buffy. She soars above her enemy, Scythe ready to come down.

Buffy launches herself skyward, toward Melaka. The battle gets more ferocious with every blow, Mel’s boot smashing against Buffy’s head.

In the 21st Century, watching the burning Slayer HQ and the subsequent woodland warriors’ victory over their forces on a monitor, stands Warren Mears. He’s quick to pass the blame of this on Amy‘s magic, and not his superb technology or his technical genius. He tells Amy that her magic was stopped by first year Wiccans, but she counters: there wasn’t supposed to be any Wiccans left after his strike! As they continue to assign blame and squabble, Twilight walks away from them. He has a meeting. He thinks young love is depressing. He asks his guest what he thinks.

His guest is a man in a tight vest, Twilight symbol carved onto his chest. “In my experience, yeah,” he agrees. Twilight sneers.

“But that’s not what you told her.”

The man steps forward. “I tell her I’m her inside man. Her ever faithful. She’s so stuck in the past. Man, when we had our secret meeting in New York – she even got dressed up.” Finishing, he emerges into Twilight’s view, stepping forth from shadows.

It’s Riley Finn!

In Manhattan, Willow is being blindfolded so she can fulfil her promise to Saga Vasuki – she won’t look into the future. The portal is opening around them now…

In the future, Buffy sees the portal materialise. As she knocks Melaka out of the way to leap through it, Willow stands in Buffy’s way. She warns her best friend that she will go through her, if she has to. Willow affirms that she’ll have to. Buffy doesn’t get it – why bring her here in the first place, only to help her back? What really happened to Willow? Willow just looks at her and then closes her eyes. “It’s a long story.”

With that, Buffy’s time is up. It’s now or never. She tenses herself. Deep breath. Somehow, she’s not sure how, but she plunges the pointy end of her Scythe through Willow’s heart. She shrieks, but only silence can be heard. Green, magical energy erupts from the witch’s body, sending bolts of energy high into the sky. A world recognising the passing of it most powerful inhabitant – and rejoicing. As Willow falls to the floor dead, Buffy leaps for the portal, just as Melaka grabs for her. The portal flickers, unstable, its edges crackling with energy. Buffy has seconds – no, less. She lunges, Melaka’s fingers brushing her wrist before the world twists and she’s gone.

On the other end, in the past, Willow, blindfolded, grasps for Buffy’s hand and pulls her through, Melaka being ejected from the portal’s aperture by the closing of the energies.

In the 21st Century, on the Manhattan balcony, the morning sun is rising. Willow removes her blindfold, convinced that she was grabbing the wrong person, but is relieved it’s Buffy. Buffy has tears streaming down her face, the reality of what has just happened, deep on her soul. I killed Willow in the future. I will be her end. She wraps her arms tightly around her best friend. “I love you, Will,” she shares tearfully, before Willow pulls her into a hug, a nervous Kennedy watching their every move.

At the same place, but in the 23rd Century, Erin, having seen Harth escape, has raced over to Mel, who’s looking down at her empty hands.

Is that it? Have I doomed us? Have I failed? Erin tells her that Buffy is gone, but they’re still here. Melaka smiles through her tears. But what does it mean? she asks Erin. Erin takes her sister into her arms.

“It means, it’s a good day,” she says, as the sun slowly rises above Haddyn.