“ADVANCE!”

Buffy Summers commands her army at the top of her voice. They don’t let up, the momentary shock of seeing three ancient goddesses above them having worn off. The goddesses have started turning towards the army, who don’t stand a chance against the three angry deities. We may actually win this, Buffy dares to think, as she watches Xander issuing more commands, more weapons. Giles is with Andrew, at the monastery steps, thankful that the goddesses are on their side.

As Xander orders the Slayers to advance and take more territory, the goddesses continue to demolish the army as Twilight and his followers look on. Warren mentions that it didn’t have to get this far: he could have secured Andrew. Amy tells him that Andrew would have seen through his lies. The General wants to retreat – the goddesses won’t stop until all their men are dead! Twilight wants to stay and watch. He turns to the General: does he really think that the angry gods are going to stop with them?

Xander’s informing the Slayers of his desire to take the space back from the army, but hold onto what they have. Suddenly, a shout from Buffy draws his attention: she needs help overturning an abandoned military jeep. Once it’s on it’s wheels, Buffy leaps in, Willow and Satsu joining her.

Inside the monastery, Bay asks Oz if the goddesses came. When Oz tells her yes, she says that ‘they shouldn’t have come here.’ We gave them everything. Oz isn’t sure if she means the gods or his friends.

Catching Willow as she nearly falls from the fast-moving jeep, Buffy points Satsu in the direction she wants to go. Buffy has seen her target: “He’s over there!” she yells. Peering through binoculars, Amy has spotted Buffy moving towards them. Twilight observes that one of the goddesses nearly stepped on them while they were driving – it nearly killed them!

As Buffy and the jeep continue on target, the blue goddess almost steps on them this time, with Buffy yelling that they’re the good guys. She sees the goddess reach down and grab some screaming human soldiers – and a Slayer. In that moment she realises what Twilight realised seconds before: the goddesses are not differentiating between Slayers and Army. She looks across the hillside. The dead are all around her: soldiers, Slayers, wolves and the goddesses are continuing, slaughtering anyone they can see. “The goddesses are not on our side,” she tells Willow. They didn’t bring help – they’ve brought death.

Dawn has realised the same thing from the monastery and tells Xander. He orders the remaining Slayer forces to fall back to base. When Oz notices everyone returning, he asks Andrew what’s happening. He tells him about the gods and Bay weakly states that it’s been too long since they spent any time with the goddesses and now they aren’t recognising the people who have been feeding them. Kennedy turns to Faith: are we getting our powers back? Faith bluntly tells her no, anger in her voice. She feels like she’s been played.

On the battlefield, Buffy has finally found her target. Willow is stunned when Buffy jumps from the jeep and races towards a wounded man she herself recognises: it’s Riley Finn. He’s been injured and Buffy asks for help to get him back to the temple. Willow barks orders as the jeep starts moving back towards the safety of the monastery, ordering all Slayers to fall back. Reaching the temple steps, Buffy orders people to get Riley inside.

If Oz is stunned to see his next patient, he doesn’t react in shock. He immediately starts checking Riley’s injuries, asking for a first aid kit. Buffy suddenly looks up, panic on her face: Where’s Xander? As soon as she sees him, she bounds over to him and throws her arms around his neck. She was worried. She takes a moment, nestled on his chest, as she breathes. She’s interrupted by Dawn – is he a prisoner, she asks, pointing to the uniformed Riley. Her friends turn to look at her.

“No. He’s been with us. He’s been spying for our side. He can tell us everything Twilight has planned.” Oz nods. “Yeah, if he wakes up,” he quips.

Outside, looking up at the monastery on the hillside above them, Amy asks why Buffy took Riley prisoner. Twilight confirms that Riley is no prisoner: he’s been working for Buffy the whole time. Warren is confused: how long has their boss known that? Amy tells him to shut up and they inevitably start bickering again, this time about how Amy doesn’t support him. She fires back that she is, literally, holding him together. Twilight, bored of the pettiness and, not knowing who else to trust, leaves them to it.

In the temple, Buffy is urging Riley to wake up and tell her there’s a way for her to turn the situation around, but, as he comes around, Riley tells his ex girlfriend that she needs a miracle – and he’s fresh out of those. She takes his hand, glad that he’s okay. They’ve missed each other. Buffy wipes away tears.

“No miracles. No magicks. So I guess what we have is.. “

“…a losing battle.” Twilight is having the same thought. The General tells him that if they don’t fight, their men will die, but Twilight says that that’s simply the price of mortality: you have to die sometime.

The goddesses continue to sweep across the land. Buffy tells the Slayers that the goddesses are going to carry on regardless. They do not have their powers and they are not going to win. They can’t run away and take their injured. So she has a plan. Firstly, they’re going to go outside again, retrieve their wounded and the enemy’s injured and bring them to safety from the goddesses. Protect anything that bleeds, she tells them.

As she leads her Slayers back onto the raging battlefield, Riley watches them go. “She knows she’ll lose?” he asks Oz. “She knows,” the wolf replies. Riley says she’s an amazing woman, and Oz agrees, saying they all are.

Outside, the Slayers are getting picked off by the goddesses, struggling to get away. One, the blue goddess, scoops Buffy off the ground and pulls her up towards it’s head, specifically it’s mouth. Buffy just stares at the giant as it snarls at her, it’s three eyes locked on her. Then, with no word and no warning, it simply drops her from the sky and watches as she falls helplessly to the ground from a huge height.

Five hours later, the battle is over. The Slayer army has been decimated and, whoever is left, not taken prisoner by the army, is now holed up inside the monastery.

On a snow-topped mountainside, something stirs under the snow. At first nothing else happens, but eventually Buffy Summers shakes herself free of the snow that cushioned her fall.

She looks down into the valley below and sees her friends, her family, being marched away at gun point. She closes her eyes, the feeling of hopelessness washing over her. What else can she do? Alone, against the world?

Finally she opens her eyes – and is stunned to find herself soaring high above the Tibetan Plateau, goddesses roaring in the distance and her friends and foes below her, like ants.

Buffy Summers is floating in mid air. She appears to be flying.