It’s absolute chaos in what’s left of Twilight’s base. Faith is still on the floor, bleeding, Giles cradling her in his arms. Andrew looks around as a portal opens behind him: Xander, Willow, Dawn, Kennedy, Satsu, Amy, Warren and the General step through. Giles immediately calls aid for Faith, who says she’s not hurt. Just bleeding. A lot.

A brief explanation seems to confuse everybody: “Twilight is Angel?” “Angel is Twilight?” “Ben is Glory?”

“Twilight is Angel,” Amy defiantly states. Didn’t they get it? “Of course he is!”

Dawn says that it makes no sense. Giles thinks it does. Willow is already conjuring up a spell to find Buffy and Angel, wherever they are. Giles mentions that the forces at work here are the exact same as when they met all those years ago in Sunnydale. “Passion and love are more potent magicks than you think,” Willow tells him. Xander doesn’t care – he tells Willow to do a spell, find Buffy, put the magic on her, so they can at least see what’s happening. Willow tells him that he doesn’t want to do that. Right this second, with those two being apart as long as they have, I really don’t think you want to see it.

Willow would be right. Buffy and Angel are alone. He’s taken his coat off. Along with mostly everything else.

Faith shudders. In fact, the whole room seems to shake. All of reality? She notices she’s not bleeding anymore. Her wound is gone and Satsu suddenly has her tech back online. Faith asks Giles what the Hell is happening. She’s getting angry at his silent treatment and says she heard what Angel said. She wants to know what he knows. Now.

The entire gang stops, hearing her anger, and turn to Giles. He sighs and breathes in. He’s not sure what he wants to tell them. He warns them that what he is about to say was so feared that the last Watchers who thought this event was coming was back in the 1680s – and they all committed suicide rather than face it. Willow presses him for more information, but Giles just looks at her: there’s nothing else. It’s all just a fairy-tale or a myth, he explains. Xander is not so sure – they’ve faced worse than a fairy tale before! How bad could it be?

Buffy and Angel are continuing their passion.

Satsu monitors their location via her tech. She can see that they’re moving, in rhythm, picking up speed. She gives the tech to Dawn, realises what Buffy and Angel are doing, and walks out. Faith has her powers back and is feeling strong. She also wants to kick something’s ass. Xander tells Giles he has zero seconds to explain. Putting his glasses back on, Giles begins his story…

The Universe is answering. Think of how the world works. Nature isn’t wasteful. It doesn’t put anything in the ecosystem that it doesn’t need. If one side feeds too much, smaller animals lose their food and the entire ecosystem collapses.

It’s no different with the Slayer. Think of what keeps the vampire population in check. You’ve heard it before, yes? Demon blood created the first vampires, but soon after the creatures appeared… well, into every generation a Slayer is born.

Wherever a vampire, there would always be a Slayer. Generation after generation, the battle would be fought. And lost. And lost again. But the balance would always be kept.

Dawn interrupts him with news of cyclones in eight different countries coming in. Xander questions the balance: All those vampires against one girl? Why? How is that fair?

Giles looks at him. “It’s not fair. But the greatest battles are never fair. Think of the balance.”

The temperature on Earth is rising, Dawn chimes in. Environmental disasters all happening, around the world. Andrew notices that every ocean on Earth is starting to churn. Giles continues his story:

However much Buffy and Angel might love and miss each other, what Buffy’s experiencing right now is the pull of something far more ancient, far more powerful and far more destructive than anyone in the omniverse has ever felt before.

If the universe is smart enough to create vampires and Slayers to balance each other out, then isn’t it also possible that the universe is also smart enough to have a far bigger plan for them?

Buffy and Angel are still in the throes of passion. Buffy asks Angel not to stop. He has no intention of it. They ignore everything around them, and take flight, heading straight for the night sky, still entranced in each other, in their rhythm, in their love. As they move around the world, the planet groans.

Volcanoes erupt in the Philippines. Earthquakes tear the Indian Ocean asunder. Three days ago, with Oz, Willow felt charged with powerful magic – an event she said hadn’t happened yet. Xander asks the obvious, bluntly: “So that’s the universe’s grand plan? Giving Buffy superpowers so she can have destiny sex?”

Giles berates him with a look. You’re not listening, he tells them.

These abilities she’s displaying, they’re an evolution – a protection against what’s to come. My predecessors, who took their own lives, called it the next step on the metaphysical ladder.

We need to be scared. That’s why they only whisper about it. This isn’t just the world’s reaction. It’s how the Earth gives birth to a new reality.

For thousands of years, the universe has been watching, waiting to find one Slayer, just one, who measures up to its test. Century after century, they all meet the same fate…

The more Giles speaks, the more nervous and paler Willow is becoming. She’s starting to realise the magnitude of what he’s saying. Amy can feel the world coming apart through her magic, as Dawn reports more disturbances.

“Until Buffy Summers came along and did the one thing that no Slayer, no Slayer in history – had ever done before,” Giles says to Willow. She finishes his sentence. “She shared the power.”

She didn’t just share it, Willow. With you, and the power of the Scythe, she created it. She gave this world a new breed. A new evolution. And this is the universe’s reward. The power that will let her reach the next step on the ladder – the power to survive the Twilight.

Warren speaks up, saying that that explains Buffy. What about Angel? Why’d he get lucky? Willow gets in his skinless face. “Because Angel’s the piece we were missing. Sure, Buffy shared her power, but when it comes to her place in the Slayer history books, I’m pretty sure that’s not the only thing she was the first to do.”

Buffy and Angel are no longer showing on the sensors. They’re moving too fast. Willow can feel it edging toward her, the sheer magnitude of the power being generated. Amy asks if Buffy and Angel can travel through time, as a slew of images suddenly hits Willow: she sees her getting hit by the magic in Tibet. She sees a few days from now… Buffy and… Spike? Side by side?

She recoils in horror. Xander asks immediately what she saw. “She should be staking him now. She did it once to save the world. Now the world won’t let her. It’s not just reacting, it’s urging them on.”

In the 23rd Century, Melaka Fray feels the Scythe shudder in her hands.

Willow tells them that “it’s all part of it. What’s been, what’s to come, or might not come. Think of Buffy’s truest loves. Vampires – humans infected by demons. Just like Slayers. Buffy is meant to make that connection – that’s the universe’s grand plan.”

Giles agrees. They’re the best of their kind. The first of a new kind. “We humans won’t matter at all,” he says, coldly.

Rifts begin opening all around the world. Demons come pouring through them. Magic crackles through the air itself. It’s raining demons. Faith asks Giles what he was searching for on his travels: what did Angel mean? Giles tells her that there were rumours of a totem. He tried to see if it was real, in case he had to use it to kill a God. “But look around,” he tells her. “It’s too late now. Twilight is here.”

The world shakes. It breaks, overrun, the forces of darkness pouring through dimensional barriers, battering the whole planet.

Buffy and Angel are lying in some grass, in paradise. Angel tells her that they were the key. It took the two of them, together, to open it. He reaches his arms out and smiles, the sun shining in the sky, not turning him to ash. She looks around. It really does appear to be the most beautiful place she has ever seen. Angel looks at her, love in his eyes, delight in his voice, as he takes her hand.

“Welcome to Twilight,” he says.