Quite some time ago, shortly after Los Angeles returned from Hell. A portal opens and physically spits Angel back into his home dimension. He’s on the Hollywood Hills – in fact, he’s just taken out one of the ‘O’s. He picks himself up, expecting more trouble. The lights of the city below are a twinkling mass of colours. If he listens, he can hear the bustle of Los Angeles: you see it at night, and it shines. He spends a long moment looking at the skyline, taking it in, a smile on his face. Makes it worth it. He’s disturbed by a sudden voice, coming from his… feet?

“Oh, it’s there all right.” A dog is sitting there, looking at him. And it just spoke! It continues, telling him that he needs to relax: this is his world, despite his talking. Angel doesn’t think this can be a sign of anything good, but the canine just carries on! “Are you here to tell me I have a higher purpose?” asks Angel, making a considerable effort to pick up the damaged ‘O’ and restore it to the famous sign. He also asks the dog, when he confirms his intentions, if this higher purpose involves killing?

Angel declines and declares himself out: besides, why would he listen to a dog anyway? The dog says he just looks like a dog because it was the first host body it could find. It’s above such petty concerns such as what it looks like. The dog stops, finding somewhere inappropriate to clean himself.

Angel starts to walk back to the path out of the Hills, away from the signage. He thinks he’s going crazy now. Definitely thinking of following Wesley’s old advice and seeing a shrink, like he used to beg me to. The dog stops what it’s doing and apologises – sometimes, it gets caught up in things the host wants to do! “It’s complicated,” he tells Angel, who says he doesn’t do ‘complicated.’ The dog responds that that is why he’s here: Angel is remarkably simple in his approach to things and doesn’t do complicated – that’s why he was chosen.

Angel says he’s definitely twitchy about the word ‘Chosen’.

The dog tilts his head, as if he’s confused or inquiring: “That goofy little cheerleader really spun you right round, didn’t she?” All these years later and Buffy is still the one for him. Angel warns the creature about threatening the Slayer, but the dog just sits there waiting: waiting for Angel to feel ‘it’.

“Feel what?” Angel asks, but doesn’t receive an answer, as a plane that’s flying overhead suddenly loses a wing, an almighty explosion ripping through the craft. Angel is horrified, desperate to help. The dog tells him that he’d better get started and, as Angel looks around in shock, he starts flying.

It takes him a second, but as soon as he realises what’s happening, he takes control of the situation, resigning himself to questions later. He’s curious about these sudden powers though: Let’s see what we’ve got, he thinks to himself, determination written all over his face.

He catches the plane in mid-crash. He floats gently down to the runway it was heading for and puts it down. Remarkably, no one has been injured aboard. The emergency services race to the aircraft. A woman, clearly from the plane, rushes up to Angel, throwing her arms around him and thanking him, profusely. As Angel tries to get away from the awkward social moment, he calls her ‘ma’am’ and then wonders when he started using that word. The woman says it’s since he became all ‘super’.

The dog has moved into the woman, or the entity possessing the dog has, at least. In it’s weirdly-worded way, the entity thanks him for saving the plane. As the woman walks away, ‘she’ also thanks Angel for the rest. He looks after her confused, but the entity smiles at him. “Stop acting like it’s such a trial. You have power. It’s not a trick. It’s called a reward. And believe when I say it makes ‘Shanshu’ look like a sack of crap.”

Some other place, not that long ago. A portal opens in the upper orbit of Earth’s atmosphere. A round transport craft shakes beneath him as Spike, atop his stolen transport craft, yells at what’s behind them, rapidly in pursuit. He shouts expletives after them, but then realises that Wolfram & Hart’s forces are no longer following them. He puts a call into his crew inside.

Inside the former ejection pod, one of Spike’s crew, what seems to be a large walking, English-talking cockroach, answers his call: “We’ve lost the wankers your majesty, but we may have lost much more.” Spike looks across the bulkhead of the craft – they’re getting lower, no longer straddling the airless sub-orbit of Earth, but plunging, rather quickly, to the really solid ground below! He tells his crew that they appear to have gone off course: they should not be diving towards Big Ben, and they certainly should not be crashing into old London town! On the other hand, it could be kinda funny, he thinks.

Not long afterwards, as dusk settles over London, Spike sits in a bar, cold pint on the table in front of him untouched. He has the newspaper in front of him, and he’s catching up on what’s been happening whilst he’s been dimension-hopping. “Terrorist Buffy Summers? Slayer Jihad? Harmony’s Beauty Tips!” It seems the whole world has gone mad!

And so it goes on for the next few months, both vampires with a soul on their own singular journey.

Angel travels through Los Angeles. The entity keeps possessing people everywhere he goes. It tells him about Buffy and the Slayers: “She has done something marvellous, but it will bring the world down on her. Her enemies will come from all sides unless they stand behind you.”

Spike attends a protest in Trafalgar Square. It’s protesting Slayers, asking for equal vampire rights, the Twilight symbol their calling card on flags and placards.

Angel visits a costumer. The entity possesses him as he sews leather together. “There will be bloodshed. This is inevitable. But you can take her beyond the battle, to a world without war. This is your true destiny. But she cannot be distracted by her feelings for you. Until the right time, she cannot know.”

Spike watches footage on a lap top in a hotel room. The mini bar has been emptied. He’s watching a video from a cell phone that catches the so-called ‘Twilight’ on camera.

As the entity hands Angel the Twilight mask, he puts it on. The entity tells him that ‘no one can know.’

A second after seeing the video, Spike knows that Twilight is Angel. It’s the poncy coat.

Now. Buffy and the others haven’t time to react to the drama in front of them: Spike yells for everybody to get aboard his craft – there are dragon demons hurtling down towards them from the sky. Buffy grabs one by the neck and throws it some considerable distance away, flying into the air after it..

She checks in with Angel, who’s dealing with his own demon, also floating in the air. After they throw aside the creatures, Angel stops and looks below them at Spike’s craft, getting ready to move. He doesn’t trust him. Buffy interjects: “I don’t trust you. But you have my heart. So what can I do.” It’s not framed as a question. She’s not asking Angel’s permission.

Angel still thinks it’s weird that Spike’s shown up right this second, his jealousy starting to mount. Buffy puts her hand on the side of his face softly, and smiles. “Would you rather he was here a few hours ago?” she glares, a mischievous glint in her eye. She’s not going to worry about it right now: he’s a champion and he’s died for her and her people – that’s good enough for her. Angel smiles at her in acknowledgment. She holds his hand – “This is the weirdest, bestest, weirdest, best day of my life. What you’ve done for me, I can’t describe. I can’t pronounce. You handed me perfection and you gave it up. Angel, that’s not just the love of my life, that’s the guy I would live it with.”

He smiles, but he knows she’s asking for space. So she can deal with him. With Spike. She reassures him that Spike has an agenda and he won’t tell her if Angel’s around. Before Angel can say anything, for one brief moment, he transforms into a toad! As Willow rushes past, she apologises: “Whoa. Hey, I missed. My bad.” She transforms him back. As her point proved, the others need time to calm down from him- and he can’t really blame them.

He doesn’t, but she does know one fact: the demons pouring into Earth right now, they’re the first priority, as is the fact that the Slayers will be targeted. Angel’s not so sure about that last point, but Buffy asks him why not? Everyone else has targeted them this year! She needs him to make up for what he’s done, be damage control and save as many people as he can. She will deal with Spike. Angel asks if that’s all she wants with Spike, to which she chides him: “That’s beneath you, baby.”

The dimensional pod starts to take off, the Scooby Gang safety aboard. Angel says that he’ll find her soon, and flies off. She whispers after him: You better.

Aboard the cramped craft, Dawn is not happy with the giant bugs, as Xander holds her safely in his arms. Andrew is in geek-heaven, healing up in a corner, staring at the ship in awe. Faith wants dibs on Angel, but Buffy explains he’s back-up elsewhere. Amy and Warren are making out. Willow has had Kennedy lock Twilight’s followers in a hold and under a magical seal. Spike gives orders to a cockroach, the brilliantly-named Bug One. Except he says he’s Bug Three. Spike grumbles to himself. I’m the one who suggested colour-coded jumpers…

He’s interrupted by Buffy behind him. She grabs his arm and starts talking really quickly, mainly so she can prevent Spike from interrupting. Not that it works well. “One, thanks for saving us from the UberVamps, that was crazy studly. And sorry I haven’t been in touch, but as you can see, I’m somehow leading an army. Two, what do you know, how can you help and make sure you do it with no jokes.” No snark, no British slang that means something she doesn’t understand because she’s American… Just tell her.

Spike stares at her for a second and then bluntly begins his own countdown. “One, under all that demon viscera you still reek of him, but it can’t be Buffy if she doesn’t bonk the bag guy.” Snark, Buffy reminds him! “Two, you can, under no circumstances, trust him.” She knows what he’s saying, but she hasn’t got time for macho crap. Spike asks if she’s been to any higher dimensions lately.

She stops. “Yeah, I know what this was all about. Took me a while – and a lot of favours – to piece it together, but I know a few things well worth remembering.”

He looks at her, seriousness on his face. “You ascended. You opened a gateway to a new reality – scratch that, you created a new reality – and then you abandoned it.” She ditched a universe at birth. She thinks she has trouble now? he chuckles. “You better pray that higher reality doesn’t come looking for mummy.” She stops him. Now. She wants to know about what everyone was looking for – the totem Giles thought could stop all this. Spike smiles.

“We’re digging up the Seed of Wonder.”

He grabs a hold of his communication devices, addressing every one onboard. “This is your captain speaking. We are currently on course to the heart of all magic on earth, and sorry, tree-fans, it’s not Stonehenge.”

The Scooby Gang listen intently as the vampire continues, bigging up their destination. “There was, one time, a house of worship, swallowed up by the Earth. Over which they built a city, also swallowed by the Earth. We’re headed for the heart, my friends. And where the heart is, my friends, is home.”