Severin’s eyes glow that sick greeny-colour as he charges up the magic he’s just stolen from the tree-witch – who’s still hanging limp and lifeless in his hands.

“Drop the demon, Sev.” Buffy Summers commands the bad guy to simply do as she says. She’s not intending to ask twice. The Old One next to her, the one known as Illyria, with the blue hair, tells him that he isn’t worthy of the power he’s stolen, but Severin laughs in her face.

“Really? Did ‘the Council’ take a vote on that?” he sneers, mocking the very idea, and fires a magical blast of energy towards them, with Buffy informing him that her sword is going to answer for her.

But Severin has amassed more power than she thought, and she’s taken completely unawares as he fires a huge magical blast at the trio, with Illyria and Buffy swinging to one side, as Eldre Koh leaps clear. There’s a deafening boom that fills the property, rattling the walls, shattering the windows and, Buffy is convinced, might’ve taken the roof off.

“I expected more from the Old One,” Severin tuts, disappointed. His hands charge up even more. “Oh, well. Time to make way for something new.”

Far away from the battle with the Siphon, in a San Francisco ER, Dawn Summers is hooked up to a machine that monitors her vitals. The sound is driving Xander Harris crazy the longer it goes on. The doctor is discussing her condition, but Xander is only half concentrating, he’s so concerned. “Tox screen and blood panel came back negative. No sign of bacterial or viral infection.”

Xander thinks before he speaks up, scared of the possibility of what he’s saying. “What about an aneurysm? Could something have happened inside her head? Because her mom had…”

The doctor’s look is enough to quiet him. “There’d be signs of haemorrhaging if it were,” he assures Xander. He wishes he had better news for him, but for some reason they cannot explain, Dawn’s body is shutting down.

Xander loses his temper, arguing with the doctor. “How do we treat that? With a pill? A shot? An operation you can’t explain?” The doctor shakes his head. They’re investigating, and they won’t rest until they know what the problem is and how to treat it. He gives Xander his word, whether he believes him or not. The doctor leaves the room, giving Xander some space. He moves towards the bed and takes a seat next to Dawn, holding her hand in his.

“Last night you asked me if I ever felt guilty about walking away from Buffy. The answer was no, because I’ve always told myself that walking away meant you’d be okay.”

He looks at her unresponsive form, comatose on the bed, those damn machines making that persistent beep. Then he loses his temper.

“So why aren’t you okay?” he shouts, louder than he was expecting. He backs away from the loudness of his own voice.

“You’re supposed to be okay.”

“I need to make you okay.”

With resolution, he gets up and moves to a window, his cell phone already dialling a number. There’s an answer on the other end.

“Meet me at the hospital. It’s Dawn.”

Elsewhere, Buffy and Koh are unconscious on the ground, strewn about with rock and pieces of what’s left of the property. Severin is glowing, brighter than ever before, his hands hidden from view by the sheer glare. “Finally,” he says, standing over Illyria, who’s unconscious after smacking her head on the furthest wall. Buffy comes around, finds herself half-buried in rubble, and whispers Illyria’s name as she sees Severin moving towards her.

Severin touches Illyria’s forehead, his hands crackling. He holds his hand inches from her head, and her hair colour starts to fade from the bright blue to a dull brown. He hasn’t even touched her yet! As he goes to, Illyria musters what little strength she has, her hair slowly gaining more blue. “You will not take my power.” He continues to reach for her face, but she persists in holding him in place. A portal starts to open at her beckoning and, surprising Severin in mid charge, she disappears, taking herself out of time and space to escape his siphoning grasp.

Severin is enraged, looking around for any possible sign of the Old One, but he only finds Buffy, rising, determined and undeterred by the pain she’s feeling. “Why can’t you keep your pointy little stake out of this? HER POWER IS MINE!”

Buffy stares at him, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, she lets Eldre Koh, himself recovered, plough into Sev, knocking him over and off balance.

“Sorry Sev,” Buffy quips “But blue’s just not your colour!”

The villain gets up and threatens them again. He’ll drain them both dry, like he should have the first time they met. Buffy grins. She tells him that he has never faced her. The last time they ‘fought’ she was a BuffyBot. Now, she’s all Slayer.

But as she goes towards Severin, it makes no difference. Another powerful blast emerges from him as he swings his arms around and it blasts Buffy and Koh backwards from him again. He grabs Buffy’s throat in the confusion, demanding the location of Illyria.

“Tell me where she Houdinied herself to, and I can undo all of this!”

Buffy looks at him, struggling to breathe with his hand around her neck. “Undo what?” she sputters out.

“You think this is all about power?” he asks her. “You think I’m charging up because I want to put on a light show? I just want to save her!”

“Her? This is about the girl you killed,” Buffy chokes out. Severin has his teeth clenched in anticipation. “Her name was…” but he’s stopped by a blow from behind, from Eldre Koh. “A warrior never lets his guard down,” the Nitobe warrior states, and Buffy tells him they had better move – by the look of Severin and the way he’s glowing, he’s about to blow.

A portal appears around them, and before they can blink, Buffy and Koh are suddenly outside, a mile away from the apartment, watching it from the hillside as it catches fire. Multiple explosions can be heard in the air as Buffy and Koh are dropped down onto the ground by Illyria’s portal. Buffy gets up off the ground and looks at the Old One. “You really need to work on your landings.”

They look over at the building, smoke billowing into the sky now. Buffy asks Illyria if she’s okay, and the God tells her that “The Siphon barely tasted my power,” very matter-of-factly. Koh says that he personally only slowed the Siphon down.

It doesn’t matter though, Buffy says. They need to get back to the Council. She knows what Severin is up to.

In the depot where Buffy disappeared, Billy Lane is clicking the record button on his phone as he enters the dark space. He’s not sure what he’s looking for, but he knows he’ll recognise it when he sees it.

“The Mystery of the Disappearing Slayer, volume one. The police have finished their investigation, leaving the real detective work to me. Leaving little evidence behind, Buffy vanished into thin air. And besides Detective Dowling, who is still unconscious, there are no witnesses who didn’t go up in a cloud of dust.” He looks around the room. He finds it. A video camera in the far corner, trained on the spot Buffy was standing. “Find something?”

His joy is unnerved by a voice behind him. It’s Buffy’s roommate Anaheed. When Billy asks why she’s followed him, she says she was concerned and wants to help him find Buffy. Billy points out that the pretty yellow tape is usually put across crime scenes for a reason and that Anaheed shouldn’t be here without…

“Slayer powers?” she grins. “I saw what happened to Dowling on the morning news. You’re lucky you got out of this nest alive. You shouldn’t be back here.” Billy understands her concerns, but tells her that he needs to figure out what happened. He tells her to go home, angrier than he should. He accuses her of going through Buffy’s stuff. He gets it: she wants to jump onto the bandwagon, become a Slayer, save the world, but no matter how hard she tries, she’ll never get it – she’ll never understand the power, her mentor will vanish and a cop will die and she’ll be at fault – because she’s not a Slayer.

He looks down at the floor, obviously aware he’s just described himself. “And neither am I,” he declares, sadly. He recovers by telling her that he can clean up his mess, but isn’t willing to risk Anaheed in the process. She gets it, tells him she understands, and leaves Billy to his ‘detective work.’ He feels stupid as she leaves.

At the observatory, once again gathered together, Illyria stares at Buffy and the rest of the Council in shock.

“Me?”

Buffy nods. “Yes. Severin is targeting you. He used the Council to draw you out. If he wanted a magical snack, he could have dined on me or Koh without worrying about your abilities. But Severin went straight for the main course: you.”

“Because I am more powerful than both of you combined.”

Buffy shakes her head. “That’s not it. Severin thinks he’ll be able to travel back in time if he steals Illyria’s powers,” she tells D’Hoffryn. It’s the obvious conclusion. The Council question whether such a thing is even possible, but Buffy doesn’t know or care –  Severin thinks he can, and that’s the threat.

She explains that the year before, Severin and his girlfriend had tried to get themselves turned into vampires, but his girl woke up a zompire. Severin’s siphon powers activated, unknown to him and killed her. He blames Buffy for her death.

“He just wants to save his girlfriend.”

One of their number asks Illyria if Severin could use her powers in such a manner. Illyria turns to address all those assembled.

“Even my ability to control space and time has limits. Travelling through time to undo past events requires vast sums of energy.”

“Which Severin’s been collecting like baseball cards,” Buffy adds.

The reality of the situation sinks in: Severin could destroy everything that exists if he carries on, destroying the timeline and causing the worst damage possible. Not just the end of the world, but the end of time itself. He must be stopped. The Council is united in this.

Koh offers that if the Siphon is fighting for love, then he will be unable to listen to their reasoning. Buffy doesn’t care about the love, but finds it odd that that’s where Koh’s feelings have gone.

“Sorry. I wasn’t expecting a gooey centre behind the outer demon shell,” she says, only half-sorry. “The Nitobe are more complicated than you give us credit for.”

Buffy nevertheless agrees with him and warns that they will need to be ready: Severin will come for Illyria again.

As she finishes speaking, a sound from behind her grabs her attention: a portal is shimmering open, crackling with Severin’s familiar-looking green glow. “I was hoping we’d have more time than that.” Buffy says, frowning. As the Council start panicking, exclaiming that he must have followed Buffy, D’Hoffryn gives the Slayer a look. “He will rip power from those of us who still have it,” he warns and she nods. But Illyria is the one who moves forward, ahead of the group.

“No. The Siphon wants me. And that is what we will give him.”

In San Francisco, Dawn is still in the hospital ward, hooked up.

“What happened to her?”

Andrew Wells has rushed to his friend’s side, asking Xander what caused the illness. Xander, eagerly watching, stays silent as he watches Andrew study Dawn, his thoughts racing as he uses his encyclopaedic knowledge of demons aloud, like a database.

“The Qu’Shal Spear. The Discs of Nalem. The Darento Crystals. They’re all telling me the same thing.”

He looks at Xander, who’s awaiting an answer. “I can’t diagnose her,” Andrew sighs. “I don’t know what I’m doing with this. Where’s Buffy?”

“She’s MIA. And ‘I don’t know’ isn’t good enough, Wells.” Xander’s temper is starting to rise again. “That’s exactly what Doctor-Do-Very-Little said. But you’re the master of demonic arts…”

“Something mystical is going on, but if I don’t have magic,” Andrew sighs again. “or maybe Hugh Laurie, at my disposal…” He turns to look at Xander. “Not even the strongest talisman can help me figure out what’s happening to Dawn.” He’s unhooking Dawn from the monitors as he speaks.

Xander hadn’t noticed, but as the merciless machine beeping stops, he asks Andrew what he’s doing.

“Getting her out of here.”

Xander looks at him incredulously and then, after a thought, races to Andrew’s side where he’s pulling sockets and cables loose. “Her body is failing. We need to get her into a new one, stat.”

“What does that mean?”

“Right away. It’s Latin.”

He then sees the look of confusion on Xander’s face. “Oh. Buffy didn’t tell you about our BuffyBot Adventure Hour?”

Xander shakes his head. “No! I mean, yes, but you’re not putting Dawn’s brain in a BuffyBot!”

Andrew says that that’s the only thing he can think of, to save her, but Xander, even though he agrees, doesn’t know how they’re going to get out of the hospital.

A few minutes later, Xander and Andrew are disguised as hospital workers, pushing Dawn’s bed from her room. As the receptionist looks at them, Andrew tells her to stay away as the patient has Tarellian plague! As they race into the open elevator, Xander asks what they do next, but Andrew shrugs. He’s not sure. This is the part when Kirk and Spock got transported out, back to the Klingon Bird of Prey.

As they successfully get outside, Xander asks himself why he’s even listening to Andrew, but as they clear the ambulance bay, Andrew tells him to run. As they move, Andrew looks at his friend.

“And Xander, I know I don’t have the best track record when it comes to heroics, but I promise I won’t mess this up.”

In the warehouse depot, Billy has finally found the moment when Buffy disappeared on the CCTV system. Replaying the footage, he sees Buffy disappear, surprising even the zompire she was next do. “So UberZomp, plus Buffy, plus vanishing act equals one big ‘I don’t know.’”

A shadow at the window gets his attention: he’s been there in the depot too long, and now the light has gone dim enough: the zompires have returned! As Billy spies two at the window through the glass, he races up to board up the door, but it’s already rattling when he gets to it, the demons struggling to get in. “You had to be a Slayer,” he curses to himself as the door is opened and zompires rush into the small space, carrying Billy along with them.

He manages to stake one, maybe two, but inevitably he trips, head over foot, and falls to the ground, disarmed and surrounded. As he once again faces death by bite, he is saved at the last minute by the vampires exploding into dust. Above him, having saved his life, is Anaheed, a stake in each hand and a big smile on her face.

“You were wrong,” she says to Billy on the floor, helping him to his feet. “I am a Slayer.”

As she grabs Billy and races towards the door with him in one arm, he asks her how, but Anaheed shoves him to one side and suggests they finish the explanations after she’s done. Right now, she tells him to grab a stake and get dusting, and, as the zompires enter the room, they begin to fight back.

At the observatory, several of the Council members are using their limited amounts of magic to seal the portal, but are only just managing to keep Severin on the other side. Illyria declares herself ready, but Buffy tells her that she doesn’t have to be bait. Illyria says she must face the Siphon at some point.

“And I can distract him long enough for you and Eldre Koh to do what we have brought you here to do.”

There’s actual emotion in her words this time, Buffy notes. “Slay him.”

The plan is reaffirmed: when he tries to take Illyria’s energies, that is when they will strike. As soon as Severin puts his hands on Illyria, she is to teleport them to her side and slay him before he can drain the Old One’s power. As a portal opens around her, Illyria turns to Buffy before entering.

“I do not fear losing my power. I have faced that before. What it’s like to feel small and insignificant. To experience pain and loss. I can handle it, but the Siphon cannot handle the power inside me.”

As she finishes her sentence, she is gone, behind Severin, attacking him instantly. She orders him: if he wants her power, he should come to her and claim it! He has no idea what it will do to him.

Coming close to her, quicker than she was expecting, Severin cackles. “Since you’re offering…” and grabs Illyria by her wrist. It’s enough to start the process, with Illyria’s hair quickly losing it’s vibrant shade once again. “You should never have come here alone,” Severin tells Illyria, grabbing her by her hair and bringing her closer to his snarling face.

As Buffy and Koh take positions to go through the process and appear at Illyria’s side, the Old One takes pleasure in telling Severin that she’s not alone.

Buffy and Koh instantly materialise. In the wrong place.

“Nice try,” Severin says, as he closes his hands around Illyria’s head. “But you’re friends aren’t coming.”

As he makes contact, Illyria the Merciless, the most powerful creature of the known dimensions, screams in untold agony.