The plains of the dimension of Anharra. The makeshift buildings Xander Harris has helped the local demons build are a bluster of activity. Cheering and a raucous din come from one, in which most of the locals have gathered.

Using their seemingly natural abilities to tune into Earth — and coerce humans into doing bad things — they’ve managed to pick up cable TV. They’re praising their favourite human on their makeshift screen.

One, blushing, turns to Xander, says he hopes that King Joffrey will have his happy ever after with his true love. Xander refuses to spoil events.

Dawn smiles at him. Using his knowledge and the demons’ abilities — they seem happy. Xander nods. He thought he’d have piracy issues, but, surprisingly, he says, there are no cable companies in Hell.

He also notices that while the demons are happy, she is decidedly not. Dawn sighs. “You’ve done so much to make me happy here. And so have the demons. They literally worship me! But I miss home. I miss Buffy, Willow and school.”

She looks at the portals that only she can see. “I know Willow said to stay here until they come for us. But I can see all these portals, just floating there. I’m the Key. Opening dimensional doors is what I do. How hard can it be to find the way home?”

Xander puts his hand on her shoulder, gently. “According to Willow, very. She said we could get hopelessly lost. You’re the Key, not the map. We’d have no idea where we’re going.”

“Then it’s a good thing I do.”

They’re both surprised by a human voice, a female one. It belongs to a woman with light brown hair. She’s wearing a suit and has a mobile phone in her hand. She’s smiling at them. A lot.

Xander can’t help but notice the scar around her neck. “Who the Hell are you, lady?”

“My name is Lilah Morgan. I’m from Earth, like you two. And it’s come to my attention you want nothing more than to go back there. Well, great news. My employers at Wolfram & Hart want nothing more than to show you the way home…” She glares at them, an untrustworthy smile on her face. “…If we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

Dawn instantly raises her hand. “No. Hell no.”

Lilah shrugs. She’s sure they’ve noticed that along with foul‑tasting food, acid rain and a generally high misery index, this dimension isn’t the loveliest place. She tells them she’ll be in her office — heading for the cave — commenting that at least it has air‑conditioning. She tells Xander and Dawn to think about her offer.

“But don’t take too long. Because I can’t abide being here for more than a few days and I assume you want to see your sister again. With the life expectancy of a Slayer, you never know how short a window you have, do you?”

Dawn glares after Lilah as she leaves.

In their apartment in San Francisco, with D’Hoffryn gone with the book, the remaining Scooby Gang is warring.

Voices are raised. Anger is vented. No one comes to blows. All talk over each other.

“How could you let this happen?”

“Us? Buffy, nobody ‘let’ D’Hoffryn take the book! He overpowered us!”

“With abilities we all agreed to give the Magic Council members! We had no way of knowing their bylaws ensured those powers would pass to D’Hoffryn if he killed the others!”

Buffy cannot restrain her anger at Giles and Willow. “You should’ve known!”

Spike, rather quietly, reminds her that they all agreed on everything, but Buffy breathes out, closes her eyes and shouts again.

“Because our magic experts said it was okay! And now, D’Hoffryn has the book and, as soon as he unravels Willow’s protective spells, he can make whatever rules of magic he wants!”

Willow narrows her eyes, her tone harsh. “Y’know, the only reason we got to the point where we had to consider giving the Council more powers in the first place is because you were so afraid to take responsibility for using the book yourself. Every single time, you wanted someone else to tell you what to do.”

Buffy points back at Willow and Giles. “You did not just put this on me. Not when you two were too caught up in your own drama to do your jobs!” Spike stands to one side, shaking his head. This is so not helping.

Giles speaks up. “You claimed responsibility for the book!” he shouts at Buffy. “And then found every excuse imaginable not to use it!”

Buffy fires back that the unpredictability of the book is what stopped her! Giles himself even drummed it into her — to the point where she was sick of hearing about it!

“Yes, and that called for caution. You used it as an excuse. Yet another in a lifetime of reasons not to grow up.”

Giles’s words hang in the air and Buffy breaks away from him, her face sullen, looking at the carpet.

Spike breaks the silence, getting in between the warring friends. If they fight amongst themselves, they don’t stand a chance. It will take D’Hoffryn time — they need to use it.

Giles agrees. He will speak to the Faerie Folk. Considering D’Hoffryn just murdered their Queen, he figures they’ll help. Willow agrees to talk to Lake and see what the military can help with.

Spike smiles. He and Buffy will pay a visit to the players around town. He’ll even give Andrew a call.

Buffy smiles a wry smile. She doesn’t know what use Andrew’s limited tech can be. They need more than banana‑shaped walkie‑talkies this time.

“It all looks pretty useless right now,” she says under her breath, as she grips her Scythe and leaves the room.

In Anharra, the demons have surrounded Dawn and Xander. They are leaving this dimension to try and go home. They are not taking Lilah’s advice, not trusting the lawyer, and she makes little digs at Dawn and Xander as they say their goodbyes.

“Wandering into strange dimensions with no clue where you’re going. I suppose that’s a choice. Not a good one, but still. You do realise the kid won’t have her full Key powers in every dimension, right?”

Dawn is not subtle with her dislike of the lawyer, scowling intently. Bub and Rancidus are escorting them. Bub snarls at Lilah, telling her to leave her persuasions. They will not change their minds.

“What he said. We’ll take our chances,” Xander interrupts. “But, hey, thanks for making us realise we can’t expect Buffy, or you, or anyone, to give us what we need. We have to get it ourselves. And we’re gonna.” He has a makeshift helmet on his head, with horns, improvised body armour covering his torso.

As Dawn, crossbow in hand, opens the portal, the quartet slide in with no hesitation. As they leave and the portal closes, the other demons return to their dwellings.

Lilah dials a number on her phone.

“So not the ideal outcome, but that was a long shot. The good news is, I pushed them into starting the quest. If anyone can find a way back, it’s the Key… Of course I’m tracking them. I slipped a homing bug into the girl’s quiver… We’ll know every move they make. They do the work, we benefit… And if they die, or we lose them, we sell their last known location to the Slayer… See? All I do is win… Yes… Well… Now, get me out of this Hellhole. It’s making my hair go frizzy.”

At a Naval Base in San Diego, Willow is walking behind Lake, who has put plans into operation. Willow disagrees with her strategy: she’s rushing into an attack against D’Hoffryn.

Lake tells her they have a shot. They need to take it. He’s too unstoppable with the book in his hands.

Willow raises her voice again. “He just raised an island in the middle of the Pacific that didn’t exist before! We’ll only get one chance. We have to be smart.”

Lake looks at a screen, showing D’Hoffryn’s recently raised island. She picks up a red telephone and looks at Willow as a number dials. “I’m sorry. The decision’s been made at the highest level. Naval Base San Diego to USS Nevada… We are go for launch. Stand by for code.”

And then, seconds later, the missiles have left their silos and are racing through the sky. But as they leave the submarine, an almighty explosion rocks the screen and Lake loses all contact with the Nevada.

Soldiers and technicians run around, trying to find information. Lake calls out for more communication. Willow is stunned. “Oh my Goddess,” she whispers, a tear in her eyes.

As one technician asks if it was a malfunction, D’Hoffryn’s image appears on every monitor in the room.

“Greetings,” he begins, his horned features exposed bigger than life on the huge screens. “I trust what just happened will convince you of the futility of any further attacks upon me. I caused your missiles to detonate upon launch. It would have been just as easy to redirect them to you, or any city in the world. I’m not angry at you. I expected that a demonstration would be required. However, if you interfere with me again, I will be angry. And I will seek Vengeance. Good day to you all.”

Then static fills the screen, dead air the only sound. Lake asks how he could do these things. Willow points out that he must be using the stolen power given to him by the book, but one of the technicians pulls her up on her words.

“We were trying to empower the Magic Council to fight demon incursions. You were working with them too, then.” Willow is approached by security, who need to know everything she does. They also suggest Lake stand down, considering their relationship.

Willow agrees to help, but then has a thought. She turns to Lake and shouts loudly. “There’s one way he could do just about anything! A vengeance demon can alter reality to grant the wish of a revenge‑seeking human. He’s got someone who wants revenge! On us, on the United States, on the world. We just need to find out who!”

At a dinosaur‑focused theme park, late at night when it’s closed, somewhere in San Francisco, Andrew Wells sneaks through, looking for the person who called him. As he heads for the biggest and tallest display — the tyrannosaurus — he finds who he expected on a bench: Jonathan Levinson.

Andrew is happy to see his friend again, especially healthy. Jonathan shrugs off his concern. He’s been made better than ever — and is still angry with his old friend. “Less decayed than you thought, eh, since you made sure the demon who animated my new body got killed?”

“I had no choice,” Andrew tells him. He had to save Buffy and his friends. But now he can help Jonathan. “I’ve got a robot body all set up to keep your consciousness in until…”

Jonathan raises his hands and scoffs. “It’s cool. No need for that. I found someone who stopped this body from rotting. Even better, he can stop it forever! Make me immortal.”

He steps aside. Andrew is stunned to find D’Hoffryn behind him. Jonathan smiles. “D’Hoffryn’s getting me my revenge. On you and all those other jerks who screwed me over. And then he’s going to make me the first male Vengeance Demon.”

“Highly unorthodox,” D’Hoffryn admits. “But it is a new age of magic, you see. And so many rules have yet to be written.”

Andrew tries to back away from the pair, but Jonathan blocks his way and backs him against a wall. “Hold on. There’s something I have to do before I can become a Vengeance demon. Prove I can handle revenging myself on my ex‑best friend. Personally.” He stares at Andrew and, for the first time Andrew can ever remember, his old friend scares him.

“Go ahead. Kill me. I deserve it.”

But Jonathan’s not going to kill him. He’s going to prove a point. He brings images alive in the air with a whirl of his hands. Spike and Willow can be seen in front of them, a conversation from the past.

“Andrew means well, but I don’t really trust him.”

“If I was a Big Bad looking for a weak‑willed idiot to control, look no further.”

“I don’t see what use Andrew’s going to be.”

Andrew hears the words and knows there’s truth in them. He backs away, telling himself and Jonathan that he’s given them reason not to trust him.

Jonathan smiles. “Sure. So let’s check in with people who don’t. Like Clive, the handsome Bowie‑esque guy whose life you saved. Bet you didn’t know he hung out with one of your many online dates recently. I wonder what they talked about?”

His smile grows smug and the images in front of them change. Now Clive, Andrew’s recent boyfriend, can be seen telling another friend that Andrew was too much work for him because he just didn’t seem to get ‘real life’.

Andrew is horrified and steps back. He insists that Jonathan is creating an illusion, but Jonathan tells him that he knows he’s not. That is really what his so‑called friends think of him. “Everything they said about you is true.”

Andrew sinks to the ground, his head in his hands. Jonathan watches as he goes down, smiling at D’Hoffryn. “I think we’re done here,” he says. D’Hoffryn smiles at him. “Masterfully executed, Mr Levinson. A very promising start. As I always told my vengeance demons — never go for the kill when you can go for the pain.”

Jonathan clenches his fist. “So you’re not going to kill the Slayer and her gang of idiots?”

“Not unless they force my hand. But if they continue to interfere after I warned them not to, I might have no other choice. Then again, with that group, just killing the right ones can be most effective of all.”

He grins an evil grin. “And then, you have the delight of watching the agonies of the survivors.” He teleports both himself and Jonathan away into thin air, leaving Andrew sobbing amongst the dinosaurs in the dark.

In the Faerie Land, Giles is incredulous: the Fae folk refuse to help them. They are healing by nature, not violent. They mourn their former Queen, but their welfare must come first. It is not worth the risk to attack the Vengeance Lord.

Giles yells that they are making excuses, avoiding the conflict, but Sundrop, his recent love, agrees. Of course they’re running away from their problems. After all, isn’t that why he first came to them?

Elsewhere, an entire dimension away, Buffy is meeting with Archduchess Venobia in her headquarters. A very old and ancient leader, Venobia is not amused that the Vampire Slayer and her ensouled pet are attacking her lair and killing her slaves. “I want them to suffer for daring to violate my chambers!”

Buffy swings her Scythe. “Wrong,” she says. “The designated sufferer today is you.” She punches the Archduchess across the face and demands she tell her what she knows about D’Hoffryn. Buffy wants to know how to hurt him.

Denying it at first, Venobia has no interest in their threats or warnings, until Buffy punches her again. Spike grabs Buffy’s arm — “Slayer, she’s had enough.”

Buffy yells back at him that it’s not. “She’s lying. She’s a member of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the First of the Fallen, the Brotherhood of Ultimate Perversion. If anyone knows how to stop D’Hoffryn, it’s her!”

Spike tells her that they’ve tried every demon clan and organisation they can find. Nobody knows anything. Maybe it’s time she realised that the demons are not lying. Besides, he’s also aware that she’s trying to make herself feel better after their battle with D’Hoffryn and the subsequent argument with her friends.

Buffy turns at him and snaps. She has been trying to fix everything and all Spike has been doing is telling her how she’s messing up!

Spike feels like he’s being attacked. He tells her that he is not her enemy here. “I’m trying to come up with actual solutions here!”

Buffy’s response is laced with sarcasm. “Really? Because I haven’t heard one yet. All I’ve heard is that this won’t work and that won’t work and we should curl up into a ball and cry. Maybe we should call Angel again. He’s not the type to give up when things get tough.”

Spike looks straight at her. He doesn’t speak. He just walks away.

Buffy tries calling after him. Venobia tells her to continue the argument. She offers the Slayer bonus points if she can get the vampire to take off his shirt.

Buffy rolls her eyes and kicks Venobia in her head. She turns to the slave leashed to her side. She congratulates him on his freedom as she walks out of the room.

Later, at Spike’s apartment, Buffy enters through the front door. She finds Spike finishing a beer, one of the cats looking at him on the counter, quizzically. The first thing Buffy does is apologise.

“I went to the bad place. But this whole situation, it’s like we’re all falling apart. Willow’s gone GI Joe, Giles is cavorting with woodland sprites and I left my sister and one of my best friends in a Hell dimension.”

And she can’t spend just two minutes trying to solve that problem, because they gave powers to a soulless vengeance demon.

“Just saying the words out loud makes it clear how insane that was.”

Spike says he would like to help, but he seems to be making things worse.

Buffy shakes her head. “It’s not… I mean, yeah, sometimes it’s you, but… I wish there was a Big Bad, someone like the Master, who I could just kill, and problems would be solved. But even killing D’Hoffryn wouldn’t fix all this.”

“Ain’t how life works, is it?” Spike asks, without looking at her. “Killing the monster, completing the heroic quest, fulfilling the prophecy. It’s no wonder children like those sorts of stories.”

Buffy looks at him, more anger in her voice. “Oh, like your life’s been a model of dealing with things in an adult way.”

She regrets saying it as soon as the words leave her mouth. She looks down, and closes her eyes. She starts to explain herself, but Spike interrupts her.

“Slayer… I’ve been thinking. All that’s going on… The way it’s hitting us… The way we’re reacting.”

He still doesn’t look at her. He can’t bring himself to. He can’t believe what he says next.

Buffy has tears in her eyes as he says it, almost feeling the words before she hears them.

“Maybe it’s time we took a break.”