The sewer stinks. Absolutely reeks to high heaven. Spike mumbles something as Buffy’s head hits the roof of the tunnel, the demon’s worm‑like maw, filled with teeth, snapping at her as it coils around her.

“Think I’ve found our sewer killer!” the vampire screams again, this time slightly louder. “Wow, move over Sherlock Holmes,” Buffy tells him as she struggles to free herself.

Spike doesn’t appreciate her sarcasm, chomping into the demon with his teeth.

He recoils when he finds slime in his mouth instead of blood. Buffy also has difficulty getting through its hide with the Scythe. And she’s being pulled closer to that mouth.

Spike yells in her direction, but she has it covered. She slams the pointy end of the Scythe into its apparent mouth and it howls in pain.

“Knew you had a brain in there somewhere,” she quips, releasing herself as the demon dies, and sliding free.

Spike looks at the carcass and smiles. “That was bloody insane, that was. If you hadn’t timed it perfectly…”

Buffy interrupts him with a nudge and a giddiness to her stance. “But I did. I do everything perfectly.” She sings the words. Spike pulls her closer. “I’ll need to investigate that for myself…” he grins.

Before they can kiss, they’re interrupted by Detective Robert Dowling of the Supernatural Division, part of the SFPD. He’s accompanied by various officers, all waving torches and taking photos. The moment is ruined.

Dowling makes a quip about how they can find their surroundings romantic. Buffy responds by telling him he’s late. It turns out they saw an alligator which turned out to be a trash bag.

When he asks after the demon and its species, Spike shakes his head, stumped. Maybe Giles will have better luck. Dowling appreciates their help: his department doesn’t like loose ends.

Buffy smiles. “Not sure what you’re complaining about. We’ve got the city locked down pretty tight.”

“Too right,” Spike agrees. “Drove the baddies underground. Literally.”

Dowling smiles. He agrees. The brass would hire Buffy on the spot. Buffy would rather the consulting she’s doing now. But it’s nice to be wanted.

Dowling asks Spike about their relationship as soon as Buffy is out of earshot, but Spike doesn’t want to go into too much detail. “Things are aces now. Equal, like.” He looks at the officer with a sigh. “Odd thing to say for an immortal… but I feel like I’ve grown, you know?”

Later, at Buffy’s apartment, Willow is deep in tutoring. She has a circle of wiccans around her, all listening intently to every word she says.

“I’m not here to tell you what to believe. ‘Wicca’ means different things to different people. Sure, there are basic tenets and deeply held traditions, but it’s not about a set of rules you need to follow or words you have to say.”

She has her hands in front of her, sat on the carpet, her hands glowing gently. “It’s about rediscovering our place in the natural world and the supernatural world. Re‑creating the bonds with Earth and with each other that have been strained by patriarchy and industrialisation.”

The glow from her hands flows into an orb of light, which she holds up to the group. It sparkles, enough to make her dark room shine. “If you’re just here to learn how to do this, you’re in the wrong place. Although I have meetings for that too. We’ll cover spell casting. But it’s not the point here. Here, our focus is on oneness, happiness. Fulfilment. And the many ways to find it.”

The light fades and the group fall silent, full of smiles and awe. Willow continues to go over her methods as Buffy and Spike enter the apartment, a swift wave not even interrupting Willow’s flow. As she fields questions from her group, the couple continue up the stairs, specifically the roof.

When they get there, Xander is at the grill. Dawn offers them salad which Giles says may qualify as a supernatural crime. Spike chuckles at his comment, avoids the salad and races to Giles’s side, his coat covering him, showing the teenager a picture of the sewer demon. “Fascinating. Clearly of the genus Vermis mysteriis, but I should be able to narrow it down further.”

Buffy is talking to Dawn. She’s had really good grades and her relationship with Xander is going well. She asks Buffy about Spike, but she nods back. “All good there.” But Dawn presses on — there’s something her sister isn’t saying.

And then Buffy looks away. “It’s me.” Dawn looks at her, confused.

“You’re getting your degree. You and Xander are back on track. Giles is getting more comfortable stuck as a sixteen‑year‑old, now that he’s hanging out with supernatural folks who don’t age like humans. Willow’s practically a guru, all centred and fulfilled… and I saw her making eyes at one of her coven. Andrew’s out and proud. And… I’m fighting monsters. Like I have since I was fifteen.”

Dawn chuckles. “Listen Miss Half‑Empty, you have done so much more than that. Look at all the things you did no Slayer’s ever done before! You shared your power with thousands of other women! You fell in love with a vampire! Two of them. You ran the Magic Council. You are one of the strongest, awesomest, specialist people in the world.”

She hugs Buffy.

“I’m pretty sure two of those aren’t actual words,” the Slayer laughs. “But, you might have a point. For a girl who wasn’t supposed to last much longer than a pack of Pop‑Tarts, I’ve got it pretty good, don’t I?”

She looks over at the others, even Spike huddled under his coat — they’re all smiling. Dawn tells her she’s just restless. She should enjoy the quiet while it lasts, because, as they know, it never does.

Suddenly, a loud crash comes from above them.

Xander races for cover as the sky darkens. A huge storm cloud has suddenly — and unnaturally — appeared directly over the city of San Francisco, seemingly blown over the Bay. Xander insists the forecasts were clear.

“I checked the forecast. It said ‘clear.’ Why does the Internet hate me?”

“Yes, the weather has a personal vendetta against Xander Harris,” Giles adds sarcastically, getting up off his seat, looking tense. Willow comes to the roof exit at that moment. “Something weird is going on.”

She walks onto the roof, letting the rain pelt her. Lightning streaks across the skies and Willow’s hands glow, her energies reaching out, studying the air and the pressure around her. “The storm… it doesn’t feel right. I’m going to cast a magnification spell…”

Her hands glow brighter and form a circular window of light in front of her. Buffy peers into the gap in the air, trying to see what Willow can. “Is that…?”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. She forgets the word she’s looking for. They all do. They simply stare out across the Bay, into the skies above the Golden Gate Bridge.

A massive dragon unfurls itself through the clouds, its sudden presence interfering with the natural flow of the waters below, capsizing boats and causing high waves against the coast.

Buffy straightens up, orders Willow and Giles to stop the dragon. She yells everyone else inside.

Willow and Giles move as professionals, not even speaking to each other as they raise a magical field around the edge of San Francisco in an attempt to stop the dragon from encroaching on the land.

The dragon crashes through the field like it’s not even there.

Giles yells out in frustration. Willow is nervous. “The dragon is going to land! Right in the city!” she screams over the noise, as the sea breaches the coast, rolling through the city streets of downtown San Francisco, taking buildings and everything in its path down. A tsunami of epic proportions.

Buffy yells at Spike to get a weapon, anything she can use. She tells him she’s going to fight the damn dragon. She takes a running jump from the building and soars through the air towards the dragon, anger on her face.

As she lands, she impales her Scythe into the creature’s nose and pulls herself onto its snout. There she looks straight into its yellow and green eyes and immediately regrets her decision.

The dragon responds by throwing Buffy, with great force, back towards her apartment building, where she crashes through a closed window.

On the roof, Giles has a nosebleed, the pressures of using so much magic too quickly. “It’s a Shenlong. A Chinese Storm Dragon. I didn’t realise they actually existed. I… I don’t think I can manage levitation in this state.” He crumbles to the ground, exhausted.

Willow tells him to rest. The water is following the dragon into the city, so they need to get the creature away from the people. She soars into the air quickly, and takes aim at the creature with a glow from her hands.

“Let’s try heat. Dehydrate it.”

As Giles helps her with a blast, the dragon is enraged, opening its mouth as lightning streaks forth. Giles shouts a warning, as the others grab any projectile they can, launching everything they have at the creature.

Dawn realises that they’re not even touching it. Willow is lashed from her spot in the sky by the dragon’s powerful tail, but she keeps herself steady with a force field. The dragon senses her presence and moves towards her, its jaw open hungrily.

Buffy jumps once again from the building, this time piercing the dragon’s eye with the Scythe, injuring it enough for Willow to escape. The dragon once again launches Buffy into the night air, but this time, a telekinetic burst from Willow brings her down to safety.

The dragon looks about for its enemies. It snorts the air in confusion and then looks around, turns, and flies into the night air.

As Buffy is returned to the roof, Xander asks if it’s over. She shakes her head sadly. The dragon is gone, but the streets of San Francisco below them are flooded. Civilians are screaming, helpless and trapped.

“Come on,” Buffy says and the entire group moves with no hesitation.

Willow fishes people from the water. Spike dives deep to find survivors.

As the waters recede back out into the Bay, leaving the streets deserted and filthy, the bodies start to pile up. Thousands of people are swept out to sea, screaming for aid. Xander looks out at them all, knowing there is nothing they can do. He tells Dawn not to look, but she can’t help it.

Continuing to aid survivors and rescue workers, Buffy orders Spike inside. The sun is coming up. He turns to her, unconcerned. “I’ll cover up. They’ll need folks who can lift walls for a while yet. You know this is just going to get worse, right?”

Buffy nods sadly. The longer they look, the less chance they have of finding survivors alive. Spike agrees, but that’s not what he meant.

“I’ve been around a long time. Travelled the world. Seen revolutions and purges, empires rise and fall.”

Buffy looks at him as they approach a medical tent. “You’re saying what… This was an act of war or something?”

Spike shrugs and then looks out over the city. Fires are burning, people are hurting. The dead are piling up. “Could be. But even if it’s not, the world just changed, Slayer. In a big way.”

She looks out with him, a knot in her stomach now.

“Only question is how.”

Across the coast, in Washington DC, specifically the Oval Office of the White House, a general briefs the Commander-in-Chief and the Vice President. They don’t know what the creature was or what happened, but they have their best supernatural experts on it. The President is angry.

The Vice-President is quiet and then turns. He tells them that he doesn’t care where it came from, what it did, or why. The question they must now face is obvious: What are they going to do about it?