Land’s End, San Francisco.

Once a major tourist attraction — the ruins of the Sutro Baths, spectacular views, the whole postcard package — it’s now a restricted government research facility. After the dragon’s attack and the devastation that followed, the site was repurposed into something colder, quieter, and far more dangerous.

The Pandora Project.

“The purpose of this project is to analyse residual magical energy in order to identify the source of the attack, discover its perpetrator, and bring them to justice. Its true purpose: to be determined.”

Buffy remembers reading Willow’s notes before they left. She keeps replaying them in her head — anything to distract from what they’re doing. She glances below her and sees Willow, Spike, and Faith. They’re all doing fine, as far as she can tell.

She’s less sure about the otter to her right. She doesn’t speak his language.

They’re currently under the ocean, propelled by one of Willow’s spells. According to Willow’s research, the Sutro Baths were once a public saltwater pool built in the late 19th century. After burning down in 1966, only the stone foundation walls remained — walls with pipes leading into the old sub‑basement.

That’s their entry point.

Buffy and Faith use their strength to pry apart the bars on a pipe vent. They signal the all‑clear and lead the way, Spike and Willow following.

The water is pitch black. Buffy can only see by the fading glow behind her. Something brushes past her. She doesn’t panic — not quite — but she looks for Faith. She can’t see her.

Then something metallic grabs her.

Before she can react, she’s yanked through the water and suddenly thrust into open air.

Inside an underwater cavern, an octopus rises from the pool — with mechanical tentacles. Buffy darts around, counting her friends, all tangled up. Faith screams, furious and bewildered.

“Who the hell ordered a freakin’ cyborg octopus?”

The more it thrashes, the angrier Faith gets. Buffy unhooks her Scythe and slices herself free, sparks flying. She whispers as she drops past Faith:

“Shush. We’re infiltrating.”

“Not to be a buzzkill, B, but I kinda think if anyone’s around, the giant octopus fight mighta blown our cover.” Then, muttering: “No wonder they didn’t splurge on security.”

“Half this thing is bloody metal!” Spike yells, as if only just noticing.

Buffy frees Willow, and the witch — eager to end this — fires a blast of flame at the creature.

It hits the octopus in the head. It shrieks. Then, without warning, it explodes into a fountain of black ink that drenches them. Faith is not impressed. Buffy watches her fellow Slayer get splattered.

“Eww.”

“At least now we know magic won’t set off alarms,” Willow says, relieved. “That thing reeked of sorcery. Probably how they grew it so big.”

Willow lights the cavern with a sunshine globe. They’re standing in an inch of water. Buffy wonders if they’ve been detected — but in the days they’ve scouted the place, they’ve seen almost no activity.

Spike sniffs the air. “We may be in the clear. Don’t smell any humans besides you lot. Plenty of strange odours, though.”

Willow senses something ahead. She brightens the globe — and freezes.

“Oh my Goddess.”

Before them are tanks filled with creatures. At first glance, they look like ordinary sea life — a shark, an otter, a manta ray — but up close, Willow sees the truth: augmented bodies, mechanical limbs, unnatural grafts.

“This is wrong,” Willow whispers.

“I heard that,” Faith agrees.

“No — I mean unnatural. These aren’t demons or monsters. They’re normal creatures transformed by magic and altered by science.”

Buffy approaches a tank. The octopus inside has over two dozen extra eyes, all blinking at her.

“The project’s been draining magic from supernatural folks in exchange for letting them out of the camp,” Willow says. “I think I figured out where they’re putting it.”

Spike’s face darkens. “Taking power from the likes of us and weaponising it. Using it however they please. Sounds about right. And their cover story’s utter bollocks. Meaning they either don’t care where the Shenlong dragon came from… or they already know.”

They move deeper into the compound. The lab gives way to an office filled with computers and screens. On the wall hang suits of armour — sleek, rune‑etched, studded with jewels, even wood. Faith asks what they are.

“Battle suits,” Buffy says, worry creeping in. “But I’ve never seen ones like these.”

Spike snarls. “Magic. Stinks of it. They’re combining sorcery and tech.” He scoffs. “I’m having unpleasant flashbacks to the bloody Initiative.”

Buffy nods. “Actual supernatural beings are too hard to control. So now they’re draining magic energy and putting it where they want. Battle suits. Animals. Drones. Who knows what else.”

A sudden blast of fire answers her.

They duck. Smoke clears. “Oh no,” Buffy breathes.

A man stands before them — or what’s left of one. Robotic attachments, gemstone circuitry, a mechanical eye, a smoking wrist‑gun.

“INTRUDER ALERT. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORISED.”

Buffy whispers, horrified. “What did they do to you?”

Spike yanks her aside as the cyborg fires again, tendrils whipping toward her.

Faith leaps onto its back. The cyborg freezes.

“ANALYSING. SLAYER‑TYPE ENHANCEMENT.”

A click. A hum. Then it adapts — violently — flipping Faith into the ceiling.

“ADJUSTING.”

Faith and Spike grab an arm each and pull — Spike tears the left arm clean off. He shouts to Buffy.

“You have to end this! It’s not human anymore!”

Faith severs the other limb. The cyborg screeches — a mechanical drone with a human edge.

“This is so wrong,” Buffy says, raising the Scythe.

Spike rips out the robotic eye. The creature screams.

Buffy stops. “No. This is a human being. We’re not murderers.”

“Speak for yourself,” Faith mutters.

A weak voice rises from the floor.

“Please… my name’s Rudy Diaz. Corporal. An IED took my arms and legs. I wanted to get back in… be useful. I volunteered… I never knew it’d be like this. Computer controls me. You disabled it when you took out the fake eye. I’m just a meat puppet now.”

Buffy kneels beside him. “You’ll be okay. We’ll help you.”

But Rudy shakes his head. He can’t survive without the tech. If his bosses find him, they’ll rebuild him — worse. He doesn’t want to be like this anymore.

Buffy’s eyes fill. Her hands shake. She stands, looks at Spike and Faith. “I can’t.”

Spike steps forward. “I got you, mate.”

Buffy and Faith turn away as Spike does what must be done.

Back in the office, Willow is beaming. “Got some answers,” she says. “Finally.”

“Good,” Buffy replies, anger sharpening her voice. “Because we’re shutting this place down.”

Willow hesitates — they can’t be discovered here. But Buffy tells her they’ve already made a mess, and the bad guys will figure it out. Spike strolls in, grinning.

“I opened the cages. Reckon most of these poor sods’ll get put down, but I’ve almost convinced myself it’s a mercy.”

Something that once resembled a raccoon chitters past, its bark electronic.

Faith is already heading for the exit.

“C’mon. Before the clean‑up crew gets here. I ever see this place again, it’ll be too soon.”

By the time they return to the Windsor Arms Hotel — their hidden base for the moment — Dawn and Xander are once again glued to the news. Multiple supernatural incidents have erupted since the escape. Dawn sighs.

“It’s getting bad. On all sides. These incidents can’t all be staged like the vamp massacre.”

Faith nods. “Takes one spark to light a fire.”

Buffy knows that if the world could see what they found in the lab… Faith reminds them — again — that she said they should’ve taken their cellphones. Willow insists the tech would’ve detected unauthorised devices, and they’d just deny everything anyway.

“We need to expose them from the top.”

Xander rises from the edge of the room’s only bed.

“Are you seriously talking about kidnapping the President? That’s getting into the wonky seasons of The West Wing.”

Willow shakes her head. “The President doesn’t know — not according to the data. He’s just a figurehead. They’re keeping him in the dark.” She taps a few keys on her laptop and brings up familiar faces.

“The Press Secretary, Joanna Wise, and the Secretary of the Supernatural, Orphelia Reyes, are definitely in on it. They’re some of the few people we’ve seen go into Pandora. But all the data suggests the senior member is—”

Spike enters, dressed for daylight. He finishes the sentence for her.

“The Vice President.”

Willow nods.

“Just got a tip from Dowling,” Spike explains. “The veep’s flying in for a meeting with the folks rebuilding the city. All sudden‑like. Cops are scrambling to arrange security.”

Willow figures the VP is here to get everything back on track after the escape — and after their little disturbance at the lab. Faith says they can’t just attack the Vice President of the United States. Dawn argues they need information from him.

Buffy suggests they grab him. She turns to Willow. “You got some kind of memory‑wiping spell you can do afterwards? Then we expose the whole plot to the world.”

“A truth incantation and a spell of forgetfulness, sure. But kidnapping the Vice President so no one notices… that might be tricky.” A thought sparks behind her eyes. “Or… I could cast a glamour to make someone look and sound like him. Take the VP’s place. Someone who can talk fast without actually saying anything. Dish out a pile of B.S. without blinking.”

Silence falls.

Everyone turns to Xander.

Xander grins from ear to ear.

“I can’t decide if I’m offended or flattered.

The next day, at the Hotel Luxe, the Vice President’s security team sweeps his suite, checking every corner for threats. When they give the all‑clear, the Vice President tells them to keep things quiet — he needs a moment to himself. He wipes his forehead with a handkerchief, shrugs off his jacket, and is about to loosen his tie when a blue glow begins to pulse across the room.

He sees it reflected in the mirror.

He spins around, startled, as Willow and Xander materialise out of thin air.

Xander grins. “Happy coincidence. I could use some Vice Presidency time too.”

Willow reaches from Xander to the politician, and a blue, fiery glow erupts between them. No pain — but plenty of spectacle.

Outside, the security team hears the Vice President cry out. Weapons drawn, they burst through the door — only to find the Vice President stepping out of the bathroom in nothing but a bathrobe.

“Sorry, guys. False alarm. Saw myself naked in the mirror. Not something I recommend. Time has not been kind.”

The agents exchange bewildered looks but sweep the room again. The Vice President lets them check the bedroom — unaware that Willow has cloaked herself and the real VP from sight.

Satisfied, the agents remind him he has a television interview to prepare for. The Vice President freezes.

In a stairwell elsewhere in the building, Willow decloaks herself and the real Vice President. He screams, stumbling back when he recognises Buffy.

“The Secret Service has snipers on the roof,” he stammers. “Let me go or you people are dead.”

Spike scoffs. “Already dead, mate.” He shifts into vamp‑face and growls. “Mind your manners or join me.”

The Vice President yelps and offers everything he can think of — money, pardons, anything.

“We just want you to talk,” Buffy says. She nods to Willow.

Willow steps forward, meets his eyes, and with a wave of her hand and a spark of yellow light, whispers, “Veritas.”

The spell hits instantly. The Vice President becomes a torrent of information, breathless and uncontrolled. Buffy asks about the Pandora Project.

He stops dead.

Elsewhere, in a studio, the “Vice President” is being interviewed. Xander quotes Martin Luther King, urging the world to leave people in peace. The reporter blinks at the sudden shift in policy.

In the stairwell, the real Vice President finally spills his guts.

“The truth is I don’t pay much attention to the details. Long as my buddies and I get rich, I’m good. I’m not technically affiliated with the companies making the new magic‑tech weapons, but they take care of their friends, know what I mean?”

Buffy asks who’s running the show. He shakes his head — he can’t say. Not because he won’t, but because he literally can’t.

Willow frowns. “Someone’s bound him with a Quietus spell. Whoever’s behind this knows magic. This isn’t someone stealing mystic energy — they crafted a spell that’ll take days to undo. And we can’t keep him that long.”

The Vice President smiles weakly. “I’ll say you can’t. We’re launching the first satellite tomorrow. Wide‑range magic‑absorption array. By the next day, it’ll start draining all the magic out of everyone in the good old U.S. of A… including you.”

In the studio, Xander is cornered by questions he can’t answer. He excuses himself and bolts for the bathroom. The reporter follows, concerned.

Inside, Willow recloaks herself and Xander, shoves the real Vice President back into the room, and Xander makes a loud, dramatic noise to cover their exit. Security bursts in again.

This time they find the VP dishevelled on the floor. He blinks up at them, confused.

“What did I eat? I don’t remember anything from the last hour…”

Back at the Windsor Arms Motel, Buffy is adamant.

Dawn and Spike are leaving the country. “Now. If I have to tie you up and put you on a boat myself.”

“You’ll die without magic,” she insists. “You’re being unreasonable.”

Dawn stops her. “No — you are. You think they’re going to stop with America? Couple more satellites and they blanket the whole planet. We either stop this now or go down fighting. No third option.”

Spike folds his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “If I thought any place was safe, I’d be on your side — at least where Little Bit’s concerned. But she’s right. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.”

Buffy’s thoughts race. Panic flickers across her face. She suggests an underground shelter, but Willow shakes her head — the satellites target magic, not radiation. Buffy pivots, asking about a dimensional portal, but Faith cuts her off.

“Eventually whoever’s draining the magic will need more. When Earth’s tapped out, where do they go? It’s harder to stop a crazy train once it’s already off the rails. I say we fight. All of us.”

Xander takes Dawn’s hand, worried. “We don’t even have powers. Maybe we should at least try—”

Dawn interrupts gently. “We’re going to have the most important job of all. You think I trust you to get it right by yourself?”

Buffy’s eyes fill. She doesn’t hide it. Spike wraps an arm around her, pulling her close. She rests her head on his shoulder, breathes, steadies herself.

Then she turns, fire in her eyes.

“Okay,” she says. “Then let’s make damn sure we take them down on the first try.”