I claim no ownership of the characters or fandoms. Cheers.

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In the end it was Willow who came up with the answer. In their desperate rush to find something - anything - to stop Glory she had returned once more to her faithful penchant for research. Ironically it wasn't anything to do with Glory or even the key itself that provided the answer. Rather it was the beginning of it all. The Order of Dagon.

Lives, rituals, habits – Willow learned everything from their ceremonies to where they cut their hair. But more importantly, she learned their spells – in particular their style in weaving them.

"Please Buffy don't! I don't want to!"

It was a simple clause really – a way of keeping ones spell tidy.

"Dawn...Dawn I love you."

"Buffy..."

Practitioners called it a network. A default if you will. If an element of your spell failed or was found wanting the magic would default to the next most suitable element.

"We are running out of time."

"Willow?"

It hadn't taken much to find the clause in the spell that had created Dawn. In the end it all came down to a single strand of magic – one single strand that linked Dawn's moments of creation to her placement in their world. Her placement as Buffy's sister. Because in the end that's what it had all come down to. Buffy. Willow had been amazed as she traced the spell back to its first line – the intricacy of it was amazing. A singularly powerful piece of magic designed to troll every country, every planet, indeed every dimension for a candidate powerful enough to protect the key. The spell had chosen Buffy – this they knew – what they hadn't known was that it had chosen Buffy out of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of candidates. And what they hadn't known was that the spell had never stopped working.

"Please...please don't."

Willow had looked and found an impossible number of people carefully filed by the spell – an impossible number of champions – each one ready to catch the key should a default be needed.

Well a default was needed.

"She's coming!"

Willow looked up frantically as the screams of the Knights outside suddenly cut off. She was here. She was here and there was no way out.

"Willow now!"

Willow gripped Tara's hand as she screwed her eyes shut and tried to concentrate. The spell was dense and so incredibly warded. But she'd already broken in once – the second time was far easier.

"Buffy!" Dawn screamed.

"Dawn! I will come for you. Know that. I will come for you."

Willow found the strand just as the wall of the old servo exploded inward. And Glory stepped into the room just as Dawn Summers ceased to exist.