OUT OF THE spiraling dark falls the Slayer. The staff in her hand towers over her, the glow of the green gem illuminating the night. From one darkness to another. Of course.

If the whiny little British man she beat up at the magic store was right, then the staff can only point her toward the most malevolent places on earth. Something about the spell cast on it constantly searching for the closest pinnacle of evil. Which means that—combined with the magical portal-creating gem that she filched from Vengeance LLC—it should have no trouble taking her on a tour of hells on earth.

She takes a moment to close her eyes and wait for the new world to stop spinning. It’s official. She hates portal travel. This ride was as vertigo-inducing as the one that first landed her in Demondale. Hopefully this doesn’t mean she’s jumped forward in time again. Demondale is a full two years ahead of where she started.

Although she’ll take queasy-twirly portals and time-jumps over talismans to hell anytime. Even after she’d been trapped in Demondale, seeing the vengeance-demon dimension had been horrific. The moment she had landed outside of Vengeance LLC, she had learned there is a big difference between a colony of hell and an actual hell dimension. Demondale might be full of monsters, corruption, and unnatural nighttime, but it was still on earth.

Arashmaharr, on the other hand, was definitively not earth. It was somewhere with burning skies, sulfurous stink, and throngs of demons wearing business casual. Truly horrifying.

Opening her eyes, nothing jumps out at her as indisputably hellish. Unlike the world under the sunshade, this version of Sunnydale still has the ability to grow plants. The Slayer leans down and runs her hands through the grass, delighting in its prickly softness. In Demondale, most of the parks and lawns have been replaced with Astroturf. One of the many reasons she wants to destroy it.

But first, she needs to make sure her intel is correct. If this gem can really end Hell on Earth, then there’s a chance she can send herself back. Inside the portal, she saw all the evil Sunnydales, dozens of entry points all leading to something rotten. One of them has to be the hellmouth she calls home.

After a month trapped in Demondale, this is the Slayer’s first flicker of hope.

Once there are no dimensions more evil than her own Sunnydale, the green gem will have no choice but to point her back to her Sunnydale.

She just has to clear out any dimension with an open hellmouth and a Black Flame flag. The only thing she wants more than a way home is to bring an end to Hell on Earth.

Because if being stuck in Demondale has taught her anything, it’s that hell doesn’t belong on earth.

This first stop on her apocalypse tour doesn’t look particularly bad. There are no demons parading down the street. The streetlamps shine down on parked cars that don’t seem abandoned. Nothing screams Hey, look, I’m evil, except for the colonialist-glorifying Spanish-revival architecture of City Hall and the public library. But those are the same in her own Sunnydale.