Next to her, Faith emerged from a huge cloud of vampire dust and grinned at Buffy.

On seeing their leaders regain their strength, the other slayers all found from deep within them a new lease of power and a deadly ballet played out, each young woman fought for everything she was worth, dusting any vampire that dared to near her.

In the far corner, Spike suddenly lurched backwards clutching his chest with one hand as he braced himself against a wall for the huge surge of power that threatened to overcome him.

“Oh, bollocks…” he gasped as his head fell back, a huge beam of white light emerging from the amulet and punching a hole in the ceiling of the cave.

Standing motionless in a circle of light, Spike called out to Buffy and the slayer paused mid-swing.

“Spike?!!” she replied, clearly shocked at what she saw.

Around her, the fight continued. In the furthest, darkest corner, Kennedy was beating on a Turok-han, seemingly oblivious to what was unfolding. Behind her a large vampire crept up towards her, Tara, also transfixed by Spikes sudden heavenly glow, turned and ran towards Kennedy, decapitating the Turok-han as it raised its axe for a fatal blow to the young woman.

Side by side the pair fought before the amulet around the blonde vampires neck burst into life, exploding a thousand rays of sunlight throughout the cave system.

All around them, stalactites fell, crashing to the ground before exploding.

“Everybody out!” Faith yelled from the entrance and the slayers raced for the exit.

“Go!” Tara yelled, pushing Kennedy in front of her as the ceiling above them shook dangerously.

“Come on!!” Kennedy hollered back when she realised that Tara was no longer at her side.

She paused for a second, noticing that Tara was bleeding heavily from one leg and that the others had already made their escape, leaving only Buffy, herself, Tara and Spike in the caves depths.

Tara took a few steps, the injury she hadn’t even noticed suddenly screamed with pain.

Looking up, she saw Buffy beckoning to them both to hurry up. Exhaustion filled every fibre of her body and she knew that this was her last, the end of her second chance at life and she wished she’d told Willow exactly how much she loved her before she’d come down into the Hellmouth.

Looking back to Kennedy, she saw the roof above her wobble dangerously and with the last bit of energy she could find she leapt at the slayer, pushing her backwards and landing where she had previously stood as the ceiling caved in.

Kennedy leapt to her feet. “Tara?” she gasped, staring at the huge pile of rocks that filled the space where she had stood only seconds before.

“Get out of here!!” Spike yelled at her, his face now little more than a skeleton as flames started to slowly lick around his body.

Kennedy needed no further instruction, so took to her heels, sprinting out into the basement and following the sound of Buffy’s footsteps.

As she emerged into the early afternoon light, she squinted slightly but never missed a beat in her sprint.

Buffy was almost at the large yellow school bus that already contained the surviving slayers.

“Buffy!” she screamed as the ground beneath her feet shook. Buffy stopped, one foot on the steps of the school bus, and turned to see Kennedy chasing after her.

As Kennedy finally caught up and leapt on the bus, Giles floored the gas and the bus accelerated into the sunshine and away from Sunnydale High forever.