Buffy is thinking back to the moment the Scythe was powered up at the Battle of the Hellmouth. She remembers the feeling as she shared her power. She took joy in the girls all over the world who now had the strength to fight. Not just fight back, but also the purpose that came with it. Fighting for something: a reason. A connection. Saving the world meant changing it. Because otherwise, chaos just carries on, unopposed. So the world needs to move forward, to something better.

She did that, she remembers. “Yay me.”

She’s sitting at a computer, Xander behind her, bearing the gift of caffeine. On the monitor in front of her is a pink-haired, Mohawk-sporting Slayer, Simone Doffler. She used to be on Andrew’s squad, Xander recalls. On the monitor, Simone is showing off to the camera. More Slayers are with her. They have guns. Rifles. And there’s men covered in blood on the floor…

Simone has been a brewing problem for a while, being passed from Rona to Andrew’s squads, with no results. The Slayers she’s with are not any of the ones that Buffy has found, so it means they’re unknown – and recruited by Simone herself. Buffy curses the situation, in particular the guns.

Xander tells her that this is a bad situation for them: Andrew’s Wiccans wiped the memories of the guards, but if anyone else finds out about this, well, it’ll be proving the soldiers right. So we find her first, he suggests. You know, before she starts something. Buffy thinks he’s giving Simone too much credit – after all, she says, it was me that started it. Xander looks at her, knowing she’s upset about Willow. Is it because she took off, because you’re an international jewel thief?

Buffy says no. The Willow thing is complicated. Xander says it always is with girls. This is why he needs guy friends. Buffy suggests Andrew, to which Xander throws her a look. He has some good news, he says. A present for her: a vamp nest, just for her. Buffy is delighted. Xander tells her that she should take someone with, just in case. Buffy is okay with that. As Xander tells her that she should wait until the morning, they enter the main hall of the castle.

Dawn is inside, giant-size, the music is blaring and the Slayers are partying. There’s alcohol involved, but Dawn’s legal in Scotland. Buffy says that it’s nice to see Dawn smiling and engaging with the others. Xander tells her that she could use some of that too, and asks her to dance. Buffy says thank you, but no – she’s gonna head out and make a move. She’s itching to get out and start. Xander tells her that she spends too much time alone.

Shortly afterwards, Buffy races across the rooftops of some sleepy Scottish village. She glides over slates without a sound, Scythe in hand, and effortlessly leaps from the building, rolls, and lands, silently. Suddenly, without any warning, and with an all mighty thud, Satsu falls behind her, straight into the ground, face-first into mud.

Buffy asks Satsu what she’s learnt. She tells Buffy that she’s not as fast as her, but Buffy tells her that one day she will be. She’s the best fighter on Buffy’s team and she could lead them someday.

Satsu looks concerned, as Buffy starts wiping the mud off her face with her sleeve. “Are you leaving?” Buffy tells her to hold still. Satsu can either lead the crew or be a corpse. She needs to learn the rules first, the second of which is not landing on your face.

Satsu smiles and looks at her. Did we skip past rule one? Buffy says that rule one is that you’re always in danger. Like, right now. And with that, Buffy kicks Satsu straight into the path of the vampires emerging from their nest.

“You’re in love with me,” Buffy tells her. Satsu, already fighting the vamps, curses cinnamon flavoured lip-gloss. Buffy says, it’s not about the lip-gloss: she would’ve figured it out. But the truth of the matter is, that if she’s noticed, then others have. Satsu, whilst staking another vamp, asks Buffy if this means she has to leave.

Buffy says that’s she is missing the point. “I think it’s the sweetest thing ever.” She takes out a vampire as she says it. Satsu thinks she’s making fun of her, but Buffy assures her that this is not the case at all. She knows what it’s like to be in love. She thinks it’s awesome that a hot, super-powered chick is into her – she’s also one hell of a Slayer, and she smells good. She may not be gay, but it is very nice to be noticed by someone who’s really cool. It makes her feel less lonely in the world.

Satsu is confused: then, what’s the problem? Buffy says that, in case Satsu hasn’t noticed, people who love her tend to end up dead. In fact, at this point she figures people end up leaving her because she’s wrong. There’s something wrong with her, as a person. Buffy stops, having overshared and starting to get emotional.

She doesn’t have time for emotion. Suddenly, from nowhere, something kicks Buffy into the nearest mausoleum, which crumbles around her. As she recovers, she finds a man standing over her, with a long black coat, leather mask and a familiar symbol on his chest. She knows who this is. This is Twilight.

As Satsu comes up behind him, he effortlessly shrugs off her blow and tosses the rookie Slayer aside. Buffy reacts, picking up her Scythe, swinging it in his direction – but Twilight blocks the move, claiming to have seen it before. He grabs Buffy by her collar and shoots off into the sky, flying high above the cemetery.

Buffy swings her legs up, hitting him in the face with her foot. As she falls, she jabs the Scythe’s sharp end into his foot for good measure. She uses it to climb, back up her new foe and gets behind him, choking him with the Scythe. “You cannot fight me,” he declares, but Buffy has an answer back: “Understand this: I probably will anyway.” He proceeds to continue on his flight, taking Buffy along for the ride. He crashes through a water tower, and still Buffy hangs on, until he heads straight into a steeple and the Slayer is forced to let go and drop to a nearby roof.

Twilight tells her that he actually came here just to talk, but then he heard her complaining about how hard it was for her – and he just hates to see her cry. He throws the top of the steeple tower at her. “There’s plenty more where I came from,” she tells him.

Twilight agrees. “Well that’s the issue isn’t it?” There’s more than one Slayer and there shouldn’t be – the balance is upset. The world cannot contain it all and people, the Slayers especially, will suffer for that. “You have brought about disaster,” he tells her, “and it falls to me to avert it.”

He asks her if the Slayers have made a difference? Have they helped the world? Have they helped you? With that, he flies away, leaving Buffy beaten and bruised, but alive. She finds Satsu – she’s crying, telling Buffy that she let her down. Buffy just takes Satsu into her arms and holds onto her.

Elsewhere, Twilight addresses his followers, including General Voll and Lieutenant Molter. They question why he didn’t kill Buffy when he had the chance. He tells them that it’s simple: “You don’t kill Buffy. That’s been done, to little effect. No, the trick with Buffy is to strip her of her greatest armour – her moral certainty.” He explains that the Slayer has always fought on the side of good. On the side of right. And now she doubts it.

In the hospital, Satsu asks if Buffy is okay, despite her own worse injuries. Buffy says she’s fine, she’ll heal. Satsu goes back to their conversation about people that love Buffy getting hurt. Buffy takes her hand. “We’ll heal,” she tells her.

Later, Buffy’s on the battlements of the castle. She’s filling in Xander on what she’s learnt. Buffy tells him that Twilight isn’t just a figurehead, he has a power that she’s never seen.

She questions whether what they’re doing is actually making a difference to the world, but Xander tells her to look around: they have given a group of women confidence that they didn’t have before, a real purpose to their lives. And you can feel it around, in the atmosphere and the moods. The castle is charged.

Buffy smiles. He really needs to ask Renee out on a date. Xander agrees, but tells her to stop changing the subject: be proud of what they’ve accomplished. They’re just getting started. They’re not just monster hunters, he tells her, they have a deeper connection. Buffy looks at him, sadly. “Then why can’t I feel it?”

Xander looks thoughtfully at her. “Maybe you don’t get to,” he reasons. “Maybe the leader, the girl who brings it all together, is the one that has to give it up.”

Buffy sighs and looks down and the Slayers, training, together, a force of unison. “Yeah,” she says, looking melancholic, questioning Twilight’s words. “Yay me.”