“Your eval’s so getting a smiley face.”
Kennedy

At the bridge, a large creature is stomping away, clutching a bag with ‘Santorio Corp’ emblazoned on it. As the creature makes it’s way across the bridge – on the railings! – Satsu strikes, slicing the arm off the creature, the bag clattering away to the side. Satsu may not have thought this one through though, as she’s high above the ground, on a suspension bridge – and the creature’s tail comes out of nowhere and sends her reeling backwards. Before Satsu can recover, a bolt of electrical energy surges from nowhere, leaving the creature incapacitated and Satsu looking up in shock.

With a grin, her gun still smoking, clutching a parachute from somewhere, is Kennedy. The first thing Kennedy tells her is that she should have ducked at the tail. Satsu is not thrilled to see her fellow Slayer, but Kennedy says she was simply in the neighbourhood and thought she’d, you know, just drop in and electrocute that whatever-it-was. Satsu thinks Buffy has sent her to check after her. Kennedy asks if she thinks that’s unreasonable? Her reports out of Tokyo have been sketchy at best and she’s only been in charge of the Squad for a few months. “Stop being such a brat,” Kennedy tells her ironically. “That’s my job.” Kennedy is here to do Satsu’s evaluation: simple as that, because it’s her job.

The creature has reawakened behind them, slowly closing on the two Slayers. They turn together as one, in complete unison, kicking the creature squarely in the gut, and propelling him into the water below.

Satsu picks up where she left off: she doesn’t need the other lesbian Slayer to check up on her, but Kennedy delivers a kicker: Buffy didn’t actually send her – Kennedy volunteered. She’s concerned – she wouldn’t want her to fall for a straight girl, especially for a one-night stand. Satsu claims that their relationship was deeper than that, but Kennedy hits back: that doesn’t mean Buffy is gay or interested in more. She tells her to toss her cinnamon lip gloss and find someone else. Going after Buffy will only end up hurting Satsu. Once she’s finished, she stops the conversation dead – she won’t bring it up again. Satsu sighs and walks over to the bag the creature dropped. Curious, the girls open it – and are stunned by what they find inside!

The bag’s contents are known as Vampy Cats. They’re stuffed cats, with vampire fangs, a variant on another well known stuffed animal. The creature stole this from the armoured car, so it must be something special, they figure. Satsu is not impressed with a toy company trying to make vampires look cute – especially aimed at children – but Kennedy says that the entire world is starting to latch onto the craze – mainly due to Harmony Kendall and her reality show. The question for Kennedy is: what did the monster want with the toys, especially a prototype? Somewhere else, the creature is complaining to his employer. He’ll be repaid for his service with a quick death.

That night, as the Slayers sleep, their Tokyo base is quiet. Sure, there are sentries still up, girls still gossiping. But nobody to notice the Vampy Cat toy. It tilts slightly, as if it’s going to fall, but it’s not falling. It’s moving. By itself. The Vampy Cat looks around and struggles to climb higher than where he is. But eventually, and after consciously avoiding the Slayers, he approaches Satsu’s room. His eyes glow red and his fangs are bared. Satsu is unaware, as the Vampy Cat moves towards her sleeping form.

The next morning, Kennedy is grouchy. She does not approve of the beds in this place and is really hoping their coffee is better. Approaching the kitchen area, she finds Satsu.

She’s wearing a red kimono, a furisode. They are bought for girls to wear when they come of age and are ready to be presented to society for marriage, Satsu tells her. She also ruined her parent’s dream of her ever wearing one when she came out, so she thought she’d give it a go. Kennedy immediately notices her strange behaviour, especially when she starts hurling homophobic abuse at her. After trying to get Satsu, by now quite excited, to calm down, Satsu suddenly yells at her: “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty Slayer!” – and backhands Kennedy across the room!

As the other Slayers enter the room, Satsu picks up Kennedy by her throat. Kennedy fights back, and Satsu, now red eyed, asks her: is that all you’ve got? Kennedy responds with a swift kick to her guts.

As Satsu falls, she vomits, an unsettling green goo. From the goo, dripping wet, the Vampy Cat emerges, red eyes, teeth drawn and yelling loudly: “I am discovered my brothers! Use what I have given – strike at the heart of the Beast!” With that, he’s sliced apart by Kennedy. Everybody looks at the former stuffed toy in morbid curiosity, all except Satsu. She looks down at her clothes and shrieks: “What the Hell am I wearing?”

Not that long afterwards, after the sun has gone down, the Slayer Squad are in a chopper, over the streets of the city. Satsu is getting airsick and Kennedy suggests she should have stayed behind. Satsu dismisses her concerns. She can still taste the thing in her mouth and she wants to hit something – a lot.

When they arrive at the Santorio Corp building, they find the workers dead and all Vampy Cats already shipped out of the country. One of the shipments is heading straight for Buffy’s new safehouse – they have the main headquarters location from Satsu’s mind! They’re going after Buffy.

Out at sea, a barge is making it’s journey through the trade routes, it’s hold filled with goods. The crew are zombified, walking around slowly and methodically. Kennedy and Satsu are also on board.

They have their Plan A, but before Satsu can go into more detail about Plan B, they’re interrupted by a ghoulish worker, calling for their deaths! Once the zombie is disposed of however, he erupts into dust, part of him falling to the deck. Out of the dust, a Vampy Cat emerges, very much angry. It calls it’s brothers, and, as all the zombies in the vicinity close in on the girls, they realise that all of them have Vampy Cats. They’re loose on the ship!

The girls are engulfed by the soft menaces, slicing and dicing the critters as fast as they can, but there are too many of them. They’re trying to get inside the Slayer’s mouths, presumably to hide away, but the girls stay just ahead of them. One of them turns and snarls at them: “My death is meaningless Slayer scum! Nothing can stop the Swell!”

The two girls look at each other? The What-Now? The answer comes again, as thousands of the Vampy Cats come together and merge into a giant one! “We are the Swell. We are legion!” it roars, as it pounds it’s way towards them.

“The Slayer blight will be cleansed in a sea of light. Twilight demands it!” Satsu takes note of the reference. She reaches into her pockets and grabs a flare. The Vampy Cat laughs at her: “Your think your little sparkler can abate the fury of the Swell?”

Kennedy kinda agrees. Satsu throws the flare up into the air. Under the sea, a submarine reacts and fires missiles. They aim for the barge, hitting their target, and blow it sky high, destroying the Vampy Cat, and propelling Kennedy and Satsu safely into the water below.

Kennedy asks what the Hell happened. Satsu explains that that was her Plan B. Kennedy is stunned: “You have a freaking sub?” Satsu grins: they took it off some vampires who stole it from the Koreans. It would have been in her next report – after she was done playing with it, of course. Kennedy grins, impressed: her eval will be smooth sailing.

On a video link with Buffy and Xander, they’re told later that all shipments of the Vampy Cats have been destroyed. Buffy says that there’s still a problem and shows them a video of Harmony‘s latest interview on television.

She’s telling the host that “these Slayers hacked, burned and blew up millions of fluffy stuffed kitties! Why? Because they had tiny fangs! They hate us so much, they’re killing toys now!” The interviewer agrees with her, saying that the Slayers are mean.

Satsu yells at the screen in disgust: “Fluffy stuffed kitties that climb down your throat! And why hasn’t someone introduced blondie to a pointy-headed stick?”

Buffy stops her. They cannot make Harmony a martyr. They have to keep it on the down low, keep low profiles because everyone thinks they’re the bad guys. They need to be underground so they have a chance to prove to the world that they’re wrong. Satsu asks if it’s that bad, and Buffy looks at her, and her tone goes deadly serious.

“We’re hated and feared more than the bloodsucking dead and Twilight just tried to murder us all with an army of stuffed animals. It’s way that bad. We need to stop being whatever we’ve been and focus. Be more than human or the less-than is going to win. Keep the sub handy. I think we’re going to need it.” With that Buffy signs off, the screen going blank. No goodbye, no nothing.

Kennedy puts her arm around her. Not what Satsu expected. Satsu stares at where Buffy’s picture was for a moment, and then moves towards the door. “Let’s go shopping,” she declares. “Buffy’s right. The world’s coming apart. It’s time to stop being who we were and get a new flavour.”

And just as Kennedy follows, she notices that Satsu’s cinnamon lip gloss is in the trash.