Baby Kelden is chewing Xander‘s war plans. Well, he’s chewing a picture of a tank being blown to smithereens, but Xander and Dawn are using it for presentation purposes: they’re showing Oz and Bay what they need.

In another room of the monastery, Giles and Faith have one group of Slayers with them. They tell the assembled Slayers that there will be no force fields, no healing – there will be no quick recoveries.

Andrew and Satsu are impressing upon another group how dangerous the upcoming battle will be: people are going to die.

Buffy also stands before a group of Slayers. She is finishing her speech: they need to be ready for anything and fight with every weapon they have at their disposal. Willow perks up from the back: “It seems to me that we don’t have the one thing that matters: a chance in Hell.”

Silence. Buffy walks over to Willow and takes her to one side. Willow is angry. She thought that they were redirecting their magic, but now she’s being told that they have no magic at all! She also yells that this whole process was supposed to take months, according to Oz, so why has it happened so quick? She’s clearly struggling with not having access to her magical abilities. Bay tells her that the process becomes quicker once you give yourself over to it, and Willow is frantic, digging at the ground at her feet: “My magic is in here?”

Oz comes behind her, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. Willow doesn’t look at him, but she does say, in a small, strained, self-pitying voice: “We made ourselves weak.” Bay stares down at her and tells her that they brought an army and war to her home and Willow thinks she has the right to be angry? Oz asks her to hand him the baby. Willow is horrified! “You don’t have to protect the baby! I’m not mad at you!” She screams into the air, defiantly. “I’m so angry at me, I cannot believe these,” she says, pointing to her eyes, “aren’t black.” She says she knew it was the wrong choice; she can’t live like this. She must get it back. This is why she dies in the future! She even asks Buffy to back up her ranting. She gets up, and Buffy pulls her into a hug. Willow says she’s lost everything.

Andrew, Xander and Dawn have cracked open what weapons they have: they have guns, with bayonets to attach. They start handing them out and instructing in their use, but one of the Slayers asks what if they don’t want to use guns? Xander goes through a list: they also have mortar shells. Grenades, of all designs, shapes and booms. There are auto-cannons being installed on the roof. There’s a large box that Andrew wants to look at, but Xander tells him not to worry. They also have missile launchers, but they’re heavy, so without their Slayer powers, they may struggle.

Elsewhere, Giles and Buffy contemplate the weapons: Buffy refuses to carry a gun. Slayers don’t carry guns, she repeats. Giles says she’s not a Slayer anymore and asks if she’s okay, but Buffy brushes him off.

Showing the Slayers their radar equipment to detect incoming approaches, Xander shows them what planes look like. One Slayer thinks they’re here, until Xander says that that’s just white noise – don’t worry, he’ll teach them, he says. You’re human now. Like them, Dawn adds. “If we can do it, you can do it.”

Outside, Giles and Buffy are asking Andrew if he can do it: they want him to create special effects to make it appear to their enemies that they still possess some magical ability. He’s up for the challenge, but he does stop and ask Buffy if she’s okay after seeing Xander with Dawn. Again, Buffy brushes him off.

An hour later, using coloured steam, sharp metal for glints and a strange mix of junk and chemicals to create the stink of potion brewing, Andrew is ready. Buffy tells him to lose the smell.

Prepared, the Slayers all take their positions around the monastery, ready to defend it with their lives. Buffy is in command. Xander and Dawn are in awe of her right now. Xander explains that anyone who isn’t fighting is in the centre of the building. They’re as prepared as they’re going to be. He pulls Dawn into a kiss, which Buffy notices out of the corner of her eye.

Inside, Kennedy yells from her position by the scope: “Plane!” A plane comes over their position, flying low. The Slayers aim their rocket launchers and the missiles hit their target.

Giles hears something. “A plane crashing in the distance?” Buffy asks hopefully, but Bay is already yelling from her vantage point: the sound is coming from a platoon of soldiers, heading across the valley below them, with large tanks.

As Faith and Dawn start preparing more sand bags for cover, Faith is startled when a wolf suddenly appears: it’s Monroe, the Englishman who leads a rival, more bloodthirsty wolf pack. Oz approaches him, as Monroe transforms into a human: “You’ve decided to come to our side, Monroe?” Monroe looks at him and says that they’re fighting to keep magicks in this world: it seems to him, that Oz has come to his side.

As the tanks pass the river, their last big obstacle, the Slayers and werewolves race down the hillside, towards the human army. There are casualties. Faith tells the girls not to look, to keep going. Crouching under cover, Buffy turns to Xander: “I need your big weapon,” she tells him. Xander grins: “Well, that sounds like a come-on, if ever I heard one.” From Buffy’s silence, his grin fades. “Sorry. Joking in the face of death. I do that. It used to amuse you.” An explosion rips the ground up just a few metres from them. “Get it,” Buffy says. “Use it. Now.”

On a trolley, is the large object Xander was saving. As it races down the hill, pushed by the Slayers, it rumbles unevenly towards the lead tank. The General, looking through his viewers recognises it as it’s covering comes off: they have a torpedo heading for them!

As it looks like the torpedo is going off course, Kennedy cautiously asks Andrew if torpedoes work on land. The resulting explosion when the torpedo hits the tank has her and the other Slayers yelling: “Torpedoes work on land!”

Inside, Buffy, Willow and Giles are in their make-shift medical bay – which is getting busy. They’re losing, Buffy says. “We can’t take on an army, not like this. We need the magic, but we got rid of it.” Willow corrects her: they didn’t get rid of their magic, they… redirected it. Buffy looks at her, and races off to find Bay and Oz.

When she finds them, Oz is asking for help, cradling a wounded Bay in his arms. Although injured, she responds to Buffy’s question: the magicks go into the Earth. Buffy doesn’t believe her – the chanting that they do when meditating, she knows it was an invoking spell. So, during all their training, they were begging something for help. Buffy wants to know what.

Bay speaks in her native tongue, but the only word Buffy makes out is ‘goddesses.’ Willow knows more of the language and hears the word ‘wrathful,’ which gets her attention. Bay says they are just the names for the spirits of the Earth. Buffy counters with another theory: or the ‘Earth’ is just the modern name for the local crazy wrath goddesses.

As Buffy starts to piece the puzzle together out loud, Willow begins to help Bay. She can’t guarantee she’ll be fine, Willow explains. Bay is still talking to Buffy. “The prayers and chants offer a trade. We give them our power, they protect us.” Before another moment has passed, Bay has passed out, unconscious. As Oz stays by her side, Willow races to find the scrolls of the monastery. Buffy wants to talk to these ‘goddesses’.

She orders Xander and Dawn to keep fighting outside, just as Willow brings the scrolls in. Willow can’t read the text, but looking over at Bay’s unconscious form, Buffy declares that she can. She tries to shake Bay awake, but Oz grabs her arm and stops her. “Let her be,” he almost growls. Buffy begs him. “I need her help. It’s all of our lives, not just hers.” Bay opens her eyes and tells Buffy that she doesn’t need her help – her anger will call the goddesses to her.

As the battle rages outside, Buffy gets down on the floor with Willow and the scrolls. “Oh, I have some anger,” she scowls.

On the battlefield, with no warning, a series of explosions and rumbling beneath them, stops the combatants.

As a group of strange lights emanate from a crevice, it streams, three different coloured beams, melding and merging, turning and wheeling together in the sky. They begin to take on shapes, definite humanoid forms.

Everyone on the battlefield and in the monastery stops and looks up: three large and slightly angry goddesses have risen from the Earth and float above them…