The story returns the action to the central plot of vampire Slayer Buffy Summers and her friends in the fight against the masked person Twilight, alongside his followers Amy Madison and Warren Mears.

This story arc features the character of Oz, a werewolf who is Buffy's schoolfriend and Willow Rosenberg's ex-boyfriend, who last appeared canonically in the television series' fourth season.

After interrogating a demon that Satsu has captured, Willow informs Buffy that their heavy use of magic revealed their location to Twilight.

Twilight has them teleport to Mongolia along with some soldiers, but upon arrival there and not finding the Slayers there, he opts to bide his time until they slip up and make their location apparent.

Meanwhile, Oz introduces his partner Bayarmaa and their son Kelden and explains how through communing with nature and not "caging" the wolf within they are able to overcome their lycanthropy by having the Earth "absorb" the demon on the night of a full moon.

Rather than arouse suspicion, Andrew uses a camcorder to secretly interview Oz's family and the Slayer organization in a callback to the Season Seven episode "Storyteller" (2003).

Andrew surveys as Willow and Oz disagree about her possibilities for a normal life, and she expresses her resentment of him for settling down and denying his nature, although she is touched that he trusts her with Kelden.

The cat on Leah's lap (which had appeared in most scenes from Andrew's documentary) suddenly teleports away and Xander deduces it must have been Amy spying on them, from which Willow surmises Twilight has found them.

Willow is distraught, no longer able to hide her despair over having sacrificed her powers, and at the fact that she is apparently destined to become evil in the future and be killed by Buffy.

Buffy herself declines to use a gun, and tells Giles that she has an idea... to create special visual effects that may deceive Twilight's forces into thinking the Slayers and Wiccans still have their powers.

Monroe, the leader of the renegade werewolves Oz and his companions have been battling, arrives and unexpectedly offers help to Buffy and her group, stating that he opposes Twilight's agenda of eliminating magic from the world.

The battle begins, and the Slayers quickly make a move by sending a torpedo, salvaged from the submarine, into the midst of the enemy tanks, destroying many of them.

Buffy and Willow perform the required ritual, causing the earth to crack open and the three giant goddesses to appear.

Buffy wakes up where she was dropped, partially covered in snow, and sees the survivors of her defeated army being ushered into some transport vehicles.

Meanwhile, after various attempts in vain to pray for the return of their powers, Willow is hit suddenly by a blast of magic, which she fears is the "foreshock" of some future mystical event.