Buffy and the vampires consider their respective next moves in Japan. A flashback to show how Spike and Dru raised their children. Elektra spies on Debbie at her high school. And Buffy discovers that Angel is bestowing awards on her enemy.

"I'm worried about Aneko and the others," Buffy says to Giles.

"They should be healed by the start of next week."

"I'm talking about the new men' in their lives."

"The servants."

"You mean slaves," Dawn adds. "I don't think they pay them. And I'm sure the vampires didn't."

"What exactly do these men do for the Slayers?," Xander asks.

"I don't think they sleep with them," Gretchen offers. "At least I hope they don't."

"Why not?," Dawn counters. "After all, they're human." Giles doesn't like where this is going.

"At the moment, Aneko, Haru and Yumiko can use someone to look after and care for them. Once they're back on their feet," Dawn grins at the unintentional sexual innuendo, causing Giles to scowl. "I'm sure they'll send these gentlemen they liberated on their way."

"I don't get it," Buffy declares. "What kind of man chooses to become a slave?"

"To a Slayer?," Xander responds, causing Buffy to roll her eyes.

"And what kind of Slayer wants a guy around who's willing to be so, submissive?"

"Aneko was always a little odd," Gretchen points out. "Even before she became a Slayer."

"No she's not," Buffy retorts. "At least not in a bad way. Aneko reminds me of me when I was that age." Giles, Xander and Dawn stare at her. "As a Slayer. She's clever, she's resourceful, she's original. That's how she took down this Red Rum clan."

"Red River," Giles corrects.

"She and the others won because they were disciplined," Gretchen argues. "And they were disciplined because they had an enemy to fear. With that enemy gone, there's a temptation to become complacent and indulgent. That's why these servants' are worrisome." Giles nods and smiles. Like her older brother, Gretchen's great at putting things in perspective. "The first sign of Slayer decadence is a pattern of treating men as sexual objects. Isn't that right, Rupert?"

"Uh, er, yes," he stammers, not eager to think about, much less discuss, any Slayer's sex lives.

"You mean like Faith?," Buffy asks, causing Xander to feel uncomfortable.

"Where is she these days?," Dawn asks. "Not that I'm eager to see her."

"Possibly in a country without an extradition treaty with the U.S.," Gretchen the diplomat jokes. "Although I don't know how much fun she could have in Libya, North Korea or Iran."

"Willow said she was contacted by Faith a month ago," Giles reports. "I assume she's still in South America. Unless she decides to pay Robin another visit in Cleveland."

"Doesn't look like Rona and Vi need her help," Buffy comments. "Faith may be on the run, but she's not nearly as hounded as the vamps we're hunting down."

Toshiro sits on the floor of a small, unfurnished basement apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo, reading a newspaper. He hears a knock at the door. "Come in," he says. Yukio enters.

"How did you know I wasn't the Slayers?"

"They wouldn't knock."

"So this is what you've been reduced to."

"Living in luxury only attracts attention."

"What happened to your band? Have they already been killed?"

"I set them free. Told each of them to set up their own colony to distract our enemies and keep them busy."

"You're afraid to fight."

"Without the right men at my side? Yes."

"Then join me and my band. We'll have six against three."

"You mean two against three. Your followers, like mine, are useless against Slayers." Yukio kicks Toshiro in the head for this insult. Toshiro rolls on the ground but doesn't bother to get up. "Save it for them."

"So it's hiding for you?"

"Until they split up. Or we come together."

"That's what I'm offering!"

"You're old-fashioned. Like Hoshiko. Look what happened to him."

"So tell me smarty," (the name Toshiro means intelligent) "What's your brilliant plan?" Toshiro reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls our a .22 caliber revolver. "Shoot them? Like an urchin who doesn't know how to fight?"

"If they find me before I'm ready. But they shouldn't. I'm off to Pusan in a few days to find some Koreans. They know they'll be next." Yukio laughs.

"My men aren't good enough for you, your men aren't good enough for you, but the Koreans are?"

"One or two of them, perhaps. Also, I hear there's a guy from Taiwan at Okinawa who's had some experience. If I can add you, that's all we'll need."

"I'm not working for you. I'd rather fight alone."

"Fine. You can be the leader. And you can die like one. Pretty soon, there won't be leaders. Not like before. It's a new time. Change with the times, or you'll end up like Hoshiko."

Debbie wakes up, reaches her right arm over Devlin and turns off the alarm. Unlike most days, he sleeps through the alarm. She turns to her left and rolls over Dev to get out of bed. Suddenly, he opens his eyes and grabs her shoulders. "You think I'd let you get away that easy?," he jokes.

"If you wanted me to stay so bad, why didn't you tie me up?," she jokes back, upping the macabre ante.

"The ropes might burn your wrists. And I don't want to hurt you."

"But if you have to?" She starts laughing and he joins in. "Look at you. Your hair's all fluffy." He feels it.

"Kinda spiky." She frowns. "In the sense that it's sticking up."

"Good thing that's your only part that's sticking up." She kisses him and climbs out of bed. Dev sits up.

"I've almost gotten used to waking up next to you with our clothes on." She takes off her tank top and turns around.

"Last night, I dreamed you killed me."

"Were we fighting?"

"That's your response!?"

"You wanted shock? Sorry. I'm not."

"Which says a lot about us." He stands up.

"If it makes you feel any better, I've never dreamed about killing you."

"Gee. Just what every girl dreams of hearing from her boyfriend."

"So how was I? As a killer?," he asks with a smirk as he slowly steps across the room towards her.

"We were at Panic, in Anaheim, up in the balcony. I was watching my friends dance below. You came from behind, put your arms around me, and I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against your chest. Then you bit me. I didn't scream. Or fight. I just stood there. After a little while, I opened my eyes, and Sid, Paul and Luiz had their teeth out. I guess they were gonna kill my friends. Then I woke up, went to pee, and got back in bed with you."

"Well, if that doesn't say trust, I don't know what does."

"You trust me, don't you,?" Debbie asks. Dev laughs.

"Like you'd ever kill me." She kicks him hard in the chest, knocking Dev onto the bed. Then she grabs a stake from off her dresser, pushes him back down with her left hand and stabs him with the stake in her right. The point goes through his skin and halfway through his sternum.

"Ow!," Dev cries as he looks up at Debbie. "That's a little deeper than usual." They've played this game before.

"I'm getting better with my control." She puts her left hand on top of the stake. "Just a little more pressure, and you're dust." He keeps his hands above his head, where they can be of no help.

"I know." Dev starts to lean his chest upward, forcing Debbie to pull her stake back to avoid slaying him. "You are getting better with your control." She leans down to kiss him, realizes she'd drive the stake through him by doing so, tosses the stake on the floor, kisses Dev and walks into the bathroom.

"You know you're not getting out of this town alive," she vows before turning on the shower. Dev puts his right hand to his heart and smiles.

"Who says romance is dead? Even if I am."

Around this time, Elektra walks the empty halls of Laguna Hills High School, whistling the Go-Go's "Vacation." She drove straight there from the airport after stealing the car from the guy she killed. Devlin made it clear he wanted his sister out of his life. But there was no way she was going away that easy.

Back in 1979, Devlin runs his right hand through his unkempt black hair while Elektra peaks into classrooms. "It's so weird. After Spike, I thought I'd never have to go to high school again."

"You chose to come here," Dev points out.

"So many meals in the daytime. How could I resist?"

"You have no self-control. That's going to get you killed someday."

"Who needs self-control?" Leks leaps through the ceiling panel until only the lower half of her legs dangle out, then drops back down. "I got power!" She punches a locker, leaving a three inch-deep dent.

"Stop it. You'll get us caught." Dev scurries down to the end of the hall and takes a quick right.

"Listen to yourself. Dad's right. You still think you're one of them."

"It's my job to make sure you don't get yourself hurt. Dad wants me to be like this around you."

"I think I know a little more than you about what dad wants," Leks replies with raised eyebrows and a smile. Dev groans and turns his head. "Unless he's doing stuff to you which I totally don't wanna know about."

"So what's your plan? We hit the girls' locker room?"

"You wish! Then you could finally make yourself a vamp who'd let you do her." Dev pushes his sister into the lockers with his left hand.

"Keep that up, and next time you get in trouble, I won't be your hero."

"Oooh. I drew blood," she replies, biting her lip. Dev lets go.

"Just do your killing and let's get this over with." Leks turns her head as an attractive young male teacher walks by. Dev grabs her arm. She pouts. "Too high a chance of rejection. Killing a guy who doesn't want you puts you in a bad mood for the whole day."

"He woulda wanted me."

"Even so, three-to-two he still woulda resisted on moral grounds."

"Fine. I'll do it by the book. The book's so boring." She rolls her eyes and walks into the boys' bathroom. Dev stands outside, reading the New York Post he had tucked under his right arm. A short wiry black kid walks past Dev. He likes getting a look at people about to die who are oblivious to their fate. The young man walks in, Leks does her little song and dance, and Dev reads the sports section during the screaming. Leks walks out, looking glum. "I don't think he liked white chicks."

"Yes. It's a shame when racial prejudice gets in the way of a satisfying homicide."

"I need another."

"You always need another. We'll get it somewhere else." He grabs her right wrist with his left hand and pulls her along.

"I wanna stay."

"And I want to be in the west 20s when the cops get here."

"Tomorrow I'm going to your stupid Clash concert."

"The Clash are not stupid. They're revelatory. No one with a soul can deny them. And few without one."

"I don't care. Punk boys are groddy. My point is, we do what you want tomorrow, so I get to do what I want today."

"Unless it put in needless risk. You have to learn to spread out your killing."

"That's not what daddy says."

"Well, when you kill a Slayer like daddy, then you can behave like him. Until then, follow me and play it safe."

Elektra's in the Laguna Hills High library, surfing the net and checking out the latest news in the vampire chat rooms. Cynthia sits at a carrel, doing her homework. Leks saw her in the hall with Debbie. It looked like the Slayer and her were good friends. This made Cynthia an enticing target. Sunlight shining through a window was in her way. Besides, killing Cynthia would lead to a fight with Debbie. And Elektra had not come all this way to fight. Rather, she had come to show her brother that she had acquired some of his legendary self-control.

"It's dark. It's dingy. Yet it's still depressing. How can that be?," Elektra asks her brother as they enter an arcade.

"I let you have your fun. Let me play a few games, and you can kill someone else. Then we'll take a spin through the Chelsea Hotel, see if we can spot any famous people, and be home before mom and dad are even awake."

Elektra laughs. "You can do anything you want. You can control life and death. And what do you do? You play pinball!"

"We're immortal. We don't have to be in such a hurry." Dev looks around to make sure know one's listening to their strange conversation. Fortunately, the place is noisy. "Here's a quarter. Go play something." Elektra walks around, frowning at all the stupid machines. She watches a college kid play Tron. Here was a human pretending to have special abilities. Well she had them. What would she need to pretend? Why does Devlin? Being around him always made her think too much and analyze the present. She'd rather be fantasizing about the future. The next kill. The next party. The next time she sees Spike. The game finishes, and the college kid turns around. Not bad.

"Hey you," she says, grabbing his hand.

"Your hand's cold."

"Maybe you can help warm me up. Okay. I'm sorry. That's lame. I'm Alexa."

"Todd."

"Todd, can you take off your glasses?"

"Why?"

"I think you might look really cute with them off, and I wanna see if I'm right." He laughs bashfully. Elektra keeps staring at him. He figures what the hey, and takes them off. "I was right!" He smiles. She bites him. He screams. Dev stops playing his game and runs to the noise.

"Oh no!" He grabs two kids trying the leave and smacks their skulls together to knock them unconscious. Then he punches out the proprietor and an adult gamer and looks around to make sure there's no one else who can escape to tell the cops before the vamps have fled the scene. Elektra drains Todd and walks up to Dev.

"I'm full." He wipes the blood off her smiling lips with a handkerchief.

"You are the worst sister ever." They race to the alley behind the store and jump down the sewer grate they climbed out of.

"First I'm taking too long to eat. Then I'm eating too quickly. Make up your mind." Dev clocks her with a right hook to the face. She gasps in horror. He bashes her head into the sewer pipe. "I'm telling mommy."

"So what? She believes in beating the disobedient. And sometimes, also the obedient."

"You two have the sickest relationship. I sleep with my father. But we don't do anything perverted." Dev lands a left hook that knocks her off her feet.

"I liked that place. Now you've ruined it for me. What did I ever do to you?"

"Well, for one thing, I think you knocked one of my teeth loose," she jokes before standing up. "There are stupid video game places all over town."

"There are also stupid people you can bite all over town."

"He was cute. I didn't expect to see any cuties in that nerd hole." Dev starts laughing.

"Hole. Hole." He laughs some more.

"You finally get the giggles, and it's for something that's not even funny. I just don't understand what mummy sees in you."

"Remember when you snuck into that bath house?"

"Of course I remember. It was last week."

"You couldn't understand why every single guy in the place was ignoring you."

"How was I supposed to know there were ALL homosexuals?" He laughs some more. "Okay, I get it: I'm the new girl and I'm from the suburbs. Can we stop dwelling?"

"Spike and I had to drag you out of there before you got violent and caused a scene." Elektra starts laughing.

"And you got pissed because none of the guys were looking at you but they were all checking out Spike. You almost took off your shirt and tried to show off."

"Okay. So we're both insecure."

"Moi? How many minutes does it take me to find a guy to seduce? How many hours – days! – does it take you to find a girl who'll go for you?"

"That's cause men are easy. Women take time."

"Not for daddy." She giggles. "And then you go home crying to mummy, and she hugs you and tells you you're still a handsome devil." Dev starts walking away. "Wait!"

"If you're gonna insult me, find your own way home. Oh. That's right. You don't know the tunnels. You'll be lost until dark." She runs up to him, takes his hands and falls on her knees.

"I'm sorry. You're the best big brother ever. Actually, you're the only big brother. None of the other vampires I met has one. Most of 'em don't even have families." Elektra takes great pride in not being a "bastard." It makes her feel superior to every other teenage vamp, even though she's a newbie. "And it's cool how you look out for me and kick everyone's ass when we get in fights."

"Remember that night under the boardwalk in Coney Island when those jerks said you dressed like a hooker, and I told them to apologize, and they pulled out their knives, and I stuck that guy's fist through his teeth and down his own throat?"

"And you broke their hands and took their knives and cut one guy's ear off, and another guy's nose, and the other three ran away screaming?"

"Mom was so thrilled when she saw those body parts." She stands up and hugs Devlin.

"Like I said, best brother ever."

"I thought your mood swings got better when you had a full stomach?," he asks with a smirk.

Out in the hallway, Elektra spots a guy. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, flat stomach, wavy hair, full lips, strong chin, nice cheekbones. But there was something that differentiated him from your standard high school stud, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Elektra approaches. She wears a short blue skirt and a tight, midriff-baring green t-shirt. Her long hair seems to wave from the breeze caused by all the people zooming past her. Naturally, she catches his eye. Elektra's skilled at making men notice her. She's had a quarter century of practice. "Hi. I'm new here."

"I'm Alex." She gasps.

"No! I'm Alexa. Isn't that freaky?"

"Yeah. I guess. So. How do you like it so far?"

"Okay. It's a little bigger than my last school. Which cafeteria do I use?"

"What grade are you?"

"Eleventh."

"The Commons. Down this way. Here, I'll show you. I'm heading there right now."

"I'm not. Which makes it weird for me to ask. This is my lunch period. But I have to go fix my schedule. See, they gave me homec when I should have biology."

"Oh. Hopefully you won't go hungry."

"Hopefully not." He turns around, walks away, but gives her a look over his shoulder a few steps later. She smiles. Fashions may change. But the boys never do.

Dev and Elektra return home to find their parents in bed watching television. They leap out at the sight of their precocious progeny. "Lex got hungry," Dev reports. Spike puts his hands to her face.

"You're still warm."

"Just warm? What's the matter, daddy? You don't find me hot anymore?" He picks Leks up and plays with her. Dru pinches Dev's cheeks.

"You're cold as candlesticks."

"Wasn't hungry."

"Moi boy needs to eat." Dev feels this is the vampire's great weakness, since killing gets him caught and killed. As Buffy told the Potentials, vampires must feed, they must attack. He'd spent his whole life trying to prove her wrong.

"Only enough so I can fight. Hey dad – there's a gang of vampire hunters in Williamsburg and Park Slope. I've been working on a plan to take them down. What we need are some patsy vampires to draw the humans into an ambush." Spike lets go of Leks and walks over to Dev.

"They come our way, we kill 'em."

"Aren't you worried they could set a bad example, encourage other humans to fight back?"

"Smashing! More to kill."

"I think you're shirking your hegemonic duty. As the killer of the Slayer, you're the de facto leader of vampires in this area. And as such, you have a responsibility to protect the others. In exchange for suitable tribute: riches, women, precious little children," he adds, looking at mom.

"I can get all that for myself."

"I'm talking about building an empire."

"Bollox to empires! I just want to have fun." Spike takes Elektra over his shoulder and carries the gleeful girl to the niche in the rock that is her bedroom. Devlin puts on Patti Smith's "Because the Night" to drown them out and to provide an opportunity to dance with Drusilla.

"I think dad misses the big picture," Dev says before twirling Dru, then pulling her close.

"Tell me about your plans." She was always encouraging her boy to think big.

"Have you had a chance to read over those proposals submitted by, er, that friend of our Slayer?," Wes asks Angel.

"You actually think that's worth my time? You actually thought it was worth YOUR time?"

"Fred insisted there were some valuable suggestions." Angel looks at her, demanding an explanation.

"Mostly it's basic stuff we already do, like regularly checking abandoned buildings and mapping the locations of attacks. But there's also a few ideas the good guys can't use, but we can. Like, umm, infiltrating gangs. Bribing vampires to turn on their fellow bloodsuckers and creating a climate of paranoia The sorta thing you guys call psy-ops."

"Paying vampires. That's the stupidest idea I ever heard." Outside his office, Harmony's on the phone with a jeweler who wants to check out the diamonds Devlin gave her.

Andrew walks into the library. "Your tea," he says to Giles. "Your coffee," he says after walking over to Gretchen, who's at the computer. Rupert decided to slowly easy Andrew back into the Watcher Training Program. For now, he performs menial tasks around the office as punishment for walking into the worst ambush since Little Bighorn. Dawn likes the new arrangement, since once again she's superior to him.

"Thank you," Gretchen says to Andrew after taking a sip. "Andrew, can you do me a favor and take a look at this picture?"

"Aiiiyee!" Andrew leaps back.

"I thought so."

"Oh, come now," Giles responds. "Whatever demon it is, it can't be that scary."

"It's no demon. It's the evil Slayer. With Angel!" Giles takes off his glasses.

"I beg your pardon?"

"There's a picture of the two of them together in today's LA Times," Gretchen reports. "He's giving her an award. And money. I wonder what for." Giles has to see this for himself, and hurries over. He's never seen Debbie, so the picture's not as shocking as it is for Andrew, who remembers Debbie deviously setting him up with the cops and nearly getting him ten years in the state pen. He reads the caption and scans the article.

"It's some sort of Good Samaritan Award."

"I didn't know being a Good Samaritan included getting twelve of your fellow Slayers kneecapped. Buffy was right about not trusting him." Gretchen prints what's on the screen. "I'm sure she'll feel vindicated after seeing this."

"You're not showing that to her."

"We have no right to keep secrets from her."

"It will distract her, and accomplish nothing." Gretchen stands up and grabs the printout. Giles gently grabs her arm. "Please Gretch. I know her." She crumples up the page and throws it in the trash.

"Fine. I'll mention it to her after dinner. No point upsetting her during training, when she might break something. Or someone."