Let the Object of Objection
Become but a Dream
As I cause the Seen
To be Unseen.

The Egregiously Acned groans and leans down over the counter. Rose asks if he's okay. He claims he "got a little head rush," then turns to face her. The Acne Be Gone worked like a charm. Get it? Sorry. Rose is totally stoked. Billy, to the credit of whomever was responsible for this, did not morph magically into Prince Charming. He's still a bit of a dork with a pronounced overbite and a cheap tie, but the skin problem he had has cleared. Rose oh-my-Gods for a moment, then kisses him playfully on the cheek as she leaves the room. Billy spontaneously combusts. Not, you know, literally, but it's clear he's unused to female affection and desperately appreciates the attention.

In some random alley somewhere in the city, Piper strides purposefully towards the locked receiving doors of an abandoned warehouse. Phoebe and Cole trail behind her, with Phoebe avowing her disapproval. She warns Piper that if she insists on pursuing her current plan of action, she's on her own. Shyeah. Pull the other one, Feebs. Piper, calling the bluff, sallies forward. The three draw themselves up short when they smell something burning. Piper catches sight of a thin veil of smoke drifting out from beneath the locked doors as sounds of a struggle inside reach their ears. Cole moves to investigate, but Piper orders him back. He eases back a step or two before Piper, in an attempt to blow open the warehouse, freezes both the doors and Cole instead. "Crap!" Piper snits as she rips off her jacket to roll up her sleeves for another try. She shakes it out for a bit, then flings her open palms at the door. They immediately explode outwards in slicing shards of wood, knocking Cole end over end past an abandoned car. Phoebe rushes to his side as a moany gent in a poncho dashes out of the warehouse past Piper, body-slamming her into a Dumpster. At that moment, a trio of scantily-clad women lopes out of the warehouse after the moany gent. The gang on the boards collectively began to sing "I'm a survivor!" when this scene hit the screen, but these white girls are too low-rent to be Destiny's Child wannabes. And "too low-rent" is saying a lot. There's an Amazonian blonde, accompanied by a shorter redhead and a tiny brunette. Why did I waste the Andrews Sisters on the Triad last season? Brad Kern is doing this to mock me. Anyway, of the three, only the brunette's hair appears to be real. They each wear magenta and burgundy scraps of fabric that for the moment are passing as bras and micromini wrap-around skirts. Their hands are manly and misshapen with thick claws for fingernails, which makes me think the blonde might actually be a drag queen. Piper attempts to blow them up in defiance of Cole's shouted order to leave them alone, but succeeds only in vanquishing the Dodge Aries further down the alley. The trio turns to sneer at Piper in displeasure from beneath a pound each of liquid mascara that's been applied in various patterns on their faces to suggest some sort of tribal tattooing. Piper then tosses a freeze that affects Cole alone. "Uh oh," she stutters. "Th-th-th-they're immune to my powers." The trio moves to attack. The blonde takes on Piper, her claws slashing through a metal garbage can lid Piper has raised before her as a shield. The redhead whales on Phoebe, who levitates in response, dealing head-snapping kicks to the redhead and the brunette. Cole unfreezes of his own accord just as the blonde flips Piper over her shoulder to the ground. Before Cole can act, the blonde exhales a stream of smoke into Piper's panting mouth. Cole nails the blonde with an FBOD, and she silently blazes down to Hell. The redhead and the brunette rise to their feet to vanish into down-drafting pillars of smoke and ash that are uncomfortably reminiscent of two other down-drafting pillars of smoke and ash I could mention. Piper hacks and blinks our way out into commercial.