"This is so not fair," Buffy whined into her cell phone as she climbed over some rubble.

"Oh, it so is, B. I took the kids for the 10k run. You have to kill the Yaunti," Faith was grinning on her side of the phone, Buffy just knew it.

"No, it's not fair, because you tricked me. You knew I had a date tonight, so you took the run so that I would have to come here and be late for my date with Ken. If I make it at all." Buffy lowered her voice as she scanned the remains of the old factory building for any sign of movement.

"B, Ken is a dork. I'm doing you a favor. Get over it." Faith disconnected before Buffy could raise another protest.

Buffy stared at her dark phone in disbelief. Faith hung up on her?! "Oh, she is so dead when I get out of here," Buffy muttered to herself. "Here, beastie, beastie!" Buffy called quietly in a sing song. "Come out, come out where ever you are!"

A scuttling of gravel sounded behind her making Buffy smile. "Now, that's a good monster. If you come out and let me kill you quickly, I can still make my date."

"Dude, 2 out of 3, c'mon!"

Sam just shook his head and laughed, "Always with the scissors, Dean." He shut the trunk of the Impala. "No, it's fair and square. You go dig up the cornerstone and get the chalice. I kill the snake."

"Sammy, I say we do this thing together. I mean, how many snake monsters have you faced? It could be very dangerous," Dean shouldered a shovel and tucked his gun into his waistband.

"Nice try, Dean. According to dad's journal these things are slow and stupid," Sam checked his shotgun. "You dig, bro. I get to do the shooting this time."

Dean huffed in response and walked on, "Fine, scream like a girl when you need me to come save your ass!"

Sam shook his head again as he walked towards the dilapidated factory. He was feeling lucky, this should be the easiest job he and Dean had taken in quite a while. The best part, Dean had to do the grunt work. Sam got the 'glory' of the killing of the 'monster'.

Buffy and the Yaunti exchanged blows. "Tell me where the chalice is you ugly green slime ball!"

Buffy pivoted and kicked the Yaunti squarely in the chest. The Yaunti grabbed her foot, twisted it and knocked Buffy back. Unfortunately for Buffy, the Yaunti broke the heel off her new shoe. "Now just look what you've done! I loved these shoes. You are so gonna pay for that." Buffy snarled at him. Instead of a response, the Yaunti began to chant and continued to absorb every punch Buffy threw.

"Oh no you don't, slimey. No conjuring, only confessing!" Buffy drew a dagger from her belt and began to stab the Yaunti's limbs, in order to distract it. The Yaunti howled in pain but continued to conjure. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way." Buffy drew back and aimed the dagger at the Yaunti's throat. "Take it back."

It was at that moment that Sam Winchester entered and misread the scene before him. "Look out!" He shouted, drawing Buffy's attention. When she moved, Sam fired his shotgun and successfully separated the Yaunti's head from its body.

"Eww!!" Buffy squealed as she was covered in Yaunti blood. "Oh my god, you idiot!" She yelled at Sam. She looked herself over, "Look at me, I'm covered in," she took a breath then began to gag. "oh gah" she bent over and gagged again.

Sam rushed to Buffy, "Are you okay?" He agreed the stench was awful, and she was covered in green blood and, well, bits of Yaunti. Sam thought he might gag, but at least he had saved her life.

"Oh, I'm okay, I'm flippin' wonderful!" Buffy growled. Where to begin, her shoe was broken, she was covered in putrid green blood and guts, there was no way she was making her date with Ken, and the Yaunti had conjured an army of zombies. And, on top of it all, giant guy with gun had killed it before she could force it to retract the spell, so, she had to deal with a gun toting civilian and zombies. She slumped against the wall to mentally prepare herself.

Dean rushed into the room, gun drawn, yelling, "Sammy!" He had heard Buffy's scream and thought that Sam really had yelled like a girl. After he saw the slime covered Buffy, he paused and looked at Sam. "You okay?"

"Yes." Buffy and Sam answered in unison. Buffy rolled her eyes. Great now she had two civilians she had to worry about.

Sam walked over and held out a hand to Buffy as if he were going to help her up. He had to turn his head from her due to the stench of the Yaunti blood. "Let us help you out," he tried through his held breath.

After looking them over, Buffy ripped the broken the heel off her shoe and sighed. As she got up on her own, the bulge in Dean's coat caught her eye. "Do you Indian Jones wannabes have a car?"

"Yeah," Sam offered ignoring the look Dean was giving him. There was no way slime girl was getting in his baby.

"Good, hurry and get in it and get gone," Buffy picked up her dagger. "But, first, give me the chalice." She held out her hand to Dean.

Before Sam could say anything, Dean shook his head, "No way, slime girl. The chalice is ours and its staying right where it is," Dean patted his jacket.

Buffy, however, was barely paying attention to them, she heard a disturbance outside. "Fine, keep it. For now. Just where did you park?" She started walking in the direction Dean had come from.

"Right past the gate, by the train tracks," Sam answered ignoring the glare from Dean.

"Well, if you're gonna keep the chalice thing, you better hurry up and get going before I decide to take it from you." Buffy wanted that to sound threatening, but she realized that two guys with guns weren't going to take her seriously. She just hoped they'd leave before the zombies decided to attack. She picked up a piece of metal and swung it to test it's weight in her hand. She nodded. "This'll work," she said to herself.

"Hey, whoa, now, little lady, no reason for batting practice. We're not going to hurt you ---" Dean's reassurance was cut off by the sound of metal clanging to the ground. "What the ?'

"Get moving!" Buffy ordered pushing Sam towards the exit where he said his car was parked. Then she attempted to grab Dean's arm but he shrugged her off. "Go!" She shouted at him.

The sound of more metal falling made Dean look behind her. "You gotta be kidding me!" Dean pushed Buffy aside and fired at the zombies that were approaching. Then he looked at his hand in disgust and wiped the slime on the factory wall. "Uh, yuck."

Buffy rolled her eyes, "Not a Romero flick, cowboy." She went straight to the zombies and bashed the first one in the neck with her piece of metal. Then she cut off its head with her dagger. She had no idea how many zombies Yaunti conjured, but if she had to destroy all of them like this, she was in for a long night.

Dean watched her in fascination. Alright, head's gotta come off he thought to himself. As Buffy dispatched the first one, Dean aimed for the second zombie and managed to shoot it squarely in the neck. The shot didn't sever it's head, but Buffy looked over at him and nodded as she finished the work with her knife.

"Hey, we have a problem!" Sam yelled as he came back into the room. "There's a bunch of zombies out there, too."

"I'll cover you so you can get to your car, go," Buffy pushed at Dean again.

Dean stumbled in the direction of her shove, surprised by her strength. "Whoa, just a sec. Sammy, how many rounds you got?"

"Uh, five more on me."

"Good, aim for the head or neck of everything in the path to the car," Dean turned to Buffy, "I've got a full clip in here and can at least slow 'em down some. Once we get to the car, the trunk's full of just what we need to take care of this mess."

Buffy studied him for a minute. "Not civilians, huh?"

Dean smirked, "Not so much."

Buffy nodded, broke the heel off her other shoe then replied, "Alright let's go."

Once in the parking lot, Buffy realized that the Yaunti must have nearly emptied out the entire nearby cemetery. She didn't see how they were going to make it to the car let alone out of the factory's lot. She jumped a little at the blast of Sam's shotgun, but smiled when she saw the result of his perfect aim. Each zombie took at least two shots from Dean's gun but, it was still effective.

Once at the Impala, Dean tossed Sam the handgun and opened the trunk. Buffy gasped, her eyes glowed like a kid in a candy shop. Dean grinned and grabbed a broad axe. "Ooh, nice," Buffy murmured as the axe blade shone in the dim light from the trunk. Buffy grabbed a machete and prepared to decapitate.

Once they had his back, Sam reloaded the shot gun, but Dean shook his head. "Grab a blade, man. The head's gotta come off and we don't want more noise if we can help it." Sam nodded and took another machete for himself.

The three of them actually made short work of the zombie 'army', less than an hour. The clean up, however, didn't appeal to any of them. The Yaunti blood and guts that had covered Buffy had hardened into a smelly crust. She wasn't sure which smelled worse, her or the decaying bodies that littered the area. Wordlessly, she returned her machete to Dean. She put her hands on her hips and surveyed her surroundings. "Now what?"

Sam and Dean exchanged confused looks. "Now what? What?" Dean asked.

Buffy raised her brow and pointed at the bodies, "What do we do about all of, you know, this?"

Sam and Dean looked at each other and shrugged. "I don't know. Burn it?" Sam offered rolling his eyes when he saw Dean's grin.

"Huh, I guess," Buffy began. "But that's gonna bring authorities and their gonna find the bodies and then the open graves."

"Yeah, I don't have nearly enough accelerant to make everything disappear before the fire department arrives."

The guys leaned against the car in thought. Buffy was about to join them when she remembered the slime and decided against it. Instead, she took off her coat and dumped it on the ground, knocking her phone from the pocket.

Sam and Dean nudged each other as they looked at her. Sure, her head was still covered in the hardening slime, but she had been hiding quite the nice body under that crusted coat. Buffy bent over to pick up her phone, making Dean grab Sam's arm and smile.

"Oh great, four missed calls," she punched in her code. "Hm," she nodded to herself, well Ken's not going to call again after that last message. She sighed heavily, "Damn."

"Something wrong?" Sam asked her making sure to look in her eyes and not at the shirt that was tight in all the right places.

"Not really, just my date cancelled," she sighed again. "I don't think he'd believe any excuse I'd throw him, anyway, seeing as I'm over a half hour late and in desperate need of a shower." She looked around then dialed again. "Hey, Xander, I've got a small problem…" She walked off and the Winchesters could no longer hear her conversation.

Dean admired the view as she walked away and thought that the Xander guy should consider accepting whatever excuse she offered. She was damn cute.

"Xander, I'm at that old nail factory and just like you thought the Yaunti was here attempting to get the chalice thing." Buffy began.

"Okay," Xander replied, "what's the problem? Did you get the chalice?"

Buffy looked over at the two guys. "Yeah, about that, no. I didn't get it."

Xander huffed on his end, "Come on, Buffy, the Yaunti is a pretty easy critter to get rid of, what happened? How did you not get the chalice? Did the Yaunti already use it?"

"Look, while I was fighting the Yaunti, it conjured some zombie spell and a whole lot of zombies showed up."

"So, you saying there's a mess out there."

"Yeah."

"Alright. I got a tanker truck at a work site. I'll send it over." Xander waved a girl over and wrote something down on a scrap of paper and handed it to her. She read it and left with a smile on her face.

"Also, some guys showed up and they took the chalice before I could."

"Guys? What kind of guys?"

"Well, sorta helpful guys. They helped me get rid of the zombies."

"Did you get names?"

"Yeah, Sammy and Dean."

"That's it? No last name?"

"No time for proper introductions. One of them shot the Yaunti and got it all over me. The other one admitted to not being a civilian." Buffy looked over at the guys. "They have a car trunk full of weapons and they have the chalice."

"Well, I've never heard of a hunter named Dean or Sammy." Xander looked out the window. "Can you tell me anything else about them?"

"Not really. Like I said, we were busy with a bunch of zombies."

"Alright, what about the car? What's it look like? Did you get a plate number?" Xander needed something more to go on if he was going to find the identity of these hunters.

Buffy looked over at the car and shrugged. "Ohio plates, can't see the number clearly. I don't know, the car is big and black and it has a big trunk."

"Right, well, that really narrows it down, Buff," Xander's sarcasm was not lost on Buffy. "I'll see what I can find out," he sighed.

When she disconnected with Xander, Buffy had expected the two guys to be gone, but instead they were pulling the bodies into piles. Buffy regarded them for a minute. Whoever they were, she was really glad they carried an arsenal in their trunk. The way they had been staring at her, though made her a tad uncomfortable. Then she went to run a hand through her hair, only to pull it away in disgust. "Ugh, I had nearly forgotten about that." She wiped her hand on her pants before putting both hands on her hips. No wonder they were staring. "What do you want with the chalice? It's not really worth much. It's brass, you know, not gold."

Dean smiled, knowing he had the upper hand. "What did you want it for?"

Buffy looked perplexed for a minute. "I, uh, was going to give it to the museum?" By the look on their faces, Buffy could tell they weren't buying that line.

"Don't worry about the chalice," Sam spoke up. "We were only taking it to make sure nothing like this happened."

Buffy looked around at the zombie carnage and nodded. "Good plan. Seems to have worked well."

Dean chuckled. "Well, what about you? Seriously."

Buffy took her hands off her hips. "Look, you know that I know that you know that the chalice is kinda a bad thing. I was going to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands, again."

Dean squinted following her statement but then a little smile formed. "Do you think there's something wrong with our hands?"

Before she could answer, Buffy heard a truck pulled up. "Uh, unless you're going to hand over the chalice, you guys should go, I got this."

Sam wrinkled his brow, "What, no, we can help. Really, we don't mind."

"Yeah," Dean joined in, "ya know, we helped make the mess, we should really help clean up."

"Thanks for your help and all, but, really, you guys better go. That's the clean up crew," Buffy pointed to the truck that just pulled up, "and they're going to make a much bigger mess before they're done. The authorities are bound to show up pretty soon. Go!"

Dean didn't have to be told twice. He dropped the body he had been dragging and went to his car. "Wait," Sam began, but Buffy was already running toward the truck.

************************************************************************

The next morning, Buffy was watching the story of the explosion at the old nail factory on the local news. Xander had made sure that the corpses would be completely destroyed. She was about to switch it off when Faith sauntered in and plopped herself down on the couch. "So, B, nice work," she nodded to the television.

Buffy rolled her eyes, "Yeah, well company showed up and caused problems. I had to do what I had to do."

Intrigued, Faith leaned forward, "What kind of company?"

"Two hunters and a whole lotta zombies." Buffy got up, "Ya want some coffee?"

"Sure," Faith nodded. "So these hunters, where they cool? Or were they total dicks like most we've dealt with?"

Handing Faith her coffee, Buffy tilted her head, "Sorta cool. I mean, they sure came in handy when the zombies showed. 'Course it was their fault the zombies showed." Buffy took a sip of her own coffee. "Had a bunch of weapons, kept the chalice. Pretty even 'dick versus cool' ratio."

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a girl in her early twenties. "Morning, ladies," She yawned. "Mmm, ya got any coffee for me?"

"Sure, Keisha, help yourself," Buffy pointed to the pot on the counter. "Is your room okay?"

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, "Oh, yeah, it's good. The bed's real comfy," Keisha answered. "But, how was your date last night? Where'd Ken take you? I didn't hear you come in, so I know it was a good date!" She added with a wink.

Buffy pressed her lips together, "Yeah, not so much." Keisha looked at her questioningly. "There was no date. The job at the factory did not go quite according to plan."

"Seriously? Dang, I'm sorry. What went wrong?" Keisha took a seat next to Faith.

"Well, the Yaunti was not cooperative, two hunters showed up, one shot the Yaunti making it explode all over me, they took the chalice, zombies arrived and needed destroying, on top of it all, the Yaunti broke the heel on my new shoes."

Keisha looked at Faith who just nodded. "Wow, that sucks, those were great shoes. So no date?"

"No date."

"Aw, that's too bad, Buffy. You looked real cute, too," Keisha added, ignoring Faith's small chuckle.

"I bet she looked great after being covered in Yaunti guts," Faith giggled earning a small slap on the leg from Keisha.

"And these hunters, they've got the chalice?" Keisha asked.

"Yep." Buffy answered.

"Wow, girl, your night sucked," Keisha slumped into the couch.

"Tell me about it," Buffy took their mugs and placed them on the counter.

"What are you going to do about those hunters?" Faith asked. "We've got to get that chalice. What do you think the hunters want with it?"

"Don't know, hope it's not something bad. Xander said he'd work on tracking them, but I only had first names, a nice axe, and a car to go on, so, it'd be a miracle if he could find them."

Faith's eyes lit up. "A car? I know cars. What was it?"

"Shiny, big, and black. Or maybe dark blue." Buffy replied squinting her eyes.

"I meant what make and model, like Toyota or Ford, or what?"

Buffy raised a brow, "How would I know that? All I know is big and shiny and"

All three women said, "black." Buffy nodded.

Dean all but grabbed the bag out of his younger brother's hands, when Sam returned to their room. "You had better have gotten something for me, man. I'm starving." Sam sat at the small motel table and opened his laptop. "Seriously?" Dean shook his head, "Again with the research. Last night wasn't enough? I agree the girl was pretty cute, but you're entering stalkerville."

"Dean, don't you think it's odd that she just let us leave with the chalice?" Sam barely looked up from the screen. "She knows we weren't 'civilians'. She knows we have the chalice. I just want to know who she is, 'cause chances are she's gonna be looking for us."

Dean sat on the bed munching on his breakfast burrito. "Why do you want to know who she is? Let's just get the hell out of Dodge. We've occasionally run into other hunters before and it usually doesn't end well."

"I'm not sure she was a just a hunter," Sam clicked a few more keys, and took in Dean's questioning expression. "She didn't have a gun, for one thing. She was ready to take on all the zombies without our help." Dean nodded as he followed Sam's line of reasoning. Sam looked up at his brother, "I can't put my finger on it, but something wasn't right with that girl."

"She looked alright to me." Dean grinned as he rose to toss his wrapper. Dean noticed Sam had a small smile, too. "Look, I'm all for finding out --" he was interrupted by his phone ringing, "it's Bobby." He said before answering, "Hey, Bobby, how's it --" Dean listened for a minute and shut his phone. "Well, so much for getting out of Dodge. Sammy, looks like we have to hang in Cleveland for a while. Bobby said to sit tight. He can't meet us until Sunday."

"Why? What did he say? Didn't you tell him about the girl?"

Dean raised a brow at his brother, "You heard the conversation. He said sit tight and that was pretty much it. There's worse places than Cleveland." He paused when he saw Sam's anxious expression. "Look, why don't you get your geek on and keep researching girls," he smirked, "and I'll get my baby's oil changed. Then this afternoon we can hit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sound good?"

"Sure, Dean, whatever," Sam sighed, he couldn't stop thinking about that girl and that there was something very dangerous about staying in Cleveland if she was there, too.