"I am sorry to just turn up out of the blue like this," Riley said as they marched downtown. It was hard not to march when in line with him and Buffy found her arms insisted on swinging in time despite feeling ridiculous about it. He turned to her with a rye smile that rather than melt her defenses like maybe it once would have, poisoned her mood further. "There's really no one else I'd ask to risk their life for me."

Buffy snorted and didn't bother to try and stopper the fountain of words bubbling up. "Is that somehow supposed to be a compliment? 'Hey, you might die, lucky you'?" she ground out, letting resentment have its freedom. "You could've called first, by the way. No one ever thinks to call me first they're always 'Oh, Buffy, she's got nothing better to do at 8 pm on a Saturday but nearly get herself killed by a-," she stalled, realizing she'd followed him out of the house without even a question as to where they were heading. "What is it I'm nearly about to get killed by this time?"

Riley lifted his head from the gadget in his hand he seemed to be recalibrating, rather than listening to her beratement.

"Suvolte demon," he stated as the gadget started beeping like a sonar signal, before fizzling out again. He smacked hard on the side and the blips flared back. "Rare, lethal, nearly extinct but not nearly enough," he continued as he paused their marching and took a left turn down the street. "They're breeders. One becomes ten becomes a thousand."

"Which is it?" Buffy asked, refusing to let him out-march her and increasing her speed subtly.

Riley lifted his head from the beeping tracker. "What?"

"Is it a breeder about to turn into thousands, or is it nearly extinct?" she clarified, her eyes narrowing suspiciously at the contradiction. "Which is it?"

Riley opened his mouth unthinkingly, before reevaluating his own words. He half-shrugged. "Both," he said, and Buffy's glare deepened.

"You're lying," she blurted out. "Badly by the way. Like, if I lie as bad as that I deserved to get cursed."

"I'm not lying," Riley bit back, deaf to the last half of her sentence. "It's just a complicated situation."

"Everything's always a complicated situation isn't it, Riley?" Buffy replied frostily. A micro-amount of tension seemed to ease out of her as she felt long-suppressed feelings flourishing finally by the inability to lie to herself any longer. "You seem to make a habit of turning a simple situation more complicated." They turned onto another street and found themselves face to face with the ruined high school, sagging and malicious looking. Its windows empty of glass seemed to watch them keenly like giant spider eyes.

The beeping from the tracker seemed to pick up pace. "It's here," Riley murmured, unholstering a tranquilizer gun that looked like it could take down elephants without difficulty. Buffy rolled her eyes. Army boys and their gadgets. It was such a cliche.

The halls of the school were mostly rubble. Crushed-in lockers and broken pieces of wall reverberated the tracker's shrill blips and filled the intervals between with splintered echoes. They took a series of rights and lefts until they found themselves at the door of the school's swimming pool.

"Here we go," Riley said, with a sideways glance at her. Buffy bobbed her head, stealing herself for what might be on the other side.

Anticlimactic nothingness greeted them. Just the empty pool, with its deserted and broken rows of benches, shattered windows, and a buckled roof. Until they edge closer to the pool's edge.

Glistening wetly, pulsing slightly, were eggs. Dozens. Stacked together tightly as if for warmth. "Ugh," Buffy grunted, stepping back from the drop that would send her plummeting into the center of them. The sight was nauseating.

"Jackpot," Riley grunted and unholstered his radio. "Unhatched assets located, requesting transport. Over." His voice sounded tinny as it bounced back from the tiles.

"On route," a voice crackled back out of the radio. "Over and out."

"Transport?" Buffy's eyebrows creased. "I thought we-" mad beeping from the tracker broke her off, followed by an almost bear-like roar as a monstrous bipedal demon burst through one of the opposing doors.

"Here we go," Riley grinned, shouldering the tranquilizer gun and pulling back the trigger.

It jammed, the soft impotent thunk sound just barely audible over the creatures bellowing.

Buffy ran. Volted. Grabbed a piece of piping that had rusted away from the safety rail and charged. The demon reared back from her, then swung a clawed arm, trying to fend off the pipe like a bated bear. Buffy dropped, kicked her leg, and caught it in a muscled shin, sending it falling backward. Back on her feet in a flash, she brought the pipe down hard, driving it with full force through the Suvolte's throat, not stopping until she reached the tile beneath. It thrashed, trapped, eviscerating its own windpipe as it flailed until it eventually stilled, slumping dead as a thick brackish-smelling ooze trickled out of its neck over the lip of the pool.

"Bollocks," Riley muttered.

Buffy frowned and glanced up at Riley, who was frowning right along with her. That wasn't his voice. Both turned their heads and Buffy froze as Spike's silhouette moved in from the shadows of the fire escape door, a guilty wince on his face and a hefty sack in his hand.