"You did what?" Xander asked, staring at his best friend/brother the next morning and wondering if he'd lost his Grimm hearing ability.
"Overheard the swim coach and Snyder talking about needing a new team member or they'd have to forfeit their place in the Championships and I tried out for the team and made it."
"The team that is possibly being targeted by a demon that might have been summoned from a demon dimension?" Xander asked, seeking clarity.
"Yes, this way I can keep an eye on the team and see if anything hinky is going on. The skin suit found in the cafeteria was found by another team member, it's possible he was actually responsible for the aforementioned skin suit and just covered it up by throwing something out the window. If he could summon a demon, he could magically blow out the window."
"If you die, Amy will curse me. She'll make the rest of my life miserable and Tika will help her. Don't die."
"Will do."
"You're just going to let him do this?" Buffy asked.
"It's a good idea and it might give us a heads up if someone else ends up being targeted. We could get to them before they die. He can handle himself."
"I have practice after classes lets out for the day. I'll meet you guys in the library and let you know if I find out anything."
Xander nodded and Jesse headed off to his first class. Amy and Tika both glared at Xander.
"Curse." Amy said.
"I'll help." Tika agreed.
Xander turned and silently exited the library and breathed out. Girlfriends and little sisters could both do scary real well.
Jesse headed for the library after the swim practice disappointed that he hadn't found anything and reminding himself it was just the first day and hey no one had been attacked, so that, at least was a good thing to report. He stopped at the vending machine outside of the boy's locker room and contemplated the mediocre offerings. He'd just made up his mind what he wanted when he heard a scream coming from the locker room and not stopping to think ran in and found himself face to...face with something.
"Oh shit, what the Hell are you?!" Another scream from behind him had him turning sideways and seeing a fellow swim team member. Who wasn't screaming about the something. Jesse moved cautiously towards the door, hoping not to attract any attention to himself as the boy reached up, grasped his own scalp and starting pulling it apart. Jesse hit the door running and didn't look back. He made it to the library and burst though the doors.
"The swim team members are turning into creatures from the black lagoon!"
"What?" Xander asked.
"No demon is attacking them, they're mutating! I just saw Gage Patron rip apart his own scalp and he wasn't human underneath!"
"Nobody guessed mutating in the pool." Xander observed. "What the Hell would cause a human to mutate into something entirely different?"
"I can't for the life of me even speculate." Giles answered.
"They don't seemed to have chased you." Buffy said. "Where were they?"
"In the boys locker room, I was getting a snack from the vending machine, than I heard a scream, I ran in and there was a creature with way too many sharp teeth in front of me. Then there was another scream behind me and I turned and saw Gage ripping his scalp open!"
"We need to check it out." Xander decided and Buffy nodded. "Stay here, Jess. Amy lock and load your Magic. If these things get by us, it probably means we're down, in that case, fry 'em."
"No problem." Both she and Tika were holding onto Jesse and inspecting him to make sure he wasn't injured.
Xander and Buffy headed for the boys locker room, where they found two skin suits and no creatures.
"They didn't chase Jesse. I don't know where they went, but they didn't chase him." Xander said. "I wonder why?"
"Not hungry?" Buffy suggested. "Or something else caught their attention."
"I'm betting on that one, I think we need to search the pool area and maybe even the whole school, something caused them to mutate and we need to figure out what it is before anyone else mutates."
"Like Jesse."
"Yeah, he might have been exposed to whatever it is." And if he had been Xander was going to tap dance on the rib cage of whoever was responsible. Before handing them over to Amy and Tika.
A search of the area didn't turn up anything until Xander stopped and put his finger to his lips. Buffy understood, Xander was hearing something.
"Coach is talking to Nurse Greenleigh, he's dosed the steam in the steam room, she's protesting, saying it was just supposed to be steroids and wants to know what he's done to the team members."
"Steroids? No wonder they were winning."
"He just hit her!" Xander was moving and Buffy was right behind him as he kicked in the door of the room the Coach and Nurse Greenleigh were in. Just in time to see the Coach shove the woman into a hinged door in the floor. "Enjoy your meal, boys!" He called down to whatever was down there. Xander grabbed the Coach and pushed him towards Buffy and jumped through door in the floor, going after the nurse. Buffy punched the Coach and knocked him out and crouched down to see what was going on through the door.