XANDER: At least let me come with you.

BUFFY: I'm going alone.

XANDER: You said yourself, you don't know how to fight The First, or even where it is.

BUFFY: It's out there. It's hurting my friends. I'll find it.

(opens the door to exit, but Giles is standing there)

GILES: Buffy.

BUFFY: Giles.

MOLLY:(charging in) Nice place. Bit of a mess.

(Annabelle walks by Buffy and smiles, but says nothing.)

KENNEDY: This is a slayer?

GILES: Sorry to barge in. I'm afraid we have a slight apocalypse.

(... commercial ....)

DAWN: They're all slayers?

GILES: Potential slayers. Waiting for one to be called. There were many more like them all over the world, but, um, now there's just a handful, and they're all on their way to Sunnydale.

BUFFY: The others were murdered.

GILES: In cold blood. As well as their watchers. We always feared that this day would come, when there'd be an attack against not just an individual slayer, but against the whole line.

BUFFY: The First. That's what it wants.

GILES: Yes, to erase all the slayers in training and their watchers along with their methods.

BUFFY: And then Faith, and then me. And with all the potentials gone and no way of making another, it's the end. No more slayer. Ever.

WILLOW: But we haven't found any information on The First. No documentation?

GILES: That's because it predates any written history, and it rarely shows its true face. The only record I know was in the Council Library.

ANYA: What about the Council? What do they say about this?

GILES: Gone.

WILLOW: What?

GILES: Obliterated. They were in session, and, uh, there was an explosion.

WILLOW: That means all the Council's records are-are destroyed?

GILES: Annabelle. (Girl #2 produces some material) That's what's left. The mystic secrets of the Watchers. And whatever I could find on The First. When I learned what was happening, I-I, um, I stole them.

ANYA: And you blew the Council up! See, this is what happens when you're all stuffy and repressed. You overreact.

GILES: Not?I didn't. Must've been an agent of The First, after my little burglary session. The knowledge contained in these files had to be protected, and there wasn't time for-for bureaucracy or debate. The Council knows no other way.

ANDREW: (melodramatically) And it cost them their lives! (everyone turns and stares) Go on.

BUFFY: (to Xander) Can we gag him? (Xander duct tapes him) But what do these records say about The First?

GILES: Uh, very little. It can change form. Uh, it only appears in the guise of someone who's passed away.

WILLOW: Our ghosts.

GILES: Also it's not corporeal. It can't touch or fight on it's own. It only works through those it manipulates. And its followers, the Bringers.

KENNEDY: Those freaks in the black robes.

MOLLY: Yeah, with the hoodies and the crazy alphabet eyes. I never saw 'em, I just heard?

ANNABELLE: Shh! Molly, Mr. Giles doesn't need us prattling on.

GILES: The First is unlike anything we've faced before. I mean, there's evil and then there's the thing that created evil, the source.

BUFFY: And that's what this thing claims to be?

GILES: That's what it is. It has eternities to act, endless resources. How to defeat it?I-I? (sighs) honestly I don't know. But we have to find a way. If the slayer line is eliminated, then the hell mouth has no guardian. The balance is destroyed. I'm afraid it falls to you, Buffy. Sorry. I mean, we'll do what we can, but you're the only one who has the strength to protect these girls?and the world?against what's coming.

XANDER: But no pressure.

KENNEDY: That's it? That's the plan? I don't see how one person, even a slayer, could protect us. I saw what those bringer guys can do. They tore apart my watcher.

GILES: Of course we'll use all our resources?

KENNEDY: And if this thing is the root of all evil, isn't the hell mouth it's number one vacation spot? I mean, don't you think we should be hiding our asses on the other side of the globe?

ANNABELLE: Kennedy!

BUFFY: No, she's not wrong. We need more muscle. That's why we need to find Spike.

ANYA: Yeah, he'll help. You know, if he's not crazy or off killing people or dead. Or, you know, all of the above.

• potential slayers

written by: Marti Noxon and Douglas Petrie; Transcribed by: CariCranberry. edited by me.. Full transcript at:
http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season7/transcripts/132_tran.php