- [last lines]
- Buffy Summers: You're right... We don't know how to fight it. We don't know when it'll come. We can't run. Can't hide. Can't pretend it's not the end, 'cause it is... Something's always been there to try and destroy the world. We've beaten them back. But we're not dealing with them anymore. We're dealing with the reason they exist. Evil. The strongest. The First.
- Rupert Giles: Buffy, um, I-I know you're, you're tired...
- Buffy Summers: I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of hell and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me... We're not ready? *They're* not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come, like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Well, we'll give 'em one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now, 'cause we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them and cut out their hearts one by one, until The First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil... And that's *us*... Any questions?
- [first lines]
- [repairing the house after a demon invasion]
- Xander Harris: It's a loop... like the Mummy Hand! I'm doomed to replace these windows for all eternity. You know, maybe we should just board these things up until things are less Hellmouthy.
- Drusilla: [as The First] Do you know why you're alive?
- Spike: Never figured you for existential thought, luv. I mean, you hated Paris.
- Drusilla: [as The First] You're alive for one reason, and one reason only. Because I wish it. Do you know why I wish it? Because I'm not done with you.
- Spike: Give it up. Whatever you are, whatever you get away with, I'm out. You can't pull this puppet's strings any more.
- Drusilla: [as The First] And what makes you think you have a choice? What makes *you* think you will ever be any good at *all* in this world?
- Spike: She does... Because she believes in me.
- Andrew Wells: Man, this place gives me the creeps. It's like in Wonder Woman, issue 297-299.
- Xander Harris: "Catacombs." Yeah, with the skeletons.
- Andrew Wells, Xander Harris: That was cool.
- [Xander realizes that he shouldn't be bonding with the enemy and pushes Andrew forward]
- Xander Harris: Move it. This way.
- Willow Rosenberg: Are you sure this thing called itself The First?
- Buffy Summers: Pretty sure. It claimed to be the original evil, the one that came before anything else.
- Anya: Please. How many times have I heard that line in my demon days? "I'm so rotten, they don't even have a word for it. I'm bad. Baddy bad bad bad. Does it make you horny?"
- [everyone stares at her]
- Anya: Or terrified. Whatever.
- Buffy Summers: It wasn't a line.
- Andrew Wells: I'm telling you, my spider-sense is tingling. This is gonna get hairy. I'm talkin' weird with a beard. Better untie me.
- Buffy Summers: And that'll help us, how?
- Andrew Wells: [sighs] Okay. I know what you're thinking. Andrew, bad guy. You think I'm a supervillain like Dr. Doom or Apocalypse or-or The Riddler. But I admit I-I went over to the dark side, but just to pick up a few things, a-a-and now I'm back. I've learned. I'm good again.
- Buffy Summers: And when were you good before?
- Andrew Wells: Okay, technically, never. Touché. But I'm like Vader in the last 5 minutes of Jedi with redemptive powers... Minus a redemptive struggle of... epic redemption which chronicles.
- [sighs]
- Andrew Wells: These ropes itch.
- Andrew Wells: I'm... I was about to be dead... You saved me.
- Buffy Summers: For the time being. But if you don't tell us what we need to know, then I'm gonna offer you to The First on a platter and let him chop you into tiny pieces.
- Andrew Wells: The first what?
- Anya: The name of the evil thing that pretended to be Warren to get you to kill Jonathan.
- Andrew Wells: Oh. Not very ominous sounding.
- Dawn Summers: No, it is if you understand the context.
- Andrew Wells: No. An evil name should be like Lex or Voldemort or...
- Buffy Summers: Hey! I was intimidating here.
- Andrew Wells: Oh. Sorry. Um, go ahead.
- Buffy Summers: [sighs] Forget it. Where's the Seal?
- Rupert Giles: That's what's left. The mystic secrets of the Watchers. And whatever I could find on The First. Wh-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.
- Rupert Giles: Not... I didn't. It must have been an agent of The First, after my little burglary session. Th-Th-The knowledge contained in these files had to be protected, and there wasn't time for-for bureaucracy or debate.
- [investigating the wheel on which Spike was bound]
- Dawn: There's blood on this. Lots. Looks like The First made another sacrifice. Or a music video.
- Principal Robin Wood: Yeah. Yeah, I'm only saying that once you see true evil, it can have some serious afterburn. And then you can't unsee what you saw... Ever.
- Kennedy: Bad idea. Annabelle snores.
- Willow Rosenberg: You wanna do the sleeping arrangements?
- Kennedy: Okay. You, uh, better not hog the covers.
- [leaves]
- Dawn Summers: [approaches Willow] Does she wanna eat?
- Willow Rosenberg: What? Huh? Oh, she's- Oh, she's new.
- Rupert Giles: I'm afraid it falls to you, Buffy. Sorry. I mean, we-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.