[7/14] Spend Money. Buffy's confident they can make the town pay for itself soon enough.
[7/14] Save Money. Buffy isn't sure they'll have as easy a time financing things as Wilkins did.
A pause fell over the meeting at Cynthia's blunt statement, but eventually Giles was the first to speak. "While the late mayor may have been very successful in his fundraising efforts, I'm sure that emulating him isn't going to lead us anywhere good. We witnessed the unsavory prices of some of the deals he made firsthand last year, and I daresay that those are just the sort of things we're trying to stop."
"Hey! Maybe less slippery slopes and more calm logical reasoning?" Willow said, a little annoyed. "Just because the old mayor was evil and made a whole ton of dirty money doesn't mean that a healthy economy is bad. There are probably all sorts of perfectly good ways we could increase tax dollars. Just think of all we could discover with some money for actual research!"
"Hey, let's not get too bent out of shape out of this," Xander said, making a conciliatory gesture at Willow. "I think Giles has some good points. We could go in with every intention of taking the high road, but when the credit card bills start piling up at the end of the month moral fiber has a way of eroding away."
"That's true, but what applies to an individual doesn't apply the same way to a government," Ian tried to explain. "A lot of the time you have to spend money to make money. For example, without more people to help it's going to be a lot harder to find Wilkins' hidden stores."
"And you can't expect people to work for nothing!" Joyce cut in. "Duty's well and good, but I've been trying to tell Buffy all this time that it won't put food on the table or money in your 401k. All you kids are practically saints for doing all you've done already, but if you want a lot more people to help you run a town you're going to have to pay them something for their time, not to mention the risks to their safety."
"The city does have some more traditional assets." Vanessa said. "There's a lot of real estate it holds, we could get to work on selling some of that if we wanted to be fiscally responsible while still having money for expenses."
"I'm not sure that's a very good idea." Cynthia had a pinched expression on her face. "With Ms. Summers' spectacular efforts making our city safer in the past few years, and the booming market nationwide, real estate looks like a very good long term investment in Sunnydale right now. In the short term though, the destruction at the high school and the political instability in the city is going to make it a buyer's market. This is an awful time to sell."
"Are a couple percents over a few years really going to matter?" Xander was starting to look a little annoyed as well, despite his efforts at peacemaking earlier. "If the city really needs the money now, maybe we need to focus on the next few months before we worry about the next few years."
"As much as I hate to admit it Xander, I agree that a mass sell off of property now is a bad idea." Giles cleaned his glasses frustratedly. "With the mayor recently dead, all sorts of nefarious elements are going to be looking to set up shop on the Hellmouth and carve out a piece for themselves. Flooding the market with cheap property is just going to attract more sharks to the scent of blood."
Buffy was getting tired of this herself, but she decided there were some things she was already convinced of. Xander was about to reply, and it looked like Joyce and Willow had more to add too, but Buffy just cut them all off to speak her piece. "Look everyone, I think we have to just be reasonable about all this. We don't need to spend like Wilkins did; this was never about a fat payday or shiny toys. We don't need to make any rash decisions about selling things or buying things either. What we do need to do though, is actually pay people." Buffy sighed, as what she was about to say wasn't easy.
"My mom's right. It's not fair to ask good people to sign up with us to build a better Sunnydale and give them nothing in return, depending on their guilt to make them help us. That's how the Watchers' Council operates, and the last thing I want is to be like them. We can cut some corners elsewhere to give ourselves more time to stabilize, I guess."
Her friends were quiet at that, and Cynthia nodded, as if now that Buffy had spoken, the meat of the matter was decided. Buffy wasn't sure how she felt about that. "Well then, everyone, let's discuss just what sorts of corners we're going to cut." She opened a thick folder in front of her, and ominous packets of paper were passed around the room.
Buffy grimaced. She'd graduated two days ago, and already it was like she was back in school.
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Wait, have you even graduated yet?" Xander asked.
"Technically I'm a junior now. But I'm totally qualified to help protect the town! I already have lots of useful skills." Buffy surreptitiously checked her notes, something Xander apparently hadn't bothered with. This was Andrew Wells, age 16. Buffy wondered if he had anything to do with Tucker.
After the bureaucratic nightmare that was yesterday's budget discussion, Buffy had almost been looking forward to doing interviews with Xander. Either of them could've maybe done them on their own, but Xander had spent more time working with the '99ers in the lead up to graduation, while Buffy felt that if she didn't start getting to know the people working for her now she might never have the chance, with all the disasters that kept happening. Xander was also going to be slay-adjacent at least until his shoulder finished healing, so it gave them a chance to hang out.
"And those useful skills are?" Xander asked.
"Well, I've mastered D&D 2nd edition, I've memorized the entire script of the Star Wars trilogy, and I have lots of experience in summoning and controlling demons!" Andrew proudly declared.
"Wait, what?" Buffy said. "You realize we're the good guys right? Demon summoning bad. That's the sort of reference you could've used to get a job here last month."
"What demons have you even summoned anyway?" Xander said.
"Don't you remember that fateful performance of Romeo and Juliet in the spring of 1998? With the flying monkeys?" Andrew said, "Everyone was like: 'Run Juliet!'" He changed his voice a bit and raised it, waving his hands and trying to pantomime a crowd.
"Oh." Xander said. "OK, I have to admit, that was kind of funny."
"Hey!" Buffy turned to Xander, "Whose team are we on here? And I don't remember any monkeys. Flying monkeys seems like the kind of thing I would remember."
"It happened one of the days you were sick with the flu," Xander explained. "With everything going on I guess nobody ever told you about it. They didn't really do any harm, they just flew around and screeched at people for a few minutes. Snyder had to hide under the stage. I didn't even know they were demons, actually."
Buffy almost said something about not speaking ill of the dead, but she couldn't quite muster up any sort of protective emotion for Principal Snyder, even under the circumstances, so she let it pass. "But, like, still," She struggled to get control back of the conversation, and perhaps of her of her life general. "You're a nerd who summons demons."
"Exactly!" Andrew cut in, before Buffy could form a more coherent thought. "I have tons of knowledge of the occult already, which a lot of my older compatriots are going to lack. And I'm great at categorizing and memorizing information. If demon summoning is off the agenda I can still totally be useful. And it really shouldn't be, even if we're fighting on the side of good. Unlike in D&D, real demons have a broad range of alignments. Those monkeys were chaotic neutral at worst."
Now that Buffy thought about it, a lot of the regular denizens at Willy's didn't seem too bad. Maybe Andrew knew a thing or two after all. And even if he didn't, it was probably better to keep the kid where she could see him. "Fine. I guess you're on as a provisional hire, Willow or Giles can probably do something useful with you."
------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's not that I don't want you to be here Anya, it's just that I'm a little surprised." Unlike in some of the recent interviews, Buffy did have a very good idea who this person was, but thought it would be best to let Xander lead the discussion, all the same.
"Why is it surprising? Do you not think I can do the job? I mean I'm older than your entire administration put together. I've seen nations rise, and made nations fall. You should be the ones begging me to work for you!" Anya definitely had a way of seeing things. Buffy wasn't sure if it was a good way, but it was a way.
"The last time we talked, you weren't sticking around for the fall. If I remember correctly, you didn't even want to be on the same planet. And yet, not a week later, here you are, back in Sunnydale and acting as if you were always part of the team!" Xander definitely seemed a little sore about how things had left off with Anya. She hadn't been to much of the prom, maybe they'd had a really bad date?
"I was! Don't forget that without me, you wouldn't have even known what the mayor was going to turn into! Which means no surprise bombing and the entire city eaten." Anya waved her hands out in front of her as if to reenact the explosion she hadn't been here for. Maybe there was something about interviews that made people want to gesticulate? "I mean, I practically was the one who saved the whole town!"
"Oh, now she's the one who saved the whole town. Maybe Anya should be mayor!" Xander said sarcastically.
"I was actually elected mayor of the village of Szob in 1627, after I'd cursed the previous mayor to have his digestive system eaten by bot flies. He wasn't only a notorious lecher and a corrupt fraud, but he also snored. I never took office, but the people really loved me there." Buffy had the sense that Anya might've done well to apply a month earlier too. There was a lot of that going around.
"Look Anya, I've heard so many stories of disgust and woe and more disgust from you that I'm not even shocked by that one. How are we supposed to hire you when you're just one restored power center away from going vengeance-y all over again?" Xander asked.
"Do people spontaneously start selling fast food in the street after they get fired by the local Doublemeat Palace? D'Hoffryn hired me to be a vengeance demon, and I was a good vengeance demon. Now I'm effectively fired. If you hire me to be your advisor, and I'm half as good at that as I was at being a vengeance demon, won't it be worth it?" Anya and Xander's voices had slowly been raising this whole time, and now they were practically shouting at each other. Buffy decided she'd better act fast before they started making out in her office or something. She was happy that Xander had found someone, but she didn't need to see that.
"Yes. It would be. You're hired," she said.
"What?" Xander and Anya asked, both confused.
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Was that the last one?" Buffy asked the phone.
"You have one more," Cynthia replied in a tinny voice. She sounded a little more hesitant than usual. "She's something of a special case, but she asked me very sincerely to let you hear her out, and I thought it should be your decision." After some of the decisions Buffy had had to make in the past few days, she was waiting longingly for uncomplicated slaying tonight. But she would have to wait just a little longer. "Alright then. Let's see what she's got."
After a minute, the door opened, and Harmony Kendall walked in. Buffy was momentarily very confused, but Xander had kept better track of everyone and didn't hesitate. "Harmony! You're dead!"
"Guilty," she said glumly. "But not like, you know, guilty. I haven't done anything bad yet!" She whined, fanging out.
Buffy quickly vaulted the desk, both to prevent Harmony from getting away and to protect Xander from further injury. "Harmony, I know you weren't always very good in school, and Xander might not have had too much time to go over this, but Vampires? Evil. They go around eating people. I slay them. It's this whole big thing."
"I know, I know!" Despite being in game face, Harmony wasn't making aggressive moves, she was just continuing to whine. "I haven't eaten anybody yet and I'm really hungry! But the first thing I did after I woke up from my coffin was get the gossip from Aura and she told me the whole deal. You're mayor now and you're recruiting everyone. I want to stay on the winning team." She cringed away, like a puppy expecting to be kicked.
That was actually a surprising amount of sense coming out of a fledgling. But it still could never work. "Harmony, you aren't even really Harmony anymore. You don't have a soul. The first time you get a chance you're just going to eat someone anyway." Buffy pulled out a stake. It felt a little bad to kill her when she wouldn't even fight, but she could at least make it quick.
"But I know I couldn't! You'd just find out eventually, I know I'm too stupid to be able to cover it up. And then I'd be dead. And whether I'm Harmony or not, I think I'm Harmony and I don't want to die. How is it my fault I don't have a soul?" As arguments went to not be staked, it wasn't great, but it was actually better than most that Buffy had heard.
Xander wasn't convinced though, "Buffy, you can't seriously be humoring her? Just make with the stakey and then we can mosey. You even have office workers now to clean up the dust."
Harmony managed to push her game face back down and fell to her knees. "Please! I saw that other vampire fighting on your side! Maybe I could be like him?"
"Deadboy's not exactly the best role model for good behavior. And even if Willow could curse her with a soul, this isn't angsty Angel, this is vapid Harmony. She probably experiences a moment of true happiness whenever she gets a new My Little Pony." Xander seemed convinced, but Buffy was uncertain.
Maybe it was the cavalcade of questionable characters she'd already allowed into the ranks. Maybe it was the pathetic sight of the vampire on her knees, begging and bawling for her life. Maybe somewhere deep down inside, Buffy didn't think it was fair either. But Xander was right, there were no guarantees, especially with probably totally ill-fitting magic, and Harmony might turn on a dime the first chance she got.
Vote:
[] Buffy lies to Harmony, saying it's all going to be OK, and then stakes her in the back. She owes her that much, at least.
[] Buffy decides that they can probably work something out, somehow, and locks Harmony up with some butcher's blood. The gang will try to figure out how reliable she is and what she needs to keep her under control.
A/N: You can try to write in ways to control Harmony, but their actual practicality is
not guaranteed. You don't know for sure IC or OOC how compatible Willow's curse will be. Also, if you vote to lock her up now instead of killing her now, Buffy is going to have a much harder time killing her later without an actual crime first.
