Successor (BTVS)

[X][AMY] Despite Willow's protests, Buffy still wants to deal with Amy and use her to talk to the Rat King. Diplomacy's worth a chance.
[X][TRY] Amy will go back to jail unless negotiations with the Rat King are productive. She's too likely to coast by or even actively sabotage things if she doesn't have a strong incentive to make it work.
[X][EXILE] While she's dangerous, having Amy around is also useful, as proven by this very situation. She's talking a big game now but Buffy thinks she can keep her under control, and if she's allowed to stay she might cooperate more helpfully.
[8/14][APPROACH] Amy is selfish and basically unredeemable, but she can be motivated by threats of violence and consequences. Buffy will be confrontational in negotiations and play on Amy's fears to get her to do what she wants.


Buffy sighed. Honestly, she should've expected things to be like this; Amy wasn't the type for penitent reform, and she'd decided she was the least bad option anyway. She just had to present things in a way Amy could understand.

"Let's put it this way, Amy. Through your stupid actions a month ago, you put my family in danger and you screwed up my town. If you want to get out of being punished for that, you're going to have to actually unscrew my town and undanger my family."

"You should take what you can get," Amy said defiantly. "The case against me is full of-"

Buffy had been holding her hammer casually in reverse grip, like a walking stick. She cut Amy off, jamming the topspike into the floor hard and making a terrible noise digging it an inch into the concrete. Amy flinched back and shut up.

Buffy had just about had it. "I think you're misunderstanding the situation here. Maybe you do get cleared of all charges in court. You still want to live in Sunnydale after that? I know you're guilty. Everyone who works for me and keeps the town safe knows you're guilty. Do you think Sunnydale would be safe for you? That you'd get to live and work in peace?" Buffy applied some one handed air quotes to the line she lifted right out of Amy's mouth.

"Rack's gone. Digby's dust. Teeth's stuffed corpse is going to be on display in the Lodge a month from now, when they finally finish renovating. The only reason you're even in jail is because I was merciful in the first place." Buffy knew she wouldn't have killed Amy, but it would be easy to make Amy doubt that. It was really the only way this was going to work, though it was a shame about the floor.

Amy was quiet, her earlier defiance shattered. Matt was stone-faced; if he had any issue with her coercive tactics, his quiet disgust for Amy was overriding it. Willow didn't seem disturbed by the dark turn Buffy had taken, though she could see Xander giving her some side eye. Buffy decided she could finish on a slightly more positive note. "This is your last chance, Amy, right now. Are you going to come out and take it?"

"So I do get to stay if I make you a deal with this Rat King right?" Amy said carefully. "No more prison or threats or extra stuff?"

"Just don't step out of line, and we'll see," Buffy said. Buffy wasn't sure if Amy was really cowed, or just acting. Even if she was scared now, would it last?

Willow rolled her eyes. "Fat chance of that."


"I'm not sure what some of these invocations are calling to," Amy said. "Are you guys sure this is safe?" She was sitting on the floor against the wall of the clean room, warily paging through the old tome that was half scribbles and had the language spell in it.

"Would you rather go back to jail?" Buffy asked. "You're the experienced witch, figure it out."

Amy shrank back, looking like a cornered rat. "If my head explodes or something I'm not going to be able to do you any good!"

"Is it too hard for you Amy?" Willow taunted. "Maybe you need to pop a few pills to get going first? We could swing back to the station, they've probably got some in evidence."

"Oh stop it with the junkie line," Amy snarled. "It's really not the same at all. And I was totally justified to relax a little after spending months on the wheel."

Buffy coughed significantly.

"Not that I'll be doing it again," Amy said quickly. "And I'll be reporting any activity like that too of course, if I happen to notice it."

Willow scoffed, and Amy went back to flipping through the book. Buffy paced back and forth, tightening her grip on the hammer like the shaft was a stress ball. As far as she'd been able to tell, it was completely inviolate even to the worst abuse she could dish out. It was nice to have something she didn't have to worry about snapping in frustration.

Buffy and Willow were the only ones in the clean room with Amy, just in case something went wrong with the spell and they needed to get rescued from the backlash. Between the two of them she was confident Amy wouldn't try anything, but it made for a tense environment.

After a few more minutes, Amy finally spoke again. "OK, I think I've got this." Buffy didn't think she looked sure, but she also didn't really care. If Amy had to learn by experiment that was no skin off her nose, and Willow was ready to stop her if she did any suspicious casting.

Amy turned back to the middle of the book, and then started chanting about rats, and cheese, and rats, and tunnels, and teeth, and rats. It seemed pretty repetitive, but Buffy was having a tough time paying close attention to the words. Willow wasn't bothered, but Amy looked like the pressure on her was slowly building up. Sweat beaded her brow, the pace of her words increased, and she dragged the book back with her into the corner as the chant reached a crescendo, a manic fear obvious on her face.

By the end of the spell, Buffy wasn't sure if she was hearing English or Ur-Rat, and before she could figure it out Amy's words stopped and the book slammed itself shut. A silence echoed through the room.

Buffy was the first to break it. "Did it work?"

Amy's response was a susurrus of squeaks and chitters that didn't sound like anything that should come out of a human mouth. Unlike Lindsey's use of the language earlier, it was clearly unnatural, and Buffy found herself cringing back, creeped out.

"Amy, that's Rat. Did you forget English?" Willow almost sounded hopeful, though Buffy wasn't sure what use she would be to them if it was true.

Amy looked concerned for a second, and after some more Rat, she finally broke back into English "- does sound a little weird. Oh. It's really hard to tell." She switched back and forth between squeaks and the alphabet a few times, trying to get the hang of it. "OK, this isn't so bad when I'm paying attention to it. And it was way less work than French."

"No time like the present to make a deal then." Lindsey was at least pretending to want to get things done, so Buffy thought she could get him back in the conference room before sundown. Better to try now before anything else could go wrong.


This time, Buffy was ready at the negotiating table first. Ian and Anya were back to continue where things left off, and Buffy had Amy sitting right next to her, conveniently in arm's reach should the need arise. Willow took Amy's other side, still leery of letting her out of her sight, and Xander had joined them for this round as well. It was a bit of an unwieldy group, but with six people instead of three at least Lindsey's gaggle of nameless minions wouldn't outnumber them.

Amy hadn't been wearing actual prison duds, but her outfit had definitely gotten a little worn down during her time in jail. Buffy hadn't been concerned, but Cynthia had been worried about impressions and sent her to the City Hall showers while fetching something more appropriate from home. In hindsight it was probably better to have her more smartly dressed so she didn't stand out from the group as much; Buffy was already worried that Lindsey might be able to suborn her mid-meeting.


Before too long, Lindsey's party filed in, the Rat King swarming over a seat and stretching onto the table as he had before. As before, Buffy had trouble focusing on him too closely, but she noticed Amy perk up at his appearance and start jabbering in Ur-Rat. The Rat King answered with his own fast string of noises, seeming to flow a little farther over the table than usual.

Buffy was about to ask Amy what was going on, but Lindsey cut in first, speaking in his own less fluent sounding Rat. After a brief exchange though, he switched to English with a wary glance over at the Rat King. "I'm aware of your legal troubles Ms. Madison, and the firm would be very appreciative if you didn't interfere with these negotiations."

"Appreciate it how much?" she asked.

Lindsey might have been shaken by the rapid change in circumstances, but he didn't miss a beat. "Not only we could resolve your case to your satisfaction, but you seem like just the sort of person we want working for us. A well paid summer internship could go a long way to smoothing over your transcript, couldn't it?"

"You must really not want them to hear what the King has to say," Amy said playfully. Maybe you could sweeten the deal a little bit?" Buffy gave her a dark look. She'd been afraid this would happen, and warned Amy about Wolfram and Hart, but short of pummeling her in the middle of the meeting she wasn't sure what she could do to head this off.

"Very well paid," Lindsey said. "I think we have an opening in our Paris office, if you'd prefer?"

"And about my transcript. Missing the last few months of school really puts a damper on college applications," Amy said suggestively.

Lindsey smiled all the more widely. "There's a member of the admissions board at Stanford that owes us a few favors. I'm sure he'd be happy to smooth your way."

"Wow, you guys really are desperate," For a moment, Buffy was sure they were going to be back at square one, but then Amy continued, "That seems like a terrible conflict of interest to me. I think it'd be … wrong of me not to inform your client." She snickered at Lindsey, and then leaned forward over the table and started rapid-fire squeaking and chittering with the Rat King again.

Lindsey started speaking in Rat again too, but his damage control didn't seem to be going very well. Buffy still had no idea how to read the Rat King, but Lindsey's manner got more and more defensive as the exchange went on. Eventually he'd stopped squeaking and clicking entirely, but the Rat King just kept going, with Amy making the occasional addition too.

Lindsey sighed. "Well played, Ms. Summers. I really do think you'll be an all-star client with the firm when you see that our goals can align. You've got my card." With that he and the other lawyers got up and marched out, leaving Buffy's team alone with the Rat King. Buffy was honestly kind of shocked.

"There," Amy said triumphantly, turning her head to Buffy. "Does that convince you that I'm trying?"

There had to be something Buffy was missing. Even if Amy was truly intimidated, the enthusiasm she was showing didn't make much sense. It didn't square at all with the obnoxious defiance from before, that was for sure. To her other side Willow was similarly dumbfounded. The Rat King was actually the first to speak with another quick series of noises, and Amy giggled in response.

Xander and Anya exchanged whispers while Amy made a few quick squeaks, but soon she was speaking normally again. "Oh he's such a kidder. But we should get started. You guys really don't have much of an idea what he wants."

"Is there another physical payment he's looking for?" Ian said hopefully, looking through the contract scroll again. He seemed the least surprised by the rapid change in situation, probably because he knew the least about Amy.

"No, Wilkins was just really good at knowing what stuff he'd need," Amy said. "Really he's been pushing to get one of these Pacts through for decades, but the offers kept being too good to ignore."

"We went over those already, didn't we?" Buffy asked.

"I think that lawyer was distorting the intent. They're kind of more diplomatic stuff than anything. Like, OK-" There was another round of squeaks, and then Amy continued. "Like, the Pact of Passage is just him sending some of his nobles to learn about the culture here, what's wrong with that?"

Buffy made herself look directly at the broiling swarm of rats moving in concert, extending up a chair and over part of the table, not sure exactly how to say it. It took a lot to freak her out these days, but the Rat King was definitely close.

"Are they like the Rat King?" Xander asked. "Like, of many scary rats? I think a lot of our fair and less fair citizens might sort of panic if there was a lot of that going on in broad daylight."

Amy seemed confused. "What do you mean? It's not like he's obviously demonic or anything. There's a certain ..." Amy trailed off and her eyes drifted back to the Rat King, a little smile on her face. "A certain exotic aesthetic. But I saw worse shopping at the corner store when I was ten. This is Sunnydale, I mean come on!"

Willow's eyes spread wide with a realization, but she didn't say anything. Amy didn't notice her reaction, but Buffy was starting to put the pieces together too.

"Amy," Buffy began, not knowing quite where to go. "Are you sure you cast the language spell right?" It wouldn't be the first time magic that seemed too convenient had a weird side effect.

Amy rolled her eyes, misunderstanding Buffy's intent. "I know, I know, it sounds too good to be true. But I'm totally sure that's what he's saying!"

Buffy decided to ignore the issue of Amy's altered perception for now to get some more information about the matter at hand. "Lindsey said something about diplomatic immunity. Are they going to run around like, causing chaos and murdering people?"

"No, no," Amy said annoyedly. "I mean, do regular diplomats go around killing people? He just doesn't want them to get arrested for random weird laws they don't know about, like jaywalking or something."

"What do they even want to do then?" Willow asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Do you think that everyone who's the slightest bit dark or demony doesn't enjoy anything but corrupting innocents and murdering babies?" Amy said sarcastically. "They'd pretty much just be tourists. He thinks some of the younger ones could learn the language by immersion, that would be useful. And like, other cultural things. I don't think he really understands money, for example."

"If they don't have money, can they really visit productively?" Anya said. "We can't have them just taking stuff from everywhere."

Amy had another opaque exchange with the Rat King, this one a little more involved. "It could be a problem. I think maybe if we gave them spending money and just knew to exchange it for stuff it would work? He would offer concessions."

"Maybe they could cover up a bit?" Xander said. He seemed to be trying to figure out a way to put it that would make any sense to Amy so she could translate it. "Maybe contained in heavy clothing, or something to make them look more human? We're used to a lot ourselves, but…"

Amy rolled her eyes and there was more squeaking. "I still think you guys are overreacting, but we could figure something like that out. You can provide clothing or illusions or whatever that they'll stay hidden in, for let's say, sixty grand a year total spending money. He mostly just wants enough that they can get the idea."

"That kind of money is a big 'enough'!" Anya complained.

"There are dozens of nobles! It has to be spread around!" Amy defended. Buffy wasn't so sure she wasn't angling for a take herself, but there wasn't much she could do about it if she was, especially after she shut down Lindsey like that.

"We can maybe hammer out those details later," Buffy said. She still thought they might get up to some trouble, and the budget wasn't going to like yet another expense (part of her died a little when she realized she was thinking of $60,000 as just another expense, but it was the equivalent of a handful of SDCW members or a pair of cops), but all told it didn't seem like a ruinous deal. "What about the other options?" She didn't expect much, but to be fair the first one had turned out pretty differently.

"The Pact of Warding is sort of the reverse, it'd be to get some Sunnydalers accustomed to the ways of his Kingdom at a young age," Amy said. "He would assure their safety and provide their education. I think there's probably a magic element to that." Some more squeaks. "Yeah, he would try to teach them the style of magic he and his nobles use. The hope is they'd learn the language fast, I guess."

"Sending a bunch of kids off to another dimension seems like a pretty bad idea, even if they'd be safe," Willow argued. "I mean, how would we even explain it? Who would ever agree? How do we even know they'd be OK, there wouldn't be any adults to talk to."

"It's definitely a step too far," Buffy said.

"Maybe we could do something a little less long-term," Ian said hesitantly. "Mayor Wilkins actually sponsored some pretty unusual school trips in the '80s. Parents don't tend to pay a lot of attention to the details."

"Are we really still talking about sending kids to the Rat Dimension?" Xander interjected.

"It could be an opportunity," Anya argued with him. "It's not like Sunnydale is some bastion of safety and normalcy either. I know there are some half-demon families in the city that would think it was a good idea."

"I could go to help supervise, if people are worried about the language thing," Amy said, trying to be casual. "If it was just school trips and things like that though, he would want them to get going soon, like we should have a voluntary one in August type soon." They chittered some more. "His hope is that some children would be more interested and arrange something longer term."

"Look, I'm not against multiculturalism, but what do we do when some panicked kid comes home screaming about Rats? Where do we even tell the parents they're going?" Xander said.

"I mean, if any of them were really traumatized I could just do a little memory spell at the end," Amy said. "Those ones wouldn't want to go back anyway."

"I could probably set something up to fake it as a trip to Eastern Europe," Anya added. "It's surprisingly similar to the Rat Dimension, from what I've heard." Xander was frowning at her, but she harrumphed at him.

"Let's put some brakes on this train for now too," Buffy said noncommittally. She was pretty skeptical of these school trips, though Wilkins would probably bug her about it in her dreams too if he'd done something similar. "What about the one where we just get a lot of normal rats?"

"Yeah, that sounded kind of odd even to me, let me clarify some things." Unlike some of the more recent exchanges with the Rat King, this one took a while, and Amy didn't seem as sure of herself during the conversation. She was still leaning in at him pretty close, and at one point she adjusted her top, and oh god Buffy was pretty sure that Amy was trying to show some cleavage. She was just going to file that away with her other horrible nightmares and desperately try to forget about it.

Finally, Amy seemed confident enough to start explaining. "OK, so first, the actual rats don't matter much. There is kind of this political expectation that the common rats of his kingdom be given a chance to succeed across the cosmos, but it's just that, a chance. Survival of the fittest applies, they aren't actually sentient."

"So could we just like, march them all from the portal straight into a big trap and make cat food?" Willow asked.

"No, no, that wouldn't be a real chance," Amy said. "And anyway, they wouldn't all show up in one place either, the anti-plague spell would be adjusted to kind of warp them in all over the area of effect. More of them would show up near the hellmouth but it'd happen across the entire city. But you could like, still put down a bunch of poison and traps and stuff everywhere if you wanted, since clever or smart rats could theoretically survive."

"What would he even really gain from that though?" Buffy asked. "I mean, I can kind of understand what he's going for with the other stuff, but this doesn't seem like more than a huge inconvenience."

"The real reason has to do with something like the 'arete of the city'. That's the best translation I can come up with," she said apologetically. "Introducing lots of rats from the Rat Dimension would make Sunnydale and its people rattier by extension in some fundamental way. Some of the more magically or demonically inclined might spontaneously start learning Ur-Rat, for example. The hope is that it would eventually close the cultural gap."

"Is all of this just him trying to get an alliance or something?" Xander asked. "If he just needs us to kill some other demons for him, we're pretty good at that, we could cut to the chase instead of dancing around like we're all in medieval Europe."

Amy squeaked at the Rat King again, and he chittered in response. "He doesn't need anything like that now, but he's concerned about the long term. He doesn't think he's as good at war as we are in general, but if it seems like our Kingdoms, I mean, his Kingdom and our city have close relations, people won't be as inclined to attack him because they're afraid of you."

"We should've probably guessed this when he brought up a political marriage before," Anya said. "People used to do it a lot because it worked for this kind of thing."

"Not that that's an option you need to be thinking about," Amy said quickly. "I mean, Buffy, I know you have… certain tastes, and your mom likes to be pretty insulated from all this stuff right?"

"Yeah, we can pass on the marriage," Buffy said. She almost felt like she should be offended by whatever Amy was implying, especially considering the leg Amy was standing on right now, but the whole situation had gotten so weird that she couldn't muster the emotional energy.

"Great. Because these other Pacts. Definitely better than a bunch of plague, right?" Amy said brightly.


Vote: Buffy and her friends have heard what the Rat King has to say, and need to decide which of these Pacts, if any, seem like they're a good idea. Alternately, they could still try to steal the bones from Wolfram and Hart instead, or they could just let try to weather the plague effect for a bit and research a magical solution of their own.

[] The Pact of Passage sounds like the safest option. Some mundane people around town might get a little spooked, and the extra expense will sting, but it shouldn't involve any risks that are too terrible. Maybe some confused shopkeepers, at worst.

[] The Pact of Warding has a lot of downsides, but it could reap serious rewards long term in the form of more native magic users. They'll organize sign-ups for a voluntary city-sponsored trip to 'Eastern Europe' in August. A lot of parents with elementary aged kids will want them out of their hair for a while by then anyway.

[] The Pact of Refuge sounds bad on the surface, but at least its a problem that can theoretically be kept under control by entirely mundane means. Sunnydale might end up with more rats than normal, but that's a lot less bad than an actual magical plague, and wouldn't cause many additional complications.

[] All these Pacts are still too much trouble, better just to steal the bones and pay off the Rat King that way for another decade or so. The risks of getting caught red-handed by Wolfram and Hart are pretty massive, however.

Remember, approval voting is always in play.