Successor (BTVS)

[X] 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.

"Well, they do sound a lot less terrible than they did originally," Buffy allowed.

"Oh come on!" Amy said. "You could encourage trade! Or have kids learn new magic! Or, uh, feed the wildlife, I guess? These are so good, you might even want to do two!"

"I don't think I'd go that far," Buffy responded dryly. She was about to start dissecting options, but saw Willow pulling her laptop out. "Is there a problem?"

"Probably not, but the lawyers might have left bugs, and we really shouldn't have them listening in for who knows how long," she said. "I've got it covered, you can keep debating the merits of various rat related activities." She started typing away and Buffy saw she was bringing up some weird program with a squiggly graph.

As everyone was a little distracted (Amy presumably was squeaking what Willow was doing to the Rat King), Xander took the chance to chime in. "So, I know the lots-of-rats option doesn't seem so great. But I mean, they are just rats. They don't cost lots of money, or cause wacky hijinks, or involve busing children into other dimensions."

"Pest control actually can have significant costs," Ian said. He eyed the Rat King and Amy, "No offense meant, of course."

"Don't worry about it," Amy said magnanimously.

"Honey, nobody is going to be in a good mood for elections if the city is exploding in rats in August," Anya said. "They'll think it's a health hazard, which is kind of ironic, considering why we're doing it."

"Hey, there were a few rats in my house growing up," Xander said. "I turned out fine, didn't I?"

"Xander, one of them stowed away with you for a sleepover that time," Willow said distractedly. "It was more than a few."

"And still, here I am, no bite marks or anything." Anya raised an eyebrow at that (more nightmares for Buffy), but Xander went on. "And I know keeping the new rats under control might cost us a bit overall, but it won't cost the city directly sixty grand a year! We're already barely going to make it to September for the next tax quarterly and that's with us running the police on a skeleton crew. I haven't even been able to start getting the SDCW trained on heavy weapons, there's no money for more gear."

"Xander has an excellent point about the budget," Anya said, supporting him. "Which is why I think we should obviously do the Pact of Warding. We don't need to pay nobles, we don't even need to pay exterminators!"

Buffy shook her head. "No, not yet. I don't mean to insult anybody, the Rat King seems like a fine… whatever he is, but it's just too much of a safety issue for such a new relationship." Amy looked worried for a second, and Buffy immediately regretted her choice of words there.

"Well, Xander's one is second-best then," Anya said. "Half of the demons in the city like eating rats, it could even earn you some votes."

As the room digested that information, Willow said, "Got it. I put an Information Horizon around the building as part of the new security a few weeks ago," she gave Amy a significant look, which Amy tried to ignore. "It lets me check periodically for bugs, scrying, all that kind of stuff. I just see our radios and a couple other signals, but nothing new that Lindsey could've planted, we're clean."

"Other signals?" Buffy got up for a second and went to look over Willow's shoulder. The squiggly graph had split into a couple different individual waves now. Most of them looked similar, but one was small and seemed to be on a lower frequency. "What are they?"

"Most of them are just people's cellphones, I registered all of the ones people in the building use specifically," Willow explained, making all the similar waves disappear from the screen. "That other little one was here when I first got this working. As near as I can tell it's some legacy bit of Wilkins' security system, but I haven't been able to pin down what it does exactly."

"How can you know it isn't a bug from someone else?" Buffy said. "Isn't that what this thing is for?" She had a sneaking suspicion about it.

"Whatever it's sending, it isn't sending it very far," Willow said. "Less than half a block, and I checked around the area and didn't find signs of any relay or receiver. It could be one of Wilkins' old spell effects trying to talk to another one, but that part of it might've expired when he died. It barely even registers, it could just be a resonance ghost or something."

If the range was that small, maybe the sensor ghost wasn't what was broadcasting into her Slayer dreams after all. But Buffy still felt bad that she was keeping it from Willow, and resolved to spill the beans on the weirdness with her powers to her friends. Soon. But right now wasn't the time.

"Anyway, now I can bring up the elephant in the room," Willow said. "Maybe we can settle on a Pact we can manage. Maybe we don't. Why aren't we stealing Wolfram and Hart's Allslyra skeleton anyway? Along with anything else we can find in that archive Lindsey was bragging about."

"Oh, I know this one!" Anya said, raising her hand. "There are laws against stealing."

"Only if you get caught," Willow said. "And it isn't like it'd be wrong; they're so evil that they were even trying to screw over their own client, and clearly they want to take over the Hellmouth for nefarious, possibly world-ending purposes!"

Xander put a hand on Anya's shoulder. "Will, I think Anya's point is that we appreciate your creativity in solving our budget problems, but as we thought before, this seems risky in a way that's extreme."

"It's easier now though," Willow said. "The Rat King still wants his skeleton, right Amy? I bet he'd help us steal it, especially if we did a Pact. Everyone can win."

"Seems like you've gotten a little dark yourself, Willow," Amy said, looking surprised more at the source of the idea than anything.

"We're fighting evil! It doesn't count," Willow argued. "Just ask him."

Amy exchanged another round of rat noises with the Rat King. "He says that Wolfram and Hart is pretty dangerous, but he thinks you guys are pretty dangerous too. He thinks he could help from the sidelines a lot with magic, but wouldn't want to chance it without a Pact. He doesn't want to end up holding the bag when they come to take a pound of flesh. If you gave him the skeleton for his help you could keep everything else you got in the raid."

"It's not unreasonable," Buffy said. "But we aren't doing it now. We don't have to yet, and Wolfram and Hart has been scummy, but they haven't crossed the line. Nobody's dead, nobody's hurt, they're just messing with us."

"And if we don't show them we're serious now then that might change," Willow said. "You saw how smarmy Lindsey was, he'll come right back with some new evil plan soon enough."

"Maybe. If he actually does, we'll reconsider, but it's closed for now," Buffy said. "Back to the point. Anya and Xander seem to think we're going to flood the town with rats. Does anyone disagree?" Buffy wasn't thrilled with it personally, but at least it didn't carry the risk of five-to-ten in prison.

"I know sixty thousand seems like a lot, especially considering our budget difficulties right now," Ian said. "But remember it wouldn't be a lump sum, we'd be subsidizing it over the course of the year. And earth honestly has a lot of consumer goods that might appeal. I'd think?"

Anya reluctantly nodded. "It's like the Walmart of dimensions. Not the best quality, but they sure make it cheap here."

"So we'd be whetting their appetites," Ian argued. "That subsidy won't be enough for dozens of nobles, we could be seeing profitable trade soon."

"What about all the nobles walking around though?" Xander asked. "Sure, if they cover up the average half-blind resident of our fair city won't think they're demons, but they'll be acting weird and can't speak the language either."

"It's cultural," Ian said. "We can say that Sunnydale is a diverse environment that attracts tourists from faraway places."

"Well, if we aren't going to just take what we want, I favor the option where we aren't all swimming in rats," Willow said.

"I've gotta agree," Buffy said, relieved. She didn't want to overrule everyone else's judgment just because one idea was icky, but she liked the Passage option the best too. "If the budget issue gets too terrible we can start selling off real estate, or find some other way to make money. We have to prioritize the well-being of the city overall."

"Oh military surplus, how I wish I knew ye," Xander opined.

After that, the meeting devolved into everyone dickering over the details of how the nobles would be coming and going, but Buffy was too distracted to pay much attention. Seeing Amy working so productively just made her feel worse. Amy had had a bad magic secret, and it'd messed up her life and ruined everything. Buffy couldn't help but think the scale of her own weird problem was getting out of hand, and that people deserved to know.

She wasn't even sure the effect was limited to just fighting skills anymore. She knew she'd been getting slightly stronger and faster over the years, either as a result of better conditioning or mystical slayer whatever, but over the past couple weeks it seemed... more somehow. She felt a little bit stronger and a little bit faster than she'd been even in May, and wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not.

She definitely had to tell everyone who'd been by her side for years; Xander, Willow, and Oz. Seeing Willow's sensor ghost just drove home to her how bad it could be if one of them missed some critical clue because she'd been all secret girl with the big info. They all had their own responsibilities now, so she couldn't be sure she'd see the next thing over someone's shoulder either.

She'd gone to Giles and Anya for information already, so they should be there too. Giles had a way of keeping people calm, and Anya… Xander would probably be mad that Anya found out first. Well, she sort of deserved it. She'd deal.

The real question was if she should tell her Mom. Even if her drug-fueled conversation with her two weeks ago had been mortifying, clearing the air a bit had seemed to help. It was possible that bringing her further into her confidence would make things better. But she didn't traditionally have a great reaction to Slayer stuff, and if she freaked it might cause a chain reaction.

Vote: Buffy's going to tell the rest of the Scoobies about the desert vision, her extra powers, and her Wilkins dreams tomorrow night. Is she going to include Joyce in that or not?

[] Joyce barely understands Buffy's powers as it is, and bringing her in on this is just going to set her off again. Better to keep her in ignorance, it's not as if it's need-to-know for her anyway.

[] Buffy is afraid that she's drifting away from her Mom, and doesn't want to keep all this scary stuff a secret from her anymore. Joyce has had a whole year to get used to Slayer stuff, she can deal with it now.