Successor (BTVS)

[X] 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 was anxious as she made her way to Giles' house at the end of the day. She'd tried to be nonchalant setting up the meeting to prevent any problems or outbursts beforehand, but she knew her friends weren't exactly the types to let things lie. Given that Giles and Anya knew beforehand she was hoping the secret already hadn't come out ahead of her, but if it had she'd just have to do her best to smooth things over. She'd known what secrets had done to herself in the past and after being reminded about what they did to Amy she was regretful she'd kept it in the first place.

She'd angsted about whether to include her mom in this, and if she'd made the other decision this would've been happening at her house instead. But ultimately, Joyce wasn't plugged that far into the Slayer side of her life and she didn't need to know. Willow, Oz, and Xander were on the front lines every day and fighting by her side, while Joyce was supposed to be safely in the back. Plus, hearing voices in her head of any kind definitely wasn't a discussion she wanted with her mom after the whole psych ward incident.

She knocked on the door expecting to be greeted by the baleful stares of her friends, but instead there was a bit of a delay. She almost thought something was wrong, but before she was able to parse the faint mumbling she could hear from the other side of the door Giles finally opened it up. "Ah, Buffy, you're here just in time to distract them all from that disquieting machine."

Buffy saw that contrary to her expectations, nobody was really paying much attention to her at all. Instead, Willow was on the couch with her laptop open and everyone was peering in; Oz was cuddled into her side while Anya and Xander were leaning over the couch looking over her shoulders. There was a camera-looking thing attached to it that Buffy hadn't seen Willow using before, and Willow was speaking at it directly, "Can you guess who came in?"

An uncertain and tinny voice came from the speakers, "Is it Buffy? Buffy is mentioned the most of people who aren't here already."

There was oohing and aahing from them, and Willow answered, "Yup, there she is!" She pivoted the camera at a now bemused Buffy, looking up at her. "I got CyberWillow working earlier today. She's still in the development phase but the AI core seems really impressive.

"Oh! I want to see." Buffy vaulted over the coffee table and landed next to Willow on the couch, opposite Oz. Sure enough, there was a digitized 1997-edition Willow looking a little confused on the screen.


"This is like a trip down memory lane," Buffy said.

"Willow has indeed changed in the ways of clothing since this was set up," Xander agreed.

"I feel like I missed out on a whole period of Willow fashion," Oz said, running a hand through Willow's hair.

Willow blushed a bit. "You guys don't have to be so nice, I know it's a little cringey. But the graphics models were already there, and I figured that it'd be good if people didn't get us confused, so I didn't update them."

"So what does she do?" Buffy asked.

"Nothing useful yet," Anya said. "She's like a small child, though Willow promises she'll grow up quicker."

"Yeah, she's still populating her neural network," Willow said. "I fed her a bunch of data to stew over and I'm hoping once she's settled she'll be able to start doing stuff like searching through our digitized tome library and summarizing the important parts, or even filter through information on the internet."

"So instead of Ask Jeeves, Ask Willow?" Buffy said.

"That's the idea. And she could develop more capabilities in the future, but it's hard to tell. She can already index facts pretty well though." She looked at the camera again, "CyberWillow, tell me some things about Buffy."

CyberWillow's face changed on the screen, and she seemed to focus hard. "Buffy is my best friend. Buffy is the Slayer, and the Mayor. That rhymes."

"She's so cute!" Buffy said.

CyberWillow wasn't done yet though, "She also has great hair, and perfect skin. And I think I'm a little jealous of her boobs?" Everyone but Willow snickered a bit in response to that.

"That's enough CyberWillow for now, lots of bugs to work out!" Willow said quickly, closing the laptop.

"Wait, can I hear her opinions about me first? I want to know if I have things she's jealous of," Anya said.

"She seemed a little uncertain at the end there," Buffy said mischievously. "What was her source on that?"

"I may have scanned in some of my old diaries," Willow admitted. "But enough about CyberWillow, didn't you have something you wanted to talk about, Buffy?"

"Yes Buffy, please, let's move on from the digital abomination," Giles said, sitting down across from them with some tea he'd retrieved from the kitchen.

Buffy swallowed, sad that the distraction had been fleeting. She had to girl up though, so she just started. "The reason you're all here is my slayer powers have been a little strange lately. I was hoping it would resolve itself over time or that Giles would have an answer, but it's gotten to the point where I think this might be long-term."

"Wait, like the Cruciamentum again?" Xander said.

"You're losing your powers? We should be looking for a solution!" Willow grabbed her bicep worriedly, as if to check how much of her strength was still there.

"No, not like that," Buffy said. She did a little flex for Willow "See, Buffy muscles still intact. Let me start from the beginning." She paused, uncertainly. "It started the week we first occupied City Hall. I had a slayer dream about Wilkins the night after we got stuck in the maze."

"That was just a recording though," Willow said. "I know, I checked that thing really carefully after."

"I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or not, but the dream was weird anyway. It was in my office, and we just sort of talked about stuff. Like a mayors talk." Buffy hoped they wouldn't take it as a betrayal.

"Are you sure it was a slayer dream?" Xander asked. "I've had my share of Wilkins-speech nightmares, no powers required."

"It felt a little like one, but I guess I can't be sure," Buffy allowed. "I've had more of them since though, and they're always at City Hall and in sort of freaky high definition. I'm pretty sure that I'm seeing what actually happens there when I'm asleep now."

"Are you worried it's the sensor ghost?" Willow said. "It couldn't be broadcasting all the way to your house. I don't think."

"I know you said that, it just seemed like a big coincidence. You're sure there couldn't be, what was it you said, a relay?" Buffy asked.

"I spent hours looking around the City Hall area when I first found it, but got a big nothing. It could be passive a lot of the time though, I guess." Willow made a face, and Buffy was already guilty for more Willow sleep she might be denying.

"What kinds of mayor things do you and Wilkins talk about?" Oz asked. "Is there a secret handshake?"

"A lot of it is history and stuff," Buffy said. "Or like, twisted bad guy advice? It's weird, and there's not really a point to fighting him in the dream, so I've just kind of rolled with it and tried to figure out what was going on. They haven't even really been super definitely prophetic, though he seems kind of on-the-nose about what's going on sometimes. He talked about his wife getting sick, I think that's why he made the deal with the Rat King in the first place."

"We'll work this out," Willow said. "You shouldn't feel so guilty, I mean for all you knew for a while these were just weird dreams, right?"

"I mean, there is the stuff about the vision and the combat skills too," Anya said. "You were going to tell them about those right?"

"Wait, Anya knew and you didn't tell me?" Willow complained.

"Anya, you knew and didn't tell me?" Xander half-agreed.

"You couldn't have kept quiet for five more minutes?" Buffy said annoyedly.

"You humans have all these complicated secrets and lies, I think I did pretty well to keep it all straight as long as I did!" Anya said. "And it's not like you aren't telling them now."

"Maybe we should focus on the aforementioned vision and skills?" Oz said.

Buffy took Oz's opportunity to explain, "So things kind of escalated when I fought the dragon in the police station. Remember how we got equipped with strapped on sunglasses to stop the mind control? Mine kind of got ripped off during the fight."

"And for the past month, you've secretly been obsessed with gathering money and valuables into a big messy pile? Should I be checking your office more carefully?" Xander said, trying to lighten the mood.

"It didn't even get started. I felt the mind control setting in, but there was this… opposing force in my head. It had a big desert landscape to introduce it too." Might as well put all the marbles on the table now. "It shouted to KILL. In my voice. So then I did, with brand new extra killy slayer instincts, and boom, dead dragon." She noticed Giles start a little at the extra revelation about the voice, but he kept his cool and didn't jump in.

"The voice in your head told you to kill the dragon." Xander said. "Well, at least imaginary Buffy has her priorities straight."

"I didn't know if it was connected to Wilkins or what, with the dreams and everything," Buffy continued. "So I talked to Anya about it. She was all with the knowledge on him before, so I asked if he might've like, done some ooky Olvikan rubbing off thing."

"Definitely not," Anya reiterated. "Like I said before, Old One legacies and Ascensions are finicky things. Wilkins had to spend a ton of effort integrating Olvikan, it wouldn't just transfer over when he died."

"You didn't want to ask me about it?" Willow said with a frown. "Aren't I your magic girl?"

"You're also my sleepy girl these days." Buffy said. "What did you work last week? Literally a hundred hours maybe, if you count college stuff? I didn't want to put another impending crisis on your plate. I already had Giles on it, and no offense Giles, but you're a slacker these days compared to Willow."

"I should hope so," Giles said. "I wasn't aware that things had gotten so extreme, advanced magic can be quite dangerous when-"

"I'm going to start getting more sleep, I promise." Willow cut off his tirade. "That's what my 'digital abomination' is for, once she gets her act together."

"Back to the super instincts," Xander said. "Buffy, are you secretly becoming Spiderman? Because I support you if you are."

Buffy turned back to Xander and waved her fingers randomly, "Nope, no webs. But I might be getting stronger and faster too. It's not much, and it didn't happen right away, so it's hard to tell."

"Slayers do generally improve their conditioning with age," Giles cut in. "But some of the improvements in the past month have seemed rather large, even accounting for the new instincts."

"Does anyone else know?" Willow asked, still looking a little hurt that she was finding out late.

"Well, there was this demon in LA..." At Willow's mutinous expression, Buffy explained quickly. "Not my fault, he was some kind of seer or something. I did Karaoke and he said I was siphoning power from something 'big', but he couldn't tell what it was. He was pretty legit though, without his advice I wouldn't have gotten my big hammer and would've been up a serious creek against the giant rape demon."

"Wait, you did karaoke and I didn't get to see?" Xander asked, narrowing in on the important part of her rant.

"I did too!" Anya said. "It was really good actually. We should have a karaoke bar here."

"Heavens forfend," Giles put his hands over his head.

"Well, whatever was happening before, we're definitely investigating this together now." Willow said. "We can have exercise machines, and double-blind tests, and charts and graphs and everything." She bopped Buffy on the nose with her finger. "Whatever other stuff I'm doing, you should know you're always my top priority, Buffy."

"I'm sorry, Will." Buffy said.

"My righteous friend wrath shall be calmed by R^2 values," she replied.

Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy and her friends are still looking to fix their budget issues, solidify their control of the Hellmouth, and help the town prosper in general. What major project will be the focus of the next episode?

[] Buffy got back in contact with the people she met in Hollywood, and it looks like she can bring the filming of a low budget horror movie to Sunnydale. It could be the start of a profitable trend, might employ a few more peaceful demons, and it'll get Cordelia a starring role.

[] Joyce says that the Sunnydale Natural History Museum has a dig site they've been wanting to excavate for ages, but Mayor Wilkins shut them down at every turn. Giles and Jonathan think that the ruins there might be extremely old, and with proper supervision who knows what knowledge or artifacts could be uncovered.

[] One of LA's sorcerer clans is seeking a powerful relic hidden in Sunnydale, and they think Buffy can retrieve it for them. They're offering a very large cash prize and a nonaggression pact, so it's a tempting mission to alleviate City Hall's budget woes. Harmony's game for a new challenge, and some of Buffy's other friends might help as well.

[] Xander's made a breakthrough in tracking the Yeti, with help from both Oz and one of the Rat Nobles. Buffy might finally be able to get face to face with the Yeti, but it'll mean working with Amy again if she wants to do it.

[X] One of LA's sorcerer clans is seeking a powerful relic hidden in Sunnydale, and they think Buffy can retrieve it for them. They're offering a very large cash prize and a nonaggression pact, so it's a tempting mission to alleviate Sunnydale's economic woes. Harmony's game for a new challenge, and some of Buffy's other friends might help as well.


"No, I really think I can get this one, just one more." Buffy hadn't expected to get so invested in Willow's fact-finding track and field experiments, but it was an unexpected mix of nostalgia and new fun. The last time she'd done serious athletics outside of slaying had been in cheerleading, and that had obviously gone by the wayside pretty quick after she'd been called.

"OK Buffy, I guess we do want to establish a firm ceiling. But there are some other things I want to try too, don't wear yourself out." Willow and Giles were using some rods to lift the high bar up and put it back in place after Buffy's near miss, and she got up from the mat she'd landed on and scooted back to the start of the runway.

"It still feels a bit odd to be doing this so publicly," Giles said. "But I suppose at this point what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Willow had decided the best place to get hard measurements of Buffy's powers was the track and field stadium at UC Sunnydale. Buffy was too strong for any of the weights or machines the college offered, but most of the challenges outdoors gave enough latitude that Buffy wouldn't break the scales.

They had to do things a little unconventionally though. Once the bar was placed again and her helpers backed off, Buffy began her charge at the pole vault. She was strong enough that a serious effort would easily snap one of the poles in half, but that wasn't a problem, because she wasn't using one. Buffy could clear over twice her height unassisted, after all.

She jumped a little earlier than before this time, trying to get the timing better. She thought she'd had the height before, but her angle had been a little wrong. This time she was able to wrench her body around the bar and just barely clear it, giving a little whoop before coming down to a landing. There was an impromptu cheer from some gathered spectators, and she got up and did a little bow for the audience of curious onlookers.

One of which was Sam from the SDCW, she noticed as he walked up to her. "Funny seeing you here. Thinking of trying for the gold?" He was being flippant, but she could tell he was a little nervous. Maybe he hadn't been so unflapped last weekend after all.

"Pass," Buffy said. "This is just me making use of excellent facilities of our local institution. Are you between classes now?" It was a lot easier to banter with a guy when you weren't in a soaking wet shirt, who knew.

"Thankfully I'm done for the day. I was coming by to get a workout myself, but I couldn't help joining the crowd." He looked back and forth a little warily, but most of the kids had melted away for now. He lowered his voice a little anyway, "Those jumps are pretty blatantly superhuman. I'm kind of surprised people don't make a bigger deal out of it."

Buffy noticed Willow holding Giles back out of Sam's line of sight, giving them time to chat. He seemed a little confused at first, but then engaged in some heavy glasses rubbing after she whispered in his ear. It seemed like everyone thought she needed all the flirting help she could get these days.

Returning her attention to the conversation, Buffy shrugged. "I run to work as fast as the traffic most days, and I carry around a gigantic metal hammer. People started off with Sunnydale Syndrome and they've moved on to the total desensitization."

"Is that like, a real thing?" Sam said. "Sunnydale Syndrome, I mean. Some of the guys at the watch house talk about it but it's kind of vague." He had this cute confused look on his face, and it made Buffy want to seem knowledgeable.

"It's not like, some kind of spell," Buffy said, then got less certain. "As far as I know. I mean, people usually think mundane explanations or hoaxes are more reasonable than what's really out there. I mean, it's not just Sunnydale that's weird, there are demons everywhere, just less of them. It'd have to be happening worldwide if it was some kind of magic."

"That's smart," Sam said, nodding along. "Human nature's all the trouble we need sometimes, I suppose." After a pause, he changed the subject. "Do you like, take classes yourself? I'd think you'd be super busy, with the mayoring and the slaying and everything."

"I'm supposed to in the Fall, but it'll definitely be tricky to fit in," Buffy said. "My mom has all these big dreams of me going to college and being successful, but it's a lot to balance at once."

"Dealing with parental expectations can be really hard," Sam said. "But you already seem pretty successful to me? Big career in politics, lots of disaster relief to your name. That art gallery your mother runs is pretty classy, does she expect you to be like, a doctor or a lawyer or something?"

Buffy really wasn't sure what Joyce wanted from her, to be honest. She wasn't even sure Joyce knew exactly what she wanted from her, aside from some vague idea of normalcy. "I hope not. I'm not really super study-girl."

"Because you're super-everything-else girl," Sam finished. That was laying it on pretty thick, but Buffy decided she would give him a pass for it on the grounds of not caring.

She still needed some kind of response though. Deflection would work. "Well right now I need to be running-girl. Fancy a few laps?"

He hesitated. "I don't think I could keep up?"

"Willow, can you get the timing for the run set up?," Buffy said loudly. Willow had her webcam thing attached to her radio somehow and had been having CyberWillow take notes on all the tests. Buffy hoped she wasn't still paying undue attention to her boobs. She turned back to Sam. "How about to make it fair, you try to do two laps before I finish five?"


Sam had put up a good fight, but Buffy was still doing the victory dance at the end. He took a few more strides after crossing the line and then dropped to his knees, huffing and puffing. "That's a heck of a two kilometer time you made there."

"Hey, you weren't so bad yourself," she said. "I don't think? It seemed very fast."

"She says," he paused for another breath, "after lapping me three times. Do you ever stop sprinting?"

"It was just a few minutes, I've got way more endurance than that," Buffy said. He raised his eyebrows a bit, and Buffy decided she'd better distract from the unintended entendre. She looked over to the others. "What was the next thing I'm supposed to do?"

"Well, there's the long jump too," Willow said, "Oh, and I was thinking maybe a keg toss. You can find kegs pretty easily at college campuses right?"

"Well, I don't see any lying around, but materializing one shouldn't take much effort," Giles said dryly.

"You'd probably have some luck getting one if you went by Alpha Delta, though don't tell anyone I told you that." A jovial looking older man in a suit and bow tie had walked up and cut into their conversation. "I'm Hal Richards, Dean at UC Sunnydale. Larry's told me we might have something to talk about." He looked a bit out of place all dressed up on a hot track field, but maybe that was just how deans rolled.

Buffy just hoped he wouldn't put her on the spot about her classes this fall. "Weren't we going to meet on Monday? I thought you were in Europe."

"I just got back today, actually. I decided to take a stroll around campus to make sure it was still in one piece, and I noticed you making use of some of our top-notch facilities," he said.

"I hope that isn't a problem?" Buffy said awkwardly. "Willow said that-"

"Oh no, don't you worry about it, it's no problem at all." The focus of the Dean's attention changed though. "And is this the famous Willow Rosenberg?"

"Me? I don't think I'm the famous one," Willow said. "There's a famous one?"

The Dean laughed. "The Computer Department's talked my ear off about you. Haven't even had a single class and you're helping them put all those metal boxes with big price tags to work."

"Well, it's a new system," Willow allowed carefully, "So you'd only expect there would be some bugs to work out."

"Some 'bugs' she says. I should be paying her instead of some of those old farts on tenure," Sam had edged his way into the background, and the Dean turned to Giles next. "And you're Rupert Giles, recently curator at the British Museum?" He moved forward to shake his hand.

"Not that recently, I'm afraid," Giles said.

"Nothing like Government work right? I'd ask if you were keeping these kids on the straight and narrow, but we both know these aren't the type that need help with that." Buffy wasn't sure if the Dean was putting on a show for them, but he did seem to be trying to be ingratiating. If he knew Giles' weird work history this well and wasn't suspicious, it was because he didn't want to be.

"The both of them are quite capable," Giles said. "I assume you're eager to discuss the zoning issues?" Buffy knew Giles had looked into some of the new locations UC Sunnydale wanted to build on, but he hadn't been able to uncover much one way or the other. Wilkins' zoning scheme was majorly mysterious and he hadn't left any notes on his thought processes.

"You've got me," Dean Richards said. "We've got a backlog of construction we want to do almost a decade long, and all sorts of reasons we aren't allowed to do it."

"Well, I mean, there is a lot of old sacred land around here," Willow said with some concern. "All the Chumash records got majorly messed up by the Spaniards and then the 1812 Earthquake. Nobody resettled the area for decades after that, so it's impossible to know where they were exactly."

"You've got the situation pretty well figured out," the Dean said. "You're working with the Archaeology department here too right?"

"Yeah, I actually think that with the use of more modern computers we should be able to construct accurate virtual simulations of ancient sites," Willow said. "But I've actually looked into this, there isn't enough data to even have a clue."

"Which is why we would take the utmost care in any digging or building we did," Dean Richards said. "But we have to do something eventually, since we don't know where any of it even is."

"You might understand I've heard a lot of stories about construction that took the 'utmost care'," Giles started.

"I know, I know," the Dean allowed. "And it's great that the people in charge of the city still are so interested in preserving our history. You could have observers at the sites, maybe, to make sure nobody drops the ball? I know there's still some hooliganism going on in this town, and I wouldn't mind an extra set of eyes either."

"And just to be clear, if we cut through the red tape in the zoning laws, you'll agree to host the high school?" Wilkins had been vague with her about the reasons for the zoning in her dreams, but she definitely thought that they'd be kicking up some threats from underground if they did this. An exploded high school directly over the Hellmouth was a problem of its own though, and one that Buffy couldn't ignore.

"We certainly wouldn't want to throw the lives of so many young people into disarray because of a tragedy like we had last month," the Dean said. "Personally, I'm all for it. But to sell it to the board, I need the quid pro quo."

Vote: UC Sunnydale could solve the problem of where to have High School next year, but they won't do it unless they're allowed to do all their construction projects too. What should Buffy decide?

[] They're likely to dig up some trouble along the way, but at least the SDCW can keep an eye on the situation, and having a solution to the Sunnydale High issue at such a prestigious location will play well in the polls. Buffy agrees to change the zoning for the Dean.

[] The problem with the high School has to be solved, but this isn't how they should do it. They can distribute the high school over the middle schools and other public buildings instead, and be more careful about construction. Buffy tells the Dean the zoning laws can't be pushed over so easily.