Successor (BTVS)

[X] Giles doesn't do active magic (much), but he has a wide knowledge of various demons and their rituals, as well as a lot of experience. Buffy always feels more confident with Giles along, and he might be able to share some of the burden of watching out for the other two newbies.

Buffy sat in the back as Giles drove them out to the edge of Sunnydale. Nate was navigating in shotgun using a combination of his treasure map and one of the tourist brochures they'd snagged at City Hall.

For Harmony's part, she was bouncing with excitement in the seat next to Buffy. "Do you think it's guarded by a big ugly demon? Or maybe it's hidden in a huge catacomb full of traps?"

"Seems like kind of a big investment for something like this, but you never know," Buffy said.

"Do you have any idea why your artifact is hidden here?" Giles asked. "The purpose of the site could tell us a great deal about its likely defenses. If this is some tomb of one of your forefathers your own blood or magic might even allow us to bypass various protections." Giles had been less surprised by the mercenary nature of the trip than Buffy had expected him to be; the British did sort of have a history of traveling the world and digging up other peoples' old stuff though.

"The text on the map mostly just gives a flowery description of the Crown," Nate said. "If there were any other documents with it originally, they're all lost now, I found it misfiled in with some other old records. They might not have been looked at for generations, it could be why the Crown was lost for so long."

"Going in blind then," Buffy said. "I guess we'll just have to hope that we can beat our problems to death."

"Quite," Giles said.

"I think we should stop here, the description says that there should be a cave on the other side of this hill." Nate compared the two maps. "I think it's this hill, anyway."

"Do hills change over hundreds of years?" Harmony wondered.

Giles pulled his pokey little Citroen over to the breakdown lane and they piled out of the car. Under other circumstances she might have worried about getting ticketed, but an advantage of running the town was that tickets were for other people. Giles had one of the official Sunnydale stickers in his window and she knew her mom had been abusing hers.

Harmony led the way over the hill, her skepticism about its age not dampening her enthusiasm. It was probably for the best with her eyes, anyway. Buffy stuck right behind her, hammer held over her shoulder, as Nate pulled out a flashlight and the other two followed in the back. Sure enough, there was a little tunnel that opened up in the side of the next crag, and they waited at the entrance to group up again.

"Look sharp everyone," Giles said. "There could be any manner of devious trap or trick hidden here to deter the unwary." He'd brought a long staff from the trunk of his car and now he came to the front and rapped it on parts of the ground or the walls ahead of them as they advanced. Buffy couldn't see anything suspicious herself, but she trusted her watcher to know what was what in a situation like this and they all followed his lead.

The tunnel went through several twists and turns, gradually sloping down, but no traps went off and no ambush appeared. Buffy was starting to wonder just how far it went when it opened up into a huge cave, its ceilings and walls far enough that the light from their little flashlight got lost in the darkness.

"Can you hear that?" Harmony asked.

"Some mechanism moving?" Giles said worriedly.

"Almost like… music?" Buffy said.



The music quickly grew in volume, and as it did colorful spotlights in the ceiling appeared, spiraling around them erratically. There was a grinding noise, and Buffy could tell the walls on the other side of the cave were spinning somehow, revealing something on the other side. Buffy readied her hammer for a fight, Giles looked around for other dangers, and Nate froze in panic. Harmony though, had a suspicious expression on her unvampy face, almost as if she had an idea what was going on.

Before she could ask her about it though, a loudspeaker blared to life, distracting them all. "LIVE FROM THE SUNNYDALE HELLMOUTH … THIS IS 'YOU BET YOUR SOUL'!"

"What."

"My word."

"Huh?"

"I knew it! This is a game show!" Harmony declared triumphantly.

The loudspeaker continued, "AND NOW, HERE HE IS, THE ONE, THE ONLY …"

And then the spotlights converged on the bleachers newly revealed on the opposite wall, full of happy looking demons of all shapes and sizes. They all shouted (mostly) as one, "SOUR!"

"Hello everybody! We're sure going to have fun tonight!" An excited blue suited demon with an angular red face descended down through the center aisle of the audience, cheered the whole way. As he did the light level brightened up to a level more appropriate to a Hollywood studio than a dank cave.


Sour waltzed toward them and gestured bombastically. "Nathaniel Travertine Smith, scion of the sorcerer clan Transmuters Material, you bet your soul that you could win the Crown of the First Sorcerer-King! And now you have your chance." He snapped his fingers and a raised pedestal appeared on the far wall, with a truly ostentatious and opulent crown sitting on it under glass. A couple demon girls in what looked like wrestling outfits raised the glass off and hoisted the crown up, showing it off to everyone before putting it back.

"That was most unwise," Giles said in a low, frustrated voice.

"I don't understand," Nate said. "I did well ... I did try an incantation last week, but it didn't work at all. I just found the map-"

"Where do you think the map came from?" Sour interrupted. He pointed to the space above the tunnel they'd entered by and a projector screen rolled down, showing a grainy image of Nate doing a hasty ritual in a library full of scrolls. "After you made your bet, I had to make sure I could hold up my end of the deal. Luckily, I was able to hunt down the Crown in time, but where would the fun in this be without the surprise?" The scene changed to a more despondent looking Nate searching through the stacks, while just out of his sight, the authentic looking map was teleported in on top of a disorganized pile of other old stuff. Nate noticed it as he turned around, and his expression changed as he celebrated his find.

"So you just faked all of this to lure him here," Buffy said. He'd done a dumb thing, but it had to suck to think he'd finally caught a break only to have it be a trick.

"It's all real enough though!" Sour argued. "The Crown is right here, and he has a real chance to get it. If he doesn't like the exact circumstances, well then maybe he shouldn't have made a bet."

"Do, do we really have to do this? Can we really win?" Nate asked, seeming desperate.

"You can win!" Sour answered. "You could also lose, or even draw. That's the fun in the game. And there'll be all sorts of other prizes along the way, for you and all your friends." He paused significantly. "You're the only one technically obligated to play; your soul is forfeit if you don't. None of your friends have to stay here, but they don't risk their souls if they do either. And if they leave, let's be real, you won't stand much of a chance."

"I suppose we would be entirely safe?" Giles asked sarcastically.

"For a certain definition," he replied, tilting his veiny red hand. "You could just die, of course, but casualties have only been 11% this season." He put a smile on his face, cheering up. "And really, most of the contestants we get aren't a patch on your bunch. You'll probably be fine."

"I'll help," Buffy said. "It's not like we didn't think there'd be a little danger here anyway." It wouldn't feel right to leave Nate swinging in the breeze either.

"I've always wanted to be on a game show!" Harmony said. "Even when I was alive."

Giles sighed. "I suppose if Buffy insists, I shall go along with this farce as well," He gave Sour a significant look though. "But I'd caution you against pushing your luck too far, demon. There's no contract barring the rest of us from just fighting you, after all."

Sour seemed to hesitate for a second, but then continued on as if Giles hadn't spoken. "Well then, since we're all in agreement, you can be officially introduced as our contestants!"

The room went dark, and Buffy noticed that stock footage of herself was playing on the projector. Before she could wonder where they'd gotten it, the loudspeaker activated again, "SHE WAS THE SLAYER, AND NOW SHE'S A MAYOR! LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR EARTH'S CUTEST RISING WARLORD, BUFFY SUMMERS!" The cheers of the demon audience completely muffled Buffy's protests as the spotlights converged on her.

The footage switched to a mix of Harmony, both before and after she was turned. "THIS FLEDGLING WITH ATTITUDE DOESN'T CARE WHAT SIDE SHE'S ON BECAUSE SHE'S TOO DEVOTED TO NOTICE, HARMONY KENDALL!" Harmony blushed, but Buffy didn't know what she was so embarrassed about. The announcer was clearly just exaggerating for the crowd. Buffy did notice she was in most of these slides too though.

Giles' slide show was extremely dated and mainly showed his younger self doing all kinds of things that Buffy was going to pretend she never saw. "HE MAY HAVE PRETENDED TO BE A LIBRARIAN, BUT WE ALL KNOW TO ONLY EXPECT THE WORST FROM RIPPER!"

"LAST, AND PROBABLY LEAST, OUR MAIN CONTESTANT BET HIS SOUL TO WIN THE CROWN OF THE FIRST SORCERER-KING! LET'S ALL WAVE GOODBYE TO NATHANIEL SMITH!" The scenes Nate was in were less than impressive compared to what the three of them had gotten, and even without hearing what they were saying, they pretty much confirmed to Buffy that his parents were jerks. Unlike the rest of them, Nate caught some jeers and boos along with his applause.

The lights came back up, and as they did Buffy noticed a long section of the floor was sliding away to reveal an icky pool of slime in a pit underneath. There was a weirdly shaped bridge going down the middle of it, and the two athletic-looking demon girls from before were taking up stations at two goofy-looking gun emplacements to either side.

Sour stood in front of the pool, framing it with his arms. "Our first event for today is the log roll; a test of your dexterity, and if that fails, your swimming skills. You'll need to build up points to have a good shot at the final challenge; each contestant that makes it across without getting slimed will get 100 points." Each of the two girls took a practice shot, showing that the guns didn't shoot consistent streams, but big dollops of slime instead.

"Is that stuff safe?" Buffy asked. She wasn't worried much about herself, but she didn't want the others to get burned up by it if it was acid or something.

"Our slime is totally non-toxic and machine washable," he insisted. As he was saying it though, a big alligator looking thing snapped its jaws out of the slime below, before retreating back underwater. "I wouldn't call the circumstances as a whole safe though, no."

Well, if worst came to worst she could just kill it. "Fine, I'll run your dumb log first."

Before she could get going however, she was interrupted again. "But wait, there's more!" She couldn't believe he'd actually said that. "Look at what you can win, if you can cross the log clean in under ten seconds!"

On the other side of the pool, a clothing rack full of bizarre garments was being pushed over by another pair of demon girls. A description rang out over the loudspeaker. "ON OFFER AS PART OF OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH SILKWORM, THE CENTERPIECE OF EVERY ASPIRING NOBLE'S WARDROBE! EACH QUALIFYING CONTESTANT SHALL RECEIVE AN ARASHMAHARR ORIGINAL, AUTOTAILORED TO FIT BY THE OLDEST IN CONVENIENCE MAGIC!"

"However shall I contain my excitement," Giles snarked.

"Hey, getting an original is a big deal!" Harmony retorted.

Buffy couldn't deny that clothes as prizes might've had an appeal, but from what she could tell the dress sense in hell dimensions was pretty weird. She just hoped she'd reveal any surprises in the challenge by going first. She got herself ready, choking way up on her hammer to use it like a balance beam, and then she jumped onto the round little bridge.

There was actually more resistance in it than she expected, and she found it easy to move across it at speed. The demons tried to pepper her with their slimeballs, but she dodged around them easily, in one case even stunting for the crowd a little by somersaulting over one. The creature below her made to snap at her occasionally but the level of the pool was far too low for it to reach the log, and the event was honestly kind of a big disappointment on the thrill scale.

The last slime shot that came at her was way off the mark, and on a whim she tried parrying it back with her hammer. It worked better than she'd expected, sending it careening back at her attacker without bursting it apart, and the demon ended up getting pretty drenched as the projectile splashed over her gun. Upon arriving on the other side of the log, she was presented with her 'prize' on its own separate rack. Two piece dresses really shouldn't come with capes attached, but the miniskirt might at least be salvageable.

Harmony was eager to go next, and Buffy watched, more interested in how she would handle it than worried for her safety. She had things pretty under control physically, but she was super afraid of the slime and let the shots from the demon girls screen her back from the goal, even as the audience screamed for her to go faster. She eventually managed to get across the log untouched, but her hesitation cost her getting one of the prizes.

Despite that, Harmony took things well, and just seemed relieved to have gotten across clean. "It's a shame, but I really like this outfit too and I don't trust Sour at all about this stuff washing out."

Giles was next, and Buffy was more concerned. She could immediately tell that he was having trouble balancing, and if Sour's minions had taken the opportunity from the start he would've gone down easily. They played with him for a bit too long though, and he managed to get his footing and surprise them with a burst of speed.

A burst of speed for Giles didn't cover as much distance as it did for Buffy though, and one of them slimed him in the leg near the end. He slipped to his knees, and Buffy was ready to dive forward to grab him up, but he managed to cling to the log with his arms and inch the rest of the way to the finish. They got him a few more times as he did, and he wasn't happy by the end, but at least he'd made it across without falling into the pit. She made a penitent expression and he just frustratedly wiped the slime off his glasses. The sullen silence he was going for was mostly spoiled by the laughter of the audience.

Nate was last, and she couldn't imagine how his attempt would turn out well. His balance on the log was terrible and he could barely make any progress before he had to dodge a shot and went to all fours like Giles had. Once he was clinging to the log, he stopped moving entirely, and Buffy thought he'd frozen up until she saw a shot that had been aimed at him splash off the air around him and miss. He must have gotten up one of those air shields he'd talked about!

Between clinging to the log and concentrating on his spell though, he moved extremely slowly, and the whole area around him ended up getting coated with slime shots, even if his shield managed to keep them off of him. Buffy hoped he could make it somehow, but eventually two shots came at once, the shock disrupted his concentration, and his hands slipped from the slick surface. He fell into the big pit of slime with a splash.

When he surfaced, it was clear he could barely swim, and even if the alligator monster was showboating a little he was clearly going to get eaten before he got to the ladder embedded in the far side. Harmony anticipated what needed to happen. "Buffy, please, anything but this."

"It's fine Harm, I got it," she said sadly. "The things I do for money these days." Buffy took a running start and smoothly dove into the slime pool, leaving her hammer behind on the edge. She figured that swimming with fifty pounds of metal deadweight might be tricky even for her.

The slime was if anything grosser than it looked, oddly thick and inundating her clothing. Nate rising to the surface in spite of his confused struggling made more sense now. Luckily she'd taken the chance to dress down for work on Sunday so her outfit was no big loss. Despite the weird conditions, she was able to splash her way over to him in no time. Just when she was about to grab him however, the gator demon finally attacked.
KILL
It made to bite at her underwater (underslime?) where she couldn't see, but she felt the pressure change and darted out her hand to grab its nose, wrenching it above the surface. It struggled with her, rolling her around and snapping its snout, but it was too slow to catch her and she just ended up on top of it. Pivoting, it whipped its body around again and came at her head, but she'd been ready.

While they'd wrestled, she'd gotten the backup stake she carried out of her soaked jeans, and she jammed it pointfirst through the roof of its mouth as it lunged. Violet blood erupted everywhere, and the monster pathetically tried to free itself by snapping, but the jaw action just drove the stake further in, and it retreated in screaming confusion, down into the depths of the pool. Buffy thought about following it down to finish the job, but decided she had better things to do and just started dragging Nate back to the ladder.

Mercifully, he stopped struggling after a few strokes, though she thought he was trying to say something. The thrashing of the demon had kicked up a ton of waves though, the crowd was going out of control, and Buffy's lifeguarding technique was more than a little suspect, so he wasn't able to get out whatever it was. In any event, it wasn't too long before they reached the ladder, and she went up first so she could give him a hand out. He seemed more than a little shaken up.

They were both sitting on the edge now as Buffy waited for Nate to get his act together again. He coughed out some slime back into the pool, but after he recovered she noticed he was giving her a puppy dog look. "You saved my life."

"It's what I do." She smiled. "Usually it's less messy though." She really should be more annoyed with him, but she was finding it majorly difficult. It was unfair for someone so covered in slime to still be pretty, and the whole situation was kind of beyond predictable.

Nate seemed about to reply, but Sour preempted him, "Aren't they the cutest couple? Let's give the whole team a round of applause for surviving the event." As the audience clapped obediently Buffy and Nate both edged back away from each other, embarrassed.

Buffy took a look at her group, and aside from Harmony everyone was pretty bedraggled. "Could we maybe get cleaned up before the next death defying stunt?"

Sour shrugged, snapping his fingers to make a couple towels ('You Bet Your Soul' stenciled on them) appear for Nate and Giles. "As for you, well, nobody can say you didn't cross clean and fast, even if you did something else afterwards, so I don't think it'd hurt anything to give you your prize now. Remember, 'Silkworms can clean anyone up'!" Another snap, and her soaked jeans, sneakers, and shirt were gone, replaced by the caped two-piece she'd seen before and a pair of sandals. She worried for a second that it would just get ruined too, before noticing she was newly pristine all the way down to her hair being back in order.

She would've protested how ridiculous the outfit was if it wasn't so sinfully comfortable. It looked like some kind of leather, but it definitely felt like silk. Giles gave her accepting silence an exaggerated eyeroll, but Nate and Harmony kept it to weirded out stares. Well, better than slime, and it's not like she'd ever get the chance to wear it again. She'd have to make sure Harmony didn't blab to Cordy later though, she'd never live down wearing an actual cape.

The audience had died down again while they were all being awkward, and Sour quickly filled the silence, "You've started with 200 points, but you'll need to earn more if you want a chance at the Crown. In our next event, you'll be tested not on your physical prowess, but many find it even more grueling."

The slime pool, now thoroughly stained with violet blood, was closing up in the floor, and a strange pair of sealed off booths rose up from another place in the arena. "How well do you know your teammates? Split yourselves into two groups, and each group will have to answer personal questions about the other two! Get them right, and you'll reap the rewards. Get them wrong, and you might take double the blame from your team! Whatever happens, mortifying secrets are sure to be revealed." Sour gave a big fake smile, and the audience erupted into speculation about who would pair up with who.

Buffy would've been confident if this had been an all Scooby event, but Harmony had been a pretty distant acquaintance until this summer, and they barely knew anything about Nate at all. The format gave them some opportunity for leverage, but it would still be tricky to arrange everyone correctly.

Vote: How does Buffy set up the teams? Remember, each team gets to confer, and has to answer questions about the two members of the other team.

[] Buffy pairs up with Giles. The two will answer questions about Nate and Harmony (and vice versa.)

[] Buffy pairs up with Nate. The two will answer questions about Giles and Harmony (and vice versa.)

[] Buffy pairs up with Harmony. The two will answer questions about Giles and Nate (and vice versa.)