Successor (BTVS)

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

Once Giles and Nate toweled off the worst of the slime, the group huddled up to think. Buffy said the obvious first, "I'll take Nate, neither of you two know each other well enough to answer questions."

Harmony didn't seem thrilled with the idea, but wasn't arguing. "Well, OK. That does make sense, I guess."

Giles nodded along reluctantly, looking no more happy to be working directly with Harmony, but surprisingly Nate spoke up himself. "Are you sure we should? This whole thing has been full of tricks so far, and maybe they planned for us to do this?"

It was pretty insightful, but it made sense that Nate would think of it; he was the one they'd played most of all. "Do you have any better ideas then?" Buffy asked.

He boggled a bit, looking surprised at being taken seriously. "Well, not really. We could do it differently just to be unpredictable but it might just make the questions harder. Do any of you know anything about my clan? That might be some kind of common ground."

"The Watchers Council is quite aware of the sorcerer clans, though it's not at all my area of study," Giles said. "Perhaps if I had my books-"

"It'll have to do," Buffy said. "But that just makes it even more logical for us to split the first way."

"Time's up!" Sour said. "Time to march off to your places." The crowd of demons gave that a chuckle.

Buffy gave the clear sealed boxes another wary look. "You know if you try to gas us I'll just smash your toys right?" She wiggled her hammer meaningfully.

"Nothing of the sort!" Sour protested. "They just need to be soundproofable so everything's on the up and up. No physical danger of any sort for this event, I promise."

"Fine, but I'm watching you," Buffy said, shaking the topspike at him. There were some chuckles from the audience to go with the exchange. At least some people were enjoying themselves.

As satisfied as she was going to get, she grabbed Nate by the hand and they went over to the nearer chamber. On closer inspection the door made itself obvious and they went in, hearing it seal behind them. All the sides except the one that would've shown the adjacent chamber were clear, and there weren't any seats or anything; it was just an empty box, aside from a little speaker in the corner.

Once everyone had gotten themselves situated, Sour started talking again. "I like to think of this event as letting us all get to know each other better. There will be two questions about each of you; each correct answer is worth 50 points. And if one group gets all four of their questions right, there's a fantastic prize in store!

The projector screen came to life again, along with the announcer. "FROM THE PAN-WHERE TRAVEL AGENCY, A WEEKLONG TRIP FOR TWO TO THE CITY OF BEAUTY IN ISKTAL!" Fantastical images of colorful skyscrapers were shown reaching up into a cloudy sky, populated by frantic-looking little demons doing all kinds of activities. The birdlike, accordion-stomached things didn't seem too threatening, and the place looked nice for what was presumably a hell dimension, but still did seem pretty weird, especially to spend a week in. "STAY IN GORGEOUS LOCATIONS, ENJOY SPECTACULAR VIEWS, SHOP AT ALL THE FAMOUSLY UNREGULATED MARKETS!" Enticing (well, meant-to-be-enticing) scenes kept being shown, but the announcer's voice quieted for his last sentence. "Subsidized shopping credits limited to 50 Siamese equivalent, offer not valid for trips originating from Quor'toth."

"Well wouldn't that just be grand?" Sour asked the crowd. "And because this event is just so friendly, there isn't even much of a penalty for getting things wrong; you'll just get to see some of the candid videos we've collected to show you the hidden sides of some of your friends. If you're getting questions wrong in the first place, it should be educational."

Buffy was sure the 'candid videos' would be more humiliating than educational, but it was better than her friends getting attacked by alligator demons. Probably.

"Let's start with a pair of questions about the person everyone here is most interested in, Buffy Summers!" Sour said. Buffy could hear the sound of his voice coming from the speaker now; it was a little tinny. She assumed that things were soundproofed now and she couldn't help. "While Buffy might be a role model for a lot of violent little demon girls out there in the crowd, it shouldn't surprise people to know she had some role models of her own growing up. The first we'll ask about was a practitioner of the bizarre human sport of figure skating. Was it A) Tonya Harding, B) Nancy Kerrigan, C) Dorothy Hamill, or D) Katarina Witt?"

"Oh, I know!" Buffy heard Harmony's voice, also slightly distorted. "It was Dorothy Hamill!" Buffy had no idea how Harmony knew that.

"Well isn't that something!" Sour said. "Well, Buffy definitely didn't grow up to be a figure skater! Her other role model was a little closer. Was it A) Power Girl, B) Batgirl, C) Wonder Woman, or D) Starfire?" Buffy blushed. This one was way more embarrassing than Dorothy Hamill, and there was no way that Harmony could know either.

"It was definitely Power Girl!" Harmony said confidently. It was a night of surprises for Buffy, apparently.

"Well it looks like you've really made up for lost time," Sour commented. "You know Buffy better than her Watcher, and he's had three years!" The audience chuckled, and Buffy could hear some distorted grumbling from Giles.

"Some would say we should change the focus now," Sour continued, and midway through the speaker turned off and she started hearing him normally. "But we actually have one more question prepared to do with Buffy. One about Harmony! Which of Buffy's old romances has been mouth-to-mouth with Harmony before? A) Billie Fordham, B) Owen Thurman, C) Scott Hope, or D) the infamous Angelus."

Nate's eyes were widening with each name and Buffy was a little annoyed. I mean, it's not like she really went anywhere with most of them or anything, and it was still only four guys over what, her whole life? "That would be Owen Thurman," she answered. Cordy's gossip had ended up actually being good for something, who would've thought?

"You two really seem to have a connection," Sour said affably. "This one comes from before you knew each other though. Who stood Harmony up for her 10th grade Fall Formal? A) Lance Lincoln, B) Larry Blaisdell, C) Jack O'Toole, or D) Brad Konig?"

And this was gossip Buffy hadn't heard, unfortunately. But she knew Larry had been in denial about his orientation during that period, and it seemed like the sort of way he might lash out. She hesitated a bit to pin him to something like this after his untimely death, but Nate's soul and a whole lot of money were on the line, so she decided she had to just make her best guess. "Was it Larry?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, but that's wrong!" Sour said. "I lied actually… I'm not really sorry at all, because it means everyone gets to see this great video we have of the incident in question!" With that, the lights in the cave dimmed down and the screen lit up showing a slightly younger and much less dead Harmony, in her room and on a hot pink telephone. Unicorn and pony memorabilia was everywhere, including the sheets, and the crowd gobbled it up with hoots and hollers. She couldn't see or hear Harmony (at least not the current one), but she already felt bad for her.

"Wait, Brad's there? But he didn't pick me up," she said worriedly, curling the line around her finger. "What do you mean he's with Michelle? She's dating Hogan."

Harmony listened to phone, growing more and more worried. "But even if they broke up, why would he just take her instead? She doesn't have anything I don't. What do you mean they're making out right now? They're… eww, gross, what the hell Cordelia?" Harmony threw the phone across the room making a huge clatter and then started crying into her pillow. The camera held there for a while, but nobody came to her room despite the commotion.

The picture faded out, and Sour immediately laid on the smarm, "And Harmony learned a valuable lesson about 'giving back' in relationships that day. She really took it to heart." The soundproofing cut out again and Buffy could hear the quiet little noises of Harmony trying to maintain her composure in the face of the mocking audience. Maybe they would've been better off with alligators.

"But speaking of lessons learned, let's turn to the academics among our contestants. Well go with Nathaniel first, and see how easy it is to put his life story together out of stereotypes." Buffy heard the metallic tone of the soundproofing cut in again midway through Sour's sentence. "We'll start with his early life. When did Nathaniel first show magical proficiency? A) 8, B) 10, C) 12, or D) 14?"

"Is there like, a standard for things like this? Willow's only been doing magic for a year or so, right?" Harmony seemed to have recovered pretty quickly; Buffy wondered if it was on account of soullessness.

"She's a rather special case, and the clans emphasize magic much earlier. They tend to specialize and have been known to start very early." Giles said.

"But is that all of them?" Harmony asked. "Do some of the lamer ones start late anyway?"

"All of the ages given are within the possible range, though the middle two seem more reasonable, I believe." Giles was prevaricating, and Buffy could almost envision him reflexively reaching for books that weren't there.

"It's definitely going to be 14 then," Harmony said. "I already knew losers when I saw them, and now I can smell them too. Nate, definite loser."

Giles started, "Now, I'm not sure that's-"

"It may not be fair," Sour interrupted, "But it's right! Score another one for our vampire. And now, if you two get the next one right, you'll be winners of the free trip courtesy our friends at Pan-Where!" Buffy really hoped they got it, if only to compensate Harmony for the emotional damage.

"This one is real wordy, so we're going to put it on the screen too. What was the topic of Nathaniel's Thesis? A) The Tactics of Medieval Battleshaping, B) Runic Reconfiguration of Inorganic Plastics, C) Modern Techniques with Sublime Transits, or D) Canid Transfiguration for Breeding Purposes." Buffy was immediately happy to have nothing to do with this question, but she noticed a worried look on Nate's face. She had a feeling this would end badly.

"OK, now I really don't have a clue. Don't screw it up watcher-guy," Harmony said.

"Well, I think I can rule out D, since Canid Transfiguration would be on a living thing, which is outside what the Transmuters Material usually do," Giles said. There was a pause. "And Nathaniel doesn't exactly strike me as an avid military historian, so perhaps we can discard A as well."

"So one of those other two then," Harmony said. "Both of them seem pretty nerdy to me."

"I think I remember something about them using runes for high fidelity applications?" Giles said hesitantly.

"Oh, he said he was good at detail work," Harmony contributed.

"Well then, let's try that. B, Runic Reconfiguration of Inorganic Plastics," Giles tried.

"It's a good chain of reasoning," Sour acknowledged. "Which makes it all the funnier that it's wrong. Our Nathaniel doesn't really have the right stuff for actually useful methods, so he dug around the clan archives until he could find something he could actually understand. Let's look at the tape of his thesis defense."

"I answer three questions and you can't even get one," Harmony complained. "Figures."

The screen activated, showing Nate standing in front of a rich desk seating three old looking Sorcerer guys. Nate was looking more dressed up than today but otherwise the same, so this was probably even more recent than Harmony's video. He spoke, and it came out scared and uneven, "So you see, Sublime Transits could actually have several modern uses, despite being an ancient technique, you can-"

The old geezer on the right interrupted him, "What's the point though? Just a lot of navel gazing people used to use before we invented the right runes, izenit?"

Nate cringed both onscreen and next to her in real life. "That's largely true, but finding the right runes can be hard for niche applications. Each distinct transit requires solving a set of transcendental equations and translating that into the proper array, which can be quite time consuming."

The sorcerer on the left of the table was the most businesslike and looked the youngest too, only in middle age. "But you only have to figure it out once. That's the whole point of runes. Sublime Transits require intense focus every time, unless you found some way around that, boy."

"Well, no, but once you get the knack of it, it really isn't that bad," Nate said.

"We used to say that about catching rabbit for dinner," the geezer cut in. "And I tell you what, it's no patch on the supermarket."

"There's a fundamental inaccuracy in all transcendental solutions though," Nate argued. "With a sublime transit you can get a much more precise result, and with the information age upon us we might need those results to diversify into computer technologies." He seemed to be gathering confidence on screen, but the Nate next to her had his head in his hands at this point. She patted his shoulder awkwardly, but she wasn't sure if he noticed.

"Well, this is about what I expected," the one in the middle had elaborate robes on and seemed to be in charge of the proceedings. "So I've arranged a test. If you're as current with technology as you claim, you'll know that nobody has yet solved a runic array with sufficient fidelity to copy a DVD." A door to the side of the room opened, and a secretary pushed in a television hooked up to a DVD player on a cart, two DVDs sitting on top.

As she plugged it in, the man in the middle handed one of them to Nate. "This DVD is blank." then he handed over the other. "This one has a movie on it. Use a sublime transit to copy it."

"But, father, that, ah, a proper transit on that scale might take-"

"I'm quite aware of that Nathaniel. We all have paperwork to go over, take your time at it." The sorcerer who was now revealed as Nate's dad pulled out some of said paperwork and the three judges stopped paying Nate attention. He looked at the two discs warily.

"This really isn't something we would ever need to-", Nate started.

"I'm aware of that," his father repeated. "Nonetheless, it is an effective test, for the reason that you will not have been able to prepare rigorously in advance. That's supposedly one of the strengths of sublime transits, yes?"

"Yes," he admitted, not sounding confident anymore.

Buffy wasn't sure how long the wait was going to be, but at that point the recording sped up, with the people turning into blurs occasionally disappearing from their seats and their shadows racing across the room. The room was lit by an electric light when the speed returned to normal.

"I think I have it," Nate whispered.

"You think, or you know?" The business-sorcerer rolled his eyes. The old geezer was asleep, and didn't even wake back up.

"Surely even you should be done by now," his father said. "You've been at this for seven hours, even the mundane machinery can do it faster than that."

"I do. Have it, I mean. Here," Nate presented the blank he'd been given, and then popped it into the machine.

He was initially hopeful, as the FBI anti-copy warning played with just a hint of static, but things went downhill after that. The little menu seemed to only be half visible, and after he got the movie going the colors started flickering back and forth and the credits text kept superimposing itself on the image. After a couple minutes it turned on its side, and then with a sad burst of static the image disintegrated entirely into a collection of colored bands. Nate was quiet, and his father just let out a frustrated sigh.

"Well, I suppose this is better than you usually do. But that's not going to be sufficient here. You can spend another year in the archives looking for something of value to do with yourself, but you won't have a third chance." The movie cut out, and Buffy could guess why Nate had risked his actual soul a week ago. Parents could really, really suck.

"Well wasn't that a fun diversion?" Sour asked. "A bit long, but at least we were able to cut a lot of the boring stuff in editing. I don't think we'll have that problem with old Ripper though!" The crowd seemed to agree.

Buffy gulped. The pressure was back on. "We'll start with a softball. How many years did it take Ripper to graduate from Oxford? A) 3, B) 4, C) 6, or D) 10."

She relaxed. She knew that Giles had dropped out midway to be a black magic-using menace to society, and she was pretty sure that phase had lasted longer than two years. "Ten years."

"Looks like you knew more than a little bit about his history!" Sour said. "But let's get into the details. How many people were in the group that Ripper summoned the Eyghon the Sleepwalker with? A) 4, B) 5, C) 6, or D) 7."

Well, at least this was something approaching fair. Buffy struggled to remember exactly what the details of that whole mess were. There was the first guy, and Ethan and Giles obviously. Jenny didn't count, and she was pretty sure there was another one that had died at the start. Wait, Jenny had said something when she was possessed, hadn't she? 'Three down, two to go.' So that meant, "It was five people total."

"Close, but no cigar," Sour said, taking a cigar (she thought the brand on it said HELL) out of his suit and waving it at her mockingly before putting it back. "We'll watch a little refresher."

This couldn't be too bad right? She already knew the basic story of what happened, nothing to shock her with. On the screen, way-too-young-Giles and four others were sitting around a stylistic pentagram with hands joined in a dark room. Too-young-Ethan, of course it had to be Ethan, was in the middle, an eager look on his face.

Lame chants were made, gross blood was spilled, and the candles eventually went out. When one was relit, Ethan's demeanor was noticeably different, even without Eyghon's demonic face showing yet. "So, what is it we're doing this time?"

Giles immediately jumped into the pentagram and tackled him, throwing him down to the floor. For a second, Buffy was confused; she thought young Giles was on team Eyghon. And then she was more confused. And then, when things got more obvious, she was just horrified. I mean, it made a traumatic kind of sense, Giles and Ethan. But that was subtext that she absolutely wished had never become maintext for her. Mercifully, the scene cut off before anything really X-rated happened, but she was scarred enough.

"It makes you wonder if the Slayer got her taste in lovers from somewhere, doesn't it?" Sour speculated. "Ripper clearly knew from the beginning that evil does it best." Buffy's grip on her weapon tightened. They were just words. She knew they were just words. And images.
KILL
But really, Sour had gone too far. This was way beyond normal game show hijinx; everyone was traumatized, and it was only round two. Giles had another screwed up relationship shoved in his face, Harmony had her privacy destroyed, and Nate had almost gotten eaten once already, nevermind the disaster onscreen. Plus, the whole soul thing was still hanging over their heads. And he acted like a chance at a bunch of lame prizes made it all better. The whole thing was totally out of line. Completely.

Sour snapped his fingers, and the door to the glass chamber popped open. For that moment, his ugly, smarmy, demon smile was all that she could see.

Vote:

[] Buffy took a deep breath, and got herself back under control. She knew that despite everything, she had to be responsible here and just tough out this idiocy.

[] Buffy had just had it. Sour had his chance to play nice, and he'd thrown it in their faces. Maybe a savage beating would improve his attitude a little bit, and even if it didn't, it would definitely improve hers. (NOTE: Due to the effects of Buffy's {#(&!*^}, votes for this option are weighted at double strength.)