[X] One of Andrew's best demon contacts wants to be in the movie, the one who exposed Amy's treason over a month ago. He's a very intimidating humanoid covered in armor and blades, but he's always been very polite, and Andrew wants to keep cultivating him as an information source.
[X] One of the Rat Nobles regularly visiting Sunnydale wants to exchange services for money, and seems interested in the idea of the movie. Amy's language lessons have gotten him to a point where he mostly understands English, but he still can't speak it at all. Amy herself is currently out of town for some reason, so communication might be tricky.
[X] Clem is a loose-skinned demon that often drinks at Willy's Place, and Willy thinks he would be an excellent fit. He doesn't seem too special in any particular way, but he has a good reputation around town and doesn't seem likely to cause any problems.
Buffy leaned against her hammer and watched as the big reveal unfolded. They didn't have their own spaceship fit for filming in, but one of Sunnydale's ample empty warehouses made for a fine indoor set.
Cordelia, or really, 'Charisma', snuck through the set entrance and onto the stage. It was a traditional looking spaceship bridge, all the parts visible to the cameras covered with glowing screens and complicated controls. Unlike the Star Trek episodes Buffy half-remembered though, it was dimly lit (by movie standards anyway) and Cordelia moved around carefully, taking flash photos at every angle while being exaggeratedly careful not to stumble over anything.
She was so busy with her camera that it almost justified her blatant lack of situational awareness, letting the little rat-sized 'droids' slowly sneak up around her. Buffy had wondered how an intelligent swarm of rats was going to be sold as a particularly 'alien' thing, but costuming had done wonders with some tinfoil and Christmas lights over the last few days.
Cordelia had finally let go of her camera, and was letting it hang around her neck as her hand paused before one of the numerous buttons on the bridge. Buffy saw the cameras zoom in on her as she contemplated touching it, and finally, she seemed to make a decision, reaching out for it. The droids weren't having any of that though, and three of them sprang up out of nowhere to block her action. They didn't make any noise, but they would probably add that in post.
Cordelia screamed in shock (Buffy could tell it was faked, but most viewers wouldn't have heard Cordelia scream quite so often) and backed away, but between the darkness and the uneven floor on the bridge she managed to trip and started falling backwards. Luckily, she was caught by a strong pair of arms behind her. Unluckily, they were covered in unnaturally wrinkled skin, and the face she looked up at from them was one only a mother could love. Cordelia fake-screamed again.
"Hey, don't be afraid!" Clem said worriedly, pulling her back up and putting her on her feet.
"You're an alien from outer space! And you're invading earth! Why shouldn't I be afraid?" Cordelia said, backing away from him and into the controls again. She glanced around her for a second, but the droids had retreated to a safe distance.
"I mean, when you put it that way, it makes me sound a lot scarier than I am," Clem said. "I'm mostly just Vorax. And I'm definitely not invading anything."
Cordelia's expression changed. "Really. Will you make a statement about that on the record?" Before 'Vorax' could say anything, she'd snapped another photo in his face.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," he prevaricated, rubbing his chin with a claw.
"It's definitely not!" A more authoritative voice boomed out. An impressive armored figure entered the bridge from the side, and absently keyed a control as he passed. Once he did so, a stage hand slowly raised the lights up to a higher level.
"How did you even get in here?" he asked. "Earthlings aren't permitted to enter spaceships, that's directive 32-Sigma-Green-5091 of the Galactic code!"
"Your door was open!" Cordelia argued. "And the woods you crashed in are part of a public park. You're lucky there's such a big storm going now or I wouldn't be the only one here!"
"She's got you there, Steel," Clem said.
'Steel' sighed, the sharp blades in his armor moving with his shoulders. "Nezumi, why did you leave the door open?"
A dozen of the 'droids' that had been lurking on the edges of the set suddenly approached Steel, circling around his feet and climbing the walls and ceiling near him. The Christmas lights embedded in their costumes flashed in a specific pattern, and the lights of the bridge itself flashed with them. Cordelia took the opportunity to take another picture.
Steel ignored the camera for now, speaking to the droids, or maybe the ship at large. "Look, I know things haven't gone the best since we got here, but I'm sure we can catch Ringer ourselves. She's clever, but this town isn't too big, she has to be hiding somewhere."
That elicited another round of flashing. Steel responded again, "OK, so that job in the Omicron sector didn't go very well, I'll admit it. But we were this close to a huge payoff on Tau Ceti. We've just been having bad breaks lately."
"We crashed on Tau Ceti too," Clem interjected.
"There was a rough storm! Huge! Nobody could've kept aloft in that." Steel said. "Plus that barely took any time, and this won't either. The damage is minimal."
"All it takes to crash you guys is a rainstorm?" Cordelia snarked. "Some aliens you are."
"Steel isn't the best pilot in atmosphere," Clem stage-whispered.
"I'd like to see you do better!" Steel complained. After this, the droids and the ship started blinking in complicated patterns again. "Fine, fine, we'll let her help, but only because Vorax doesn't have any leads."
"Hey, who said I was helping?" Cordelia said.
"It's that or memory erasure, by directive 58-Alpha-Black-345," Steel said seriously.
"Fine, fine," she said. "You got me over a barrel, I guess. So what are you bozos even doing here? I thought aliens would be so much more cool."
"We're hunting a notorious galactic criminal that goes by Ringer," Clem explained. "After her last big scam, she fled to earth, and we tracked her quantum signature to your town. We think she had radical cosmetic surgery to change her appearance to that of a human though, so finding her now is like finding an autoneedle in, well, a stack of autoneedles."
"What else can you tell me about her?" Cordelia said. "If a physical description is out, does she have any other characteristics?"
"The psych profile on Ringer is metrics long," Steel said. "But in short, she's a complete psychopath. She needs to be in control, delights in the pain of others, and is incredibly vain. We're the only ones here because most of the people hunting for her don't think she'd ever alter her appearance, honestly."
Buffy thought this turn was a little over the top, but Cortez had been changing the script faster than the LA crowd changed their fashions. She'd been sticking around the set for the past few days just in case there was a more direct attack, and she'd ended up with a bigger part in the movie as a 'reward' for her tireless efforts. She was pretty sure he was trying to be generous, at least.
Back on stage, Cordelia narrowed her eyes. "About how long has she been here?"
Clem poked at some buttons and pretended to read notes from a screen, "Well, she covered her tracks pretty well, so it took some time for us to follow her. Maybe about half of one of your local years?"
Cordelia shook her head in wonder, "I can't believe it. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a space alien."
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"Are you sure you don't want to do just one more spar? We're going to be shooting that big fight scene tomorrow." 'Steel', or more accurately, Skip was a pretty tough customer, and Buffy had been feeling some summer rust set in lately. Filming had wound down for the day and she was catching a quick snack with some of the cast.
"I think that's why I'll have to pass," Skip said, a donut in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. Buffy was again surprised at how personable the demons they'd recruited for the movie were. She'd originally started hanging out with them to make sure none of them were secretly evil or anything, but it had ended up being kind of fun. "I'd heard Slayers were a big deal, but you know how rumors are, I thought people were exaggerating. You hit like a truck and never stop coming though, I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight."
"Oh, I didn't mean to truck you," Buffy stumbled over the sentence, a little confused how to approach the situation. "It's just you have all that armor, so I made with the whamo. I can definitely cool it down."
He waved it off. "Don't give my grousing too much credit, it just stings a little. I shouldn't let myself get rusty either, not every job I get is this cushy."
"This has been really fun!" Clem cut in, joining them in the snack area. "I've always been able to find odd jobs here and there, but it's been hard getting something where I deal with people."
Nezumi piped in too, though since it was in rat nobody could understand what he was saying. Still, he seemed pleased, and he (or maybe they? he seemed more plural when he was eating) was eagerly tearing into a couple muffins on the floor. Due to weird rat customs or maybe just really bad communication he hadn't had a name besides "Rat Noble #6" when they started filming, but he seemed to like 'Nezumi' well enough and answered to his movie name now.
"That's of the good," she said. "Who would've thought being mayor meant making economies go and getting people jobs? When I started I thought it would just be more samey violence."
Skip laughed, "I've heard some stories about that from Andrew. But he has a tendency to exaggerate." He took another bite and got a more contemplative look. "So is this just a temporary gig for before you get back to full time slaying, or more of a career move?"
"I mean, it all depends on the election-" Buffy started.
"Of course, of course. But if you win, is this mayor thing a forever plan for you?" He waved his armored hand, retractable blade stuck out for emphasis. "Someone like you could do all kinds of stuff. Like, take this movie role you've got for example. A role like this, with a big name guy like Cortez? You could play this and that pretty face of yours out into a whole career. Or your slaying? That's not just some part time kid's job. Do you have any idea what people would pay for you as a merc? Not to mention that whole crew you've got running at your heels."
It was weird to hear Skip talking like her mom, even if he was coming at it from a way different direction. "I'm flattered. But, I don't know. Things have been so hectic, even the summer this year, and Sunnydale needs me. If I went off to be a movie star, or took all the Scoobies off to demon vietnam or something, the apocalypse would probably come like, three times over when I was gone. It's not really something I've thought about that much."
"That's a lot of weight to put on your shoulders at your age," Skip said. "The cosmos is a big place you know. One dimension going upside down here or there isn't the end of the world."
"Well, technically-" Clem started.
"You know what I mean," Skip continued. "I'm not saying what you're doing is right or wrong. I'm just asking if it's really you, instead of expectations you're used to living up to. You've grown up, and it's not like people can tell you what to do anymore."
"Weight isn't so bad." Buffy said gamely. "You get used to it." Skip was making his point in an evil demon way, but it was still kind of there. It was a lot easier to dismiss her mom telling her to focus on college than to dismiss someone experienced in the real world like Skip telling her she could get rich making movies or cracking heads. But somehow that made things more clear. "I do like Sunnydale. It's homey. And like, being the mayor doesn't mean I can't do an occasional movie. Look! Movie right here. I could even have more in town. And the adventures, for fun and profit, I've already experienced how they can put off budget woes."
"Huh. Well if you can put your own spin on the job, more power to ya," Skip said. "I do have to admit, this is kind of a nice dimension, it'd be a shame if something happened to it."
This elicited another round of squeaks from Nezumi which Buffy hoped weren't about the end of the world. Oh, maybe he just wanted another muffin. Buffy put one down on the ground for him and he started chowing away, so that was probably it. He was so considerate about not freaking people out by going up on the food table.
Before she could restart the conversation though, her radio rang at her. Buffy picked it up, and luckily for her, it was the breakthrough in their alien case that she'd been waiting for.
Metavote: Who's calling Buffy, and what's their idea for dealing with the UFO?
[] Warren's built a quick, stealthy drone that should be able to track the UFO and let them easily follow it wherever it goes. If the UFO can't lose them anymore, it should be only a matter of time before they can force it to engage. He's also wondering if they'll have a real date soon, though.
[] CyberWillow has analyzed enough reports of UFO activity to have found a possible pattern. She thinks if they bait a trap correctly, the UFO might be drawn in. They could ambush it and maybe take it down by surprise. There is however, the sensitive matter of the bait.
[] Giles has looked over Cortez's ritual text and carefully cross referenced it with material the Mayor had about Pan. He thinks he can bind the UFO to return to the school where they originally did the ritual, but doing so might give the occupants more power to work with when they get there.
