Successor (BTVS)

[X][Mary] No
[X][Phillip] Yes
[X][Nigel] Yes
[X][Rachel] No

"So if I move the supply curve to the right, then what would happen to the equilibrium price?" Professor Park was kind of old, extremely skinny, and had big square glasses, fitting squarely into the stereotype. He'd asked the question in a way that was almost begging one of the students in the auditorium to answer; it almost felt like she was in high school again.

Of course, in high school she wouldn't be sitting in the front row. The desks were kind of packed, and she didn't want her hammer with its extremely sharp points to get in anyone's way (even if she was pretty sure it wouldn't hurt anyone by accident), so she'd gone to the front corner to give it some space. She'd been kind of hoping it would just kind of slip away into wherever it went when nobody paid it attention, but no such luck yet.

Maybe it was because everyone was watching her. OK, that was an exaggeration, but a lot of them were. She hadn't introduced herself or anything, and Professor Park didn't draw any extra attention to her, but she was aware enough to notice she was the literal elephant in the room. A little circle of empty space had even sort of quietly occurred around her, making her work in weapons safety irrelevant. She'd known she was known, but it was way more stark in class than it had been on the summer streets.

A brave soul raised a hand and saved the class from rhetorical purgatory. "It would go down?" He half-asked.

"Yes, it would go down," He nodded with relief. "Now, can anyone think of a situation where this happens in your daily lives?"

The dread silence descended again, and Buffy felt guilt. Maybe it wasn't because she was here, but it probably wasn't helping. She decided she would take the bullet for her country, and hesitantly put her hand up.

"Mayor Summers!" His expression morphed from weary to surprised in a split second. "Err, I mean Miss Summers, or rather…"

"When there's a sale." Buffy said quickly, saving him from melting down about how he was supposed to address her. "I mean, that's when the prices go down."

"That's a good thought, sales sometimes happen because of a supply glut," Professor Park said, reassured to be back on more familiar ground. "That's actually not usually the reason for sales though, it often has more to do with extracting more of the consumer surplus than an equilibrium market would allow."

Buffy wasn't sure what to say to that, so she smiled and nodded.

Luckily, he kept talking instead of asking anyone what a consumer surplus was. "Ordinarily, when you sell all of a good at the same price, many of your customers would've paid more for it, and they extract extra value by getting the good at the cheaper price determined by the market. More money can be made by also selling to those only willing to buy at the low price, so the seller has to resign themselves to getting the worse of some of their deals.

"But with alternating sale prices, sometimes they can get the best of both worlds. Customers that value the good more won't wait for it to go on sale, and will often buy it right away at an inflated price." He drew a vertical line to the left of the X, indicating an area. "Then, when they lower the price temporarily, they get to sell to the rest of the market." He drew another little box with the X's corner.

"I bet a lot of you have spent time at the mall looking to 'save money' by finding sales. Really, sales aren't about scrupulous customers like you saving money, they're about richer people without as much time to spare having to pay more."

Watching him draw the little areas, Buffy had a terrible realization. It'd been weeks since she had enough time to look for a sale when she was shopping. It'd been before the election had heated up in August, before she'd gotten the payoff from Wolfram and Hart, even before she'd been dating Harmony, who always had to be conscious of daylight hours. She was one of the mysterious other people now, the ones that didn't buy things on sale. She'd had all this money, and even with a lot of it going to keep Sunnydale afloat, she didn't really get sticker shock the same way anymore. She didn't exactly regret the time she'd spent on other things, but it felt like she'd lost a part of her identity.

Buffy speaking up and Professor Park getting drawn into his rectangle tangent broke the ice in class, and the rest of it wasn't nearly so awkward. She wasn't sure how much of it she actually understood though; more late workdays studying with Ian might be in her future. Poor Ian.

He hadn't been neglecting his duties or anything, but from what little Buffy had seen of him in the past week he was still in a funk about the election. She hoped his family wasn't giving him too much grief over it, but it wasn't exactly a thing she could come out and just ask. His uncle the Congressman hadn't called her up and told her she was persona non grata with the Reptilians now or anything like that, so maybe it wasn't too bad and he was just bummed for his own sake.

She noticed people getting up, and realized she'd glazed over a little for the end of the class. Some parts of school never changed. Nobody came up to talk to her or anything, but it was probably for the best as her schedule was booked solid for the next few hours. She gave Professor Park a little wave and hustled to her meeting the Dean.

It was officially the second day of classes, and the UC Sunnydale campus was crowded with students of all shapes and sizes. It wasn't even just what the presumably usual crowd was, but also some of the younger variety, attending the new High School. In addition to the students going from place to place, some of the various clubs and organizations had set up stands outside and were talking to new arrivals of both types.

She didn't have much time to check them out in detail, but she did notice a pair of SDCW members manning one looking to find some new recruits. They weren't getting any takers, and Buffy wished she could go over and be encouraging, but her fancy demon wristwatch didn't lie: she didn't have time for it unless she wanted to dazzle the crowd with some gratuitous superspeed afterwards.


She finally reached the administration building and made her way up to his office. His secretary recognized her immediately, and waved her in without making her wait. It kind of made her wonder if everyone in town knew her face these days even without the hammer (which apparently was continuing to stick around today.)

Dean Richards' office was extravagant both in size and decor, with nice furniture arrayed everywhere and expensive-looking paintings of formally dressed people hanging on the walls. Maybe they were past deans. He was shuffling some papers around on his desk as she entered, but he quickly looked up with a smile. "And the woman of the hour is here! Congrats on your big win!"

It said something about how busy she'd been that she didn't immediately register what he was talking about. Oh right, there'd been an election last week. "Thanks. Your friend Mr. Truman was a big help."

"I'm sure," There was some friendly sarcasm in his tone. "I hope you're working that old dog, he's the type to strut around and bask in his victory if you don't give him a job."

"Stuff's in the works. Big, good stuff." Truthfully, she hadn't had a chance to look into what development effort the City Council had been planning yet. Another thing she needed to start making time for. "That's not really why I'm here though."

"Of course, of course. So how was your first class? Feeling educated yet?"

"It was pretty enlightening actually." Maybe too enlightening for her peace of mind, really. "Professor Park knows his stuff."

"Good, good. I'm happy to hear that, he does have tenure after all," the dean's opening banter was disarming enough that Buffy was having trouble remembering that she was supposed to be annoyed with him.

She had to take control of this conversation. She spun her hand, and her hammer did a little twirl, its topspike holding position on the wooden floor without scratching it. "You know, I was thinking, it's surprising that you needed me to get past the zoning laws for your construction."

His expression was a little concerned. "Not a lot of other ways to get the work done. Old Mayor Wilkins wasn't the type to leave loopholes lying around."

She tilted her head in a half-shrug. "The Initiative seemed to manage to build the base underneath your university, and I didn't hear a peep out of them for the longest time. I'd have thought the US Government would have at least had the courtesy to scratch your back too, as far as all the construction goes."

He gulped. "It's unfortunate you weren't informed about that. I actually did try to get them to lean on Wilkins about the zoning when they were moving in, but they stonewalled me. The line was that any above-ground work might 'jeopardize operational security'."

"Guess they really knew how to play hardball," Buffy said idly.

"They threatened to pull our state grants if we didn't comply," he said. "I was hoping that you were all part of the same… circle of people. That'd have been convenient. But I couldn't do more than hope. They have my signature on a book of NDAs half as tall as I am, my hands were tied."

"Of course," Buffy said frustratedly. "Catch more flies with vinegar, I guess."

"More like battery acid," he muttered. "Look, I can understand that you're sore. I'm leery about a bunch of soldiers lurking around the students myself, and with the high school here now too, it must be putting you through the wringer. But I really do think they're here to help."

"Maybe they think so. Did they even tell you what they were supposed to be 'helping' with?" She applied some air quotes.

"They said they were investigating the deaths, but they didn't give me anything more." He paused, looking uncertain how to continue. "I know crime is supposed to be really bad here in Sunnydale, but I've seen too many students go missing in my time here. It's not hard to believe there might be something, well, something extra."

"There is," Buffy said. "And it's mostly been on me to do anything about it since I moved here."

"I don't suppose you'll be the one who tells me what this nebulous 'it' is exactly?" he said. "I have my suspicions, but-"

"The short version is that very bad things go bump in the night and I kill them," she said.

"Bad things like wild animals?" Buffy could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"Bad things like monsters," she clarified. "They mostly eat people, I have this big destiny where I stop them."

He didn't need an impromptu demonstration to be convinced. "I wish I could disbelieve you. But it's a nasty thing for someone your age to have to deal with something like that. Don't you think it might be helpful for the military to get involved? I'd have said that kind of thing should be their responsibility."

Buffy shook her head. "They're amateurs in a pro league, messing with forces they don't understand. And Professor Walsh isn't exactly being careful. And as the biggest example of that-" She shuffled through her bag, and retrieved a folded printout she opened on his desk. "This is Faith Lehane, one of her local hires. You can consider her armed, extremely dangerous, and courtesy of the Initiative, wandering around UC Sunnydale free as a bird."

"She doesn't look that intimidating?" He half-asked.

"Do I? Appearances can be deceiving."

"Well, actually," He gestured at her giant hammer. "Point taken though."

"And with the Initiative protecting her, I can't touch her." She wouldn't mention that Travers was trying to get all political about it. She wasn't sure how far she could trust either of them and didn't want the dean's hopes up or the Initiative forewarned. "I hope it doesn't become a problem, but my dreams don't usually come true unless they're of the nightmarish variety."

"Look, I appreciate you telling me about her, but I'm not sure what you expect me to do. I'm not ready or able to become part of a turf war between the feds and the locals."

Buffy got a radio out of her bag and put it on the desk. "Just keep me informed. Consider that your Red Telephone. If something goes majorly wrong and it involves this girl, you'll want me there very fast so it doesn't go wronger."

"Any other looming disasters on my campus I should know about?"

"Does the high school count?" She asked.

"That one, at least, I understand," he replied. "Well, maybe I don't. If the class after yours is half as precocious as your lot, who knows what they'll get up to here."

She could definitely imagine Andrew getting up to some hijinx. "No comment."

"I think I'm starting to get why you needed a new principal too," he said. Buffy wished she'd had time to get more involved in that, but between everything she'd had to get Giles to handle hiring instead.

She should really make sure the dean knew how serious this stuff was though. "It wasn't a stress retirement or anything."

"No, what, did you fire him? I can't say I wouldn't have done the same to my old principal back at school, if I'd had the chance."

"He got eaten at graduation," she said.

The dean immediately looked contrite. "I'm sorry! I didn't realize-"

"Don't worry. I definitely would've fired him if he survived. He wasn't just an annoying troll, he worked for the same bad guy Faith did last year."

"When you say he worked for, wait, do you mean Wilkins?" There was some of that surprise she'd wanted to get out of him. He needed a little fear of the unknown, it'd be good for him. And it'd make him tell her more, probably.

"There's been a lot to clean up in this town. And speaking of, I have to scoot," she said. "Call me if campus starts burning down."

His response was a muted nod. Good enough. One more brick in a wall around Faith.

She left as quickly as she'd come; she needed to get back to her bike to drive back into town; her meeting with the Rat King awaited. And with Amy. She really hoped that wasn't going to be as creepy as it had been before. But however creepy it was, she definitely needed a solution to the poison atmosphere problem, because even if she could take it the two Watchers she was going to bring along definitely couldn't.

When she got to the lot though, she was surprised to see Xander getting out of an SDCW van. A whole five man team was with him, and they were parked next to a squad car with a pair of cops. Andrew was even greeting them; he must have gotten out of school with the other kids around the time when she was heading to meet the dean.

"Mayor Buff!" Xander exclaimed. "Happy to see ya!"

"What's the big party about?" she replied. "Should I be missing an invite?"

"Our brave watchers on the walls brought news of trouble, and I've summoned forces to investigate," Andrew said.

"It's not as big a deal as he makes it sound," Xander said. "There was some vandalism discovered in one of the buildings they're going to demolish, plus one of the workers is apparently AWOL from his shift today."

"Which one?" Buffy asked. When they'd given UC Sunnydale the zoning-OK, they'd been worried there could be some supernatural consequences.

Xander answered, "The old Psi Theta house, they want to put up a shiny new skyscraper in its place or something." He was exaggerating, but not by much. UC Sunnydale had had decades to get ambitious with their plans.

"Do you need my help?" she asked, raising her hammer quizzically.

"I think I got it covered. I've got backup," he waved at his team, "plus Andrew with the wacky magic. And Chief Matt was even kind enough to lend me these two fine fellows, in case it's just normal vandals." The police officers nodded at her respectfully and Buffy nodded back, doing her best to seem official.

"It's never just normal vandals," Buffy said.

"Still," Xander said. "Don't you have a big meeting to get to?"

She did, and with the translation and general weirdness of everything involving the Rat King being late seemed like a bad idea. But she worried. "You're sure you can handle it?"

"There are eight of us, even if you don't count Andrew's menagerie, we're loaded for bear, and there are hours of daylight left," he said. "I'm always happy to have your help, but I think we can manage it today."

Vote: Does Buffy go to help the team investigate the trouble at Psi Theta, or does she go to City Hall to make her meeting with the Rat King?

[] Xander looks like he has this one under control, Buffy goes to meet the Rat King.

[] Something about this is making Buffy nervous. She'll go check it out with Xander, even if she has to warn everyone meeting at City Hall that she might be pretty late.