Successor (BTVS)

[X] Plan more untrustworthy
--[X] Xander, Rachel, Harmony, Riley, and whoever he wants to bring go through the tunnels to rescue Vanessa
--[X] Warren and Andrew remain above ground far enough away to not be noticed by a vampire on opposite sides of the fight, ready to move in and provide support if Faith is losing badly enough or to stop Spike from retreating if possible.
--[X] Advise the Initiative guys to seal up any escape routes underground for Spike to run off to.

"I would still feel better with a trained squad at my back," Agent Finn grumbled.

Xander gave him a weary look in the dim light, "You know as well as I do that four people are already pushing it for something like this."

"We could've handled it alone," Finn continued. "It would've even been better logistics that way, with the SDCW ready on the surface and only our people below ground."

"Well, it would make us more likely to beat Spike without you guys in the way, but I don't think it'd be fair to just throw Vanessa's life away like that," Rachel snarked.

"Your people don't have the best track record of dealing with the unexpected alone," Xander said, a little more diplomatically. "As long as everyone pays attention to the extra radios we handed out it should be fine."

Xander had positioned two teams on opposite sides of the cemetery ready to pounce; one built around Warren's Beastman robot and the other around Andrew. Additionally, there was a team of Initiative commandos up there with their sticky net guns. After Vanessa was rescued they'd be able to pin down Spike from all directions.

The more cramped and confusing quarters of the sewer tunnels would have a number of other Initiative groups trying to keep a perimeter with more conventional loadouts. The idea was that if Spike lost the ring he might try to flee underground through the mausoleum, with the sun still a little too high in the sky to make it easy for him to get around above ground. They could also serve as additional stopgaps to stop Spike's minions from getting around them and escaping with Vanessa. Having her captured for long enough to be turned would be an even worse disaster than her being dead.

In spite of the organizational issues the setup caused though, Xander couldn't see himself doing it Finn's way. The Initiative's agents were trained well at being soldiers, but they didn't have the institutional experience needed for a complicated situation like this. Letting one of them tag along was an uneasy compromise.

He'd have maybe preferred someone that hadn't taken a severe head injury in the past two hours, but since that would rule him out as well there wasn't much space to object. For all that Finn's wound had been bloodier than his own bop on the head, the guy seemed chipper enough now, so Xander hoped he was fine.

Really, he didn't know what to expect from this encounter, so he'd decided that bringing the unexpected made the most sense. Finn was one of the best of the soldier element, with training more modern and less imaginary than his own, Rachel had the watcher education and was scary-skilled in melee, and of course-

"You guys ready to do this? No shame in backing out if anyone's got cold feet," Harmony was waiting for them at the tunnel intersection, leaning back against the wall in a way that was obviously intended to be dramatic. He reflected that in any sewer outside of the Sunnydale city limits she'd be getting a hairstyle full of filth, but the old mayor's neat-freakiness did have some upsides. Or downsides really; Harmony getting sewer gunk in her hair would've been worth a laugh.

"You know your feet are room temperature already, right?" Rachel said.

Harmony's eyes scrunched up and she pouted, ruining the cool girl look she hadn't entirely failed to achieve before. "Whatever. The point is, are you ready to kick ass?" She joined the group and they kept walking. It wouldn't be too long until they were underneath Restfield.

"As long as you can keep up," Rachel replied. "Assuming you want to."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Still pretty hard to buy the whole goody two shoes vampire thing."

"I am so not a goody two shoes! I'm scary and dangerous!"

"That's exactly the problem," Rachel sighed.

"Not like that! Ugh, look, I'm on your side OK? Why is it so hard to understand that I do whatever Buffy says. Everyone should do what Buffy says!" Harmony's voice was rising in frustration, though her face didn't morph.

"Why?" Finn interrupted. Harmony started to glare, but he quickly explained himself. "I'm not arguing, I just want to understand. Agent Gates is, well-"

"Oh, I get it," she interrupted. "He was probably your friend? That's rough."

"Funny you would say so," Rachel said.

Harmony shook her head. It was hard to tell in the dark, but her expression almost looked wistful? "She's my everything. She's the Sun. And really, I should've realized it from the day I was dead. But before that, I couldn't see it. I was different."

"I'm not sure what you mean?" Finn said warily. Xander wasn't so confident himself, and it wasn't the first time. Harmony could get extra special weird when it came to philosophizing about Buffy.

She waved her hands around, as if casting for the right words. "I have all the memories, but like, I'm not who I was. Who I was sucked. She was a stupid girl in an empty world who would've never done anything cool. Buffy could've said anything to her and it wouldn't have changed that."

"So you're saying turning into a vampire is good?" Finn was thoroughly confused now.

"No! I mean, I'm better, sure. But your friend's dead. When he wakes up a vampire it's not going to just be him with fangs, even if he doesn't try to tear out your throat. All his reasons for everything are going to be different. They are for me."

Finn seemed more taken aback by that than anything Xander had managed to say to him, and he hoped the seriousness of the situation had finally gotten through. But there wasn't a lot more time for this; they were almost there.

"Harm, you're better in the dark than us and I don't want them to know we're coming before it's time. You should scout ahead a little," Xander said.

"I've got it covered," Harmony ghosted forward. She wasn't the stealthiest vampire there ever was, but she was still a vampire in the dark, and Xander hoped that'd be good enough for whatever minions Spike had left.

Finn talked quietly after she'd gone, "Is she always so…"

"Enthusiastic?" Xander suggested. He'd bet Harmony could still hear them, but clearly Agent Finn didn't realize that.

"Fanatical," he finished. "Not that she isn't a model citizen compared to any other vampire I've met, but the whole Buffy thing is, well it's intense."

"Were you expecting a vampire to switch sides just because they were kinda in like with someone?" Rachel said.

"I don't know what I expected," he said. "No, I mean, I knew it'd have to be something like this, intellectually, but hearing the words out her mouth was different."

"But it's not a big deal because Faith is a hundred percent on-team, right? Or does the Initiative have an Employee dating policy you're worried about?" Xander couldn't resist rubbing it in a little bit. He'd just finished telling him so, but it hadn't really gotten through his head until he'd seen it for himself.

Finn took a breath like he was about to answer, but he changed his mind and was quiet. They kept walking.

It turned out that Harmony's scouting hadn't really been needed; the sewers up to the underground crypt entrance weren't guarded. After a few minutes all four of them were gathered together again, waiting anxiously for the signal that Faith's fight with Spike had started. Once he was occupied, they'd move in and hopefully nothing would go terribly wrong. Just thinking about it that way almost made him shudder, but there was no time for second guesses now.

The indicator light on each of their radios blinked four times, paused, then blinked another four. By silent agreement, Harmony was the one to grab the dilapidated, hatch-like door and slowly move it out of the way. Either she was clumsier than she hoped or it was a lost cause though, because it still made an unfortunate grinding noise as it opened. Rachel squeezed through before it was even all the way open, rushing ahead.

It was the second crypt Xander had entered from below in one day, and it was even more dilapidated than the first with none of the treasure. But the human bones littered around and the tree roots poking through the walls didn't matter, they had to move for the convenient ladder and hope Spike's guards were watching for an aboveground entrance instead.

Harmony was faster than any human and Agent Finn was only a step behind her, so Xander found himself popping up onto ground level last. Far from the disastrous ambush he'd feared, it was instead a simple battle between them and a handful of Spike's minions. He spotted Vanessa cowering in a corner but didn't have any time to secure her before a vampire came at him in game face.

They'd expected to fight minions (instead of the now-invincible Spike), so they'd come with the usual loadout. That was a lifesaver for Xander as the holy water balloon he threw at point blank made contact. The vampire had been able to bat it away with his arm, but the spray still caught him even if he wasn't drenched. His frantic attempts to shake the burning water off his sleeve gave Xander time to pull out his axe and take a few swings.

He didn't make contact, but he did earn himself enough time and space to back up, which was as much as he could ask for fighting one-on-one. The vamp got his bearings and tried to charge, but Xander rolled over the coffin lying behind him and slashed up blindly with his axe as he landed. He felt it cut this time, and the vampire hissed as Xander frantically got back to his feet.

He'd cut the same arm that'd already been burned, and the vampire was favoring it now. That didn't stop him from trying to charge around the coffin at Xander, but the injury made it clumsy and he was able to keep dodging in circles as he tried to figure out what to do.

The vampire finally got sick of it and made to hop back over the coffin, but his singleminded focus was his downfall. Rachel had finished with her fight already, and she managed to get behind Xander's vamp as he was struggling with the obstacle, dusting him right through the back. She gave Xander a derisive snort before moving on to help Agent Finn.

"I could've handled that," Xander said to empty air. Running his mouth seemed useless right now, but it usually helped him think. They were winning, but something seemed wrong. Harmony dusted one of the two minions she was fighting as he watched, and Rachel and Finn had theirs in the corner, so he went to check on Vanessa. Maybe she'd have some warning about the inevitable disaster about to unfold.

"Are you hurt?" Xander asked, looking her over. He couldn't see any injuries, and she wasn't tied up, but she'd sensibly been staying out of the melee.

"Don't fret about me silly, I'm feeling better than ever," she replied. It was good to see that her sarcasm hadn't been bruised.

Before Xander could get anything more useful out of her, Spike crashed through the exterior door, swearing up a storm and mildly on fire.

"Are you gonna leave me hanging like that Spikey-boy? A girl needs more than two fingers." Faith was walking casually through the same door, waving a pair of disconnected bloody fingers mockingly. One still had a gaudy ring on it that must have been the Gem of Amara.

"Oh don't worry love, I can still make you scream," Spike leapt at her, grabbing for the fingers, but she dodged around him like quicksilver, then tried to kick him back outside. He resisted with a growl of rage, turning the move around on her and dragging them both to the floor within. She lashed out at him with her knife as they went down but he managed to get his hand around her wrist, twisting the weapon free. It spun to the side as the fingers and the ring disappeared in the scrum.

They got into a grabbing match on the ground, and a moment later the finger with the ring appeared again, the both of them in a tug of war over it. Both of them made abortive grabs for the knife, but neither could quite reach it without surrendering the finger, so their dirty wrestling continued.

Xander was carefully edging closer, hoping he'd get a free shot at one of the two Mcguffins of the day, but Rachel preempted him. Leaving Agent Finn behind to finish off the minion she'd been helping with, she whipped her tomahawk right into the melee, showing absolutely no regard for her nominal ally. Faith snapped her hand back instinctively, and Spike won back his finger. He didn't win the ring though, which went flying off of it as he batted the tomahawk away with his wounded hand. Xander lost sight of it, and the clatter of the axe hitting the ground made it impossible for him to hear where the ring ended up either.

"This always works when I lose an earring," Harmony let her minion escape across the room and down the ladder as she dropped to her knees waving her hands across the floor.

Finn's minion was equally distracted, but he used the moment of respite to get out his electrorifle and zap at point blank range. His target hit the ground, unconscious.

"Lose something valuable again?" All eyes turned to Vanessa, brandishing the ring between her thumb and forefinger. "You're as disappointing as ever."

"Way to thank me for trying to save your life," Faith was still mostly focused on Spike, and moved to the middle of the crypt, between him and Vanessa. He wasn't making much of a move yet, but had pocketed both of his missing fingers.

"Trying. That fits you. Faith Lehane, the slayer that tries," Vanessa stressed the last word dismissively. "Even Richard knew you were second-best."

"The fuck?" Faith turned to her, giving her her full attention now. "That's a lie!"

"Is it?" Vanessa's smile was nasty. "Then I wonder why he didn't bother to break out some fairy dust and snap you out of that coma? I've had a couple health scares over the years, and he's done as much for me."

"The knife's cursed, he couldn't-"

"The knife he gave you? Does he strike you as the type that wouldn't have an answer, in case you stabbed him in the back with it?" Xander had known they had a history, but this was kind of nuts. He'd never seen Vanessa tear into someone like this.

"He was invincible already!" Faith argued.

Vanessa shrugged. "I suppose. But really, you can see the proof all around you. To his archenemy, he left his whole city. To you, he left a cheap hospital room."

"She stole his city!"

"He told me to give it to her," Vanessa said, and Xander had no idea if it was a lie or not. He definitely hadn't heard anything about it. "Ms. Summers is the real Chosen One. Even with her as his rival, he could see that."

"You have to admit, Buffy is just cooler than you," Harmony added. "Obviously the old mayor cared about Sunnydale, he did all the boring work of running it for a hundred years. It makes perfect sense he would want to leave in the capable hands of someone as amazing as her and not a head case like you. No offense."

"This is not really the best time for the Apostle of Buffy, Harm," Xander said. He really didn't know why Vanessa was choosing to have this conversation now. Maybe she had a head injury too.

"But I said 'no offense'!" Harmony complained. "That makes it OK!"

"I won't believe it!" Faith shouted. She was up in Vanessa's face now and looked like she was on the edge of violence. "He was like, shit, he was like my dad!"

"Like your dad," Vanessa scoffed. "He was in fact my grandfather, and I knew the man for over sixty years. You weren't his daughter. You were his thug."

Faith smacked Vanessa in the face, and the ring went flying. Instead of crumpling to the ground though, the old woman just stumbled back, now wearing her vampire game face. With that, the whole situation snapped into place in Xander's mind. Everything made terrible sense now.

"Watch out!" Agent Finn shouted. At first, Xander thought he'd been warning Vanessa, not having noticed she was a vampire yet.

Then Spike was there, moving before anyone else could react, stabbing at Faith's back with the knife.

Vote: What is Xander most focused on, right this second?

[] Faith Lehane

[] Vanessa Waters

[] The Gem of Amara