Successor (BTVS)

[X][KILL?] Ransom the Yeerks back.
[X][Interrogate] Process the Initiative prisoners as you planned before, without using Yeerks.
[X][NAP] Agree to a Non Aggression Pact between Earth and the Yeerk Empire for a period of one year.
[X][Ransom] Try to mix some luxuries in with the gold. Optionally stunt what sort of luxuries you want, not necessarily limited to those above.
-[X] Ask for some durable, practical combat uniforms
-[X] Ask for limited access to information from Yeerks intelligence network, in particular any information on Adam's whereabouts and advanced warning about Earth invasions from third parties if Yeerks become aware of such things.

"I can't say they're the kind of demons I would've expected us to be making nice with six months ago," Xander said.

She wasn't sure how she felt about the Yeerks either. Actually, she was sure. They seemed awful. But Wolfram and Hart was awful too.

"You wouldn't have expected us to be making nice with any demons six months ago," Buffy replied. Then she remembered another thing she'd worried about after the fact. "Is Finley OK? I went a little aggressive with the negotiations."

Obliterating the table hadn't been entirely unintentional, but it hadn't been exactly intentional either. Judging from the results, it had probably been the right way to handle it, but still, the justification rang hollow. She worried a lot that using her power more was giving her shoulder slayer a bigger voice, but there wasn't an alternative. If Travers was right about anything, he was right about that.

They'd handed the details off to Anya and Andrew, but it was looking like her 'aggressive negotiations' were going to pay big dividends. Mainly, they were going to get uniforms for the SDCW out of it, quality ones that would offer some protection and not just fall apart after a little damage. The demon plants Yeerks used for industry didn't work on Earth, or in most dimensions, but the textiles they made didn't need Kandrona to keep up their functionality. They wouldn't be as high end as the cape-dress she'd gotten from Sour, but they'd also be made to order.

There'd be a moderate gold payoff too, plus some diplomatic concerns. Peace for a year, and a deal to share any rumors they heard about Adam's movements. Buffy knew better than to trust promises like that very far, but as people kept telling her, they really didn't need more enemies. If the Yeerks could just be someone other dimension's problem for a while, that was enough for her.

Meanwhile, Xander was optimistic about Finley's fragile psyche, "The allure of the elusive greenback will do much to soothe his shaken spirit. And it's not like he didn't expect things could get a little rough."

Buffy wrinkled her eyes at him.

He shrugged defensively. "Not that I'm blamey. Or judgy. But you've always been a hit-things-first negotiate-later kind of gal."

"I can be diplomatic," she said weakly. "I was nice with-" Maggie. Gardner. Kathy. "I was nice with Sour! We have a good working relationship."

"Sorry I'm late," Willow said, hustling in. "But these new Watcher diaries we got can be so engaging. You just get sucked right into the narrative."

"Not literally, I hope," Buffy said.

"Still here, aren't I?" She quipped back. "So, Angleman first?"

"Yup," Buffy agreed.

The downfall of the Initiative had necessitated holding their prisoners for a few days, and the political nature of the problem meant that they couldn't really put them in the police station. For a lack of other places they could go, that meant the three of them were locked in a basement room, even though it wasn't the best situation from a security standpoint. At least it was only temporary, and of course, CyberWillow was always watching.

There was one guard on the door, who silently stepped out of the way as Buffy opened it up. They got glares from Finn, a blank look from Oscar, and a frustrated sigh from Angleman. "It's been two days, are we finally done with this farce? I have important work to do."

"Just come on," she said, and they went across the hall to an adjacent room before sitting down for another prisoner interrogation thing. Buffy wondered if this particular activity took up as much time for other mayors.

"I don't care about the politics here," Dr. Angleman starts before they ask any questions, almost before the door is even closed behind them. "I just need to get out so I can start work on stabilizing all the soldiers you've scattered to the winds."

"So you're willing to keep to the cover story?" Xander asked. They already knew about the performance enhancers the soldiers had been on, and a radiation leak had doubled as a good excuse to distribute the meds through the system to wean them off safely, without any serious withdrawal.

"Sure, why wouldn't I be?" he replied.

"I can think of one reason," Willow said, then gave Buffy an apologetic look.

Angleman just rolled his eyes, "Professor Walsh was a reckless fool and if you hadn't killed her she would've probably managed it herself in another month or two."

"That's certainly an opinion," Xander said.

"I told her that project 314," Angleman paused for a blink before explaining, "Adam, I mean, I told her it wasn't ready. We didn't understand the mechanism by which the macrophidian donor culture subsumed the rest of them. We didn't understand how the millions of parameters the computer held in memory were affecting his human brain, or vice versa. We didn't have a working Tachyon detector to take scans, even though the intelligence from her own asset had already confirmed that was a vital part of this technology base."

"The notes we collected on Adam were a mess," Willow said. "You'd be willing to fill in the blanks?"

"If it'll get me out of here any faster?" He said. "Gladly."


"Special Agent Oscar Carlson. 1729730450."

"He's only got one line, but it's a zinger," Xander said.

Buffy appreciated the humor. It made her feel less like throwing something.

"It's not like we aren't all Americans here," Xander continued. "You spied on us, we captured you, it happens in movies all the time."

"I want to get rid of you," Buffy snapped, then corrected herself. "We want to get rid of you. But you have to give us something so we know it's not just immediately going to become another pain in the ass."

"Special Agent Oscar Carlson. 1729730450."

"Do you think this is really what your superiors want?" Willow tried. "I've read the files. I know how much an OPTIC operative costs to train when you average in everyone who fails out."

"You know what we're doing here is necessary," Xander said. "More than anyone else in the Initiative, you've gotta know. I didn't make up all those campfire tales I've told on patrol."

"Except the one about the jackalope," CyberWillow commented.

"Nobody believed that one anyway," Xander said. "Not the point. Oscar, no, Sam, I fake-remember enough about soldiering to guess how this is gonna work. Your spooks will send someone for you sooner or later. Either we'll catch them and then there's two of you we'll have to feed in here, or we won't, and they might screw something else up, cause some distraction. Tell me, how much margin for error did we have when the Megaowl attacked?

"Half the eighty-fours we sent up there missed. I know yours was one of the ones that didn't, and for that, let me tell ya, I'm still thankful. But imagine something goes wronger there, even something small. Like one of your guys showing up uninvited, sticking his nose in at the wrong time. Best case, some people die. Worst case, lots of people die. I don't know what your manual says, but I can guess. I know I'm asking you to go out on a limb. But bend the rules just a little bit here."

Oscar didn't quite sigh, but something went out of him before he spoke, his posture depressing down from ramrod straight. "There's not a lot of give to bend with. Maybe before that show you put on under City Hall, but Christ, Buffy, you executed her in front of a fucking audience. Put it through a certain lens and you're all domestic terrorists."

"I'm the domestic terrorist?" She snapped. "You know well enough the kind of threat Adam poses. Who set him loose?"

"There are proper channels for-"

"Says the one spying on a civilian government," Willow interrupted.

"And I'm sure if I wander over to Oxnard I'll find them making treaties with foreign nationals and doing cutting edge weapons research," he replied. "Get real. Maybe we didn't fix the election, but hiding this operation behind that office is a joke."

"This isn't helping," Xander said, waving a hand to stop. "So through one lens, we're domestic terrorists. Fine. I've been called worse. But that's not gonna work. How about another lens?"

"He's not just going to change his opinion because you say so," Willow said.

"I don't think that's his opinion at all, I think it's just the party line." Xander said, then looked back at Oscar. "You're not trying to think for yourself, because you feel like you're over your head and you're freaking out."

"He's the one who got himself into the deep end," Buffy said. She knew it wasn't productive, but she couldn't quite stop herself.

"No, see, I don't think he was. Walsh might not have been his superior exactly; like, she's not in his org, but she was set up as his handler. And she was just as reckless with him as she was with Adam. Probably more," He looked at Oscar again. "I think if you had your druthers, this would've never gone so far. You got put in to get some idea of what was going on, and then Walsh decided to turn it into some kind of wacky James Bond thing right? Complete with the sexy-"

"Don't go there," Buffy started.

"Xander," Sam- Oscar said at the same time.

"Right, not the point," he shook his head. "Anyway, Walsh did a lot of dumb things and then she died. Take a look at this," he fished some paperwork out of the desk and threw it on the table. "A signed statement from Dr. Angleman. All the mistakes she made with Adam. And you've been in that room with him for two days, you know this wasn't coerced. He's a talker.

"So, time for the big question: what was your opinion of us before she woke up Adam?" Xander finished. "Domestic terrorists?"

"No," Oscar admitted. He was glancing through the report with the air of someone who already knew what it was going to say.

"Fine then," he said. "Go back to your shadowy bosses and tell them that. We'll give you a copy of this too. And if they say they wouldn't have done worse to Walsh than we did, they're telling a big fat lie."

Oscar just shook his head, but Buffy could tell they'd turned the corner on him.


"None of this matters!" Riley Finn shouted, angrily throwing the copy of Angleman's report into the corner. "You killed her. You invited us down to your lair, in a good faith peace negotiation-"

"Technically, it was never specified-" CyberWillow started, but was quickly talked over.

"And when she didn't bend to your insane demands, then bam. No more talking, you just-" Finn's voice stuttered for a moment, "You swatted her. Like she was a bug, not a person. Like she didn't matter. And then your minions covered it up for you in cold blood. You're a murderer, no matter what justifications you try to make up."

The words hurt, because part of her was afraid they were true.

"It needed to happen!" Willow yelled back at him. "Just like you need to get it through your thick head that this isn't like the military's usual fun and games anymore, where you just march into a third world country and kick everything over to test your shiny new toys!"

"That wouldn't have anything to do with this even if it were true!" He argued.

"It has everything to do with this!" Willow answered. "Usually, when you march in and thoughtlessly destroy things, you don't have to deal with the consequences. The natives can't fight back, and after you're done ruining their country, you can just leave and pretend it never happened. What Maggie was doing? She wasn't just ruining another country, she was ruining the whole world! And if Buffy hadn't stopped her she'd be ruining it even worse!"

"And that was just the only way she could," Finn sneered. "She couldn't have captured her and thrown her to rot in a basement forever, like she did with us-"

"This isn't supposed to be permanent," Xander tried to interject, but was ignored.

"You couldn't even ask her to surrender," he continued, talking more to Buffy than to Willow now. "Because she was too dangerous. It didn't have anything to do with that look I saw on your face, right before it happened."

There was a pause after that where none of the three of them said anything, and then he continued. "It's funny how nobody even acknowledged it, really. You didn't kill Professor Walsh because it was practical. You just lost control, you snapped like some kind of psychopath-"

"She's not the one on trial here!" Willow shouted.

"Like an HST," he said. "A demon," he said the last word with a scoffing tone. "And nobody was even that surprised. Like this was all something that happened before, like her body was just another mess to clean up-"
KILL
"We're done," Xander said.

"Do you get to decide that?" Finn laughed a little, like it was funny. "I'm not even in restraints, and it's not like you could wrestle me back into that room, Harris. Just like everything else with you people, it all comes back to Mayor Summers. So what's it gonna be, mayor? Do I go back to jail? Or maybe I'm too dangerous to keep around?"

Buffy could've said something, but really, there was nothing to say. She just got up, dragged him up, and then started frogmarching him back to the improvised jail.

They'd release the other two, and she was pretty sure that'd go fine in the end. But Riley Finn was a problem, and even as kept ranting at her, she wracked her brain, trying to think of a solution.

It was easier than thinking too much about what he'd said.


It was kind of amazing how much had happened since she'd last been in class. Oz had bailed less than a week ago, Wednesday night, and she'd skipped Thursday to do the ritual friend thing with Willow. Then they'd found out about Oscar, and made their ill-fated plan, and everything with the Stairway and Adam and the Initiative being rolled up and the Yeerk prisoners had happened.

(And she'd killed Maggie.)

She'd just barely had time to listen to CyberWillow's lecture tape last night, if you count passing out two thirds of the way through as listening. And now, it was Tuesday, and she had class again. She'd tried to apologize to professor Park for missing Thursday, but he'd seen her arm still in the splint and drawn the totally wrong conclusion of that being the reason for it. He'd been quick to excuse her, and somehow it left Buffy feeling vaguely guilty, even if she was just planning to give him a different excuse anyway.

"Now, imagine that a new company appears and starts making more of the good. What's going to happen here?" Park gestured to the supply-and-demand curves he'd already drawn on the board.

As usual, there was the period of speculative quiet, while the class hoped he would answer it himself and he hoped someone would volunteer an idea. She thought she maybe knew, but it might be a trick, and besides missing the last class she'd also not been paying the most attention for this one.
KILL
She could tell this wasn't her inner voice being angry; or at least not more angry than it's background level of simmering ready violence. In a weird way, she got the sense it had recognized what this time was for, and was trying to teach her too. The ghost of a feeling skittered on the edge of her awareness, part of the new sense she was still getting used to. It was majorly distracting for this to be happening in class, but she supposed it was just helping with what she'd already asked for.

In practical terms, Zoe and Rachel were pretty far away from her. UC Sunnydale's campus was more of a blob than a line, but the distance to the High School building was still multiple blocks, and even if she walked out of class and tried to look for it, tons of obstructions would be in the way. But still, she could feel them. She was pretty sure. To her right, or maybe forward-and-right. It was megavague, but what else could it be?

When she'd wanted to sense the Potentials, it was more to get a feel of what they were than to get some kind of long range radar equivalent, but to be fair that was the specific thing she'd been training it on. She should probably be happy something even more confusing hadn't happened.

"But what else happens?" Park asked excitedly. She'd totally zoned out whoever had answered his question before. "Do we just slide down the curve as normal, reaching equilibrium with the new supply and demand?"

Class was silent again, and for whatever reason this time Park decided he needed to give them a little bit more instead of waiting it out. "Think of all the different agents we have, trying to gain advantage. We have two companies acting as suppliers of a good, and a lot of individual consumers who want to buy goods at the lowest price. Who can try to make a move?"

That got a response from the other side of the class. "Maybe one of the companies lowers its price?"

"Exactly!" Park confirmed. "Either company can try to capture more consumers by lowering its price below the ideal level set by the naive model. It'll capture the entire market share of the other company, so it'll make more profit in total. It'll make less money per good, maybe significantly less, but it'll still usually be worth it."

Something about that idea seemed a little sketchy to Buffy, and despite her hesitation she spoke up. "Wouldn't the other company just lower their price too?" She realized after talking she hadn't waited to be called on.

He didn't seem to mind though, or even notice, "Sometimes they can't, if for whatever reason they're under tighter constraints than the other company. But most of the time, you're exactly right, they can and they will. They might bring their price even lower, trying to cut the first company out.

"This is what competition in a market is all about," he continued. "Even if the total supply is the same, having multiple suppliers in competition will drive the price down below its ideal level. This is why companies often seek to acquire or create monopolies; that lets them set the ideal price and extract the most possible economic profit."

Maybe that was part of what was going on with the Yeerks and the Andalites? Sure, most of it might be normal demon-on-demon violence, but the Yeerks had stolen the Andalites' plant machines or whatever, and that'd probably ruined some monopolies. Maybe before, the Andalites had been the only place you could get their kind of nice clothes, and now the Yeerks were cutting in. As the consumer, she was happy about it at least.
KILL
Wait, were they moving? A look at her watch confirmed the High School wasn't out yet, but there was a sense of … something, from the Potentials. Despite herself, she slipped back into distraction, trying to square the circle of her dubious new third eye.

The rest of the class kept up that general theme: Professor Park and her power both thought it was learning time, and neither of them had any respect for the other's efforts. She managed to not act like a total spaz, but she'd still be asking CyberWillow to go through the recording of this one again later, and Ian doubtlessly would have that sad tutoring expression on his face sometime in the not-to-distant future.

As for her other learning adventure, she left the class almost more confused than she was when she started. She was pretty sure that either Rachel or Zoe had moved to a different part of campus, even though school should still be going on. Vaguely… that way? Maybe it was some kind of activity? She wasn't (ever) exactly unbusy, but she was too curious, she had to figure this out.

As she walked, the signal she was approaching got sharper and sharper in her head, and eventually it was pretty clear that it was coming from the track and field stadium. It was definitely just one of them, as she could still just barely sense the other off in the other direction, back at the on campus high school. But she couldn't tell which one, which was weird.

She'd gotten used to both of them pretty close-in last night at her place, in the window where she was just getting to bed and they weren't quite waking up for school yet. They both had the empty bubble thing going on, but both had a distinct feel: Rachel's was kind of big and fuzzy, and Zoe's was heavier, with little spikes on it? Maybe. But this wasn't like either, it had this vibraty bouncy thing going on. It could just be that they were different at different times of day.

When she moved past the bleachers and the crowd of kids came into view across the field, something immediately seemed wrong. She didn't recognize any of them at a glance, and moreover the group as a whole was a little on the short side. They were mostly split into various lines, each one waiting for a turn to throw various pieces of equipment: javelins, discuses, and the other weird track and field things too. Most of them were too small to throw the pieces very far.

Even in the spot she could tell a Potential was, she couldn't pick out Rachel or Zoe, but it was still hundreds of feet away and in the middle of the crowd. She sped up a little bit, shifting from a casual walk to a worried jog down the track. There was no reason to believe something was wrong, the crowd seemed boisterous and unworried, but still. She was disconcerted.

When she was about halfway there, a reaction seemed to start in the crowd of children, and they slowly stopped paying attention to their activity and turning. To look at her. For just a moment, she wondered why: had she done something super-overtly-slayery? Or worse, was something wrong with her hair? But then she remembered that she was kind of famous, and even if she could walk down the street without it turning into a scene, a group like this was another thing entirely.

The few teachers on the edges of the scene were totally inadequate to keep control, and like a horde of zombies the children all surged forward to mob her, millions of questions rising up from them like the cries of the damned. In all the chaos she still wasn't quite able to spot the Potential she was sensing, and then they were here and all around her.

"OhMyGawdOhMyGawdOhMyGawdOhMyGawd"

"Are you recruiting for the Watch?"

"You're here to arrest Mandy right?"

"How far can you throw the javelins?"

"Can I sign your cast?"

"Shut up Jess!"

Normally she would try to be more personable, but she was a girl on a mission right now, even if she wasn't precisely sure what it was. So she waded through the crowd, getting closer and closer to whoever it was she was feeling. While the average kid in this mess was short, not all of them were, so it was impossible to see very far. At least they mostly gave her space; there was a halo for a foot or so around her where even the boldest of them wouldn't come, and smiles and nods were at least sufficient to keep the crowd flowing around her and out of the way instead of getting stuck and trapping her in place.

And then the clouds of presumably middle schoolers parted, and her eyes landed right on the person she was looking for. Except it wasn't Rachel, and it wasn't Zoe either.


Somehow, the last thing on her mind when trying to hone her ability to find Potentials had been actually finding a Potential.

Vote: So Buffy just found a new Potential! This is just slightly complicated though, by her being quite obviously a middle schooler. What does Buffy do?

[] Separate her out from the crowd and tell her everything. She's sort of young for active duty, but she definitely needs to at least find out what's going on, meet the relevant people, and get a radio.

[] Get her name (along with the names of a bunch of other kids) by pretending this is a normal mayor thing. Then approach her at home later, and talk to her and her parents together about everything. And bring Giles.

[] She's at least two years younger than Buffy was when she was called, and that's too young to be thrust into everything Hellmouthy with the situation as dangerous as it is right now. Buffy won't tell her what she is (yet), and she won't tell anyone else about her either.