Successor (BTVS)

[X] Tell Elfangor you'll help to get Loren out of jail, but he has to wait until the Olympics are over and you'll do things the right way. The offer of your assistance will probably calm him down and make him feel much more indebted to you. It is a little tricky that this is in LA county though, exactly where Buffy's being paid not to go.

The satyr flicked another of the glass bottles at Willow, and Buffy couldn't help but flinch a little as she watched, even if she knew it was really just the Willowbot. Some of the injuries when the bottles broke and the acid splashed out had been pretty grisly.

The Acid Juggle wasn't a complicated event, but it was an event that delivered on everything its name promised. Each contestant stood there juggling little ball-shaped glass bottles full of bright green acid, and every minute or so a satyr would throw another one to be caught and incorporated into the routine. If you dropped a ball or messed up your juggling order you were disqualified, and often enough such mistakes covered the juggler in acid. Or maybe another juggler. Or even an innocent bystander who wasn't standing far enough away.

Watching this of all things wasn't exactly how she would've pictured herself spending her thanksgiving, but it could've been worse. At least they weren't fighting a war yet.

In general, there were two types of contestants. More commonly, there were the ones who were mostly immune to acid for one reason or another, like the Mok'tagar. Most of them weren't too good at it and were disqualified quickly, and she was suspicious a couple of them had just joined the event for a chance to throw acid at some of the others.

That's what had happened between the Yeerks and the Andalites here. One of the Andalites had morphed some demon with five-joined arms, and the Yeerk competing had been the one in the scaly dinosaur demon. The Yeerk was way too clumsy to juggle well, but he'd contrived to throw some acid in the Andalite's direction and mess him up right at the start.

She'd worried about that happening to Willow, but the area around her was conspicuously free of dangerous projectiles. Maybe it had something to do with the pointed looks Buffy had given the nearby contestants, maybe not.

But anyways, the ones who really stood a chance to win were individuals who somehow were really good at juggling. Willow had joined their elite ranks basically by cheating, but not in a way that broke the rules. They'd checked that before Willow had designed the spell.

She'd been getting to be a decent hand with telekinesis as Senior year ended, floating pencils and punting gnomes, but she'd gotten more and more into Cybermancy and let those skills languish. Or so Buffy had thought. But apparently Telekinesis was programmable. Or something vaguely like that. Really, she'd been too busy just barely losing at Egg Throwing yesterday to really get the full story of how this new spell worked, but obviously it did.

There was a complex rune glowing in midair in front of the Willowbot, glowing in a bright green light that was exactly the same color as the acid. A writhing tendril of that light connected it to each of the thirty balls she was 'juggling', moving them to brush against each of her hands in turn and then travel in a long arc over her head. It was only very technically 'juggling', but it met the requirements of the event.

As the satyr gingerly tossed another ball at her, another tendril popped into being and tagged it like electricity, effortlessly bringing it into line and incorporating it into the juggle. Willow barely paid it a glance of attention; all her focus was on the rune. It hadn't started off nearly so complex, and the tendrils had been clean straight lines when this had started. Buffy had the sense that maintaining it was getting tricky.

Two other jugglers were left. One was a big seafood-looking tentacled thing that was mostly just using its extra limbs, though Buffy could tell it had a little bit of TK helping too. The other one was centauroid, blue, and mouthless like an Andalite, but with none of the same other details, and apparently not involved with them at all. As for how it was competing, It just moved very, very fast. Almost as fast as she could be, but apparently it could keep it up much longer.

What it had in speed though, apparently it lacked in strength. There were just getting to be too many bottles, and its skinny little arms couldn't physically throw them high enough to keep them safely apart for the whole arc. With no telekinesis to help, the inevitable happened eventually, with two of them colliding and shattering in midair. Luckily for the demon, it was easily fast enough to get out, already fifty feet away before the first of the acid sizzled the grass where it'd been standing.

<Thesedrattedmagesarespoilingthepurityofhonestcompetition.Inthepastsuchatravestywouldnothavebeenallowed.> Whatever the thing was, it sped off in a huff after the burst of rapid-fire-telepathy. That was yet another similarity with Andalites; maybe they were related somehow?

Then it was time for the 32nd bottle, and the tentacled thing finally slipped up, fumbling the catch and getting a tentacle-full of acid and glass shards. The blunder caused a chain reaction of other costly mistakes and the creature was totally doused by the results, but it didn't seem too bothered by it, even as its skin was lightly smoking.

It gave an exaggerated, weird-looking bow in Willow's direction, saying, "Your loveliness is only surpassed by your finesse, darling. I'd be honored if you'd look in my direction later."

Willow was clearly startled by the implication and almost fizzled her spell, but she managed to hold it together and not cover the bot with acid. For its part, the monster didn't hesitate after delivering the line, sauntering off toward the nearby lake. Buffy would probably want to wash off too if she was covered in all that, to be fair.

She was expecting Willow to dismiss the spell now, but she kept juggling. Walking up, she asked, "Can she stop now? She wins right?"

"Most verily, it is so," A nearby satyr answered. "But perhaps she wishes to continue, putting on even more of a show for us?"

"Not exactly," Willow choked out. "I didn't really have time to figure out how to make this stop gracefully, and there's kind of a lot going on."

"A little help?" Buffy asked.

"Please," Willow mumbled. "I mean, if you think you-"

"OK. On three then," Buffy said, unconcerned. After her count, she put on a flash of speed to snatch the Willowbot right off her feet. She had to hesitate very slightly to wait for the spell to pop, but the timing was good enough that they both got out from the deadly rain unscathed. They got some oohs and ahhs from the crowd, apparently satisfied with the conclusion.

"Thanks," she said. "It would have been pretty embarrassing explaining acid damage to Warren."

"More or less than getting propositioned by our friend the giant mollusc?" Buffy smirked, putting her back down.

Willow affected a thoughtful expression. "Thricewise can shapeshift into humans you know. Supposedly pretty much however they want. And it's not like anything would really be with me, if you know what I mean."

Buffy knew it was supposed to be a joke, but it really raised an important question. "Wait, that- why would the Willowbot even-"

"It needs to be maximally authentic!" Willow pivoted back to embarrassed now. "Lives could depend on it!"

"Not judging," Buffy said quickly, raising her hands. She had a feeling that was more of an excuse than a reason, but she was living in a glass house herself on that front.

Luckily, Willow decided to change the subject. "We can look at the new medal count now!" She went to one of the attending satyrs to get her bag, and then dug her laptop out of it and flipped it open. "CyberWillow, did you update it yet?"

"Already done," her similar-yet-flatter voice echoed from the radios. They'd had some friction over the rapid bot-switches in the past few days, but it seemed mostly worked out now.



Whatever inner turmoil Elfangor was going through after she'd persuaded him to wait on Loren, it wasn't affecting his performance. Or maybe it was, and otherwise he'd be blowing them all away instead of just being the MVP. But either way, the Andalites were on top, and Visser Three had been steaming about it. Constantly. A good loser that slug alien was not.

She'd been worried that the fragile peace with the Yeerks was going to melt like a snowball in Sunnydale, but Elfangor had agreed everything should be kept totally secret. So she'd still been hanging out with Esplin on occasion, him being none the wiser that she'd made a secret deal to help his archnemesis. She was pretty sure that the drama was going to come out and explode eventually, but she had to draw the moral line somewhere, and the whole situation with Loren was just too tragic. She couldn't make herself let it go, even if it was a disaster in the making.

But those were worries for another time. Right now, she'd josh with Willow a little more instead. "You look more excited about these tables than actually getting your medal," Buffy commented.

"I really didn't like staring at the summary before and seeing the blank spot next to my name," Willow admitted. "But now it's nice and full."

"You weren't stressing, were you?" Buffy said. "You're pulling double duty. Way more than double, since you're usually pulling what, triple already?" Willow wasn't just sitting back in her room controlling Willowbot remotely; she was still doing coven and SDCW stuff on the hellmouth, plus taking classes.

"I shouldn't be getting to use that excuse everywhere!" Willow said. "I was going to help everyone with the Chumash today but everyone told me to do this instead. Rachel was all like: 'What do you think I am, some kind of baby?'"

"Chumash?" Buffy asked, worried. Chumash was a worrying sounding word.

"They're one of the native tribes that was in the area before the settlers came. Some of their spirits got disturbed by all the construction on campus," Willow explained.

"But everyone at home has it handled?" Buffy asked.

"They promised me they'd try to resolve things peacefully," Willow said. "It wouldn't be right to stomp all over the people who were in Sunnydale first, even if they're technically dead. That part is practically our fault!"

"I'm sure they've got it under control," Buffy said. She had private doubts that anything prominently involving Rachel would end in peace, but it was probably best for Willow to live in ignorance about that for now.

There wasn't too long a wait before the medals for the event were awarded, pretty much just long enough for the thricewise not to be covered in acid and broken glass anymore. Slightly unusually for an event that hadn't needed any direct judging though, Pan showed up himself to give them out.

He was cursory with the Bronze and Silver medalists, giving each a few rehearsed-sounding words and a pat on the shoulder, but once he got to Willow his demeanor became more personal. He didn't try to hide the conversation, and Buffy could hear it pretty easily even though she was standing back from the podium.

"And you're Willow Rosenberg! Juggling without even juggling, that's a real treat. I wish I could've been watching in person, but you know how people get with entrail reading, if I'm not there to judge it everyone sees bad omens and then we have to start rescheduling everything else."

"That'd be pretty awful. Everything's so busy already." Then realizing how that might get taken, Willow backpedaled, "Not that it shouldn't be! Because the Olympics needs lots of events, obviously! It's a good busy!"

"Pshhh," he waved a hand in the air as he made the dismissive sound. "Don't be afraid of offending me, I only pull out the heresy for the boring ones. And you're right, of course."

"I am?" She asked.

Pan nodded exaggeratedly. "I know things are a little overcrowded, but I couldn't just do the good events, there are a bunch of legacy ones I can't ditch without a bunch of people getting offended. Not to mention Eris and all her snarky not-quite demands. But you really put her in her place! Or well, that was your kid right? Same thing."

"It was my pleasure," CyberWillow responded over Willow's radio. For her part, Willow grimaced at the kid comment, but didn't bother arguing.

"Huh, so you're always riding behind then, something like that? Sounds weird to me, but then again, who am I to say? One of my daughters has been a bird for the past two thousand years!" He made an aggrieved gesture. "But anyway, we should talk."

"We're not talking already?" Willow was looking pretty lost at this point.

"No, no, this? This is chatting," Pan said authoritatively. "We need to talk, talk. Where's your goddess? Ah, there we are, how could I have missed her? Buffy! Come over, walk with us."

Even if the specifics of the social situation were baffling Willow, they'd been expecting something like this to happen for the past few days, and they'd devoted some effort to figuring out the whole Pan and Eris situation. While both Andrew and Anya had been networking here, it was actually an ancient record Giles had discovered in his research back home that shed light on everything.

Back when the Olympians were going through their messy breakup almost two thousand years ago, Pan had thrown a big party as a last ditch effort to work things out. It was a doomed effort, but that wasn't the important part: what was important was that somehow Eris managed to not get invited to it. There was already something of a tradition of not inviting Eris to things because she loved ruining parties, but for her to get snubbed from something that was supposed to be for everyone had really driven her up the wall.

Eris pulled a Maleficent and made a giant scene at the party, calling out Pan for being a giant hypocrite. Pan claimed it was all a big mistake and that he'd meant to invite Eris after all, but of course nobody believed him. Put on the spot, with his whole party in jeopardy, he promised that Eris was not only always welcome to come to any of his parties, but that she'd always be a guest of honor.

Fast forward to now. Eris shows up super unexpectedly from mega far away, after Pan hadn't heard from her for longer than England had existed. He's forced to make a ton of accommodations for her at what was supposed to be his crowning achievement, and even worse, she brings a team of ringers that shut out his home squad at all the most weirdly traditional events. The Revel still didn't have a single gold medal to its name, and most of the silvers and bronzes they had came from losing to Eris' people.

On the surface, it was just Eris being a humongous jerk, as was apparently usual for her. But some people in the know thought there was more going on. After all, Eris' random screwing around was actually a master plan in disguise more often than not. Her doing well at the Olympics didn't just hurt Pan's image, but it boosted her own, showing off her more powerful minions. What was she going to do with that prestige?

Well, travel from as far as she'd come from was apparently very magically difficult, and likely to be so expensive that taking a trip back after just a couple weeks might be ruinous, even for a god of Eris' stature. What if she didn't plan on going back? The Revel was a mystically important dimension, and inserting herself into the Olympics like this might be Eris' first move in some kind of takeover attempt.

Pan welcomed her by joking around, "So here's the girl herself! I know I got your goat back in August, so tell it to me true: should I be shaking in my boots?"

She shrugged, deciding to play it cool. "I think you can rest easy. I'm finding all this a pretty good peace offering."

Pan had led them to the edge of the main clearing, and now they found themselves entering a tiny path into the woods. It got quiet around them almost too rapidly, and Buffy could guess this was going to be another private conversation.

"That's me relieved." he answered her, wiping his forehead theatrically. "You're a good apple, you know that? A lot of people, you do one little thing that happens to cheese them off and it's a total nightmare. It's a shame most gods and demons have the wrong idea about you."

"I can't say I've ever known anything different." He was definitely trying to butter her up, and maybe suggest something else?

"She's been the vampire slayer since she was fifteen," Willow said. "It's not a title that gets you off on the right foot with vampires, that's for sure."

"I prefer to kick with my left first though, so that's fine," Buffy added.

"What a kidder," Pan said. "But you can probably see how that rep can be problematic now, with you on the big stage like this. It's good to be feared, but some of the allies you've had to make nice with, well…" He wiggled his head, making a skeptical face.

"Hey, the Rat King's a good guy!" Buffy said.

"I'm sure he is," Pan allowed. "But I'm just saying, your PR could use some work."

"So what are you suggesting then?" Willow asked directly.

"We could do some hanging out, palling around. Maybe you and your group come over to my tent tonight, we could all be seen together having some fun," he suggested.

"I'm not sure we're quite up to that much fun," Buffy worried. She'd heard some freaky stories already.

"No, no, not that kind of fun," he said quickly. "I mean, it doesn't have to be. Just, you and me, if people think we're tight, they'll stop making bad assumptions."

Honestly, it didn't sound bad, but she could guess Pan's ulterior motive. And maybe if she was a slick political operator like him, she would've danced around it, but she decided to just come out and say it instead.

"Of course, if they see me hanging out with you, they might make some other assumptions too," she said. "About what I might do if there's any trouble. Or more specifically-"

"Discord," Willow finished.

"Caught red-handed," Pan admitted. "I could maybe use a bit of your iron fist in my velvet glove. Not that I expect anything to happen."

"But still," Buffy said.

"But still," he sighed. "I don't suppose I could offer to smile a little brighter on your team from the judge's stand to balance this out?"

"You were the one that implied we've already got a lot of enemies." Buffy said noncommittally.

"Alright, alright, you must've twisted enough arms that you've really gotten good at it, huh?" Pan was clearly having fun with this, despite his words. "But real talk, I think you've got yourself a little problem of your own. Something I could maybe help with."

"I've got a lot of problems," Buffy said. Did he mean Adam? If he had a lead on him, that could be huge.

"Heard you pissed off Scáthach," he said, surprising her. "The mean one. And she's got a thing about grudges." It wasn't Adam, but she had to admit, Scáthach was a worrying issue of her own.

"You know the Scáthaches?" Willow asked skeptically. "Really? Isn't that a whole different pantheon?"

"We've all been around forever, you meet people," he said. "I know the Scáthaches, I know other people in the Shadow Realm, I've got contacts. Have my back for this whole Eris debacle, and I can work on it for you. And hey, it's not like anything's really gonna happen, especially if you make your presence known. So it's practically a free lunch."

It was attractive, on the surface. But Buffy had already gotten Sunnydale tangled up with the Yeerks and the Andalites, and this mess had a suspiciously similar feeling to it. Pan was making it sound like a great offer, but she knew the Eris threat was very real. Did she want to tread carefully, or make another big splash?

Vote: How deeply do you want to get into Pan's orbit here?

[] Assure Pan that if Eris makes a move for Revel, you'll be on his side. He'll try to defuse the Scáthach situation for you, and to help you in other ways.

[] Be noncommittal, but agree to be seen with him enough that other parties might suspect you're working together. Pan won't help you with Scáthach, but he might at least favor you a little in the judging.

[] Gracefully decline to get involved. Eris' magic is both subtle and powerful, and she'd be a very dangerous enemy to have.