Successor (BTVS)
- Thread starter DeAnno
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[X] Rachel Berenson is a hotheaded potential, but she has a good heart. Probably. Sensing that leaving her with a long leash might result in problems, Xander's taking her directly under his wing for her trial period working with the SDCW.
I'm not quite sure I believe that Oz is going to end up with Veruca this time around, but I do still expect him to get increasingly nervous over how big brother things are getting and end up bailing.
I'm not quite sure I believe that Oz is going to end up with Veruca this time around, but I do still expect him to get increasingly nervous over how big brother things are getting and end up bailing.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
The government is dissolved, the land is ruined, and we are looking at civilian casualties bordering on a total wipeout. Sounds like Mok'Tagar couldn't handle democracy coming to town.
[x] Sam Lockett may have struck out with Buffy, but he's been a rising star in the SDCW ever since they recruited him in June. Despite lacking magic or any other special abilities, he's good in a fight and has been working hard to pick up relevant skills in everything from police work to demonology.
[x] Sam Lockett may have struck out with Buffy, but he's been a rising star in the SDCW ever since they recruited him in June. Despite lacking magic or any other special abilities, he's good in a fight and has been working hard to pick up relevant skills in everything from police work to demonology.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh man, if I knew that was the role we were voting for, I'd have campaigned harder for Oz -- a zen "bad cop" sounds hilarious
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
At long last the Extended Cast is re-updated to be current with the quest. Tell me if there's anybody left out who should be there.
S4.0E5: The Watch I
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
[X] Rachel Berenson is a hotheaded potential, but she has a good heart. Probably. Sensing that leaving her with a long leash might result in problems, Xander's taking her directly under his wing for her trial period working with the SDCW.
"I don't understand how you can be so calm about this!" Rachel said.
"I'm not even totally sure what's happened yet. We're still in the information-gathering stage of panicking like headless chickens." Xander wished he was actually that calm, but faking it would have to do for now.
There had been some rushed and unclear messages from Andrew about trouble brewing on the Mog'tog'og mission, and rather than trying to interrogate people over the radio Xander had decided he'd just drive over to City Hall and get the bad news in person. It felt like it might be the kind of thing he'd want to hear about face to face.
His watchgirl-in-training wasn't going to let him stew about it in silence though. He hadn't known her for long, but she seemed like the type that liked to stew about things loudly. And maybe violently.
"I still can't believe you guys sent Nigel instead of me," she said.
"It was Buffy's decision," Xander had started to get fond of that non-answer over the summer. He really hoped he'd be able to make a career of saying it. Mostly because it would require Buffy to still be alive.
"He's a total bookworm!" Rachel said. "Do you know how many times I've beaten him sparring? None! Because he doesn't even train!"
"Take it from me, I know it doesn't feel good to be sidelined-"
"It's not even about that! I mean, I guess you guys are right. I don't have powers. But Nigel doesn't either, not really. He can barely levitate a pencil. Sending him off to some hell dimension like that, it's irresponsible!"
"He knew what he was signing up for," Xander said. "Plus, the team wasn't exactly lacking in brawn." All the same, it was hard for Xander not to agree. He couldn't help but wonder if he would've been able to stop whatever went wrong if he'd been there.
He'd tried not to feel let down at the time, but it smarted to be left on the bench for the second away game in a row. Buffy acted like she needed him to run the homefront when she was gone, but he wasn't sure how much of that was her wanting his feelings unhurt. His Buffster had always wanted to protect him.
And even if she was right this time and the homefront needed running, could he actually do it? Xander didn't have her natural charisma, her superpowers, her smarts, anything. People listened to him mostly because she put him in charge, and without having her as a totem to keep the majority of demons shaking in their non-existent boots, he had no idea how the SDCW could even do its job.
"Are you even listening to what I'm saying anymore?" Rachel said. He hadn't been.
Xander noticed he'd parked the car at City Hall. "Absolutely. I'm hanging on your every word."
Rachel made a noise that was between a sigh and a growl. "Let's just go."
The attitude in the basement was frantic, with a couple of the '99er aides running books and snacks down the stairs despite the late hour. Xander felt oddly wistful of the days when he'd be expected to do donut delivery himself, but that was probably because whenever he did he'd known Buffy would be waiting in the library. Instead of, for example, lost in some hostile dimension.
The study across from the clean room was packed when he arrived, complete with wires reaching out across the hall into said room for purposes Xander couldn't imagine. He poked his head in the open door to see Willow sprawled out on the floor in front of her laptop, Andrew sorting through ingredients, Skip carefully writing down notes, and Amy and Giles were paging through the pile of books which had just been delivered, though one of Giles' eyes was on Amy instead of his book.
Of course, five individuals and some books wouldn't be enough to fully pack the room, but unless City Hall had acquired a serious pest control problem in the past few hours (one which gave you a major headache to look at), the Rat King was here too, spread out through the whole room with his component rats seemingly attending to all three of the spellcasters and doing a bunch of other stuff besides.
"Hi guys. Amy. Rat King," Xander said.
"Do I not rate as a guy?" Amy asked.
"I should probably be more worried about not rating as a girl," Willow said, not looking up. "Hi Xander. Do you want the bad news or the worse news?"
"Surprise me," If Willow was still joking around it couldn't be utterly catastrophic. End of the world, tops.
"We think Buffy and the away team are trapped in time," Willow said.
"That's the worse news?" It definitely had the ring of worse.
"No, the worse news is that they're also escaping an erupting volcano," Willow delivered it deadpan. She was learning too much from that little AI sister of hers.
"I thought the volcano was supposed to be extinct," Xander said.
"It went Jurassic Park when Buffy killed Tapparich," Skip said.
"Is everyone OK?" Rachel asked from behind him. "Umm, aside from the whole volcano time warp part." Willow looked up at her voice and raised an eyebrow at Xander, but she didn't comment.
"Like I've been writing in triplicate, as far as I know, yes," Skip said. "But there was a big explosion, and I only saw Buffy come out of the right side of it, so I don't know very far."
"How did you even get back if the rest of them are trapped there?" Rachel said suspiciously.
Skip didn't seem offended by the implication. "Being summonable has its uses. I wouldn't recommend the initiation to it though, it wouldn't agree with your skin tone. Or having human skin at all, really."
"But even without summoning, we can get them out right?" Xander said. "You've got the superfriends all together and everything."
"Probably. Maybe," Willow hedged. "Our running theory is that Tapparich dying destabilized the whole dimension somehow. It's gone from a ten to one time ratio in their favor to one way in our favor instead."
"How much? Is Buffy literally like, frozen?" Xander almost asked if she could use her Flash powers to magic her way out, but too much of the crowd wasn't in the know.
"That's the problem, it's still changing," Willow pointed to her laptop, which was displaying a constant stream of numbers. "The ratio used to be precisely 10.378 to 1, but now it's jumping around like a busted sail in a storm. Without a precise ratio, we can't make a portal because the Lorentz pressure would collapse it before it initialized."
"But we can still get them out, right? Because you're Willow and you solve all the problems with the scary math?" Xander said hopefully.
Instead of Willow answering herself, CyberWillow's voice echoed from everywhere, including the radio on his own belt. "I'm afraid that the 'scary math' has escalated into a hyperspatial combinatorics problem that I no longer have the ability to properly solve."
Willow looked alarmed, and put her full attention back on the screen. "Uh oh, did it go aperiodic?"
"With 99.994% certainty now. I'll need more resources," CyberWillow answered.
Willow's eyes drifted up, looking like she was thinking hard. "But you could do it if you monopolize the whole supercomputer right? The total amount of computations should only have risen linearly."
"That's correct, however you-"
"Do it. Take it all," Willow said decisively. "Sideline everything else. I'll tell Dean Richards it's an emergency, and it'll only be for a few days anyway. The Astrophysics department can wait for their image processing."
"Affirmative," CyberWillow said, and then went silent.
"Days?" Xander gulped.
"I'm sure you can hold things together Xander," Willow said. "This is what the SDCW was supposed to be for, right?"
"It can't be us holding things together?" Xander asked. "Like those group projects we used to do in biology."
Willow shook her head. "I'm gonna be slammed. CyberWillow's doing the gruntwork, but we need to essentially invent an entire new portal architecture to use. Without the Rat King here that part alone might take weeks, but apparently he has some experience in something kind of similar."
"I hope you guys appreciate this," Amy griped, taking a break from chittering quietly with the Rat King. "We're going to miss the harvest festival, and there wasn't even any loot."
"Xander! You're here!" Anya came in from behind him, edging Rachel out of the way and wrapping her arms around his chest. "This is terrible. What are we going to do without Buffy? She's the one who makes it all work!"
Perversely, her panic calmed him down a little, though the closeness of her breath on his neck was exciting in other ways. "We've handled it before. For longer than this. I got to be 'Nighthawk.'"
"More kinky stuff isn't going to help now!" Anya complained. "Though if you're in the mood for it-"
"I don't need to be hearing this," Rachel said, edging past them and into the crowded study.
"No one in the entire world needs to be hearing this," Giles agreed, only half paying attention.
"Let's just go to my office," Anya said, tugging him backwards. "There are enough adults in there to take over your babysitting duty for a few minutes."
"I'm seventeen, not seven," Rachel groaned.
As he was mostly dragged away, Xander supposed she wasn't getting the same level of danger and responsibility she'd have gotten even months ago, but then again all the original Scoobies probably should've been dead five times over. She'd get her chance soon enough.
Xander picked up the conversation as they got to the stairs, "So Willow and her mini-me are talking days."
"The Triumvirate came out of nowhere in June," Anya worried. "And everything's already going bonkers this week. Government agents, watchers, the Mok'tagar. It all feels so unstable. What do we do if there's another huge crisis before she gets back? Maybe we should just skip town for a few days. We could call it vacation time."
"No skipping needed. We deal," Xander said, with more confidence than he really believed. "The SDCW might be a little short on people right now, but we're long on gear. It isn't the 17th century anymore."
"I just feel so powerless. It's all well and good to be mortal when a total ringer like Buffy is looming over you, but I feel vulnerable now. It's like when I first became human, before I amassed all these official titles to make me feel better."
"But you still have all those titles right? Spooky vengeance powers or not, you're still the same Anya Jenkins who won the seat on the city council. And you're more experienced than all the rest of them put together."
They reached Anya's office, the same one she'd commandeered back in June. It wasn't huge like the still-vacant Wilkins one, but it was a little bigger than Buffy's, with space for one of those weird-looking office couches next to chairs for visitors.
"All you have to do is keep the grindy gears of law and bureaucracy turning on schedule," Xander carefully shut the door behind them. "I can keep the SDCW chugging along. You keep saying demons respect strength. So the two of us, we'll make sure everyone acts strong. Nobody outside the government even has to know Buffy's gone."
Instead of her desk, Anya's destination was the couch, and she pulled Xander down next to her in what had become a very familiar way. "This place still leaks like a sieve," her words were grim, but he could tell her mood was turning around by the way she was taking off her blouse.
"It's just a few days, we can keep it quiet enough," Xander hoped.
"If we die anyway it's your fault," she stopped undressing halfway and started on his belt buckle as if she was opening the fridge for a glass of water.
He was distracted already, and he knew from experience he'd be much more distracted than that in a minute or so. "I know we've both been working all day already, but I should do a late night patrol. Wave the flag."
Anya grabbed at her prize and his brain short circuited. "That's why we're having the sex now instead. We have plenty of time, you know it doesn't take that long."
Xander hadn't really wanted to go out on another patrol tonight, but he had enough of a sense of how things worked on the hellmouth that he knew it'd be a bad idea to let the city sleep unmolested. It'd probably be even worse to send one out and not go himself. So here he was, awake for twenty hours on six hours sleep, driving around in the back of a van with a pair of potentials just off the boat.
Bringing them out for this was a calculated risk, but after Rachel missed the Psi Theta raid she'd been bouncing off the walls. If he tried to wait any longer to get her acclimated who knew what crazy thing she would do. Her friend being here might keep her better under control. Zoe seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders, even if she was a little skittish. Better skittish and alive than bold and dead.
It wasn't like they didn't have backup either, despite the overworked state the SDCW was in. He'd roped a pair of police officers into this one with the promise of overtime: Bernie was in back with him and Jack was driving the van. In shotgun, Ben was the only other full '99er along; he'd decided to go full time over the summer and he'd been a pretty reliable guy. And of course, CyberWillow was technically along as always, connected to the server churning along beside them. Overall the group wasn't exactly a bunch of all stars, but they had some variety.
As was standard procedure for road patrol, the van was marked with the SDCW insignia on both sides, all its lights were on, and the windows were wide open both to the front and to the larger space in the back. The van cruised through the more suspect neighborhoods of Sunnydale at a slow pace, to give everyone time to give the surroundings a good look and listen. A reasonable person would think a routine like this was more for discouraging crime than actively catching it, but vampire fledglings were often anything but reasonable; a lot of them still managed to get caught out.
"I thought there was supposed to be action here," Rachel said. She was flipping her stake around in her off hand instead of watching the windows. At least she wasn't playing with that tomahawk she liked to carry around.
"You dug up a real firecracker this time, didn't ya Harris?" Bernie liked to joke around, but Xander was pretty sure he'd seen some shit. There weren't many beat cops from the Wilkins days that had gotten old enough for gray hair. "So you're real used to action huh? What kinda hoops do those English guys have you gals jumpin' through?"
Rachel was clearly annoyed and tried to be silent and intimidating, but Zoe played peacemaker. "Watchers' council field training for potentials is pretty intense. You fight real vampires and everything! And Rachel's always going the extra mile. Didn't you get a Kaliff demon once?"
"I had a little help," Rachel admitted.
"I suppose that's impressive enough," Bernie said in a neutral way.
The silence stretched out as Xander scanned an alleyway, and Zoe decided to fill it again. "So were either of you guys both born here? What was it like growing up on the hellmouth?"
"In Sunnydale, yes. In a neighborhood this bad, also yes," Xander answered. "People don't really go out after dark much. I kind of thought it was something that just happened on TV."
"Took a job here in the '70s myself," Bernie said. "Pay was always good, just had to keep our heads down. Didn't feel great going home though." He had done a lot of cross training activities this summer. Maybe the guilt got to him.
"How was growing up in the land of tea and crumpets?" Xander asked.
"Oh, neither of us were born there," Zoe said. "We both were identified six years ago. My family still lives in Wisconsin. And Rachel, you grew up in Oxnard, right?"
"Really?" Xander asked. "Small world." He wondered if hellmouth proximity had had anything to do with her dad getting fangy.
"Yeah, I guess," she said, clearly not wanting to talk about it. "It wasn't anything special."
CyberWillow cut into the conversation abruptly, "I strongly recommend changing course to 34 Madison. I'm sorry that I couldn't alert you sooner." Jack was well trained enough to pull the U-turn immediately, accelerating up to speed after and flicking on the police lights.
That was the suck house. Xander tried to control his reaction, "What's happening?"
There was a half-ring on his radio before it was connected to the caller automatically. "-think they're going to go away. Fuck, she just kicked down the door. That's gonna cost good money to fix." Xander could tell it wasn't Gwen on the other end of the line, but it was probably one of the other girls.
"This is Xander, who just kicked down your door?"
"It's the girl from that printout! Faith! There are guys with her. You have to come, they've got stakes!"
"Stakes?" Rachel asked.
"We're on our way. You have to hold out for like two minutes." This was gonna be awkward to explain. He'd almost rather be facing down Faith and friends on his own.
"Not a whole lot of other ways to scare vampires," Bernie sounded a little rebellious. The police took a pretty dim view of Buffy's adventures in vampire prositution, even though none of them would ever say it to her face.
"Why would we-" Zoe started.
"Because we said we would," Xander said. "It's a suck house. Buffy got rid of all the rebellious ones and we use the rest for intel." The extra money had been a big deal too, once upon a time. Not that they really needed it now.
The unnamed vampire continued over the radio, "I don't think she's seen me yet, I'm hiding up the stairs, but she's got Annie. Oh, gross, she broke her arm. The bone is sticking out all weird."
"You've got to be kidding me," Rachel said. "What, does she have some kind of fetish or something? Do vampires get to vote in the elections too?"
Xander wouldn't answer that. He knew for sure that Harmony had voted, and he'd be surprised if the suck house crew hadn't.
"Umm, I can understand Harmony, I guess," Zoe volunteered. "She seems nice. But this is a little beyond the pale."
"These girls might be onto something," Bernie agreed.
"Look," Xander paused, desperately grasping for an argument. "Sure, they're one-bit vampires, who I might add, don't kill people, right CyberWillow?"
The pause was longer than usual. "When I last computed the probability of rulebreaking from them 5 days ago, it was 9.7%. Unfortunately I do not have spare resources to recalculate it at this time."
"9.7%, right. Vs Faith, rogue slayer, 100% confirmed hardened killer," Xander remembered the rest of his audience too, "Who I might add, is currently working for the Feds."
"Well, when you put it that way..." Bernie said.
"This still goes against everything we learned in our ethics class," Zoe said.
Rachel's expression on the other hand, had changed to one of resolve. "No, he's right. It's Faith. She's the whole reason we're here. We have to."
"Really? So then…?" Zoe asked expectantly.
Rachel rolled her eyes, looking almost aggrieved. "Let's do it." There was definitely something there Xander was missing, but he didn't have time to think about it now, they'd arrived.
He grabbed up his AK as he led the way out of the back of the van, hoping it wasn't a terrible idea. It might escalate the situation, but even attempting to confront Faith with anything else would be ludicrous. The cops would have their handguns, Ben liked to mix it up with his big axe, and Zoe had her crossbow.
Xander got up the stairs and talking as he went through the ruined door, "This is city property you know. There's a you-break-it you-buy-it rule."
Faith turned to him and cracked a smile, "So this is gonna cost me what? Twenty bucks?" Just after she said it, she slammed a stake into the broken vampire she'd been tormenting, turning her to dust.
Faith had brought three big goons with her, but they were all dressed casual instead of in Initiative uniforms, and Xander didn't recognize any of them as usual squad leaders. They still had those electrorifles to hand; two pivoted to point them at Xander's party. The other one still had his on Gwen and the other two surviving vampires, all in game face. He knew there should be five total including the dusted one, which might mean that the vamp who called him was still hidden up the stairs.
Xander was in the terrible situation of having to point a gun at someone and not wanting to pull the trigger. "They're not combatants. Let's just go out, talk it over." The Initiative guys actually looked a little flummoxed, and one of them started lowering his electrorifle, but Faith wasn't going to roll over that easy.
"Gonna shoot me with that big gun of yours if I don't?" she asked. "Wouldn't think you of all people would feel the need to compensate for anything."
"If I was holding it, I'd have shot you already," Rachel said from behind him.
The smile got wider. "Oh aren't you just cute as a button! When I heard there were baby slayers in town I thought they'd be all prim and English, but I had it all wrong." She casually strode over to Gwen and grabbed her by the neck. She thrashed for a second, but Faith's grip got tighter and she stopped, cowed.
She continued, "Are you really sure it's me you want to get your kill on with though? You don't want that tickly feeling of sliding the stake in and making someone go pop?"
"Professor Walsh said that one is an HST of interest," one of the soldiers said dubiously.
"There are a lot of HSTs of interest," Faith replied. "We can get another one later."
"But this one's here now," he replied.
Faith sighed aggravatedly, "Whatever, fine, Don't worry. We can just have a little fun with her first and take her home after." She grabbed Gwen's index finger and violently snapped it backwards.
Gwen screamed, and the soldiers looked skeptical, but none of them said anything.
"I'm not going to warn you again," Xander said. "Let her go or I'll fire."
"Why?" She said, switching from amused to angry in the blink of an eye. "'Cause B told you to? Wants you protecting her whores while she's away?"
"Gwen never hurt anybody," he said. Did Faith know what had happened with Buffy, or did she just mean that she wasn't here? Xander didn't have time to figure it out.
"He's right, I didn't," Gwen agreed frantically, her voice still breaking after the scream. "Really, you don't have to-"
Faith shut her up by banging her against the wall, and kept talking to Xander. "Is this really what it's come to? She's gone so crazy with power that she isn't even happy with one vampire to fuck?"
Xander heard some whispering from behind him but he couldn't afford to listen to it. "It's not like that. This is just Buffy-"
"Isn't it? Isn't it exactly like that?" She chuckled again, but there was a desperate sound to it. "I guess neither of us ever really stood a chance with her, did we? Ain't it the thing. Miss Perfect is so sunny and cheery and full of pep and all she really wants inside her is death."
"Faith-"
"You know why this Gwen's all interesting right? She's in charge. Do you think that means she's Buffy's favorite?" Faith moved her other hand up to Gwen's face, and Xander could tell she was about to do something terrible.
Vote: What does Xander do? Remember that main votes are compared first, and then the winner will have its winning subvote and/or stunts selected. Approval voting is fully in effect.
[] Xander fires his AK47 at Faith
-[] He fires a warning shot
-[] He tries to shoot to injure
-[] He shoots to kill
[] Xander keeps trying to negotiate. (Stunt for possibly greater effect)
[] Write-in another idea
S4.0E5: The Watch
"I don't understand how you can be so calm about this!" Rachel said.
"I'm not even totally sure what's happened yet. We're still in the information-gathering stage of panicking like headless chickens." Xander wished he was actually that calm, but faking it would have to do for now.
There had been some rushed and unclear messages from Andrew about trouble brewing on the Mog'tog'og mission, and rather than trying to interrogate people over the radio Xander had decided he'd just drive over to City Hall and get the bad news in person. It felt like it might be the kind of thing he'd want to hear about face to face.
His watchgirl-in-training wasn't going to let him stew about it in silence though. He hadn't known her for long, but she seemed like the type that liked to stew about things loudly. And maybe violently.
"I still can't believe you guys sent Nigel instead of me," she said.
"It was Buffy's decision," Xander had started to get fond of that non-answer over the summer. He really hoped he'd be able to make a career of saying it. Mostly because it would require Buffy to still be alive.
"He's a total bookworm!" Rachel said. "Do you know how many times I've beaten him sparring? None! Because he doesn't even train!"
"Take it from me, I know it doesn't feel good to be sidelined-"
"It's not even about that! I mean, I guess you guys are right. I don't have powers. But Nigel doesn't either, not really. He can barely levitate a pencil. Sending him off to some hell dimension like that, it's irresponsible!"
"He knew what he was signing up for," Xander said. "Plus, the team wasn't exactly lacking in brawn." All the same, it was hard for Xander not to agree. He couldn't help but wonder if he would've been able to stop whatever went wrong if he'd been there.
He'd tried not to feel let down at the time, but it smarted to be left on the bench for the second away game in a row. Buffy acted like she needed him to run the homefront when she was gone, but he wasn't sure how much of that was her wanting his feelings unhurt. His Buffster had always wanted to protect him.
And even if she was right this time and the homefront needed running, could he actually do it? Xander didn't have her natural charisma, her superpowers, her smarts, anything. People listened to him mostly because she put him in charge, and without having her as a totem to keep the majority of demons shaking in their non-existent boots, he had no idea how the SDCW could even do its job.
"Are you even listening to what I'm saying anymore?" Rachel said. He hadn't been.
Xander noticed he'd parked the car at City Hall. "Absolutely. I'm hanging on your every word."
Rachel made a noise that was between a sigh and a growl. "Let's just go."
The attitude in the basement was frantic, with a couple of the '99er aides running books and snacks down the stairs despite the late hour. Xander felt oddly wistful of the days when he'd be expected to do donut delivery himself, but that was probably because whenever he did he'd known Buffy would be waiting in the library. Instead of, for example, lost in some hostile dimension.
The study across from the clean room was packed when he arrived, complete with wires reaching out across the hall into said room for purposes Xander couldn't imagine. He poked his head in the open door to see Willow sprawled out on the floor in front of her laptop, Andrew sorting through ingredients, Skip carefully writing down notes, and Amy and Giles were paging through the pile of books which had just been delivered, though one of Giles' eyes was on Amy instead of his book.
Of course, five individuals and some books wouldn't be enough to fully pack the room, but unless City Hall had acquired a serious pest control problem in the past few hours (one which gave you a major headache to look at), the Rat King was here too, spread out through the whole room with his component rats seemingly attending to all three of the spellcasters and doing a bunch of other stuff besides.
"Hi guys. Amy. Rat King," Xander said.
"Do I not rate as a guy?" Amy asked.
"I should probably be more worried about not rating as a girl," Willow said, not looking up. "Hi Xander. Do you want the bad news or the worse news?"
"Surprise me," If Willow was still joking around it couldn't be utterly catastrophic. End of the world, tops.
"We think Buffy and the away team are trapped in time," Willow said.
"That's the worse news?" It definitely had the ring of worse.
"No, the worse news is that they're also escaping an erupting volcano," Willow delivered it deadpan. She was learning too much from that little AI sister of hers.
"I thought the volcano was supposed to be extinct," Xander said.
"It went Jurassic Park when Buffy killed Tapparich," Skip said.
"Is everyone OK?" Rachel asked from behind him. "Umm, aside from the whole volcano time warp part." Willow looked up at her voice and raised an eyebrow at Xander, but she didn't comment.
"Like I've been writing in triplicate, as far as I know, yes," Skip said. "But there was a big explosion, and I only saw Buffy come out of the right side of it, so I don't know very far."
"How did you even get back if the rest of them are trapped there?" Rachel said suspiciously.
Skip didn't seem offended by the implication. "Being summonable has its uses. I wouldn't recommend the initiation to it though, it wouldn't agree with your skin tone. Or having human skin at all, really."
"But even without summoning, we can get them out right?" Xander said. "You've got the superfriends all together and everything."
"Probably. Maybe," Willow hedged. "Our running theory is that Tapparich dying destabilized the whole dimension somehow. It's gone from a ten to one time ratio in their favor to one way in our favor instead."
"How much? Is Buffy literally like, frozen?" Xander almost asked if she could use her Flash powers to magic her way out, but too much of the crowd wasn't in the know.
"That's the problem, it's still changing," Willow pointed to her laptop, which was displaying a constant stream of numbers. "The ratio used to be precisely 10.378 to 1, but now it's jumping around like a busted sail in a storm. Without a precise ratio, we can't make a portal because the Lorentz pressure would collapse it before it initialized."
"But we can still get them out, right? Because you're Willow and you solve all the problems with the scary math?" Xander said hopefully.
Instead of Willow answering herself, CyberWillow's voice echoed from everywhere, including the radio on his own belt. "I'm afraid that the 'scary math' has escalated into a hyperspatial combinatorics problem that I no longer have the ability to properly solve."
Willow looked alarmed, and put her full attention back on the screen. "Uh oh, did it go aperiodic?"
"With 99.994% certainty now. I'll need more resources," CyberWillow answered.
Willow's eyes drifted up, looking like she was thinking hard. "But you could do it if you monopolize the whole supercomputer right? The total amount of computations should only have risen linearly."
"That's correct, however you-"
"Do it. Take it all," Willow said decisively. "Sideline everything else. I'll tell Dean Richards it's an emergency, and it'll only be for a few days anyway. The Astrophysics department can wait for their image processing."
"Affirmative," CyberWillow said, and then went silent.
"Days?" Xander gulped.
"I'm sure you can hold things together Xander," Willow said. "This is what the SDCW was supposed to be for, right?"
"It can't be us holding things together?" Xander asked. "Like those group projects we used to do in biology."
Willow shook her head. "I'm gonna be slammed. CyberWillow's doing the gruntwork, but we need to essentially invent an entire new portal architecture to use. Without the Rat King here that part alone might take weeks, but apparently he has some experience in something kind of similar."
"I hope you guys appreciate this," Amy griped, taking a break from chittering quietly with the Rat King. "We're going to miss the harvest festival, and there wasn't even any loot."
"Xander! You're here!" Anya came in from behind him, edging Rachel out of the way and wrapping her arms around his chest. "This is terrible. What are we going to do without Buffy? She's the one who makes it all work!"
Perversely, her panic calmed him down a little, though the closeness of her breath on his neck was exciting in other ways. "We've handled it before. For longer than this. I got to be 'Nighthawk.'"
"More kinky stuff isn't going to help now!" Anya complained. "Though if you're in the mood for it-"
"I don't need to be hearing this," Rachel said, edging past them and into the crowded study.
"No one in the entire world needs to be hearing this," Giles agreed, only half paying attention.
"Let's just go to my office," Anya said, tugging him backwards. "There are enough adults in there to take over your babysitting duty for a few minutes."
"I'm seventeen, not seven," Rachel groaned.
As he was mostly dragged away, Xander supposed she wasn't getting the same level of danger and responsibility she'd have gotten even months ago, but then again all the original Scoobies probably should've been dead five times over. She'd get her chance soon enough.
Xander picked up the conversation as they got to the stairs, "So Willow and her mini-me are talking days."
"The Triumvirate came out of nowhere in June," Anya worried. "And everything's already going bonkers this week. Government agents, watchers, the Mok'tagar. It all feels so unstable. What do we do if there's another huge crisis before she gets back? Maybe we should just skip town for a few days. We could call it vacation time."
"No skipping needed. We deal," Xander said, with more confidence than he really believed. "The SDCW might be a little short on people right now, but we're long on gear. It isn't the 17th century anymore."
"I just feel so powerless. It's all well and good to be mortal when a total ringer like Buffy is looming over you, but I feel vulnerable now. It's like when I first became human, before I amassed all these official titles to make me feel better."
"But you still have all those titles right? Spooky vengeance powers or not, you're still the same Anya Jenkins who won the seat on the city council. And you're more experienced than all the rest of them put together."
They reached Anya's office, the same one she'd commandeered back in June. It wasn't huge like the still-vacant Wilkins one, but it was a little bigger than Buffy's, with space for one of those weird-looking office couches next to chairs for visitors.
"All you have to do is keep the grindy gears of law and bureaucracy turning on schedule," Xander carefully shut the door behind them. "I can keep the SDCW chugging along. You keep saying demons respect strength. So the two of us, we'll make sure everyone acts strong. Nobody outside the government even has to know Buffy's gone."
Instead of her desk, Anya's destination was the couch, and she pulled Xander down next to her in what had become a very familiar way. "This place still leaks like a sieve," her words were grim, but he could tell her mood was turning around by the way she was taking off her blouse.
"It's just a few days, we can keep it quiet enough," Xander hoped.
"If we die anyway it's your fault," she stopped undressing halfway and started on his belt buckle as if she was opening the fridge for a glass of water.
He was distracted already, and he knew from experience he'd be much more distracted than that in a minute or so. "I know we've both been working all day already, but I should do a late night patrol. Wave the flag."
Anya grabbed at her prize and his brain short circuited. "That's why we're having the sex now instead. We have plenty of time, you know it doesn't take that long."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Xander hadn't really wanted to go out on another patrol tonight, but he had enough of a sense of how things worked on the hellmouth that he knew it'd be a bad idea to let the city sleep unmolested. It'd probably be even worse to send one out and not go himself. So here he was, awake for twenty hours on six hours sleep, driving around in the back of a van with a pair of potentials just off the boat.
Bringing them out for this was a calculated risk, but after Rachel missed the Psi Theta raid she'd been bouncing off the walls. If he tried to wait any longer to get her acclimated who knew what crazy thing she would do. Her friend being here might keep her better under control. Zoe seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders, even if she was a little skittish. Better skittish and alive than bold and dead.
It wasn't like they didn't have backup either, despite the overworked state the SDCW was in. He'd roped a pair of police officers into this one with the promise of overtime: Bernie was in back with him and Jack was driving the van. In shotgun, Ben was the only other full '99er along; he'd decided to go full time over the summer and he'd been a pretty reliable guy. And of course, CyberWillow was technically along as always, connected to the server churning along beside them. Overall the group wasn't exactly a bunch of all stars, but they had some variety.
As was standard procedure for road patrol, the van was marked with the SDCW insignia on both sides, all its lights were on, and the windows were wide open both to the front and to the larger space in the back. The van cruised through the more suspect neighborhoods of Sunnydale at a slow pace, to give everyone time to give the surroundings a good look and listen. A reasonable person would think a routine like this was more for discouraging crime than actively catching it, but vampire fledglings were often anything but reasonable; a lot of them still managed to get caught out.
"I thought there was supposed to be action here," Rachel said. She was flipping her stake around in her off hand instead of watching the windows. At least she wasn't playing with that tomahawk she liked to carry around.
"You dug up a real firecracker this time, didn't ya Harris?" Bernie liked to joke around, but Xander was pretty sure he'd seen some shit. There weren't many beat cops from the Wilkins days that had gotten old enough for gray hair. "So you're real used to action huh? What kinda hoops do those English guys have you gals jumpin' through?"
Rachel was clearly annoyed and tried to be silent and intimidating, but Zoe played peacemaker. "Watchers' council field training for potentials is pretty intense. You fight real vampires and everything! And Rachel's always going the extra mile. Didn't you get a Kaliff demon once?"
"I had a little help," Rachel admitted.
"I suppose that's impressive enough," Bernie said in a neutral way.
The silence stretched out as Xander scanned an alleyway, and Zoe decided to fill it again. "So were either of you guys both born here? What was it like growing up on the hellmouth?"
"In Sunnydale, yes. In a neighborhood this bad, also yes," Xander answered. "People don't really go out after dark much. I kind of thought it was something that just happened on TV."
"Took a job here in the '70s myself," Bernie said. "Pay was always good, just had to keep our heads down. Didn't feel great going home though." He had done a lot of cross training activities this summer. Maybe the guilt got to him.
"How was growing up in the land of tea and crumpets?" Xander asked.
"Oh, neither of us were born there," Zoe said. "We both were identified six years ago. My family still lives in Wisconsin. And Rachel, you grew up in Oxnard, right?"
"Really?" Xander asked. "Small world." He wondered if hellmouth proximity had had anything to do with her dad getting fangy.
"Yeah, I guess," she said, clearly not wanting to talk about it. "It wasn't anything special."
CyberWillow cut into the conversation abruptly, "I strongly recommend changing course to 34 Madison. I'm sorry that I couldn't alert you sooner." Jack was well trained enough to pull the U-turn immediately, accelerating up to speed after and flicking on the police lights.
That was the suck house. Xander tried to control his reaction, "What's happening?"
There was a half-ring on his radio before it was connected to the caller automatically. "-think they're going to go away. Fuck, she just kicked down the door. That's gonna cost good money to fix." Xander could tell it wasn't Gwen on the other end of the line, but it was probably one of the other girls.
"This is Xander, who just kicked down your door?"
"It's the girl from that printout! Faith! There are guys with her. You have to come, they've got stakes!"
"Stakes?" Rachel asked.
"We're on our way. You have to hold out for like two minutes." This was gonna be awkward to explain. He'd almost rather be facing down Faith and friends on his own.
"Not a whole lot of other ways to scare vampires," Bernie sounded a little rebellious. The police took a pretty dim view of Buffy's adventures in vampire prositution, even though none of them would ever say it to her face.
"Why would we-" Zoe started.
"Because we said we would," Xander said. "It's a suck house. Buffy got rid of all the rebellious ones and we use the rest for intel." The extra money had been a big deal too, once upon a time. Not that they really needed it now.
The unnamed vampire continued over the radio, "I don't think she's seen me yet, I'm hiding up the stairs, but she's got Annie. Oh, gross, she broke her arm. The bone is sticking out all weird."
"You've got to be kidding me," Rachel said. "What, does she have some kind of fetish or something? Do vampires get to vote in the elections too?"
Xander wouldn't answer that. He knew for sure that Harmony had voted, and he'd be surprised if the suck house crew hadn't.
"Umm, I can understand Harmony, I guess," Zoe volunteered. "She seems nice. But this is a little beyond the pale."
"These girls might be onto something," Bernie agreed.
"Look," Xander paused, desperately grasping for an argument. "Sure, they're one-bit vampires, who I might add, don't kill people, right CyberWillow?"
The pause was longer than usual. "When I last computed the probability of rulebreaking from them 5 days ago, it was 9.7%. Unfortunately I do not have spare resources to recalculate it at this time."
"9.7%, right. Vs Faith, rogue slayer, 100% confirmed hardened killer," Xander remembered the rest of his audience too, "Who I might add, is currently working for the Feds."
"Well, when you put it that way..." Bernie said.
"This still goes against everything we learned in our ethics class," Zoe said.
Rachel's expression on the other hand, had changed to one of resolve. "No, he's right. It's Faith. She's the whole reason we're here. We have to."
"Really? So then…?" Zoe asked expectantly.
Rachel rolled her eyes, looking almost aggrieved. "Let's do it." There was definitely something there Xander was missing, but he didn't have time to think about it now, they'd arrived.
He grabbed up his AK as he led the way out of the back of the van, hoping it wasn't a terrible idea. It might escalate the situation, but even attempting to confront Faith with anything else would be ludicrous. The cops would have their handguns, Ben liked to mix it up with his big axe, and Zoe had her crossbow.
Xander got up the stairs and talking as he went through the ruined door, "This is city property you know. There's a you-break-it you-buy-it rule."
Faith turned to him and cracked a smile, "So this is gonna cost me what? Twenty bucks?" Just after she said it, she slammed a stake into the broken vampire she'd been tormenting, turning her to dust.
Faith had brought three big goons with her, but they were all dressed casual instead of in Initiative uniforms, and Xander didn't recognize any of them as usual squad leaders. They still had those electrorifles to hand; two pivoted to point them at Xander's party. The other one still had his on Gwen and the other two surviving vampires, all in game face. He knew there should be five total including the dusted one, which might mean that the vamp who called him was still hidden up the stairs.
Xander was in the terrible situation of having to point a gun at someone and not wanting to pull the trigger. "They're not combatants. Let's just go out, talk it over." The Initiative guys actually looked a little flummoxed, and one of them started lowering his electrorifle, but Faith wasn't going to roll over that easy.
"Gonna shoot me with that big gun of yours if I don't?" she asked. "Wouldn't think you of all people would feel the need to compensate for anything."
"If I was holding it, I'd have shot you already," Rachel said from behind him.
The smile got wider. "Oh aren't you just cute as a button! When I heard there were baby slayers in town I thought they'd be all prim and English, but I had it all wrong." She casually strode over to Gwen and grabbed her by the neck. She thrashed for a second, but Faith's grip got tighter and she stopped, cowed.
She continued, "Are you really sure it's me you want to get your kill on with though? You don't want that tickly feeling of sliding the stake in and making someone go pop?"
"Professor Walsh said that one is an HST of interest," one of the soldiers said dubiously.
"There are a lot of HSTs of interest," Faith replied. "We can get another one later."
"But this one's here now," he replied.
Faith sighed aggravatedly, "Whatever, fine, Don't worry. We can just have a little fun with her first and take her home after." She grabbed Gwen's index finger and violently snapped it backwards.
Gwen screamed, and the soldiers looked skeptical, but none of them said anything.
"I'm not going to warn you again," Xander said. "Let her go or I'll fire."
"Why?" She said, switching from amused to angry in the blink of an eye. "'Cause B told you to? Wants you protecting her whores while she's away?"
"Gwen never hurt anybody," he said. Did Faith know what had happened with Buffy, or did she just mean that she wasn't here? Xander didn't have time to figure it out.
"He's right, I didn't," Gwen agreed frantically, her voice still breaking after the scream. "Really, you don't have to-"
Faith shut her up by banging her against the wall, and kept talking to Xander. "Is this really what it's come to? She's gone so crazy with power that she isn't even happy with one vampire to fuck?"
Xander heard some whispering from behind him but he couldn't afford to listen to it. "It's not like that. This is just Buffy-"
"Isn't it? Isn't it exactly like that?" She chuckled again, but there was a desperate sound to it. "I guess neither of us ever really stood a chance with her, did we? Ain't it the thing. Miss Perfect is so sunny and cheery and full of pep and all she really wants inside her is death."
"Faith-"
"You know why this Gwen's all interesting right? She's in charge. Do you think that means she's Buffy's favorite?" Faith moved her other hand up to Gwen's face, and Xander could tell she was about to do something terrible.
Vote: What does Xander do? Remember that main votes are compared first, and then the winner will have its winning subvote and/or stunts selected. Approval voting is fully in effect.
[] Xander fires his AK47 at Faith
-[] He fires a warning shot
-[] He tries to shoot to injure
-[] He shoots to kill
[] Xander keeps trying to negotiate. (Stunt for possibly greater effect)
[] Write-in another idea
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- Location
- Germany
Yeah, chance to kill or defeat Faith with what we have here seems slim to none.
Further negotiations will propably fail, but only cost us low-end vampires while keeping Xander and the potentials alive, so unless there is a really good idea what else to do we might wanna go with that.
Though that in turn means Buffy would have to do drastic things once she returns, because the Initiative killed people under her protection...
Further negotiations will propably fail, but only cost us low-end vampires while keeping Xander and the potentials alive, so unless there is a really good idea what else to do we might wanna go with that.
Though that in turn means Buffy would have to do drastic things once she returns, because the Initiative killed people under her protection...
So Rachel and Zoe are planning to reverse slayer rule the slayer mantle and probably give it to Rachel. I know killing Faith here is unlikely, but we should probably keep this in mind.
I think this is the negotiation tactic to take. Convincing Faith to listen is incredibly unlikely, post awakening she was a goddamn dumpster fire of issues and Xander isn't talking her out of them. He might be able to threaten the three initiative grunts with enough consequences that they pressure her into stopping.
I wonder how their research will go if the Initiative can't have a working intranet anymore because they killed people under Buffy's protection, how in the world will Maggie manage to pay wergild on that? Or if we kick this up the chain and find out who authorized this entire thing in the pentagon and magically hack our way into a meeting with whatever general was secretly involved. Either way Maggie isn't going to be happy and will take it out on Faith.
- Location
- Germany
That might work on regular Initiative-people, but I don't see it stopping Faith from killing more vamps here and now.
That is the point, Xander can't stop Faith from doing what she wants here, but the Initiative might be able to. If we pressure them they might pressure her in turn.
- Location
- United States
[X] Xander fires his AK47 at Faith
-[X] He tries to shoot to injure
Well unless somebody comes up with a good negotiating stunt I think this our best option. Xander already said he'd shoot if she didn't stop. With Faith if we don't follow through she'll take it as us rolling over and she'll just go on to do whatever she wants.
-[X] He tries to shoot to injure
Well unless somebody comes up with a good negotiating stunt I think this our best option. Xander already said he'd shoot if she didn't stop. With Faith if we don't follow through she'll take it as us rolling over and she'll just go on to do whatever she wants.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Xander fires his AK47 at Faith
-[X] He tries to shoot to injure
I honestly don't think anything less will get the message across. I briefly considered writing in shooting to injure the goon who didn't speak up, but that would be wildly OOC for Xander, and Faith wouldn't give a shit. And I don't think Xander's quite got the insight required to call Faith out on trying to demonstrate romantic intent in 100% the wrong way.
I admit, my first instinct is "aerate her frontal cortex so Walsh gets as clear a 'fuck off' message as possible", but again, wildly OOC for Xander, and despite it all I still have a soft spot for Buffy/Faith. Makes it hard to commit to trying to/kill her.
-[X] He tries to shoot to injure
I honestly don't think anything less will get the message across. I briefly considered writing in shooting to injure the goon who didn't speak up, but that would be wildly OOC for Xander, and Faith wouldn't give a shit. And I don't think Xander's quite got the insight required to call Faith out on trying to demonstrate romantic intent in 100% the wrong way.
I admit, my first instinct is "aerate her frontal cortex so Walsh gets as clear a 'fuck off' message as possible", but again, wildly OOC for Xander, and despite it all I still have a soft spot for Buffy/Faith. Makes it hard to commit to trying to/kill her.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Xander keeps trying to negotiate. (Stunt for possibly greater effect)
--[X] Tell the initiative thugs that if Faith hurts one more of the vampires his general AI would gut their research and destroy all the Initiative computer systems.
--[X] Tell the initiative thugs that if Faith hurts one more of the vampires his general AI would gut their research and destroy all the Initiative computer systems.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Probably best kept as an actual WMD rather then a threat to mooks but I like it.
The initiative mostly runs off of military training IIRC, which means they wouldn't distinguish between shooting to injure and shooting to kill - IMO both shooting to kill and shooting to injure are just gonna start a firefight.
I'm also leery about the whole 'warning shot' bit - depending on exactly how close a warning shot it is it may very well look like he's actually aiming at Faith and missed, which also has decent odds of resolving into a firefight.
[X] Xander keeps trying to negotiate. (Stunt for possibly greater effect)
-[X] Xander fires the AK47 into the ground off to the side to get everybody's attention (in a way that could be construed as an accident), and then starts making comparisons between his gun 'randomly discharging' and Faith acting as a loose cannon in the hopes of getting the Initiative soldiers to start pressuring Faith into backing off. If that fails, aim the gun at Faith and say the next shot won't be an accident if she continues (Or just shoot to kill if she responds to the warning by hurting Gwen).
This is kinda an amalgamation of the warning shot and continuing negotiations, hopefully in a way that makes sense and is less likely to start a fight we don't want.
I'm also leery about the whole 'warning shot' bit - depending on exactly how close a warning shot it is it may very well look like he's actually aiming at Faith and missed, which also has decent odds of resolving into a firefight.
[X] Xander keeps trying to negotiate. (Stunt for possibly greater effect)
-[X] Xander fires the AK47 into the ground off to the side to get everybody's attention (in a way that could be construed as an accident), and then starts making comparisons between his gun 'randomly discharging' and Faith acting as a loose cannon in the hopes of getting the Initiative soldiers to start pressuring Faith into backing off. If that fails, aim the gun at Faith and say the next shot won't be an accident if she continues (Or just shoot to kill if she responds to the warning by hurting Gwen).
This is kinda an amalgamation of the warning shot and continuing negotiations, hopefully in a way that makes sense and is less likely to start a fight we don't want.
- Location
- Vancouver
Yeah, no wonder Rachel wants to fight Faith. If Faith were to die, she'd be able to take her power. Of course, Rachel doesn't really get how far out of her league she'll be against Faith, not to mention all her Initiative goons.
[X] Xander fires his AK47 at Faith
-[X] He tries to shoot to injure
I don't actually think he'll manage to injure her, but it will send the message across that he's serious and I think Faith might respect that a little. Just going for a warning shot or negotiating isn't good enough and trying to kill her will make her angry, but this might work.
[X] Xander fires his AK47 at Faith
-[X] He tries to shoot to injure
I don't actually think he'll manage to injure her, but it will send the message across that he's serious and I think Faith might respect that a little. Just going for a warning shot or negotiating isn't good enough and trying to kill her will make her angry, but this might work.
- Location
- my house
Anyone else notice this line?
Seems faith might have feelings for buffy
- Location
- Vancouver
Oh yeah, definitely getting that vibe. Which helps put things in perspective for why she's been so constantly willing to antagonize Buffy despite it being clear that she's now well and outclassed by her (beyond just her usual Faithy-ness anyways). Also surprisingly insightful. Can she hear the KILL too, on some subconscious level?
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- Location
- Internet
[X] Xander keeps trying to negotiate. (Stunt for possibly greater effect)
--[X] Tell the initiative thugs that if Faith hurts one more of the vampires his general AI would gut their research and destroy all the Initiative computer systems.
--[X] Tell the initiative thugs that if Faith hurts one more of the vampires his general AI would gut their research and destroy all the Initiative computer systems.