4. Reg gets competition.

The next morning, all gathered in the magic shop. The wizards weren't that awake, until they discovered the coffee. This
caused the Bursar to go a bit hyper, and Ridcully decided it would be best to leave him in the training room. Although Buffy
was worried about her equipment, she agreed. Getting rid of the zombie was more important than her stuff.

"Right, how do we want to stop Reg? If he's campaigning for mayor, we'd better hurry up."
Xander stated.

"Damn right. No use having a zombie for a mayor. I can just imagine us having a zombie for a patrician, right Senior
Wrangler?" The Dean elbowed his colleague.

"Well, we did have that dragon for a queen once."

"Only for a few days. She was arrested. No use, a queen in prison."

"Anyway." Buffy glared at the two wizards. "We have to stop him. Giles, can zombies run for mayor?"

"The law doesn't say zombies can. But it doesn't say they can't either, so it's all legal, I'm afraid." Giles had been up
all night, looking for a law forbidding zombies to rule Sunnydale. There wasn't one. The closest thing was a rule that
forbade animals to run for mayor, after a accident when the two candidates got no votes, and someone voted for a donkey as
a prank.

"So we need someone to run against him, while we figure out how to stop him." Willow suggested.

"Good idea, but who wants to be a mayor in this town? The last mayor turned into a big snake, and we seem to have
apocalypses happen every year, with vampires and monsters around every corner. I wouldn't want to." Xander made a good
point.

"Wait, monsters? Monsters you can hunt?" Ridcully shot up. In Ankh-Morpork, where the Unseen University was build, all the
animals had run away. He had been quite bored lately. "You think the mayor has first right to hunt monsters?"

"Well, I, being the Slayer, am the one who does the actual hunting..." Buffy began, but Ridcully didn't hear her.

"Just imagine. I hunt here, and work here and at the UU. Should be do-able. Mister Stibbons, figure out how to build a
black hole here, so I can travel from the Disc to here, would you?"

"Oh sure, sir, I'll just get a whole bunch of magic in one place and wait until the hole comes along. And I can tell it
where to be, so that should be no problem." The cynism in the voice was clear, but not to Ridcully, since sarcasm was a
word that wasn't in his dictionary.

"Right, you can take care of that then. So, what do you need to do to get mayor around here?"
Ridcully looked around to the gang, with shining eyes.


At Spike's crypt.

"So if I understand correctly, you vamps have pledged not to drink blood, and now people give you jobs?" Spike asked his
temporary room-mate.

"Vhy, yes, zey do." Otto answered.

"And they trust you? Not to drink their blood?" He continued.

"Vell, some are a little sceptic, but after zey zee ve can be reliable, zhey do trust us."

"Interesting. And you can't drink any blood? Not even animal blood?"

"For zer beginning vampires, zey start with drinking fewer and fewer of zer B-word, and from animals. Never from humans."

"And how many vampires have succesfully stopped drinking?"

"Vell, to my knowledge there at least..." Otto paused to think. "About zhree-hundred in zer city, I believe."

"Three hundred...And they have no trouble not drinking?"

"None. Mister, er, zer Bloody, why all zhese questions?"

"I've been trying to get humans to trust me, but for some reason, she won't. You see, I have this thing in my brain, and I
can get kill anyone! But she still doesn't trust me." Spike sat down on his coffin.

"Vould this 'she' be blonde and called Buffy?"

Spike's head shot up. "How do you know?"

Otto smiled. "It is obvious. I could see by zer way you act. I vould have to be blind not to. Ve vampires have a zixth
sense for zer affaires of zer heart."

Spike grumbled. If some stranger could see it, surely others would've noticed it by now. Damn.


At the Magic Shop.

"So, all I need to do is register, tell the people to vote for me and that's it?" Riduclly asked.

"Well, that's putting it rather blunt, but yes." Giles said.

"Jolly good." He turned to the other wizards. "Men, we have to work together to make me mayor. I expect all of you will
show one hunderd percent support!" He turned to the others. "So, how should I convince people to vote for me?"

"You can put on posters." Xander suggested. "They're like big pictures of you, and we can hang 'em up around town."

"And you can hand out cake or something, so people'll see how much you like them." Willow suggested.

"I like the poster idea, and I can see how handing out free food will make people accept you as their leader. It works on
the wizards, and I've been Archchancellor for years now." Ridcully said, smiling. "Oh and Ponder, make sure you get that
black hole thing working. We have to use it to send Reg back, and Otto, and ourselves."

Ponder sighed. He had no idea how to get that much magic, and what if there wasn't a powerful magical place near here? If
only he could use HEX, he'd be able to come up with the answer.

"So you plan to send Reg back to your world? Would that be wise?" Giles asked.

"Why not. We can always throw some salt on him if he gets out of hand." Ridcully replied. "Oh, and we need Otto to take
some pictures of me, for those poster things. Where is he, anyway? And there's so much to do. I can't wait to be mayor, I'll
finally hunt properly again."

"Good idea. Willow, Tara, why don't you help Ponder with that black hole thing, I'm sure you can come up with a solution.
Xander, Anya, get Otto here. We need him for the pictures, and maybe he can help." Giles turned to Buffy. "You can train.
When Reg's gone, the vampires'll probably go back to their old ways. You need to be prepared."

Tara and Willow took Ponder away, and Anya and Xander left to get Otto. Buffy walked over to Giles. "What about Dawn and
mum? What if Glory decided to pay them a visit or something?"

Giles nodded. "Good point." He turned to the four remaining wizards. "Why don't you go to Buffy's place, to think of
campaign plans. I'll call her mother, to tell her your coming."

The wizards agreed, and went on their way. By foot. The Archchancellor had decided the car-technology was not to be
trusted, so they walked to Buffy's house. A lot of people stared at them, it's not everyday there's four adult men walking
around in colorful dresses, with all sorts of symbols on them, with pointy hats. And the beards could easily rival with that
of Santa. The wizards however, ignored this, since they usually ignore normal humans and reached Buffy's house without any
problems and knocked on the door, which was answered by a surprised Dawn.

"Er, hello? Who are you people?"

"We are the wizards of the Unseen University of Ankh-Morpork, young lady, and we want to get in." Ridcully answered.

"I'm not supposed to let strangers in. And you're pretty strange."

"Look, this man called Giles or something said he would, what did he say, call you, to say we'd be here." The Dean argued.

"Dawn honey, what's wrong?" Buffy's mother asked.

"There's some weird men at the door mum. They say Giles sent them." Dawn replied.

"Are you the wizards of the, what was the university called?" Joyce asked. She had gotten the call, but was just as
confused as Dawn. Rupert had given a description of what they looked like, and these men did, but she also had to ask where
they came from, to be safe.

"Of the Unseen University, madam, of Ankh-Morpork. Now can we get in?" Ridcully was getting impatient.

"Sure, come in." Joyce invited them in.

Dawn looked strangely at her mother. "Mum, are you alright?"

"It's okay honey, Mr. Giles just called, saying they'd come here. It's got something to do with a zombie being in
Sunnydale." Joyce assured her daughter.

The wizards made their way to the living room, and sat down. Ridcully asked Joyce many questions about how to run for
mayor, and they discussed some plans.

Meanwhile, Anya and Xander were trying to get Otto back to the Magic Shop. Unfortunately, it was a sunny day, so they had
to cover him up. Spike offered them his blanket, but that didn't really work, since the sun was burning right through it.

"How are we supposed to get him back, if he can't travel?" Xander said, after the blanket proved to be a big unsucces.

Anya was standing outside. "I don't see any clouds, Xander, we'll have to use something else."

"You can use my car, promise not to break it. I dyed all the windows black, no sun's coming through there." Spike offered.

"Why are you being so nice? It's not like you to help us." Xander said, not trusting the offer.

"I'm not helping you two, I'm helping Otto. He's quite nice, and I wouldn't want him dead. He's got some very interesting
theories that I'd like to discuss with him later."

"Makes sense, you being selfish. Right, we'll take the car."


At the ruins of Sunnydale High School.

"Are you sure there's a lot of magic in this place?" Ponder asked the two wiccans.

"Dead sure. This is the Hellmouth we're talking about. It's a portal for demons to come here, so there's bound to be magic
here." Willow said, walking through the destroyed library.

The school had been utterly destroyed, and after two years, they were starting to re-build it, while cleaning up the remains
of the library. Since it was saturday, no-one was working and the three were now standing on the closed Hellmouth.

Ponder sniffed the air. "You're right. I can sense there's great magic potential here. All I'd have to do is somehow push
it together so a black hole'll appear. The problem is to get it to open up in Ankh-Morpork. Do you two have any ideas?"

"There are some theories to travel through dimensions, to get a portal to open, but we haven't got the amount of magic to
do it. Maybe with your help we can gather the magic to get it to work." Tara said.

"So you have a spell to travel through dimension? Can I see it?" Ponder said eagerly.

Willow produced a book from her bag, and gave it to Ponder. "Page 145."

"Yes, I recognise the principle. It's a lot like Heikelstein's Handy Holiday, a way to travel on one planet. I never
thought of it this way, but I suppose it could work."



Hmm, not much of a cliffhanger hey? But oh well, you'll manage. Till next week for the following update, chapter five
already.