Buffybot's Birthday Adventure
RATING: PG-13 for sex.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please, to [email protected]
PAIRINGS: None.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask me first - but I'm going to say yes.
PROPS: Miss Murchison and Chartophile for the beta. Thanks!
SPOILERS: None. This is set pre-season 6.
DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine, but I’m just poking fun.
Chapter 11 - Someone’s Brought Home The Bacon
The remains of the wild boar rested on a spit, set over a fire that had now burned down to a few glowing coals. Exhausted Scoobies lay every which where, greasy hands clasped over their bulging stomachs. Even Spike, who had drained the boar's corpse of blood before the cooking had started, and hadn't held off on the pork chops later either, was lying at rest, belt buckle undone.
Buffybot sat in the branch of a palm tree, twenty or so feet above them, keeping watch. Her night vision revealed a plethora of small shy creatures of the night milling around below, attracted by the smell of meat cooking, but not quite daring to enter the clearing. She could also see the gleam of monkey eyes from the forest canopy, and their shadowed hairy outlines among the branches. She had a feeling the monkeys would be trying roast pork before too long. If they liked it, Buffybot suspected the wild boar in this area were going to be getting a nasty surprise very soon. She mentally flicked through her database of recipes for any dish that incorporated both pork and bananas, but it seemed to be a surprisingly rare combination.
Buffybot was too excited to sleep. Tomorrow Anya was leading an expedition into the forest to find Willow. Tara was coming along of course, and Xander - and Buffybot as well! Anya had told her to cut down a tree and make a log canoe for them all, and while the pig roast had been in progress, Buffybot had gone down to the river with her trusty axe, mentally flicked through the pages of her Wilderness Guide until she found 'canoes', and set to with a will. And although she said it herself, it was a beautiful thing that she had made. She couldn't wait until everyone tried it.
Meanwhile, Mr Giles was going to gather all the items for the Summoning ritual again, and when they got back with Willow they were going to try for not only another jeep, but also some plastic explosives. So everyone was going to be hard at work. Except Spike. Spike said he was going to have a sleep in El Bombero's hammock and keep out of the sun. Buffybot sighed, poor Spike. She knew he must be itching to help, but if he burst into flames he would just be a burden to them all.
She settled back against the tree trunk and waited for the dawn.
.............
Dawn closed her eyes and screamed shrilly.
"Aargh!" cried Acathla. "Don't DO that! I have very sensitive ears, you know." And he clamped his hands over his ears, which were certainly big enough to be sensitive.
Dawn's snapped off the scream in mid-whistle. It seemed the earth hadn't been pulled into a hell dimension after all, which she had certainly been expecting. Though Acathla was breathing, or seemed to be. He took a step forward, claws outstretched. Ah! He was probably going to rip her limb from limb and torture her before he sucked the earth into hell! She opened her mouth to scream again.
"Enough." Acathla made a gesture, and Dawn's mouth closed by itself. She tried to scream nonetheless, but all it did was make her eyes bulge and her ears pop.
Acathla thumped across the living room floor, heavy as an elephant. Floorboards creaked and little rock fragments tinkled to the floor. Acathla's two inch long claws touched Dawn's throat, and then drifted to her chin, which he tilted upwards. He stared into her eyes accusingly.
"You will explain," said Acathla severely, "without the high pitched keening noise you are so fond of, just what an interdimensional Key is doing prancing around in a lower form." His chest swelled and he threw his head back, and shouted, "and Summoning Me From My Rest!"
Several bits of plaster fell from the ceiling, and crashed to the carpet around them. Dawn rolled her eyes, as much as she could with her head tilted back forty five degrees. This guy was such a drama queen.
.............
Hooray! They were off again. Buffybot paddled happily along, powering the canoe with swift sure strokes.
"Look out!"
The canoe ploughed into the riverbank, with a juddering impact, and Tara, who had been the one to shout, fell from her place in the prow, into the river.
Buffybot looked on, concerned. People did seem to be falling in an awful lot! She was pretty sure that wasn't meant to happen.
Anya leant over and hauled Tara back into the canoe, setting it rocking violently. Xander-dog cowered in the bottom. He'd set off standing on the very tip of the boat, barking merrily as they'd pushed out from the shore. The first ducking had inevitably been his, and there'd been several more since.
Anya sent Buffybot a murderous glance. "If Buffybot'd had even the slightest grasp of how to make a stable, steerable log canoe we wouldn't having this trouble."
Tara wrung out the tail of her shirt. "To be fair," she said, "I'm not sure you can make a log canoe either stable or steerable. It's just a log after all. With a proper boat you have a keel to make it stable, and a rudder to make it steerable. Or something. I'm not really up on boats."
Buffybot sat upright, excited. She bet she could make a canoe with a keel, and a rudder and a pointy end, and a square end, just like a proper boat. Just let her at it!
"I think," continued Tara, taking off her shoes, and pouring the water in them over the side. "if the two people paddling can just remember to paddle at the same time, and at the same speed, and with the same amount of force..."
Buffybot wriggled guiltily.
" ...then we should be able to go along quite easily."
"That's what you said last time," snapped Anya. "But Popeye over there," she pointed at Buffybot, "Apparently wasn't listening. She's already cracked one paddle, and the way she's going, the others will be matchwood soon."
Buffybot blushed. She was trying to paddle with the same force as the others - but it was so much fun! Swoop and pull, swoop and pull, water flashing like liquid light from the paddle edge, boat rushing through the water with a roar .... she just couldn't help getting carried away after a few strokes and putting her back into it.
She looked across at Tara, who had given up trying to wring water out of her clothes, and had taken her 'find Willow' spell ball out of her pocket, and was examining it closely to ensure that it had taken no harm from yet another ducking. Poor Tara, wet again! Paddle more carefully, Buffybot, she told herself firmly, and don't look at the pretty swirly patterns the paddle makes. Look at the boring old river bank instead. And so she paddled along, firmly resisting the urge to sprint, as the river grew wider and wider and the banks receded from them, and the individual trees gradually blurred into a solid mass of green in the distance.
Crunch! There was sickening sound of wood breaking. Anya screamed a blood curdling scream, and began to beat at something with her paddle. The water roiled, and the canoe rocked madly. Xander-dog yelped, and ran down the boat towards Buffybot.
"It's a crocodile!" he yelled. "We're being attacked by a huge crocodile!"
Buffybot leapt up, and immediately tripped headlong, fortunately still inside the boat. She scrambled to her feet, kicking Xander-dog in the ribs as she did so.
"Ow!" cried Xander-dog.
"Sorry!" cried Buffybot, hurrying to the front of the canoe. There was a crocodile! It was huge, and it had lovely patterns on its head and back, and it was coming back for another attempt on the canoe.
"Take that!" cried Anya, striking the back of the crocodile with her sheared off paddle. It reared, pulling its shoulders out of the water and snapped its jaws an inch from her left shoulder, then fell back, rocking the canoe violently on its way down. Anya growled with rage. "Give me my spear!" she yelled at Xander-dog, "I'll show the scaly bastard who's boss!"
"Desisto!" cried Tara, and she threw a crackling fireball at the crocodile's head. It struck the crocodile above the eye, just as its jaws opened again, and exploded in a cloud of pink powder. Buffybot jumped forward to thrust her paddle into its open mouth. The crocodile closed its jaws on the paddle with a mighty snap, crunched it in to kindling, drew itself up for a final assault on the boat - and then sneezed, violently, showering the boat and all its inhabitants with splinters, pink powder, and crocodile phlegm. Then it roared, and fell back into the water, turned tail and swam off, tail thrashing and head low in water, sneezing pink powder occasionally as it went.
"Well," said Tara shakily, "that seemed to work. Eventually." She brushed ineffectually at the splintery slime on her blouse.
Everyone sat back down in the canoe, shuddering as they realised just how incredibly lucky they were that it hadn't upset again.
"Do you realise," said Xander-dog, finally, "that I fell into this river four times this morning. That's four times I could have been snapped in two by that monster or its buddies!" He shuddered.
"And do you realise," said Anya, "that we are now drifting down this river, towards who knows what, with no paddles and therefore no way to steer, and a hundred yards of crocodile infested water on either side of us if we decide to abandon ship?"
There was another long silence, then Xander-dog brightened. "Hey! I've got a great idea. Our plucky little Buffybot here can just swim ahead with the tow rope and drag us along! Even if a crocodile does bite her, it'll only break a tooth."
Buffybot blushed. "I'm awfully sorry, Xander," she said uncomfortably, "but you see - I can't swim. Tara's going to teach me, but we haven't had a chance yet."
The log canoe swept on, carried on the roiling brown water, swiftly downstream.
Anya gazed over the side at the murky water, and at the banks rushing by on either side. "Well," she said, "what do we do now?"
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