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 12 - What Do We Do Now?
The river rushed onwards, the current dragging their canoe this way and that as the water swirled and turned.
Buffybot looked at her companions, concerned. Xander-dog was crouched down in the bottom of the boat, his ears clamped around his head, and his tail firmly between his legs. Tara was leaning forward in her seat, looking rather green, while Anya seethed in the middle seat, obviously yearning for a chance to hit something with her spear. It didn't look good.
"Ow!" said Tara suddenly. They all looked at her, and she blushed, then delved into her breast pocket and drew out the Willow seeking spell. "Ow!" she said again, and dropped it on the floor of the boat, blowing on her fingers. "Willow's here!" she cried. "Somewhere."
They stared about them, at the yards of boiling brown water, and the distant smudges of greenery on each bank, rushing past on each side.
"We're going to get carried past her!" cried Tara, distressed.
"No you're not!" cried a loud and confident voice from the far bank. Buffybot focussed in rapidly. It was Willow! And there was a nimbus of magic building up around her head, glowing even from this distance. Tara leant forward on her seat, and began to recite a spell. Buffybot blinked. A faint shimmer in the air between the boat and the shore started to resolve itself into a glowing line which thickened and twisted to become a rope, of a rather elegant lavender shade. Tara grabbed it, and wrapped it around her hand and wrist. The rope tautened, and the canoe began to veer, very slightly, towards the tiny figure on the shore. Ooh! Buffybot scrambled up from her seat, and grabbed Tara around the waist, gripping the canoe with her other hand, just as the rope snapped to its full tautness, and Tara was jerked violently forward by the impact of the river, straining to drag them forward against its restraint.
"Everyone hang on to Tara!" Buffybot cried, and after a long difficult moment with Xander-dog clinging to Tara's pant leg, and Anya holding her in a death grip under one armpit, Buffybot was able to release her own grip on Tara's waist and grab for the rope instead. The force was tremendous - but she was the Bot was to manage it! The canoe began to turn in earnest, cutting a deep furrow in the water, and dragging heavily across the current towards the shore. She hung on grimly, as the river tried to rip her in two, and slowly but surely the canoe forged across the current, shipping water heavily as it did so, and towards the shore.
Finally, the canoe came to rest against the bank, and Buffybot sprang out to drag it several feet up into the clinging grey mud, where it wedged with a wet squelch. The lavender rope untangled into wisps of smoke and drifted away on the breeze.
"Wow!" cried Buffybot, springing up on to the riverbank. "That was really, really, exciting!" She beamed. "Hi, Willow!"
"Hi, Bottie." Willow smiled, and then looked past her, concerned, at the other inhabitants of the canoe. "Tara, honey, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Tara stood up shakily, wobbled out of the boat, and sat down heavily on the muddy shore. Willow ran forward, and knelt down beside her, brushing her wet hair back from her forehead and kissing her thoroughly. Then she helped Tara to her feet, and further up the bank to dry land. They settled there with their heads together, murmuring explanations and endearments in turn. Buffybot looked on with approval. Willow and Tara were so cute!
"And I'm fine too, thank you for asking." Anya had stepped out of the canoe with Xander-dog under her arm, and she dragged her way up through the tangled tree roots, to the dry ground. She put Xander-dog down, and he immediately shook himself, from head to foot, scattering drops of river water and crocodile spit in every direction.
"Eew!"
It was Willow. Everyone else was too tired and filthy already to care about another wetting. She looked down at the flecks of foam and wood splinters scattered all over her skirt.
"When did Anya get a puppy? And did she have to get a drooly one?"
"It's Xander," said Buffybot, thrilled to have another chance to explain. "and he's covered in crocodile drool, not puppy drool. It was a really big crocodile, but we dealt with it, you bet!"
Willow blinked, and looked doubtfully at Xander-dog, who was now sniffing at the base of the nearest tree, and absently cocking his leg. "I have a campfire," she said after a moment, "and some coffee boiling." She hugged Tara. "Let's all go have a drink, and you can tell me all about it."
.............
Dawn and Acathla were sitting at the breakfast bar in the Summers kitchen, drinking hot cocoa.
The first chair had given like matchwood under Acathla's enormous weight, pitching him backwards to the floor. Dawn hadn't laughed. She was very pleased about that. Especially when she saw the dent in the floor made by Acathla's backside. He had pulled himself back to his feet, grumbling about shoddy standards of construction, and the disgraceful shortage of decent thrones nowadays, and perched himself on the granite slab work surface instead - which had creaked, but held firm.
Years of conditioning from her mom had then prompted her to offer him a drink, though she could have kicked herself the moment the words were out of her mouth. Suppose he asked for the blood of sacrificial virgins? Or nectar brewed from the stings of a million exotic bees? But she'd struck lucky. Apparently he'd spent his time among the Aztecs before getting petrified, and had developed a taste for cocoa (as well as bloody sacrifices) while he was there. And her mom had insisted on having proper cocoa powder in the house, instead of a hot chocolate instant mix, so everything was cool. She took a sip of her own cocoa, trying not to wince at the bitter taste. Only wimps and degenerates put milk and sugar in it, apparently - Inter-dimensional Keys should have more pride.
She shot a glance at her guest, as he drained his second pint mug. He didn't seem so bad, contrary to reputation. Bossing her about of course, but every adult in the world was determined to do that, and she had her own ways to deal with it. She wondered if she should offer him one of Giles' precious stock of chocolate digestives before the social part of his visit was over and they got down to business.
But no, apparently two pints of cocoa was enough social observance in Acathla's book. He put down his mug, placed his huge hands on his utterly enormous thighs and leaned forward.
"So," he said, his voice thunderous in the small room, "tell me about your plans for an Apocalypse, oh Key."
...............
"Well, your Sorcerer's right about the temporal slips," said Willow, offering around the coffee. "I've only been here eight hours, but they're happening all the time. In fact, I think my spell brought me to just here because there's a natural weak spot, caused by all the mojo. Someone's made a real mess of the space-time fabric - it's as full of holes as my shawl." She pointed illustratively to the rather droopy piece of crochet work she was wearing under her feather boa.
Anya banged her spear impatiently. "So can you tell who is making this mess, or not? Because if you can, it's simple. We just track them down, cut their head off, and tie their body to a tree with their own intestines. The slips stop, and we all go home in a stolen BMW. Job done."
"Why do we tie the body to a tree?" said Buffybot, confused. "If it's dead it can't run away."
Anya sighed. "To make a point, Little Miss Tick-Tock, obviously."
"Well, unfortunately" said Willow, "finding out who's doing it is the difficult bit." She leant forward and began to explain, her hands shaping spells and rituals in the air, as she talked.
Buffybot, sitting on the edge of the discussion, was knitting her brow, confused. How could you make a point out of a headless body? Surely it would be all blunt and slithery? As she cogitated, her eye was caught by a pair of purple long johns, seemingly designed for a giant, which were suspended like a sort of canopy from a nearby tree. She cast a glance at the passionate technical discussions going on between Willow, Tara and Anya, and then wandered over for a closer look, followed by the Xander-dog.
They stood side by side, gazing in wonder at the curious pile of objects gathered under the shade of the long johns. Some were recognisable, if oddly designed. Fabrics, odd sticks of furniture, lumps of brick, something like a 'no parking' sign written in hieroglyphics, and what looked like a broken cuckoo clock, with a little dragon in it instead of a cuckoo. There was even a plastic bone, and Xander-dog leaned forward to give it an exploratory squeeze in his jaws, just to see if it squeaked. It hissed instead, like an angry hive of bees, and he dropped it hurriedly.
The function of some of the other objects in the pile was impossible to guess. Shiny plastic squares, jumbles of electronics, bizarre foam extrusions, and strangely shaped bits of what might or might not have been plastic, lay scattered all around them. Buffybot picked each thing up and stared at it, fascinated. Artefacts from other worlds. How exciting was that!
Willow leaned over her shoulder, and sniffed. "I found all this garbage just by wandering around here for an hour or two. All the live stuff has already scattered, of course."
"Yes!" cried Buffybot, "like the dinosaur, and the monkeys - and the crocodile, I think." She turned to face Willow, excited. "Did Tara tell you about the monkeys, Willow? They have cute little white masks on their faces, and long, long fingers. And they can talk! They're really cool."
Willow patted her shoulder. "They sound really interesting, Bottie. It'll be great meeting them."
Tara came up beside Willow, and slipped an arm round her waist. She stared down at Xander-dog, who had decided the safest thing to do with the hissing bone was to bury it. He was busy excavating a hole, head down, and front paws busy, tail thrashing. "Willow," she said, biting her lip, "we really need to see about turning Xander back into a real boy. He's getting doggier by the minute. I didn't want to risk it, not knowing who turned him that way in the first place, or why - but now we do know ..."
"Yeah, the poor mutt." Willow gazed at the oblivious Xander-dog tenderly. "First order of business when we get back to Giles," she said decisively. "De-furri-fy Xander." She turned to Buffybot. "We need to take off downriver again as soon as everyone's had a rest and a meal, Bottie. Do you think you could make some more paddles for us?"
Buffybot bounced to her feet. "You bet I can!" she cried. "And I'm going to make the canoe better too. With outriggers." And she skipped happily off to the riverbank, her faithful axe already swinging in her hand.
.............
Buffybot was hard at work. She had the paddles carved, and the first outrigger lashed into place. She had stripped the nearby trees of their creeper, using its hairy tendrils to knot together as rope. Darkness had fallen as she worked, but she wasn't bothered. Her night vision showed her a silvery world, full of little flying insects, and fluttering bats, with the occasional large shape of an owl flitting silently by. The river sighed and gurgled, and at the very edge of her super hearing range she could make out the sound of exhausted Scoobies snoring on the bank above. All was peaceful. And now the second outrigger was built, she needed more creeper. She got up, and scratched a hasty 'back soon! BB' into the mud, in case anyone came down to see how she was getting on, then made her way along the shore looking for more creeper. Ah! Here. She bent to pull it away from the tree trunk - and a hand clamped over her mouth, an arm squeezed her in a vice like grip, and she found herself lifted off her feet, and carried impossibly quickly up into the air, by a creature with huge leathery wings that beat powerfully upwards, carrying them both into the sky.
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