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 23 - We Really Must Get Home
Buffybot skipped down the jungle path, sack of liquorice root in hand. El Bombero had conjured it with a simple spell, that hadn't ripped a hole in anything. She placed the sack carefully in the canoe, and pushed it off from the bank. She waved. "Here it is, Eulalie!" she called out happily, "and Tempestra says you got all eight badges you went for while she was away. Well done!" She waited a moment, but there was no stirring in the rushing water. She shrugged her shoulders, and turned back to rejoin her friends. Eulalie would have heard all right.
..............
"You'll be making her day," said Giles.
"If not her year," added Tara. “and she’s only a few months old.”
"Are there any more digestives?" asked Spike, who by now was almost
terminally bored.
They were sat around the campfire one last time, drinking tea, while El
Bombero prepared the spell to take them home. Tara, Willow and Tempestra had
been whispering by the fire for the good part of an hour. The monkeys'
curiosity had proved too much for them, and they had gathered around,
watching Tempestra draw mysterious symbol after mysterious symbol in the
sand, as Tara and Willow nodded, and pointed, and made suggestions. As the
simians had drawn closer, Tempestra had insensibly raised her voice,
allowing them to overhear the arcane discussion of patches, sashes, and
badges.
Tempestra looked down at her handiwork, and sighed a wistful sigh. “I do
wonder if I couldn’t have managed Podgy better,” she said. “She was really
quite gratifyingly enthusiastic when I founded the Demon Girl Scouts. But
she would foul her nest, and there was that incident where she ate the Scout
Troop’s pony. She made a very impressive sushi out of it, admittedly - but
snatching up the other girl scouts' portions, and then defecating on their
plates made even the cookery badge impossible to award. I’m afraid it made
her bitter.”
El Bombero limped into the clearing. "I'm ready," he announced. He looked
across at Xander-dog. "and you are my first task." He waved his wand, as
Xander-dog trembled and pressed himself against Anya's thigh, and then
muttered a few words. There was a whoomp, and a rushing sound, and suddenly
there was no longer a small, shaggy, lean looking mongrel to be seen, but
instead a slim young man, resting on his hands and knees.
"Whoa!" said Dawn. "That's a bit more of Xander than I expected to see."
Anya stepped in front of Xander, who had rolled into a defensive crouch.
"There will be no staring at my boyfriend's penis," she said aggressively.
"And that goes for you Spike, as well as Dawn - and anyone else who isn't a
lesbian."
Dawn opened her mouth indignantly, and then closed it again. This was a
no-win argument.
Spike shifted irritably in his tree trunk. "I do not want to look at
Harris's tackle," he said. "It'll just put me off my breakfast, which I am
still hoping to get to sometime today." He looked pointedly at El Bombero.
"Indeed, we need not delay further." El Bombero gestured again, and Xander's
clothes appeared in a pile in front of him. Xander scrabbled quickly into
his pants. "Safer to do those two spells separately,” El Bombero said
cheerfully. "It wouldn't do for the young man to be wearing his pants on the
inside." He turned to Giles, "Now strictly speaking, that transformation
spell for the little dog is another favour, but since you owe me so many
favours already I may let it pass, Ripper old son."
Giles frowned. "I don't think so, somehow, Arturo old boy. I think, between
us, we have paid our debts in full. Willow and Tara sorted out the temporal
rifts, and the dinosaur, which is two favours for a start."
“And Buffybot saved Tempestra from the crocodile’s stomach,” said Tara.
"that's three - unless you don't count saving Tempestra as a favour?"
"Ooh, nice one!" whispered Willow, taking her hand.
Tempestra raised a goddess-like eyebrow in El Bombero's direction, and he
coughed, "Yes, yes of course. For I love her above myself. Naturally." He
rallied, “But still, that leaves at least one favour unredeemed, and anyway
the dinosaur was a joint effort.”
“Acathla saved Tempestra from suffocating under that crocodile,” added Dawn,
thinking back rapidly to the events of the last 24 hours.
Arturo sneered, and folded his arms. “Only after he’d hit her with it to
start with." Acathla scowled.
Xander growled, and then he managed a hoarse word that sounded like "harffy."
Giles looked at him. "Harffy?" His brow cleared, "Oh yes, the harpy.
Buffybot saved you from the harpy, Arturo."
Anya nodded, "With her axe.” She pointed with her spear at the article in
question, which was laid neatly in the clearing awaiting its owner's return.
"That's four."
“Besides,” added Giles, “if you don’t consider the four favours repaid, then
Buffybot has kindly offered to stay around here, while she waits for another
chance to save your life.”
“No!” cried Arturo shuddering, “I barely survived the last time she decided
to save me.”
Giles grinned and winked at Tara and Willow over Arturo’s bowed head. He’d
known that would do the trick. "That's agreed then," he said suavely. "We're
even all round."
"Hang on, Ripper," said Spike, aggrieved. "El Sorcero here kidnapped
us! Well, I don't care about him kidnapping you, actually. But he kidnapped
me. I reckon he still owes me a favour."
"Which he's going to repay," said Giles, speaking slowly and clearly, "by
sending you home in one piece, and not smearing your atoms across space and
time, although he could easily do that."
"Ah," said Spike, subsiding, "well that's all right then."
Everyone looked expectantly at El Bombero, who scowled, and then shrugged.
After all, he thought, with this accident prone bunch on his hands, Giles
was bound to need another favour only too soon. "Very well," he said
finally, "Agreed."
..............
Buffybot skipped into the clearing, a wriggling mass of beetles in her hand.
The monkeys ran to meet her.
Tempestra stood up, holding something behind her back. "Buffybot!"
Buffybot waved with her free hand, as the monkeys picked the beetles from
the other. "Hi everyone!" She dusted her hand off, and joined them at the
fire. "Is it time to go?" She looked back at the monkeys, who were
squabbling over the last few beetles. She was going to miss them.
"Very nearly." Tempestra stood, and put a massive shapely arm around
Buffybot's shoulders, addressing the assembled company. "I founded my Demon
Girl Scout Troop to try and show that not only human girls can be honest and
fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong.
But here is a little Bot who has proved that you don't need to be a girl
scout to be all of those things." Buffybot blushed and wiggled. "From
all the tales you've told me, and what I have seen for myself, Buffybot has
been persistently brave and loyal and resourceful, and her heart has always
been firmly in the right place ..."
"Yes!" agreed Buffybot happily. "It's in my bottom!"
Tempestra blinked, and then forged on, " ...and so," she produced a
certificate and sash from behind her back, "I declare you, Buffybot, an
honorary member of the First Parallel Dimension Oxford Demon Girl Scout
Troop, and I find that you have earned the woodcraft, cooking, foraging,
life saving and outdoor creativity badges, all in the last 24 hours, which
is really quite something." She handed over the sash, and a little pile of
patches to be sewn on to it. "Well done! And keep up the good work."
She began a hearty round of applause, soon picked up by Buffybot's friends,
and as Buffybot tremblingly lifted her sash and put it over her head, and
Spike and Acathla rolled their eyes and wondered how on earth they had found
themselves in the thrall of such a bunch of sentimental saps, El Bombero
waved his wand and spoke the words of power, and the jungle faded away into
the brilliant California sunshine of Revello Drive.
"Wow!" said the Buffybot, blinking hard, "I had no idea birthdays could be
so much fun."
The End
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