Buffybot in Tabula Rasa
PAIRING: None
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Very welcome, to [email protected]
BETA: Miss Murchison - thanks!
SETTING: This fic is set during the events of 'Tabula Rasa' in BtVS Series 6, when the Scoobies temporarily lose their memories. I've twiddled with the time sequence in the episode a tiny bit, but just call it artistic licence.
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Joss. I’m borrowing, and I promise to put them all back in reasonably good condition, and only slightly used.
NOTE: This story is a sequel to Buffybot Behind Bars!, but it can perfectly well be read as a stand-alone.
SCENE: A house in Sunnydale
Chapter Eleven
Buffybot lurched along the street, sword in hand, and closely followed by Tara, Willow, Xander and Dawn, all travelling in a tightly bunched knot, as the five of them made their way to Revello Drive. She was feeling much better about Jonathan, now Buffy and Spike were on their way to rescue him. And she was thrilled that she had a really important job - guarding the other guys from vampires, until they could work out a counter spell to defeat the evil Sorcerer! It was a pity of course that Anya had insisted that she and Giles stay in the Magic Box. Buffybot would have liked to have everyone under her protection. But still, that trapdoor entrance did need guarding, she saw Anya's point! She gripped her sword more firmly, and stuck out her lower lip - just let an evil creature of the night try anything - she’d show it, by golly!
Tara, who had been gazing at Buffybot out of the corner of her eye, mistook the narrowed eyes and tight lipped expression for discomfort. "So, how did your leg get run over?" she said, gazing with pained sympathy at Buffybot's disconcertingly strange feet as they padded along.
Buffybot turned and gave her a bright smile. "It was Biker Demons! They dismembered me, then they ran me over!"
“Demons dismembered you?” said Tara, feeling upset.
“With chains attached to motorbikes!” said Buffybot. “I doubt they could have done it any other way.” She flexed her little bicep proudly, “I’m very strong.”
Willow and Tara exchanged a glance. “And then they ran you over with a motorbike?” said Willow, suddenly feeling much less keen on their demon-defying scheme than she had back in the relative safety of the Magic Box.
“Well, bits of me,” said Buffybot, striving to be accurate. She looked around at her friends. Willow and Tara were both looking greenish, while Dawn and Xander were gazing at her in morbid fascination. “But it’s quite all right,” she said, grabbing her left forearm in her right hand and giving it a playful tug. Everyone flinched. Buffybot giggled, and waggled her left hand merrily. “Jonathan put me all back together again, see?” She used her immaculately articulated limb to point to an intersection. “Nearly there!”
Willow glanced curiously around her as they turned the corner into Revello Drive. It looked pretty nice. So, we all live in one house?” she asked. “Except Xander, that is. Buffy, and Dawn, and me and Tara?”
Buffybot grinned at Willow, “And me! Well, at least before I got broken. You used to service me regularly, and you put a really neat cell phone in my head!" She turned to Tara, “and you’re teaching me Reflexology, and the History of the Novel!”
Unseen behind her, Dawn shuddered. The Summers household sounded like some nightmare version of a womyn's commune, crossed with Dr Frankenstein's laboratory.
Xander saw the shudder. "Hey, at least you don't live in your parent's basement, and fail to hold down even a minimum wage job," he said bitterly.
Ahead of them, Buffybot hunched her shoulders. She had tried to put a positive gloss on that part, but Xander’s questions had made it kinda hard. She sped up, and took the corner at a rather reckless pace. There was an ugly crunching sound as her hip seized up yet again, and she clattered on to the sidewalk.
“Lara!”
Buffybot blinked and looked upward in the sun. Tara’s worried face loomed over her, quickly joined by those of Willow, Xander and Dawn. She managed a bright if rather embarrassed smile. “Just a little mechanical difficulty!” she said. “Um, perhaps you could pick me up?”
The Scoobies looked around them nervously. Any lurking demons, currently holding back out of fear of the Slayer, might just make a rush at them now.
Xander leaned down and wrestled Buffybot to her feet. She was far heavier than she looked, and he felt an ominous ping in his lower back before she got her right foot under her, and bounced upright.
“Time to look for my eighteen piece right angled wrench set,” she said brightly, “this way!” And then she tangled her right foot with her inactive left-right foot, and toppled over again.
..........
Buffy and Spike ran lightly down the street, swords and crossbows in hand. There had been a surprising, and frankly slightly disappointing, lack of opposition when they had broken out of the back door of the Magic Box, and performed a stealthy pincer movement on the shop front. But clearly there had been plenty of action previously. Burnt cars littered the street, and several misshapen bodies lay carelessly scattered among dented garbage cans and impromptu weapons like bricks and pieces of railing.
They had given the pre-arranged signal, and Buffybot had led her party out of the shop and away to Revello Drive, to the witches’ stash of spells and spell books. Spike meanwhile was backtracking along the distinctive scent trail (ash, blood, and strangely enough, salmon) left by Pussy Contralto when he had first approached the shop. It was leading them north, through a scarred and blackened urban landscape, full of broken windows, burning tyres, and the occasional spray of green, blue and purple demon blood.
As they reached a particularly dark and forbidding alley, Spike gave an exclamation. “There’s a fresh human scent here!”
“Is it Jonathan?” cried Buffy excitedly.
Spike raised an eyebrow. “It’s male, and he smells tired, sweaty and terrified. But then what human wouldn’t if they were running about in this lot?” He waved vaguely at the wreckage around them, then stepped into the alley, sniffing the air. “Aha! This is where the Pussy met the person.” He cast about him, and took several confident steps forward, only to stop abruptly, confronted by a closed and bolted door.
Buffy took a deep breath. “Right!” she said confidently. “Let’s kick it down and go get Jonathan!”
..........
‘Big’ Pussy Contralto was mad.
It had occurred to him, a little late, that his note hadn't actually told Spike and the Slayer chick where to take the kittens, so he'd come back with a new message, this time taped to a crankshaft. (Actually, though he didn't realise it, the crankshaft from the black limo belonging to the Sunnydale Freemasons - which now lay scattered in a hundred pieces, among the bloodied corpses of the many Freemasons who had perished defending it.) He had drawn back his arm to throw, and then noticed a white sheet of A4 paper taped to the closed Magic Box shutters, with FAO Mr B P Contralto in large black print at the top.
He had drawn cautiously closer, squinting in the moonlight, and made out the following message:
Dear Mr Contralto
The Slayer and the kitten guy have left. Please go and vandalize some other property elsewhere.
Signed,
Miss A Jenkins
(Proprietor)
With an infuriated growl, Pussy slung the crankshaft into the window of the shop next door, and pounded off down the street, to report to Dr Teeth. There were times he really, really hated the kitten loan enforcement business.
"He's gone!" said Anya in a satisfied tone. "I knew that note would do it." She and Giles were pressed together, perched precariously on a stool, and peering out into the street through a gap in the damaged shutters.
Giles stepped off the stool, and scratched his head. “Amazing, really,” he said, perplexed. “Why did Mr Contralto just believe what you said in the note? And why did he obey you, and throw that metal thingie at the shop next door, instead of here? It’s uncanny.”
Anya gave him a smug smile. “If it’s written down it must be right,” she said triumphantly, “to the simple minded, anyway. And let’s face it, our kitty friend is no genius.”
Giles looked at the double headed axe he had rested against the counter (his first defence tactic) and the clear path he had made to the cellar trapdoor (his second, much more realistic defence tactic). He cleared his throat, listening to his racing heart slowly calm in his chest. Anya’s hand slipped slyly across the front of his thighs and he felt his heart rapidly pick up pace again.
“So,” said Anya, pressing meaningfully against him, “what shall we do while all those hero types save the day?”
Giles coughed. “We’re here to guard the trapdoor, are we not? Prevent an assault from the rear ...”
Anya wriggled her ass. “I quite like the idea of an assault from the rear,” she said, catching Giles’ gaze and ensnaring it effortlessly.
Just for once, the turbo-charged 4 litre Rolls Royce engine that was Rupert Giles’ brain seized, coughed and stopped working, as all the blood fuelling it descended rapidly into his tweed trousers. He grabbed Anya around the waist, flung her over his shoulder, and headed for the cellar.
Anya bobbed uncomfortably along, a smug grin stretched right across her face. Gods, she loved a good ravaging!
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