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 Six
Meanwhile, back at the Magic Box, things hadn’t been going well. There had been more bunnies, and demons, and green ectoplasm - and finally a very nasty little argument over a one way plane ticket. However, Love (and the practical application of scientific research methods) had found a way, and now Rupert and Anya were enjoying a very extensive kiss that had somehow come to involve a certain amount of disarrangement of clothing, and entanglement of limbs.
So, all in all, neither of them could be said to be very happy when the metal shutter to the Magic Box window was once again thrust aside, and Joan and Randy tumbled into the room.
Anya jumped to her feet, and buttoned her blouse hurriedly, while Rupert pulled his jacket into his lap.
“What on earth are you doing back here?” said Anya peevishly. Super heroes, she felt, should be out battling Evil, and averting Apocalypses - not breaking into shops where respectable shop owners were enjoying a little rest and relaxation with their fiancés.
“Vampires!” gasped Randy, flattening himself against the wall of the shop.
“Vampires just like you,” said Joan pointedly.
Randy threw a indignant glance at her. “Evil vampires,” he said, “not like me at all.”
“You’re a vampire?!” cried Rupert, hurriedly rushing to the drawer behind the counter.
Randy heaved a long suffering
sigh, “As I have already explained to Joan, I must be a noble vampire. A
good vampire, with a soul.”
Rupert had reached the drawer now, and drew out a crucifix. He ran back, and brandished it in Randy’s face, pushing Anya behind him.
Randy hissed, and his face transformed. Rupert gave a little yelp, and skipped back a pace, allowing Anya to rest an appreciate hand on his butt. She smiled - now here was a proper gentleman! Ready to put his body between her precious self and danger. She wondered how long it would take to turf out the tiresome twosome, and get down to some serious bump and grind.
“It’s okay, Mr Giles,” said Joan, staring moodily at her nails. She was going to break one with this stake wielding, and vampire tossing stuff, she was sure of it. “He really is a good vampire, even if that is kinda lame.”
“Ah,” said Rupert, suddenly feeling rather self conscious. He put the crucifix in his pocket, and coughed. Anya immediately slipped her arms around his waist, and a slightly dopey grin spread across his features.
Randy coughed, too. Should a good vampire hiss when confronted with a crucifix? He couldn’t be sure, and it was worrying him. “We had to return, when demonic reinforcements arrived,” he said earnestly, his face settling back into its human form. “We fought long and hard, and overcame many enemies, but were finally overset when our adversaries brought a new weapon to bear upon the field of battle.”
Joan rolled her eyes. She’d thought Randy was going to be kinda fun, but boy did he go on once he opened his dumb yappy mouth. Even when he was all bumpy!
“Cut a long story short, they’ve got a bazooka.” she said.
... ... ... ....
The intrepid hero gang was making its intrepid way along the main sewer tunnel, glancing wide eyed about and behind them, jumping at the rustling of rats, and the gurgling of pipes. Buffybot strode along jauntily at their head, mentally picturing herself in shorts and a singlet, running up walls, and jumping on to ledges. “This is the way!” she declared, striking out confidently down a side turning, her sword gleaming in the surprisingly well-lit sewers of Sunnydale.
Her fearless super hero companions scurried after her, trying at the same time to keep close enough that she could protect them with her sword, if another savage vampire jumped out at them, and yet far enough away that she couldn’t accidentally behead them with a careless backhand.
With a quick, nervous glance up the latest dark corridor, Tara moved up beside Buffybot - on her left, swordless, side - and cleared her throat, shyly. “So, Lara,” she said, “have you killed lots of vampires?”
Buffybot gave a pleased little wiggle, Tara had called her Lara! So much cooler than Buffybot, or Bottie. She began to wonder seriously if she couldn’t keep the name forever. “I’ve killed gazillions of them,” she said proudly, “but not as many as Buffy of course!”
“Buffy?” said Tara, “who’s Buffy?”
Buffybot put her hand to her mouth guiltily - she’d Gone Out Of Character! “Joan, I mean,” she said quickly. “She’s the Real Slayer! But, to be fair - I have made way more sandwiches than her.”
Tara looked at her doubtfully. Perhaps ‘sandwiches’ was Slayer talk for diced and sliced demons, or something? She gazed down at Buffybot’s bare, and rather grubby, feet, wondering if it would be tactful to ask about her lack of footwear. Then she looked again - something here was wrong, terribly wrong. She gave Buffybot a weak smile, moved back to join the group behind her, and slipped a hand through Willow’s arm.
... ... ... ... ...
“A bazooka!” yelled Anya, letting go of Rupert abruptly, and marching up to Joan. “A bazooka, and you brought them here?” She gestured wildly at the crowded shelves around her. “Do you have any idea what kind of damage a bazooka could do to this shop?” she said rhetorically. “Oh, oh, but of course you do, super hero vampire slayer that you are! You just don’t think it matters, is that it? Is it?” She grabbed Joan by the collar and spat the last few words in her face.
“Um, Anya,” said Rupert tentatively. “perhaps manhandling a Slayer is not the wisest ...”
Joan’s push sent Anya skidding backwards. She crashed against Rupert and they went down in a tangle of limbs.
“Sorry!” said Joan. “Reflex! I guess I need to remember my super hero superstrength.”
She stepped over and offered the fallen couple a hand up. After a visible hesitation, Rupert took the offered assistance, and rose rather stiffly to his feet.
“That was quite uncalled for, young woman,” he said. “I am sorry to see that no one has seen fit to teach you the proper manners and restraint to go along with your super strengths and skills.”
Anya leapt to her feet unaided and scowled. "Bully!" she said accusingly. "I bet we're all really sick of you pushing us around."
Randy broke the somewhat awkward pause that followed with a little cough. “We are, in any case, just passing through,” he said. “Since the route above ground is blocked, we must take to the sewers. It appears to be the only safe way.”
At that moment, there was tremendous crash from the cellar below them. Anya clutched Rupert’s arm nervously, and Randy went bumpy again, on sheer reflex.
... ... ... ... ...
“Here we are!” Buffybot came to halt, and looked up at a trapdoor high above her. She handed her sword to Alex, took a prodigious leap, and dangled from a convenient water pipe running along the ceiling. With a merry “hup, hup!” she swung herself upwards and head butted the trapdoor, which flew off its hinges and upwards into the darkness. There was a loud crash as the dislodged wooden slab hit the cellar wall above. Meanwhile, clouds of splinters, dirt and rust fell through the hole onto the upturned faces of her companions below. They scattered in every direction coughing and spluttering helplessly. Buffybot swung again, up and through the opening, to land in the cellar above. It was a good thing she had seen Trapeze 28 times!
She looked around her at the familiar storeroom, currently filled with billowing clouds of dust. This was the place all right.
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