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 Nine
Now, gentle reader, an astute observer such as yourself will no doubt be asking just why, when in possession of a bazooka, the vampires outside had chosen not to fire into the Magic Box, and immolate all their enemies in one fell swoop? It seems odd, I agree. And it may have occurred to you to wonder why more demons and creatures of the night don’t acquire bazookas, and landmines, and flamethrowers, and cluster bombs and so forth, to obliterate their evil-fighting adversaries from a safe distance and at their leisure.
What had transpired this evening in the streets of downtown Sunnydale goes a long way to explaining just that very thing.
When Spike and Buffy had run out of the shop, staked several of Mr Teeth of the Elasmobranchs family’s vampire henchmen and pursued the sharp suited gentleman down the street, his remaining demon enforcers had brought out the bazooka - and fired it. Sadly, they’d missed Buffy, and the shot had veered left, through a second floor window, and burned out the nest of the gang of Night Crawlers that lived in a warehouse at the end of the street. Debris from the resulting explosion had rained onto the sidewalk below, damaging the paintwork of a black stretch limo belonging to the Demon Freemason’s Association of Sunnydale, who were meeting on the warehouse’s ground floor. As both groups had boiled out into the street, full of fury, a second shot fired towards the fleeing Slayer had whizzed past the angry demons’ ears, singeing tentacles and withering bristles as it went.
With a massed roar of fury, Freemasons and Night Crawlers alike had charged down the street. The vampire bazooka wielders had panicked, and fired into the crowd, setting several of their enemies alight, but slowing the main advance not the slightest. The vampires accordingly had broken and run. Soon, a boiling mass of pissed off demons of various stripes were pursuing bazooka wielders into the night and tearing them limb from limb. At each demon haunt they ran through, the excitement of the chase transmitted itself to the various lurking and bloodthirsty inhabitants, and the fight spread, spectacularly, throughout the demon quarter. In a very short time chaos reigned.
Jonathan, meanwhile, had trailed Buffybot to the Magic Box, seen her encounter with the vampires, and then with Buffy and Spike, as he stood frozen in a doorway, awaiting with terror the moment when Buffy would track him down with her Slayer-sense and lay an accusing Slayer-hand on the shoulder, and demand that he explain himself.
Instead, she and Spike had run off into the darkness, while the Buffybot went into the store. He had pressed himself into a dark corner, discovering too late that someone had previously used it as urinal. But he was too chickenshit to knock at the Magic Box door, and follow the Bot. After a long miserable period of suspense, he had heard the sound of running footsteps, and Buffy and Spike had pelted back down the street, and tumbled into the Magic Box again. As he stood there, staring after them, and still paralysed by indecision, the sounds of what appeared to be a full-blown riot arose behind him.
Jolted into action, he finally stirred from his smelly little refuge and set off, aiming to skirt round the trouble. But this proved difficult. The riot seemed to be raging back and forth and the noise of car alarms, loud angry explosions, and strange banshee screams sounded in every direction. Soon he was shaking, half blinded by smoke, and jumping at his own shadow. He veered off into a dark alley - and stumbled aside as a vampire charged by, carrying his own arm, closely pursued by a screaming banshee character with three heads. Jonathan backed away, trembling - and was grabbed by his collar and dragged backwards into the darkness. He screamed.
“Eeeee....! Mrmph!” cried Jonathan, as he was lifted off his feet, and his air supply was abruptly cut off with an unbreakable head lock. His captor dragged him through a doorway, and down a flight of stone steps - bump, bump, bump - into what appeared to be a basement, and dumped him roughly on his feet again, maintaining a choking hold upon his collar.
Jonathan gagged, and then blinked. Even in his present terrified condition his surroundings were still mind boggling. The two walls facing him were full of floor-to ceiling fish tanks, each tank brightly lit, and containing an assortment of abnormally fat and lazy salmon, gazing out at him with glassy and disinterested eyes.
His invisible captor swung him around 180° and he was staring at an old fashioned kitchen range, with a butcher’s block beside it, and a full set of pots and pans hung neatly from the wall. A few degrees more, and he saw a writing desk, on which sat a closed laptop, and a reading lamp. A few degrees yet further, and he found himself gazing incredulously at a shark in a gangster suit, sitting in an armchair with his head in his fins.
The shark looked up. “All I wanted,” it said plaintively, “was an overdue basket of kittens. Now that’s not too much to ask, is it?”
“Um ... no?” squeaked Jonathan, his mind racing. It would be so much easier to think without the strangulating grip around his neck, but he decided not to mention it.
“Slayers,” said the shark bitterly, “bring nothing but grief. And Slayers hanging out with Vampires ...” He shuddered. “It ain’t natural you know,” he said earnestly. “There should be a law against it.”
Jonathan tried to nod in agreement, but his head was firmly clamped in place.
The shark jumped to his feet, and put his fins in his jacket pockets. He looked around him moodily. “I got a nice little operation here,” he said, “guy wants a loan, they come and see Dr Teeth. Polite friendly service, generous flexible terms and conditions to suit all borrowers’ needs - and extreme penalties for non-payment. It works very nicely.”
“Extreme penalties?” said Jonathan waveringly, and then wished he hadn’t.
“A guy don’t come up with his kittens - he’s food for the fishes.” He indicated the tanks full of lazy fish with an expansive arm. Jonathan’s stomach turned; he’d thought those fish seemed mighty fat!
“And then of course, the fishes is food for me.” The shark pointed to the writing desk sitting alongside his butchers block. “I’m writing a book of recipes,” he said proudly, “it’s called ‘1,000 Ways To Serve a Salmon’. I got to 827, and I was working on 828,” he indicated the kitchen range, and the laptop, “but who knows when I’m gonna have a chance to finish writing it up now, with this damn riot in the streets?”
“Plenty of food for the fishes out dere though, Boss,” rumbled a deep scary voice just behind Jonathan’s ear.
The shark twitched irritably. “It ain’t gonna do us any good, since your dumb buddies decided to chargrill them some Demon Freemasons. We need to get out of town ‘til things calm down - but not without those damn kittens. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.” It looked accusingly at Jonathan. “Now, you,” it said, “are a friend of the Slayer’s.”
“No I’m not!” cried Jonathan. “She thinks I’m a dork!”
“Then why are you carrying one of her axes, and running around the streets with her?” asked the shark accusingly. “We saw you, you know! You’re one of them damn scubas aren’t you?”
“Scoobies,” corrected Jonathan, and then tried to kick himself for being such an idiot. Unfortunately this is hard to do when held up on your toes by a grip on your shirt collar, so he kicked the shin of his invisible captor instead. The grip on his throat tightened abruptly, and Jonathan felt himself turning tomato red.
“Scoobies, scubas - it’s all the same to me,” said the shark. “What I want is kittens.” He kicked moodily at the floor, and then looked up at his sidekick, “Drop him before you break his dumb little neck,” it grumbled.
The grip on Jonathan’s collar abruptly disappeared, and he fell to the floor, gasping and wheezing. He turned, and looked up, to find the biggest vampire he had ever seen scowling down at him - the kind of guy who must have to book two seats on aeroplanes, and buy a truck with really top rate suspension. He trembled.
“Now!” said the shark, and Jonathan turned away from the looming bloodsucker behind him, to face the terrifying sight of a smiling shark. “Pussy here is gonna send the Slayer and her Pet Vampire a little message for me. And you ...” The shark leant in towards Jonathan, his teeth gleaming “... you are gonna stay here, and help me with the fish.”
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