Fic: The Orb Of Mentez (1/1) Revised.

["buffythebushkangaroo" <buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just a bit of fun.

*hug*

Anne-Lise.

--

Giles knocked tentatively on the classroom door.
"I wonder," he asked, "if I could have a quick word with you, Miss 
Summers?"
"Sure!" Buffy threw him a perky grin. "Class!" she commanded as she 
rose from her regulation wooden teacher's chair, "Can I trust you to 
behave yourselves for five little minutes?" She smiled sweetly and 
followed Giles into the corridor.
"What is it?" she demanded as soon as the classroom door was firmly 
shut behind her. "You know what those little bastards are like. 
Give 'em an inch and they take a country..."
"Willow's discovered a nest. She radioed in for backup." Giles said.
"She needs backup? Must be some serious nest." Buffy frowned. Willow 
hadn't requested backup on an operation since she'd discovered how to 
crush a vampire's heart by the power of thought alone.
"Quite so," Giles agreed. "Here's the location." He handed her a 
standard Watcher's Council mission brief. She flipped to page 
sixteen, Operation Parameters and Objectives.
"Giles! This is in Mexico!" Buffy fumed. "What's Willow doing in 
Quintanaroo anyway? You know its our anniversary tomorrow! I was 
looking forward to... unwrapping my present, not having to machete my 
way into the Yucatan to retrieve it!"
Giles removed his horn-rimmed glasses. "She got a lead on the Orb 
of Mentez," he replied as he gave his specs a cursory polish. "She 
thinks its located in the tomb of the High Priest buried within the 
Incan burial ground marked on the map. Page seventeen."
"And you were going to tell me all this... when, exactly?" Buffy 
snarled.
"Focus, Buffy!" Giles ordered. "The Apache will be here in twenty 
minutes, so grab your gear and get ready to roll."
"Yes, boss!" Buffy threw Giles an irreverent salute and ignoring his 
frown of consternation, marched back into her classroom.
"Class! Listen up!" She clapped her hands and called for order. "Mr. 
Giles will be taking you for the remainder of this week. I've got to 
go to Mexico to kick some vampire butt." she explained.
"Wicked!" commented an obnoxious seventh-grader from the third row.
Buffy pressed her hand against the plate set into the wall beside 
the blackboard. A green scan-line glowed briefly against her palm and 
the blackboard rose silently into the ceiling revealing her personal 
armoury and minibar.
Buffy grabbed the standard mission kit, a broad-brimmed hat, a 
machete, her whip, and an ice-chilled can of Mountain Dew. Then she 
sauntered back out into the classroom, palmed the access plate to 
seal away the armoury once more, and left the room to seek out Xander.
As soon as she'd left the room, the obnoxious pest in row three 
muttered, "Cool!"
"Now settle down, Class!" Giles ordered the awe-struck and 
enraptured students. "Josie, get rid of that bubblegum. Michael, I 
saw that! See me after class."

*

Buffy caught up with Xander in the old school hall, where he was 
attempting to teach Physical Education to truculent six-year-olds.
"I really don't care if you think I'm queer," he chanted as he led 
them around the mini-assault course. "Your tuition fees keep me in 
beer! So don't be crude or give me sass... Or my demon lover will 
kick your..."
"Xander?" Buffy called. "Willow's in trouble! We roll in five."
"You heard her, maggots!" Xander roared. "grab your socks and grab 
your... pumps! Lesson over!"
"Yay!" screamed the horde as they scampered wildly about.
"Where're we going?" Xander asked as he followed the Slayer up to 
the school roof. Buffy handed him the mission brief and he skipped to 
page sixteen.
"Do you think they have Taco Bell in the Yucatan?" he asked.
Buffy shrugged.

*

"Where're you gonna set this crate down?" Xander asked as he peered 
out through the gunship's window.
"We're not." The pilot, an ex-marine drafted in for this mission by 
the Watcher's Council, regarded him sternly. "You're parachuting down 
into that clearing over there. Ever done a drop into dense jungle 
before, man? Its harsh."
"Oh, yeah." Xander nodded. "I've racked up field time."
Buffy scanned the thick jungle below. "I don't see any clearing," 
she admitted.
The pilot toggled a switch, and shortly after the jungle lit up 
like the fourth of July.
"Shee-it!" Xander commented. "Nothing like the smell of napalm in 
the morning breeze."
Buffy's mouth firmed. "That area of jungle you just decimated," she 
growled, "contained endangered wildlife, rare trees, and maybe even 
the cure for cancer."
"Fucked if I care," the pilot said, displaying the pinnacle of 
American military training that indicated officer material. "Now 
you've got yourself a landing site."
"My wife cares." Buffy pointed out. "'Cos she's the caring type is 
my Willow. And if I find out you've made her cry with that stunt you 
just pulled... I'm going to come find you, wherever you are, and rip 
you out another asshole."
"Here's your 'chute," Xander smiled cheerfully as he passed her said 
item. "But I should leave that guy's sturdy butt alone. It looks like 
its taken more than enough punishment before now."
The Slayer's face creased into a wide grin. "Thanks, Xander." she 
said as she leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "I can always rely on 
you to keep my feet on the floor."
"And on that note..." Xander turned and stepped out into space.
Buffy shook her head as Xander's "Whee!" dopplered down into the 
jungle below.

*

Buffy made with the machete as she searched for Xander in the 
jungle.
"Up here!" Xander cried. Buffy looked up, and saw Xander hanging 
happily from a tree. 
"Help me down?" he asked.

*

Willow sat in her own little world as she surfed the web on her 
laptop. The jungle held no horrors for her; She'd cast a generic 
protection spell around herself that only the largest of jungle 
mammals could penetrate, and she could hear those coming. In fact, 
she could hear one now.
"Hut, hut, hut, hut, hut..."
She could recognise Xander's voice anywhere. She smiled as the 
voice got closer, and rose to her feet as she recognised Buffy's 
unique whine.
"Why're you shouting 'hut' for?" Buffy moaned.
"Because I'd kill for a pizza!" Xander retorted.
More high-speed undergrowth removal.
"Over here guys!" Willow called, and her smile widened at Buffy's 
leaf-muffled "Yay!"
Xander's head broke through the undergrowth first, Which was 
unfortunate, as it wasn't enough of an initial mass to pass through 
her anti-snake and creepy-thing shield.
*smack*
Xander's body fell into Willow's private clearing as Buffy helped 
him forward with a friendly punt.
"Hi lover!" she said. "Happy anniversary!"
Buffy shared a wistful kiss, followed by a mango that Willow 
offered her from the tree she'd grown with the aid of a little magic.
"Its really beautiful here," Xander noted, sitting with his back to 
a tree-trunk and massaging his sore head.
"Yes," Willow agreed. "It really is. How was your journey?"
"Dull," Buffy described as she chewed on a mango slice. "We had to 
stop for fuel way too many times. Anyway, what's the sitch with this 
vampire nest?"
"Oh that." Willow rolled her eyes. "Nothing I couldn't handle 
really. But I used the excuse for some company. I missed you." She 
leaned over and kissed Buffy again.
"What about me?" Xander asked as he eyed the smoochies. "Didn't you 
miss me too?"
"Well," Willow considered, "an extra pair of hands is always useful."
"That's me!" Xander sighed. "Hands guy."

*

"Behave!" Giles cried to the miserable horde of seventh-grade 
monsters. They ignored him. He wondered, vaguely, how normal 
schoolteachers fared without Slayer strength or the ability to safely 
wield an axe in the classroom. A sudden thought struck him. As did a 
paper aeroplane.
"Field trip!" he shouted. The room went deathly silent. "Let's go to 
the museum!"
Let there be dust, he prayed.
"Boring!" claimed an obnoxious kid in row three.
"Will there be skellytuns?" asked a forthright little girl with a 
button nose.
"I do believe there will be skeletons, yes."
"Dead people?"
"I most certainly hope so." Giles agreed wittily, a dangerous act in 
the company of children.
"Cool!"
"Yay!"
"Yippee!"
"I wanna go weewee!"
Giles' head bounced on the wooden surface of the regulation-issue 
teacher's desk.

*

"So the plan is: we run blindly through the ruins, stake the vamps, 
nick the glowing ball, and dash back out again in time for tacos?" 
Xander concentrated on The Plan.
"That's the size of it," Willow agreed.
"I like it," Buffy claimed. "Simple, straightforward."
"And insane!" Xander cheered up. "This trip could be fun after all!"
Willow picked up her crossbow and posed. "Lock 'n' load," she said.

*

In the darkness, an evil awoke. Only to fall asleep again. No, 
something was upsetting the ancient vampire's sleep. A litany of 
foreign gibberish. Best to just go drain its blood and grab an extra 
century. *yawn*
"This way!" a male voice called out.
"The Incan carvings say, 'Beware all ye who enter within!'" a female 
voice pointed out.
"Yeah, well. All pyramids say things like that, don't they?" another 
female voice queried.
Enough! Grr! Arg! Gah! Ugh!

*

Willow looked at Buffy as the mummified vampire collapsed into 
dust. "They really don't improve with age, you know."
Buffy nodded. "I noticed."
"Look what I fou..." Xander's voice seemed suddenly very far away.
Buffy looked at the dark square hole in the floor.
"Xander's found a hole," she said.
Willow peered down the hole. "Cooee!" she called.
"I'm okay!" came Xander's echoey voice.
"Did you break anything?" Buffy called down the hole.
Xander took stock. "No, I'm okay!"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "I meant the equipment, moron!"

*

Thirty youngsters threshed their way through Sunnydale's once-quiet 
museum, screaming like Banshees. To the untrained eye it seemed like 
the museum was being invaded by Tribbles, albeit with an effect not 
unlike a combine harvester.
"Come back," Giles whispered softly. Then, nodding at a job well 
done, he made his way to the curator's office for a quiet chat and a 
cup of tea.

*

Xander peered about. The light on his mining helmet illuminated 
dusty yellow walls and those silly carvings Willow kept getting all 
excited about. Not that he minded; anything that excited Willow was 
okay by him. He'd never gotten over his schoolboy crushes on the 
Slayer and her partner, and the fact that they were shacked up 
together didn't help his state of mind much either.
"What can you see?" Willow's muffled voice came from above.
"Lots of carvings of stick men doing Michael Jackson routines!" 
Xander shouted back. He grinned in the darkness as he heard Willow's 
excited squeals. "Oh, and there's a glowing football in the arms of 
this gooey dead guy."
A pause.
"Gooey?" Buffy shouted. "What do you mean, gooey?"
Xander considered. "You know. Like... Mostly dead."

*

Buffy looked to Willow. "Levitation spell?"
"I really shouldn't. You know I tend to drop things when I'm tired."
"Just me, then. If Xander can survive the fall, hell, I could 
probably jump down there and not feel it." Buffy gave her love a 
squeeze as she began to chant. Then her feet left the floor by an 
inch and she hovered above the hole.

*

Buffy was halfway to terra firma when Willow lost her mental hold 
and she plummeted the last fifteen feet.
"Ouch!" she cried, although she wasn't really hurt.
"Eek!" Willow shone her torch vaguely into the darkness. "Are you 
okay?"
"No problem!" The Slayer shouted back. "I landed on Xander! Jump 
down... I'll catch you."
"Promise?" Willow replied. "I still remember the last time!"
Buffy nodded. Then felt silly because it was too dark to 
notice. "Yes, I promise."
"Hey you," Buffy smiled as the witch landed snugly in her arms.
"Do you think," Xander asked from underneath the kissing pair, "you 
could stop standing on me?"
"Oh!" Buffy obliged, hopping off. "Sorry!"
Xander groaned.

*

The obnoxious kid from row three stared at the Incan relics. 'Rod 
of Velious' one item proclaimed itself to be. This being Sunnydale, 
there was very little security for such an ancient and mystical item. 
The little bastard nabbed it and stuffed it into his trouser pocket.

*

"Is it alive?" Willow asked staring at the accurately-described 
gooey dead person.
Buffy gave her well-worn Mr. Pointy a spin, then thrust it through 
where the heart should be. Nothing happened, except for a slightly 
embarrassing 'squelch'.
"Shouldn't think so," she said.
Xander peered closer. There was something about the dead mummy's 
face, something... he leaned closer.
The eyes on the mummy snapped open and it said, "Waurgh!"
Xander replied in kind, and back-pedalled at supersonic velocity. 
Buffy made with the kicking.
"Do you think," Buffy huffed as she executed a reverse spin-
kick, "you could give me a hand here guys?"
Willow snapped out of her dreamy expression. She loved watching 
Buffy work. "What do you need?"
"Something pointy, sharp, acidic, deadly... Oof..." Buffy took a 
fist to her stomach that doubled her over. Willow took a hand-axe 
from Xander's trembling fingers and threw it on the floor in front of 
Buffy. The Slayer snatched it up and dismembered the mummy into many 
little gooey pieces. Then she stamped on the pieces for good measure, 
in case the religious guys of the ancient Incas'd seen Terminator 2.
"Sorted," she said.
Willow picked up the Orb of Mentez and juggled it. "Ooh! Ah! Hot! 
Hot!"
Xander, in a rare flash of insight and intelligence, opened a 
canvas sack for Willow to drop the ball into.
"Job done? Let's get out of here!" Buffy took the lead and stared up 
at the hole thirty feet above their heads. "Willow..."
"No way, Buffy. There's just no way. I'm too tired."
"Damn girl, we should have thought to drop a rope down." Buffy 
considered their next move. Then rapidly changed all her options when 
she heard, in unison, from around a half-dozen throats, "Waurgh!"

*

Now, the average intelligence of a dead person having been locked 
in the earth for a few thousand years isn't that great. Especially as 
these were dead priests. (A simple job with no heavy lifting.) So 
waking up from a rather long sleep to find a small man hiding behind 
a girl holding so much weaponry that she *bristled* (Buffy had spent 
the last ten years learning various forms of martial arts and 
weaponry but unfortunately forgotten to specialise), and a red-headed 
goddess with liquid-black pools for eyes hovering a few inches off 
the ground, they gave the expected reaction.
<flee!>
<run away!>

*

Buffy looked at Willow, who slumped to the floor exhausted.
"What was all that about?" she asked.
"No idea." Willow considered shrugging but wrote it off as too much 
work. "Lemme slee..."
Buffy gave Xander a radiant smile as Willow started to 
snore. "She's so cute when she sleeps," she said. "I think that's how 
I first fell in love with her."
Xander straightened up. "Have they gone?"
"I don't know. I hope so. Its possible they've gone to get 
reinforcements." Buffy stared thoughtfully up at the dimming hole 
above their heads. "Any ideas on how we get out of here?"
Xander frowned. "How high can you jump?"
"Not *that* high!" Buffy threw him a sardonic stare.
Xander grinned. "What about if you were standing on my shoulders, 
and I was standing on, say, that statue over there?"
Buffy followed his gaze, then looked back up at the hole. "Maybe," 
she said. Another thought struck her. "How much do you weigh?"

*

The girl stared at the obnoxious kid.
"My mommy says that obnoxious little creeps like you always get 
their come-uppance!" she said.
"Your mommy's a freak," the boy retorted. He stamped his foot 
petulantly and this seemed to cause a strange reaction from the rod 
in his pocket. (The girl, predictably, back-pedalled and fled.) The 
Rod of Velious heated up, burning its way through the young boy's 
clothing and scorched his leg before they both disappeared into a 
swirling portal.
>From the shadows, a gleeful young voice said, "See, I told you so!"

*

A faint breeze swirled the dust idly around the dark square hole in 
the floor. The dust was disturbed further by a Slayer-strength-
propelled Xander as he popped up like a scary jack-in-the-box and 
landed with a thump.
"Are you okay up there?" Buffy called.
"Yeah, I'm good. I just landed on my head." Xander groaned and 
rubbed at his sore spot for a moment.
"Don't just lie there, throw us down a rope!" called Buffy, mistress 
of mercy.
"Okay, okay. I'm on it."

*

Dawn offered Giles a cuppa. "So what happened next?"
Giles took a sip. "Well, she said the young boy fell into a vortex 
and vanished."
"Oh." Dawn shrugged and offered Rupert a biscuit.
Giles accepted it and gave it a gentle dunk. "It would've been 
useful if weird shit like this didn't happen around your daughter 
*all* the time... We might have found out something was amiss 
earlier."
Dawn nodded. "She's headstrong, like her father."
Giles coughed. "How is Jonathon?"
"He's fine. He's still in training in England." Dawn giggled. "Watch 
out, he may want your job soon!" She threw Giles an evil grin.
"If he wants the teaching role, he can have it," Giles 
muttered. "Little bastards!"
"The other job, silly." Dawn rolled her eyes, looking for a moment 
*so* much like her big sis.
"I know," Giles said with a sigh. "I know."

*

Buffy shimmied up the rope with Willow draped around her neck like 
a fur stole. Albeit a stole that snored. Xander helped her up out of 
the hole.
"What now?" he asked.
"Let's block the hole." Buffy looked around for something to do the 
job. Xander pushed a likely statue over which fell through the hole.
"Doesn't fit," he shrugged. A pitiful 'wuargh!' from below related 
to the pair how unappreciated large random objects being dropped 
through the hole were. Buffy managed to push over a bigger statue, 
which neatly blocked the hole and hammered two of the escaping 
mummies back down into the darkness below.
"Kinda reminds me of that weird mallet game Japanese businessmen 
play," Xander mused.
"So long as they don't start popping up all over the place," Buffy 
said. "There aren't enough statues left. Besides, Willow'd kill me if 
we desecrate *another* tomb..."
"I will?" Willow mumbled, coming around. Buffy set her gently down.
"You've only been out for ten minutes, love." Buffy kissed her semi-
conscious partner. "Don't make with any magic or you'll get yourself 
hurt."
"I'll be good," Willow meeked.
"Sorry to interrupt you two," said an unapologetic Xander, "but we 
really ought to move... Look!"
Xander waved his torch in the general direction of a rapidly 
approaching darkness. A darkness caused by lots of little scurrying 
creatures.
"Brachypelma amelia!" Willow said, cheerfully.
"Tell me they're not dangerous!" Xander panicked.
"Only if you don't get bitten. They're tarantulas." Willow 
blinked. "Where'd Xander go? Eek!"
Willow felt herself going from vertical to horizontal as Buffy 
grabbed her clothes, in passing, and accelerated after Xander.

*

"Welcome to pain, welcome to misery! Bwahahahaha! What do you have 
to say for yourself, you miserable little wretch?"
"Are those horns for real?" asked Colin, the obnoxious kid from row 
three.
"These?" the demons eyes flicked upwards. "Of course they're real!"
"Wow. Cool!"

*

"We should be safe now," Buffy claimed.
"Yeah?" Xander's eyes bugged. "We're lost in the dark in the middle 
of the jungle. We're being hunted down by undead mummies... and a 
horde of repulsive eight-legged monstrosities that want to eat our 
flesh..." He trailed off as Buffy continued to point to towards the 
neon light of civilisation.
"A McDonalds? Here?" Xander took the lead once more.
"Order me a veggieburger!" Willow cried out after the Xander-shaped 
hole in the undergrowth.

*

The McDonalds was spotless. Okay, it was still the crass over-
commercialised red plastic we all know and hate, but it was 
*spotless* crass red plastic. The manager, an acne-ridden moron of 
indeterminable age, looked up in surprise from his laminated Playboy 
(wipe carefully after use) as Xander burst in. He was followed in by 
a bedraggled Slayer, with a blissfully happy Willow carried piggy-
back behind her. He thumbed through the customer manual.
"Can I take your order please?" he asked.
"I'll have... Whatever this can buy!" Xander claimed, throwing down 
enough American currency to buy most of Quintanaroo. (The exchange 
rate had continued to slip massively over the last decade.)
"I'll have a veggieburger!" Willow repeated as she slipped quietly 
to the floor and stood behind Xander. She reflected on how, even in 
the middle of the jungle in a remote and isolated part of the world, 
she still had to queue for a veggieburger. And she *knew* there 
wouldn't be one ready when she got to the front.
"Can we use your phone?" Buffy asked.

*

"Good lord!" Giles said as he hung up the phone. "They found the 
orb!" he started to excitedly clean his glasses.
"That's nice," Dawn dutifully applied the tea-towel to Giles' cup as 
he put the biscuits away. Domestic life was suiting her very well. 
Especially as she'd failed almost every course at school by not 
actually attending for very long. "What does it do?"
Giles blinked. He'd not actually considered this question.
"I have no idea," he said.

*

"Eek!" Willow frowned as she felt her backpack growning 
exceptionally hot.
Buffy hung up the phone and came over to her. "What's wrong?"
Willow shook her head and opened her backpack. She took out the 
small canvas bag that held the Orb, and opened it. The Orb rolled out 
of the bag like a lava marble and sank a half-inch into the tatty 
linoleum, where it smouldered.
"That looks hot," Buffy offered.
The Orb glowed blinding-white.

*

Willow frowned (although many would say she had no choice in the 
matter) as reality re-asserted itself. She was back in the world of 
whips and chains. She could once more ride people like ponies! What 
fun!
Suddenly that damn white-hat Oz grabbed her by the shoulder and 
started pushing her backwards. How dare he! How...
The world turned blinding-white.
When she could see once more, she took stock of the crass plastic 
furniture and the scoobs lying unconscious on the floor. She 
recognised them, of course. But they were old. Well, older. The way 
mortals get if you leave them alone for awhile.
She considered what to do.
"Let's make this world more fun," she said. She looked down at the 
older, mortal version of herself. Oh... This would be *so* much fun!

*

The End.