Sword and Stake Home     Gen/Ensemble Page     Shippy (M/F) Page     Slash (M/M) Page     Short Stories Page
 

 

Snakes on a Plane                                                                       Chapter   1   2   3   4   5   6   8

by spikeNdru

Written for the Snakes on a Plane Challenge.  Any fandom, anything goes, as long as there are snakes on a plane somewhere in the story.

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Genfic, Action/Adventure

Story takes place in the Wishverse

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Chapter Seven

Buffy awakened energized and raring to go.

Son of a bitch! I'm actually gonna pull this one off! she thought as feelings of excitement and satisfaction raced through her body. Won't Quentin Travers and his precious Gwennie be surprised?

Buffy had come to the conclusion that they didn't really expect her to succeed. She was expendable. One dies, another is called. If, against all odds, she did manage to complete the mission, they'd take the credit for their brilliant strategy in coming up with the plan. If she failed, they'd just keep throwing newly-called slayers up against the we-thought-it-was-extinct-but-oops!-it's-not Godzilla demon. Why not? They'd always have 'A' slayer. The individual slayers' lives didn't matter. One dies, another is called. In the meantime, not only slayers, but lots of innocent people would die.

Not if I can help it! Buffy hadn't chosen this life—it had Chosen her. But now that she was the Slayer, she would do her damnedest to do the job well. Quentin and Gwennie might be waging the war against the powers of darkness, but she was the one on the front lines fighting it.

And from now on, I'm gonna do things my way. I don't think I'll be taking any more orders from you, Quentin. You can let me know about dangers that come up, but then you can damn well back off and let me handle things my way.

She'd complete this mission, and the one in Sunnydale that was awaiting her attention, but she'd talk to Quentin first. She had had it with Gwendolyn-Fucking-Post (Mrs.) and her snooty looks and condescending voice. So, she'd lay it out for Quentin—she'd go to Sunnydale as planned, and when she got back, she expected to have a new Watcher. One who respected her and didn't treat her like she was something nasty Gwennie accidentally stepped in. It was a simple as that. I'm done working for Mrs. Post. You can either get me a new Watcher I can work with or . . . Buffy grinned triumphantly. Or I'll quit. I'll fuckin' quit. Just like that. 'Cause I just figured out that you need me a hell of a lot more than I need you.

It was early—the sun had barely risen—but Buffy had a lot to accomplish, so she began to set her plan in motion. She pushed through the jungle looking for just the right trees. It took her nearly an hour to find what she wanted, but she was successful. She returned to the pyramid with two lengths of green sapling, one five feet long and perfectly straight, the other was six and a half feet long and the end branched into a fork. Both were flexible green wood that would bend, rather than break.

She dropped her finds at her campsite and made a hurried trip through the pyramid. She went straight to the first-floor room she had visited yesterday and stared at the frames that showed the way to the rock formation until she had the path firmly fixed in her mind. She then climbed to the second floor and chose an obsidian spearhead. She tucked the spearhead into her waistband at the small of her back as she crawled up the final flight of steep stairs. She gripped the smoothed end of the spearhead in her teeth as she slid through the “pizza box” door and landed in a crouch.

Buffy used her machete to carefully cut a notch in the end of her straight sapling and wedged the smooth end of the blade into the notch. She grinned as the green wood gave when she pulled it back to insert the spearhead, and then snapped back to cradle the obsidian blade.

“Do I know how to pick 'em or what?” she said with satisfaction. “I wonder if the ability to recognize the best wood for the job comes with the territory of slayerness?” Buffy giggled. “Nah. I'm just good!”

She rooted through her aluminum case until she found the silver duct tape. She tightly wrapped the tape around the jointure of wood and blade.

Buffy hefted her spear and balanced it on the palm of her hand. She then knelt on her right knee with her left foot flat on the floor. Her left leg formed a ninety degree angle and she rested the spear on her thigh while she carefully used the machete to cut two inches from the shaft. She stood and balanced the spear on her palm again.

Perfect! She extended her index finger and placed it under the fulcrum. The spear rested on her single finger, perfectly balanced. She gripped the spear in her right hand, which curled unerringly around the balance point.

Buffy pulled the elastic band from the end of her braid and combed her fingers through her hair. She slicked her hands over the front and sides in an attempt to corral the straggling tendrils, and then tightly re-braided her hair. She smeared bug repellent on her face, neck and arms, and clapped her hat on her head. She slid the bullwhip and Beretta through her belt, slung her water bucket over her shoulder, picked up her spear and forked stick and was ready to go.

Buffy climbed down the outside of her pyramid and headed for the cenote. She clipped her water bucket to the rope and dropped it down the well. Buffy took a long drink of the cold water, splashed some on her face and washed her hands.

The jungle heat and humidity, with the addition of the ancient dirt, were wrecking havoc on her complexion. Buffy ran her fingertips lightly over her face and felt two suspicious bumps. They didn't itch like the bug bites did, and she had a horrible feeling she knew what they were.

Zits! I'm getting zits! And I don't even want to think about the amount of dirt embedded in my pores. The Council damn well owes me a complete facial when I get back! Hell, they owe me a whole day at the spa. Ummm . . . at least an hour in the sauna, followed by a body wrap. A full-body massage—arms and legs, too, not just a back massage. Waxing. Shampoo and deep conditioning. And, of course, the facial. It's the least they can do.

Buffy's pleasant fantasies came to an end as she swatted at a bug that had landed on the back of her neck, unerringly finding the one spot she'd missed with the repellent.

Stupid bugs must have radar! Now there's a scary thought. “Why don't you go pick on something your own size?” she grumbled at the bug.

Buffy laughed at the picture that formed in her mind. The scenario began with a group of bugs intently monitoring a screen with a diagram of the human body. A radar-y GPS type thing showed the bugs exactly where she'd missed applying the bug repellent. They zeroed in on the specified target and lined up in formation to attack. But she was ready for them! The scenario ended with her staking the bugs one after another with a toothpick.

“Take that, you tiny bloodsuckers! That'll teach you not to mess with . . . Buffy the Bug Slayer!”

Or . . . she could just cover the vulnerable patch with her nylon strap.

She refilled her water bucket and slipped the strap over her head to hang diagonally across her body with the canvas bucket resting on her left hip. She adjusted the nylon strap so that it covered the section of skin the bug had found so attractive.

Buffy picked up her spear and stick and turned in a slow circle as she searched for the beginning of the path she had seen in the painting. She closed her eyes and opened her intuitive Slayer senses. She felt a tiny zing—a sort of rush of adrenaline—when she faced what she was sure was the proper direction, and then opened her eyes.

The path she had memorized from the frescoes was superimposed over the current jungle in a kind of double vision that Buffy knew she would have no trouble following. Details of the path took up three whole frames of the wall painting. She couldn't even begin to guess how far that would turn out to be in the real world, so she supposed she'd better get started.

Buffy checked once more to make sure she had all of her equipment, and then stepped into the uncleared jungle.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy walked for about three hours, her obsidian spear-blade slicing through the vegetation as if it were butter. Her steel machete would have dulled by this time, but her obsidian blade was still razor-sharp, albeit covered with plant ichor.

She stopped to stretch and unthinkingly used her sleeve—her dirty sleeve—to wipe the sweat from her forehead and eyes. Ohmigod! I'm gonna need daily facials for a month when I get back! Being on her own, out of the overpowering presence of Gwendolyn Post, allowed Buffy to rediscover her own sense of self. And it looks like the essential 'me' is pretty damn shallow. Buffy laughed. I've hardly looked in a mirror for the last two years and I'm suddenly obsessing about facials and spas? What's up with that? But, hey! I just realized I don't feel all depressed any more. I pretty much haven't felt depressed since I've been here. Oooo! Maybe I'll get blonde highlights in my hair, too!

Buffy drank sparingly from her water. She still hadn't seen any above-ground water source, and she had a long walk back to her campsite.

As she continued to push through the vegetation, Buffy noticed a change in the light. For most of her hike the light had been greenish, filtered through the leaves, as if she walked underwater. The light ahead was golden. The greenish tint was gone. She broke through the last of the jungle and found herself in a clearing.

A huge sandstone formation stood before her. It looked like a free-form piece of art. The rock had a sense of flowing, swirling movement—momentarily frozen, as a waterfall in a photograph is frozen for the instant in which the camera records the image. The feeling of movement was intensified by the snakes gliding over the surface of the rock. They moved in and out of the honeycomb of miniature caves, agitated by her arrival. Buffy stood perfectly still, and as the snakes accepted her presence, the disconcerting idea that the rock itself was undulating closer to her gradually ceased.

Upon first glance, the snakes had seemed numerous—their rapid slithering had given the illusion that the whole rock formation was in movement. Now, Buffy could see that their number was only a fraction of the population the rock had supported in the painting. She heaved a sigh of relief that they existed at all. The thought that they were extinct in her time saddened her—even if they were only snakes. She just couldn't picture this wonderful formation bare and lifeless.

These snakes are pretty small. I mean, it's not like those huge pythons or anything. Maybe I can bring back some extras and the Council can breed them and make more? And when there are enough of them, they can be brought back here. But how the hell am I gonna figure out which are the boy snakes and which are the girls so I can take some of each back?

Buffy spun on her heel as she heard a noise behind her. She griped her spear at a slant, with the obsidian head pointing directly at the noise.

A wizened old man stared back at her. His face looked exactly like a doll Aunt Darlene had given her once. The doll's head had been made of a real dried and withered apple and the doll had given her a wiggins so she never played with it. The man's face may have looked like a withered apple, but sharp brown eyes underneath a feathered headband like the Mayan Slayer had worn assessed her with interest and intelligence. The man stared at Buffy, still in her fighting stance with her spear pointed at him and nodded once.

“Asesina de los Vampiros,” he said with another quick nod.

Buffy spoke no Spanish—she'd taken a year of French in school ages ago—but even she could figure out that Asesina de los Vampiros meant Vampire Slayer.

She nodded. “Yeah. I'm the Slayer.”

He nodded in return.

Good that we're kinda on the same page, Buffy thought. Now we both know who I am. Who the hell are you?

The man spoke again. “(Snakes.)”  His arm swept out in a gesture encompassing the jungle surrounding them. “(Jungle. It is called Lacandon.)”

Buffy nodded energetically. Lacandon. That was the type of snake she'd been sent to retrieve. From his gesture, she deduced that this whole area was called 'Lacandon'.

Buffy pointed to herself, then to the snakes. “I need some snakes.”

He held up his index finger and then melted back into the jungle.

Buffy figured that gesture meant either 'Wait right here, I'll be back in a minute' or 'Our team's Number One'. The former seemed much more likely in this particular situation.

In about fifteen minutes, he returned. He handed Buffy a burlap bag.

“(Bag for snakes),”  he said.

She loosened the frayed rope looped around the top of the bag which held it closed. A dozen small green lizards were trapped in the bag.

Buffy looked inquiringly at the old man. He proffered her what looked like a badly worn and much reused plastic tub of margarine.

“(Ointment to make snakes sleepy),”  he explained.

He bowed from the waist, turned and slipped soundlessly back into the jungle.

Buffy lifted the lid of the margarine container he had given her. A small amount of a thick, pale green unguent that smelled sort of crisp and citrusy at first, but with more earthy, woodsy undertones that later predominated, was inside. She thought at first that it might be bug repellent—and it smelled a lot better than the repellent she was currently using—but soon recognized what it must be.

Although the beat-up margarine container the old shaman, or whatever he was, had given her bore no resemblance to the delicate alabaster jar shown in the painting, Buffy just knew their contents were the same. The ointment was to be used to drug the snakes so that she could capture them.

The drug obviously entered the body through the skin, and although it was apparently designed to affect creatures much smaller than she, Buffy didn't think it would be a good idea to get too much on her skin.

She dug in her pockets looking for something she could use. She finally found a compacted wad of tissues that had gotten wet during her swim and then dried into a papier-mâché-type lump. It would have to do.

Buffy sat cross-legged on the ground and reached into the burlap bag. The small lizards were kind of cute, and Buffy felt bad that she was planning to drug them and send them to their deaths. Why couldn't it have been rat-like things like in the picture? she wondered. Or . . . cockroaches. I wouldn't give a damn about sacrificial cockroaches! But she didn't happen to have any rats or cockroaches, so she guessed it would have to be the lizards.

She tamped down her twinge of guilt and rapidly anointed the lizards with the pale green goop. She got as close to the rock formation as she could and upended her bag, releasing the groggy lizards. She then crossed the clearing to the edge of the jungle where she waited. It had to be done, but she didn't actually have to watch.

An hour later, Buffy used her forked stick to scoop up nine of the drugged snakes and deposit them in her bag. She hadn't been watching closely, so she had no idea where the other three had gotten to—or maybe three of the lizards had managed to escape. Buffy decided than nine would be sufficient for her purposes and hoped she'd gotten a mix of males and females, although she couldn't tell the difference.

As she secured the rope around the top of the burlap bag and turned to look for the path that would take her back to her pyramid, the ground beneath her feet began to vibrate.

“Earthquake!” Buffy exclaimed.

The tremors seemed to be coming from the direction in which Buffy had planned to go, so she skirted the rock formation to see what was on the other side. This section of jungle didn't appear to be as dense, and Buffy hoped it might lead to more open ground.

A Southern Californian born and bred, Buffy wanted to put as much distance between herself and the epicenter of the quake as possible. If she could get out into the open, she wouldn't have to worry about trees falling on her and knocking her out.

Swinging her spear before her like a grain-cutting scythe, Buffy pushed through the unknown area of jungle at a run.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Continue to  Chapter Eight

 

Sword and Stake Home     Gen/Ensemble Page     Shippy (M/F) Page     Slash (M/M) Page     Short Stories Page