SUMMARY: A time machine appears in Sunnydale. This is a crossover with The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. This is set before Surprise (season 2) for Buffy, and after Rockets of the Dead for SAoJV. A working knowledge of both shows is a plus.
SPOILERS: Anything before Surprise on Buffy, and anything season 1 for SAoJV is fair game. Some minor specifics for Rockets of the Dead, The Cardinal's Design, and The Cardinal's Revenge.
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Neither show belongs to me. Buffy's under the wing of the WB (not for long!), Fox, Joss. SAoJV belongs to Talisman Crest, Promark, and the Sci Fi Channel.
THANKS: Ephian for the Rockets run down.
Phoenix Rising
by Rebecca Carefoot
Buffy heard something move behind a tombstone and grinned, tightening her grip on the stake that lay against her palm. She took silent steps to the large stone monument and pounced with her stake raised. A rather large grey squirrel scurried off into the bushes, and she sighed in disappointment, lowering the stake.
"Slow night?"
"The slowest," she said and turned to see Angel slouching against a tree. "This doesn't even deserve to be called patrol, it's just me scaring small rodent-like animals." She smiled.
"As long as you're scaring someone, I think you're on the right track."
She approached him, tapping the stake absently against her palm. "So what are you doing here?" she asked. "I thought I wasn't going to see you until tomorrow night." She reached Angel and stood beside him. He touched her hair lightly.
"I couldn't wait."
"I'm glad," she said as he lowered his head. She raised herself up on her tip toes, and their lips met. "It's a nice surprise." Their lips met again, and his hand pressed against the small of her back. Her hand slid up his arm and tightened against his shoulder.
An intense flash of light burst against the inside of Buffy's eyes; a sudden loud bang vibrated against her chest. Her eyes popped open, and she pulled away, both she and Angel turning in the direction of the sound. A large metal vehicle, looking something like a squashed train crossed with a psychotic tank hovered a few feet above the road.
"What is that thing?" Buffy said.
"I have no idea," Angel answered. "But it's floating."
"I noticed," Buffy said. "Very not boring."
"We should probably check it out," Angel said. "There may be someone inside."
Buffy nodded distractedly, her eyes still on the mysterious floating object. They moved cautiously toward it. "So what if there are a lot of someones inside?" Buffy said quietly. "And they want to kill us."
"It only looks like maybe 5 people could fit in there comfortably," Angel answered. "A couple more if they squeezed."
"Was that supposed to be comforting?" she asked.
"You were the one complaining about it being a slow night." He touched the side of the vehicle, then pushed hard against it. It remained immobile, humming loudly. He pulled himself up over the railing that stood above the metal base and what looked like a giant whirling corkscrew. Buffy climbed after him, and they stood on a small flat deck area that circled a roughly cylindrical raised room. She looked at Angel.
"It looks like there's a door here." He jerked the handle, and the metal door creaked open. He peered inside, shielding his body slightly behind the side of the doorway.
"Empty," he said, and shrugged his shoulders. They walked inside, and stood in a small room filled with whirring and clanking pipes and engines. A series of levers and large metal controls poked out of a console. Padded seats lined part of the wall. Buffy peeked through a slat to the outside. Angel looked curiously at the controls.
"How did it get here if there's no one to run it?" Buffy said.
"Maybe it operates by remote."
Buffy raised her eyebrow. "Maybe we'd better get out of here," she said.
"Maybe Giles will be able to figure it out," Angel added. They exited the small room, and climbed back down over the side. The vehicle continued to groan and hum.
"We'd better hurry," Angel said. "Before someone else stumbles across it."
"I'll call from the pay phone at Willy's," Buffy said.
*
"So?" Buffy said as Giles peered into a compartment built into the floor where two large glowing rocks spun on rods. "What is it?"
"I can't say exactly," Giles answered.
"Can you say non-exactly?" Buffy asked. Her arms crossed, she leaned against one of the walls.
"Well," Giles began. "The design and the machinery, the mechanisms themselves seem outdated, as if this were built a hundred years ago."
"But there weren't floating machines a hundred years ago," Angel said. "I know this from experience."
"There aren't floating machines now," Xander added from his slouched position on one of the cushioned seats.
Willow glanced over from the controls she was studying, a thoughtful frown on her face. "Some of this looks like it has to do with space/time," she said. "I mean, I'm no expert, but that could be one explanation for these settings."
"And for the non-genius portion of the group, that would mean?" Xander said.
"A time machine," Giles answered.
"Cool!" Buffy said. "Can we take it for a spin?" She grinned.
"Buffy, that would not be wise," Giles chided. "Even ignoring the fact that we don''t know how this machine works, we could seriously alter the fabric of time."
"Yeah, yeah," Buffy said. "I've seen Back to the Future."
"Whatever it is, we've got to get it out of the street," Willow said.
"When I pushed on it, it didn't budge," Angel said.
"Some of these levers look like a steering system," Willow said. She cautiously moved one of the levers, and the machine drifted slightly to the right. "Yep, that's the steering." She gripped the lever more tightly and began to guide the machine toward the graveyard. "Okay, where are we putting this?"
"Maybe we could hide it in the woods," Buffy said.
"Or a warehouse," Angel said.
"Right, because we want to drive this thing across town so everyone has a chance to see it," Xander sneered. He rose from his seat and approached the controls. "Here let me try," he said.
"For heaven's sake, be careful," Giles said.
"Calm down, G-man," Xander said. He jerked the lever a little too hard, and the machine lurched to the side. Giles' hand slipped from the ground into the compartment below him, and knocked into one of the spinning rocks. The machine began to shake and suddenly sped up.
"Oh dear," Giles said.
The world around them became a blur of brilliant streaked light and darkness, and they exchanged a look of helpless horror.
"Fix it!" Buffy urged.
"I don't know how it works," Giles answered.
"Maybe if you just grab the rock," Willow said.
"Yeah, stop if from spinning," Xander agreed.
"But we have no idea what that will do," Angel said. "What if it destroys us or tears this thing apart and we're trapped in..." He looked out through one of the slats. "Wherever we are."
There was an intense flash of light, and the reverberation of a loud bang. The world was stable again, unmoving, and the machine seemed dormant, hovering, but otherwise still.
"Okay, this is good right?" Xander asked.
Buffy and Angel peered out through the slats into the foggy night.
"That depends on your definition of good," Buffy said.
"Well, I count not dead as being good," Xander pointed out.
"Yeah, but Sunnydale's gone," Buffy answered. The others clustered around the remaining slats and pressed their faces close to the openings. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, in a large flat clearing, surrounded by a dense forest of trees.
"Okay so, this is bad," Xander agreed. "But I still say that so far we're doing okay. I don't mean to harp on the not dead thing, but you've got to admit it's a nice feeling." He turned and raised his eyebrow at Angel. "Not that you'd know, dead boy." Angel rolled his eyes.
"Should we stay in here?" Willow asked. "Or go outside?"
"We need to figure out how this blasted machine works," Giles said. "And I very much doubt that's going to happen in here. At least not without a lot of experimenting, which could end up making Xander's point about us not being dead irrelevant."
"So out it is," Buffy said with a nod. She raised her stake. "I'll go first."
"Be my guest," Xander said, waving her ahead.
She opened the door, and poked her head outside. After sensing nothing hostile, she emerged fully, and stood on the deck where the others joined her.
"Seems pretty safe," Buffy said.
"Deserted," Willow added.
"I say, Passpartout," a male voice said in a clipped British accent. "I thought you told me you got rid of that damned machine."
"I did, master," another male voice answered with a thick French accent. "I saw the machine disappear and going poof."
"Well then, what the devil's it doing back here?" the British man asked.
"I am not knowing, master," the Frenchman answered.
"Should we speak to them?" Giles asked quietly.
"You do it," Buffy answered. "Your accent seems to fit in best here."
"They don't seem hostile," Angel said.
"Not yet, anyway," Buffy agreed.
"Hello?" Giles called. "Is someone there?"
"Good Lord, Phileas," a female voice spoke up, her cultured accent matching her British male counterpart. "It seems to have returned with cargo." Buffy pointed silently to two dots of light moving toward them from across the field.
"Who's there?" the man, Phileas, called. "Why've you come?"
"We seem to have accidentally activated this machine," Giles called back. "Can you tell us where we are?"
"You're in England," the woman said.
"And the year?" Giles asked.
"1861," the woman said, her voice and the lights growing nearer.
"1861?" Buffy said.
"How many of you are there?" Phileas called.
"Five," Buffy answered.
The two circles of light reached the side of the machine, and revealed three figures in nightclothes and silk robes. Two men and a woman. One of the men was short, with a thick head of dark curly hair, and a nervous half smile on his face. Tendrils of the woman's long red hair escaped from a half bun to frame a beautiful, curious face, and she seemed confident despite the dishevelment of sleep. The taller of the two men had short iron grey hair, and pointed sideburns that slashed across his narrow cheekbones. He held a cocked pistol aimed up at the deck, and his eyes were narrowed.
"All right," Xander said. "I'm willing to admit this is definitely not good."
continue