The Perk, Tuesday Evening

[cantgetnorelief]

Some days, Anders just couldn't get the Synthetron to work with him, and there was something innately traumatizing about getting a cup of grape Jell-O instead of coffee. Plus he was out of coffee grounds, which ruled out the traditional old boring coffeemaker.

Thus, standing in line at the Perk, staring up at the menu board and being racked with the horrible indecision of not being able to even narrow his options down to a baker's dozen. If there was any sign left of earlier rampaging that had gone on in here, he hadn't noticed in his half-dazed cheerful state.





Johnny needed a cup of coffee. Possibly two. When he walked into the Perk he was not prepared to have to wait in line. "Maaan," he complained, walking up to stand behind Anders.



Anders had narrowed his choices down to three, now, but seeing who was in line behind him, he decided to dither over those three for a while.

"Storm," he said with grudging civility. "Good coffee takes time, y'know."



"Anders," Johnny replied, folding his arms across his chest. "Apparently. But I'm thinking you just need to hurry the hell up and decide. Or? You can move out of the way and let me go first since it would seem I'm not so fickle with the decision making."



Anders raised an eyebrow skeptically. "You're not, are you? See, personally, I'd rather take my time, decide for sure I really want the drink I'm gonna commit to, instead of deciding maybe I should've gone for a different one about five sips in."



Johnny eyed Anders. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Though, yeah, Johnny knew exactly what Anders was getting at.



And that was when the monkey scampered through the door, the board game tucked under his arm. He jumped up on top of the counter and started to raid the biscotti jar.

The barista pulled off his apron and tossed it on the counter. "That's it, this place is too weird. I'm out of here."



Isabel brushed past the barista as he made his way out the door. "Anyone see a ...there you are! Come here Cheetah, you've got something I want."



"Give that back!" Charlie called toward the monkey, then threw a Danish at it. Then used her telekinesis to send a second after the first. "C'mon, food! You want food! You don't want a board game! You can't even read the instructions!"



Peter came in after her. "Sure we can't let the monkey finish the game?"



And then came Wyatt. "C'mon, give it up!" he said, lunging and trying to grab the monkey.



The monkey threw a danish at Wyatt.



Bridge follows Wyatt into the Perk. "I don't know if reasoning with the monkey is going to work."

Says the person who attempted to reason with the lion.



"Hey!" Anders yelled from his place in line -- not that there was much of a line left at this point. "Hands off the upside-down apple cinnamon rolls, all of you!"



"Okay, now tell me the monkey's not funny?" Xander said, diving for the danish it had lobbed in Wyatt's direction.



Johnny stood there looking sort of dazed. "Hey, I didn't know there was a zoo here. Cool." He kind of liked that the monkey threw a danish at Curly over there. That made his day.



Isabel shook her head, amused that even in the midst of the chaos, certain people still had their priorities in order. Namely, food.

Pulling the bracelet she'd been wearing off her wrist, she held it out to the monkey. "You want to trade don't you? Look, it's shiny!"



The monkey eyed the bracelet for a moment then snatched it out of Isabel's hand. Dropping the board, he scampered into the back room of the Perk.



Grabbing the board before the monkey could change his mind, Isabel held it out to Charlie. "You're up. Let's try and finish this."



Charlie snatched the dice and threw them at the table. "Let's get this over with."



Charlie's piece moved. But it wasn't enough.

"Don't be fooled. It isn't thunder. Staying put would be a blunder"



A low rumble sounded from the back room of the Perk, getting louder by the minute.



Charlie whirled around, and took a step back. "Oh, my, god..."



"Not good. This is not going to be good." Isabel edged over towards the far wall, hoping it was far enough out of the way of whatever was coming next.



A horde of zebras stampeded out of the back room, rushing through and overturning everything in their path before heading out the front door.



The zebras were followed by two unhappy rhinos and a really pissed off elephant.

They charged through the Perk, aiming towards escape which happened to be through the plate glass window in the front of the shop.

They didn't care who was in their way.



"No!" Anders howled as a case of pastries went flying. "I told you not to touch the upside-down apple cinnamon rolls!"

Then, a second later . . .

"What the frak an elephant?!?"



Xander dove out of the way, fast enough to avoid getting trampled, but... not fast enough to avoid the flying pastries.

Catching a glimpse of himself in an unbroken pane of glass, he sighed and reached up to dislodge the sticky-bun that had landed in his hair.



Peter dove out of the way when he saw the animals coming. "I don't even wanna guess what the town's looking like right now."



But not far enough as a rather cranky rhino swerved towards him.



"Dude, look out!" Wyatt yelled. He dove on top of Peter, shielding him with his body and then his actual shield as the blue light flared around them. The rhino bounced off the shield, staggered dizzily in confusion, then charged in another direction.



"Thanks," Peter said. "I'll have to see if I can borrow that shield sometime."



"Okay! Okay! Wait a minute!" He was half in awe of the animals stampeding through the Perk and half in awe (though he would never admit it) of Wyatt's shielding ability. Sue would be impressed.

"Flame on! I swear to God they come near me, we're having roast beef for dinner!"



That wouldn't be a problem. The zebras shied away and charged out the front of the store.



Charlie collapsed limply down at a booth. "Wow. Whoa. Whew."



It wasn't enough.

Isabel's lion slowly moved forward and stopped, a few spaces before the end.

Beware the ground on which you stand, the floor is quicker than the sand.



Isabel shrieked as the floor beneath her suddenly gave way and she found herself up to her chin in gooey quicksand.



"Isabel!" Wyatt yelled, reaching for her.



She never thought those episodes of Man Vs. Wild would actually come in handy.

First thing, don't panic.

"I'm okay," Isabel promised. "Just go! You're close enough you might actually be able to win this!"



Wyatt was reluctant to turn away from Isabel while she was trapped in the quicksand, but he knew the only way to make this all end was to finish the damn game. He turned to the game board, scowling, and grabbed the dice and tossed them on the board.



He needed a six to win. The dice totaled seven.

There is a lesson you will learn: sometimes you must go back a turn.

Wyatt's game piece slid backwards one square as the quicksand around Isabel turned back to floor.

Except she was still stuck in it.



"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Isabel muttered. "Stupid game."



"This is not helping," Wyatt said with another glare at the board. "You okay? Does it hurt?" Maybe he could orb her out. . . .



"I'm okay. Except if we get another stampede through here I'm going to wind up as a road pizza," she replied as she tried to pull her arm out. "This sucks."



"Not if I can help it," Wyatt said, crouching down beside Isabel. His shield had deflected one stampeding animal, and hopefully it would protect them both if anything charged their way. "Whose turn is it now?"



"Thanks," Isabel said, hoping like hell that the game would end soon. "Peter's up now. Maybe we'll get lucky."



"We won't now that you've jinxed it," Peter teased. He took the dice and gave a roll.



Isabel had jinxed it. It wasn't enough. Peter's piece moved forward.

Need a hand? Why, you just wait. We'll help you out, we each have eight.



A large spider suddenly dropped from the ceiling. Several more followed.



"Hopefully nobody here's arachnophobic," Peter said.



The first spider landed on the floor and scuttled towards Peter.



Peter tried scaring it off with a burst of flame.

He didn't want to get too crazy with those. They were indoors and he didn't want to set the building on fire.



It backed off for a moment, then scurried closer as soon as the flame disappeared.



That wasn't going to work then. Peter TKed a few chairs over, trying to use them as a barrier between him and the spider.



The spider demonstrated exactly how nimble he was by getting over the chairs in record time.



Xander raised a hand. "I speak Spider. Kind of? I mean, it's been a while." Also he wasn't a big fan of the whole several part. He scraped the back of his mind for the whispery, arm-twitchy language. //Uh, hi. We...come in peace?//



The spider could care less. He was hungry. The tall creature had a danish. Dinner and dessert! He scuttled forward.



Peter gave Xander a sympathetic look. "It was a nice try?"



"...Okay, so maybe I'm a little rusty." Regretfully and with a small, mournful sigh, Xander trhew the danish at it as he scrambled back.



The spider jumped on the danish and started to wrap it in webbing.



"I salute you, brave pastry, but better you than me."



"Oh my god! Come on! You've got to be kidding me!" For a second or more, Johnny forgot he had the ability to torch any living, or unliving, thing. He tried to scramble away from the one that was eyeballing him.



The spider scurried faster and tried to run up Johnny's leg.



"Aaaaaa! Holy hell!" Johnny was jumping around cause if there was one thing he hated, it was freaking spiders. He couldn't think. "Get away from me you eight-legged freak!"



The spider tried to web Johnny's leg to the floor.



Johnny was squeaking like a girl and before he realized it, his foot was stuck to the floor. In a web. In a huge web by a huge spider with fuzzy-- "Wait. Oh my god! Flame on!" Johnny lit up and torched the sucker, sending fireballs at a couple of its friends that were getting too close. "Ah-ha! Crispy critters just took on a whole new meaning!"



Wisely most of the other spiders decided to stay away from the campfire.



Wisely Johnny kept himself lit up. Better to be safe than sorry.

"Stupid alien spiders," he muttered, because he knew they had to be from another world. Or something.



"What the frak," Anders said, staring at the falling arachnids. "There are . . . what the frak."

He was trying not to panic, but unfortunately the only thing he could think of right now was how Phoebe had told him Piper had been bitten by a spider and gotten really sick and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.



One of the spiders looking to get away from Johnny's flames ran towards Anders.



"Oh, hell no," Anders blurted out, kicking instinctively at the spider as he dug into his pocket and . . . pulled out his metal yo-yo.



The spider flew backwards but it wasn't knocked out. Instead it got pissed. It charged back towards Anders.



With a quick flick of his wrist, Anders sent the yo-yo spinning out at the spider. He'd taken out a major demon (temporarily, at least) with a rock to the head. This wouldn't be as bad, right?

. . . right?



The yo-yo hit the spider dead on, causing it's legs to collapse under it. After a moment, the spider tried to stumble to it's feet before it started to aimlessly wander in circles.



And that caused Anders to start snickering -- completely letting his guard down.



Which the spider landing on his shoulder took advantage of.



Anders yelped and swatted at his shoulder. "No! No weird bitey hospitalization for me!"



The spider hung on tenaciously.



"Motherfrakker!" Anders grabbed a sugar jar off the counter and started swatting at the spider with it, granules flying everywhere and occasional yelps coming from him as he missed the spider and hit himself in the collarbone.



The sugar was tasty and the spider decided to chase after the granules that dropped on the floor. It would probably be easier to avoid feet then the jar that kept bopping him on the head.



The spider was dealing with a Pyramid player, though -- Anders lobbed the sugar jar at it, hard.

Unfortunately it didn't quite fly the same way a ball would, and his aim might have been off.



It didn't hit him directly. But like horseshoes, it was close enough to count. The spider scurried away.



Bridge's hand reaches for his sidearm... which, of course, isn't actually there. Looking around for something else to use as a weapon, he scrambles to grab a nearby chair and hurl it at a spider.



The spider dodged out of the way and continued to advance towards Bridge.



"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Bridge grumbles, picking up a broken chair leg and brandishing it like a club at the spider.



Rearing up the spider tried to shoot webbing at Bridge's feet.



"Gah!" Bridge jumps backwards to avoid the webbing... and slams into a wall. "Mental note. Walls are not always your friend."



Now that Bridge was cornered, the spider moved in to try again.



Still clinging to the chair leg, Bridge swings it at the spider once again.



Bridge should consider a career in the major leagues. The swing connected and the spider went flying to land in a crumpled heap across the room.



Wyatt had a vague memory that his mother was afraid of spiders. Therefore, spiders were evil and must be destroyed. He TK'd the one nearest to him, trying to squish it.



It wasn't squished. But it was stunned enough not to be a problem anymore. Too bad there are a bunch more to take its place.



"Oh, come on," Wyatt said, using his TK to knock the other spiders around. He backed up, trying to find an open space, then called out, "Excalibur!"

He did wince a little at the though of using a sacred sword to kill spiders.



They were big spiders. Basset hound sized spiders. With sharp fangs and beady eyes.

One dropped from the ceiling right over Wyatt's head.



Wyatt caught the movement and arced the sword up, slicing at the spider. He tried to keep one eye on Isabel to make sure she didn't get overrun.



Sliced spider went flying.

Two others moved towards where Isabel was trapped in the floor.



"Help? Please?" Isabel called. She managed to TK one but couldn't reach the other the way she was pinned in the floor.



"Get away from her, you bitch! Oh, I don't think so," Wyatt snapped at the spiders. He clenched his fist, squeezing the spider skittering toward Isabel with his power.



Pop!

The spider suddenly popped just like someone had squeezed him.

Spider guts went flying.



Sadly Isabel was in the line of fire.

"Thank you. But can I just say ewww?" Wrinkling her nose she tried to wipe the smelly stuff away with her free hand.



Wyatt winced. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't know they'd be so messy."



"It's okay. I think them attempting to chew on my face would be messier," she told him. "So I'll just deal till I can get to a shower if this game ever ends."

"Charlie! It's your turn!"



Charlie grabbed the dice, and rolled with her TK, hoping not touching them would increase her luck. "C'mon, something good!"



The dice totaled eight. Unfortunately Charlie needed a seven to win. Her piece stayed put.

You're almost there with much at stake, but now the ground begins to quake.

The ground started to shake.



"Not more of them! We just did this!" Charlie said, thinking it was another stampede.



"I'm thinking earthquake," Peter said, given the clue. "Any doorways around we can stand in?"



Charlie looked at the semi-wrecked doorways from the stampede and the last few incursions, then weakly said, "There's ta-bbbblleess---" As the ground shook even harder, and she over-balanced, nearly landing on her butt.



Anders had grabbed a handful of biscotti from the jar the monkey had raided and was holding them like makeshift throwing knives, only to drop them all when the ground started making like the bed in -- yeah, okay, anyway. It was shaking.

"Right, because things weren't already weird enough . . ."



"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Charlie couldn't help feeling responsible, and said, "If I'd known what to roll for, I would have TK'd the dice!"



"Dude, it's a good thing you *didn't*," Bridge looks at Charlie wide-eyed. "That would have been even *worse*, trust me."



Xander had grabbed hold of the nearest semi-stable object, which happened to be an overturned countertop. "Have I mentioned how much I really. don't. love earthquakes?" he said to anybody who was listening. Possibly the spiders.



"Oh come on! What now?" Johnny couldn't fight the shaking ground with fire. This was totally sucking. "This has got to be somebody's fault!" And he was totally not glaring at Wyatt. Totally not.



And Wyatt was totally not giving Johnny a "bitch, please" look in return.



"Dude," Johnny said, hands in the air. "Stop with the TK stuff already."



"I'm not doing it! It's the game!" Wyatt said.



He waved his hands around his head. "It's gotta be your hair, dude. Bet it's like... radioactive or something."



"Yeah, right," Wyatt said. "Radioactive? You're the one who's flaming."



Johnny cocked his head. "Jealous much?"



Earthquakes were not fun. Earthquakes were particularly not fun when you were stuck in the floor as it was happening.

"Guys!" Isabel called. "If you could stop with the macho posturing maybe someone could get me the dice and I can roll to end this? Please?"



Wyatt rolled his eyes at Johnny and snatched up the dice from the board. He crouched down beside Isabel and pressed the dice into her hand, deliberately not rolling them to her. "If this doesn't work, I'm going to try to orb you out of there," he said.



"I'm won't have a problem with that." Closing her eyes and silently pleading with whatever benevolent deity might be listening. Isabel tossed the dice.



Johnny smirked and folded his arms across his chest. "I'd fly you out Isabel... you know... if I could."



Isabel shot him a look that warned of sharp objects in his future then turned her attention back to the board.



Isabel's lion slid forward to land in the final spot.

"Oh thank god," she muttered before calling out "JUMANJI!"

And that's when things got really interesting.

The shaking stopped. The few spiders still scuttling about the room froze then slowly started to disintegrate their dust picked up as the wind picked up, swirling into a vortex that disappeared into the glass at the center of the game board.

One of the few remaining windows in the Perk burst as an elephant was sucked back through it, only to be swallowed up by the game.



"What in the hell..." Johnny stood rooted to the floor, thinking that was one bad ass game. And the elephant sort of traumatized him.



"Aww, man," Anders said with a grimace. "The price of a latte's gonna, like, triple."



"I kinda feel bad for the elephant," Peter admitted.



"Can we get rid of that thing now?" Wyatt said, eyeing the game board. "Kill it with fire? Orb it to Antarctica?"



"Hopefully before it sucks us in too?" Xander suggested nervously. Not that he had town-gets-sucked-into-a-big-hole issues or anything...



Charlie sat down on the floor, and just stared around. "Okay, that was intense. Isabel? Next time we find something that doesn't have a visible speaker... can we just leave it alone?"



Isabel slowly got to her feet, grateful to no longer be part of the floor. She ducked as a random ostrich flew past. "Absolutely. Anymore? I want fancy electronic stuff."



"Yeah, and I'm gonna volunteer Bridge's Aura Reading Service if you ever randomly find something like this again." Bridge pipes up.



"I promise, the next mysterious game we find? I'll definitely take you up on it," Isabel told him, shaking her head at the whole situation.



The vortex continued - A monkey, the mosquitoes, a still dazed lion. All swirled around to disappear down into the game.

The damage done to the Perk and throughout the town by the rampaging animals all reversed itself.

With a flash of green light, the vortex disappeared and everything, right down to the upside down apple cinnamon rolls, was back to normal.

It was over.



"The cinnamon rolls!" Anders blurted out in relief. "They're okay! Thank frak . . . okay, okay, what the hell just happened here?"



"Fandom weirdness manifested itself as a board game," Isabel told him as she walked over to stand with Wyatt. "We had to finish playing to make it all end.



"You okay?" Wyatt said, looking Isabel over as he took her hand. He glanced over at Anders. "You're weird," he said.



"I'm fine. Although I really, really, really want a shower." The quicksand and spider guts had disappeared. But the thought of it was still enough to make Isabel wrinkle her nose. "But before I do that, you mentioned something about Antarctica?"



"I don't want to know what this game would do with penguins," Peter said.



"They're only on the coast and a bit inland," she pointed out. "I'm thinking way far inland."



"Good, 'cause you don't want the fate of penguins on your conscience. That would suck." Anders started giving Wyatt a slightly suspicious look. "Obviously you've never tried those cinnamon rolls."



"I think I should torch the game and then let Anders buy us all cinnamon rolls," Johnny said, totally serious.



"Oh, like I'm buying you anything," Anders shot back.



"What, you'll kiss me but not buy me a roll?" Johnny smirked at Anders then watched Wyatt deal with the game.



"Let me see if I can do this," Wyatt said, eyeing the game. "Game!" he called, and the board turned into a cloud of blue-white orbs. "Antarctica," he said, waving his hand, and the orbs zoomed up and out through the ceiling.



"Thank you," Isabel said, squeezing his hand. "Hopefully we'll never see it again."



"Remind me not to get you Civilization for Christmas," Wyatt teased. "There's no telling what you'll unleash."



"I think I'm going to just avoid rummage sales for the foreseeable future. No more bargain hunting for me," she laughed. "I guess after that I owe everyone a coffee?"



"I wouldn't turn that down," Xander said. He rubbed at his hair again and made a face. "But no sticky buns."

[OOC: NFI, Pre-played with a whole bunch of people. OOC comments more then welcome. We now return you to your wackiness free Perk.]