Off to Mexico (conc)

Rae leans over at the seat and looks at the general. "Of COURSE we're crazy. How'd you miss that?" She laughs and shakes her head. "By the way, which genes of mine we're you interested in, exactly? The mildly nutso genes, the migraine genes, or the asthma genes? No, really, I've been curious about that..."

The 'Scapers exited the helicopter and allowed it to take off. The General and his pilot headed back towards their domainat top speed. The 'Scapers watched them go with relief. Then they looked at the barrier. This was not an opening in the barrier big enough for cars. There was only a small tunnel that only one person at a time could enter.

Emerging from the end of the tunnel, the 'Scapers found themselves standing at the end of the path leading up to the front door of the Scooby Mansion. As Rae, who was the last in line, stepped out of the mysterious tunnel, it suddenly closed in on itseld and winked out of existence.

Spyral and Rae broke into a jog, and as they entered the doorway, Spyral paused to marvel at the massive foyer, oblivious to the scattered and broken possessions littering the floor of the Scooby mansion.

"Ohhhhh! My wolf," mouse said, picking up what must have once been a beautiful sculpture of a wold standing proudly atop a hill. "What could they have been looking for?" she asked.

out at the longboat Ragnar lay swinging gently in the big hammock he had rigged on deck. One hand behind his head, the other iddly rubbed the golden Jaguar curled up on his chest.

The cleaning crew was busy cleaning up the grotto and ballroom. Some of these Scaper parties were getting really wild. They had strewn debris all the way from the foyer to the longboat this time. Not all the Scapers were even accounted for yet.

"Shall we hit the showers?" Mouse asked. Everyone agreed. Rae led Spyral off to show him around, Kara and Artic headed for the hot tub, Mouse for the biggest tub full of bubbles she could find, leaving 6th with Thor, and a squawking Sweetiepie.

"Ok, let me go tell Mouse." 6th trudged up the stairs, Sweetie on her shoulder, Thor hopping up the steps behind her. She neared the bathroom door, where she could hear water running, and Mouse humming happily.

6th cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted through the door "I"M GOING DOWN TO THE GROTTO WITH SWEETIE AND THOR FOR A MINUTE OR TWO. COME DOWN WHEN YOU"RE DONE!!!"

"OK" Mouse shouted back. 6th trudged back down the stairs, took one of the torches off the wall at the entrance of the grotto and let Thor lead the way down.

*Up there* Thor jumped up and down, indicating that the Jaguar was on Ragnar's boat. 6th looked puzzled, and Sweetiepie took off like a shot, flying up onto the boat. As he disappeared from view, 6th heard him squawk.

"Sweetie!" she shouted, and ran up the gangplank, Thor following. She skidded to a stop so fast at the sight of Ragnar in the hammock with the Jaguar she fell flat on her @$$.

"What are you talking about?" Ragnar jumped up(As well as anyone CAN jump out of a hammock) He grabbed her in a huge bear hug. "Where have you been? I thought you guys went out for the dry cleaning or something! And that was like two weeks ago! You're a mess! What happened to you?"

Ragnar looked over at the golden cat, who was purring and rubbing against Sweetiepie and Thor. "She just showed up here. She looked hungry and I've been trying to figure out what to feed her."

6th proudly showed off her beloved pet to the Viking. "He's my PORTABLE bodyguard. For when the full-sized ones are too infatuated with Claudia to come save me!" she glared at Ragnar for a second, then grinned and winked to let him know she was teasing.

"Hoo boy, is the gang going to be P.O.ed when they realize they could have just stayed put and that Jaguar whould have come to them." 6th grinned. "Come on, I'm starving! How bout we head up and find the others? They'll be happy to see the cat." She slung her arm around Ragnar and they headed up the stairs, running into the gang on the stairs.

Mouse gasped when she saw the Jaguar curled up in Ragnar's arms. Artickat's jaw dropped, and Kara and Rae looked as if they didn't know whether to hug Ragnar or attack him for possibly being the assumed "HIM". Spyral and Ragnar eyed each other.

"Well Spyral," KaraS explained. "This isn't really the Scooby Mansion. This is Farscape Mansion, the Scooby Gang is just a small subset of the larger community of 'Scapers. And not really a very large or important subset. The other groups don't even remember to invite us to their parties sometimes." Kara sighed.

"But that's ok. We go anyway. We're not very formal around here. The Scooby Gang hangs out down in the basement and sub basements. There's even a dock for Ragnar's longboat down there."

"Kara! You're back!" a strange woman holding an oboe rushed up and gave Kara a big hug. "Where did you go? It wasn't the same around here without you to poke fun at SACC."

"Pleased to meet ya Spyral. I've got to go. The house band is holding a rehersal in...." She looked at her watch. "Five minutes ago. Catch you later."

Spyral looked around him in astonishment. The building had looked large from the outside, but the inside seemed even larger. Rooms and hallways branched off seemingly at random. It gave the impression of being inside an Escher painting decorated with dark wood panelling and oriental throwrugs. People were everywhere, doing many odd things both alone and in small groups. Some of the people seemed very strange. Spyral mentioned this.

"Heh, heh." Sweetiepie chuckled. "When HE stole her he had no idea what she was or what she could do. HE thought she was just an ordnary, run-of-the-mill magic, solid gold statue. HE didn't know she could run off on her own."

*The demon was guarding me.* the jaguar explained. *I could not escape from it by myself. But when Raven_Kat killed it I was free to leave. I could have gone away at any time after that. But I could not abandon you after you had risked yourselves to free me. When HE took me in the Nazi stronghold, I thought it best to go with him, least he hurt you. But now you all are safe. I have a journey of my own to complete. It was begun centruies ago but was interrupted when I was captured by the magic of the Aztec priests.*

Kara turned to look at Sixth and the guys to see how Ragnar and Spyral were getting along. Wouldn't you know it. All that danger and the REAL trouble starts when they get home..

one arm with Spyral, and walked him over to Ragnar. She linked her other arm with Ragnar, and smiled into his eyes. "Ragnar, this is Spyral. He's a friend who met us in Mexico, and has proven himself to be immensly helpful to us on our adventure...and Spyral," she said, as she smiled into HIS eyes, "this is Ragnar. He's our resident Viking, longboat captain, and all around wonderful friend."

over cocoa and doughnuts!" Rae suggests cheerfully, leading the men in her life towards the kitchen. "I know how much the two of you love my cocoa and doughnuts!"

a knock is heard at the back door. Rae rushes over, opens the door, "Oh my God! It's Leaped. And just where the frell have you been!? "It's a very, very long story RK, but suffice it to say, I was "hanging out" in Belize, when the NEW local government decided it was time for me to leave. I heard you guys were up this way, and I've never seen Mexico, and you KNOW what chocolate,,,,,,uh, in this case cocoa, does to me! May I come in?"

around Leaped's shoulder and leads the slightly confused adventurer into the mansion. "Um, Leaped?" she said tentatively, "We're back in the SciFi mansion again, now. Remember this place? Where we left you guys? We left Mexico a while ago..." Seeing the uncertainty in his face, she remembers back to when she visited Belize a few years back and deduced that the native have been having a little too much fun with poor Leaped. They have a whole rainforest of hallucinogenic plants and trees, and sometime for fun they’ll try something out on the new guy. Looks like Leaped was their target!

“Let’s get him back down to the basement. The effect will wear off soon.” Sixth and Rae lead the still wobbly , but nonetheless dashing, adventurer down to the basement.

DOH! OK. Time for the leaper to dry out a little. Do me a favor Mouse. Reach into my bag on the table over there, and FLUSH what's left of those little cactus looking things will ya'?? Just out of curiosity,,,,,,what year is this?

as near as I can figure out, it's some time in the 1500's." Rae grins. "Sorry, big guy. It's 2000, now. Where did the time go? Tell you what, though, why don't you let auntie Rae keep all the pretty flowers you found on your trip."

Spyral decides that Ragnar seems to be a likeable enough person. Anyone who can carry and swing that massive sword on his back surely deserves some respect.

As they enter the kitchen to grab some of Raes cocoa, spyral pauses at the door, turns to the Viking, extends his hand and say, "Put er there! Name's Spyral and I am out to earn a new pair of wings, so any good deeds that need to be done, I would appreciate you sending them my way!"

A huge mug of Cocoa in hand. As she set the mug down, Thor leaped up on the table and guzzled the warm chocolate down. His slithery tongue flicked out to lick remnants of cocoa off of his scaly face.

"Yeah well, I named him that partly cause he's a thunder lizard, and partly in honor of a certain person who likes Norse things..." 6th looked pointedly up at the ceiling, while Ragnar chuckled.

"Cause THAT would have been too confusing." 6th sat back down and set one cup of cocoa down in front of Thor, who licked his lips and stuck his muzzle down into the cup, slurping noisily and waving his tail around.

"Don't you think 'Smart-@$$' would have been an odd name for a little dinosaur?" she asked innocently, and the gang laughed. 6th got up and picked up Thor. "I'm going to go take a shower and change. Are we still gonna have a 'Thank God We're Back' party? I've had enough adventuring for oh, at least a week!"

Ragnar chuckled. "Most hotel bills, various charges you gals ran up and oh, I'd avoid the garage staff for a while. Something about a few missing cars....oh yeah and some cabana boy keeps calling...I usually foreward that call to SWORD." The big viking snickered.

And back again. "Not really a problem, big guy," she grinned. "This Trip was paid for by the Company. I'll just forward this to headquarters...and I'm not going down to the garage for a while anyway, and besides, NEXT trip, we're taking your boat!" she stuck her tongue out at Ragnar.

"Thought you'd baffle me? Bills and angry mechanics I'm not worried about. But why forward that cabana boy's call to SWORD? I don't get it! It's not like if SWORD told him where to find us we'd mind or anything. Those 'boys' were so cute! And they waited on US! Why wouldn't we want one of them to come here? It'd be a nice change to have a cute man be us ladies' servant!" she headed for the door, then turned to eye the Viking again. "Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?" she asked, smiling pretily.

Nodding to Ragnar and leaped, Spyral walked back into the main foyer of the mansion. The amount of activity was astonishing. Everywhere people wandered. Some with a seeming purpose, others who seemed like their only purpose was to move from one conversation to another.

Taking another sip of Raes wonderful cocoa, he wandered up the stairs in the direction of the room KaraS had said he could occupy. Opening the door, he looked around at the bare walls and empty floor. Maybe he sould decorate a bit now.

Pulling the pieces from his wing, Spyral assembled a queen sized waterbed (minus the water) Gonna have to find a spigot somewhere. Large dresser filled with jeans, t-shirts and his typical button down shirts (always worn unbuttoned and untucked), computer desk w/computer, nightstand and lava lamp, recliner, and big screen T.V. complete with VCR and built in playstation.

leaned back in his chair until the back of his head came to rest on the wall behind him, stopping, at least for the moment, his backward momentum. "Leaped's the name, adventures the ......EEEEEEIIIIII",,,,SPLUNT! Before he could get the words out of his mouth, the back two legs of his chair skidded out from underneath him, leaving leaped with a bent fedora, and somewhat bruised posterior. A hand reaches up from beneath the table, "Nice to meet ya' Sweetie-pie."

*Now my friends.* she telepathed. *I must go. But I understand that Sweetiepie promissed you wishes if you came to rescue me. So make those wishes now and I will try to grant them.*

*Of that I have no doubt,* the Jaguar responded. *You are a noble creature and I can see by your aura that you have much to do here, with your new friends. Granting you a new set of wings would deny you those experiences and that is something that I would not do,* she smiled. (A good one for a Jaguar too!!! :-))

The air swam as a small portal opened in the air in front of Spyral just long enough for a small silver disk to form then fall into Spyrals outstretched hand.

"Hey Spyral. Does this Golden Jaguar have a name, and does he/she really have to leave? These magical abilities could come in real handy at "those times" that we have shown unwavering talent for getting ourselves into, if you catch my drift. Oh and uh, Sweetie-pie,,,,,I have a wonderful recipe for southern-fried poultry, I would just LOVE to show you". Leaped thinks to himself, "That's what I get for showing a parrot respect. My bad".

A hugs, leather-bound book appears on the table. "Awesome! Thanks." Rae picks up the book and begins leafing through it. "Great! Thanks!" Rae hugs the jaguar and wanders off humming happily.

"And she does have to leave. But she has promised to come back again. And to make sure she does, I'm going to save my wish. Perhaps I'll make it the next time."

"That's the best I can ask for." Mouse agrees. She looks at Leaped and says, "So, have they filled you in on what's what yet? We had quite an adventure." Leaped looks like he is recovering from whatever he was exposed to, much to the delight of the Scapers.

"Good, Cuz I'm gonna need some help with my decorating," he says. I have all my furniture moved in, but my walls and ceiling are bare and I would like some opinions on what to do with them."

I'm surprised you don't already have a room Mouse. But no sweat. All the people on that hallway are really nice. The bathroom's down the hall I'm afraid but there's a sauna and a small hot tub in there so it's ok.

artickat has a puzzled look on her face. "I'm not sure what to wish for..." Slowly a smile begins to form on her face. "Okay...Jaguar I would like to make my wish the same way Mouse did...if that is okay?"

Thanks for the information, Kara and Spyral. I was really looking for a place of my own. Y'know how Americans think it's our God-given right to have at least 3 feet of personal space? Well, I need more like 20! Don't get me wrong, I'm not antisocial, it's just that I need a refuge that's truly my own, with a lock.

I think I'll set up camp there, if no one minds. Wouldn't want to keep anybody awake with my chanting or anything. Gee, it's good to be back on terra firma!

That's where I used to hang-out. The world's most comfortable couch used to be down here, and,,,,,,ALRIGHT! Still is! Leaped takes off his fedora, and "frisbees" it over in the general direction of a nail protruding from a nearby cinder-block wall. The hat hits the wall, missing the nail by a good 2 feet, and slides down into a puddle of stagnant water. "Yep. Still got it! Let's see, there used to be an old pot-belly stove down here to. AH! Now if I could just find some dry wood. ANYBODY DOWN HERE!?.....Down Here?.....down here?

Sweetiepie ducked his head in embarrassment. "I don't expect a wish. I just promised the others one so I could get them to help me rescue you. Having you safe is all that matters."

"Give me a minute." Sweetiepie said. He gave the propositon some thought for a few minutes. "How about inexhaustable wealth, magnetic sexual attraction and a three hundred year life span to enjoy it in?"

*That's a little much. But I have the perfect thing for you. You will know what it is when you find it. Now, where are Thor and Sixth_Sense_Dreamer? I must grant their wishes and then go find Malachi to grant his. Then I can continue on my interrupted journey.*

"Here, let me make you some tea. Let's see, hyssop, chamomile, raspberry..." After a few minutes of mixing, Rae hands Spyral the cup. "Careful, it's hot, but it'll make you feel better. Drink it up and I'll make up a eucalyptus inhalent to clear up your congestion."

Down several halls, around countless corners, up and down many stairs, was 6th's room. You'd need a map to find it in the house, and would walk right past it if you didn't know it was there. The door to her room was labeled 'broom closet'.

First, you'd be amazed that a broom closet could be so BIG. The entrance was a beautiful Japanese water garden. The floor was rock, and there was a nice sunken pond covering most of the floor. Large carp swam lazily around among the water lilies. Ferns, bamboo and large exotic flowers surruonded the pond. Several brass crane statues stood in the water. Fuurin (Wind chimes) hung from the ceiling, chiming softly in the breeze of the AC.

The only way across the pond to the rest of the room was a little wooden, arched, 6-post bridge. After you crossed the bridge, there was a shoji sliding screen. Opening that, there were several steps down into the rest of the room.

Tatami mats were spread across the floor, intermixed in with several large ornate oriential rugs. Several huge Norens hung from the walls, graced with cranes, dragons and tigers. A few apothocary chests sat against the walls. One wall was taken up by a gigantic picture window, with a view of the Dominion forest covered in snow outside. Insense burners, Kiku Ikebana vases, bonsai trees, tabletop fountains and minature rock gardens sat on various rosewood and keyaki wood tables that were spread around the room. Several large pillows lay around the main low table. A beautiful Arita tea set was aranged, the water steaming in the tea pot. Oblong plates with shushi were laid out, and a sake set sat to the side.

Off to the right, up some stairs and through another sliding screen came the sounds of water splashing. 6th was there, in a huge oval hot tub. Steam filled the room, and Soft Oriental music floated through the air. Thor swam in circles around the tub, as 6th lay back and relaxed. *Finally...* she thought, closing her eyes. *Peace, at last* She soaked for a while, and then decided she'd get out before she turned pruney. She got out, dried off, and put on her long black silk Kimono. It was a bit big, and trailed the ground behind her as she swept Thor up in a big fluffy towel and carried him into the main room. She sat down and began feeding Thor sushi. A melodic 'ahem' behind her made her turn and 6th gazed into the golden Jaguar's eyes.

*Hello 6th. I came to tell you that I must be going* the Jaguar explained her quest to 6th. 6th nodded. "Well, if you must go..." she shrugged, smiling, "If you ever need any help, you know where to come."

*Then allow me to give you a gift* the jaguar flicked her tail, and a collar appeared in the air in front of 6th. She took the collar in her hands and examined it. It was black leather and had little silver spikes all around it. a silver tag hung on the front and 6th read the inscription aloud to Thor:

"Well, that would be fine." 6th said. The Jaguar flicked her tail once again, as 6th closed her eyes. She opened them again, and looked around. "What did you give me?" she asked.

*The realization that you already have what you desire most* the jaguar watched 6th think. 6th looked up at the jaguar and they both smiled at each other.

...around until she hears someone calling "Anyone here?" from the basement. Going down the stairs to the basement she finds leaped and he seems to be searching for something.