Timeline: BtVS: Early seasons & SG-1: After Jack became a General.
Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.
Author's Note: Written for Day 08 of the 2022 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N 2: This is definitely rushed. My apologies. Also, fight scenes are not my thing.

The next morning Buffy woke up early as usual and after her morning ablutions, she decided to go exploring. While none of the people from yesterday had told her to stay in her room, they hadn't exactly given her permission to go snooping around their super secret base either. Which in her mind was as good an invitation as she was ever going to get. Especially as she already knew the big secret, even if she was sorely lacking in details.

Someone somewhere had once told her that if she had to go somewhere she wasn't allowed to be, then the best way not to get caught was to act as if she had a reason to be there. So, rather than skulking around, she decided to just begin walking around the base and see what was there. A few cheerful hello's here and there to the early birds resulted in automatic greetings and a few suspicious looks, but she was pretty certain most of them forgot about her as soon as she was out of eyesight.

An hour later she was bored. There was nothing but grey and drab corridors, a few sleeping quarters, spare closets with nothing interesting in them, and a few offices. There were stairs, however, as it turned out she needed a keycard to use the elevator.

It took some searching, but eventually, she ended up in a gym. Said gym was occupied by a group of soldiers she hadn't seen the day before. She went inside and began stretching while keeping half an eye on the strutting young guys, and, really, could their attempts to show off be more obvious?

Her Slayer-enhanced body didn't really need to stretch beforehand, but she had long since decided that it was better to keep the habit as it caused fewer questions she wasn't allowed to answer. Some of them stared, but most of them tried to be sneaky about it. Not that there was much to see between the BDUs from yesterday and the too-large blue Air Force sweater.

"Any of you up for a sparring match?" Previous attempts at this had taught her to put a small challenge in her voice, just enough to make them want to prove themselves better than her but not enough to seem arrogant. So far, no one had managed to beat her.

A medium-tall man with broad shoulders and nicely shaped biceps accepted, and soon they were on the mat. "Hand-to-hand or sticks?" She thought about it. Giles kept telling her to diversify her fighting skills using different weapons, so...

"Sticks. It's been a while and I'm a little rusty."

He got off the mat and went over to the wall where a rack for practice staffs where situated. He quickly picked two and carried them back to the mat before he threw one of them toward her. She caught it easily and began testing its weight and balance. It was well-worn and whoever was in charge of these things either didn't know or didn't care too much about keeping it in good shape. It wasn't terrible, but if given a choice she would not have picked it.

Buffy spun it a few times from one hand to the other. She hadn't been kidding, it really had been a while since she had practiced this kind of fighting. Giles was good, but he was old and not strong and prone to breaking if she wasn't very careful with her strength and speed. Still, she was game if these people were.

In between some light trash talking while they tested their staff, her first competitor introduced himself as Lieutenant Ustad. The others placed themselves around the mat, far enough away not to be an issue or to be in danger of accidentally getting knocked out.

"Ready?"

"Born ready!"

Over the next few minutes, the only thing that could be heard was the heavy clashes of wood against wood, and their breathing. Long unwieldy weapons weren't really her thing, mainly because of her short stature, but also because she preferred to use her fists. It did help against those with longer arms than her since it stopped them from getting too close and gaining an unfair advantage.

A few minutes later he was looking at her with brown eyes that had narrowed as he failed to overpower her with his sheer manliness. She used her staff to sweep his feet from under him and quickly moved to position one end of her staff against his throat. "I yield," he said in a lightly upset voice.

Half an hour later and she had won against the other three as well. They took it increasingly bad as she dented their male egos. After the last one, she looked them over. They were upset about losing, and clearly looking for payback.

"If you take it this badly losing against me, then how much worse do you make situations on the other side of the gate-thingy?" Inquiring minds wanted to know because this wasn't promising. Or maybe they were too young to have learned yet that they were not always going to win, and that being small didn't necessarily mean they were weak.

"I would advise you to speak carefully, Lt. Alden," a deep pleasant voice intoned. She'd seen him enter, but her sparring partners clearly had not, as they all startled.

"Teal'c," the newly named Lt. Alden stated in a much more respectful tone. The large black demon? alien? merely inclined his head. Alden turned to her, "We don't fight girls," she gave him a stern look, "or women off-world."

Buffy folded her arms underneath her chest, "That's a nice non-answer, but okay. You can leave in a huff now." They glared but left.

She sent a hopeful smile in the man's direction. "Do you want to spar? They were not a challenge at all."

In lieu of a proper answer, he inclined his head again, and said, "Indeed."

An hour later and they were still going. While she was pretty certain she could've taken him if she had needed to, she was having way too much fun to even consider it. That they were both drenched in sweat was just a smelly reminder of that.

Teal'c had just sent her flying against the nearest wall, hello reminder of the demon who sent her to this reality, when a shocked male voice angrily asked, "What's going on here?" As she was a little busy flying through the air and then using the wall as a vertical floor before jumping down to the actual floor, Teal'c answered for both of them.

"We were merely sparring, O'Neill." Maybe he gave lessons in giving deadpan answers like that?

Since she was back on solid ground again, she reinitiated what her sparring partner had already said. "Yup. We were really just sparring, General O'Neill. And we would like to get back to it, so..." She trailed off hoping he would take the hint. He, of course, didn't.

"Go shower and then meet us upstairs. Carter has the results of the search for an alternate you." Then he turned on his heel and left.

Buffy turned concerned eyes on her new friend. "Are we in trouble?"

"We are not. O'Neill is merely concerned for your well-being."

"I'm fine. Actually, I'm better than fine! We need to do that again."

"Indeed, but we must get ready for the debriefing."

She grumbled but left for the showers after Teal'c told her where the women's locker rooms were.