They hit the ground and immediately rolled out of the way of a sword swing. A freaking sword. Virgil grumbled to himself, yanking Alan to his feet and clumsily dancing out of the way of large claws and screaming monsters. His thigh throbbed and ached at the movement, but Virgil ignored it as adrenaline surged through him. "Sorry!" a voice called off to the right and the monster in front of him literally exploded. "Buff! We've got civilians dropping out of the sky here!"
Monsters. Literal monsters with claws and fangs and tentacles. And why couldn't they ever just fall into a world that was nice and uneventful?
"Out of the sky?" A female voice called back. "Oh, just die will you?!" she screamed and there was a rather inhuman screech.
A man slid to a stop in front of them, ax in hand and eyepatch on his face. He gave the two of them a once over, frowning a little as he then looked to the chaos that surrounded them. "You're not from around here, are you," he said. Not asked, but actually said. And he didn't sound too bothered by it, either.
"Not really, no," Alan answered, a little wide eyed. He ducked some claws and that ax soared over his head to impact with a monster skull.
"Didn't pick your landing spot?" the man asked. He seemed rather calm for the situation, all told.
"No," Virgil grunted, pulling a young girl out of the way of another monster that had come up behind her. She gave him a startled thanks and then jumped back into the fray, hands filled with very sharp blades.
"Huh." The man shrugged it off. "We can talk about it in a minute. Just need to clean this mess up. Apocalypse season and all." Alan and Virgil exchanged wide-eyed befuddled looks but allowed themselves to be shuffled off to the sidelines.
The fact that there was a small group of injured on said sidelines just meant that they got busy treating them while waiting for whatever this mess was to be cleaned up. It was when Virgil was tying off yet another bandage over claw marks that thankfully weren't too deep that the man with the eyepatch appeared again.
Upon closer look, the man had to be around his own age. Maybe Scott's, but that might have been pushing it a little. "Hey thanks!" the guy said. "You didn't need to do that," he added with a grin to the girl that Virgil had been helping. They were mostly girls, actually, all teenagers. Alan, at his side with another walking wounded, glanced at him.
"It's kind of what we do," Virgil responded calmly. Without the screaming of monsters, which had died off moments ago, it was much easier to focus on helping the injured. Screaming always made things more tense.
"What? Drop into crisis situations and administer first aid?" The man's eyebrows had risen a bit with incredulity, although his tone was still humorous. He slung the ax over his shoulder, shifting his weight a bit.
"Well…yes, actually," Alan said thoughtfully. "Not like…this. Usually. But yeah."
"Huh," the man grunted, sounding a little impressed. "Name's Xander. What's yours?"
"Virgil and Alan Tracy," Virgil said, wiping his hands off and getting to his feet. He cast his brown gaze over the dark field, narrowing slightly at the sight of all the young ladies wandering about, but decided not to judge. Kayo would kick his behind to kingdom come if he said anything that could be thought of as even slightly misogynistic.
"Where you from?" Xander asked, glancing about. He gave a nod and a thumbs up to a blond woman not too far away. Tracy was a familiar name, but he couldn't remember why at the moment.
"Originally or…?" Alan trailed off with a huff.
Xander grinned. "Oh, I like you," he said. "Just a guess but you're not from this world?" At their nods, a bit relieved that he seemed to be grasping the situation without any problem, he shrugged a bit. "Yeah, okay. Visiting, passing through or looking for a new place to stay?" he asked, turning on his heel and motioning them to follow.
"Passing through," Virgil grunted, throwing his duffle bag back over his shoulder. He missed his baldric but had to admit that it couldn't hold everything that they needed now.
"Need help getting home?" Xander asked.
"Nah," Alan said, glancing down at his arm bracer. "We have it covered, but HEMERA needs to recharge." Xander gave a nod, bending to pick up a spear that was lodged through the chest of a monster. He kicked the corpse off the weapon and paused to check over a few of the girls that were lingering in the…cemetery? Why were they in a cemetery on what looked like the night before a full moon?
"Alright!" Xander called, his voice sounding rather authoritative. "Pack it up guys! We have another one tomorrow!" He turned to the two brothers, shrugging. "You're welcome to come with us. I figure you have a way to move on to wherever you're going?"
"We do," Alan commented, watching as the girls all started cleaning up their weapons and wandering out of the cemetery. "She just needs to recharge and she can do that on her own."
"Cool." Xander waved them forward and they headed off down the street. A few of the girls broke off, in very obvious groups and patterns. Xander saw the confused look of the two Tracys and shot them a grin. "They're just patrolling for vampires. I take it your world doesn't have those?"
"No," Virgil grunted, giving a sigh. Of course this world had vampires to go with their monsters. "Our world doesn't. You don't seem very surprised by the world-traveling bit, though."
Xander shrugged. "Not the first travelers we've seen." He glanced around, ever vigilant. "Multi-verse travelers are always much easier to deal with than hell-world travelers."
"I'm not sure I want to ask about that," Virgil responded.
Xander laughed, but it sounded tired. "Short version. Cleveland holds a portal to hell. Some girls here are given the powers and abilities needed to stop the things on the other side of the portal from coming through. Also, vampires and demons live here and quite a few like to eat people."
"Lovely," Alan muttered. "So you…help these girls save the world?"
"Sure thing," Xander replied. "Been doing it since I was about your age, if I'm not mistaken."
"Huh," Virgil said, pausing as they stopped at the gate of a big house. It was a massive old Victorian, easily three stories. "Let me guess, this place used to be haunted."
Xander shrugged, huffing a laugh. "Yeah, but we took care of it," he said, leading them forward. There was a mobile made out of voodoo dolls hanging from the edge of the large, wraparound front porch, and the house was painted a cheerful yellow. It was actually rather inviting, all told, and a sign in front of it declared it to be the International Watcher's Council Schoolhouse, with a symbol of a stake through a stylized heart.
The door flung open and three girls clattered out, giggling to each other, each dressed in similar uniforms of loose slacks and polo shirts, that same heart-and-stake symbol over their own hearts. The three nearly trampled the men walking up the steps and Xander frowned at them. The girls immediately apologized, although that didn't keep them from eyeing up the two newcomers.
Alan flushed a little, unused to such undivided attention, and the three girls started giggling again before a soft sound from Xander had them running off. Virgil decided it best to ignore his brother's embarrassment and take a closer look at the house. From the outside it was large and impressive and inviting. The grounds it sat on were a lot larger than it looked from outside the gate, and nicely manicured.
What little could be seen inside the house showed a lot of woodwork and bright colors. It was dark outside, of course, the timing of their jump having seemingly coincided with the time of this world. That hadn't been the case for any other time they'd jumped, but they still didn't have a lot of data to go on. The fact that they seemed to be jumping around the world with their landing locations was a little weird too, honestly. First having been on a rescue and ending up on an alternate Tracy Island, then to Colorado, then to Isla Nublar, then to New York and now to Cleveland.
And why the heck did Cleveland of all places have a portal to the underworld?
Virgil shook his head, glancing over at Alan who met his gaze with a wide one of his own. Monsters and Vampires and Demons, Oh My. Who knew what the next world was going to hold for them. At least Xander made it seem as though they could just hang out here and not have to actually get involved in anything.
"What's this about civilians?" the blond lady from earlier said, coming up from behind them. Virgil and Alan didn't jump at her approach only because of the immense training they'd been through. Training through Gordon, that is, because he was the one that was constantly trying to sneak up on everyone. (And Kayo, but she was mostly successful.)
"Meet Virgil and Alan," Xander said, waving towards the two. "Guys meet Buffy." No one made any comments about the weird name, as the lady—Buffy—gave them a stern glance. The sword in her hand was rather convincing as well. "They dropped in from a different world and are just passing through."
Buffy gave them a smile then, waving a hand and jutting out a hip, the sword dropping to lean against her side. She looked about the same age as Xander, around twenty-six or twenty-seven. But there was a hardness to her, just like with Xander, that spoke of years of fighting. "Hello! Welcome to our little slice of hell. Seen anything cool on your travel through different worlds?"
"Whoa! Wait! Different world?" another female voice called, just inside the door, and another girl nearly fell over as she slid through it. "You're from another world?!" she exclaimed, tossing long brown hair over her shoulder. She stared up at them with big blue eyes, a hopeful look on her face.
"Yes?" Virgil asked back, a little hesitant. The look she was giving him had gone from hopeful to interested in a split-second, once she'd gotten a good look at him. She had to be around the same age as him, too, if not a year or two younger.
"Dawnie?" Xander asked, and Buffy came around to stand at his shoulder.
"They might be what we need to end this Apocalypse," the girl responded eagerly.
Buffy gave a fierce scowl. "Dawn, you know the rules about involving civilians, even if they did drop in from Somewhere Else." The capitalization was obvious in her words.
Dawn shook her head, hair flying into her face. "No. I know. But there's a prophesy."
Xander and Buffy exchanged looks and then they both sighed. Xander gave the brothers an apologetic smile and turned back to Dawn. "Call the others. I think we need to talk."