A small bus and two nondescript moving trucks pulled up outside, Alexander recognizing Maggie Beckett from the balcony as he checked them out. She seemed to have around twenty soldiers and airmen with her with two AFVs. He called downstairs to let them in, then hurried with his own bag to catch up with the rest of his group. Reaching the bottom of the stairs he counted to himself, yes, all eleven of the others heading home with him were present and packed. He saw Doyle pat a backpack and nod that he had the surprises with him.
"Well, Maggie, thanks for coming on such short notice," he quipped, drawing a smirk from the usually-serious woman, "Is everything ready?"
"Yes sir, Boss," she replied, the troops picking up and loading their belongings into the vehicles as the group followed her outside, "We just need to drive you two miles down the road and we'll slide from there."
"Alright, any suggestions before we head out?"
"Yeah, if all of you could put on the combat vests and helmets, I'd feel better, and you'll keep 'em until we've gotten you home."
"You coming with us?"
"Yeah, just me for now, the others'll open up portals and slide to several worlds and back to cover, and we might just get them off your tail if it's you in particular they want and not the craft."
Twenty minutes later, the three vehicles entered a second portal for home, but suddenly a white light flashed within the vortex, it stretched out for what seemed minutes, and the girls flashed a very light green before they seemed to freeze in place. Suddenly, the doors of the bus opened and a big spiky demony guy greeted them as he palms-forward looked into the vehicle.
"Hey everybody…I'm, uh, Skip, and I've been sent to give you a message, if that's okay? Not really thinking a fight in mid-slide is a great idea?"
"Okay, just stand there," Xander told him, "And, uh, just what is the message?"
"You won't be able to leave home for a while if you return now, and we're not sure how many Kromaggs are on the way. If we let you in, they'll also get in before we can put up a temporary barrier. So it's up to you, if you go now, it could take eight or ten years before portals can be opened, except of course, the Hell Mouth. With all the portaling, and the strain all those repeats did, you need to wait another month or two your-time before things are strong enough to where the Powers think it'll be safe. Then however you want to handle it, but since you have the whole free-will thing going, they dumped the choice on you. But since it is a pillar line in this section of realities, they'd rather not have it implode or anything."
"So where will we end up if we agree to stay away?"
"One or more of the places you had costumes from, that are actually real somewhere."
"Why so…generous?"
"By going to some of them, which are adjacent, you'll be…meshing those lines to your reality somewhat, acting as extra supports."
"And will this mess us up on using the coordinates to get home when the time's up?"
"Nah, but to keep it random enough, I have an assembled timer with twenty-four icons here. One is your home, and the others are different worlds. Every time you punch one in that's not your home, one of the others that's not your home will also disappear until you actually make it by process of elimination. Time is between three hours and three months, also random. But, because you're willing to go along with it, the place you come out will be the one the Powers think is most advantageous to you at the moment."
"Really?"
"That's what I've been told to tell you."
"So if they think landing in a hot LZ is advantageous to us if we win then?"
"That's what they might do, I'm just the messenger on this one, and from what I have overheard, your deaths are not really wished, and they seem to be contemplated the impacts your group might have wherever you touch down, for whatever that's worth."
"All three vehicles and our stuff will make it?"
"None of you will get left behind this jump. If you forget where you park and don't have 'em at jump time…"
"And the Kromaggs if they try to enter our home line…"
"Bugs on the zapper."
"Okay, let me have that…Selector of yours."
"Okay, Dawn, think of somewhere nice and hit the button, maybe we'll get lucky," Alexander sighed, "Everybody else buckle up…"