See first chapter for disclaimers.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this. As usual, if you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy. RandR.

PREVIOUSLY: Flash

This is NOT Central City

"This is not Central City," Barry said, looking around.

"I was afraid that might happen." Xander sighed.

"Hopefully," Faith offered consolingly, "our travel agent will only want you along for whatever this is."

"So where are we?" Barry asked, deciding he might as well make the best of it. He didn't have much choice. It was daytime, but the heavy overcast of storm clouds made it nearly as dark as night. The purplish lightning didn't add to the ambiance.

"No idea," Xander admitted. "Let's find out." He started walking down the street, away from the small park they'd appeared in. The city streets, he noted, were remarkably clean. That might, he reasoned, have something to do with the flying cars, at least he assumed they flew or floated. They didn't have wheels.

"This may not be central City," Barry commented, "but it's disturbingly like the version of it I found myself in. Where is everyone?"

"Look for a newspaper or something similar," Xander suggested, not liking the looks of the deserted streets one bit. If the people had evacuated the city, there was likely a good reason for it.

Barry did a quick sweep of the city, and it didn't take long to find that the city was not quite empty. Here and there, he found people covered in some sort of purplish gunk, almost as if they'd been cocooned. A quick examination showed that there was nothing he could do for them, so gritting his teeth in frustration, he kept searching. No obvious answers were available, but he did find a newspaper, picking up a discarded one at an outdoor café and returning to the others to read it and report what he'd found. Unfortunately, nothing in the paper made sense. The language was English, but the name of the paper and the city itself meant nothing to them. The stories in the paper did nothing to enlighten them either. There was nothing in the paper, he told them, about an evacuation or a mention of any sort of crisis. Whatever had happened there had happened very quickly.

"Wherever we are has some pretty advanced tech," Barry noted, "and magic apparently."

"That new to you?" Xander asked as Barry flipped another page and looked at an advertisement for enchanted perfume.

"I wish." Barry winced at the memory of the confrontation with Vandal Savage. "At least some of it seems benign here." He turned another page and showed them a section full of community announcements. They all seemed perfectly normal for a world where high tech and magic existed side-by-side.

"So what are we supposed to do?" he asked after finally closing the paper and folding it. "Most of the people are gone or in hiding somewhere and the rest have been giftwrapped by something. We have no idea what or why."

"No idea," Faith admitted as they looked at a map that Barry had picked up along the way. They continued to talk as they looked for something that would suggest a course of action. "We're never told. We just do what seems right, what comes natural, and eventually we move on."

"We've never been in the same place more than a few days," Xander added.

"Sounds rough."

"We don't have a lot of choice." Faith shrugged. "I'd like to find and mutilate whoever's behind this, but I doubt I'll get the chance."

"Since they're the ones deciding where we're sent." Xander nodded. "On the upside, we've helped a lot of people."

"I can understand the appeal of that." Barry nodded. "It must have occurred to you not to go through one of those portals that appeared."

"Once or twice," Xander admitted. "Not lately, though."

"Yeah." Barry nodded. "The last stop wasn't very welcoming." He looked around the empty streets. "Not liking this one much either."

"It isn't always something big and obvious," Xander explained. "Sometimes, we're not sure why we're there or what we've accomplished."

"That's irritating," Barry allowed, "but you think you're always accomplishing something?"

"Yeah. We've saved lives and prevented disasters." Xander fell silent and looked up at the sky for a moment. "I think we're doing good. We just don't always know how or why."

Barry nodded glumly, thinking about their situation. "I think I'll do another circuit of the city," he concluded, for lack of anything helpful to say. He sped off as the two demon hunters continued on their way. Their eyes, out of long habit, sought out shadows and anything that might be hiding in them. A moment later Barry was back, holding out what looked like toy laser guns.

"I think you'll need these. I found out why everyone left."

"What did you find?" Xander asked, carefully pointing the weapon away from his friends while he puzzled it out. "And where did you get these?"

"In reverse order, those are from the local police station. They're not toys." He said this while carefully adjusting Faith's aim. "You'll be needing them."

"What did you see?" Xander asked.

"Monsters. Lots of them."

"What kind?" Faith asked curiously, carefully aiming the weapon, trying to get a feel for it. She knew very little about guns, save that she didn't like them.

"Hard to describe," Barry admitted. He thought a moment. "If Cthulhu hooked up with a cockroach and they-"

"Stop." Xander cut him off. "I don't need that particular image in my head. Let's just wait till we see them. What I meant was what kind of threat? Big and strong? Small and fast? Any flyers?"

"Not that I saw. They're big and strong mostly, but there are a bunch of small skittering things. Hopefully, you won't have to see any of them."

"Oh?"

Barry shook his head. "There are a lot of them, and there's no one left alive in the city. I don't think we'll need to fight them. No reason to. We should try to find those that evacuated."

"Sounds good to me." Faith shouldered her borrowed weapon. "Can you find us a monster free exit?"

"Yes, they're all coming in from the north and west."

"Whatever we're doing here," Faith pointed out, "probably has something to do with them. We should find out what they're after."

"Probably true." Xander sighed. "Let's find a vantage point and see what they're up to." Barry led them to a single-story building with easy access to the roof. They only had to wait a few minutes for a group of them to come into view.

Faith made a face when she saw the things coming down the street. "I thought you were exaggerating." She glanced at Xander. "What now?"

"We don't know what they are, what they want, or what they're capable of," Barry pointed out. "We need information."

"Maybe he can tell us," Xander suggested, pointing to a young blond man walking the streets below them. He had apparently just entered the city from the north and turned onto the street a few blocks away from their vantage point. Clearly, he hadn't seen the monsters yet.

"Looks like we'll have to rescue him first," Faith said, as several of the creatures lumbered into view. Barry moved faster than they could see, pulling the admittedly brave young man from a hopeless battle.

The man blinked in confusion at suddenly finding himself on the roof with three strangers. "That wasn't really winnable," Barry told him.

"Uh… Who are you and how did you do that?"

"Long story on both counts," Xander said. "We're here to help. That's what matters." They introduced themselves.

"I appreciate the assistance," the man, a teenager they saw now, said, giving them his name. "I don't suppose you've seen a red-haired girl around here?"

"You're the first living person we've seen in a while," Faith told him. "She meeting you here?"

"I hope so."

Barry glanced over the edge of the building. "I think we better get moving. The building will be surrounded in a few minutes." They all agreed, and set off, moving away from the army of monsters. They had only gone about a mile, though, when Barry returned from scouting ahead.

"I think we're going to have to punch through a small group of them to get clear," he announced without preamble. "Two blocks that way is our best bet. Those things aren't fast but they never stop."

"I know," the blond teenager nodded. "I've fought them."

"Any tips?" Faith asked.

"Hit them hard and keep moving. They won't stay down for long."

Faith frowned at that. What were they up against? "Okay, then. Let's go."

The four of them headed down the street Barry had indicated. It wasn't long before a small group of the things came into view. "Remember what I said," the boy called out, activating the weird energy sword he carried and dashing forward.

The two demon hunters joined him, shooting the creatures with as much accuracy as they could manage. Neither of them had much experience with guns. It wasn't long before they realized what the young man had meant. When they took enough damage, the things collapsed into heaps of wriggling bugs. Within a minute, though, they began to reform.

Seeing the problem, Barry tried something he'd developed a while back. Pointing at the mess of bugs, he began to rotate his arms as fast as he could, creating cones of compressed air that scattered the piles before they could reform. This proved somewhat effective and kept them from reforming for a while longer. He drove the creatures back, buying them time and space to get clear, but there were already more approaching.

Barry acquired a weapon of his own. The ones he had gotten for Faith and Xander were effective in breaking up the creatures, after all. He began moving in a circle outward from the small group's position, shooting and scattering the monsters. It was a losing battle, though.

Things didn't change until the redhead that their new friend had been looking for arrived. The first Xander and Faith knew of her was when a powerful blast of fire reduced the group approaching them to ash. The three travelers looked up to see her hovering in mid-air, surrounded by a corona of fire.

She quickly destroyed all of the nearby monsters before landing and giving her boyfriend a hug. "I'm so glad to see you're okay!"

The others waited patiently until the two teenagers realized they weren't alone. Then the red-faced young man made the introductions and asked if they wanted to join the fight elsewhere.

"That won't be possible for us," Barry said, pointing toward a portal that had appeared nearby. "We've got another ride to catch."