Chapter 4
Once upon a time there was a community in California called Sunnydale. Sunnydale had a large population of teenagers, a high school, a high school librarian who was very attractive(in a gaunt, sometimes haunted sort of way), a principal who was something of a power tripping martinet (and looked a little like Quark from certain points of view), and a large contingent of vampires, demons and what-have-you's due to being a Hellmouth. Such is life in the late 1990's in California.
Cheri Yuconovich, sometime covert agent, sometime Dr. of archaeology, sometime employee of KEI, Inc., rolled over lazily and fell off the couch on which she had been napping since about 9am. The thud caught the attention of the gentleman across the room with his nose buried in a mighty tome of esoteric information. Cheri pushed her self up off the nose to rug position and into a sitting position. Her waist length hair fell in a curtain across her face. She blew out to move it. It lifted out from her face and fell back as she inhaled. Cheri giggled. It was that kind of day.
Rupert Giles, usually referred to as Giles, or Ripper, depending on his current associates, frowned at the juvenile antics of the woman sitting on the floor in front of his couch. He was still clad in a very nice tweed three piece suit. "Are you all right?"
Cheri cocked her head around to look at him through the curtain of hair. "Well, my ego's a little bruised, but otherwise I'm doing well." She deftly used a finger to part the mass of hair impeding her sight and pushed it back away from her face. A couple of deft swipes with her fingers and it looked remarkably unmussed considering the mess it had just been in. "How're you?"
"I'm quite well, thank you," he responded automatically and then gave her a look. The look was tempered by a smile. "Are you planning on explaining why you look younger now than you did 25 years ago? Or am I to chalk it up to time vortex travels?"
"I thought I had - sorta - kinda - if you look at it sideways long enough."
"That will do."
"OK. I'm immortal."
"That I had managed to understand. It doesn't explain - I mean, unless you've taken T.H. White's Merlin to heart, you can't look younger."
"Well, that's part of the uncomfortable part of being the kind of immortal I am - " Cheri quit talking and frowned, listening. "Do you hear something funny?"
"Am I laughing?"
"No! Peculiar, out of place, odd - like a rushing of - Oh, Hell!"
Cheri was on her feet and at the window before she finished her seemingly non-sequiter sentence. Outside, on Giles' front lawn, was the beginning of a vortex. Giles joined her at the window. The whirling darkness was growing. It was not a soundless, peculiar spatial distortion, it was a twisting, turning cyclonic movement that seemed to widen as they looked.
"Something's coming through."
Lord Rayden, Thunder God, mentor of the Champion of Mortal Kombat, champion of the cause of earth versus outworld, was dazed. He'd been contemplating the plight of Siro, ex-guard, companion of the Immortal Champion, all around have-a-good-time-guy, when he heard/sensed this odd sound. Having a time vortex sneak up on you is not nice. He was being sucked into the thing before he could move out of its way.
Siro, hearing the peculiar noise and not managing to identify it from several nights earlier, came around a corner and walked smack into the thing. His senses rebelled at the distortions of time/space/other as he was slammed through countless eons and onto the already flattened grass of Rupert Giles' front yard.
Giles was beginning to wonder just how much abuse grass could take. The woman at his side was beginning to wonder just how much distortion the time space continuum could take before things got really out of hand.
She left Giles staring at the two newcomers and went out to greet them. Rayden had managed to land on his feet. Siro had landed badly and upon attempting to get up, his abused senses decided they had had enough and caused him to abruptly add the contents of his stomach to Giles' lawn.
"Oh, dear."
He knew that voice. He tried to look around swiftly. Not a good idea. He heaved again. He felt her hand on his back. "Keep your head down. It'll settle in a few minutes." He could hear laughter in her voice, but it was gentle laughter, the kind someone who had been there might use. He almost nodded, but settled for keeping his head still.
Cheri looked at Rayden curiously. "Hi."
"Greetings."
"Not your idea, I hope."
"No."
"Hmm. OK. Any idea whose?"
"No."
Cheri found him remarkably calm and cheerful for someone who had just been picked up and dumped many moons from his own place and time. "You don't seem unduly disturbed."
"I'm not. I'm certain there is a purpose."
"Yeah, right." Cheri sounded sceptical.
"You *know* these people?" Giles was sounding incredibly stodgy. But then, Giles was in the position of a tweedy librarian/researcher/Watcher who has just received a vaguely oriental robed, white haired, dark eyed man on his front lawn, out of an apparent cyclone; and his leather booted, tights clad companion who was being distressingly ill on said lawn. Siro, his nausea quelled, stood up. He was not quite as tall as Giles, but he was about half again as broad. Muscles rippled on his arms and across his chest, barely concealed by the sleeveless tunic/vest he wore instead of a shirt. Giles was almost wishing he had remained Ripper Giles and had Ethan Rayne on call to help out.
"Sort of. Lord Rayden," she gestured to the white haired but not elderly one in the robes. "Siro," she nodded to the golden haired, dark eyed man. "This is Rupert Giles. He is a very learned man, well versed in the occult realms of my world and a font of wisdom for his youthful charge."
Giles blinked at her. Her introduction had been delivered quite deliberately and quite solemnly. He nodded to the two men. "Rupert, this is Lord Rayden, the Thunder God. And this is Siro – who doesn't seem to go in for last names. He is a martial artist, an ex-body guard and is currently both companion and student of Kung Lao, the last winner of the Mortal Kombat tournament."
Rayden and Siro returned the nod. Siro felt a little embarrassed by the introduction. Rayden was taking it in stride, so he decided to emulate the Thunder God. "Goodness." Giles felt the word left something to be desired, but he couldn't really summon up enough words to do his feelings justice - well, not polite words, anyway.