Xander was just clearing the shattered remains of the doorway when he heard and ominous shattering followed by an enraged, inhuman shriek. He did not look back. Not even when he heard Andrew yell something into his back.
If he had looked back, he might have seen some impressive sci-fi esque lazers glowing to life and beginning to fire on the screeching blasphemy. He might also have seen these lazers doing a fairly effective job of slowing the thing down, seeming to cause it immensely more pain than either brothers' bullets had.
As it was, Xander stared straight ahead, letting certain bits of his consciousness grey out so that lingering and commanding voices could take charge of his brain. A nifty trick he'd been practicing. Those commanding voices said keep moving and don't look back. The four men all piled into the elevator at the end of the hall. Xander slammed the button and carefully lowered Andrew to the floor. He leaned shakily against the wall.
The Winchesters pointed their guns out into the hallway as they waited for the doors to close. They could all hear the sound of lazers firing and inhuman cries of pain. The door was just beginning to close as the thing escaped back into the hallway. It was still difficult to look at but they could all see it was diminished and appeared wounded. It also appeared vicious and pissed. The lift doors slid shut just as the buzzing red eyes fastened on the fast-fleeing fellows.
As the elevator rose slowly up the shaft Xander fiddled with his phone.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" Dean asked impatiently.
"Giles?" Xander said urgently, not waiting for a response, "I'm upgrading from possible Code Magpie to a definite Code Gromble. I hope you have eyes on the building cuz we're coming out hot."
"You're covered. The two armed men you mentioned?" Xander glanced at Dean and Sam. They still had their weapons trained on the door.
"Trusting them for the moment." There was a slight pause.
"Very well."
The carriage reached the top floor and they exited rapidly. Xander was helping Andrew through the door when he felt him hold back, resisting. Xander was about to throw him over his shoulder again before he noticed Andrew deliberately pressing buttons on the elevator keypad. When he finished Andrew leaned into Xander and they shuffled quickly down the hallway.
Xander glanced back when he heard a tremendous crash coming from the shaft, followed by another pained shriek as the elevator uncoupled from the cable and dropped on the creature crawling up the empty shaft after them. They burst through the outer doors and into the alley at a dead run. As soon as they were a respectable distance away they turned to face the building. The brothers aimed their guns at the door while Xander held his knife before him.
They waited in tense silence for a few moments while the thing inside howled with rage and pain.
"Xander."
A quiet voice came from behind Xander. He glanced over his shoulder as a soft-spoken brunette of medium height and solid stature appeared at his shoulder.
"Whoa!" Sam yelled, swinging his aim around as other figures seemed to materialize out of the darkness.
"Stand down!" Xander yelled at him commandingly. "I called them, they won't harm you." An older man and a young woman came forward to take Andrew who, despite being able to stand on his own, was still looking a little green around the gills.
"My name's Nadia. What's the situation?" the brunette asked Xander, apparently the squad leader. Once Xander was sure that neither Sam nor Dean were going to do anything stupid he turned his attention fully to the slayer.
"Monster broke in, started attacking, not sure what it wanted, but probably wants one or both of those two guys but it didn't seem capable of talking."
"Strengths and weaknesses?" she asked brusquely.
"Super fast, super strong, does something freaky with the light, might be able to become invisible. It resisted Andrew's magical defenses fairly easily."
"Lazers!" Andrew yelled from the ground where the field medics were assessing him.
"Come again?" Nadia asked.
"My automatic defense lazers seemed to hurt it. It might be sensitive to light." Nadia nodded.
"Understood. Magda! Raven! It's light sensitive." Two women who looked less GI Jane and more Rennfair enthusiast nodded and began drawing chalk symbols on the ground. Nadia turned towards Andrew.
"That the only exit?" she asked, gesturing towards the door they had just exited. He nodded. "Alright. Form a perimeter around the door. You guard Magda and Raven, you two watch the outsiders." She barked out orders efficiently, eyeing Sam and Dean warily. Three slayers surrounded the brothers while the others formed a semicircle around the door to the building.
They all listened intently-some with superhuman hearing-as the beast inside banged and clanged its way to the door.
Dean and Sam exchanged confused glances in the meantime.
"Dude, what the hell?" Dean whispered, looking at the young, petite looking women surrounding them. Sam just shrugged his enormous lanky shoulders.
"No idea man, but I say we just roll with it for now."
All further conversation was put on hold as the monster violently burst through the door, swinging its bulbous head-like appendage back and forth as it took in the increased number of enemies.
"HOLD!" Nadia said loudly. No one moved, remaining tense as the thing surveying them slunk forward. All of a sudden the multiple eyes focused on something in the crowd, and more than one person noticed that they were directed towards Dean and Sam.
With the reflexes of a cobra the thing leaped upwards, completely bypassing the line of slayers in an arch designed to land right on top of the Winchesters.
"NOW!"
Magda and Raven made sudden movements and the entire alley lit up with a flash of pure daylight. The thing screamed, smoked, smoldered, and phased out of existence with its ephemeral talons just centimeters shy of Dean's head.
Xander breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to Nadia.
"Thank you so much Nadia. It's great to see you again," Xander said earnestly. She smiled at him, her shiny lip gloss lips pulling back to reveal model-perfect straight white teeth.
"You remember me. I'm glad." He smiled.
"I remember anyone who saves my ass on more than one occasion."
"Hey!" Dean yelled. They both looked over towards him.
"Would somebody mind telling me what the HELL is going on here?" he asked angrily. "Who the hell are you people, and what the hell was that?!" Momentary silence followed his intense question. Xander piped up at length.
"In order of questions asked, one, what's going on is we're saving your butt, and two, we don't know what that was, but there is definitely a research party in our future."
"Fan-freakin-tastic," Dean muttered, lowering his gun to his side.
"They hostile?" Nadia asked Xander, eyeing them both suspiciously.
"Yes"
"No"
Xander and Andrew answered at the same time. They glanced at each other in irritation.
"They're grumpy, but not irrational, and I don't think they're evil," Xander explained. "There's definitely something not quite right with them but that thing was trying to kill them way more than it was trying to kill me and Andrew."
Dean glared at Xander's description but didn't contradict him. Sam chose that moment to chime in with his endearing two cents.
"Hey, no, we're not hostile," he said, visibly and obviously putting away his weapon. "And we're really grateful that you saved us," he said, letting the sincerity drip from his honeyed tongue, "without you I don't know what would have happened. But really, we don't know what that thing was or what it wanted."
Nadia eyed him suspiciously before turning back to Xander.
"So what now?" she asked matter-of-factly.
"Now, we need to figure out what that thing was. And if they're willing, we should probably get those two somewhere safe," Xander said, gesturing to the brothers.
"Yeah, no freakin' way!" Dean yelled.
"Dean!" Sam said quickly. "A word?" He took Dean's arm and dragged him away from the slayers so that they could have a quiet discussion.
"What, Sam?" he said quietly.
"Maybe we should think about this."
"Think about what?"
"About letting them help us." Dean gave him an incredulous look. "Oh, come on, Dean! They just saved us,"
"We would have been fine-"
"And they're obviously organized. If they want to help us, I say we let them. At least for now. If we need to we'll go our own way, but it seems like they've got resources that could help us."
Whilst they were having their private conversation, Xander, Nadia, and Andrew were having a parallel discussion.
"Xander, this is obviously a trap. They exposed themselves to us and then summoned that monster to attack them so that we would think them innocent and permit them entrance to our inner sanctum," Andrew implored.
Xander rolled his eyes. "If that were the case, they wouldn't have chosen personas so easily dispelled. They wouldve just chosen random, innocuous names. There's something else going on here."
"What do you propose we do?" Nadia asked Xander.
"Well..." Xander thought on this for a minute, staring at the brothers as they argued quietly. Watching them interact, he could see how on edge they both were, and how desperate the shorter one was to get the taller one away from all the potential threats. He could see a flash of controlled anxiety as Dean surveyed the scene. Then their eyes met briefly, and Dean's mask of bravado descended. He reminded Xander of Spike in the final days; desperately trying to keep those precious to him from being torn away by the thousands of threats that surrounded them while at the same time trying to hide how much he cared.
"I think the safest bet right now is to take them to the safe house. They'll be safe there, and the wards will keep them from harming anyone else. Plus, if they have malicious intentions we'll know exactly where they are. It's fairly win/win."
"Xander..." Andrew trialed off uncertainly. Nadia had no such hesitation.
"Are you sure that's safe? We could be playing right into their hands," she stated bluntly. Xander scrunched up his face into innocent confused Xander face.
"What do you mean?"
"Andrew suggested it earlier. That this whole attack could merely be a trick to gain your trust and get closer to you." Xander turned this thought over in his head before answering.
"Possible, but unlikely. Willow was the only one who knew I was coming here, and if they were trying to gain Andrew's trust they bungled it royally. Even if their ineptitude is part of their plan, the safe house is still the best option. Magically protected, violence free, and nothing super valuable."
"Do you think they'll go?" she asked. Xander shrugged.
"Aside from lying to us, and overreacting to Andrew's overreaction to their names they really haven't done anything to us. I think even if they say no, it'd be fine to let them go with low level surveillance."
Both groups' conversations seemed to wrap up at about the same time. Sam and Dean came to stand in front of Xander and Nadia while the rest of the party stood about; at rest but at attention.
"Sooooooooooooooooo? How we dooooooooooooooing?" Xander asked innocently, hands in pockets, looking back and forth between them. Dean had his arms crossed and was looking away angrily. Sam glanced at him and then back to Xander.
"We're fine. We're really grateful, for all your help. Right, Dean?" Sam said, staring pointedly at Dean and enunciating loudly. Dean glared at him, and then offered Xander and Nadia a bright, fake smile and a sharp nod. Xander chose to accept this as sincerity. He made a swishy motion with his hand.
"Ah, think nothing of it. S'what we do. So, did you guys have a place to stay while you're in this dimension? Cuz I got sort of a halfway house for wayward victims of random monster attacks, much like yourselves."
"Thank-"
"Unlike yourselves," Xander continued over Sam's attempt at thanks, "they are not used to fighting monsters. They are civilians and innocents and if you act in a way that causes any of them further trauma or discomfort in any way, your invitation will be forcibly rescinded and you will be made to regret your actions." He paused for dramatic effect, glaring in a threatening way that only a one-eyed guy who's seen way too much can actually manage. Dean, who had seen his fair share of crazy shit, was mildly impressed but refused to show it.
"Yeah. I'm really scared of you and your army of teenage girls." he said mockingly. Xander just grinned.
"You've been warned. Now then," he said brightly, clapping his hands and switching gears from creepy threatening one-eyed soldier to regular Xander, "either of you ever been to Pennsylvania?"