CHAPTER THREE
Aaron
It was almost midnight and Kai and me were crouched on the cat walk of an old warehouse, looking down on a small nest of vamps, yeah it was late, but five vamps weren't a big deal. While I would have liked to have Ezra here because of the heights, our third amigo, and aeromage, was down with his first cold in, well, a decade. And according to Tori, he was being a big baby about it. Personally, I thought that he was milking it so Tori would take care of him, in every sense of the word.
"So, pizza after this?"
Kai checked his watch, "Sounds like--"
Before he could finish his thought, an explosion of whit light hit us, forcing us to throw our arms over our eyes as shields.
"What the hell was that?" I blinked, trying to clear the black spots dancing in my vision. I looked to my left at Kai, who was holding the walk's steel safety bar, shaking his head and blinking hard.
"What the… Look." He nodded to the space below, brow scrunched in confusion.
"Is that a portal?" A huge eight-foot high bright white circle had appeared in front of the center loading door. And two guys who were dressed like next gen lumberjacks ran through. Both wore heavy duty work boots and jeans, each had a machete strapped to their belt. The tall one with messy brown hair was wearing a dark canvas looking jacket, with a hoodie and t-shirt underneath. The other guy was wearing a black shirt under a well worn leather jacket. The also had guns pulled out as if they were chasing something but were looking up and down the warehouse as if they had no idea where they were.
Suddenly, there was another flash of white light and the portal snapped out of existence. Making both of the guys spin back around in shock.
"Dean, drop!" Messy Hair shouted, turning away from where the portal had been just seconds ago, as one of the vamps, the other four not far behind, ran up behind Leather Jacket.
Leather Jacket hit the ground and rolled out of the way, jus as Messy Hair shot the vamp in the head while Leather Jacket proceeded to decapitate it with his machete.
"Shit." I hissed. These weren't noobs.
"Three more!" Kai shouted, swinging onto the ladder and sliding down, throwin his knives at the three vamps that had just popped out of the pile of discarded cardboard boxes and were heading straight for the lumberjacks.
As soon as my feet hit the concrete, I pulled Sharpie and lit him up, while Kai took care of the three vamps in the corner, I ran to the vamps nearest the lumberjacks.
"On you six!" Leather Jacket yelled to Kai and me as two more vamps popped out from behind the row of old forklifts. Kai spun and sliced ones head off, while I got the other, adding to the aroma of burnt flesh. Ten vamps? I was definitely going to have to have a word with whoever scouted this place.
The sound of a machete slice and a head roll turned me back to the two guys, where Messy Hair and Leather Jacket were sheathing their machetes and looking out of breath.
"Hey, thanks for the …" I started, kicking a vamp head oout of the way and headed to the portal guys, standing at the other side of the space near the loading doors.
"Don't move flame boy!" Leather Jacket yelled, his gun trained on me, his friend stood on his right almost shoulder to shoulder, gun trained on Kai.
I heard Kai shift slightly behind me, "Whoa, whoa, woah." I sheathed Sharpie and held up my hands then nodded at Kai to do the same. His nostrils flared in annoyance, but he sheathed his katana and put his hands up. "Let's just calm down a bit here." And took a step closer, which made Leather Jacket flinch.
"What are you two? Where are we? There wasn't a vamp nest here before." Messy Hair asked, rapid fire, "I see you, don't move." He yelled, eyes and gun trained on Kai.
"Um, well, I'm Aaron, pyromage," then nodded to Kai at my left, "and that's Kai, electramage." I watched them both make 'wtf?' faces at each other and turned a quick look to Kai, who was wearing a confused face too. These two dudes were completely un-phased by the vamps, and knew how to kill them, but didn't recognize our class?
"You ever hear of somethin' like that, Sammy?" Leather Jacket asked, canting his head slightly as if assessing our threat level.
"Never." Sammy replied, dangerously straight faced with his gun still pointed at Kai.
"He's never heard of whatever you are, and he's an encyclopedia of weird shit."
Kai eyed me and took a step closer, "Look, we aren't gonna turn you into the MPD if that's what you're worried about," the guys gave each other another 'wtf' glance. "But, you did come through an illegal portal, you're obviously not Mythics, but you're also professionally trained," Kai continued calmly, "so you gotta give us something… Like who you work for."
"Illegal portal?" Messy Hair lowered his gun, "Since when are portals regulated?"
"MPD?" Leather Jacket muttered.
Kai looked to me, upper lip twitching in either annoyance or confusion, and slowly started to pull out his phone. Leather Jacket saw him, but he seemed more curious than anything else, and lowered his gun. Taking that as a positive sign, I lowered my hands and took a slow step forward, doing my best to avoid the puddle of vamp goo.
"So, look," I stopped a foot or so away from Leather Jacket, "There's obviously some weird shit going on here, but, fortunately for you guys, our guild specializes in weird."
"Huh," Leather Jacket arched an eyebrow and put his gun into the back of his jeans, "that's usually our line."
"Ah, see? We have something in common, so let's try this again." I grinned and held out my hand, "I'm Aaron."
"Dean. Dean Winchester." He gave me a stony look but still shook my hand. "And that's my little brother, Sam."
Sam put his gun away and came up to shake my hand, "Nice to meet you." Then gave a kind smile.
"Winchester? Like the guns?" I asked, letting go of Sam's hand.
"Yeah, yeah, like the guns."
"So, who's your boss?" I pressed. "This was a maintenance run in our area."
"Your area?" Sam scoffed.
"Yeah, our area," I nodded in his direction, "The Crow and Hammer. So, again, who do you work for?"
The brothers both grimaced and stared at me like I was the one who wasn't making any sense.
"Uh, I guess we work for ourselves?" Dean shrugged.
"Uh-huh. Okay." I arched an eyebrow and nodded. More weird.
"Aaron." Kai came up next to me and handed me his phone with a text thread from Darius asking that I take the brothers to my house for the night. But based on the Mexican stand off we just had, I didn't think that was going to be an easy sell.
"Hey,"
I looked up from the phone and saw both guys watching me.
"What is that thing?" Sam asked pointing at the phone in my hand. "Is that a smart phone?"
I cocked my head, "Um, well we usually just call them phones…"
"Can I see it?" He asked, politely holding out his hand, but looking impatient.
I looked at Kai, who gave a 'sure, whatever' face, "Sure." I said slowly, then put the phone in Sam's hand.
"Why can't I see the screen?" Sam asked, tapping the now locked, phone.
Kai stared and took a deep breath, "Give it here." Sam handed it over and watched intently as Kau used his fingerprint to unlock it, than handed it back.
Sam looked at the screen, then back to us. "Dean, I think we have a bigger problem." And held the phone up for Dean to see.
"Heh, she's hot." He smirked.
Kai's lips thinned at that one, as his background was a picture of his girlfriend, Izzah…in combat leathers.
Sam pursed his lips and cocked his head in annoyance, "The date, Dean. Focus!"
Dean leaned in and squinted at the screen, "Son of a bitch," he groaned, shoulders slumping in annoyance, "time travel too? Friggin' witches." He muttered, shaking his head and looking to Kai and me like we should agree.
"I can't believe I'm going to ask this," Kai took another step forward, "but what year," He paused as if steeling himself "did you come from?"
"2006" Sam mumbled, handing Kai back his phone.
"2006?" I almost snorted, but at the serious looks on the brothers' faces I changed my mind. "Can you prove it?"
Dean, who'd been pretty quiet up to this point, reached into his jacket and pulled out a cheap looking phone, and tossed it to Kai.
"Is that a… flip phone?" I asked, leaning toward Kai as he flipped open the old Nokia. The screen was small, and Kai was squinting as he chose the text section. "Oh my God, does that say 'voicemail'?" I pointed to the small, cassette symbol at the top. Kai arched an eyebrow at the phone
and scrolled through all the recent calls and texts in disbelief. All of them were dated 2006.
"Well, that explains a few things." I muttered under my breath as Kai tossed Dean back his phone and Sam handed Kai back his. I cleared my throat, "Okay, well." I clapped my hands and looked at the brothers, "Due to your extraordinary arrival, our GM has suggested that you two stay at my house tonight."
"Nah, we're good." Dean stated, smiled and adjusted his jeans. "Just point us in the direction of the nearest motel. Thanks though."
He tried to push past me but I sidestepped in front of him, and put a hand on his chest. "Take your hand off me." He was smiling, but his voice was a dangerous growl.
"Look, we need to straighten this out. And the safest place for you two is going to be with us." I pointed out, lowering my hand.
Kai nodded in agreement.
"Um, just, just give us a second." Sam smiled and pulled his brother back. "Dean, c'mon." They took a few steps back but not far enough that they were out of earshot.
"I think we should go with them." Sam said.
Dean looked at him like he'd gone nuts. "What? We don't even know what they are."
"Well, they don't seem to know who we are either. And I think that if they wanted to kill us, they would have done it already."
Dean crossed his arms and nodded. "Plus there's the whole time travel thing…"
"Yeah, that too."
"Fine." He agreed reluctantly. "So," Dean started, striding back over to us, "you guys got food at your place?"
"Well, we were planning on ordering pizza."
"Sounds good. I always wanted to have a sleep over with the X-men." He walked past Kai and me and headed toward the exit. "C'mon, Sammy!"
I sighed in relief , "That went a lot better than I expected."
Kai scoffed and looked at me, "Definitley."
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