Ages Apart
by dawnm
Definitely Not Greece
[reviews]
Author's Note: Please read and review. I'd love to know what you think of the story. Also, feel free to email me with any questions or comments if you like. Email: dawnm92@yahoo.com.
----------------------------------------------
Chapter 2 - Definitely Not Greece
The bard landed on the ground with a thud, with a certain warrior princess landing directly on top of her. Having released the travelers, the portal closed again.
"Are you alright, Gabrielle?" Xena asked, shifting her weight off of the bard and scanning Gabrielle for any sign of injury.
"I...think so." Gabrielle responded, more than a little shaken from the trip. "Where are we?"
"Looks like some sort of burial ground." Xena answered, getting to her feet and pulling Gabrielle up with her.
Gesturing to Willow to stay hidden, Buffy stepped from the shadows, stake in hand, to confront the two figures that had materialized before their eyes.
Sensing a presence behind them, Xena whirled around to face Buffy and drew her sword all in one swift motion.
Buffy gave a half-laugh. "Let me guess, Eliminati, right? You guys with your swords. Didn't your buddies tell you, Balthazar is dead? Yep, I killed him. So, you're wasting your time here."
Xena eyed Buffy cautiously. "What's she talking about?" Gabrielle whispered, peering around Xena at the strange girl approaching them.
"I don't know." Xena admitted. "I don't know who you are," Xena said to Buffy, "but I don't want to have to hurt you." Xena lowered her sword to her side, hoping the small blonde would see it as an offer of peace.
This elicited another laugh from Buffy, who stopped about six feet in front of Xena, at the ready. "You don't want to hurt me? Ha, that's a new one."
Unable to be still any longer and not feeling threatened by the girl in front of them, Gabrielle stepped from behind the warrior. "Hi, I'm Gabrielle. My friend here is Xena. We mean you no harm...really."
Willow stepped out of the shadows and approached the group, certain that she could see sincerity in the smaller woman's eyes, she said, "Hey, Buffy, I think these two are okay."
Buffy visibly relaxed and pocketed her stake. Xena sheathed her sword and cautiously approached the slayer. Buffy considered the quiet woman in front of her for a moment and finally extended her hand, "I'm Buffy."
Xena accepted the handshake in the traditional manner for her -- laying her arm next to the slayer's and clasping Buffy's forearm near her elbow.
Buffy raised an eyebrow at the unconventional greeting, but tried to follow Xena's lead. Willow introduced herself with a small wave, but made no move toward the large, leather-clad warrior. She did, however, try to offer Gabrielle a friendly smile.
Gabrielle decided to take the initiative and stepped up to address both girls before them. "It seems that my friend and I have lost our way. Can you tell us...where are we?" She asked slowly, looking back and forth from Buffy to Willow, mentally noting how oddly they were dressed, how strangely they talked.
Always one to try to help, Willow replied. "Uh, you're in Restfield Cemetery...in Sunnydale."
"Where's that?" Xena asked, her eyes narrowing.
"California." Buffy replied with a small chuckle of disbelief at the blank looks on the two women's faces.
"What is California?" Gabrielle asked meaningfully, "Or-or where is California?"
"Look," Buffy interjected, "tell us where you're from and maybe we can clear this up,"
"I'm from Amphipolis," Xena stated, "and she's from Poteidia." She added, pointing to Gabrielle.
"Pota-what?" Buffy asked, then added with a smirk, "And what's with the outfits?"
"Whad'ya mean?" Xena asked defensively.
Buffy shook her head and Willow took a stab at diplomacy. "She just means that your clothes are, well, a little...out of date."
"Yeah, you're lucky I didn't stake the two of you." Buffy added.
Gabrielle looked at Xena, confused. Xena seemed to ignore Buffy's comment, instead looking around thoughtfully, noting their surroundings. She looked at the two girls in front of her, both wearing some strange sort of men's clothing. Then, she looked beyond them in the distance noting the bright lights that she reasoned did not resemble campfires.
Dismissing Buffy and Willow as if they weren't there, she took Gabrielle by the arm and pulled her a few paces away from the two strangers. "Gabrielle," she said leaning toward the bard, "Kronos...I think he sent us to some place in the future."
"That's impossible, Xena." Gabrielle laughed, dismissing the idea with a shake of her head.
"Look around, Gabrielle." Xena replied dryly. Then turning back to Buffy, she insisted, "Who is the ruler of this land?"
"Huh?" Buffy laughed, shooting a look at Willow as if to say, 'These two are crazy, huh?'
Willow, trying to process what she had overheard the two women saying a moment before, stepped toward the warrior. "Excuse me. Did you say Kronos? As in Kronos, the Greek God of Time?"
"Yes. Do you know him?" Xena asked hopefully.
"Know him? Not exactly. I learned about him in my mythology class last year."
"Kronos, he sent us here." Xena continued, directing the statement at no one in particular. "This place...it isn't Greece, is it? Who rules this land?" She asked urgently, taking another step forward, invading Willow's personal space.
Willow shrank back next to Buffy to escape the steel-blue gaze of the warrior princess. Unlike Willow, Buffy was not intimidated. "Definitely not Greece." Buffy replied matter-of-factly. Willow shook her head, confirming Buffy's statement.
Unnoticed by the group, a newborn vamp had slithered from a nearby grave. Eyeing the women from behind a tombstone, the hungry young vamp considered which one would make a nice first meal. Gabrielle was within reach and, he noted, looked like a tender, young morsel indeed.
In an instant, he grabbed Gabrielle from behind, catching her completely off guard. Her sharp intake of breath and innocent whimper only furthered his excitement as he anticipated tasting the blood of the sweet virgin in his arms.
Xena snapped into action, drawing her sword and facing the man, demanding in an icy tone, "Let her go."
The vamp yanked Gabrielle's head back to expose the sensitive flesh of her neck, then offered a toothy, evil grin as his mouth descended toward its target.
Instinctively, Gabrielle brought her leg up behind her, kicking the vamp squarely in a particularly sensitive place. She scrambled free of his grasp.
"Bacchae!" Xena ground out, her voice low and filled with hate for the demon who had threatened Gabrielle.
The vamp recovered quickly though, catching Gabrielle by the hair before she managed to get out of reach.
To the surprise of warrior, bard, and vamp alike, a certain petite blonde stepped into the fray, planting a roundhouse kick in the vamp's face that not only freed Gabrielle from his grasp but also sent him flying several feet before he landed with a thud against a nearby tombstone.
"I'm sorry, the kitchen's closed." Buffy quipped with sugary sweetness, earning her an approving giggle from Willow and confused looks from the others.
The vamp scrambled to his feet, eyeing Buffy as she reached into her leather jacket and pulled out her stake, casually walking toward him. "Come on. Let's get this over with." She said, looking bored.
Stupid or desperate, the vamp lunged at Buffy who took him down with one punch and followed up with a swift stake to his chest. Casually dusting off her hands, she stood up with a smile and received Willow's victory high-five.
Understandably, Xena and Gabrielle watched these events with a mixture of confusion, surprise and respect.
"You guys okay?" Buffy asked, surveying the warrior and bard.
Gabrielle simply nodded -- one of those rare moments where the bard found herself at a loss for words.
"Thanks for saving my friend." Xena said sincerely.
"All in a day's work." Buffy said, looking up to meet the tall warrior's blue eyes.
Finding her voice again, the bard's curiosity surfaced. "What type of work do you do exactly? Do you fight Bacchae?"
"That was no Bacchae," Xena interjected, "Bacchus doesn't have male followers."
"Hey, Will, help me out here." Buffy begged. "Any idea what they're talking about? It's all Greek to me." She added, smiling at her own joke.
"Not funny, Buffy." Willow said, but couldn't stop herself from laughing at the pun. "Actually, it is Greek." She continued, trying to be serious, "Bacchus...he's a Greek God too, isn't he?" she asked the warrior princess.
"God of Wine." Xena replied. "A real sleaze."
"Geez, Will, I'm glad that one of us pays attention in school." Buffy remarked, genuinely impressed. Willow smiled at the compliment.
"But if that wasn't a Bacchae...what was it?" Gabrielle asked, looking concerned.
"That...was a vampire...which brings us back to what I do...I kill vampires...like the one that attacked you." Buffy stated, gesturing to Gabrielle, then purposefully pocketing her stake. Seeing their confused expressions, Buffy turned to Willow, "Hey Will, you wanna explain it to them?" To Xena and Gabrielle she said, "She likes to tell the story."
"Sure, Buffy." Willow agreed. "Let's sit and I'll tell you all about it." She said to the two women.
The group settled on the steps of a large family tomb and Willow explained all about the chosen one. As she completed her story, with much more flair than Giles, Xena spoke up.
"But you're so...small. You don't look very strong." The warrior said looking at Buffy skeptically. "How do you do it?"
"Super Slayer Strength." Buffy replied. "It's just a slayer thing."
"And all the slayers have been girls?" Gabrielle inquired, recalling the point from Willow's story, 'One girl in all the world.'
"Yep." Willow confirmed.
"Fascinating..." Gabrielle said shaking her head, trying to commit all of the details to memory so that she could one day write a scroll about this adventure.
"Snap out of it, Gabrielle." Xena said a little impatiently, "It's late. We have to set up camp somewhere and find our way back to Greece tomorrow. We have to stop Bacchus." Xena added, looking around, suddenly feeling very out of her element.
"But Xena...we're in the future. It's too late to stop Bacchus now, isn't it?" Gabrielle asked softly.
"I don't know how yet, but we've got to find a way to undo what Kronos did. We've got to get back to our time." Xena replied with a hint of desperation in her voice.
Looking first to Buffy, then at the warrior and bard, Willow offered, "Maybe we can help you." She felt an unexplainable connection to the two women in front of them.
"A map would be nice." Xena admitted.
Buffy and Willow looked at each other, both feeling sympathetic to the travelers' predicament. "Look," Buffy said, "You don't understand. You can't exactly walk to Greece. Where you're at now...Greece is half a world away, thousands of miles, across an ocean."
"A-and...the world is...different than it was in your time." Willow added, sharing a brief, knowing glance with Buffy. She didn't know exactly what point in time the women had come from, but judging by their clothing alone, it was safe to say that their world was very different indeed. Electricity, telephones, cars, computers...her mental list just kept growing.
"Does Caesar still reign in Rome?" Xena asked, hoping to gauge how far into the future Kronos had sent them.
Shaking her head a simple no, Buffy then looked questioningly at Willow who searched her memory for the timeframe when Caesar had ruled. "That's sometime B.C., Buffy," Willow whispered, her eyes widening as the realization hit her. "More than two thousand years ago." She added, in a whisper. Seeing the confused looks of the two women staring at her, Willow struggled to put it into terms they could understand. "Caesar hasn't ruled for...for probably...100 generations now."
Warrior and bard alike looked speechless to say the least. Buffy was quick to respond, "Hey, don't worry. We'll find a way to help you out."
"Yeah," Willow reassured, catching Gabrielle's gaze. "We'll work it out."
"Hey, Will, think you can work a little magic or something?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah, that's it." Willow replied. "Maybe I can find a spell to reverse what Kronos did."
"Do you have special powers too?" Gabrielle asked of Willow.
"I...study magic...kind of like the druids from your time." Willow answered. "I'm sure if we do some research, we'll find something that will help."
"We appreciate your help." Xena said, sincerely grateful.
"Yes. I guess we're lucky that you came along when you did." Gabrielle added.
Realizing that it was past midnight, Buffy turned to Xena. "Right now, I think we need to find you some place to stay for the night. Tomorrow we can start the research...that is...after we find you two something else to wear. You can't go around looking like that." She said, staring wide-eyed at Xena's armor and weaponry.
"Yeah...blending is good." Willow agreed, nodding. "And you definitely stand out in that outfit." She added, chuckling nervously.
"You're probably right." Xena admitted.
" We can blend..." Gabrielle offered. "Right, Xena?"
"Sure." Xena affirmed. "So, we should probably set up camp for the night, Gabrielle." She added, getting to her feet.
"But we don't really have any of our supplies." Gabrielle pointed out. "It figures. The least Kronos could have done was zap our bedrolls into the future too. Gods are so inconsiderate sometimes." She said, annoyed.
"You can stay at my house." Willow offered. "My parents are never home. There's plenty of room. And...you can't sleep out here."
"Trust me." Buffy added, smiling. "You don't want to camp out in Sunnydale. Camping on the hellmouth is definitely a no-no."
"What's a hellmouth?" Gabrielle asked, causing Buffy to chuckle in response.
"A hellmouth...that's harder to explain. But...people who stay out at night in Sunnydale...they usually don't survive until morning." Willow explained.
"Rough place, huh?" Xena commented, raising an eyebrow.
"Let's just put it this way," Buffy answered, "That vamp that attacked your friend earlier...guys like him are the least of your worries out here."
"I'm sure we'll be okay. Xena's the greatest warrior of our time you know." Gabrielle said, proudly. "She's fought slavers and blood-thirsty warlords, entire armies even, and she always defeats them in the end."
Xena interrupted, "Gabrielle..."
"I know, I know. We don't have time for stories." Gabrielle answered, sensing the warrior princess' impatience.
"If the offer is still open, we'll stay with you." Xena stated, turning to Willow.
"Of course." Willow nodded.
"A sleep-over at Will's it is." Buffy confirmed, rising from her seat on the crypt's step and offering Willow a hand.
"On the way to my house, we can talk more about...what it's like here. So you can be prepared, you know." Willow suggested.
------------------------------------------------------- Continued in Chapter 3