Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.
Spoilers: Up to the end of both series.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: Xander discovers he's not as normal as he thinks.
Author's Note: THIS is certainly a rare crossover. Credit goes to Yorath for his delightful input and some suggested scenes that will appear throughout this series.
Dr. Mizuno had seen a lot of strange things in her time, back in her middle school and high school years. A half-conscious man in his twenties with an eyepatch staggering outside her clinic barely even registered as she took him in and began treating his wounds.
Had it not been for the missing eye, the scars, and other evidence of old injuries, she might have dismissed him for a new ganger, fresh from initiation. Even so, she would have been willing to assume that it was connected to the criminal underworld somehow and let it rest at that. That is, if she hadn't spotted the dagger.
It was a double-edged European design, old and worn from repeated - and recent - use, and an odd sheen she couldn't quite place marked it as something other than steel. She was half-tempted to call the police, but there was something... familiar about him, something that told her to trust him, that she should listen to his semi-coherent request to leave the authorities out of this.
So she did.
And when she turned her back, he was gone, a sizeable sum of money left in his place.
When she finally returned home, her thoughts were preoccupied with the lone stranger and the peculiar circumstances surrounding the almost surreal encounter.
She almost didn't hear her Senshi Communicator beeping.
Xander worked the last cricks out of his neck as he continued toward his apartment. The new bruises he was sporting, thanks to a certain fyarl demon, were still smarting.
Note to self: Screw the law; pack heat.
Still, it had been a productive night. He'd actually seen the Sailor Senshi in action, which he hadn't really expected.
He'd gotten the hint when Giles had sent him here to investigate them. They had gone dormant years ago, and Japan hadn't seen any real demonic incursions since then.
A working vacation, Giles had called it.
Riiight.
Someone must've thought he was finally losing it. In retrospect, he wasn't sure he disagreed.
The question was... now what?
A shriek snapped him out of his reverie, and he reacted, following the sound into an alley.
He grinned and drew his stake.
Tomoe Hotaru was not a strong person. True, the sickly weakness that had plagued her in her childhood had passed, but she was still comparatively fragile and weak, Sailor Saturn's powers notwithstanding.
So when the two men had cornered her in an alley, she wasn't about to fight back for some money.
But then... they changed.
Gripping her henshin wand, she was about to transform when another voice intruded.
"Hey, bloodsuckers, over here!"
She blinked.
At the Gates of Time, Sailor Pluto frowned.
Something was interfering with her precognition.
She would have to look into this.
"Are you all right?"
Hotaru blinked.
"Um, yeah... how... wha...?"
Her savior smiled ruefully and shook his head.
"Don't worry about it," he said. "By tomorrow morning, all this will seem like a bad dream. Piece of advice, though: Don't invite anyone into your home after dark. C'mon, I'll walk you home or something."
Hotaru smiled gratefully.
She decided he was wrong on one thing at least.
If this was a dream, it certainly wasn't a bad one.
Author's Postcript:
WANTED: Device for controlling plot bunny populations.
REWARD: Updated fanfiction.
Any questions?