A Little Slice of Americana (Tech Double XP)

Red, white, and blue streamers ran the linings of the businesses making up the quaint main street of a small town in Iowa. Picture perfect white terraces rose up from the asphalt topped roads, flanked on each side by red and green flat grilled cars. People walked the sidewalks with bottles of green coke like American love. "Something seem off to you?" Elaine stood in the middle of the road starring down the lazy traffic while a number of girls wearing skirts past their knees with scarves wrapped around their necks. Both of Elaine's guns rested out of sight in her satchel bag on her back. She still drew gazes onto the black poncho draping down a sleeveless shirt over the black shorts Elaine wore with brown boots matching her cowgirl hat. "I said, something seem off to you?"

"Are you talking to someone?" A dark haired young woman with bangs walked up to Elaine wearing a red dress with a red scarf tying her hair back.

"There's usually a little dog I talk to. You aren't him." Elaine turned back to the small town before looking back to the brunette. "Are you?"

"I'm not sure what you're insinuating, but I am not a dog." The young woman began walking away from Elaine and towards a malt shop.

"The Hell is a 'malt shop'?" Everything seemed off about this place, but for some reason the malt shop tore the veil for Elaine. Behind that veil of ignorance rested something that looked like a gauss rifle peaking from  behind a pair of trashcans. It quickly disappeared back into the alleyway, but it still triggered Elaine's sense of wonder of wander. And wonder about wandering she did.

Inside the malt shop held about twenty teenagers all in letter jackets and hoop skirts. A young blond girl continued to drink away at a milkshake while the rest of the shoppe continued on about sporting events and winning world wars. The brunette took a seat next to the blond and opened her compact to apply more liner to her eyes. "There's an odd girl in town."

"How odd?"

"Odd enough to possibly know what is wrong around here."

Xander woke up in his motel room feeling strange. It was always weird to wake up in this room instead of the boarding room that he shared with his close friends back in Staten Island. This day however, things seemed weird. The paintings on the wall were gone, replaced with what appeared to be vintage movie posters. The TV set also seemed retro. It rather showed an old color definition than the typical hi-def that he was used to watching through in his room.

"I must have had too much Lucy last night", looking for his powder bottles. They were nowhere to be found.

Something strange is going on... Xander pondered to himself as he decided to dress up and get ready to go into town for his breakfast, hoping to get an explanation of why these things were occuring.

He scavenged through his closet to look for a fresh set of clothes, only to find one suit. He resentfully put it on and attached his sword's scabbard to his side remarking, "Housekeeping must have misplaced my bags and clothing," shrugging as he walked out the door.

He began walking around into town, which seemed alot more different. Instead of the comfortable big metropolis that surrounded his vacant metropolis in Los Angeles, he was somehow in some secluded quiet town in a place called Iowa. Across the street was a place called a "Malt Shop", with many patrons walking in and out of its business.

Famished and full of curiosity, he wandered into the shop as kids pointed and stared as his sword, asking something about what novelty shop he bought it from. What novelty shoppe..?, he questioned in disgust as he rubbed his hand against the angelic scabbard that held his majestic sword.

He walked up and sat by the counter before ordering a hamburger. The waitress with a weird hairdo and a pink dress getup and a name tag that said Flo. After staring at Xander in disgust, she lectured that the burger and his fries/milkshake would cost him $0.49. 49 cents!?! My Savior, I got to start coming to this place more often!

Patrons stared in anger or some sort of hatred, questioning his presence in the malt shop before turning to their activities in silence, after looking at his arsenal. He hadn't seen such disgust or hatred since Pastor De'lacroix scolded him for speaking to an african-american female friend at his local school in his earlier days. This time, it was projected at him, something that made his chill vibes a bit tense. He turned to notice another patron who seemed out of place like himself. He felt like going towards her to ask her where he was; he just didnt know how to go about it.

Nothing about this alleyway screamed 'gauss rifle', but the absence of evidence did not sell innocent to Elaine. She continued to scurry about the alley with the constant sliding of her boots against the spotless concrete. No breaks from grass, no puddles from any run off, and no markings of any kind against the walls. Whatever place she wandered into could boast to anyone else about its cleanliness, but for some reason, it kept its pride to itself. Elaine began to walk from the alley when a rattle caught her ear. Nothing else within this area looked heavy enough to conjure up such a sound. Whatever she heard rattle from beneath the building next to the malt shoppe. Walking back to the front of the building, Elaine looked up to see a sign plastered across as the Springfield Heritage Society. Not liking two of the words and being unsure if the third one checked out, Elaine made a point to visit this establishment.

"Looks like there's more of them." The blond set her milk shake down while she continued to survey the environment. "It should be nice that the guys in this town became more polite, but this is just kind of weird."

"Too weird, Beth." The red scarved brunette tapped her finger against the counter while the rest of the room noticed the new comer. "Looks like we aren't the only ones taking notice of him either."

"We need to do something, Virginia." Betty whirled around and watched as a few letter jacket clad young men stood up to ask the new comer to leave in the most polite and wholesome way possible.

"Um." Virginia stood up and pushed herself in front of Betty. "Hey! A football game just broke out with our cross state rivals two towns over and they need school spirit over there now!"

Confused looks shared their expressions with everyone. "Well what are we waiting for?" One girl stood up and headed to the door. "I don't remember any pep rallies about this." Another boy walked through the door. "Even I didn't know and I'm the quarterback." Most of the patrons left the shoppe, leaving just Beth and Virginia along with the shop owner alone.

"I don't know if you know what's happening, but we sure don't." Beth sat down next to Xander as she watched the mass exodus to make sure it did in fact clear the place out.

"Yeah, we just woke up last week and everything was- vintage."

"I don't know if it was vintage, but I do know it is old looking now."

"That's what vintage means. Ug, move over." Virginia shoved herself into the booth, pushing Beth further in the corner. "So, you and that cowgirl came in here, and other than you two, everyone else is all-"

"Vintage." Beth straightened herself up.

"No, not vintage. Brainwashed."

"That's what vintage means."

"Ugh, anyways, I think we can help each other figure out what's wrong here."

Elaine opened the door and invited herself into the grand hall. A few glass cases kept most of the paintings from just anyone brushing up against them while some cabinets held some fine pieces of ceramics. No gauss rifles on display. That only further invigorated Elaine to push forward with her investigation. The upper room seemed lifeless, but voices echoed up a stairwell. A green light flickered down the corridor leading further down. Elaine hugged the wall and slid her hand into the holster to ready one of her pistols. She took a deep breath and began her descent.

Xander had began to shrug aside the glares and mutters emitted by the patrons of the shop. They probably just had a bad day in his mind anyway, and they weren't about to mess up his good vibes. He had dispensed his straw unto his milkshake and began to drink from it, waiting for his burger and fries in a carryout to arrive. He chuckled a bit when he remembered the waitress finding a difficulty figuring out what "on-the-go" was.

Just as he was going on about his laughter, a group of young men in lettermen jackets arrived to his vicinity, circling around him like a group of vultures closing in on a freshly murdered prey. While their dispositions seemed harmless, he couldn't help but notice that the faces of the patrons seemed relieved, and excited. As if they were expecting a brawl to arise that would probably spell for Xander's doom. The only unfortunate thing was that Xander had the powers of the ethereal beings, and it seemed that these guys were just commonfolk

"Hey buddy, I don't really wanna start any trouble with you. But you're bothering the folks around here, you don't mind leaving before the Sheriff or the mob gets involved, right?", said the head guy in the group, who stood in the center, face to face with Xander.

"We're all brothers and sisters here, aren't we?" smiling as he extended his arms up slightly to show a sign of friendliness with the slightest invitation to an embrace or handshake of sorts. The patrons pushed back in horror, as if they awaited for him to strike or do something to persecute him, while the lettermans also stepped back in a sense of provoking, with the exception of the head one and another right hand guy.

"We're not your 'brother' you  subterranean ne-," snapped the right hand guy before he was restraint from continuing to speak as his leader motioned to stop, in fear of provoking Xander.

"I guess not..," as Xander lowered his arms and went to grab for his milkshake as they all flinched in fear once again.  "Hey! A football game just broke out with our cross state rivals two towns over and they need school spirit over there now!", yelled a female patron that sat across the counter as the crowds began to start leaving the scene.

Some of them appeared to be relieved by their chance to exit, while others left in confusion, unaware of a pep rally beginning to emerge. The place was left empty by the female patron, an accomplice of hers, and the startled shop owner. They approached him and began to talk as the female would constantly turned to her accomplice to clarify the discussion, as if the friend was slightly clueless or naive in common knowledge of what is going on. "Ugh, anyways, I think we can help each other figure out what's wrong here.", she said as Xander finished the remains of his milkshake and grabbed his carryout container and stood up.

"You're right. Maybe we can go find that cowgirl you spoke up and try to figure out what exactly is going on here. Im Xander by the way...Xander De'lacroix," he smiled as he extended his hand in a warm greeting towards the two new associates he had made. He wasn't exactly sure of their intent, but they seemed to be his only hope to figuring out what was going on here.

Elaine stuck her head around the corner. A large circular table dominated the large room, walls adorned with posters and everyday life from the 1950s and baseball pennants. Men and women wearing all sorts of garb from the collective ear sat around the table. Boat cut tops, leather jackets with greased back hair, pencil dresses sitting next to tea dresses sitting next to haltertop dresses. Fedoras sat atop the heads of people not angrily yelling on the Internet and smoking came back in style. A man with slicked hair leaned forward with a cigarette. "We've done the best we could and I can see marked change."

"Yes. This change has been much more responsive than the last world we visited." The tea dress woman held the hands of the women next to her in adulation.

"There are still some who have not given over to the relearning process though." The greaser with biker boots drummed his hands on the table. "There's that blond and the brunette. They act like they get it, but they don't get it. And that's not down with me."

"Now, now. This is not as much of a problem as an opportunity." The red haired woman in the blue pencil dress set her neighbors hand down. "Last time when we had outliers we just destroyed the entire town. I think we can come up with something better. More prudent."

The greaser shot forward in his seat. "Like what?"

All attention turned to the corner of the room where a blunt impact made a thud. A woman with a halter top and tight jeans tossed a gauss rifle up over her shoulder as she stood over a downed Elaine. "I found someone not minding their own bees wax."

A smile crept along the red headed woman's smile. "A demonstration?"

Beth and Virginia took a time to glance at each other before returning to Xander. "That is a big name to pronounce." While not absolutely dumb struck, Beth did try to pronounce it a few times as Delacrouch, Delacootch, and Delacrouton. "Close enough."

"You'll have to excuse her. She's really been looking into the whereabouts of this oddities and hasn't been able to learn things." Virginia simply stuck to calling the man Xander. No need to bring up things to make her look ignorant. "A few days ago we noticed the police station turned into a Heritage Society building. The police are still around, but they don't do anything. No one breaks laws."

"Things have gotten pretty peaceful and quite around here." Beth grabbed some fries from Xander's bag and helped herself.

"Too quite." Virginia looked out towards the spartan building standing adorned with red, white, and blue banners hanging down. "That's where I'm going."

"There was some weird lights over in the woods a while ago though." Beth took time between her bites to continue on as well. "Like Martians or something."

"They weren't Martians. There is a logical explanation to that."

"Just like there's a logical explanation the police station turned into the Heritage Society Building." Both girls crossed their arms and locked eyes.

"We'll agree to disagree. And I'll go check out the Heritage Society." Virginia grabbed Xander by the arm to pull him with her.

"And, I'll check out the landing site- with Mr. Delacrash." Beth grabbed Xander by his other arm and began to pull him towards the other door of the malt shoppe to investigate the forest.

Xander smiled in an awkward laugh as  the female known as Beth tried to pronounce his name in several manners but failed. To put her out of her misery he replied with a solemn, "Just pronounce it as dell-la-croy," smiling as he twirled his straw around his near empty cup of milkshake.

"A few days ago we noticed the police station turned into a Heritage Society building. The police are still around, but they don't do anything. No one breaks laws." Virginia spoke out as Xander began to run his fingers through his now elongated dreads. He began to wonder if this town had a beauty parlor where he can pick up a few items, before snapping back into the situation at hand.

For starters, he was slightly confused at the idea that a police building turned into a 'Heritage Society building'. Secondly, What the heck is exactly a 'Heritage Society'??? He continued to zone in and out of the conversation between Beth and Virginia as they talked about things being two quiet and calm, like it was  evident to see.

"Like Martians or something.", Beth spoke out as she continued to consume some of Xander's fries. Uninterested in them at the moment, he ended up giving the bag to her after taking his burger out and beginning to take a bite or two out of it.

"While Martians may be interesting to be responsible, they are highly unlikely. And I don't know of any Martians that would just come here to 'redecorate' small town villages in the United States. More like invasions or something," as he began to stand up and survey the area to check for anything he might accidentally leave.

Suddenly, he felt his body being jerked in two opposite directions by Beth and Virginia as one decided to go to the Heritage Society and the other wanted to go to this weird psychedelic alien space joint or what have you. While he wanted to discover this whole Heritage Society hullabaloo, he figured that the Beth figure might have some difficulties or even run into trouble herself. He also figured that Virginia might run into the mysterious cowgirl, and possibly the two of them can link up with Beth and himself later on to uncover this mystery.

"You go on Virginia, I'll assist Beth in investigating the crash scene. Like Aesop said, the adventure is worthwhile," making a morbid smile as if he had just made a regretful decision. "We'll meet up back here with you later on, if you happen to run into the cowgirl," before Beth and him exited the shop and adventured into the woods.

Two bells rang at either side of the malt shoppe as both parties made their exit. Off on one side, the brunette carried herself away towards what used to be the police station for what she perceived to be the most pressing of pursuits at her disposal while Beth made sure to keep one hand on Xander and another on her bag of fries.

Her plotting did her well, but with the absence of crime and the perfection spreading across the town, the coven creating this utopia also did very little to protect their image. Even images clearly seen through windows into basement levels by someone walking through the alley. Virginia stuck her head closer to watch as people in an eclectic array of 50s attire, but what drew her in the most came from the cylinders running from floor to ceiling along the side of the room. Tubes connected them to the central panel, but nothing enough to draw her attention way from the major focal point of the liquid nitrogen seeping into the vats.

Virginia crept down into basement through the storm window and made her way over to the sneak behind a control panel. All looked just fine for now, but she could catch a quick look of something beyond good. Within one of the tubes rested Elaine, frozen and with some new additions to her personal appearance.

Beth pulled Xander towards the a clearing in the forest. A small creak filled up around the edges, creating small barrier to entry. The water along the edges flowed gently down stream, but at one point the waters diverged into a less obvious area. The water poured off into a hole in the embankment, left some recent time ago, but still covered up by movement of water. Beth continued to stroll around the clearing, investigating the trees. "I remember seeing some trees, but I can't remember if it was these ones. Maybe if one of them fell it would make a sound. Or do they only make a sound if no one is around. Hey, Xander, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, what sound does it make?" Beth scratched her head as she continued to look for clues. Her footstep caused a minor cave-in just behind her, opening up a path below. The opening of the cave in only stayed natural for a few feet before turning into a metallic ship.

Xander began on a quest into the woodlands , laggin behind Beth since she seemed to know more about the place than himself. He began to wonder what kind of group or creation was responsible for this hullabaloo. He figuratively placed his head in his palms at the idea that Martians could have been responsible for this.

I mean.. Martians?? The whole Earth would have been nuked by now, not remodelled like some home improvement show with an erratic tv host that seems to have a thing for cowboy/southern culture... he sighed as he continued to follow Beth behind, looking around the area for any strange activity that might be related to this supposed spaceship that they spotted earlier.

The entire time, he kept twiddling with the hilt of his sword, just dying to transform and fly over the surrounding areas in hopes of finding this area quicker. He did have to take into account that he already scared the town into an issue similar to the racial events he heard of. He remembered his adopted elder brother Callum telling stories of his father's supposed adventures in a time like this. He ran off somewhere with Callum's mother where they gave birth to him and Callum's deceased younger brother.

It must have caused all those insanity-drive moments in Mr. De'lacroix's life to have caused him and Callum to be who they are today. When Callum first ran away from home, the police searched a woodland area like this. He remembered walking with a then youthful Matthew De'lacroix through the forests as they searched tirelessly to no avail. Callum must had been states, maybe countries away from them. Xander was only 8 then; it was about a year after his adopted grandfather died, and it was approximately 8-9 years later that he would be experimented on like Callum, and became Seraph.

His nostalgic realizations ended as Beth was rambling on about some trees falling and making sounds. "I suppose that a tree will make a sound, regardless if anyone is there to hear it or not. It can't be determined if nobody is present however. Why are we talking about this anyway....?" he demanded with a calm demeanor. It was then that Beth had a misstep that would open up into what appeared to be a giant canyon. That sudden canyon would soon form into a giant metallic space ship, similar to what they were looking for.

"It looks like you hit the motherload Beth.." smiling as he took lead and grabbed her hand as they ventured deeper into the area to do some more investigation.

A low hum came from the open tunnel just behind Beth. "Wow, I guess I did. See, I knew I had some reason to come out here." Beth followed Xander down as they descended into the unknown object beneath them. The tunnel cut off into a large cylindrical walk way circling the ship. As soon as Beth stepped foot into the hall the power within the ship came back, lighting up the hallway. "Wow, I can't stop making things happen. Why can't everything else be as easy as this?" Easy enough for the exterior, but within the ship rested otherwise unknown things that would remain unknown to the clumsiness.

While the outer walkway remained lit up, several hatches ran into a mid section of the ship. They opened up to a bay hosting a life support system holding a singular organism with a green skin tone and a red skin suit. No wires or tubes ran into the machine, but it seemed to have some power granting it life to continue drumming up power to keep the organism within alive. "Oh, so do we just knock or something?" Beth looked around the room. "Do you think he has an alarm clock?"

Virginia began tampering with the support system feeding into the tube holding Elaine in cryostasis. Little did her ambitions of sabotage do in relation to freeing the frozen Elaine, but great were they in alarming the room to her situation. A few unplugged wires dripped a semi frozen substance onto the ground. The red headed woman lifted the unplugged tube with a frown. "If it's been tampered with, it could change the memory capacity of our subject. She might be broken." Power flickered on and off throughout the basement level. Steam released through the exhaust in the body vat, drawing the attention of the greaser back to the experiments.

"You think something is up."

"No. Someone. And I know where." After creating the laboratory responsible for this experimentation, finding the root source of sabotage took her no time at all. Signaling silently to the others of her ilk within the room, they set out and began to corner the vicinity of where the infiltration would need to exit before beginning to close in.

Xander stood around and looked around the colossal vehicle to look for any lighting inside, but came to no avail. Beth would accidentally step on something again to start lighting up the ship. He walked forward to look around the now illuminating hallway for any more clues. "Wow, I can't stop making things happen. Why can't everything else be as easy as this?", she said while breaking the silence as Xander turned around and gave a slight smirk.

While she still remains clueless to alot of stuff around us, she is proving to be a useful asset to figuring out whats going on. Never judge a book by its cover Xander,thinking before he continued to figure out what else this place could be hiding. A bay opened up before them that revealed a machine of sorts that was feeding some life source to an organism stuck in animated suspension or something.

"Looks like we may be having some Martian visitors," remarking as he walked slowly forward, trying to figure out who the organism is and why this ship seemed to be centered by it.

Beth began to ask questions about some alarm clock and being courteous by knocking. Courtesy was his primacy but, now wasn't the exact appropriate time to do so, as Xander wished to return to his own time and continue on with his daily routine. He'd rather not be making diplomatic approaches to unknown invaders, but he was going to act with class.

"We're just going to walk in and see who exactly our new friend is," waving his hand in a gesture for Beth to move in first.

Lights around the circular room began to come alive as the duo entered closer. The creature within the glass remained silent, but a voice began to ring out from within the chamber. "I..." A high pitched voice began to move through the English language. "Come. In. Peace."

"Well, that's the better of things he could come in."

"I have been. On your planet. Since I crashed." The voice continued to play out through the room while Beth looked around at everything coming to life. Signals and lights blinked on and off during the course of the conversation. "I was running from. Pursuers. I have been chased for. Eons."

"That's like years or something." Beth put her hands on her hips as she leaned back to speak to Xander. "I wonder if this has anything to do with that weird stuff going on with the Heritage Society?"

Back in the basement of the Heritage Society, the architects managed to smoke Virginia out of her hiding place, but with the damage done to the vats, their would be no place to hold Virginia for a conversion. "I guess we just need to dispose of you. I wanted to convert those who we could not manipulate, but my partner was always of the more permanent removal attitude towards others."

"Yeah. It's quite ingenious." Waves of gelled hair parted back as a comb slid through his hair. "We lower you into a big thing of acid."

"Woah, but you can fix these vats right? Cause that outfit looks kind of cute."

"You broke that. We'll probably need to to dispose of the other girl we found too." The red head frowned as she sighed. "All that time and now we just have to throw away perfectly good cheek bones. I guess I can study what your actual make up is for some kind of research so this trip to Earth isn't completely without merit."

"Wait, trip to Earth?"

"We've been looking for someone hiding among your population. You've been hiding an alien craft here and someone in this town is not who they say they are. But, you have a dip to take." The red head ushered her arms to her assistants to take Virginia away.

Xander cautiously crept closer into the room, just as the visitor began to make various statements throughout the room. "Come. In. Peace.", it muttered as Xander tried his best to hold in laughter, making a slight smirk at the statement.

"Maybe our planet is being invaded by Martians," he muttered quietly as he continued to listen to the visitor. He or she talked about chased by some pursuers. It reminded Xander of his days under Leviathan, and the rough first few months it was escaping from their grasp. His adoptive brother managed to do it with ease. Then again, security increased soon after Callum's disappearance.

He felt empathy immediately, without even knowing who the person, was for some reason. He heard the word Eons. Just the thought of running from Leviathan for multiple lifetimes in Xander's case made his spine chill.

"Eons. Thats about a billion years Beth," he sighed as he wondered what cruel beings could have done this to him/her. He then thought about the Heritage Society that had been formed from the police station. "You're right Beth," answering her question as he wandered around the room looking for the source of the voice while periodically looking back at the organism. "By any chance. Do you know of this Heritage Society friend?"[/color][/color]

The lights continued to glow around the room as Xander followed the curvature to try and find the source of the sound. "Someone has been. Trying to find me. They do not have. Form. They simply take." While the lights continued to flicker, Beth started to look around as well. "Anything that has changed. Is not true."

"Hmm. Xandy, how long ago did you get into town again?" Beth picked up a rod, triggering a device in the ceiling above her. A cylinder came down and covered Beth. When the cylinder ascended, Beth stood in a skin tight white and blue space age suit with a small pistol in her hand. "Uh, this is a little tight."

"It is the only. Size we have."

"So, Xandy. Should we go about getting to the bottom of this mystery?" Prepared with her pistol and space age technology, Beth looked the part of the infiltrator, and that was half the battle.

The Heritage Society took the precautions to prepare for the removal of the interlopers by putting a number of their members on the first floor and sub basement. Two women in pencil jeans with high heels and halter tops patrolled the perimeter with high tech laser rifles while a man in a trenchcoat and fedora balanced smoking and sporting his rifle in his off hand.

They simply take.. Those words played back in Xander's head repeatedly as he paced back and forth for an idea to fixing this issue. Whoever caused this mental pain on their visitor was planning on taking some things, and he assumed that it was more than just some simple taking back of their science experiment or liability. They must have planned to take other things on their visit.

"I've only been here for about 2 days Beth, before these things started to occur," he responded as their guest started talking about things changing around town and it only being an illusion of sorts.

Suddenly, Beth touched something on the ship and became clothed in an space armor of sorts with a handy pistol. She seemed to get more useful as time went on, something Xander was impressed by and respected her for.

He unequipped his sword from the scabbard before waving it in the sky and speaking a few arcane words. Suddenly a wave of light rushed through his body which covered the room for a split second, before revealing Xander in a onyx battle attire, with gold and red accents: it was his Offensive suit.

"Its time we go pay a visit to the Heritage Society. We'll be back my friend," speaking directly to Beth and their visitor before heading out of the room. His wings would soon begin to expand from the suit as he turned and nodded to Beth before extending his hand to her and grabbing her as they ascended to the skies and towards the Heritage Society building.

Virginia dangled over a large vat of acid in the middle of the room, suspended from a pulley lowering a rope wrapping her arms and legs up and tape over her mouth. The red headed woman walked past the massive display in the middle of the room, pushing a finger against a a release to allow the vat with Elaine in it to open. Smoke cascaded out vat as the inner lining of the case came into view. Elaine wore a red and white halter topped skirt with a beehive hair cone and thick, black sunglasses over her face. "What's going on daddy-O." The curious onlookers stepped back to give Elaine space to move out. "Just going to skit skat my way out of here and go check on what's booping around."

"I can't tell if it did not work or if it worked too well." The man with suspenders whispered to the red headed woman as Elaine bounced around.

"I'm sure it will all work out in the end. And if it doesn't..." Her head turned to lead both hers and his gaze over to the girl hanging over a vat of acid.

"Was your dad a bird?" Beth took Xander's hand and felt herself lifted into the air. "This is only like the third weirdest thing to happen today. I remember thinking this town was boring."

The boredom quickly came to an end when possibly the fourth oddest thing happened to Beth. The burn mark from the laser rifle struck right above her head, followed by a second. Beth shot off a blast from her pistol, but it fell short of hitting its target. The crossfire continued with Beth mostly ducking and occasionally firing blindly towards the 50s attired guards within the first floor of the Society Building. One bolt from Beth's blaster dislodged an exhibit case, sending it onto a man with a paper burger hat and an apron. The display case shattered his head, causing a green and blue substance to run out of his head and onto the ground.

The fighting from the first floor echoed through the top floor into the basement. The man with suspenders and trenchcoat grabbed his fedora and took his leave up the stairs with an energy gatling gun hanging from his hip. "I'll take care of that ruckus. Nice and quick." He kicked the door from the basement in and began spraying the exhibit room with rounds of heated energy towards Xander and Beth.