Within the Apple Ch1A

Chapter 1

Outside of the city, time and space twisted with a violence that would have left any onlookers with a severe affliction of nausea, had any of them been unfortunate enough to observe the phenomenon. It only lasted a moment, however, before a human form emerged from the locus and landed lightly on the asphalt.

“Huh,” Xander Harris said as he patted himself down. “Still have my clothes on, wands intact… I might just be getting the hang of this.”

He stretched out, looking for any signs that he’d left body parts behind, and was pleasantly surprised that everything was properly intact.

Everything.

Yes. He checked.

“Better than my landing on Avenger’s Tower at least,” Xander chuckled. “Tony has no sense of humor… not when he’s the butt of the joke anyway.”

A look around quickly determined that he wasn’t anywhere near downtown New York or anything that might resemble Avenger’s Tower or any of the facilities he’d seen during his stint in the Marvel universe. If anything, Xander was wondering if he’d accidentally landed back home… in one of the worse off sections of the country.

Let’s see, still on the east coast… He thought, looking up to the stars, the few he could see that weren’t washed out by the street lamps that led down into the city he could see. A flick of his wand gave him better location data. Definitely East Coast of the US. Guess I should check in though.

With that thought in mind, he pulled out his Spell Phone and slid the device open.

“Wednesday.”

It didn’t take long for her to respond.

“Xander,” Wednesday looked back at him from the device. “Are you alright?”

“Peachy, with a side of kean,” He said, amusing himself with her grimace of distaste at the wording. “Landed intact. Don’t recognize the locale, though, but it’s definitely not the universes I’ve been in so far. I think I transitioned down the power gradient as planned.”

“Excellent. How far?”

“Unknown,” He shrugged, eyes looking toward the city in the distance. “Honestly, it kinda looks like an Addams’ wet dream. Look at this…”

He flipped the communications tool around, letting Wednesday check out what he was seeing. The city had seen better days, to be sure, even from this distance and at night he could tell that. Sections of it looked blacked out, like there wasn’t any power to those blocks, and he could see multiple, as in many, buildings that had visible damage that his glasses were recording and telling him about.

“You do have a penchant for the most lovely of vacation spots,” Wednesday said, a hint of admiration and longing in her tone. “Gotham was beautiful, but this place seems to be beckoning me.”

“Well, let’s get the coordinates right before you try and visit again, yes?” He asked, chuckling. “The last thing the universe needs is a stray Addams running around, lost and scared.”

He flipped the image back in time to catch the flash of pure violence that crossed through her eyes, smirking openly at her as Wednesday got control back and merely glared her normal expression at him.

“Your humor belongs at the bottom of a garbage pit,” She told him blithely.

Xander shrugged, “As it turns out, that might be where it… and I… am.”

“What are your plans?”

“Scout around a bit,” Xander answered. “I’ll head down to the city, I guess, see what I can find.”

He slipped one of his wands into his free hand while talking and applied a quick transfiguration to his gear, putting himself into a rugged but well worn jacket, hoody, and jeans. Nothing that should be too much out of the ordinary for anyone who spotted him.

“Very well, I will await your discoveries.”

“Love you to, Wens,” He said, winking at her as she hurriedly cut off the signal, which let him know that he’d gotten a bit under her armor.

With that done, Xander closed up the Spell Phone and tucked it into his pocket as he began walking down the highway toward the city.

*****

A small alarm caught the attention of the armored man as he worked on some of his gear, leading him to reluctantly set aside his tools and rise to his feet.

Gravitational anomaly, just outside of town. Curious.

He tapped in a few commands, setting his systems to analyzing the readings in more detail as he went over whatever might have caused that sort of thing in his mind.

There weren’t many possible sources, and even fewer of them could be considered benign.

That said, nothing would be accomplished by throwing up an alert until he had a better idea of what he was dealing with, so he set to work, his previous tasks laying unfinished behind him.

*****

A few miles down the road, with barely any traffic heading into the city, Xander was wondering what the hell had happened to the place. Walking was getting him nowhere fast, but he was reluctant to take to the air until he had a better idea of what the local situation was for powers and the like.

The last thing he needed was a visit from the local Aurors or Obliviators or… well, whatever the locals had, he supposed.

That said, he was starting to think that the locals might not have much. If they did, well… Xander didn’t think they had much of a budget or proper funding, because his lenses were telling him nothing particularly good about the city.

The damage he could see through was… confusing.

A lot of it was clearly just lack of maintenance, but some looked like… Battle damage?

What kind of place has that sort of damage visible in an American city?

Infrastructure collapse, sure. Maybe even terrorist damage, if he’d shown up at a particularly inopportune time, but his lenses were reporting what looked like damage from ongoingskirmishes.

Red Dawn universe this time? Xander thought with some humor, but quickly shook his head. No. I couldn’t have transitioned that far down the power curve.

Red Alert, now, maybe.

He looked to the skies, but didn’t see any blimps or the like, but that didn’t mean much.

Well, only way to figure it out is to move on I guess.

He passed an exit, showing Boston to the North, but it was the sign that pointed straight ahead that caused him to stop and stare.

Brockton Bay? Where in the living fuck is Brockton Bay?

*****

AN : I've been trying to NOT write this, but it won't leave me be...