Gauss stood with a grimace, dusting himself off and gathering his bearings. Wherever he was, it was completely decimated. Strange buildings and structures either leaned or bent. Some crumbled and others continued to drop their parts around the area. Abnormally shaped cars looked beat up and dirty and--.
The howl of a dog and pounding footsteps alerted him. An arm raised instinctively, a punch greeting the face of some wild animal. It took about a minute, but the dog-like thing finally gave out and died. Gauss shook his hands, looking at his bloodied knuckles.
"Just what kind of place is this?" he wondered aloud.
He looked around, trying to find some form of life. Somewhere, anywhere. Gauss took a step forward and stopped, feeling something bulky underfoot. Looking down he saw the package he'd managed to save before being somehow transported to this strange place. What about his wife? Their child?
A frown overcame the young man's features. This was not good. Not good at all.
Brown eyes surveyed the area again, looking for someplace. He needed a place with a room so that he could gather himself and then venture out to ask questions. To his right was an intact structure made entirely of brick as it seemed. Walking around it, he saw that it had many doors. Was this some sort of inn?
He checked every one of the locks. Each were steadfast, and the keyholes were strange-looking. They weren't bell-shaped like the ones in England. But of course they weren't. He wasn't in England anymore.
Gauss muttered a curse in Mandarin, tiring of coming upon locked door after locked door. But finally, before he gave in to the urge to try to kick one of them in, he came upon an unlocked one.
He pushed the door open.
And was immediately met with the long and narrow barrel of a strange looking gun.
Immediately, his hands went up.
___________________
Jace heard footsteps outside the door of the apartment. Training his ears on the sound, he reached over for Axel's rifle carefully. The lock turned and he braced for whatever was coming. The dark haired Asian looked back at Axel. He was still out. The lazy bastard needed to get it together in case Jace needed him. And that was right then, if anything.
The door opened and Jace was on his feet in record time, rifle trained into the face of the intruder. Who he saw wasn't exactly who he was expecting. Brows furrowed, he watched as...this look-alike raised his hands in surrender.
"You might want to put that down, sir."
The sound of an Englishman coming from one who was clearly Chinese was something to think about. Just who was this man?
"Who are you?"
"I suppose I should answer," the other man said with a strained smile. He was about six feet, with a face that looked uncannily like Jace's only this man had short hair and stubble. "Though, it shouldn't be much of a problem knowing who I was since we look alike, don't you think?"
Jace affirmed his stance with the rifle and the other man's smile faltered.
"I am Gauss, from England," the man appeased. "Now, if you'd be so kind as to lower your weapon. I've only a package holding priceless cigars from France. I assure you I am completely harmless."
Jace eyed the man warily. "Drop it then."
The man named Gauss did exactly as told, keeping his arms up. A rustle from the bed made both men turn toward a stirring Axel. But it was a bad move on Jace's part. Gauss had lunged toward him for the gun, however because of his enhanced hearing, Jace was able to dance out of the man's way. It wasn't enough to dissuade the Englishman. Apparently this English Chinese was well-versed in Kung Fu; Gauss whirled around and hooked his wrist, hitting Jace in his midsection. The simple move packed a lot of punch; it was the Mantis Fist -- a traditional art passed through his family for centuries. First the man has his face, and now he has his Kung Fu style.
Just who was he?
A slicing of air cut the dance for domination short, a dagger pinning itself into the wall on the other side of the room. Moments later, another blade was held dangerously close to the other man's throat.
"I didn't know you had a brother," Axel hummed, looking around at the other man's face.
"I don't," Jace grimaced, stepping out of the man's range of attack and training the gun on him.
"I assure you I'm only acting out of self defense," Gauss defended.
"I didn't even attack you," Jace raised a brow.
"You were within fifteen feet of my person with a gun trained on me," the Englishman sniffed. "You were a threat by universal law."
"Look out," Axel chuckled, keeping his knife trained on the man. "We got a badass here."
"Who are you really?" Jace questioned, ignoring Axel not for the first time.
"I told you already," the Englishman huffed. "My name is Gauss and I am from England."
"Your last name," Jace clarified with a glare.
"Vee, if you truly must know," Gauss sighed with a roll of his eyes. He didn't seem at all perturbed with Axel's knife to his neck.
"Vee?" Axel questioned. He eased up, figuring the man couldn't have been a threat. "You two related or something?"
"Can't be," Jace said. "My parents are dead and I don't have any siblings. Just cousins and none have the name Gauss. The last Gauss in my family was still Chinese and moved to--."
"How did you know of me?" Gauss asked.
Realization dawned. 'We'd been chucked through time,' Jace thought. And then murmured aloud: "But these houses and buildings were never around in the 1920's."
"So he'd been spit out just like us," Axel concluded, putting two and two together. He knew how to follow Jace's thoughts. He'd worked with him long enough to know what random crevice in his mind spewed out such disjointed thoughts. Then his eyes brightened. "Does that make him your great, great, great, great great, etcetera granddad?"
"I've been what? And I'll have you know that I'm only twenty four," Gauss defended. "I'm too young to have that many of my lineage. My son can't even walk yet much less procreate."
"He is," Jace nodded. "And if he's here, then that means we can't be the only ones in the same situation."
"Then that settles it," Axel said, walking over to retrieve the first knife and sheathing both beneath his pant legs. He resettled himself onto the bed. "Time to have a little family reunion, right?"
"Axel," Jace glared. "We're in unknown territory and you're interested in family ties?"
"If you think about it," Gauss cut in. "It would be best to know who we're associating ourselves with before we go anywhere to gather information."
"Smart old man," Axel commented.
"I'm twenty-four," Gauss corrected immediately.
"So's Jace," Axel jerked a thumb in Jace's direction. "So how did you get here?"
"Well," the 'old' British Chinese sat cross-legged on the ground. "I was running away from the police--."
"You're a criminal?" Jace asked incredulously.
Axel guffawed at the same time. "You do realize that centuries down the line, you spawned a cop, right?"
"A cop?" Gauss looked confused.
"Policeman," Axel clarified. "So...you kind of ran away to get caught again."
"What exactly did you do?" Jace asked, truly curious.
"I was delivering those illegal cigars,"Gauss replied, pointing at the abandoned case. "To a fence, selling it to a nobleman. Some bloke from Scotland Yard had known about it one way or the other and imposed the middleman. He was about to arrest me but I'd delayed him, and ran out in to the street. A car was about to bowl me over and next thing I know, I'm here fending for my life against some dog-like creature."
"So what were you, exactly, as a criminal?" Axel questioned further. Jace saw the glint in his eye and knew that they weren't going to leave anytime soon. Axel was a criminal himself and things like that were just up his alley. "Were you a con man?"
"I prefer the term--."
"Smooth talker," both chorused. There was a moment of silence before both broke out in raucous laughter. Jace could only groan. Just great.
[Holy damn o.o]