The people in the park looked up as the bright light seemed to float down, and the smart ones ran from it deciding it was something weird they didn't want to deal with. A few even called it in as an emergency. So when the bridge actually landed, there were a few people gathering to stare at it. When six young women, pretty young girls who didn't look related, stepped off one of the heros waiting winced. He took off his helmet and bowed to the girls, who all smirked at him.

The guy following them sighed and looked back. "Thanks for the saving, Heimdall," he called with a wave. "Can you warn me next time that the space douche is a pirate who wanted to steal my daughter?" They all heard laughter. "You know, I could let them hunt you down again. You'd make a great son-in-law." Two of the girls grinned at him. Another nodded she agreed.

"Please do not make him hide. I may have to go up there soon," Thor said quietly.

Xander spun and stepped off the end of the bridge, then whistled. His axe flew to his hand and got stuck to his back. The girls got looked over. "Someone forgot her clothes and you *know* your sisters won't share." She huffed but ran back up the bridge and came back a minute later with her bag. The bridge disappeared once she was off it. "Write Heimdall a thank you letter later," he said patiently. "So you don't have to go naked all the time." She sighed but nodded she would, ducking behind her taller sister next to her. He looked at Thor, then shrugged. "Space pirates. Actual space pirates," he said dryly. "Who wanted to play poker so they could win a daughter." Thor winced at that, but nodded once. "Pity about us winning their ship and everything else they owned but they tried to reclaim their pet." He shook his head quickly then snapped his fingers and pulled out two scrolls to hand over. "From your dad. He's still in a pissy, bitchy girl mood."

"When did you decide to come back?" Thor asked him.

"The closet kicks me back here every eight years, Thor. Wherever's time, not here time." He shrugged but shifted his stance, nodding at the people standing there. "Hey." He looked at Thor again. "I only went up last time to rescue the girls."

"What of the one that's missing?"

"I have a daughter-in-law I don't want to sacrifice yet." He grinned slightly. "One of the Valkyries and she got caught together so Odin made them wed at sword point. Then he told me. It was nice the daughter made him confess when she had knocked him out a window and nearly off a balcony." Thor tried not to smile. "Yeah, her. She's supposedly happy and ignoring the fact that some people have suggested they could find a way to give me grandchildren. So am I before I have to bless the grandkids to be just like me." The girls all groaned. He grinned at them. "If any of you make me a grandfather I'm *so* blessing them to be *just* like me. It might save them from Willow, maybe." He looked at Thor again. "We're going to go hide from the wannabe evil idiots who wanted me in charge."

Thor cleared his throat. "Did they ever sort that out?"

"I don't want your mangy father's seat, Thor. Why would I want it?" he complained, staring at the taller guy. "Your father's an asshole and apparently it's contagious. You got it when you sat in his seat for him. Your brother got it from him. Your half-sister isn't much better." He shrugged. "Be damned if I want it."

"Thank thee," he said patiently.

Xander clapped him on the arm with a grin. "By the way, when I was forced to hold it steady before the honor duel, I cleared all the stupid rules out so pick someone who'll help you rule and be good for your life, Thor. Just...not one of my girls. Okay?" He walked off. "C'mon, girls. Let's go let you pretend to be ladies while I call the bitches in Cleveland. Maybe I can hide behind you when they complain."

"That's one reason to need grandchildren," one of the girls quipped with a grin for him. She looked a bit insane while doing it. "It would definitely stop all bitching at you by the brats you used to help, Dad."

"Yeah, it definitely might. But then you'd get Willow." The girls all grimaced and one shuddered. "Yeah, her. I *so* want to give her to Asgard. Maybe she'll find an evil lesbian up there to take all of her time and attention. Or I could do something that would make a mage up there pay off a debt to change someone for her," he said, considering it. "Hey, Thor, how would you like a sister instead?"

"Loki would murder you, Alexander," Thor shot back but he was smiling. "Your friend Willow has been quiet recently."

Xander turned to walk backwards, smirking at him. "Loki saved you all by knocking her into next year when she had the bad idea to summon warriors down for the girls to flirt with because they just *had* to be regular warriors who'd help the slayers patrol and stuff, nothing special since they're guys. Sif asked him nicely and he scried then groaned and knocked her out while saying she was his first target when he took over again. Sif reminded him somehow I'm before him for the throne and it'd come down to a duel. He stomped off to sneer at me so we made out and he suddenly went into hiding to consider his sexuality. Or something like that." He grinned and turned back around to herd his girls off. "No, you can't go pet the park horse," he said loudly. That daughter came back. "The slayers have two called unicorns you can go pet later, ladies. And someone please pull down her skirt!"

"Ooops," she muttered in All Speak. "Sorry, Dad!" She adjusted her clothes quickly. "I need to go up in size."

"You're growing. I realize that, Daphne," he said patiently. "Once we get some money changed over you can take your sisters and find something *tasteful*. Not like what you wore at the Academy, but *tasteful*."

"Yes, Dad," she complained. "I might still fit that."

"Yay! I don't need thoughts about you being hot, dear. Dads shouldn't think that about their daughters. It's creepy and wrong." The girls all giggled at him for that. A demon showed up and Xander's axe got grabbed so he could attack it. The girls got the minions that showed up, and knocked out the officers running to help. Xander looked them over then shook his head. "Shirts." A few had to adjust the boobs popping out. "Thanks. Nice work, ladies. Very fast and easily done. C'mon, faster we find somewhere, the faster we get ice cream." The girls ran off to find the local demon poker hall so they could change out money and see if there was a safe housing area set up already. Xander followed, cleaning his axe off with his overshirt and shaking his head as he walked.

Thor looked at the others, shrugging. "Ancient prophecy," he admitted. He walked off with a sigh. "At least it has not fully come to pass that my father would lose his seat over his arrogance about males."

Steve grabbed his arm. "Is he a villain?"

"No!" Thor smiled and shook his head. "His daughters have robbed him of patience again, what little my father's actions left him." He got free with a pat to the hand holding his bicep. "I will share that story. It is amusing in many ways. Alexander is not the average warrior but he will solve things if he must. That's why the elves stole him from the realm he ended up on."

He walked off reading the scrolls. His father's letter had much to make him worry about his mental state. The other was from Loki, who had many more interesting things to share. Including that Odin had put the honor duel for the throne back onto his shoulders. Thor grimaced. "I would not want to fight him," he muttered. "The girls would make me suffer for each injury I caused him."

The others followed him back to the tower to hear about this possible problem. And the pretty girls that called him daddy. Steve Rogers looked at Thor once they were all back there. "So, who was he?"

"He is the male warrior that works with the Midgardian Valkyries. Or he used to before he found and somehow made it through an enchanted closet. That leaves you on a certain realm for eight years their time but only eight hours here." He grimaced. "He had to go back to rescue his daughters when someone told him they had been made by a witch over there. We had heard he had to go twice because he couldn't get all of them. When he did finally get them, another witch banished them to another realm and the girls had to save them that time.

"Then the elves kidnaped him to demand the girls help them with something. So the girls kindly knocked out that whole village, tied them up in a house, and went to defend the, as they called them, whiny ponces with ears." He grimaced. "Which set off that prophecy that meant he could be the one to take the throne from my father, but he doesn't want it."

He settled deeper into his seat. "In that first trip, Alexander learned much. Much he does not talk about as well. All we know is that a coven of three witches made the daughters he has. Seven daughters, one's a set of twins." Everyone just nodded slowly at that. "They did it to perform some rite with their blood and bodies but he found out and stopped them. He had no idea the witches had taken his seed to make him daughters. Thankfully they were untouched by the higher beings that oversee the one he used to help hunt beside.

"When a demonic contact told him about the girls being sacrificed, I'm told there was a great fit. Great enough to have evacuated part of their former village. Then he stomped off to gather things, including that blessed axe of his, and he went to save his daughters. He managed to get them from the witches, and made quite a mess of them and their summoned helpers."

He cleared his throat. "Then another who wanted to own the girls as concubines stole them to a few castles. He managed to save six and got pulled back by that closet. Then he got a few new weapons to get the seventh. That mess...well, there are bards who can tell that story in great detail and make you feel sorry for the destruction of that demon's demesne. And realm. And possibly any who served that demon in any manner."

"A man protects his daughters," Steve agreed calmly. "So he's a warrior?"

"Aye, and one that Asgard would be proud to claim. He and the girls spent six weeks among a warrior's academy when they rescued themselves from the elves. The warriors were confused that Alexander did not wear himself out with extra training and sparring matches. Instead he showed them how to monitor their energy and how to conserve it for later battles. Some of them thought it made him weak until a few fire giants came for the girls. Then they saw that all the energy he conserved went into the new battle.

"He was used to battles every few days in his old life. He had learned the wisdom of a long war's needs from that. He outlasted that whole academy trying to take down the fire giants." He smiled. "And another two that ran to help but got there a few hours later. He did much damage to them. Including taking out their head prince. Their princess showed up to make a treaty but his daughters complained that he shouldn't sleep with her because it would ruin her for later lovers. As it turns out, as it was needed to stop that battle set, that they were correct. Again, a bard could espouse that ...battle much better than I can. The squealing sounds better coming from them." He smiled slightly. "He used to date a daughter of Old Norse. She taught him many tricks to make a woman happy. Which is probably why my brother hid from him after that kiss." He considered it then shrugged it off. "At least I did not have to hear my brother squealing that way."

Steve blinked a few times. "Squealing?"

"She enjoyed it," Natasha Romanoff said patiently. "She got loud." She looked at Thor. "Is he related to that town that fell in?"

"Yes!" He smiled and nodded. "He used to help the one known as Buffy when they were not full adults yet."

"We had wondered where he went. His daughters, are they magical?"

"I know not," Thor admitted. "Nor do I wish to find out because the only way for me to take the throne from him would be to marry one of them and then kill him. Which I do not wish to attempt. I do not want the throne that badly." He smiled. "Though they are comely, they are as much warriors as Sif is and less patient with men's foibles as they haven't had the years she's had to learn such patience. I pity the one that married on Asgard. Though I had not heard that gossip. I should ask Sif if she knows of which one it was."

Steve cleared his throat. "Should we worry about this guy? Is he dangerous to us?"

"If you touch his daughters? Yes. Quite. Odin stared at one too long and she poisoned him for it." He stared at him. "The girls are flirty but if you don't return it they'll leave you be from what I've seen and heard."

"That's good," Stark agreed as he shifted in his seat. "Anything we should know if we run into them again? Are they trained as warriors or assassins or what?"

"I have no idea," Thor admitted. "Though I know that they have taken training from an assassin's guild in the off-realms that they were born on. Alexander had them trained thus in case they had to save themselves from a man who was evil minded."

"Good of him," Stark agreed. He looked at Natasha, who shrugged. Then back at Thor. "Will they need our help?"

"Only perhaps to get away from his old friends. He said once that they nagged him constantly about being a man so therefore in their way."

"I remember meeting the senior slayer, yes she does," Stark said dryly, staring at him.

"I remember sparring with her," Thor said with a smile for them. "She was very skilled. Sif would be pleased at other female warriors being so skilled." He crossed his feet, getting comfortable. "I got them a trainer to help them learn better sword skills. He was most impressed with even the youngest ones and how they handled their ancient duty. Though he was confused about the shopping issues all the girls seemed to share. I still have no idea why the girls went shopping for something to wear after the battle."

Natasha shook her head quickly. "It's to encourage them not to get hurt."

"That I can understand. Though why pick out skimpy things?"

"They like to go to clubs to dance," she said. "It's for that."

"Ah!" He nodded. "That is not something I am skilled in. The music is too loud and mostly sounds like stuttering and shrieking with a bass beat." He looked at the others. "I would not worry about Alexander unless you are bothering his daughters or in his way before an emergency. He has learned that not many would step into such battles so he needs to move people out of his way since most would only complain about it before they're eaten. Much as we've seen at some of our battles."

"Do we think he's staying local?" Steve asked. "Should we go introduce ourselves to him so he knows who to call on if he finds something?"

Thor shook his head slowly. "He does not call help. He handles things and then hikes off to hide from nagging." He smiled slightly. "He was in the palace being nagged by Odin and walked off with a sigh to handle someone screaming in the garden. My father did splutter and swear after him but Xander got the crying maiden stopped and her boyfriend being an idiot and screaming at her got made very sorry before being handed to Sif so she could find a use for him beyond a waste of a bad night's relations as he put it. Then he went back to stare at Odin and tell him he wasn't really there, he was just on his way through and if that bothered him that much he'd gladly not stop the problems going on by the bridge that Heimdall was handling. Father...I have not heard him mutter those sort of things at anyone. Even Loki was horrified."

Jane, his ex-girlfriend, came off the elevator with Darcy shoving her from behind talking about her eating. "I'm sure she's fine, Lewis," Stark said dryly.

Darcy glared at him. "Jane hasn't eaten in two days so stuff it, Stark. Science takes more than coffee." She shoved Jane into the kitchen so she could fix her something and make her eat.

Tony shook his head. "Sometimes I don't understand Lewis."

Thor shrugged. "She takes good care of Jane, Stark. Leave her be. That is what Jane hired her for." He looked at the porch then at Steve. "You can ask the Maiden Warrior Ophelia yourself if you wish."

Ophelia leaned in with a grin and a wave. "Hey." She threw over a ball of paper. "Where we'll be and Dad's already been found by the redheaded tornado so we'll try to keep the magical fit down when she finds out about us."

Darcy came out of the kitchen to stare at her. "You're not an Avengers girlfriend. Do we know you?"

She grinned. "I'm Ophelia. Daddy Xander had me come bring that note since I'm the only one with clean clothes." She shrugged and grinned. "Let me go back to hiding from the redheaded problem before we all gather together to do a spell to make her calm down for the good of everyone."

"You have no magical gifts," Thor reminded her patiently.

"Yup." Ophelia smirked at him. "But we can damn sure pull up something with Dad together and make it calm her down somehow. Even if she does end up a hamster." She closed the door and climbed off the balcony, hopping to the next building.

"Wow, she's doing it in a skirt," Darcy said, then shook her head. "Asgardian?" she guessed, looking at Thor.

"Not quite and it's a rather long story that only a bard can do justice to, Lady Darcy." He smiled at her. "Ophelia's father is the focus of a prophecy that would unseat my father from his throne."

"Ah!" She nodded. "Is he a bad guy?"

Thor shook his head. "Only if you bother his daughters."

"Hey, not my thing. Introduce us? You know Jane will want to pump him for information." She went back into the kitchen. "No, Jane. Sit and eat the sandwich while the vegetables steam and then get stir fried. You have to eat food *with* the coffee! Remember, the doctor downstairs said if you don't lower the caffeine in your system he's going to ban you from having any at all. So let the sandwich do its job, Jane."

"Fine," Jane complained. "Why are you stir frying vegetables?"

"Because you need the vitamins. You're pale like a ghost again." She shot her a dirty look. "Plus, Thor could probably use veggies too. This way you can share your veggies and talk about traveling stuff." Jane groaned but ate before the nagging got worse.

Thor smiled at the others. "Jane does look pale." They just nodded.

Natasha was staring outside. "That is not the outfit I would've been wearing to climb a building. The skirt was too tight and the shirt was like a vest with sleeves. Almost ren-faire style." She looked at Thor. "Asgardian?"

"Elven. When they got taken, the girls probably needed something to put on or they were redressed when their father found them." He looked over as Clint came in. "Welcome back," he said, smiling and shaking his hand.

"Thanks," Clint said, flopping down in his usual seat. "I heard that Harris is finally back from wherever and brought new slayers?"

"His daughters," Natasha told him. "Some witches made them for him without telling him."

Clint grimaced. "Yeah, there's a witch stew somewhere by his reputation." He shook his head quickly.

"We know more about him?" Steve asked.

"When the slayers came out, I was one of the agents sent to liaison," Clint said then he smiled. "My bow was liked by them since they use a lot of crossbows and swords." Stark grimaced but nodded he had seen that too. "Some of those young women nag like it's their cure to having to go to school. Harris was around then but the girls were apparently hiding?"

"For a bit he let them live with an aunt who wanted to take care of them," Thor admitted. "At their request because they didn't want to leave home for down here and the slayers. It was hard but best for them at that time because they would be endangered by the battles. Then he had to go rescue them again." He shifted again. "Darcy, you're burning something."

"I don't even have a burner on, Thor," she called back. "The veggies are in the microwave in the bamboo steamer thingy. The smoke's coming from somewhere else. I can see it outside." Stark got up to look then groaned and hiked off to find it and fix it. She leaned out and smiled. "Anyone else need something while I'm making Jane eat?" They all shook their heads. "Hey, Clint."

"Hey, Darce. She okay?"

"Just been two days," she said dryly, going back to her fixing Jane's lunch.

Clint looked at Thor. "So he's back down her with his daughters?"

"Six of the seven. He said one was married off to a valkyrie because they were caught together by my father. He said so far that arrangement agrees with his daughter as he hasn't wanted to sacrifice his daughter-in-law yet. Though he has banned them from giving him grandchildren."

Clint nodded. "That would be freaky beyond belief, yeah. So six daughters. Slayers?" Thor shook his head quickly. "Interesting."

"Trained to be able to protect themselves and others," Thor told him. "He is a fierce father from what I have heard."

"He'd have to be, the girls were pretty," Steve said. "Guys are leches around girls like that."

"The girls handle those so they do not make their father commit abuses or murders," Thor said dryly, smirking at him. "They let him handle bigger threats than just a man who wants more than is reasonable or likely."

"Or wanted," Jane called. "Some men want a lot more than women want to give them."

"True. Though most warriors will not try thus, Jane."

Darcy leaned out, staring at him for a second. "Then you didn't have to beat *two* wannabe warriors who wanted Jane? Because she told me that story, Thor, and how my borrowed taser came in very handy."

He nodded. "True, there are men who were raised wrong," he agreed.

She grinned. "And for those, women take self defense and carry weapons like tasers and pepper spray." She went back to feeding Jane.

"Which explains why she used her lightening stick on me when I got up demanding," he said dryly, cracking Clint up.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD, STARK, WHATEVER YOU JUST DID CREATED A PORTAL THAT ATE JANE!" Darcy shouted. "Bring her the fuck back! NOW!"

The heros rushed in to see if they could help but Darcy pulled Clint away from the portal. "I can help," he reminded her.

"You're probably going to be sucked over there." She glared at Stark when he ran in, stomping a foot and pointing at the portal. "Your fridge went full on Gozer."

"Shit," he said, taking readings. "I have no idea where that goes to." He looked through it. "Thor, are those elves?"

He looked then groaned. "Do leave my Lady Jane be," he yelled. "Before I have to come smite thee!" The elves acted like they couldn't hear them. Darcy and Natasha grabbed weapons and came in. Natasha's guns didn't work. Darcy's taser did and she glared, hands on her hips. "Leave Jane be!" Thor shouted again. "Before I smite thee!" The elves stared at them like they were now stupid. Darcy stomped over and shoved people away from Jane, hauling her back to the kitchen. Clint and Stark took Jane from her and helped her back across. Then Stark found out how to close the portal from his refrigerator's ice maker. Thor gave her an odd look. "I could have handled it, Lady Darcy."

She snorted, waving the hand with her taser in it. "Men talk while women get shit done. It's a universal law." She walked off. "Jane, infirmary?" Jane babbled gibberish so she steered her toward the elevator. "Sure. Maybe Doctor McHotty Ass is down there even though he's not an MD, he's a physics screw up. You can flirt with him again, Jane. Talk stars to him or however astrophysicists flirt."

"I thought all our infirmary staff were medically trained," Stark called after them.

Darcy stopped the elevator doors from closing. "I have more med lessons than that guy, Stark. Quit hiring from SHIELD's basement." She let the elevator doors closed so she could walk Jane to the infirmary. She walked Jane up the hallway. "Maybe that one will shake pompoms over you and make pretend he has traditional, old style medicine again." Jane scowled but didn't fight being steered off. "Hey, last time the guy couldn't even take your blood pressure right." She walked in and found that doctor bending over a sleeping Bruce Banner so she cleared her throat. "Hey, SHIELD douche canoe, leave Dr. Banner alone please. He's a bit grumpy when you wake him up. And Jane got sent to a realm of elves." She kicked the desk chair Banner was napping in on her way to put Jane onto an exam bed. Banner woke up and glared at her. "Jane got sent to a realm of elves," she reported. "She's not able to speak english but apparently understands it. And I kept the guy with the needle from stabbing you in the neck."

"What?" he demanded, glaring at Darcy and Jane.

Darcy pointed at the 'doctor'. "Him, trying to stab you while you napped the nap of the science nerd." She glared back at him. "Jane, got sucked into a portal and can't speak english. Convenient am I." Jane said something else in gibberish. Darcy stared at her then got her some paper and a pen. "Write it, Jane. I don't use All Speak." Jane made a diagram and held it up for Banner to see. He looked then kicked the 'doctor' in the ass to make him leave the infirmary before he came in to look her over. "Thanks." She grinned. "I was stir frying Jane some veggies when the ice maker on the fridge door created a portal to whatever elves those were if you wanted me to save you some in the fridge."

"I'll eat later, Darcy," he sighed. "I'm fine."

She looked at him. "I won't comment. I'm not your assistant." Jane giggled. "I'm her nagging sort. Ask Stark to hire you your own." She looked at Jane. "At least you got the sandwich down you." Jane scowled again. Darcy stared at her. "I don't care. You're eating one way or another, Jane. Even if I have to pour ensure shakes into your IV. You've lost ten pounds you couldn't afford to lose in the last six weeks. I'm going to tell your mother on you." Jane slumped down but nodded. "Good!" She smiled. "Let me go back to making you lunch, if I can get into the kitchen. I'm assuming by now we've either started a war with those elves or shut the portal down." She walked off shaking her head and muttering.

Jane looked at Bruce and muttered something in gibberish. He smiled back. "You did want her to fuss over you." Jane nodded that was true. "Next time, remember to eat." Jane huffed but nodded she could try that again. "Good. Cooperative patients are the best ones. And pretty rare in this building." Jane drew a squiggly circle and a few stick figures. One walking through the circle to drag back the other. She held it up and stared at Bruce. "I'll check her in a minute, Jane." She nodded, settling in to let him look her over for strange radiation, diseases, germs, or plant samples

***

Xander looked up and muttered a swear at Janus, then looked at the redhead that had just appeared. "Ophelia, you have a duty," he called. She got to sneak out before Willow recognized her. He sighed, staring at his oldest friend. "What?"

"Slayers?" she demanded. "You left and found more slayers?"

"First, not slayers."

"Then why are you with them?" Willow demanded.

"Because a trio of witches made me a dad," he said bluntly. "I had to go save my girls from asshole men who thought they were playtoys. Which is pretty much why I had them training with warriors and assassins." She was gaping now and it wasn't a happy thing by any means. He stared back. "There's one I just sent with a message and another that got married off realm in Asgard thanks to Odin finding her boinking her lover of the night. I'm sure those two will be happy lesbians together somehow." He shifted his weight and then sighed and sat down. "Ladies, clothes?" he begged. They groaned but went to find the building's laundry center, which they were promised was somewhere and free of bugs. Willow was now spluttering. "They didn't do laundry on Asgard when we were getting two free of space pirates who wanted to be my son-in-law." He grimaced. "They're not a problem any more but the girls need to do some minor girl things tomorrow."

She let out a shriek. "Daughters?" she demanded.

"Blame the witches who had them. Though you'd have to reincarnate them from the witch soup I made." He stared at her. "I got really mad when I found out they had made me daughters they were trying to sacrifice. Though I am sorry I scared their whole village."

Willow gaped in horrified awe. "You did *WHAT*?" she demanded.

"Xander, very overprotective dad," he said dryly, staring at her. "Just like he was over the slayers he was training." The remaining daughter, who was hiding in a corner trying not to be seen, nodded at that. He grinned at her. "I do not want to be a stepfather, a dad-in-law, or grandfather," he reminded her. He looked at Willow again. "I was going to bring them by in a few days, once we were more settled in this realm. We've done six in the last three months."

"It's only been six weeks since you disappeared!"

"Um, yeah, time runs differently there," he said dryly, staring at her. "Remember, time is set by the revolutions around the sun. You're the one that taught me that. Different planets, different rotations...different times." She scowled, hands going to her hips. "They are! And two weeks of that was on a space ship dealing with space pirates."

"Why did you have to have daughters?"

"I had nothing to do with it," he said impatiently. "The witches decided they wanted to make perfect sacrificial vessels. They summoned the sperm somehow. They had the kids somehow. Then I found out. I went to free them but at one point in time I let them live with someone who didn't have to fight demons. Then they got kidnaped by a dude who wanted to be my son-in-law. Pity about him too." That daughter giggled, curling up in a tiny ball. "I had to come back due to the method that sent me but I went right back as soon as I could and got her free too. Be damned if I want a son-in-law who thinks he can have all my baby girls at once. I'm pretty sure we taught them not to screw each other." Willow's eyes were wide. He grinned. "But they're mostly good girls. Very well trained since I had them learn with various warriors and assassins."

"I..." She broke into spluttering again. "Buffy's going to kill you!"

"I doubt that. Especially since I was apparently in another town when they were conceived. It almost made me believe in storks." Willow glared and stomped a foot but disappeared to tell the other Council people he knew. He looked at her. "You should've evacuated."

"She was in the way." She fled to help the others do their laundry.

Xander sighed, leaning his head back. Then he groaned when his phone went off. He picked it up to look at. "Great." He answered it. "What? I'm barely back on this plane with the daughters and there's an emergency?" He listened. "No, Willow found out I had daughters. She's not impressed," he said blandly. "She's back in Cleveland." He listened to the mage complain about various portals. "I have no idea how one started in Manhattan. We bridge'd back thanks to Heimdall." He rubbed his forehead. "Expect to see more magical traffic though." Buffy showed up with Willow. "Let me know if you need my help to end that one portal, Sorcerer. Yup. Thanks." He hung up and looked at them. "Willow made them flee. They're doing laundry somewhere in the building."

"You trust them to do laundry?" Willow demanded.

"The youngest is fifteen, Willow. She knows how to do her own panties and bras." He stared at her. "They're well trained in case I have to leave them somewhere safe for a bit. Like I did when I had to hunt down the space pirate idiots." He looked at Buffy, then shrugged. "Witches made them."

"Why?" Buffy demanded, arms crossed over her chest.

"They wanted to sacrifice them. So I have seven daughters. Though one's on Asgard with her new wife." He shifted to cross his feet. He looked casual and not about to get up to defend his baby girls. "I heard about that at the same time I heard I had daughters. So I made witch soup." Buffy winced. "Then I let their aunt talk me into letting them stay with her so they'd be safer than Sunnydale was. Which was all right for them until someone decided he wanted a Harris Harem." He grimaced. "That was messy too. But I solved it, even though I had to come home/ and then go back again. The portal pulls you back after so long." She slumped. "Otherwise, I've had my girls with me while I was over there. Training to protect themselves."

"But they're not slayers?" she demanded.

"Nope, and they're not allowed on patrol either." Buffy smirked at him. "Not until they've graduated high school. They have to finish their schooling before they do more than learn from warriors and assassins I talked into training them. They're down for self defense and that's it until they graduate."

She opened her mouth a few times then shut it and cleared her throat. "They're going on patrol?"

"Up to them, Buffy. A few of them wanted to make a real difference in the world and keep trying to help me with problems that I can handle without them." He shrugged and grinned at the girls coming in. "Hey. This is Buffy and Willow."

"We escaped from the magical fit before we had flashbacks to that batty sorceress on Asgard who wanted to suck you dry, Dad," that one said with a grin and a wave. "We need quarters and bug spray."

"They said there weren't any."

"Mercada had to fix the machines."

He sighed and dug in his pockets, handing over change. "Try that. If not, we'll figure it out in the morning." She nodded, going to do that. "That was Mercada. One of my seven." Buffy was still making fish faces. Willow was glaring at the doorway. "Let's see, there's Daisy, Ophelia, Cygyn, Mercada, Atlina, and Sophie down here. I keep forgetting about Sophie. She seems to be able to hide in plain sight too easily. Raisa is still on Asgard with her wife."

Buffy finally closed her mouth and sucked her spit back so she could swallow. "She's pretty," she said quietly. Xander grinned and nodded. "I don't want them my slayers."

"Fuck off," he s/aid with a grin. "They're not allowed to patrol until they're eighteen. Like the slayers aren't." She stepped back at that. "Then it's up to their decisions because they'll be adults. They've seen wars, Buffy. They've seen larger demons who showed up somewhere we were conveniently near, and wasn't after us. They've seen smaller battles when I was fighting some fire giants on Asgard. If *they* want to go on patrol, I can only give them a realistic view of how much it sucks at your soul and then let them train as Watchers under Giles. The oldest three still have two years before they get to that point. Mercada is ahead in her studies and only has a year-and-a-half but that's why I made the eighteen rule."

"They're normal," she said impatiently. "Just like you."

"And just like me, we all took lessons with various warriors and assassins." He stared at her. "Otherwise we wouldn't have a few of the girls in Africa. They would've been killed." Buffy stepped back, shuddering. "My girls do a great impression of me. I'm very proud of my spawn, Buffy. And it's up to *them* if they want to train to become Watchers, not me. Not you." She glared. He stared back. "Even Giles would say that if Willow took the spells off him again. By the way, Willow, there's a whole school full of mages on Asgard who are scrying you constantly to make sure you won't become a threat to their realm. They take turns throughout the day." He stared at her. "That sleep curse? It was Loki because he decided he didn't need the competition." She glared. He stared back. "Was there then." He waved a hand. Buffy snorted. "You can ask the training, Buffy. He'll tell you the same thing." Buffy stomped a foot. He stared at her. The girls all came back in. "Daisy, shirt," he sighed. She looked and buttoned it back up. "We're getting you something that fits tomorrow." He looked at them then at Buffy again. "So, these are the majority of my girls." He waved a hand with a smile. "Ladies, this is Buffy and Willow."

"We snuck the pictures from your wallet," one said, staring at Buffy. "Don't piss Dad off please." She went into the bedroom she was using with three of her sisters. "Dad, are we staying here?"

"Not for more than a few weeks," he called.

"That's fine. Can we spar with her?"

"If you can find a spot that won't get anyone in trouble," he offered. "She thinks you six aren't as great as you are." He grinned at his evil one. Mercada had a lot of evil moments when she needed to. She also had his planning abilities.

She also had his planning abilities and his ability to throw knives.

"I'm sure they can't keep up with me," Buffy complained.

"I'm sure we kicked real warrior's asses," Cygyn quipped with a grin. "We did train with academies of them, Miss Buffy." She smirked at her. "I beat a lot of real warriors of a few realms." Xander cleared his throat. "I know, boasting is for idiot teenage boys, Dad. It's not boasting if it's true." She went into the bedroom. "Eww." She stomped. "Dad, we have bugs."

He looked then at her. "Those are from a controlling species, girls. They're using them to spy on us."

"We all learned what Raid was for," Daisy quipped. "It's for guys like that and for making flame throwers if you need one." All the bugs in the apartment suddenly ran for the door. "Thanks!" She smiled and waved at their backs. "We appreciate that because we *are* girls who hate bugs. Hate to ruin your minions."

"Ruining minions is fun," Atlina complained, pouting at her older sister. "I had a lot of fun with it."

"These aren't those sort of minions," Daisy reminded her patiently. "These aren't smart enough to be made to trip themselves up."

"Point. Dad, do we have any minions we can play with?"

"Not yet. We'll see, girls. Laundry?"

"Few more," Daisy sighed, going down there to switch things around and make sure nothing got stolen. They only had a few outfits each, they didn't want to lose them.

Xander shrugged but grinned at Buffy. "The last ones who snatched them dressed them. They were elves."

Buffy had an eye twitch. She just discovered that. "That explains the skirty thing they have going." Xander gave her outfit a pointed look. "Not the same. I can fight in mine. Theirs look tight."

"We outgrew them last month," Mercada said with a shrug. "It happens to growing young women." She went back to her bed now that it was free of bugs. "We'll be down there in a few months. We have to get things set up for our own safety and schooling first."

"Yup, you do," Xander quipped, grinning at the girls trying to protect him. "I don't want a GED owner if we can help it." They groaned but went to get their school books to do something. They only had a few books between them at the moment. He grinned at his former friends. "We've been pantsing it but we'll figure it out tomorrow. We're still tired from getting home from Asgard."

Buffy slumped, staring at him. "They're really your daughters?"

"Yeah. I checked to make sure when I rescued them." He shrugged but smiled. "I made pretty baby girls. That's why I'm such an asshole when boys get near them. Before I have to become Grandpa Asshole."

Buffy shuddered. "That's a bad thought, Xander. Yuck." She rubbed her forehead. "We'll see them when you come home. Willow, let's go tell the others."

"We have to fix this!" she said with a point. "They can't be his! Mermaid taint." She glared at Xander. "They lied to you."

"I doubt the mystical and the regular tests I had done both lied," he said dryly. "And no, they were created before then. I found the original portal behind Ethan's shop a few days after Halloween. It sucks you away for eight years on that side and eight hours on this one. Then it sends you back out." Willow made a whining noise. He stared at her. "I learned a lot over there. When I learned about them, I pulled it out of the storage area I hid it in."

He uncrossed his legs and sat up to stare at her. "And if you hurt my daughters, I'll make another batch of witch soup." He stared at her until she slunk behind Buffy's back. "Good." He smiled. "It'll probably be about a month. I've got to get some things translated. Like the bracelet I got given in reward for taking out the space pirates who wanted to be my son-in-laws." Buffy shuddered.

"I left them alive but unhappy since I won their ship at poker." He smirked. "I also have to find a way around a prophecy that said I basically have to take over Asgard, get married to one of the old lines, and then possibly die to give it back to Odin. Which I'm not going to do." He grinned again. "Then we'll be back there."

Buffy just nodded. "Sure. Call or whatever. Let us go tell Giles."

"I sent him an email during the ten minutes I had been sent back last time. He's even got pictures."

"Why didn't he tell us?" Buffy demanded.

He stared at her. "So I didn't have to chop anyone who was going to hurt my daughters into itty bitty pieces." He looked over her shoulder then at her again. "But we'll see you guys in about a month." She nodded, nudging Willow so they could leave. Xander sighed and leaned back, looking at Mercada since she was back in the doorway. "I have no clue," he admitted.

"At least Odin decided he was going to make one of his kids marry you and kill you."

"Eww!" She grinned but went back to bed. He laid down out there until the last one got back with the laundry. Then he'd hit his bed. His lonely, empty bed.

***

Xander looked at the girls coming out of the stores the next day, staring at the outfits. There were a lot of tighter bra and/or crop top styles over skirts that mostly would allow you to fight in them. A few of the skirts were split up the sides. A few were shorter but covered by a lace overskirt that went below the knee. A few of the girls had overshirts they were pulling over their crop tops. He cleared his throat. "Pants?" he suggested patiently. "In about a month it'll be winter. Which means a lot of snow, ladies."

He sipped his drink. "We need pants. A lot of pants." He stared at the girl in the split skirt. It looked like something a belly dancer would wear but in basic black. "You'll freeze your ass off. Then your nipples since that top is so short. And doesn't fit with the way you hang out of it." She pouted. "Don't care, Daisy." He grinned at her. "Remember, we're back on Earth. You have to wear Earth clothes, not Asgard clothes. Though the bodysuit thing you had going was all right enough, just put a skirt over it."

He took another drink and smiled. "Pants," he repeated and pointed. "And shoes and boots please." They sighed as a group and went to find pants. He didn't follow because he didn't shop. Buffy had cured him of that affliction forever with her shopping by dragging him problem. The girls could match clothes well enough without his help. They just needed pants. And maybe a few shirts that had sleeves and shoulders and covered their stomachs.

He finished his drink, going to check on his girls. They could be rebellious little teenagers at times. The shop girls helping them look all stared at him oddly. "They're my daughters," he complained. "They just need pants. And shirts. I know winter's coming." The shop girls all nodded and got them various types of pants to try on. He handed one a shirt that looked a bit more victorian. It was three-quarter length sleeves with a subtle scoop neckline and little ties at the waist to make the bottom flare out. The oatmeal color would go for most of them since they all switched clothes when they got bored with things.

One of the girls came out modeling her brightly colored tights under her all black outfit. He stared at it then sighed. "That may work for now, but you'll freeze your ass off when we start to get snow." She grinned, going to change the black tanktop looking top to a shorter one. He stared at her. She picked up a plaid overshirt that went with the tights. It was basically just a plaid shirt that was wrap-style at the waist. He sighed but nodded. The others got handed things like cardigans to go over their crop tops. That way there wouldn't have to be any shopping for a bit. "Shoes?" he asked hopefully. "Real ones that'll last for months?" The shop girls got them some to try on. Xander let them pay then took back his credit card. He walked them off. "Do we want to get a snack, go see the Sorcerer guy, or go walk through the park again for PT today?"

"Snack, go see the Sorcerer guy, then walk home?" Ophelia suggested.

Mercada was adjusting her overshirt but nodded. "We could use a snack, Dad."

"Sure. We can feed you." He took them to get food. His card nearly declined but it went through after a long pause and him texting someone about that problem. The girls ate their subs on the walk to the Sorcerer's house. They had to arrange for him to get his stuff out of Africa. It'd help them set up easier. Plus the stuff he had on him from his trip. They ran into an agent who just stared until Xander glared at him. "Eyes right, dude," he warned. "Don't come near my girls." The agent hurried off calling someone. "Huh." They all smirked at him. "You can only befuddle them, not touch them. I'd hate to have to get you shots to protect you from their sort of bugs. Daisy, you're closer, run ahead." She jogged off.

"I was closer," Atlina pouted at him.

"You'd fall out of your top if you ran," he said, giving her a pointed look. "Trade that off with one of the others tonight." She sighed but nodded. "Thanks. Not something I need to see from you, daughter."

"Yes, Dad," she complained. "I got ones that are better for things like battles."

"Good! Though I hope you girls don't have to help with any. This isn't Asgard so there won't be as many battles I hope." They made it to the sorcerer's house and smiled at the waiting daughter and helper guy. "Hey, Wong."

"Master Harris," he said with a smile. "The sorcerer is waiting on you. The girls, your slayers?"

"My daughters. Most of them anyway." He grinned.

"We had not heard such news." Xander winked and walked the girls inside.

The sorcerer stood up, staring at him. "Daughters?" he demanded dryly, smirking at Xander. "How did that happen?"

"A trio of witches that wanted to sacrifice us," Mercada said then shrugged. "The moms were cranked before Dad made witch soup."

"I see." He sat down and the girls settled behind their father. "They're pretty," he said.

Xander smiled and nodded. "I've had them training with warriors and assassins because they are pretty. It's up to them if they want to go for watcher training when they're eighteen."

"That makes much sense," he agreed. "We hate that so many children are exposed to such matters."

"Yeah but sometimes you can't help it," Xander reminded him. He shifted and pulled out a letter, a traditional one instead of a scroll. "From Asgard's main magical school." He handed it over. "I have one back in my things for your former trainer too if she's still alive."

"She is not unfortunately." Xander nodded. "I'll get that one in the next few days."

"That's fine. I doubt it's something more than an invitation for tea. That's what he said it was."

"Interesting." He opened the letter to stare at. "There's a prophecy stating you'll take over ruling of Asgard?" he demanded, staring at the younger man.

"Yeah." He grimaced. "It's freaking Odin out greatly. He's decided I can fight Thor for that honor." He shrugged slightly. "Not my thing. I don't want a realm."

"Good. It may throw many things into chaos. More than you usually do anyway." He went back to reading.

"No, that may be me having to do something with the ship I won from the pirates who wanted to be a son-in-law."

Dr. Strange shook his head quickly. "Not my field of interest thankfully."

"No but I figured the huge crystal thing that's not in the engine might be." The sorcerer stared at him. Xander pulled out his phone to show him a picture. "I figured out it was a cocoon. I don't know for what."

"That's...interesting. Is it local?"

"Coming here in a few days." He grinned slightly. "Should I invite you?"

"Indeed." He went back to reading. "They're scrying your friend?"

"Constantly. They take two-hour turns so she's never unwatched. Though Loki did knock her into a sleep spell," Mercada quipped. The sorcerer looked at her. "I'm Mercada. I'm like Dad's clone."

"He doesn't dress as well as you have, dear." He went back to the letter, smiling slightly. Then a knife whizzed past his head to hit something hiding against the wall. He looked and nodded. "I had wondered what that was." He went back to reading. "Ah!" He looked at Xander. "How magical?"

He grinned. "Very. It almost made Loki purr." Strange glared. He grinned. "And it *likes* me." He waved a hand and the staff appeared in it. "This is half of it." He summoned the top half and put the full staff back together again. It had a golden glowing ball of gem/power underneath a spear tip. The staff part was decorated with carvings that glowed gold in the sunlight. The end had a ball of black gem that seemed to suck in some of the light. He put it onto the desk. "Thankfully you have wards so *she* can't see it."

He ran a finger down the staff part, shivering. "That is definitely an Artifact, Xander." He stared at him. "Where did you find this?"

"A dragon flying overhead dropped it on my head in Kenya."

"You had it before you went back?"

"Yup. It helped a lot. It gets along well and reblessed my axe too."

Dr. Strange ran a finger along it again. "It is very powerful."

"I realized that. It blew up a fire giant when I got frustrated at how hard it was to kill it. I wasn't even holding it then. Raisa was holding it for me."

The sorcerer stared at him. "I have no idea who it is consecrated to but it was to an Original Power."

"Like the one over the slayers?" Daisy asked.

"No. Higher beings than the Powers That Be," he told her. "Have you had any visions of upcoming battles?"

Xander stared at him. "Six or so. Including that Odin didn't listen that Hela was getting free soon. And that her boyfriend, Thanos, was going to follow her panties like a dog."

"Oh, dear."

"Yeah, and he's the guy who made Loki's staff. I asked why he looked so pale when I mentioned that name." He shifted to cross his feet. "There's a *stone* in it."

"Was," he corrected.

"Half," Xander corrected back then grinned. "It got broken when it was put into the staff."

"Oh..." He said something in another language, making all the girls giggle. "It's nice they speak other things."

"I taught them to speak Latin and they learned All Speak on Asgard."

"I thought only Odin's kin had that gift."

"Or you can learn it," Xander quipped. "They all have a slight tainting of my hellmouth taint. They asked the magic school that wanted to look at the taint if they could do the spell to learn All Speak. The mages didn't think they could so let them attempt it to see if they had any gifts. Boy were they wrong."

"Hellmouth energy is just energy."

"Yes, but I'm beloved of many chaos gods," Xander said dryly. "Apparently one of them thought it'd be *neat*." The girls giggled again and nodded. Mercada looked outside then grabbed the staff and went to beat the idiot magic stealing demon to death. "My job," he called after her, going to get his staff back and beat the demon himself. "You are sixteen-years-old, Mercada Harris. It's not your job yet!"

"Dad...."

"No!" He pointed. "In the damn building!" She huffed but pouted her way inside. The demon was giving him a scared look. He grinned and pulled his axe off the hidden holder on his back. "Yup, my little girl." He beheaded the demon and took the weapons from it. Two got taken from him by Wong as he walked in. "Magic sucking?" he guessed with a grin. "Figures with their type." He presented all but one of the ones left to the sorcerer. The other was a grenade and his future baby.

"Thank you for giving me these interesting things. I'll research them later and let the Council have them back if they're mostly harmless but can be useful."

Xander looked and pointed. "Will trap a witch," he said. Then he grinned. The sorcerer shuddered but nodded he understood how useful that could be. "Ladies, let's go scare the local community since that one wanted to cry about Mercada being my daughter." He stood up and walked off, taking his staff and axe with him.

"You could leave the staff," he called after him.

"No I can't. You don't want the visitors that would come for it." He shot Wong a wink before he followed the girls out. He got them all to the local community meeting place, walking in first. "I'm back, people." They all stared at him and a few looked awed. "And with me are my *daughters*. Ladies?" They all walked in. "These six of my *seven* are Ophelia, Cygyn, Daisy, Mercada - my mini me, Sophia, Atlina - my quiet, shy one. Just to clear up any misunderstandings about me having a harem. My *daughters* are also underage for anyone but someone *very* patient and willing to wait at least three years until they're legal." He grinned at the head of the local council. "I thought I'd fix some misconceptions."

She swallowed and nodded her eye stalks. "They're beautiful eggs, Harris." He grinned. "How if we may ask? That way we can fix other misconceptions?"

Ophelia stepped forward and bowed to her. "There were a trio of witches who wanted to create a sacrifice for power. When Dad found that portal doorway, they took some of his sperm without his knowing. When Dad found out, he found out about the sacrifice at the same time so he made some witch soup."

The head of the council nodded quickly. "That's good of him to take care of you."

"Our aunt wanted to raise us but then there was a disgusting warlord wannabe that wanted us as his harem," Mercada said, grimacing. "Pity about his people but not what I wanted. As the slayers say, eww, not into that."

The head of the council smiled at her. "That's always a good thing. They're beautiful young women, Hunter Harris." He grinned and nodded. "I wish you many weapons to defend them from men who would want to claim them."

"Oh, no, we don't call Dad about them," Ophelia assured her with a grin. "We handle those and save Dad for *real* threats. Boys?" She snorted and waved a hand. "I can handle a guy trying to grope. Dad can come save him from me."

The head of the council smiled at her. "That is even better to know, Ophelia. It's strong women that will make a difference in this world." She smiled at Xander again. "We will pass this news. Do the Council know?"

"Giles has an email about them, with pictures of them at that age," he admitted. "Including the one that's still on Asgard." She shook her head quickly. "Yup. Willow and Buffy met them last night." A few of the demons in there shuddered. "We got our point through that it's up to them if they want to become watchers when they're of age." The girls all nodded. "Even if Mercada will jump in sometimes."

"You were my age," she defended.

He looked back at his mini me of a daughter. "Learn from my mistakes and finish growing up happy."

"Fine."

"Thanks. Before I have an ulcer and have to eat unicorn cheese again to cure it." He looked at the staring demons. "When I went to rescue them." A few sighed. He grinned. "Also, the visions I've had? I've put them onto the D'Korata site, people. You need to read them today," he said, staring at the head of the council. She blinked but someone was already pulling out their phone to find that site and log in. He got the girls back to the park for a long walk on their way home. That would help a lot. And they could tell the hero sorts.

"I can go tell the blond one," Ophelia offered. "Their tower's neat to climb."

"We can do it the traditional way, daughter. We can summon a lot of them to a meeting soon." The girls nodded. "And no hitting on anyone over the age of legal to marry."

"Yes, sir," they all sighed. They liked to be flirty. And to make guys blush by being flirty.

***

Thor looked up as a young woman walked up to where he was waiting on a battle to begin. "Your father will have a fit," he warned.

She waved a hand and snorted. "Dad's put his recent visions up on the D'Korata site, Thor. Including one that has you taking over Asgard thanks to Hela."

He blinked a few times, turning to stare at her. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah. Dad has visions. Real, painful, full on visions. Not wrong yet." She gave him a pointed look. "We told the local demon council yesterday. He was going to let the news spread and tell you if you didn't hear from them but he had one this morning that showed your hammer being destroyed." He moaned, hugging his hammer to his chest. "By her."

He grimaced. "Thank thee for the warning, Mercada. I will look at those after this battle." She smiled. "It is run by demons?"

"Yes. A demon assassins guild. They run a service to rent mercenaries for necessary battles so Dad uses their site." The villain of the moment landed. She snorted. "Not even bad enough to get Dad's attention." She looked at Thor again. "Have fun playing with him. Dad and us are all going upstate for some reason tomorrow then we'll be going to Cleveland in six days." She grimaced. "Unless the hellmouth opens to hug him again." She walked off, waving at the others. "Have fun with the weenie. He can't be very bad if he's not even drooling on my cute butt."

Thor shook his head as he looked at his battle mates. "Apparently there are bad things coming. We must look at these visions."

"How right can he be?" Stark demanded.

"He's not wrong," Thor admitted. "A few have been changed after his vision thanks to it but not much."

Stark shuddered. "I'm looking up that site now. We'll look after this fight." They all looked at the villain, who was staring at them. "Yeah, that was one of Xander Harris' daughters."

"He was an interesting warrior when he was fighting things in Africa," the villain said. Then he smiled. "It's good to know why he left for a few weeks." He had to yelp as an arrow hit his upper left back shoulder. "Hawkeye," he sneered, looking around.

Ophelia smiled and waved. "Fuck no. I'm being Daddy's daughter since he's napping off the migraine. He *did* have us trained by warriors for a reason beyond beating up boys." She fired another at him and he ran. "Have fun since there's a massing of cannibalistic demons on the next block, guys." She ran off.

"Natasha," Steve said.

"On him," she agreed. She chased after their bad guy.

"Let's go see what these cannibalistic demons are," Steve ordered. They found them massing outside a daycare center.

"Not like we'd let that happen," Sam Wilson complained. He took the first shot and the demons tried to flee but they had them surrounded. Thor got the entry to the daycare to make sure nothing got near the building. Police showed up but Thor let them inside to help move the children and workers.

Xander walked up behind the group and swung his axe, hitting one of the demons. "Really? You do this when I have a headache?" he asked calmly and quietly. "I'm about to pull out what I did in Sanifia." The demons ran from him. He smirked and waved at their backs. "Run, little pussies, run for your lives," he called after them. "Daughters!" he bellowed. "You're all fucking grounded! Home, now!" He pointed. The three girls ran that way. He sighed, walking off shaking his head. "They're so much like me. I've got to have that common sense talk that never worked on me."

"Hold on," Stark yelled, landing in front of him. "Visions? Like foresight?"

"Yeah. Hurts like a bitch too. We've seen three for Asgard before we have one here from a major thing. I only see apocalypse battles. But you'll be happy to know that Thanos is immortal but not undefeatable." He stared at him. "I put all that I saw on the site, Mr. Stark. If you have questions, can it wait until I don't have a headache from the inner mind movie preview?"

"Yeah, kid. Call us tomorrow." Xander nodded, following his daughters back to their temporary apartment. He looked at the others. "I found the site. He's got nine listed under his name."

"Nine apocalypse battles?" Steve asked, wincing. "That's going to be bad." The others nodded. He looked at a staring officer. "Tell us if they come back and we'll handle it?"

"We have a slayer locally but she's out of town this week, Captain. Something about someone's wedding."

"Let us know if she needs more help. There's no reason for one young woman to do things when there's a lot of guys willing to help her."

"I can tell her that." He grinned. "The kids are all safe."

"Thankfully. Let us go home." He walked off, going back to their transport. Natasha was there with her captured target. So was someone else. "Hi," he told that demon.

"Captain, we much marvel at your efficiency, but to warn you there is a remembrance tomorrow night that will have many demons but we will be peaceful."

"I'd never want to bother anything peaceful," he assured him, smiling at him. "Especially not something as important as a remembrance. If whoever lets us know, we can show up if we have to keep people off you."

The demon smiled back. "I will tell the local Council that. The slayer would be but her sister is marrying this week." He jogged off.

"He wouldn't talk to me," Natasha told them. "He said his people do not talk to women of any species."

"Gender segregation isn't unheard of," Stark admitted. "I've looked over some of the information the Council put out." They got onto the jet and took the villain back to the tower to have him be arrested by agents.

***

Stark pulled up that site once everyone was cleaned up and calmed down from the short battle. "This is the site the daughter mentioned." He let them see the list under Xander's log-in name. "Most of them have comments about 'it was handled' and how." He let them see the various threads on the discussion board. "One older one wasn't noted but it was in Africa." He looked at Natasha, who was looking that up and nodding. "Handled?"

"He got artillery from somewhere and blew that slight invasion up," she announced, looking up from her tablet. "It's not mentioned from where or how he got artillery. It was mentioned that the local slayer was only nine so he took on that battle for her with the local military. Who were not pleased that demons were invading. There was a note made as a post-edit that mentions that slayer being moved for her own safety." She slid the tablet down. Stark looked it over and added to that thread. They got into the newer ones. Thor was frowning at them. "I know there's a few for Asgard."

"That was Loki's attempt to take over but it mentions things I was not aware of." He stared at it. "The next is the alignment that led the Dark Elves to invade London and the palace." Natasha patted him on the arm. "Thank thee, Natasha." Stark handed him the keyboard so he could type responses to those visions. One popped up from Xander that one was prompted. He asked him how and he wrote a single line in Norse. Thor winced but nodded and typed in a response then went to the next one. He paused. "That is Hela," he said. "Oh, dear."

"Who's Hela?" Clint asked.

"The Goddess of Death," Thor told him. "A great enemy and a great war to come." He pushed his hair back then sighed. "We will have to handle it as best as we can. I hope my father is aware of this." He sent Xander an email at the one registered to the site. He didn't get back an immediate answer but that happened sometimes. "After ours, there's two slayer ones, then Thanos, who is even worse news. I've only heard myths of him."

"So we're going to have a hell of a war coming," Steve decided. He leaned his arms on the table to read the site closer. "There's a new note on that one?" Stark took the laser mouse to reload it. That one mentioned something that was a part name. Stark was glaring at it. "Yours?"

"Early prototype that supposedly disappeared into the aether. I'll have to ask Harris how he found it."

"Harris does things like that by his files," Clint said. "He dates people who can do things like that too." He looked at Natasha, who nodded that was true. "We've seen him date a few warlords who were tough enough to make us have to seriously evaluate how to take them down but he turned them into pouty boyfriend sorts. Who killed anyone who caught them pouting at Xander having to leave for one of the girls."

Natasha cleared her throat. "He does not tend to attract people who are ...nice. Or decent beings. If we ask the Prince, he may know more as Xander was acting in Africa for years."

Stark took the keyboard to send him a message then handed it back to Thor. "How do we handle Thanos?" he asked Thor.

"I know not yet," he admitted. "I will ask others to send information." They all nodded. "And warn them of Hela appearing. I'm hoping my father listened."

"Nope, not likely," Clint said dryly. "Or he would've noted that like he did when he warned others." He took the laser mouse to point at one. "Here, he noted he warned the locals."

Thor nodded once. "Then I need to warn others." He got up, going to talk to Jane about sending a message to Asgard. He smiled slightly at Darcy when she turned at his entrance. "Darcy, I need to send a critical message to Asgard."

"Jane's asleep under a machine," she said with a point. "The portal making one isn't fully done yet, Thor. She was saying at least a few more days. Though...." She pulled up a site. "Is there any truth to this rite?" she asked. "Jane had me looking up any mystical rites that would call someone on Asgard without the bridge."

He looked at it, then smiled. "That may work. Thank you, Darcy. Have Jane talk to me when she wakes?"

"It'll probably be tomorrow. She's having happy puppy dreams under there."

"That's fine. We have that much time to wait." He patted her on the head then went to the balcony to do that small summoning. It brought Sif to him. "We have many problems coming up."

"Beyond your honor duel for the seat?" she guessed. "And how am I here, Thor?"

"I summoned so you can tell others that there's visions of Hela appearing."

She snorted, shaking her head. "Odin said that was not right and when asked, none of ours with Sight foresaw it."

"Harris has not been wrong yet," he corrected. She gasped. "And he had one that showed Hela destroying Mjolnir last night. Then Thanos down here."

She winced. "Odin will not like that."

"I care not as long as Asgard and most of her people survive," he said.

She nodded. "As I would want as well." She punched him on the arm. "He insists that you must take that honor duel up there and if not, then one of those in the line for the throne must marry him and then kill him."

"The one who did would be killed by his daughters," Thor said dryly. "They are much like him."

"I've seen. I thought them adorable but fierce." He grinned. "Raisa is very fierce and has all-but killed Odin for her father twice. Both times she was stopped before more than injuries occurred. I would proudly claim that daughter." He smirked. "I'm not in line for the throne and I would not want to kill him after a night in bed. Even if he were bad at it, he could be trained." She smirked and waved at the man leaning out. "Stark." She looked at Thor again. "How am I to tell others when I'm down here?" He reversed it and sent her home. She walked into the palace. "Heimdall," she called. "You must appear as well." She walked into the throne room, freeing Riasa and her wife. "Thor has wished felicitations on your nuptials, girls." They smirked and ran off. Heimdall stomped in. "Why did he not call for me to come down the normal way?"

"He knew the bridge is currently blocked from that side. I saw what you talked of. He's right, Xander is a true seer." Odin sat up and stared at them. He looked at his king. "He has been since his were awakened. Hela returns soon, Odin."

She nodded. "He had a further vision that showed her destroying Mjolnir, All Father." She stared at him. "Perhaps our seers are blocked."

"They are," Loki said from his corner seat where he was kept tied up. "They have noticed and two expired from the visions they had when it was cleared. Hela comes soon."

"We must have things straightened out by then," Odin declared.

"What matters who sits in the throne if we all die?" Sif asked him. He glared at her. "He wouldn't want the seat anyway, Odin. He's said so repeatedly. That prophecy seems self-fulfilling."

"It is," Heimdall agreed. "Very few of ours could marry him anyway because they would have to be helpful for the slayers. They need him to aid their battles." Odin made a grumpy noise then cleared his throat. "I would nominate one of them but we would never understand how they speak, even with All Speak." She looked at Loki. "He had ones of Thanos?" Loki nodded. "You knew of them?"

"He left copies for us." He nodded his head at the scrolls on a table. She walked over to look them over. "It's a pity that Asgard will have less than a tenth of our people left when she appears." He looked at his adoptive father. "Your ego being bashed has nothing on that. Does it?" He stood up and his guards took him back to his cell. If they wanted his help, they'd ask. Or demand more likely but somehow he'd hear.

Sif looked at Heimdall. Who nodded he'd be helping fight this battle. "Do let me know?"

"We may send you with people that need to be safe," he said. "You could protect them from the others."

"True. Thank you." She patted him on the arm. "Let me know what part I am to play this time." She walked off. "Let me counsel Raisa on her temper."

Heimdall looked at Odin, who glared back. "You do not scare me, Odin. Hela does." He walked off, going back to his post to think about how to handle things. He would be seeing the battles start before any others.

Odin sat and made plans. He could not lose Asgard. Not in any manner.

***

One of the slayers ran into the office. "The hellmouth's crystal is glowing brighter and brighter," she said.

Faith looked at her. "Opening?" The younger girl shrugged. "Probably just Xander showing back up. Thanks for the warning." The younger one relaxed, going back to the main room, which had all the warning crystals on a pretty display shelf in the corner. She looked at the pouty girls next to her then at Giles. "Let me go answer the door." She walked off, smiling at the two girls who were getting out of the cab. "Just you two?" she asked patiently.

"No, Dad's with the others," one of them said with a grin. "You must be Faith. Dad described you pretty well. I'm Daisy and this is Cygyn."

Faith knew she looked confused. "Do I know your daddy?"

"Yeah. Daddy Xander said you knew him. Wasn't he right?" Cygyn asked with a tiny smirk at the older girl.

Faith blinked a few times. "I thought you guys would be younger. Not in the pretty years." They both grinned. The other cab pulled up and dispatched four more girls and their hunter. "Xander, why didn't you tell me the girls were pretty?"

"It's weird to think that my daughters are pretty. It's not a dad thing." He patted one on the back to calm down the bouncing. "So, we're here to check in." Faith smirked at him. "They still throwing a fit?"

"Down to sulking."

"Great," he mouthed. He pointed. "Let's go let you meet others I work with, girls." They sighed but went inside, one of them pulling Faith so she had someone to talk to. The slayers in residence were all staring at them but Xander grinned and waved. "A few witches off-realm made them for me. There's another one but she got married to her girlfriend." Faith moaned. "On Asgard," he quipped with a grin for her. "Odin caught them making out in his garden so had them married at sword point then told me about it. Raisa's not all that pleased but at least they're having a decent enough first year. Until the next apocalypse battle."

"Of course there's one coming soon," Faith said dryly.

Xander gave her an insane looking grin and nodded. "Yup. Hela's coming up there."

"Hela... Like the Goddess of Death?" Giles demanded, coming to his office doorway. "Oh, dear, they're older than I had hoped and very pretty."

"Giles, I'm their dad. I'm not supposed to think my girls are pretty. It's creepy of me."

"Good point I suppose." He smiled at the girls. "Which of you are which?" They sounded off. Xander patted one on the back. "I remember you doing much the same bouncing."

"Cygyn has all my patience but Daisy bounces like I used to. Mercada's my mini me about a lot of things. Atlina and Sophie are more like their mothers. Ophelia, Mercada, and Raisa are all my more warrior oriented daughters. Who I have to keep reminding of their ages."

Giles took off his glasses. "I know you've left it up to them if they want to opt into Watcher training once they're of legal age." Xander nodded, leaning on a wall. "That's fine. We can test them at that time. As long as they would've passed their educational needs."

"Oh, they have textbooks," Xander assured him with a grin. The girls all groaned but nodded. "They know I don't admit that my daughters could get a GED." They all nodded again. "And they know it's their choice."

"Good." He smiled. "Come, tell me what happened when he had to come rescue you ladies. May we have the office to ourselves please?" he ordered.

Willow looked at them. "I can take notes faster than you can. That way there's a chronicle."

Xander pulled something out to put onto the desk. "My journal." Willow groaned. "But I have to talk to him about a few visions. Thanos," he said, looking at the older watchers sitting in there for the meeting. One flinched. "He's coming within a year."

"Oh dear Christ," he mumbled, blinking at the young man. "Are you certain?"

"Yeah. Visions suck ass. Haven't been wrong yet." The watcher slumped. "You've got at least six months, but not over a year."

"I'll go pull research on him. What of his girlfriend?"

"Hela goes to Asgard soon," Xander said calmly and quietly. "I've warned Thor." The other watchers all nodded. "I haven't seen her helping him but ...." He shrugged with his arms up. "I don't know if she's fully defeated or not."

"I'll pull what we can on both of them," the head librarian assured them. "Are your girls coming for proper training?"

"My daughters will make the decision about watcher training when they're eighteen."

"They're not slayers?" one of them demanded.

"Nope," Mercada said with a grin. "Not in the least. No funny mole, no funny powers. Just...us. Being a lot like dad only with boobs."

"We have a copy of the rite our mothers had us created for," Daisy said, grinning at them. "But we made sure to stop it."

"At least she was good for you because you girls needed to be as innocent and happy as possible so they could reap the most power," Xander said. "So you got a happy childhood." They all nodded that was true. Buffy moaned. He grinned at her. "They're mostly good girls. Even if they are flirty." He looked at them. "And like skirts for some weird reason."

"Women wear skirts where we're from, Dad," Daisy sighed. "You know that."

"Yeah but you're on earth. You can wear jeans. Even cute jeans." They all rolled their eyes at him. "Fine. Tomorrow, pants." They all nodded they could do that. He grinned at the staring old farts from the old Council. "I have another one but she got found to be making out on Asgard so Odin had her married off to her girlfriend. Raisa's apparently doing all right up there." The head librarian spluttered. Xander grinned. "She's my girl too, yup." The old liners all stomped off to the library to talk about him having daughters. Xander closed the door after checking for various other Council people. "So, my girls, we gotta talk about the magical artifact I found in Kenya thanks to a dragon, and then I've got to figure out what I'm doing now." He flopped into a chair and got comfortable with a sigh of pleasure. "Plane seats still suck."

"Yes they do," Giles agreed, sitting behind his desk. "Ladies, go ahead and sit." He looked at Xander. "What artifact?" He pointed at Ophelia, who produced his staff with a hand flourish. "Is that ...." He got up to come look at it. "Oh...oh, dear, that's powerful." He looked at Xander. "A dragon?" he demanded.

"Dropped it as it flew overhead with a warrior of some sort. It helped by taking out some of the fire giants for me. I had been complaining like a slayer about how hard it was to kill them." He held out a hand and his daughter handed it over, making the staff glow in his hand. Giles touched it and shivered. "Yeah. Which is why I didn't want others to know." It disappeared into his pocket and Xander grinned at his mentor. "So...."

"I don't know who created that," he admitted. "What other artifacts have you found?"

"They're still in Africa. I was going to get someone to move it up here for me so I could liquidate a few things. That way I could afford my daughters shopping like a slayer."

The girls, as a group, all rolled their eyes.

Giles smiled at that. The girls were certainly quite a lot like their father. "I'd be interested in seeing what you've managed to find."

"If I could find someone I'd trust to pack up my storage area...." He shrugged. "If not, I'd have to go myself. And probably have to kick some ass to keep some less than nice people off my girls." The eye roll happened again. "I've got some dates down there, girls. Did you want them to flirt with you?"

"No thank you," Mercada quipped. "I'd like my first boyfriend to be just mine. I definitely learned not to share with my sisters."

Xander looked back at her, grinning some. "GOOD!" She huffed but grinned back. "So right now I'm debating how I'm going to get things back here so I can set up an apartment for us. Or if we're going back I've got to get a different vehicle. And they have to quit wearing cute skirts." Cygyn huffed. "They want you to be covered even though we're nearer to the equator and it's horribly hot." He looked at her. "No knees showing, no chest or stomach showing....some places you'd have to wear a hair veil." She slumped, pouting at him. Then he looked at Giles again. "I really should get them and get the girls out of the area for a bit. With the last few visions I'd want the young ones somewhere safer for a few weeks." He shifted to cross his feet. "I've been using that assassin's site to upload visions onto. Including updating which ones have happened."

Giles found that site bookmarked on his dreadful machine and got into it. He found Xander's thread easily enough. It was listed as 'visions by the Knight'. He looked them over, making a moaning noise once but he understood how things happened. "This other thread?" he asked finally, looking up.

"For the normals. People like Thor and his battle buddies."

Giles nodded once, going back to reading. "This has a list of what you've handled in Africa. Should I look?"

"Depends, how much heartburn did you want to have?" he shot back with a smirk. "Though I have talked to the girls and the one they were reporting as dead is not. She is at school near Watcher Carlis. I called him first and he assured me that the idiots who put that out there were the same ones that raided her village. That's one of the problems I need to handle when I go pack."

Giles shot him a look but went back to reading. He tipped his head at one entry then stared at Xander. "Would you like to explain why you were in Angora?"

"Um...I got summoned by a witch down there that's associated with the coven? Something was threatening her so she summoned me and I handled it before the senior witches got off their asses to help her, and then they sneered at me about that?"

"Oh, that incident. I've heard both sides. The young one that summoned you noted it. Though that was not what was mentioned."

Xander leaned over to look then shrugged. "Same day, different demon that showed up but the senior witch just screamed and fainted?" He grimaced. "I handled it while they whined."

"I see." He went back to reading. He paused then stared at the girls before looking at Xander again. "Nigeria?"

"Which time?" He leaned forward to look, shaking his head as he leaned back. "Not mine. They tried to discredit me. The generals in charge who weren't really against the idiot moron group with supposed religion who likes to take young woman as slaves started it to make sure I'm discredited. I've defended against it a few times and proved it once by making him confess to his problems in front of the press." He grinned slightly. "His people let him commit suicide instead of disgracing their military."

"That's harsh," Giles said.

Xander shrugged. "I didn't like being accused of the same things they were actually doing. Be damned if people think that about me."

"No, I wouldn't want that stigma from rumors either." He finished his reading and shut that site down, looking at him. "Are you going to bring them with you?"

"I should but passports would be necessary unless we took magical transport and you *know* the witches hate me."

"Still," Giles agreed dryly, smiling at him. "I still haven't figured out why yet."

"I'm guessing it was either how I helped or something Willow said." He shrugged. "Not my doing this time."

"True. I'll see what I can arrange. How would you get things back here?"

"We can use the spaceship, Dad," Cygyn said. "I'd like to learn how to fly it."

Giles cleared his throat. "Space...ship?"

Xander pointed at his girls. "I had to beat a few space pirates who wanted to become my sons-in-law. I won their ship at poker. Then I had to beat them nearly to death for trying to snatch them. Pity but yay."

Giles blinked at him. "Space pirates?" he demanded more loudly.

"They thought my girls were pretty. Which is why I glare at anyone who likes to flirt with my girls. Before I have to go beat someone else into a pulp for wanting them."

"Which is why we don't tell Dad when idiot boys flirt when we don't want them to," Mercada quipped. "We can handle those sort ourselves."

Xander turned to look at her. "Just call if they get too insistent or if it takes more than one of you." She sighed but nodded. So did the others. "Thanks." He looked at Giles again, grinning slightly. "I had them taught by warriors and assassins."

Giles nodded. "I can see why. Many men would become leches over them."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, not happening while I'm alive. If they find someone good...I'll accept it as long as they can protect each other. Otherwise, no. I know how to research sacrificial rituals for guys like that."

"We have whole books of them in the library in a few languages," Giles said sarcastically.

Xander grinned. "I know. One day I was reading over it to see what I wanted to do to Willow."

"There's been days when I would have understood that urge," Giles admitted. He stared at his might-as-well-be son. "So now what? Are you going to retire?"

"I'd need a more centralized job. A regional watcher job instead of my old traveling habits. We'd be safer down there but not totally. Though I could get used to beating problems up again."

Buffy stomped in. "How did you find them?" she demanded.

"When you heard that there were demons sniffing around Ethan's old shop, I went to look at them for Giles. I found a door sitting in the alleyway." He shifted to look at her better. "The doorway opened while I was trying to see if it was attached to anything. It turns out it's a portal that lets someone go somewhere for eight years wherever time and eight hours here." She slumped. "So I was there, handling a few things as I popped into a demon marketplace as a warlord showed up to kill everyone or take slaves.

"Thankfully I had my usual stuff for patrol on me and there was a warrior with a sword there that I could bum quickly. So I protected myself and the nun demons that I landed near." She frowned at him. "Yeah, nuns." He shrugged but grinned a bit. "They're the ones that knew about the portal and told me. So I took some lessons there with some warrior clans and got shot back into the alley after eight hours Sunnydale time. I took the portal to my storage area just in case it was needed for some reason. It was kind of instinctive.

"Then just after I got back from my not-a-real-roadtrip I got news from the demon network that I had daughters. Seven daughters and the witches that had made them for me without my input were going to sacrifice them. So back I went." The girls giggled. He grinned at them then at her. "They had an aunt that wanted to finish raising them since Sunnydale was so dangerous. The girls decided it'd be weird to come to Sunnydale so decided to with her when I gave them the option. I spent time with them and came home again.

"Then right before you got brought back, I had to go rescue them from the warlord wannabe idiot who thought my daughters were a harem for him. That took two trips to get them all. That realm's years were about six days here. I got six of the seven and got shoved back, waited the three hours that was mandatory for it to reset itself while gathering weapons, and went the fuck back. That guy is gone. Forever sort of gone.

"So are almost all his palaces. And most of his hench demons and minions. Then they got shoved to another realm that had elves." He rolled his eye. "They had summoned a warrior to help them with a huge problem that was ticklish and evil. The girls got it down and out after tying up most of the elven village until they could get someone to summon me. They were about thirteen then. We had to stay there for a bit because time ran slower for them but normally for us because we weren't attached or anchored to that realm.

"We ended up tripping into a backway onto Asgard. We trained with a few warrior academies, handled a few problems. Got the girls trained with the warriors and a few assassins we ran into so they could protect themselves from boys. We got sent to Asgard proper to handle a huge problem that the warriors were calling help for. They couldn't defeat the rather large demon that had an allergy to silver. The girls sat out and did bandaging and stuff while I helped the warriors with that. Which got us nagged by Odin, which set off a prophecy up there that he'd be losing his seat to a group of daughters and their father." Giles spluttered.

Xander nodded. "He's still trying to find a way around it and so am I because I don't want his seat. I'd get egotistical asshole cooties from it. His sons both did so I'm pretty sure the infection point is the throne itself." He looked at Buffy again. "Raisa, the missing daughter, got found to be necking with her one-night lover up there so he married them off then told me. Two days later. Raisa said they're happy and her girlfriend is pretty chill most of the time. And a warrior."

He grinned at Mercada then at Buffy again. "She was going to try to get Mercada and got Raisa instead. They're twins." Buffy moaned. "My only set of twins. That's why I have seven instead of six. Heimdall finally managed to get the bridge to work one way so we're back here now and I'm figuring out where I'm going to be a regional watcher instead of the guy that travels after everyone. That way they can go to school, make new friends, all that teenage girl stuff that you, Willow, and Cordy used to find important."

"Cordy, wasn't she the messenger girl with the tentacles?" Cygyn asked.

Xander grinned and nodded. "She's the messenger for the Powers That Be. The other is Whistler, the guy in the hat." He looked at Giles. "I've vowed I do not want his seat or his cooties that's infecting it. Right now he's torn between we'll have to fight an honor duel to determine if the prophecy is correct or he'll have to make one of his relatives marry me and then kill me so they can take the throne from me. He's swung back to honor duel the last I heard."

Giles shook his head quickly. "I'd hate to see that come to pass."

"Me too." He smirked at his mentor. "I don't want a throne. The girls would become the wrong sort of princesses." That got another mass eye roll. Which made Buffy giggle at them. "They're teenage girls and I know that." He looked at Giles again. "So, where do we need a regional person?"

"New York could use one," Buffy said. "That way they're in the US but away from the evil in LA. And the grunge guys still infecting Seattle. They tried to hit on a few of the younger slayers and the girls nearly thought they were cute. I had to institute a good taste lecture from Rona."

"So they won't date a vampire either?" Xander quipped.

"Shut up," she huffed. She frowned at the girls. "They don't look that fashionable."

"I made them wear real shirts today since they've been used to Asgard's sports top looking outfits."

Buffy shook her head. "You need massive muscles to wear those cutely."

"They managed it against my scowling," Xander said then shrugged but grinned at her. "They inherited fashion somewhere, or were cursed with it somehow." Buffy swatted him on the shoulder. "Giles?"

"New York isn't a bad idea," he agreed. "We could easily send you some of the younger girls."

"New York gets a lot of meta human problems," Xander reminded him. "Wouldn't that bother the girls too?"

"Quite possibly," he admitted, considering it. "There's Vancouver but you'd be close to Seattle and you'd have winter." Xander shrugged slightly. "I know you appreciated Africa's weather."

"Sometimes. I hated drought season. And the desert." Ophelia poked him on the shoulder. "My truck broke down six days from the nearest village," he told them. A few pouted. "Long hike in the desert, yeah." He looked at Giles again. "I still need to go pack but I can bring that vehicle I inherited for that." Giles nodded once. "Then I'll let you and the sorcerer guy up there look over them for anything too huge. I know there is because I took it on purpose from the group doing a self sacrificing ritual." He grimaced then sighed through his nose. "So sucky. Whole town of suicide cult to call back their Goddess to protect the others." Giles sat up straighter, staring at him. "I sent you that report. Did Willow get into them?" he guessed, grinning at him.

"One of the others does that since she started to edit reports on people," he admitted. "I would like to see that one." Xander nodded. "How soon do you think you can gather your things and come back?"

"Probably won't take me more than a few weeks. There's a few spots I need to hit. I have stuff stored near a few of the girls. Can we move most of them to somewhere safer?"

"I'll talk to Carlis in a few minutes," he assured him. "See if he can handle that." Xander nodded. "Do you want them to leave the continent?"

"For about the next six weeks? Yeah. That one vision is due to go off in five and it'll compromise a lot of native governments."

"Good point. Also, I saw about that ascension."

"I warned the local military so they were on hand. They had helicopter based weapons. The head went splat very quickly once they quit staring in horror at it."

Buffy choked and spluttered. "There was?" she demanded.

"Yeah. One of the mid-sized one," Xander said, looking over at her. "I got told two days before the eclipse. So I told a nice general I had met, who had threatened me if another demon thing ever happened in his country. He and two troops of people showed up to battle it. With higher weapons because I told him about how big it'd be and that the head had to come off. Missiles pretty." He grinned. "After that, he took a copy of the teaching manual I had and let me go over the basics for his people. That way they knew when it was an emergency or when it was just something gathering for a poker game. They have Carlis' number and the one for here if they need more immediate help and no one's nearby."

Giles nodded, taking off his glasses. "That's a wise thing. We've offered other governments that sort of help and information if they didn't want a slayer near their people." He looked at Buffy. Then at Xander. "It sounds like they could handle it."

"That next one is a Higher calling in all his debts to repower himself after a huge battle for status. Which he really has to win or we're all screwed. I know he's got debts in about six countries."

"I agree, that's a good reason to move the vulnerable minis down there," Giles decided. "I'll talk with Carlis."

"One's near him," Xander said. "But I've only heard about the one debt there. So he might have to go take the girls camping in the middle of the desert. Or to Madagascar, but they're having a plague going on." He crossed his feet. "I'd have them evacuate up to Turkey but I heard about that fit with their native girl." Giles grimaced but nodded. "I did put out an all points about that information before I heard they were in trouble. That way people were warned. Including to all the slayers, mini and not."

"That's wise," Giles agreed. "So now you go pack then take up New York? We'll work on sending you some girls to train up there?" Xander nodded that was fine with him. "Good. How soon before you can set up in New York?"

"Wouldn't that depend on finding a building?" he guessed. "Do we have a local house up there at all?"

"We do have a rental up there but it's rather small," he admitted, frowning as he looked that up. "We keep one for the girls to hover in before any larger than average problem that shows up."

Xander nodded at that. "How big?"

"Three bedrooms," Buffy said.

"We've shared before," Mercada admitted, looking at her sisters, who all shrugged. "But that wouldn't leave much room for girls to come up for training."

"True," Xander agreed. "Giles, want to look for us or want us to look?"

"I'll look around for you. It may be outside the city. Prices inside the city are astounding."

"That's fine. Less traffic and smog," Xander quipped. He stood up. "Let us go pack stuff. See you in a few weeks." He and the girls walked outside and got beamed onto their ship.

Buffy watched Willow have a seizure of some sort about that disappearance. "No idea what sort of magic that was?" she asked.

"No magic!" Willow squeaked. She stared at her. "That was purely tech!"

"Not possible. We don't have the technology for that yet," Buffy complained, walking off. "Giles, they just disappeared," she called as she walked past the office.

"Well, he said he had been to Asgard and they do have that level of technology," Andrew said when she walked into the kitchen, grinning at her. "We've seen all sorts of energy manifestations from the warriors they've managed to capture on film." She walked off groaning and shaking her head. "I've got to look at Xander's ship and see if I can figure out how to reverse engineer it," he told himself. "He'd probably let me." He went back to puttering over cleaning the kitchen before dinner.

***

Xander landed on his new back lawn, looking around the tiny house. He frowned. "It's really tiny," he said quietly but went in to make sure it was safe for the girls. He was known as an overprotective boob and he wasn't giving up that habit anytime soon. Apparently the house was a lot bigger inside than outside. He stepped outside to check. Yup, cute bungalow. Inside, marble floors and a large staircase. "Sure," he decided. He found a nice room to store stuff in for now. And another with better locks for the weapons. He called his daughter's cell. "It's fine. Come on down with stuff." They got everything sent down and then the mini slayers he had rescued from the idiots in supposed control of Uganda. They ran inside, going to look around. "Pick rooms," he called. "In pairs in case we don't have enough rooms."

"Yup," one of the minis called back. "There's thirteen bedrooms and one's really huge."

"That's probably mine," he yelled back. "Because I'm the adult."

"Fine." The girls all giggled and found their own rooms. The daughters came jogging up a few minutes later and picked their own rooms. That mostly filled the house, leaving one spare and the rooms downstairs that didn't look like a bedroom but would probably do. He did lock them all out of the weapons once he got them all down there, which they'd pout about later.

Xander turned from locking the weapons room to find a sorcerer standing there. He smirked. "Don't I need to do an invitation spell for you?"

"Not hardly. I've been paying attention to this house once we heard it was going to be your new training area so I wasn't startled by the shaft of magic that flared up just now."

"There's another ten artifacts on the ship that I need to bring down. Wanna wait? I have no idea if the kitchen has running water yet or not."

"I can help haul them this time so I can make sure they're not dangerous."

"Probably only half of them." He got them beamed up then came down with the rest of the boxes. He hurried back up for his bags then came back once the ship was safely in orbit somewhere quiet. "There." He put his bags on the stairs and went to look over the artifacts. They were already being sorted out. Xander put two back into the nice things pile. "Necessary for the next few apocalypse battles."

Dr. Strange stared at him. "That was the nice things pile."

"No, we need most of these and two have to go to Thor to help him."

The sorcerer grimaced but nodded once. "Tell me what you think they are."

"Well, that one will open you up to your elemental powers," he said with a point at one he had just moved. Then he grinned. "Which he'll need by the most recent visions."

"Have you told him that yet?"

"I'm just barely back in the US, Doc."

"True. Fine." He sorted the rest with Xander's help. He wanted to securely store a few more of those but he could see how they could be useful to defeating higher demons.

Cygyn leaned in and grinned at the sorcerer. "The other stuff got sent, Dad."

"Cool. We can go look at those in a few. Is the water on?"

"Nope. Electric's probably magical or solar." Xander groaned. "We're looking up the local utilities for you."

"Thanks for saving me that work, Cygyn." She bounced off. "Let me know what else we need."

"Food," she called a minute later. "There's not a single bit of food."

"Shit, the minis will turn cannibal," he muttered, finding his phone. The sorcerer snatched it to look at, giving him an odd look. "I dropped it into an energy well," he quipped with a grin. "So no water damage at least. Even if it will make transdimensional calls." He took the list from Ophelia when she walked past him to start the calling around. After the first one denied that it was a proper address, he went to read it off the mailbox and the post office's 'you're moving' pack that automatically got sent whenever someone changed their addresses.

They still denied there was a house there. So Xander found the meter and read the number off it. She found it that way and they were set to be turned on in the morning because it was already one in the afternoon. The electric company was just as bad. By the time he got done with them he called Giles to make sure he didn't create the house out of thin air or had a demon create it. He also reported that he had all the minis that had been hiding in Uganda with him. The sewer people got paid their fee and they started that account, which fed off the water account so they didn't have to come out for that. The trash people got called and they agreed to bring a small dumpster because they decided a houseful of girls probably produced a ton of trash. He walked inside and looked at the sorcerer. "He didn't...create the house magically, right?"

"Not that I'm aware of. There is magic in it, as you can plainly tell."

"Yeah, someone's a Harry Potter fan," Xander quipped, looking around. "This is clearly the tent spell come to life in marble." Strange snorted but looked amused. Giles appeared with Willow, who got darted by one of the minis. Xander looked at the unconscious redhead then at the mini hiding on the stairs. "Nice shot," he said, smiling at her. "But Willow will throw a fit later. Hide really hard."

"Yes, Xander," she said quietly then ran up to her room to hide in the closet.

Xander shrugged. "She hates witches. Two tried to kill her for being a slayer."

"Ah." Giles nodded, taking off his glasses. "That's reasonable at least." Xander got her onto a bench to rest and they went to the artifact rooms.

"Dad, there's boys in the trees and they're trying to be perverts," Mercada called.

Xander sighed, grabbing his special axe to go out back. He grinned at the boys trying to hide in the trees. "Nice try but the girls are all about fifteen. I'm a really overprotective father and Council. I make some jailers seem really sweet with how strict I am with my girls." They fled to go home and spread that gossip. Xander went back inside. His axe went onto a countertop then quickly moved when it ate into the marble. "I thought I cleaned all that off. I'll figure out if I can fix that later." He went back to the artifacts. "Decide what I'm ordering for dinner," he called.

"There's no food?" Giles asked, looking confused.

"No food, water will be on tomorrow," he said. "The electric too." Giles moaned, rubbing his forehead. "It happens during long moves. Anyway, I was thinking this big, green thing here would do nicely for that upcoming hell god wannabe that's going to bother LA." He opened that one's containment case. Giles moaned and shut it carefully. Xander grinned. "I found it laying around in a temple that had captured one of the baby slayers for a sacrifice."

"Yes, that would suitably destroy that one but may take out many others, Xander."

"We can evacuate and throw it at them. It'd be attracted to the shiny. Most of them I've seen have been."

"How many hell gods have you seen?" Giles demanded.

"You didn't get those reports either?" Giles scowled. Xander pulled them up on his phone. Which got another long look, from Giles this time. "Fell into an energy well. So at least I didn't get water damage."

"You do incredibly weird things," Giles said sarcastically. He took the phone to read those reports. Once he swatted the boy and another got a glare at him but by the end Giles was groaning heavily. "Oh, dear. I'm not telling the others."

"Might be a great idea, yeah." Xander grinned. "And most of the minis in Africa are really mini so I did a lot with other help. Two of them might come back to the US to help, not sure yet."

"I...I'm not sure if that would be a bad thing or not," he admitted. "At least Buffy could flirt with the other warriors."

"No, they're together."

"Oh. Well, I suppose they'll find someone somehow who can put up with her changing clothes." He handed the phone back. "We can drain that energy for you."

"Why? It's making it so I don't have to recharge the battery and it might remove all the numbers from it."

"Good point I suppose." He went with Xander and the sorcerer to talk to the minis. He glanced at Willow then at Xander. "How long should that work?"

"It's lion strength so should last at least another three hours." He checked her pulse. "She's still alive." They went up to check on the girls. His had pulled out a board game to amuse the others. One bathroom had been designated as the outhouse for now so that was fine he guessed. They could switch to another one if it got too nasty. Though when he looked around there were only two bathrooms. He gave Giles a glance, getting a sigh back. "We'll handle it. Ladies, this is Giles; he's the head watcher."

"Hi, Mr. Tweedy in Charge," one of the minis quipped with a grin and a wave for him. "Watcher Cresida isn't very nice and he thought I needed to live in a mud hut again."

"I've had a talk with him since I heard him say that," Xander quipped. The guy was still probably trying to shit out the shoe he had stuck up his ass. "This is Doctor Strange. He's the sorcerer in charge of other sorcerers." The girls all stared at him and one smiled slightly. "Yeah, he's the one I had your cousin write letters to," he told her. "Before she turns into Willow again." He shook his head quickly.

The sorcerer smiled at her. "I have heard from a young sorcerer with special gifts recently. He mentioned Xander and the Council but wanted to know about control exercises."

"I found him because he had trapped two spirits to learn how to woo a proper wife from them," Xander said dryly. "I made him let the succuba go." Giles coughed and spluttered a bit. "Which is why I had him write to a higher power." He grinned at his boss. "Ladies, any other immediate needs we've seen?"

"Just water," one said, grimacing. "It's kinda nasty, Dad."

"Baby wipes are in the med kit," he offered. She went to get some and came back to put them into the bathroom they were using for now. Xander heard someone knock and jogged down to the front door, staring at the guy there. Agent suit. Agent sunglasses. Agent haircut. A few bruises on his face. "Let me guess, you're an agent," he said dryly. He was blocking him from coming in. "What's up, Agent Guy?"

"Mr. Harris?" Xander nodded. "We wanted to talk to you about something that's went on recently."

"How recently? Giles is upstairs. With my daughters and the minis."

"I'm sure he can watch them while you come talk to us," he said smoothly.

"Fat chance." Xander stared at him. "I don't care what demon cocksucking minion feels that I've helped the slayers too much. Or for any other reason. If it's about a vision I've had, I've put them in easily accessible places so people can make plans about it. Probably on both sides but oh well. If it's about a battle I've had, you're welcome for still being alive and humanity surviving. Anything else?" The agent glared at him. Xander stared back. "Then you have a good day," he said when nothing else got said. He shut the door and walked off. He paused to hit Willow's emergency necklace to get her back to the Council building. "Giles, an agent just showed up to sneer. I sent Willow home in case they try to break in and tried to capture her as well." He walked back up the stairs. "Girls, if he busts in, do we have a saferoom set up?" Mercada and Ophelia went to do that for him. "Thanks." He looked at Giles. "He was bruised too so apparently whatever cocksucking minion he's under was mean to him."

"We do try to work with agents, Xander," Giles said firmly.

"And if he hadn't said I'd have to go with him and leave all the girls here with you I might've." He stared back. "I work with ones that show a bit of respect. I'm not going to let any of the girls be hurt by agents like that. We've seen plenty already and I'm the reason yours got saved from that one government group last year."

"They were quite angry about that."

"Then they shouldn't think slayers are lab rats, huh?"

"Point. We have stopped other such events." He stared at the younger man. "You do have quite a temper."

"Well, yeah. I'm the original overprotective dad sort." He hugged the bouncy mini slayer. "It's not like the one that tried to snatch you from your parents. He won't take any of you out into the street to try to kill you in front of them."

"Good!" She pouted at Giles. "All government sorts are *bad*!" she said a bit loudly. "They try to kill us or try to cut us up and take our gifts to give to men who'll use it to feel even worse about their wives and beat them." The other minis nodded. "We've all seen it."

"No, that sort comes near you and I'm going to make sure you girls are fine," Xander assured her, patting her on the head. "US agents aren't as evil as the ones you grew up near but they can still be fought off the same way." She nodded, cuddling into Cygyn's side. "You don't have to worry. Even if they show up and by some miracle of a dark god or goddess managed to get you for a few seconds I'd be there almost instantly to rescue you and whoever then destroy them." She hugged his leg then went back to cuddling Cygyn. She was the preferred cuddling target of the big girls. Xander looked at Giles, shrugging some. "I had to at least twice now. There was one when I was drunk that I only half remember and I don't remember if I destroyed them to the point of death or not."

"I dare say that's a wonderful response," Giles said, staring at him. "The girls need rescued when things like that should occur."

The sorcerer nodded. "I concur. The girls need more protections from those sort."

Xander looked at him. "Last vision had Asgard's remains running down here."

"Oh, shite," he muttered, walking off. "Thank you for that warning, Xander." He ran into the agent outside, who had clearly been listening. "If agents in the US should attempt what those around that child did, he wouldn't have to do more than ask for help." The agent walked off shuddering but calling in that report. Dr. Strange went back to his house and looked up those visions again. One had Thor down here looking for Loki before the battle, and having a beer with him so that was a good warning to have.

***

Xander looked up as the new agent showed up right after the water turn-on rep left. "At least we have water," he said dryly. "It's on," he called.

"Thank you! The toilets were smelling gross!" one of the minis yelled back. "Worse than an outhouse!"

Xander grinned at the agent. "You needed...?"

"We looked into the agents around the mini slayers you have with you. We would've helped destroy them if you had asked."

Xander stared at him for a minute. "You didn't stop the ones in the US. Why would I trust that?"

"We were not aware of it. Now that we are, we're stopping the plots against the Council and the two others who want to confiscate the girls."

"Yeah, that idiot general. He's gonna die." He stared at him. "And I'm going to do it if Ross comes near my girls. You can warn him if you want."

"That would probably make him act, which would give you a reasonable, legal reason to take him and his teams out," the agent agreed. "We'd rather not have that showdown yet."

Xander shrugged. "He's got someone watching my daughters and I'm about to fire a missile up his ass." He pointed at him. "You can start there if you want."

"I will on the way out. I wanted to ask for an account on the visions about Asgard and how you got daughters."

"Some witches in another realm created them to have a powerful sacrifice." He grimaced. "They're soup."

"Agreed, and good job saving them. Why pick you?"

"I used the portal I found and I defeated a dragon by curing a scale rot problem with some mud. It couldn't reach the bad spot and had landed in a village to get help but had panicked the villagers. So they now have a young woman who helps with that weekly. They'll have one teenage girl who goes up to check on him every week or so."

"Interesting. So a Sunnydale way got you notice?"

Xander grinned. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Huh. Are more going to create more children?"

"Nope. After that mermaid thing I'm not fertile. Otherwise I'd have a few others on Asgard."

The agent nodded once. "You've been?"

"Yup. Odin's still pissing me off by pushing that prophecy that says I'll be taking his seat from him and then he'll have to take me out to get it back for one of his kids. I told him I don't want it but oh well. He'll figure it out some year I'm sure." The agent watching over them got out of the car and strolled over. "Oh, look, it's the pervert watching my teenage daughters," he said loudly. "I'd suggest he get back in his car and scoot."

"I have a turn over order for the mutants in the house," he sneered.

Xander walked out. "My daughters aren't mutants and you come near the slayers again, you'll be facing an apocalypse battle by yourselves." He stared the guy down. "You try though, dude."

"Those girls are mutants. They're not human."

Xander hit him. "Yeah they are. I am."

"You're not. You have known demon taint."

Xander smirked, leaning down to look at him since he was on the ground. "Yeah, that means you can't charge me by current US laws. Watch me finish it. I have plenty of people who'd like to make war on the government and most of them owe me something." The agent shrank away from him. "You come near my slayers or my daughters and that is the *last* mistake this government is going to make. Even if Giles fires my ass, I'm still going to be protecting them. Now, anything else from the diseased minds that tried the Initiative thing? Because I'm not amused and I'm going to share it." He smirked, standing upright again. "Hell, I can pull an Independence Day move in DC if I really feel like it. I *do* have a space ship at my command." The agent scurried off to his car, already babbling on his phone. He smirked and waved. "I'm perfectly reasonable until you try to threaten my girls. Learn the lesson that Lesotho had to learn faster than they did!" He glared at the other agent.

"I would've stopped him, you didn't give me time to act." He tapped out a text message. "Please don't destroy DC."

"The weapons would only get a few buildings." He shrugged. "I'll pick and choose." He walked back to the doorway, smiling at the staring cable guy. "It's fine. He decided my daughters should be taken into custody because I'm Council." He grinned. "Please give the girls something to do?" He nodded, coming in to hook things up as quickly as he could. He still got pounced and hugged by some of the daughters. "Ladies," he warned. "Quit picking on him!"

"He's giving us internet!" Daisy called. "He's a saint because I'm stupidly bored and out of homework!"

Xander rolled his eyes, looking at the worker. "Sorry. They're teenage girls. I don't let them shop that often."

He smiled. "They're pretty but I've got a thirteen-year-old daughter myself, sir. She does the same thing." He went back to hooking up tv's, modems, and wi-fi routers.

Xander looked at the agent. "Sorry you had to see that."

"I'd rather see that. What was that Initiative thing you mentioned?"

"A group of morons that were torturing demons in Sunnydale."

He looked that up, frowning as he read that. "That's sick."

"Yes it was. I'm glad our group ended them."

"Me as well." He put his phone back into his pants pocket. "I'm going to make sure there's no other plans in that direction later. The US laws...."

Xander held up a hand. "No, they won't. Only two states have laws that say anyone with any demon taint or blood can be charged like a normal human. Congress turned down making it a national law twice."

"I had forgotten about that. That would matter, wouldn't it? Would you really blow debts for that?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I'm highly protective of my girls. Slayers and my daughters. And frankly, since last year I blew up a hell goddess that would've taken out all of humanity...." He grinned. "A few hate me for taking her out. The rest.... Well, actually I know how to revive her. It'll take a pint of my blood being put onto a certain stone." He smiled. "And there's others like that around that I can get to in a reasonably quick bit of time. Including using a few poker debts to get them faster." He leaned on the doorway. "You've seen the talk shows where the lady's so mad she takes off her wig to beat someone?" The agent nodded slowly. "That's about where I start when someone tries for my daughters. Then I get coldly rational." He grinned. "Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"Would you warn us if someone came for your daughters?"

"If you tell me that you've heard someone's trying. I can call in a warning." He accepted the card. He smiled again. "It'll be okay. They just need to leave us alone before they have to handle their own emergencies. Because be damned if I'm dying to save someone like General Ross."

"I don't think anyone would feel any differently," the agent agreed. "I'll tell our director."

"Tell Dead Guy that I said hi. He's seen me avenging one of the minis a few years back." He winked and walked into the house, closing the door. "What's left on our list of tasks for the day?" he called.

"Dinner," Daisy called. "Finding how Mira fell down a closet."

Xander went up to find Mira and get her out of the hidden area under the closet. He found the ladder and sent it down. The mini slayer climbed up it. "Safe room?" She nodded. "We can use that then. Find me any others. Just in case." They went to search the house better. He stared back at the cable guy. "What?" He just nodded, grinning some as he finished hooking things up. "Did you get the outside tap already?"

"Doing that last to make sure everything works that the same time, sir."

Xander nodded. "Okay." He went to check all the other utilities. They had the dumpster out back since early that morning. Them dropping it off had woken everyone up. The agent doing their cable would report to people. Hopefully they weren't stupid people.

***

Xander woke up the next morning to someone staring at him from the foot of his bed. "Did I sleep with you last night? If so, that was probably fun and have a great day. If not, you're trespassing and I've got three weapons within grabbing distance plus daughters who will kill you for me before I have to do more than yell."

The guy shook his head. "One of them let me in, Harris." Tony Stark stared at him. "You have a space ship."

"Yeah, won it from the space pirate douchebags." He sat up. "So?"

"I wanted to get a good look at it."

"You can do that when it's evacuating Asgardians." He stared at him. "More important and we need it to work then."

"How would you pull an Independence Day with a ship you need in a few weeks?"

"Not that hard. Space ships have to be able to withstand a whole lot of pressure and beatings from asteroids and other small bits of space junk. They're tougher than all the weapons I know of down here." He blinked at him a few times. "You can look at it later."

"I might be able to build more. Which could help Asgard more."

"We don't have time for that."

"Oh." He frowned and shifted his stance. "I can look at it then?" Xander nodded. "Will we not need it then?"

"By then we might need to evacuate parts of earth thanks to the big guy coming to avenge his girlfriend Hela."

Stark stared, mouth slightly open. "I saw those visions." Xander nodded. "Can we not win?"

"He's supposedly immortal and has some native powers but the gems are what powers him."

The older man stared at him. "Share your source, kid?"

Xander sat up, staring at him. "I would but it'd be really hard for you to find that cave that held the trans-dimensional portal that I fell through to a world where you're all comic books." He stared at him. "If I had known, I would've read that one more closely. Though it did show you guys beating him." Stark glared. "My vision differed from the comic book because the guy with one arm wasn't there and neither was the King of Kitty Cats. I'm pretty sure both of them will be. And I'll keep Mercada from pouncing either one. She's actually flirting with the King's sister, confusing her greatly most of the time." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Speaking of, call him. Today." He looked at Stark. "No clue why but something's going on out there. Also, their version, didn't have slayers and I doubt you'll get to have an apocalypse battle without them or some of the demon societies helping save everyone. They don't want to die either."

Stark nodded once. "That's still a really weird source."

"From what I've seen and heard, it's correct about his powers. It was mostly correct about you guys but Rogers didn't have a beard."

Stark just nodded and left, shaking his head the whole way. He'd tell the others before calling Wakanda to see if they needed some help. And to ask about why that young teen had been flirting with a full grown woman.

Xander laid back down then leaned over and looked under his bed at the two slayers hiding underneath there. "That's fine. Go back to bed when you can." They cuddled better and he flopped back down with a sigh. "Gonna be a long day again." The girls giggled but they were tired.

***

Xander poked his daughter on the arm and pointed with a grunt since his mouth was full. Mercada sighed and walked over. "Dad said I need to apologize for being a horrible flirt and confusing your sister. Especially since I'm still underage and he'd kill me if I managed to even get in a close hug. Not your sister since he knows I'm pushy but I'd die of it and I'm sorry if I upset her."

The king smirked at her a tiny bit. "I think she was more confused, kid."

Mercada grinned. "You always gotta dream big about getting a romance for the ages." She skipped off. He was smiling. Xander waved at him. "I'm trying to be good."

"Uh-huh," he agreed, swallowing again. "I'm sure you are. You're also not going to joint either battle coming up, dear." She pouted. "You know you're going to evacuating people. You're good enough to protect them as they run but you're not a warrior and you're too young to even do more than self defense. You and all the other six."

She nodded. "I can agree with that. Are we holding the meeting with Thor?"

"I think so." He finished his sandwich in one bite, grinning as he chewed. "I've got eight minis, my six, two bathrooms, one kitchen, and they already emptied it so I haven't eaten since yesterday." The king walked off snickering, shaking his head. "By the way, I've got Mimi," he called after her. "She's pouty that her mother won't answer the phone."

"I'll have someone check on her mother, Harris." He looked back at him. "Why do you have her?"

"Cresida had her evacuated when the idiot demon was calling in his debts to regain his powers after winning a battle against something huge that thankfully he won against. That's why all those nice idiots who sold themselves, and their families, are acting up right now."

"So he moved them all to Uganda and you got them out of there?"

"Yeah. They're presently messing up the living room with Faith and my other five."

"Where is your one you're not mentioning?"

"Odin found her making out with a Valkyrie so had them married off. Raisa kept me from killing his ass to free her but apparently they're cute together." He shrugged. "She said it's okay and I'm not going to protest, much, about that. Yet." He grimaced. "I have forbidden the gifting of any grandchildren or else I'll bless them to be just like me." Mercada shuddered but he grinned at her. "From any of you, yes. I've got a delayed wish and all that ready to go off."

"Too young to be a mom anyway, Dad. You made sure I knew what that age range was. I don't want to be beaten to death for getting down and funky with a boy."

Xander grinned at the staring people. "I'm an overprotective boob of a father, yeah."

"It goes well with the mediaeval weapons," Stark joked.

The king stared at him. "I've seen him take on a twelve-foot demon with his battle axe, killing it and getting fairly injured, spit on it and have it start to regenerate so he pulled out a photon grenade and used it to finish killing it. I don't think many Middle Ages knights could've done that, Stark. Especially not with the being taken by his girlfriend of the moment, who was an assassin, who took him to baby his injuries, kept up half the motel that night with her squealing, and come out the next morning needing food and coffee and sleep but nothing else."

Xander shrugged when everyone stared at him. "Kristen was very nice to baby my clawing injuries. All she wanted was a great night in return and I'm all about that anyway. None of my lovers ever go away disappointed." He shrugged again, grinning at his blushing daughter. "I'll tell your future spouse how to do that."

"I remember the two warriors at the training camp on Asgard, Dad. I don't need to know how to make guys like that so tired they begged for mercy." She walked off, going to talk to Hawkeye. "We've got a debate and the slayers joined in. Is your bow blessed to a deity?"

"No. Sorry."

She grinned. "That means we won. The girls swear it has to be a blessed weapon." She shook her head. "So many spoiled brats," she mouthed. "Thankfully I'm hiding from the main group of bouncy slayers who wear slutty clothes to school." She bounded off, finding a seat outside. "Tell me when we talk about where we're evacuating people to, Dad."

"Yup, sure," Xander called. He looked at the others, grinning at them. "Mercada is my mini me. Including my ADHD apparently."

Thor looked at him. "You slept with some of the trainee warriors?"

"They asked." He grinned. "I never flirt with anyone, I let them flirt with me. It works nicer that way for me. They were cute, and muscled, and not too bad in bed but a bit vanilla. It's like they didn't even know how to get on their knees, Thor. If you want, I'll introduce you to them and one's older brother. Who said his brother should go into *service* instead of being a warrior."

"Nay, that is not my thing. Thank thee though, Xander." Xander grinned at him. "Were there no females at that one?"

"Yeah, two, and they both thought I was cute but not bed worthy until after those two warriors. Then one flirted and got some handsy help in the gardens. The other one got scared of being pleased and ran off to go become a warrior nun."

"Ah. I heard that part of the story about the newest novitiate. She came to my Father to be blessed into the service." He walked off looking amused.

"Yeah, the training camp had a liberal view of eat, drink, and be merry," he told the staring heros. "We all needed stress relief after that fire giant attempt." He shrugged but grinned.

Stark shook his head with a sigh. "So damn weird."

"Better than I can do. I can't handle a threesome anymore," Clint quipped. "I do better now with one-on-one."

"My last one of those went to the ER. She got a bit worn out," Xander said dryly, grimacing. "She really needed more stamina. You'd think former agents would have more stamina." He shook his head. Everyone was still staring at him. "Spain's people."

"Ah," Natasha said, nodding once. "Have you slept with many agents?"

"Yup." He grinned. "But I'm not going to brag. They might get mad. Then I'd have to defend against an attack and spank a few of them for it. Or let the daughters spank them for it." He looked out at Mercada. "Who was the agent you got last night?"

"Ophelia and Daisy got him, Dad," she called back. "And he was supposedly SHIELD. Sucker thought Daisy was weak because she was in a nighty. Pity. I'm guessing they'll be able to reattach his penis since that's what height Ophelia was in. She was in bed when he broke into her and Daisy's room. So her knife hit him there and Daisy almost dismembered his other limbs. Sucks to be him I guess but he was dumb."

Xander looked at Clint, who was staring at her oddly. "My girls were trained to protect themselves by any warrior or assassin I could talk into giving them lessons. They're pretty and I'm not going to be a grandfather anytime soon."

Natasha went out to talk to the young woman to see if she could identify which agent, and if they were really SHIELD. It turns out they were and they were in the infirmary. Someone had picked them up and dropped them on their doorstep. She came in to show Steve and Stark who it had been. Steve grimaced. "It's good he's out of the way of harm."

"Very. If he's going to try to harm young women, he deserves worse." He handed back her phone. "Any others going to try?"

"That one general idiot," Xander quipped. "He's going to hate it when I call in a poker debt and have him taken out in a horrible way." The king walked off shuddering. "I probably won't call in the debt from those cannibal imps," he called after him. "Just a really badass demon who'll make sure he knows better than to come near them or the slayers."

"Cannibal imps?" Steve asked, looking confused. Xander looked them up on the held out phone, handing it to him then stepping back. Steve read and turned a bit green, handing Natasha her phone back. "Not over here?"

"South Africa," Xander said. "Hardly ever leave the area unless they're on a holy quest, which takes them to New Zealand because they used to live there until the natives drove them off. They have to fast until they get to the temple and then most of the way back they're plotting so only get a few victims."

"I'll be on the lookout for them," Steve decided. "Just so I don't have to deal with that."

"There's a local, adult slayer near where they're living. She knows to watch out for them. The only three adult slayers in Africa are all in areas that have some problems but not a ton of local, human problems. That one handles that, a few temples, a calling stone that takes blood spilled on it, and depending on what sort of blood depends on what gets summoned. Last year a bird dropped her prey on it and it called a squirrel goddess from another realm. She was not amused but only wanted brushed. That slayer's daughter is old enough to squee over furry things so she brushed her until they could reverse it."

"Was she squirrel headed like the ones in Egypt were supposed to be or was she an actual squirrel?"

"Humanish face, mostly squirrel," Xander said. "The dog goddess that showed up last year thanks to one giving birth was more werewolf like but the other one that showed up thanks to that was dog headed. And naked."

"I know of them," Thor said. "They are most amusing."

Xander grinned. "She was sweet to talk to." He saw the staring. "We can't break that stone, it'll cause huge destruction. Probably to the earthquake level. It's tied to something like a hellmouth structure and it'll create a huge amount of hell. Though one of the local goddesses that was mostly peaceful used it to create her daughter on. The slayer put in that report and the statement that she didn't watch after finding out what was going on. It clearly wasn't to summon something and no blood should have been spilled that way. She's due next year I think. I need to find her a good baby present." He made himself a note and put his phone up.

Stark looked at the phone then at him. "Why is it glowing?"

"It got dropped into a mystical well of energy just inside my borders," the king complained. "He joked about it not getting water damage."

"Yup," Xander quipped, grinning at him. "It'll be powered for years. And can make transdimensional calls."

"Might come in handy," Mercada called. "Ophelia said that Raisa's pouty, Dad. Atlina went up to beat someone for her."

"How did she get up there?" he demanded. "Or Raisa sent an email?"

"Called by scrying, and Atlina got summoned by Raisa's wife. It's going to create a mess. Sorry about that group of douchebros, Thor. And your cousin Mordred."

Thor groaned. "Oh, dear."

"Apparently," Xander agreed. He frowned at her. She came in to show him the message. He growled. "We'll see if we can get the idiot boy later for trying that shit."

A light came down on the balcony where Thor had set up a bridge terminus sigil. Two girls walked out then another girl and Lady Sif. Mercada squealed, running over to pounce her sister. "Hi! Hi, Lady Sif! Is she in trouble?"

"No. She beat them fairly. Odin had her sister summoned to make her quit beating them." She patted the girls on the back, grinning at Xander. "Odin says that the girls need a stern talking to for beating half the scholar's class at the local college. The boys were being rude and one tried to assault them. Unfortunately he's still alive. Miserable with multiple broken bones, but alive." She smirked a tiny bit at Xander. "Their training shows well."

"I'm glad you could help them with sword work," Xander said, grinning back. He kissed Sif on the cheek. "Thank you, Sif."

"You're most welcome. The girls are delightful but they've adopted a hunting cat from somewhere not in the nine realms." She handed over the box that the wife was carrying. "It's still young but likes to pounce." She looked at Thor. "You are coming soon?"

"I can come now," he offered, looking at Xander.

"You'll be back by then and I'll probably end up on Asgard to help against Hela, Thor. We can use the ship I have to help evacuate people."

"I was going to help with that," Raisa said, pushing back her hair. "I got told I was too young until I beat three warriors I'm training with. I've beaten two and the other one I got sneaky and got him at night. He really did hate the mustache I drew." She grinned at Thor. "Fandaral said hello and to keep me away from any art supplies." He laughed, patting her on the head. "Oh, and we have scrolls from up there." She opened the box to hand them over. "Yours. Yours," she said, handing one to Dad. "Odin wants you to show up to pray at the Warrior's Shrine."

"We'd have to rebuild it. The Dark Elves destroyed it," Xander quipped. Thor grimaced. "Not my fault. I wasn't even there. Or else your mom wouldn't be dead." He patted him on the arm. "Though, your aunt? Bitch of the extreme levels? Please keep her away from me?" He gave him a look. "I've dated a few bitches but even Anyanka wasn't *that* bad."

Sif blinked. "You dated the one who punished men?"

"Yup. Took her to our prom, which is a dance held in your last year of standard schooling, and nearly married her a few years later. But she would've been miserable. It's why she got her powers back and then lost them because I had somehow exposed her conscience. She couldn't be that mean."

Sif moaned. "Many had wondered," she told Thor. Then she cleared her throat and smiled at him. "Did you also see the one known as Kathleen?"

"The maid of death?"

She nodded. "Yes, that one."

"Yeah. We dated for about two weeks then she decided I was bad for her duties. I made her feel squishy things. She couldn't be a genocidal fuckhead with squishy feelings. That's when I found out what she did and I turned her in, but ended up taking her out a few months later. She showed up to take out one of my slayers. Pity."

Sif swallowed, nodding some. "It was good of you to handle her once you knew of her deeds, Xander."

Xander grinned, blowing a kiss at her. "I always take care of my duties, Sif." She shivered and Thor ducked his head. "Can we find Willow a date up there?"

Sif blinked a few times. "I know a few who'd probably think she was cute," Raisa's wife offered. Xander pointed at where they felt magic coming. She walked over to babble at Willow about two of her girlfriends she'd like to introduce her to. One was doing magical studies but was in potions and the other was a warrior trainee. Willow blushed and squeaked.

"That's my daughter-in-law, Willow," Xander said. "Raisa's wife." He pulled his daughter over to cuddle. "My turn." He looked at the hunting kitten. "It'll be leopard sized, right?" She nodded against his shoulder. "Huh. Interesting hunting helper, dear."

"It's cute, Dad."

"It's very cute. It's got long hair that'll tangle and get everywhere but it's adorable." He let it sniff his finger. It huffed but leaped up to sit on her mistress' shoulder. Raisa got free and went to pet her own cat. And wife maybe. Xander grinned at Sif. "Thank you for the bringing back." He looked at Atlina.

"He thought I was Ophelia, Dad."

"She's a brunette and you're more blonde," Xander said, staring at her. "And you're taller and bustier. I don't know how he got you two confused."

"Me either," she admitted. She sat down. "I can hang out here until you get done."

"Sure." He looked at Sif. "We're talking about Thanos."

"I know of his rumors," she said, walking inside with him. "There's many rumors of Thanos among our senior warriors. May I help?"

"Of course," Thor agreed, coming in. "The girls are playing with the future hunting feline and telling Willow of their friends on Asgard to see if she might like introduced." He sat down.

"I'd love to see her as happy as she was with Tara," Xander said. He glanced out there then back at the others. "I found out very little when I was sucked into another dimension that had all of us as comic books. But what I know I've balanced against what we know of in facts for here. The battle they showed against Thanos had a few of you missing." He pointed at Bucky in his corner. "Him in particular. And King Kitty Cat." He grinned at him. He got growled at but the king looked smug about it. He grinned at the others. "The mini slayer from his kingdom calls him that. Always has." He nodded. "And names can have power since he's still under a curse." He shifted. "When I got the first vision of Thanos, eight months after that little trip, it felt like something higher had sent me to look at things specifically." The others nodded. "The one thing I saw that was different was in those comics, he wore a metal bracelet with rings attached. Like those seventies bracelets. The vision I've had showed a gold gauntlet with stones on his knuckles."

Sif nodded. "He would need the Infinity Gauntlet to hold them. It is a tacky gold glove with spaces for the Infinity Gems."

"He fractured one when he made the staff," Xander told her. "Can it be reformed? Or would even just under half of it be enough?"

She considered it. "I know very little of that artifact, Xander. What I know of it, it would be enough but stones could heal itself. How do you know it's fractured?" He pulled his staff out of thin air, making her moan. She took it to look at the black stone at the bottom. "That holds a sliver of it."

"It's got two slivers. Barely matchstick sized. I found the broken half in the bottom of the well that's under the summoning altar I mentioned earlier." He took it back and made it disappear.

"Can we rescue it?" Stark asked.

"Not without a lot of very cautious magic," Xander said. "Breaking that would destroy countless hundreds of miles as it flashed outward. Then you'd have to get around the physical portal underneath it that ties into the hellmouth structure, how they get here. Then dig about two feet of falling in dirt. I put a pinhole camera down there to film the structure and caught sight of it. I did cut that out of the film I sent Giles because I realized what it was when the staff hummed at it. I knew it was a dangerous artifact."

"Could we use something like a claw on a chain?" Stark asked. Xander made a hole with his fingers. "Very tiny," he agreed. "I might be able to find a way to get it out of there."

Xander nodded. "Then it'd have to be guarded and safe." He looked at Thor. "I have six artifacts you'll need to bring back with you when you go home."

Thor frowned. "Why?"

"Because you'll need them and I might not get there in that much time."

"Good point. I can gather them before we go back." He looked at Sif, who nodded. "Heimdall will be on duty later?"

"Tomorrow," she said. "He thought I'd need about a day."

"That's fine," Xander agreed. "I'll have to buy food if you want dinner. The girls have eaten everything and didn't even leave me a slice of bread. But you can come to dinner with him if you want."

She smiled. "Thank thee, Xander."

"The girls need to be reminded they have good role models. The minis at the house would love to come chat with you."

"They are adorable." She looked at the others. "I know of his immortality. It is natural to his people."

"So he can't be killed or there's a particular way?" Xander asked.

"We believe a particular method but we're not certain. Banished has been done by Asgard in the past." She grimaced. "It didn't keep him penned up very hard. Loki stated he's on an asteroid like area that has his throne. He tends to travel with it from what the stories tell us."

"He made the staff Loki used," Thor said. Xander nodded. "You've seen it?"

"Yeah. And it's on the ship." He grinned. "It got stolen."

Thor moaned. "The Collector."

"He had the Aether," Sif said. "Not the staff."

"The Aether is in an urn," Xander said. "Next to the engine so no one can go in and get it." She smiled at that precaution. "The staff was summoned by someone who had trapped the Aether in the urn." She slumped again. "They do not have the gauntlet. I had one of the mages test the urn to see if anything that showed it's power or contagious properties with it was around. The power of contagion is what binds things together. Like anything I have with me often would hold some of my essence," he explained at the curious looks. "My staff shows contagion from where it was sitting before that dragon dropped it on my head." They nodded at that. "Nothing with any contagion from the urn, or the Aether in the urn, was anywhere near Asgard."

"The gauntlet was given to a far guardian culture," Thor said. "If I remember right, they were Legion or something. We would have to casually look that way to see if it's still there." He looked at Sif, who nodded she would start that looking. He looked at Xander. "What else do you know of the stones?"

"Very little. Though there's one in the open. Protected, but in the open. I got told that story by the stupid pirate assholes who wanted to be son-in-laws. Something about a human, a tree being, a few warriors, and they defended it. A bigger planet has it stored safely somewhere on it."

"I head rumors of that," Sif agreed. "When we went to put the Aether with The Collector."

"Is that a title?" Steve asked.

She nodded. "Yes. He had a large collection of various things, including some very dangerous things he was hiding. He was not a friend of Asgard but he would not want something dangerous in bad hands. It would devalue his collection."

"And then they broke into his castle," Xander quipped. Sif nodded, grimacing some. "Which is how I got the Aether, because one of them had it. Nova Corps," he said with a finger snap. "That's who's protecting it."

"I can ask of them," Sif agreed. "Warn them that he might be attempting to gather that stone." She looked at Xander. "Those pirates, what happened to them?"

"I won their ship and all their scrungy stuff. Then I dropped them at a bar and flew off with it and the girls." He grinned. "I have no idea but I hope they're now underlings to someone with some real skills. Because they were pathetic."

She giggled. "You are highly overprotective of the girls. It is amusing to watch you make them be girls, even when they want to be doing other things."

"They're young. They have plenty of times to do other things. They need to be girls until they're too old to have fun."

"Agreed," she said with a smile for him. "All that can wait as long as they train to protect themselves." He nodded. She looked at the other heros. "The girls are looking to be admirable warriors when necessary, but most of them won't be full time warriors."

"Thank you, Goddess," Xander said, looking up then at her. "I don't want the girls to have stories of battles like mine or yours, Sif."

"Agreed. Most parents wouldn't." She smiled. "Maybe two or three may go that way, Xander, but you can help them find easier places to battle from." He nodded. His phone beeped so he looked at it and growled. The staff appeared and he disappeared. "Oh, dear. Mercada, Raisa?" she called. "Your father just got a message and left."

"We're protecting each other and the idiot agents who broke in to steal the slayers and the other sisters are going to die," Mercada called. "In a horrible, messy manner that will make Dad laugh like he's insane again. Sorry about them but we'd only go help make the mess to protect them."

Steve and Natasha both pulled up information sites and put their phones where they could see them. The others were making notes. Steve's phone beeped first. And then Stark's phone rang with a news alert. Yup, Xander had destroyed a medical complex. He had freed the hostages they had. And the victims. The people who were holding them hostage, and the military people and agents who were helping, were all on the ground and might just be unconscious.

"He's been merciful," Natasha decided. Another alert came in and the tv switched itself on to show two rather large, powerful demons about to kill some higher ups for that move. And Xander's note that he had warned them not to come near his daughters or the slayers. But he hadn't had to ask them for this favor. They were hoping Xander would appreciate it and cancel two debts owed before a worse apocalypse battle happened. Xander and the girls all appeared there thanks to some magic. Xander counted noses then looked at the demons, shrugging a bit.

"Thanks for the help. I was just going to kill them for it." He grinned. "And if you want to help, we've got visions of Thanos coming, ladies. You want out of those debts before then, can you get us some info on him?"

"That is a good repayment and we will have fun with these who would use your daughters as puzzles to be torn apart." One patted him on the head. "My son wanted your help with his wooing."

"He needs to get on his knees and beg his girlfriend to come back. Then he'll hopefully use the last stuff I told him to do."

She smiled and patted him again. "Thank you, Xander. Ladies, I hope you heal if you were touched, and are well otherwise. We look forward to hearing great stories of your future deeds." The girls all cuddled Xander but grinned at them. "Let us talk to these half-breeds who have decided to deface innocent girls. Even Voldemort didn't use things like these ones do."

One of the mini slayers poked her on the hand. "You read Harry Potter?" she asked with a grin.

"I read them to my own child, Slayer Sophina. He adored it." She patted her hair down. "You will do great things some year in the future. For now, go with Xander. You do not need to see such things and he had seen much but does not need this as well." Xander nodded, getting them moved. It took two tries to get them all but that was fine with them. Then the demons glared at the humans and went after the ones responsible. They would learn. Others could use them as an example. Then one that Xander called in the debt of showed up to show others what they had done wrong.

Xander showed back up with the girls, pointing. "Raisa's out there." They squealed and ran out to hug their sister. The minis settled around him to be cuddly and stare at the heros they looked up to. "Sorry, they need to be safe for a bit."

"Nice work with the one showing what they're guilty of," Stark said quietly.

Xander grinned. "That way others know. They can't be hidden like the ones we took down in Sunnydale did. Though only a few were in common." He smirked a tiny bit. "Those guys in Homeland and on the UN hunting squads? They'd be horrified too. Most of them learned after we had to end their version of that problem."

"You had a group in Sunnydale?" Stark asked, sitting up. "Why?"

"They were trying to figure out demons. The army said so." Steve groaned. "Yeah, you fought others doing just as bad." He pulled up the files he had and handed them to Stark with a smirk. "Make sure it can't be restarted?"

"Gladly," he said after reading over it. "Damn." The minis giggled at him. "Sorry, I won't swear."

"We hear worse when we're fighting over the showers," one said. "We've only got eight showers for almost twenty big girls and only two tubs for us littler ones."

"Wow, that's gotta be a problem before school," Steve said, smiling at her. "I'm Steve."

"I'm Britney," she said with a grin. She waved. "We look up to you guys a lot. It means we're not alone."

Xander smiled at her. "You're not alone anyway. You're not like Buffy was when it was just her being a slayer."

"True. There's more of us now." She hugged the mini next to her, getting cuddled back. She kissed her forehead. "You have a fever."

Xander checked. "Can I bum some water for them, Stark?"

"Yeah. Huge spring water bottle system in the kitchen," he said with a point. "The party cups are next to the sink in the bar." He pointed at that one. Xander got up to get them plastic cups with cold water for now. Most of them didn't have any physical injuries. He had sent them to the main center before they had evacuated. That one had a few bruises and a cut he got treated for her. She cuddled up to the others. They all huddled and kept listening to the war council. Someday they'd have to know how to hold one and any meeting with Buffy ended up talking about clothes or boys.

Xander grinned at them and got back to discussing the current problems.

***

Giles stepped out of the house a few hours later with Buffy behind him. He cleared his throat, getting instant attention from the leeches of reporters staring at the house. "Our hunter did not ask for those two demons' help but he, and we all are, most thankful for them helping the slayers and our hunter's daughters get free." He stared at one starting to open her mouth. Then he looked at the others. "The only one he asked to repay a poker debt was the one who showed up to show all those ones' sins to everyone. While it was...mean, he has seen many such beings who have done similar things when he was in Africa training the girls down there so they could serve their own peoples."

"He's not usually mean but he's real firm that he's overprotective and people like that will not happen to us again," Buffy said.

"He has daughters?" one demanded. "Why? With who? Does her mother know and is she a slayer?"

"Xander accidentally went through a portal to another realm. Some witches there summoned some sperm to make his girls without his help by what he told us," Buffy said, grimacing some. "They wanted a sacrifice. That's when Xander found out and he kinda went off. He called them soup." The reporters mostly shuddered. "So he's got teenage girls. He's training some of our minis right now. He's in the middle of setting up but then things happened." She went back inside. They weren't going to attack her watcher or the house.

Giles took off his glasses to rub his eye, shaking his head. "He just told her recently that he has daughters. She's still a bit off-put by that knowledge." He put back on his glasses. "Why that action was not authorized, or recommended, he handled it without our help in a very practical manner. I fear I would have called for more help but he had training I have not handling emergencies down there."

"Is he going to be fired?" another reporter called from the back of the group.

"For protecting his daughters and a number of very young slayers?" Giles demanded, frowning at them. "Are you daft?" he demanded. "If he hadn't gotten to them they would've suffered great, horrifying tortures. The few that he had to evacuate back to us had to be sent to an ER and nine of out the twelve are in the ICU already. Two are still in surgery. The other...is on life support. All of them under the age of ten. Any *human* who supports such things does not deserve the name and I hope they suffer though what those children went through. At least most demons wouldn't do the same thing." He walked off. He made sure he didn't slam the door.

Faith walked out, staring at them. "You've pissed Giles off for the rest of your lives. I doubt he'll ever talk to any of you ever again. Next time, send better reporters because we don't want to deal with imbeciles who want us tortured. Frankly, those sort need to start protecting themselves because I'm sure as fuck not dying to save one of them." She pointed. "Shoo. Go. Not a damn one of us is coming out until they have to go to school and you know if you take pictures of the minis we'll not only sue you for endangering them, we'll sell the demons your home addresses for endangering them." They stomped off. She went back inside. "They're fleeing before I find out who they are and send vamps down on them."

"Thank you," Buffy called from the kitchen. "Saves me from looking mean today. Or just summoning something to eat them."

Faith grinned. "I'm fine being the mean one, B. I'm good at that." She went back to the tv room to help the girls with their homework. She ruffled one pouty girl's hair. "Xander always said if something like that happened, he'd be there within minutes of hearing and he'd solve a bitch in the most messy way possible so no one does it again." She hugged her and Faith let her. It was good to get cuddles when you were scared and little. Giles walked past the door. "Hey, G, can we send the girls to a fallback for a few weeks?"

"Yes, I'm already arranging it, Faith. I don't want them exposed to such toxic people or attitudes."

"I'm going too," Buffy called. "The city can save itself."

Giles looked at her. "We need to keep a patrol," he told her quietly. "Though I do understand and I don't want to save them myself." She slumped, grimacing. "I'll take volunteers for that." She nodded, going to talk to the older girls. Giles went back to his arranging for things to get done. The coven could complain but the girls were in serious danger now. Or maybe he'd ask Xander to ask a poker debt to move the girls.

***

Xander came out of the tower, herding all the girls. A few reporters were hovering out there, they usually were. "You come near my daughters or the minis and I'll shoot your asses," he warned. "Get away from my daughters!" They flinched back and he took a camera, throwing it into the street. "I do not think you need a picture of my teenage, underage, little girl." He glared at him. "If you're that sort of pervert, go find a better line of work. If not, I'm not a celebrity and you come near my girls, or the mini slayers, and I'm going to make sure you're banned from every news source. Even the shitty ones like Infowars." The man shrank away from him. "Girls, cab," he reminded them.

"Three cabs on the way, one more coming," Mercada called. They had the minis blocked from anyone's view. "We'll let you girls go hang out with the minis we had to rescue from Africa," she said, smiling at one who was sucking her thumb. "They'll like having new friends to play games with." The cabs started to show up and one of the drivers complained until Xander glared.

"Car seats," he complained. "It's the law."

"Magical restraints," Xander countered. "Even more secure. Really. Just to the train station." The driver gave in and let them load the minis with two daughters in each cab. Xander got into the last one with the last few minis. The commuter train was a bit full but they could handle that. His girls knew how to protect themselves and the minis from the idiots who tried to pinch them or grope them. Raisa punched one so hard he hit a wall and got knocked out. "Raisa," he warned.

"Next time he shouldn't grope my wife." Raisa looked at the guy's friends. "Taken, dudes. Learn the lesson." They backed away from them. Xander gave her a pointed look. "I'll calm down once we get home, Dad."

"Fine. Thank you. Your cat?" She pointed at the backpack one of the minis was wearing. "Okay. As long as she's safe." Raisa checked and nodded. The train pulled into the station and they got off, heading to the cabs. Xander didn't have a car yet and they wouldn't all fit in even a van. They got home and found all the house was a mess but they could straighten that out. The minis that had managed to hide came out when he called for them and they got happy with the other minis. Xander went to answer the knocked on door, staring at the obvious agent, who wasn't the ones who had been up here before. "Do I need to find lube and a rocket launcher?" he asked dryly. "Because I can do that."

"I came to ask how your daughters were," he said stiffly. "Not to threaten, sir."

"Considering where I had to rescue them from?"

"Which is why they sent me, sir. I'm not usually the threatening sort." He caught the cat that was trying to escape, handing it to him.

Xander looked at it. "You're not Raisa's cat. Who're you?" It meowed and struggled. "Girls, come get the cat that snuck in." They came to get the tortoiseshell cat. She wasn't too big and was pretty quiet. "We can name her after my friend Oz. He was pretty quiet and hardly talked. I can tell you about him later." The girls squealed, bringing their cat back to the play area. It hopped up onto a higher space and stared at them but they were okay with that. They weren't used to cuddly animals yet. Xander looked at the agent. "Since two of them usually live with their families, are they dead?"

"I'm not aware and I can ask, sir. Are they fine?"

"I've handled the injuries and I evacuated twelve victims to the main Council building. I'm pretty sure at least two are going up on our honors obelisk in the garden." The agent nodded, looking disturbed. "The others, I'm not sure. I'm mad but I'm not sure."

"Understood. Can we come up tomorrow to talk to you about the various plots so we can stop them without you asking a poker debt? One of them got shot by his wife when the demon you summoned showed he had given them his stepson for having a genetic mutation."

Xander snorted. "Every human has genetic mutations or we'd be clones. From birth defects to rare genes that make natural blondes and redheads, they're all mutations. But yeah, we'll probably be home tomorrow."

"Thank you. Are they in school?"

"A few probably are at home. Here, they've got lessons and some self defense work to make them feel safer."

"I understand. We'll try to show up near lunch. Thank you for your time, sir." He left, going to tell his boss, who told someone else. He didn't want to deal with the Council for any reason, he hated them. His agent called another agent he knew. SHIELD handled weird things so they probably handled slayers. The ones in Homeland could talk to Buffy and the older ones.

***

Xander opened the door as he walked past it the next morning. "Saw you in the car, you panicked the minis," he said as he walked past the doorway. "The agent guy to apologize is here," he called. "You girls go nap off lunch or something productive like homework." He smiled at the great groan. Though he paused and stared up the stairs. "Whichever of my daughters snuck out to go talk to those idiots in the trees, get back in the house! Before I marry your ass off!" Daisy came running in. "Thanks, dear." He grinned and waved at her back. "You can't debauch them. They're used to girls like Buffy, not like you guys." He went to the kitchen. "I'm making coffee."

The agent followed. He was the same one who had come up to talk to him before the meeting. "I doubt they could dent those boys too much. The boys would run off whining about strong women first."

Xander smirked at him. "Which would destroy the daughters' self esteem and probably damage them so much they become an abuser or something." He put in coffee grounds and water then turned it on. "There, that's nice. Now I can get lunch," he said quietly, looking in the fridge. "They left me a plate. Thanks," he sighed, grinning at the ceiling. "That's very sweet of you, Ophelia."

"Welcome," she called back. "If you pass out we'd have to torture you by taking you shopping."

"Don't threaten that shit, daughter. I'll make you wear boys' clothes." She burst out giggling. He pulled out his plate and sat down, staring at the agent. "So you came to apologize and to promise never to do it again?" he asked while he was tearing the piece of deli chicken into the component parts. He stared at the agent.

"I'd hope we never do it again. I'd hate to have to kill my fellow agents."

"They were yours?"

"No. They were Homeland and NSA."

"Yeah, some of them were Initiative." He nodded, eating a bite of chicken. One of the minis ran in and grabbed some water then ran back out. "Don't spill that."

"Yes, Xander."

"Come grab a second one. You could use the fluids anyway." She ran back in to get a few more then ran off again. "Thanks." He looked at the agent.

"Dad, we need more bathrooms," Mercada called. "We're girls!"

Xander winced. "Use mine."

"We are!"

He sighed. "I'll see if I can put another one or two in somewhere, girls. I haven't had a chance to see where has plumbing." He stuffed his mouth again with a sigh. "There's eighteen girls in this house right now," he told the amused looking agent. "And two bathrooms." That got a single nod but a smug look. "Yeah." He ate another bite of chicken. "Whoever expanded the space needs to add another few, at least three." He heard someone fall. "And make some of the marble into wood or tile so the girls don't slide down the hallway again." He looked up. "We okay?" he called. "I heard the thump and no crying."

"She's fine," Raisa called. "Just slid in her socks."

"Okay. We'll see if we can find rugs before one of you falls down the stairs by accident." A few of them giggled. He sighed and got up to get some coffee then came back to eat again. "There's days I think I'm insane," he said quietly. "Mostly because there's eighteen girls in this house."

"More than two would do it to me as well," he agreed. "Our director wanted to come talk to you about things. We've managed to find some of your reports."

"We know that you guys hack the Council. Willow didn't keep up to date, half the old guys think computers are corrupting us by letting in demons, including Giles, and the rest can use their smart phones but nothing further." That got a nod. "So at least you guys read them, where Giles didn't. He still hasn't read most of them."

The agent cleared his throat. "I read a few of them to prepare for the talk today. I needed something for my stomach and the hangover I got curing my stomach." Xander grinned. "How did you fight that goddess in Sumatra?"

"Sex. She fell down squealing hard and never bothered another person when the locals introduced her to a few guys who wouldn't mind her being light green and six-foot-seven." He ate another bite. "They're really happy to boink her as often as she wants. She protects the area from any other incursion or problems. It works out well for them."

"That's a reasonable solution," the agent decided, nodding some. "I'm sure they're happy to sacrifice a normal marriage with children for that duty."

"Neither one wanted kids." He shrugged. "Works for them."

Ophelia walked in and got a lot of bottles of water from the fridge. "Dad, can you get one of those water cooler things like Mr. Stark had?"

"Maybe. Once we see how usual expenses work out on my salary. Things were probably cheaper in Africa where we tended to stay." She nodded, carrying the water upstairs. He got up to put more in the fridge to chill. Then he went back to his lunch. "I really have to ask Giles about that."

"He's still hiding inside the Council building today."

"He's in Germany," Xander corrected. "One of the girls over there had a huge problem earlier so the coven sent him and Buffy to handle it." He finished his chicken. "They'll probably be back later tonight."

The agent blinked. "We don't have them flying out and that would be an almost instant turn-around."

Xander snorted, shaking his head. "We have to get there faster than that. Not like a battle with a higher level demon will wait eight hours to fly somewhere."

"Oh." He considered it. "Doesn't that bother immigration?"

Xander shrugged. "Do you think they'll do more than complain and therefore make us let them handle it themselves?"

"Point. Even the Middle East decided to carefully ignore they have slayers in residence so they don't have to go missing most of a military unit again." Xander grinned slightly. "You knew?"

"I'm the one that had the vision that warned them it was coming and gave the embassy where I was a full primer on that demoness. Like what happened in Texas, they didn't want to listen to facts. I picked up one of the local slayers where I was training to send with the one from Turkey to handle it with Faith. I helped yell at them when they yelled at the girls for stepping in. And it was my weapons that Faith used to end it and the one that followed her to move in with her."

"How did you get those weapons?"

"I begged my date at the time to sell me something cheap."

"Will your salary cover that sort of expense?"

"No but I ran into idiots down there that were a problem so I handled it and took what I needed to feed the girls and other necessities."

"I get that," he decided. "Would you be willing to talk to our director?" He nodded. "I'll let him know. Thank you for your time, Mr. Harris."

"Make sure the door's locked when you go so they can't sneak out?"

"I can do so." He left, locking the door after letting in the two cats on the doorstep. He supposed they lived there. Then he heard Xander yell to quit summoning cats. So maybe not but he didn't send them back out so maybe the girls would get more pets.

***

Xander came down the next morning, pausing to pet the tortie cat that was sitting on top of a bookshelf to watch things. "Morning, Oz." He went to answer the door, staring at the woman there. "Yes?"

"Sir, I'm with Social Services."

"I'm with the Council," he said dryly. She flinched back, looking scared. "The girls are mostly in to protect them for a few weeks. Right now they're going over homework with each other. My daughters are home schooling and were mostly raised on a few different realms. Anything you needed to talk about beyond that?"

She blinked a few times. "That explains most of what the neighbors have complained about. Though they have said you've run the boys off multiple times."

"They shouldn't be in the trees out back to try to perv on the girls."

"They're teenage boys. Surely you did?"

"No. I admit I snuck into the changing room a few times but that was mostly to take out vampires hiding in there. Beyond that, saying boys will be boys encourages things like sexual assault by boys who believe that. Which I would kill them for. My daughters are still getting adjusted to being here on earth and probably aren't going to be dating any local boys anyway. Most normal boys won't put up with their level of lessons and self defense lessons daily. Or them being really smart." He grinned. "If, when they're all above sixteen next year, the girls want to go to a local event or somewhere the local kids hang out, they can go do that as a group.

"Until then, they need time to get used to being here instead of on another realm that doesn't have the internet or tv." She winced. "Also, you should be warned that my girls are all very self protective and they will definitely protect each other. Raisa, my one that I had to protest got married off for being found making out, nearly killed a few younger warrior trainees who wanted to chat up another sister."

"She's....married?"

"Odin's decision," he said with a grimace. "But she told me she doesn't mind. She and her wife are getting along pretty well right now so I'm not going to get between them if she doesn't want me to." He shrugged. "She's old enough to know her own will about those things. As long as they treat each other well and I'm never made a grandfather I can't do more than bitch at Odin about that."

She swallowed. "I see. Did they force her into that sort of relationship?"

He grinned. "Odin caught them having sex in his garden." He shrugged. "I don't care if my daughters are bi or het or gay. Most of them are more about personality. Which is another reason why they probably won't be dating any of the local boys. They tend to be a bit shallow at that age and I definitely am not letting them date college boys yet." He looked down as Raisa's cat ran outside to use a bush. "I'm sorry, did we forget to buy cat litter for you guys?" It meowed, kicked dirt over the new puddle, then casually strolled back inside. "That daughter's cat. She'll grow into a wonderful hunting cat some year soon."

The social worker blinked a few times. "You're very weird." He grinned and nodded. "I..." She cleared her throat. "We have paperwork needed for the school board and they have to approve their home schooling system."

"I didn't know about the paperwork but the system itself is from Asgard." He leaned on the doorway, looking up the stairs. "Bring me one of you guys' books," he called. "The social worker wants to see them. One of the ones from Asgard." Ophelia came trotting down. "Thanks, daughter." He looked at it. "The last level you did, so that's good. This is about her tenth grade history book." He let her see it.

She blinked a few times. "It's not in English."

"No, it's in Norse," Ophelia said with a smile. "Asgard has many languages present but we all read that one thanks to Dad." She leaned on Xander's arm.

"My ex-girlfriend taught me it. She had been a vengeance demon for over eleven-hundred-years."

The social worker gave him an odd look then went back to the book. "Is this US history?"

"No, it's universal history. That chapter's on the Kree. They're a warrior race." She stared at her. "US history we got way back when. We wanted to know what Daddy had in school so we had our aunt steal some of their books so we could look them over."

The social worker handed it back. "Don't you get standard subjects? Physical science?"

"We're all through with chemistry and physics," she said dryly. "The books don't go higher until we decide if we want to go to college." Xander nodded. "Maybe. Not sure yet, Dad."

"I know." He cuddled her into his side, grinning at the social worker. "They read about six languages and speak at least three. All Speak tends to handle most of the translation issues if necessary." The social worker slumped, staring at him. He grinned. "I was in the worst school system in the world, lady. I'm not letting my girls go there. I'm not having a GED owner as a daughter. They're all graduating."

"We have tests they have to pass for the state's graduation tests. It'd have things like US history and state history."

"We picked up a minor book on state history and US history we've all went through years ago," Ophelia said with a shrug back at her. "We could probably pass that test fairly easily, ma'am. From what we've seen of US education it's weaker than a lot of other ones."

"I have you guys living up to German standards because when I looked, England's was less strict than theirs," he agreed. "The US standards barely took a page. England's took three. Germany's took five and was higher in things needed to know." He looked at his daughter then at the social worker. "I can get them somehow if you want. I'd have to look up where I saved them to. We talked to a teaching academy on Asgard and they agreed the girls were at a good state for the basics, which the physics text was for."

"That's much different than ours is, Mr. Harris. What about the other girls?"

"They're enrolled in schools in their normal areas. Because we said they have to be enrolled in schools in their normal areas, even if their cultures said that girls don't get an education. We said they have to, and they have to graduate." He grinned. "We're fierce about the slayers being normal young women most of the time." Raisa's cat came back out. "Didn't we set up litter boxes?" he asked Ophelia.

"Yes, but only two."

"We'll get more later then. Sorry, Raisa's kitty." It crapped and covered it before staring up at him. Xander stared back. "I understand but you should pretend to be a normal cat sometimes. People would freak out if they knew about your species." The cat nuzzled his leg. "Ophelia, can you go check food and water and get her some wet food? She hates the crunchies."

"Sure. C'mon, pussy cat." She walked off, leading the way to the kitchen. She put down a plate of wet food next to Oz's perch for her then got the other ones fed.

Xander grinned. "That's the translation of her name."

"I see." She watched the cat then looked at him after a moment. "That's very unusual. The city might not allow such a breed here."

"The city has nothing to do with anything in my life, ma'am. They can throw fits and all that good stuff but they're bonded. As in psychic bonding and can't be broken without killing my daughter." He grinned slightly. "I'm sure you can sense the outcome if that should be suggested?" She shuddered but nodded, taking a step back. "I'm a very overprotective father over most things." One of the girls bounded down the stairs. "You're falling out of that top, Daisy. Put on a bigger one and give that to your sisters. I don't know *why* you got things that don't fit you but fix it."

"Yes, dad," she sighed. "I was working out." She adjusted her bust. "Better?" She glared at him. "I'm fine!"

"For a ho. Is Santa calling for you?" She pouted. "Still falling out of it, dear. Go. Change." He pointed. She pouted all the way up the stairs then grinned at the social worker. "It happens," he sighed. "They're teenage girls and I'm pretty sure those idiot boys are back up a tree to stare into her bedroom. Raisa, help Daisy run those idiots out of the trees this time please," he called.

"Sending the wife since I'm about to take a shower, Dad."

"Sure." He grinned at his daughter-in-law. Who grinned and waved her sword back on her way out to chop down that tree. "The regular, no battle, axe is in the shed out there, Valerian."

"Thank you, Xander. I can fix that problem as they were watching our room as well." A minute later they heard her chopping down a tree and boys yelling as they fled the tree she was chopping down.

Xander grinned at the social worker. "Boys shouldn't be doing that."

"No, they probably shouldn't," she agreed. Then she cleared her throat. "I'll drop those forms for home schooling on you but you should bring in their academic tests and a set of those books to the local school board at the same time so they could let you know about anything they're missing based on the local standards." He nodded, shaking her hand. "Have a better day."

"I gotta talk to agents later." He grimaced but shrugged. "It happens sometimes when you're us."

"I suppose it does, yes." She walked back to her car to call in that report.

Xander shut the door and went to look out back. "Are you going to leave it up but weakened?" She smiled and nodded. "That's fine. I don't mind holding a safe refuge for stray cats or a boy fleeing from bullies, but I don't think we need half the neighborhood's guys up a tree staring at you girls. I'm starting on lunch soon if you wanted to snatch some."

"That's fine, Xander. Thank you." She smiled and went back to weakening the tree. No one over a hundred pounds would be able to get up there without making it fall. She wove an intent protection spell around it to make sure any boy who was fleeing trouble could get up it but no one else then cleaned off the axe and put it away. She got some sandwiches for her and her wife to have a picnic on the roof by their room. Xander handed over a jug of apple cider, getting a grin back. "She'll adore that." They went up to hang out together with their cat. Xander put out the plates of sandwich stuff for the others to run in and grab things. The minis got first food, they needed more calories.

His alarm settings let him know someone was walking up to the door so he went that way, nodding at the same social worker, and the agent behind her. "More questions?"

"How are you getting so many young women in here?" she demanded. "This house isn't probably above a four bedroom." He waved and she stepped in then gasped. "Oh, I see."

He grinned. "It was done for me. Giles picked the place." He shrugged but smiled at her. "It fits. Barely. And we need more bathrooms, there's only two." She nodded and went back to her car. She drove off to talk to the local school board. She was not used to such weird things and she didn't really want to handle this case at all. Thankfully the rumors stated that the Ohio social workers had a close eye on the slayers' people to make sure those girls weren't abused or made to fight too young so it wasn't really much of her concern as long as those girls could take lessons and pass the tests.

Xander looked at the agent, now director, and shrugged. "Hey, Dead Guy."

"Xander," he said patiently. "You have daughters?"

"Some witches made me some because they wanted a great sacrifice. They're all down here since Raisa came down from Asgard with her wife." He let him inside without an invitation, just in case it might get past some of the wards on the house. Giles never did tell him what they were. "I'm watching to make sure the girls all get lunch."

"They snuck behind you with platters of food and bags of bread." Xander looked then carried up bottles of water for them before coming back down. "You know the slayers will eat, Xander."

"I know but my girls might not. And they've now got cats thanks to your agent yesterday." He gave him a pointed look.

"His report stated they were sitting on the doorstep and staring at it. He thought they belonged here until you told them to quit summoning familiars."

"It'd be nice. We have four now." He pointed. "That's Oz. She showed up to be adopted earlier than the other two and Raisa's got a bonded hunting cat."

"That's charming." He led the way into the kitchen he could see so they could sit and talk. "First, let's start with your weapons. How many did you manage to import?"

"I used most of everything we had in the African vault." He grimaced. "I really need to see if some of my former lovers are feeling like donating. We're down to some magical artifacts and weapons for the upcoming things otherwise. And Giles isn't going to be paying me enough to buy them. No pirates or other bad groups of idiots to raid here for excess income."

"Technically there are gangs that you could raid but it would probably endanger the girls. Down there they hated it but they also realized that you used such things to save them as well. It was like a tax write off for charitable donations." Xander rolled his eyes but nodded. "Around here they're not used to that or you."

"Which is why we had the social worker, who was disturbed that the girls are studying universal history."

"Can we get a copy of that book?"

Xander grinned. "That depends, are you going to start that list shit again? Because that would piss me off on behalf of my daughters, two of which have magic, and the slayers."

The agent stared at him. "I'm already aware of the slayer's gifts and if they don't show up we're probably the reason why." Xander nodded. "I saw the mess you made, Xander."

"Good. And if I have to include some inhumans, or whatever you're calling them these days, then I can do that."

"I... That's a touchy subject."

"Yeah, I saw that when I was fighting a demon on the border of Wakanda," he said dryly. The director winced. "Exactly. T'challa was downright pleasant then. He still growls at me."

"You call him the Kitty Cat king," he shot back.

Xander grinned. "I'll let them know you've got their clubhouse bugged again."

"I'm sure Stark knows," he said dryly.

"Hmm. We want peace and safety, but not that way and I'm not helping with that stuff. My duty is making sure humanity progresses and survives. That list thing, that would've gotten in the way of it."

"We've ended that."

"Bullshit. Poker circuit said they had to go empty that prison for you."

"Well....yes. When did you hear that?"

"Last night."

"I only got told it happened this morning."

"Telepathic. Warrior. Species," Xander said patiently then grinned again. "I gave one a hug for that." He gave him a pointed look. "Conscription is always wrong. It leads to things like that one camp in lower Austria that held that one mutant who blew it up."

"Point. It's not what I want. I can't argue with the president."

"I can. And have argued with a few of them. And I'm about to blow up General Ross if he wasn't there."

"He wasn't. He's in DC, safely hiding in a bunker from those ones that attacked the people who were experimenting on the slayers." He grimaced. "It'd be nice if he was found and arrested for that."

"Uh-huh. Is that asking for a favor?"

"Not particularly. It'd look bad on the Council," he sighed.

Xander grinned. "Don't you think Willow already hates him?"

"I ...hadn't thought about that," he admitted. He squeezed his eyes shut. "That could be evil."

"Yeah. Then again Raisa's trying to get her to meet some of her lesbian friends from Asgard."

"It'd be nice if she had a girlfriend again. It'd make her settle down and quit bouncing. We all worry about bouncy witches."

"It's a good thing to worry about. Especially the younger ones. By the way, have you seen the news in the last hour?"

"No." He pulled out his phone to look up DC and Cleveland. He stared at the news feed that hadn't pinged his alerts. "Why...Congress is hamsters and gerbils?"

"The mini witches nearly got captured." He grinned. "They're being talked to about reasonable actions by Giles. He agreed they should have gotten the ones that tried to capture them but not all of Congress. Some of them were innocent of wanting them to die."

Director Coulson cleared his throat and nodded. "I can see that point. Yes." He put his phone back up and stared at him. "You're distracting me from the weapons?"

"What weapons? I used them all."

"All? You had something that was nuclear."

"That went into a well to kill the portal and the army trying to climb through. It may have started a war with that realm but pity. I didn't want staked by a pole axe."

"Are you sure it was used properly?"

"I nearly got staked by a pole axe's sharp and pointy top bit thanks to looking in a well, Coulson. I turned that on, dropped it down the hole, and then ran back a few hundred feet. The bomb went off, lots of bright light, and almost no radiation on this side of it. I'm pretty sure they're not going to try to climb up that well again for a long time."

"Good. That's very helpful." He made that note for himself then looked at Xander. "You really don't have any weapons?"

"A few swords. My bow. A few crossbows." He shrugged and broke open a bottle of water to sip from. He looked out back when a boy tried to climb up that tree and screamed as it swayed, nearly crashing on top of him. "I told you to quit perving at the daughters," he yelled. "If it kills you, we'll scrape you up in a box." The boy ran from the yard again. He grinned, sipping his water. "They were staring in the girls' rooms."

"Teenage boys can be that way." He stared at him. "We think there's a few problems coming up beyond what you've seen."

"Considering I only see apocalypse battles? Probably, yeah." He shrugged. "We handle them as they happen. Right now I'm training minis. I contacted the hunting pair I worked with in Africa and they've got most of it handled with the two adult slayers down there. Thankfully." He took another drink and put the bottle on the counter. "Right now I'm more concerned about getting the minis home. It might not be totally safe."

"Most of the ones that were acting up because the demon wanted to call in their debts are dead. Mostly by their military's hands. A few led to almost coups and got covered up by a great illness. One country declared it a demon plague that they couldn't cure so it was merciful to put them down. And got rid of some of their problem people with it."

"Figured that'd happen," Xander agreed. He pulled a stool out and sat down on it, taking another drink from his water. "We'll start checking next week or so to get the minis home if possible. Cresida still alive?"

"Unfortunately he is. He's still a hidebound ass. He laughed at the demon plague story when a reporter asked him about it and broke that silence. They're presently threatening his existence but he said if he died at least it wasn't going to be a horrifying one like during a battle."

"Cresida's a bit of an asshole but he's right. It's less painful to be shot than to be ripped limb from limb during a battle."

"Yes it probably would be," Coulson agreed. One of the minis leaned around the doorway. "You can check on Xander. I'm not mean, Miss Minara. I'm Director Coulson of SHIELD."

She blinked at him. "Your people did bad things."

"I stopped them," Xander reminded her, waving her in to give her a hug. "What's up?"

"What's this word?" she asked, pointing at the book she was holding.

Xander looked. "Occlusion. It means...you saw the solar eclipse?" She nodded. "That's an occlusion."

"Oh!" She nodded, hugging him again. "Thanks, Xander." She ran back upstairs to tell the other girls. None of them wanted to be anywhere near agents, just in case they were mean ones again.

Xander looked at him. "After the other day I doubt any slayer will ever be alone with any agent. Even the one that's married to one." He finished his water and tossed the bottle into the recycling bin. "Which really sucks for her but I heard through the slayer grapevine that she filed for divorce thanks to all that the other day."

"His boss does answer and subscribe to General Ross's thoughts," Coulson admitted. "Though we had hoped it'd be a nice marriage for them. She certainly deserved it." Xander nodded. "Are you going to step into the Avengers vs Avengers thing?"

"Yup." He smirked. "As a few favors asked me to." Coulson stared at him. "By the way, Willow *really* wants to mentor that one young lady. She's just a kid." He saw the slight slump. "Not her fault she was used as a lab rat and now the US is doing worse than torturing her."

"Point. I had hoped we could keep the Council out of that."

Xander smirked. "Like hell we won't protect the girls that're just like slayers, only less mystically chosen."

"True. We'd like to keep all that down. They're just barely back to talking again."

"I know. We had a meeting the other day about the upcoming visions." He shrugged. "Lady Sif appeared too, she came with Raisa and Valerian."

"That's nice. Tell her I said hello." He put his phone up. "We'd like to be on good terms with the Council."

"You guys blew it the other day. I'm probably the only person associated with the Council who will talk to any agent. Mostly because they know I'm going to lube a missile and launch it up an ass if I have to."

"I figured since Mr. Giles said that they're not talking to anyone at the moment to protect the girls. Though they haven't been at school."

"They do have home schooling modules for times when going to school isn't safe," Xander said. "The same as mine do from Asgard's schools."

"Which is helpful. Are the girls safe?" Xander gave him a smug look. "That's fine I suppose. Thank you, Xander. Are you going to be at those battles?"

"I'd hate to die just because I'd want others that summoned them to die. Both of those are summoned."

"Thanos?"

"Oh, no, not him. He's a natural, outer space, threat that's going to try to avenge his girlfriend Hel being handed her ass on Asgard as they have a huge world-ending battle."

"Oh, dear. I didn't read those as they weren't going to happen down here."

"Until parts of Asgard have to flee."

"Point. We'll....I'll talk to people other than Ross about that." He looked outside then sighed. "Agents. Homeland agents."

Xander got up and got into the vault, coming out bouncing something in his hand as he smiled at them. "Hi, guys."

"Mr. Harris. Is that a weapon?" one asked.

"No, it's a demonic pokeball," he said with a grin, bouncing it again. "It'll come out to fight my enemies so I can protect the girls and my daughters. So, why the visit?"

"General Ross...."

"Is on my ever-living shit list," Xander said bluntly, staring that agent down. "For the whole Council. I'd suggest he never come near the slayers again. Because we won't accept an apology for torturing little kids on his orders. We're already burying three little girls, all under the age of eleven, because of his orders. He can blow us. Anything else you wanted to talk about? Giles would be more genteel but he'll still protect the girls."

"We're wanting to talk about how the girls do their duty."

"They do them just fine. I personally approve of most of the girls going on patrol status. They have to be able to beat me sparring to qualify." He grinned again. "Most of the slayers are very good. And the rest are too damn young. Why the worry?"

"Well, no one patrolled last night," the second agent said.

"Yeah, we're not going to go risk our lives for shit like that. Cleveland was pretty quiet because the local demon communities know that we won't be risking our lives to save those idiots or their silent supporters. Especially with a high risk of being captured by that sort, or the bigoted sort that tried to capture Macy on her way back from the doctors for her flu shot. Pity about their clubhouse but it was very nice of the local demon community to rescue her before I had to hear she needed it."

"We hadn't heard about that," the first agent said, staring at the ball Xander was rolling around in his hand.

"I only heard about it afterwards and Macy was thankfully rescued before the gas they used on her cab wore out. They didn't have a chance to do more than tie her up."

"Are the girls in the house?"

"Mine? Yes."

"The ones in Cleveland?"

Xander grinned. "Sorry, classified." He winked at the second agent. "I can go get a different one if you wanted something with tentacles."

"No thank you. We'd really like to talk about how to use the slayers properly with the US's agents and military."

"Suck it up," Xander told him. "We're not yours. We're not going to be nationalized like they did in Yemen. We will *gladly* flee Cleveland and the US, leaving it to you guys to handle on your own if you want. All you have to do is tell us. Buffy's already pushing for that with what I had to fix the other day." They both stepped back. "Now, anything else, guys?"

"Sir, we don't want to be hostile."

"Then I shouldn't have needed to rescue twenty-six girls from your people. Especially the ones that had to be rushed to surgery or the ICU, or the three that died of the injuries you gave to little children," he stated firmly. "Since you've proven yourselves to be worse than most demon societies.... We don't trust you, we never will trust you, and even if you jumped in to help us with battles we'd have people watching over us to make sure you can't confiscate anyone from the ER or from the battle aftermath. The one that tried that with me, many moons ago, learned that lesson in their afterlives from what I'm told." He gave them another pointed look. "Now." He smiled slightly. "Go. Away. Please. I'm having a charming chat with another agent about what went on in Africa."

"No one can do that sort of thing by themselves," the second agent sneered.

"There's this great app called 'youtube'," Xander quipped. "Perhaps you should learn the uses of it. Because quite a few of the battles ended up on there thanks to civilians. There's a lot of smart phones in Africa, even in areas that there's no flush toilets there's at least one smart phone per village in case of emergency. Plus the militaries we worked with often took film to train later soldiers in case it came up again." He felt someone walking up behind him and glanced back. "Hey." He looked at them. "Don't stare at my daughter. I'm a highly overprotective dad."

Ophelia grinned and waved. "Pissing Dad off means that he makes us do more homework while he leeches the anger off with katas. We'd like to have less homework today so we can maybe take the minis shopping for things they need but can't get at home. A few need sneakers, Dad."

He looked back at her. "Tell Giles."

"He'll have a messenger send up the shopping card or he'll ask a witch to send it." He nodded at that. "Can we?"

"I guess. We'll need to find out how to get you all to the mall though."

"Point. But hey, cabs."

"Five people per cab, daughter. There's how many of you?"

"Yeah, we'd need about six cabs," she admitted, considering it. "In shifts?"

"Might be wiser," he agreed patiently. "That way some of you are safely out of the way in case someone stupid happens and Raisa or someone has to rescue them."

"Good idea. We can make a battle plan to raid the mall." She ran back up the stairs.

Xander grinned. "I had them trained with warriors on Asgad." The agents slumped away from him. "Every single one of my daughters needed it. That way I'm not a grandfather anytime soon. Though a few are better than I am." He smiled. "I'm very proud of my girls."

"I'm sure most fathers are. We'll talk later, when we don't have to make you miss talking to that other agent. Dating him?"

"No. He saw me taking down a hell goddess once. He knows to respect the battle people." They turned to hike back to their cars, trying to look like they weren't fleeing. Xander looked at the ball and considered hitting them with it anyway. It'd save him later work.

"No preemptive strikes please, Xander," Coulson said. He took the pokeball to look at. "It's cute. What's captured in there? This dot pattern?"

"That's their name in braille, yeah. That way I can tell in the dark if I have to again. That's a minor goddess. She'd just take minions and walk them off cooing."

"Charming." He handed it back. "Put it back so I can look at your containment system?"

"We can all break the locks but we don't want to have to," Mercada called. "Dad wants us to be normal girls."

"Exactly," Xander agreed, grinning up at her. "How many need shopping?"

"All of them. They barely have any clothes. And Daisy needs shirts that fit." She skipped back to the group to go back to making battle plans for the malls. They had no idea what shops were local.

Xander just nodded. "I hate shopping," he muttered. "That is my version of hell." He put the capturing ball back, letting Coulson look at things. Though it was nice he shuddered at a few things.

Coulson pointed at one. "That's evil?"

"That's the Source of All Evil that got smuggled to this realm and infected someone. She's in there. It's like I Dream of Jeanie in there for her from what she said when I released her once by accident."

Coulson stared at him for a moment then nodded and walked off making notes. Xander shut that vault door, smirking a tiny bit. That wasn't even the mean vault. That was the 'good' artifact vault. "Thankfully I have a few tied to the alarms on the house in case someone tries to break in again. I did that after we got home."

"We'd have to defeat a greater evil to get near the slayers? It won't go for them?"

"It's conditional for their participation. A blood vow to not go near the slayers they're protecting because they're babies."

"Ah." He nodded. "They'd want a worthy enemy?"

"That and I promised if they didn't I was going to leave them cooped up. Or give them to Buffy for her to coo over." He smiled. "They decided to make the blood vow."

"That is very mean," he agreed. "She used a genie's wish to get clothes that are always clean and shoes that are always shiny if they're supposed to be."

"Yeah, she worded it funny too. It ruined two pairs of suede shoes on her."

Coulson sighed, shaking his head and making that note for later file amendments. "I've learned to look at the context of why they're shopping based on the contents of the bags," he admitted, looking at Xander. "Like you suggested." Xander grinned. "I still don't understand that wish."

"If she had made a stronger wish it might've caused problems. All wishes are double-edged swords. In this case, it means she comes out looking sweaty but spotless, but maybe ripped clothes, but the other girls get gooed like hell when they're near her. If she had wished for something stronger it would've been used against the girls in worse ways."

"I hadn't thought about that," Coulson admitted. He looked out toward the door. "They're back with a supervisor."

Xander hummed, going to get something from the vault then threw it out the door. They screamed at the tentacles but they quit trying to break the door down. "Girls, go into hiding mode," he called. He leaned out the door, smiling at them. "Yes? Did you need more things to talk about?" He grinned.

"Get that thing off my agent!" the supervisor yelled, shooting at the demon.

"It's impervious to all but energy weapons." He grabbed the ball and it sucked in the demon with the agent it was holding onto.

"Give him back!" the other agent demanded, pointing a gun at him. "Or I'll make you."

"I can release the demon again to get him free but that means you're equally able to go in there with it. If you hadn't shown up to try to hurt the slayers or my daughters...." He left the ball out there and slammed the door behind himself. "We don't need tentacles in the house."

"Couldn't you have used something less mentally warping, Xander?" Coulson asked patiently.

"Sure, but they would've been more scared of her and her three foot dick. I can get that one so they can compare."

"Please don't. Go save the agent?"

"Fuck no." He grinned. "The guy was holding a bag full of medical vials and a box of syringes. Nope." He went to answer the door when an officer pounded on it. He pointed at the bag. "They had those and were trying to break down the door, Officer. I'm Council and I'm a damn overprotective father as well. They were warned earlier. They chose to come back."

"They're agents, sir," he said stiffly.

"Yes, the same sort that got eaten for torturing children. If you're the same way they are, have fun saving your own ass." He gave him a pointed look. "Since I'm the only hunter in the area and my trainee slayers are babies, not going to come from them. Or my teenage daughters."

Mercada came down and opened the ball, looking inside at it. "Please give the human back. You already realize he's bad people and not good enough for you. You need something much nicer than that idiot, dear," she said in All Speak. "Please?" It spit the human out. "Thank you." She petted a tentacle. "You're adorable but I'm underage." It moaned. "Give me a few years then talk to us. Okay?" She closed the ball back up again, handing it to her father. She stared at the agent, who was hysterically laughing and crying with his gun in his hand. "Next time, don't force Dad to go evil to protect us. He does evil pretty damn well after years training mini slayers in Africa." She walked off. "Dad, stealing the rest of the bottled water."

"We can get more later," he agreed. He stared at the agent then at the officer, waving a hand. "There, have the idiot that tried to kill my children. Please."

"Sir, you're under arrest," the officer said.

Xander shook his head, pulling out his wallet to hold up a laminated letter from the last president. "I am allowed to do anything I need to do to protect the slyaers."

"The current president hates them," the officer said smugly.

"And that's why half the people in DC yesterday were furry." He stared at him. "You can arrest me if you want to try that but you won't get very far, Officer." He pointed. "There's three demons there waiting on the girls to be vulnerable to attack them. Which means you'd die when I had to get back to them to protect them. Because I'm not going to let *anyone* kill a baby of three-years-old for daring to be born. Oh, I'm sorry, your sort are only pro-life when it's a white baby like you and perfectly normal," he sneered. "You'd better hope like hell the local community is feeling nice and peaceful." He grinned. "Because I'm not taking them on for you." He waved a hand at the demons. "Shoo. Now."

"Slayers," one moaned.

"I'm Xander Goddess Damned Harris," he shot back. "They're under my protection." The demons moaned and went back into hiding. He stared at the officer then at the agents, who were looking scared. He walked off. "Let me stop this pissing match." He called in a favor from a poker debt, who moaned loudly but agreed they could change things without endangering any of those slayers.

Phil Coulson looked up as he was still in the house but it sounded empty. He saw a note that was left for him and sighed. He checked the vault, nothing in there. They were with the slayers are their fallback. He went to talk to the agents who were being eaten by that tentacle demon and two others. "Enough," he ordered. They fled with their tasty treats. He went back to his office to talk to the president. General Ross was in there sneering too. At least until something broke in and went right for Ross to eat him. It was tiny but couldn't be shot. "I have no idea what kills that beyond uranium," he noted calmly. Ross was trying to get away. He handed the note to the president, who snorted but pointed at the demon. "Uranium, sir. Which we do not have." He looked at the demon. "Can't you get him later?" he asked it politely. "We need to talk about how he managed to get the US abandoned by the slayers."

"The military will cover for it," the president sneered, standing up.

Coulson looked at him, shaking his head. "They won't. They're under orders not to by the Pentagon because none of them know how to behead anything, sir." The president glared. "You can ask. General Hardrion," he called, spotting him up the hall. "Do you have any uranium before General Ross is eaten?"

"Pity, but nope. Too bad about his idiot self being killed," he said, walking in there. He stared at the demon, smiling at it. "I know that thing. One of the slayers asked one to take out a cult that was wanting to kill her and her baby sister last year. Ate the whole damn thing and didn't leave a mess for the locals to clear up. So what did you do to the slayers, Ross? They only react that way when it's nasty."

"He wanted to take more of them into custody to torture them," Coulson said. "I had been talking to their head hunter but then he called in a poker debt to protect the girls. This one showed up without that being asked for apparently." He looked at the demon then at the general. "As far as I know only uranium kills it."

"Great," the general said with a nod as Ross yelled because it had bitten one of his legs pretty badly. "Wish it would take that outside," he noted firmly, glaring at the demon, who growled back but did run Ross out of the room. "Thanks." He looked at the president. "I got an email this morning from the Council's head. We're screwed and have three apocalypse battles in the next two weeks because they've left over that little thing you had going where you let people torture children. We can't behead, never been taught how to use a sword."

"Battle axes might be more practical," Coulson said. "Xander said he picked his up and pretty well just started to whack away at things."

"We have a few who can use a traditional axe," he agreed. "Might help if we can find some."

"Ask the ren faire people, General. They have weapons that are use quality in some cases." The general smirked at him. "I know a few who have pikes. I had to borrow one a few years back."

The general nodded. "Great. Well, that'll suck since one's going to be local." He handed over the email he had been sent.

"Those costumed sorts?" the president demanded. "It's their job!"

"They're not going to help anyone who tried to capture and torture them either," the general said bluntly. "Why would they? They're not suicidal. They won't even come out of the building, sir." The president glared at him. "Truth."

"I've talked to Stark and he's only going to come out for the fate of the world," Coulson agreed. "Were they notified?"

"Yup, and we warned the areas noted so they could try to evacuate some of them." The general looked at him. "That was your fuckup."

"I made a list, General. Others took the list to become a conscription list. That is not what I wanted. I simply wanted and needed to know who to get in touch with to handle things. I regret my part in that and I've sent my apology letter to them. They haven't responded and I doubt they will. People screwed over by the ones who're supposed to be working with them hardly ever do."

"Fine. The ones still on that prison raft?"

"Got rescued three days ago by demons. I have no idea where they stashed them to heal and rest." He rubbed the back of his neck then looked at the president. "I can't make the Avengers help defeat those. I doubt the slayers will. My speciality agents who might be of help I'll alert later." He took the email to read, grimacing. "This is bad and right before a super level extinction battle. Charming."

"Extinction level?" General Hardion demanded.

"We have a higher being named Thanos coming within the next year, General. He's immortal, powered by things like Loki's staff, and even Asgard hasn't managed to do more than banish him in the past. Though we can't count on Asgard's help because they're about to have one of their own with Thanos' lover, Hela."

"If I remember right, wasn't she a goddess of death or something?"

"Yes, she is. She's going to hit Asgard hard in about six weeks we think. Or so, the time code's not definite. They know and they're taking precautions but it's going to be Asgard ending if the visions we have are correct." The general winced. "Most of them can go to one of the other eight realms but I'm not sure how many might try to come down here to protect themselves. If so, they'll probably be healed and rested when Thanos comes but most of them aren't warriors."

The general nodded. "How do you defeat something like Thanos?"

"Take the stones from him and banish as far as we can tell."

"Charming." He walked off shaking his head. "Let me get battle units ready for those battles." He saluted the vice president as he walked past him.

"General, is there a problem?"

"Yes, sir. The Council abandoned the US because we tried to torture some of their kids. General Ross is presently being attacked for that by demons who look up to the slayers. Every damn last one of them in the US is out of it for now, sir, and we've gotten visions of three events trying to take advantage of that problem. I need to get some Marines trained to use actual swords if you'll excuse me."

The vice president walked in. "What happened?" Coulson looked at him then turned on the tv in there to show the aftermath still being shown from the Council having to find their people to rescue them. "Oh, dear."

"They're not going to be here to protect people who would torture children for being born and their statement a few minutes ago said that they thought so many of those people were supposedly pro life. Shows how much they hate living people." He let him see the email that the general had brought. "From local visions, sir."

"The Avengers?" the vice president demanded.

"After the Accords? Probably not many of them," he admitted. "I have a few specialist agents who might be able to help. I'll be calling on them later today. One's clearly set in about two days since they had a date on a watch to go by." He looked at the president then at the VP. "I can probably get a message back to the hunter for the Council but he's also protecting his daughters. Who he had to rescue as well." He stared at him. "At least the one coming within a year won't be able to destroy too much. If you'll excuse me, sirs, I've got to call around to find swords or axes." He walked off with that email to call around. He had no idea how one of them had gotten out of storage. It had been captured a few years back and agents had put it into a top secret storage area. He had to check on that first in case it was HYDRA. Though maybe HYDRA would step in and remove part of themselves.

The VP looked at the president. "See what you've done?" He walked off again. He had to send his family off on vacation to somewhere safer. Maybe Europe since they still probably had their slayers working.

The president sat and seethed until he spotted his phone to text out a tweet. What he got back made sure he realized he was an idiot because everyone said that would endanger the US. All his top generals had tweeted back that the military wasn't trained for that. His chief of staff came in to take his phone and correctly tweet a new plan, then walked off with the phone, getting huffed at. "I can handle it," he called after him.

"Sir, I'm having to clean the remains of a general off the lawn," he called back. "Don't make them attack here again please."

The president sneered but closed his curtains. He didn't want to see that sort of mess. He'd never blame himself but he could blame a lot of that on Ross and the slayers would come back, right? He tried that, but then emails were released by some hackers. He had to get those hackers before they did real damage to his image.

***

"Dad," Ophelia said, sitting next to him. "We have to go defeat things. You don't want innocents hurt. I know you don't."

"No, I don't. Though many of them would probably try to hurt you girls." He looked up from carving a stake while he thought. "Even then, you're not going."

"No, we're not," she agreed. "We're too young and we're working on how to evacuate parts of Asgard with Lady Sif." Xander nodded he liked that idea. "Is there a way the slayers that want to go can?"

"If we and agents wore fully covering gear so they couldn't be identified, and I do mean everyone, then it might be safer," he admitted. "Most agents wouldn't do that. They want to do the job and know they can't so they hate on us for being able to do the job."

She nodded. "We get that. Can we talk to that one agent guy you were casually chatting with?"

"That's Director Coulson of SHIELD." He looked at her. "You might want to call the one you wanted to flirt with instead. SHIELD has HYDRA leanings half the time and they're still trying to clean house and clean that up."

She nodded. "We can do that." She took his phone from his pocket, heading back into the building they were using. "Dad had an idea," she told Buffy. "But it'd require agents going along with it. Any of the slayers that wanted to go would have to be in the same all covering gear that the agents would be so no one could identify who was who."

She grimaced. "It's hard to fight in things like that."

"Can we call and suggest?" Ophelia asked. "Dad was talking casually with an agent when the shit tried to hit our doorway. He said he's the director of SHIELD."

Buffy frowned. "I met him. One-eyed guy?"

"No. Not this one."

"Coulson took over when SHIELD imploded," Xander said as he walked in. "Fury's supposedly dead but running a secret group to try to get HYDRA and other problems down."

"Would he help us?" Buffy asked him.

"I don't know," he admitted. "He seemed to want to stay out of it." He shrugged. "No clue. You can call and ask."

"I... Yeah." She took the phone, looking at it. "Why is it glowing?"

"I dropped it into an energy well."

"Oh." She dialed the number she had for SHIELD, it was out of service. Xander took his phone and dialed one, handing it back. "Hi, it's Buffy Summers. We're trying to find a way to come help with the battles," she said quietly. "No, Xander dialed it. No, we're not. I'm not risking most of my girls so any battles are by volunteer at the moment. I and a few others wanted to come make sure the innocents didn't get hurt, even if the evil ones did. No, Xander was thinking full covered gear so no one could tell us from the agents about to jump in." She listened while that woman said somethng to someone, who said those sort of outfits were hard to fight in. "We know," she agreed. "That's why we don't wear body armor most of the time. That and it won't move with our bodies as we fight. Plenty of us have been debating for the last few days but we can't let innocents and kids be hurt because of their actions," she finished with a sigh. She listened. "We can probably do that. Giles, can we go back there easily?"

"Yes. We built the emergency portal off the doorway Xander had so we have a way down there if we have to." He took off his glasses to stare at her. "While I commend you ladies who want to go make sure innocents don't die, we don't want you to die either."

"Ditto," Xander said as he came back with an apple off the tree out back. He settled at the table to nibble and listen in. "I'd be going back, maybe," he admitted between bites because they were staring at him. "Two of them will take men to kill them but the minions need females to kill them. That's the double assault in DC in a few days. The other just needs higher weapons and then beheaded. The last one that we saw coming in, we need about a ton of pure steel blades to behead because that's all that works as far as the books said." Giles nodded at that. "The last nebulous one that's been going around I don't know what it is. I didn't get a clear image, just a cloudy thing."

"That itself could be a demon," Giles reminded him.

"I looked at those. It was backlit and just fimly fog, not a creature. The creature was hidden behind the fog and in the lights. That one, the Powers are blocking. Proved that earlier when I saw Whistler, who was scowling at me for daring to save some of the girls." Buffy glared. "Yup. He's outside by the way." He finished his apple and tossed the core into the fireplace. Buffy stomped out to talk to him while she still had the phone. That way others could hear. Xander looked at Giles. "I can go help," he said more quietly. "I'm leaving Raisa in charge of my girls. She and Valerian have some sense and will help them do homework while they're worried."

"That's fine, Xander. I know you have to make plans for them." Xander nodded, grimacing. "I hope you won't be that badly hurt."

"Me too," he snorted, but grinned a bit. "Especially since we can't depend on any sort of competent care down there without risking someone being snatched from the ER or hospital. Did we get the ones in the hospital in Cleveland?" Giles nodded. "That's good then."

"They're in the hospital in London. The agents we work with there are most happy to help us. They won't let the London team go to help though, because they can't promise they'd be protected."

"Which I agree with," Xander said with a nod. "We can't guarantee anyone's going to be safe. There's too many idiots. But at least Ross is gone."

"How?" Giles asked.

"One of the chewing things decided he was going to hurt the slayers," one of the others said with a grimace but a shrug. "We didn't ask but he decided he'd protect us from what we've seen when we stole Xander's phone to look at the news feeds." Xander grinned at them. "And send emails to people we know that we're okay, just in hiding before we all get tortured." She leaned on the table. "How would a head covering work, Xander?"

"See through from the inside. Like a lace covering but no one would be able to tell anything about your skin or face or hair." She nodded at that. "I have no idea if they can do that before that first battle though. Or at all in some way that means you can fight in it. I don't design uniforms or clothes."

"We know," the girls said.

"Some of your girls are really unfashionable, Xander," one complained.

"They like to dress like they're still on Asgard," Xander quipped back. "It's warmer up there too." They all giggled. Buffy came back looking disgusted. "Whistler?" he guessed. "Or SHIELD?"

"Whistler." She handed back the phone. "He's mad you saved them. That them being found doing that should have made humanity work against the stupid."

"Yeah, hasn't yet and they know," Xander said dryly. "So that plan's in the crapper. Did Cordy plot that one?"

"No, she showed up to yell at him about that plan being so damn bad and that anyone who wanted a baby tortured they should be hung up and shot." She sat in her seat again. "The SHIELD people think they can do it, but maybe not before that first battle."

Xander nodded. He looked at Giles. "Glamors?"

Giles blinked a few times. "Not that hard to do. We can put them on something like a necklace. That would last for a few hours at the least." Xander nodded at that. "That may be workable for the first battle." He took the phone to call the coven so they could work on that. He paused to stare at Xander. Who sighed and nodded he'd be there. "Yes, he'll be there," he agreed, walking off again.

"I can get awfully scruffy and not look like myself too," Xander quipped. "I look totally different with a beard, including older."

"It's only in two days, Xander," Buffy reminded him.

He grinned. "We can do that." She rolled her eyes. He went to talk to his girls, and then used his special doorway to go somewhere else. They needed more weapons so he'd go talk to some people that could make them. And maybe he'd hear more on Thanos. He came back eight hours later totally scruffy, hair grown long, and limping a bit. He even had a cane. "It's healed, just sore," he said at the worried looks. He put his bag on the table and opened it. "Weapons, ladies." They pulled them out to look over. He looked at Giles. "We have Thanos listed in a book."

"I can't get a copy of it. I've tried."

"Not that book. Irregular Gods has him. I saw a copy and borrowed it for two days." Giles went to check that, then nearly squealed when he found out Xander had been correct. It had much on him. "Make me notes so I can hand them off before the battle." He sat down and rubbed his leg. "Fully healed," he assured the staring slayers.

"You really do look odd when you're all scruffy and middle ages Xander," Buffy quipped. He grinned. "Doesn't that itch?"

"Only the first few days." They went back to cooing over the weapons. Xander took a few to sharpen. The slayers were horrible at it.

***

Xander walked up to someone before the battle, hitting him with the DVD in a paper sleeve. The guy stared at him. He stared back. "We found a few new sources on Thanos," he said quietly. The guy smiled and tucked it inside his uniform. "They copied the sections, should be easily played by Stark or someone."

"Thank you," he said with a nod. "Who're you?"

"Xander. I'm just an extra scruffy one so no one recognizes me. For some reason the Coven can't put a glamor on me." He rolled his eyes. "They're like that about me though." He looked at the demons showing up. "Half of them aren't evil. Hmm."

"If you go talk to them they'll know it's you. There's agents watching," Natasha warned as she walked past them.

Xander nodded. "That's why Buffy thinks I'm bait." He walked over that way. "It's great that so many beings have decided to help protect the peaceful communities," he said in one of the demon languages. "And others." They stared at him. He shrugged back. "Morals, yay," he muttered in english. A few grumbled. "We welcome any help to protect everyone against evil," he said in english. "Even if some of you look scary."

One of them sniffed him then stared oddly. "Why do you look like a Mugwai?"

Xander grinned. "Because I'm about to go full on gremlin on them." He patted that one on the arm. "Ethics suck sometimes."

"We know," the demon agreed. "We would not want our young to be killed as they want the slayers to be."

"Neither do we. We honor and adore all the peaceful communities. Be safe today. We can't afford to lose anyone peaceful in this world. We're already missing too many."

The demon nodded. "We agree. Be at peace. We honor the slayers and you hunters as well." He patted him back. "Go guard them." He looked over. "Many might be able to see through that."

"We blew poker debts so they're being evacuated if they're injured or just after the end of the battle. My daughters are looking forward to fussing over someone." He walked off to get with the agents that were gathered around the girls. "We set?" he asked quietly. They all nodded. The agents sighed but nodded too. "Pair up for now. That way if they pull something weird you're prepared." They picked out their agent helpers for this battle. "Thank you, guys, for not being like the other ones." He stared at one, going to interrupt him. "Hansen," he sneered. "Why is the Initiative here?"

"We're here to help defeat it. We know we're not slayers but we've all got experience helping defeat demons, Harris," he said, staring at him. "That beard looks fake."

"All mine actually. I trimmed it so I didn't look like a young Santa." He smirked. "Don't go near the slayers."

"Not an option I want to have happen." Xander nodded, getting out of the way. He looked around. "Many helpers from the PC."

"Yeah, they don't want to fall either. I already thanked them."

"Thanks. Go get ready." He went back to his team. Xander went back to his. He looked at the others, who all grimaced. Harris had...rumors about him from Africa. He hoped they weren't true because that guy turned into some weird warrior during battles.

The head demon showed up to announce his queen and they got shot by the agents. The queen stomped over to deal with the humans who dared shoot her herald. "Go," Xander called. "The minions are shootable, the higher up is beheading and then fire," he yelled. They rushed up to handle the battle. That demon queen screamed and called up more of her army. Members of the military showed up. Xander paused one. "Minions are shootable, higher ups take beheading and then fire." The officer nodded, calling that in. That helped their side a lot. Made a lot of mess they had to wade through to get to the still living ones trying to come through.

One military team showed up with a bomb. "We can blow the portal."

"Put it on that side!" one of the slayers yelled at them. "It has to take out the thing holding it steady and it's on the other side!"

"No barrier that we've seen," Xander called. "Just set it and throw it to the left! The caster's there!" The team apparently didn't hear, they tried to set it off there and ran. It dented it. Slowed down the trickle through the portal. Xander groaned. The slayers moaned. "Get me something before they set up a shield spell. They've got more magical people coming," he ordered, staring around. No bigger military weapons. Stark was there. He ran for him. "I need something higher heat to hit them before they set up a shield spell over the portal. The guys with the bomb didn't hear us."

"They probably didn't listen. I've got Rhodes coming with something bigger, kid."

"It goes to the left," he said with a point. "That's the casting team." Stark nodded, going to fire on them. Xander beheaded a minion and moved up, going for one of the higher ups that was in the open. He got her and the queen screamed, rushing over. "I feel the same way about my daughters, that's why you can't stay," he quipped. He tried to get her neck but she pulled up her scales to cover it better. "Fuck!" A few of the slayers and agents ran up to help them.

"She leaves on a fire or she runs home," he ordered. The girls nodded, stepping in with the agents helping them. Xander tapped two agents and they took on the guard unit trying to get to their queen and heir. They let the slayers work. One fell and Xander winced but sucked in a deep breath and pulled up his inner asshole so he wouldn't fall over soon. He took out two of the guards and then grabbed a falling agent's sword to replace his, which was getting dulled. That new one also had a hand grip so he wouldn't lose it to sweat slicking it up as easily.

"I want my damn axe," he muttered, cutting one of the new guards on the chest to make him back up. That one tried to flip and kick him but Xander got him in the crotch and he fell down screaming. That worked on most species that had a crotch. The queen died with a scream and the guards went nuts. Xander got pulled out of the way by one of the slayers, who shot the higher weapon she had stolen off the military people. "Laser weapon?" he demanded.

"No, big gun. Weapons," she said with a point.

He ran to get one and hit the casters. That stopped new ones from coming. The rest tried to surrender but the military and agents weren't having it. Xander walked his girls off, pausing to gather the one that hadn't been removed. She was dead so that explained why. He got them back by the SHIELD people.

"We can watch over her," one of the agents said.

Xander stared at him. "Her family would be really upset with the enhanced autopsy someone would want to do," he said quietly, making that one flinch back. "Many of the girls are orphans but not all of them and we're their family if they are orphans. So, no thanks." He looked at the witches showing up. "Get them," he ordered. "Then me? For a change?" They nodded, grimacing at the dead one. "She'll be buried with honors, the same as the others that have fallen." They sent them all back to the Council house and they could get to the portal from there. Xander got there last with his burden, heading through. The portal shut behind him and he put her on a table, making sure she wasn't bleeding on anything anymore. "Did we all make it?" he asked quietly.

"All but one that fell earlier and she showed up," Giles said, patting him on the back. "We'll work on getting her laid to rest tonight, Xander. Thank you."

"No one deserves that," he said, looking up. "I'm exhausted. My daughters good?"

"Fairly so. A bit bossy of the tiny ones but they handled them for me." He patted him again. Xander nodded, going to find an open spigot so he could hose off the sweat. Giles got the other watchers in there to set up that poor girl for burial. Xander was out in the trees later, with his girls. They let the Council do what they needed to do without their help since they weren't part of it yet.

***

Stark looked around at the end of the battle. "This is almost as bad as New York's but less than London's." Steve Rogers nodded he agreed, taking a bottle of water someone handed him to gulp. "Let's get us back to safety." He looked at his teammates. "Let's go," he called. "So people can clean up the mess we made." He made sure everyone made it back to the quin jet and back to the tower for now. They could go hide from there. He spotted a few people he knew, but they just waved him off so they got to flee the press and angry people. He came out of getting out of the suit, flopping down. Steve held up the dirty paper sleeve with the DVD inside. "What's that?"

"Harris said they found some new books."

Stark took it to run, frowning at what they saw. "I like the comic book version better. He looks easier beat in the comic book version. Less tacky too."

Steve reread it, frowning at it. "We'll have to go for incapacitation since immortal is literal this time." He looked at the others coming in. "Harris found a few more sources."

Natasha sat down to read it over, grimacing. "That's going to be nasty."

"Yes it will be," Stark agreed. "We'll probably need more hands."

"The slayers may help but I'm not sure they'll be able to help too much," Steve said. "But we can let them handle anything breaking out during it." Stark nodded once, slumping in his seat. "I'm pretty sure there'll be panicking among the various communities, including the human ones." He looked at Bucky as he came in, pulling back his damp hair. "Harris found new sources."

Bucky paused to stare at it, slumping a tiny bit. "That's not going to be a weapons battle?"

"Higher level weapons," Stark grunted.

"So I'm going to be needing some explosive arrow tips," Clint said as he walked in. "Or ones that can destroy a stone." He looked at Bucky. Who nodded that may work. "Destroying the glove possible?"

"I hope so," Steve said. "Maybe if we can destroy it we can get the stones away from him without problems." He cleared his throat. "Let's go over the battle earlier."

"Military people quit listening after the initial orders," Stark said. "And they ignored those after a higher up got there."

"I heard one get countermanding orders about shooting the demons," Steve said. He cleared his throat again, taking the bottle of water Clint handed over. "Thanks. Harris gave some orders."

"He's a field commander," Bucky agreed. "It's in his file."

"Along with the links to youtube videos of things he's handled," Natasha said. "Coulson uploaded those recently when he heard they were around and not restricted. Some of those....I'd rather not resee even in video form."

Clint grinned at her. "At least it gives us reasons to look at higher weapons."

"Yes, but I'd rather not have to wonder how many times they tried to use a lesser one and it didn't work," she shot back. "Or how they did it before grenades were created."

"Swords," Steve said with a nod. "A lot of swords from what their histories say." He sipped the water. "How many videos?"

"Smart phones exist in Africa," Stark said. "By statistics, there's more smart phones than there are toilets in this world." He hacked in easily enough, finding that file, and the hidden one behind it. "His actual file is messy." He let Natasha have that on a virtual screen while they watched the videos that had been linked to the profile. The second one had him climbing the couch to get away from it. "What is that?" he demanded.

"The title says an ascended demon," Natasha said, swallowing hard. "It's certainly large and has some sort of gaze related power."

"The thing's the size of a small house," Bucky said. The head finally got blown off by someone who had tried to argue with Xander. "Huh. So beheading again. Just a really big head."

Steve nodded slowly. "Damn glad we never ran into one of those before." Bucky nodded, going to get a beer. He switched videos but this one was a huge demon king of some kind, he was wearing a pretty crown, and then they realized he was actually a she, or at least giving birth to the toothy things that were trying to eat the local peoples. Those ones died by fire. Makeshift flame throwers worked well enough. Steve tipped his head to the side. The main demon died by fire too but it took something that burned for a while being thrown on her to finally take her out. "Wow." He pointed. "That's one of the mini slayers."

"She was here," Stark agreed. "She's cute." A video call came in and split the main screen. "Hey," he said with a nod. "Problems, General?"

"Was the Council there?"

"They fought about it but they have some ethics left," Steve said. "So said Buffy Summers when I ran into her before the battle."

"Was Harris there?"

"Yup," Stark said with a nod. "He gave the military guys orders."

"Oh, that was him. He looks different with the beard." He grimaced. "He removed a dead body."

"One of the slayers fell during it," Clint said. "I heard him say her family wouldn't want to see what happened during her autopsy."

"I can see that point. Not one I wanted to see either." He sighed and nodded. "Our next one is in two weeks?"

"Eight days," Natasha corrected.

"Great. Thanks for the warning. Will you be there?"

"Probably," she agreed. "We'd hate for humanity to fall." Stark started the next video and it was fully disgusting and made her have to force down the vomit. "Stark."

"Sorry, didn't realize it was that nasty." He paused it on the demon eating a kid and her dog. With a slayer rushing into view with a weapons tube. He looked at the general, who was shuddering. "We're going over the videos linked to Harris' file to see how bad they can get."

"There's probably worse, but I'd hate to see it," Steve said quietly.

The general looked at him. "Me too. All right, let us know anything you find out about the upcoming ones." They nodded so he hung up. Stark started a different video. He hoped they never had to run into something like that.

"Thanks," Clint said. "So damn disgusting." This new one was blowing ectoplasm everywhere to poison and contain people. Slightly better but not a lot.

***

Xander walked away from the people who wanted him to give himself up to the agents who were complaining that they had rescued the slayers from them, shaking his head as he walked outside to work with the minis again. Buffy followed. He glared at her. "They have a point. You made the mess."

"I'm not liable for that, Buffy."

"The president is having fits about the last one giving you a free pass to create that sort of mess."

Xander sneered at her. "Sure, let me go back and not rescue them. Would that make you feel better?" She shook her head quickly, backing away from him. "Beyond that, they can't charge me anyway. Only two states have laws that could charge me." He smirked. "DC and Virginia aren't either one."

"What?" she demanded.

"Mermaid taint," Giles said from the doorway. "We could use such a move to start rebuilding a truce with them, Xander."

"Like hell I'm going to leave my daughters to be raised by that horrible bitch," he said, pointing at Buffy. "I don't know *what* ate her brain this time but I'll be damned if she passes it on to my girls or my daughters." Buffy huffed. He glared at her. "Yay, bitch. I'm not letting you anywhere my girls."

"I can ban them from watcher training," she said smugly.

He shrugged. "I'll teach them to help me in the field if they want to. I've already done a lot of that with what we ran into as we got to Asgard." She glared back, stomping a foot.

"Enough!" Raisa shouted. "What horrible friends you are, Buffy Bitchy One Summers. For that matter, you're not getting our dad arrested. If you wanted the minis dead that much you should've let the Powers That Be do it for you because no one in *this* family is going to support torturing anyone! If you don't like it, go fucking retire." She pointed. "You have fun with that but get the fuck away from the mini slayers and the other girls. They don't need your shit." Giles cleared his throat. "The minis are all traumatized, worried, and upset. They don't need her shit telling them that they should've died, Mr. Giles. Be damned if the girls need to see that. Or us!" She looked at her father.

"I'm not going anywhere but to help with the battle on Asgard," he said, pulling her over for a hug. "We won't let them hurt any of the minis, Raisa. If I have to, I'll keep them on this realm for a few years. Most of their parents would want them to be safe." He looked at Buffy. "Shoo! Before I summon back spirits." Buffy stomped off. Faith kept her from going near any of the minis. He looked at Giles. "I can go back to Africa," he promised.

"I think that's a bit drastic," Giles said patiently. "I think we need to make a new truce. Too many things could get the girls hurt."

"They need to fix their shit so we can do that," Raisa told him bluntly, staring him down. "Because they're just in danger right now." She looked at her father. Who shrugged back. "We've talked with a few of the agents who aren't worthless or horrifying. They think they can't do anything to stop that mess."

"I'm pretty sure they can but they won't," Xander corrected. "It'd cause inter-agency strife."

"Can we call back Strife or someone like him?" she asked, grinning up at him. "We could build him a nice shrine."

"It's DC, I'm pretty sure there's probably at least one to many chaos gods there. Just like there is in LA."

She grimaced. "Can we give a nice offering to call them back?"

He smiled at her. "It'd be fun to watch but hell for the regular sorts. Otherwise, I'd be looking up proper rituals to call them back right now." He noticed Buffy coming back. "Where are the cats?"

"In the trees." She pointed. "Oz really is a way up high cat. Our hunting buddy is napping on a low branch for now. The other two are cuddled with the kids sleeping up there."

He nodded. "That fits. Cats like to climb." He let her go, getting pouted at. "I thought you wanted to cuddle Valerian."

"I do but she's asleep." She bounced off to cuddle the minis, who were sniffly. "Hey, no water works," she said with a smile. "It's all scary and stuff but there's no way my dad is going to leave us all at the mercy or someone like the idiots who don't help you girls or the mean ones." She patted a few on the head. "We'll figure it out. You're not going to be in danger."

"I wanted to see my sister soon," one pouted.

"We'll see if we can scry or something," Raisa promised. "That way you can talk to the family." She nodded, cuddling the others. Raisa had on her weapons so they knew not to cuddle her.

Xander looked over. "We can do that later. My phone has skype, Mimi." She nodded. "I asked King Kitty Cat to check on her when I ran into him during that meeting." She grinned. He looked at Giles again. "Thankfully I inherited this house from the girls' aunt." He walked off, going to look up more information in their limited library. Some things weren't adding up in the upcoming battles he had foreseen.

Buffy glared at Giles. "I agree with him," he told her. "Nor would I support anyone who wanted to hurt the minis in any manner." He walked off to talk to the other watchers. They were hidebound asses. They were going to upset the girls so he had to stop them before the girls revolted and sold them to various demons that might be around there. One of the girls had already been found to be talking to the local demon community. She was five and had been having tea with one of them. He wasn't sure if she was going to turn mean to them or not.

Xander looked over at the minis. "No selling the hidebound asses," he said quietly. "If they get sold, I'm going to use them to get higher weapons we'll need." They giggled and cuddled together to read.

Buffy stomped off to seethe some more. People were blaming all the girls for the messes that Xander had created. They needed to make sure no one wanted to arrest them that same way. She found Xander's phone and called someone she had met in the Cleveland newspaper. One of the minis heard her and went running so Xander came in to grab his phone from her and walked off shaking his head. "It's your fault we had to hide," she sneered.

He turned and backhanded her. "The reason we had to hide was because agents kidnaped twelve mini slayers and five of my daughters," he said firmly but coldly. "I'll be *damned* if I'm going to let *anyone* torture those girls for being born and chosen before they were born!" He pointed at the girls outside. "Your job is to help make sure they're raised as good young women, the same as mine is, and you're horrible at it. So sit down and shut up and become a real woman instead of a horrible monster that the girls have nightmares about." She stomped off sniffling. He looked at the other watchers. "They already had nightmares about most of you." They shrank away from him. "The girls are *children* and should be raised as if they're normal children who have a problem coming in their future. The Council is supposed to be here for the girls, not their own benefit." He walked off. "Ladies, let's get back to homework. A working mind is the best weapon ever."

"I don't have any yet," one of the under-five minis chirped, smiling at him.

"Then we can teach you how to read, Natalie." He settled in with them to go over their letters and numbers.

Giles took off his glasses, nodding as he cleaned them. "I agree and that is our job," he said. "I have no idea what's infected Buffy but our job is to protect and make sure the future slayers are good young women who care about those they're protecting." He looked at them, seeing a few horrified looks but the rest were nodding. "I am not going to let anyone harm any of those children."

"We have many," one started. Giles glared at him. "I'm not suggesting we let anyone experiment or anything but we could submit to blood tests."

"People like General Ross were wanted to gift the girls' abilities to soldiers so they had more like Captain America," Xander called from outside. "They can't do that from our blood or our bodies."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"He was involved in that whole Hulk debacle from what I remember," Giles agreed. "Beyond that, they unfortunately have samples of many of the girls' blood and tissue samples as well."

"I was hoping that they'd give up if they could verify what we've told them," that watcher said.

"Zealots never give up," another watcher said quietly. "The annoying toad of a young man is correct." Giles scowled at him. "I have real problems with how Harris acts most of the time. He's very...jumpy."

"He needs more caffeine to handle the hyperactivity he's always had," Giles said sarcastically. "Plus some of that is worry. He tends to pace and the like when he's thinking while worried but now that would upset and worry the slayers."

"He went to plant things in Africa's safehouse when he was worried," Watcher Cresida said from his seat in the corner. "Those girls all realized when he was worried or stressed. One of them even kindly called one of Xander's ex-girlfriends from his phone when he couldn't break out of it. She was not amused but it turned out that they needed some of her contacts but the boy didn't want to ask for the help. Harris just blew them up to fix that problem. His girlfriend got to move up a bit in status for it. Before some other arms dealing group took her out. Though the boy did avenge her death somehow because they went down to demons a few weeks later."

"That was her son," Xander called. "Not me. He didn't even ask me to ask someone. He went to the poker hall and asked them."

Giles shook his head with a sigh. "I've seen the youtube videos of the battles in Africa." Xander giggled. "And some were quite disgusting."

"Half of them are locked," Xander called. "You have to be a registered user and signed up for that site. Youtube got requested to remove them from general view by a few different governments. You need to look at Charlie's site to get most of them in the unfiltered or unedited format."

Giles went out to get his phone, coming back to look at the boy's bookmarks. He probably had most of the most useful sites bookmarked so that was handy. He found that site, then searched by Xander's name. He found his profile and settled in to read it, grimacing. The others gathered to read that nice, long profile about how insane Xander could be when pushed toward it. Or when necessary. A few came with video examples of their points, cut from larger battles mostly. And once when Xander had a gun to a guy's head and was pushing the mini slayer behind him so she was protected. "Xander?" he called. "What were you doing with Aria to protect her?"

"He was possessed and was going to sacrifice her in a few gross, bad ways," he called. "I'm being delicate because of delicate ears. "Then we find out he was unpossesssed a few days earlier but still wanted to do horrifying things to her. He was trying to claim rightful ownership of her. The village elders were fighting against him but he had gotten guards to help him. Pity. I hit them with a bat. Him I was going to be super special. They cut out the rest of that when I had to free the other three girls he had." He poked that girl and pointed.

She ran inside and looked up at Giles. "He protected me and a few other girls in the village from being put on an altar and hurt a whole lot then slowly killed as he skinned us. His brains were icky but diseased and he needed to be put down before he hurt more girls. All of us adore Xander for protecting us." She ran back outside.

Giles nodded. "I would have been less gentle if I had the skills he has." The others all agreed. He looked at Watcher Cresida.

"That was three weeks before he ran into me," he admitted. "I only heard rumors. That's why I put out knowledge of me hiding down there. I couldn't discount that one since they had film of it showing on a local news station. The others I had hoped were false. I'm afraid I wasn't hopeful enough for it to be true." Xander burst out laughing. "You're the one that took on six demon priestesses in the nude with a sword, boy," he called.

"They got me out of the shower! Didn't give me time to dress. It was the thrill of their lives before they got banished. Thankfully the military guys who came to grab me from my shower managed to get a blade and had some other supplies on hand. Though the priest was very confused and annoyed."

"Why were virgin priestesses coming for you?" Faith asked from her seat, looking out there. Xander was blushing. "Seriously?"

"They were allowed to break their vows twice and heard Anya's stories," he said dryly, grimacing at her. She blushed back and ducked back inside. "Yeah. That reason."

Giles looked out there then at Faith. Then he sighed and cleaned his glasses again before putting them back on. "Oh, dear."

"Probably not the first with the way she bragged and nagged," Faith quipped, still blushing.

"No. Comment," Xander called. "Especially not in front of impressionable daughters."

"Daddy, we knew you slept with bad girls," Daisy quipped with a grin for him. "We met some of them. That's how we got to Asgard."

"Point," he agreed, nodding slightly. "Back to homework. Then you girls can have a winner gets dessert tickle fight." The girls got back to the books and lessons. Finally they gave up and pounced each other to start the mass tickle fight. The tiny ones ran over with a squeal to join in, making the older ones be more gentle. Daisy got Raisa's wife Valerian into it by pouncing her and chiding her for being too serious. Xander settled back to watch them do it. He wasn't going to join in, the girls would be brutal to him for making them do homework. The younger ones ran in to get the older slayers into it too. They could all use the stress relief. Though they did ignore that Buffy existed for the minute. They weren't going to play with her, she was being a mean bitch.

***

Xander finally reappeared on Asgard, handing Sif the key structure for the ship. "Use it well," he told her with a grin. "Raisa's on there with Valerian. Don't crash it, I promised Stark could look it over when the evacuations were done." She tipped her head and smiled, going to gather those who needed evacuated that way. Odin cleared his throat so Xander looked at him. "Greetings, Odin. I'm letting her use the space ship I won to evacuate the vulnerable and those who shouldn't be near a battle."

"There won't be a battle, Xander."

"Bullshit. I saw Hela last night when she remembered she had flirted with me on Svartlheim." Odin gaped in horrified awe. He grinned. "Bad girls do love a Xander." He looked at Thor, who was newly back and had shorter hair, and Loki, who was sneering at him. "Keep it up, Princess." He held up the bag. "Thor, I brought you presents." Odin stomped off. They could find him later. "Including one that will help when you need it most." He handed it over with a grin. "How else can I help?"

"Can you distract her?" Thor asked.

"I wish but probably not enough unless I run up to her and drop her into a kiss and then sex. Then it'd only be a temporary diversion." He grimaced. "And I doubt she'd fall for it."

"Probably not," Thor said with a sigh. "Thank you, Xander."

"You're welcome, Thor. Whatever I can do to help I will. Including...." He pulled out a letter to hand to Loki. "From a mage down there that got disgruntled at the slayers being squealy girls on the realm they're hiding on."

Loki opened it with a frown, reading it. "We do not have such structures," he admitted.

"Could one be made before the battle if it'll help?" Xander asked.

"No, it would take years, but it may help if we have to rebuild." He tucked the letter into his pocket. "We have many warriors, Xander."

"And I'm a great one, that's why I'm letting Sif evacuate the vulnerable." He stared at him. "I'm also a seer, Loki. Especially of apocalypse battles. Did you get all eight visions?"

"Six thereof," Thor admitted. Xander handed over his phone so they could read that file from it. "Oh, dear." He blinked, looking at Xander, who shrugged slightly. "That is good to know, Xander. What of my father's problems?"

"They're all in his head," he said, taking the phone back to slide into his pants pocket. "Always have been. He's the one that demanded that the prophecy be read in public so it could be acted on. It made people panic and react in a way that caused no end of problems for you guys. Frankly, I don't want Odin cooties from his throne, Thor."

"Good. What if we have to move?"

"Then you're the Crown Prince or the King if we can't find Odin." Xander shrugged again. "I don't want a realm. The girls would hate being princesses. They might even go evil and start to cast spells to get warriors for the slayers to date so they get some peace and quiet while they're studying."

"Are the slayers safe?" Thor asked.

"Hopefully. They're still hiding on the daughters' natal realm." He grinned. "It helped." Thor nodded that would, walking off. "So where can I help?"

"You can go aid Sif with the evacuations," Loki offered. Xander pulled his staff to him, grinning some. "You have...." Loki walked closer to look at it. "Where did you get that?"

"A dragon dropped it on my head by the hellmouth portal in Africa." He grinned. "It's kinda handy. And it does like most of the daughters."

Loki touched it with a single fingertip then nodded as he walked off. "We're making battle plans now, Xander." Xander followed, his staff thumping on the floor. Thor stared at it. Xander grinned. "A dragon gifted it to him."

"It was probably moving it from the next and dropped it on my head. It was by the hellmouth portal." He nodded at one of the warriors in there. "Hey, Korg."

"Xander," he said, smiling and shaking his hand. "Well met again."

"Thanks, man. I let Sif have the ship to evacuate people." He nodded at Heimdall. "I left most of the daughters at home but Raisa and Valerian promised to help Sif with her duties."

"That's wise. They're good at protecting an area and Sif is good enough to protect them all if necessary," the Guardian agreed. Xander popped his neck. "How soon?"

He looked outside and pointed. "I saw that tree in flowers. One of the views that started in six out of the eight visions started from that window."

Thor went to look out there. "That courtyard would be a good place to start a battle from," he admitted. He checked the tree. "We have days. This is about to bloom." He went back to the plans, letting others put in input. Xander noted that they had three senior mages nearby that could help or they could be evacuating people. So far they were packing books. One of the warriors went to talk to them about helping. Thor stopped Xander before he could go rest for a few hours. "How horrifying?" he asked quietly. "None stated an aftermath."

Xander nodded, grimacing. "You'll need a way to evacuate the remains of your people," he said quietly. "I haven't seen one yet when the city survives, and most of them I saw the land crumbling as it died, Thor. Not from the battle but to stop Death, one must pull up an element against it. Or one that overpowers it."

"Ragnarok," he said. Then he nodded once. Xander nodded. "Those ...gifts?"

"They're all artifacts with some uses to this battle. A few are stronger weapons that can destroy whole groups if thrown into them. One is to open up elemental powers." Thor relaxed but nodded, clapping him on the arm. "I'm yours until I have to go back to the girls in six days."

"Thank thee, Xander." He walked off considering that. Heimdall had the bag and handed over the various things for him to look over. That one was powerful, he could feel it radiating. He put that aside for later. He looked up at the man who had helped mentor him. "Heimdall, he saw the land crumbling," he said quietly.

Heimdall nodded. "Other seers have as well, Thor. We will do as we must."

"We must have a way to move the remaining ones if we have to flee at the end."

"We have methods," he assured him. "Including that ship from the Skaar."

Thor relaxed again, nodding. "We will lose much but I see no way around it."

"All warriors expect death each engagement. It is the wages of war."

"True. Though I will miss some we'll lose greatly."

Heimdall patted him on the arm. "It could be much worse. We could lose everyone by not acting."

"Good point. Thank thee for that counsel."

"As always I serve the people." He smirked a tiny bit and walked off to find Xander to talk to him.

Thor went to stare at the courtyard for now. This was going to be horrifying. Asgard may lose because he was not Odin and not many could defeat death.

***

Xander limped off the ship, nodding at the others staring. "People, Asgard was destroyed. These are the ones resting while going to another realm." He nodded at Giles, who nodded back. "Hela," he said quietly.

"Was she defeated?" Giles asked.

Thor stepped down, nodding as he walked. "She was defeated. Hopefully permanently." Xander looked and handed him the eyepatch he was wearing. "I need it not, Xander."

"You do. Yours is gunked up, Thor." Thor shook his head but smiled slightly.

"He's right, it is," Steve Rogers said, pushing past people. "Thor, are you all right?"

"I need to settle my people somewhere safe." He shook his hand. "I'm as well as can be, Steven. Thank thee for asking."

"Welcome. How can we help?"

"We just need rest for a few days while we recharge the engines. The ones that Lady Sif brought?"

"They're on another of the realms but not down here," Giles said. "Raisa told her sisters, Lord Thor. They're safer." Thor smiled. Giles looked Xander over. "It was that bad?"

"Um, yeah. Thor ended up having to let the physical realm go." Giles moaned, shuddering. "But we won. That's what's important. Thor and his people can rebuild."

"True. That's always best." He walked over. "If myself or my slayers can help, let us know, Lord Thor." He stared up at him. "There was a time in my youth that I swore muchly to your father while I worshiped his service," he said with a slight smile. "While I've grown up, I'm still beholding to your people, as many are."

"Nay. My father had his faults and his means but we don't need people to worship us at this moment."

"Unless it's a girlfriend," Xander quipped. "I could use a girlfriend or boyfriend that would baby injuries."

Thor laughed, patting Xander on the head. "That would be a warrior's reward for winning a war and you helped us win many, Xander. Go rest with your daughters. I'll make sure Raisa lets you know which realm she wants to settle on for now." He looked at Giles. "We just need to recharge for a few days."

"We can get you food and water stores," one of the military people waiting there offered. "Medical help as well."

"Many of us have injuries but most have been treated."

Xander looked at him. "Yeah, they could use a nurse who cleaned injuries but most things were healed magically or stitched if we had to." That one called that in and a military healer showed up with Maria Hill. Xander gave her a pointed look then looked at Thor. "If you need me, let me know before I get a vision?"

"Gladly. Visions are painful," Thor agreed. "We are mostly fine, Agent Hill."

"That's fine but it's best to have bandage changes and make sure nothing's infecting, Thor. I'll be there with her to help."

"Then I cannot complain about that."

Maria Hill looked at his face. "Your ...injury appears to need cleaned as well," she said quietly.

He adjusted his patch with a sigh. "It was a sacrifice I had to make so we won."

"I understand such things," she assured him quietly. "We can help you clean it."

"Saline solution," Xander said. "I learned how to do that very well and I showed him how to do the eye wash they taught me." Hill nodded, not looking at him. He looked at Thor, smiling some. "I'll be with the girls. Hopefully they'll not be hogging the bathroom this time."

"We expanded it so you have five bathrooms now, Xander, and only the minis and your daughters," Giles said, giving him a pointed look. Xander smirked. "We'll let you heal, Lord Thor. Just let us know if you need us."

"Aye, I will. Skalds will be writing on this war for generations." He let the nurse onto the ship with Maria Hill. "Xander, I'll see if we can find where your axe is."

"It's underneath Hulk's butt again. Apparently it was trying to tease him so he sat on it."

Thor nodded. "That makes much sense. It does like to tease him. And to trim his toenails."

"Hey, gotta be something sharp and big to do it. Not like scissors will," he quipped back. "Hulk, I need my axe," he called. "Please quit sitting on it." It flew out a minute later. Xander leaned on it like it was his cane. His staff came out in three pieces. "Yes, I'll fix you too, staff." He tucked it into his pocket, looking at Giles. "Let me go get a shower. Call, Thor." He limped off, leaning on his axe. A military person got in his way so he stared at him. "Move. Now please."

"Sir, we need to make sure you're not going to bring any germs or things from another realm."

"Thor's been here many times and he hasn't. The elves that invaded London didn't. I didn't with the other six times I've been to Asgard. Thanks though." He gave him a pointed look. "Have a better day?" The man got out of his way but called that in. Xander limped off shaking his head. "Let me go nag my daughters." He felt someone running up on his blind side and ducked the grab attempt, pulling his axe up to swing at the person.

"Xander, that's Brenda," Giles called.

Xander paused. "Don't sneak up on me!" he complained. She hugged him. "OW!" She let go some. He sighed, patting her on the back. "I'm fine, Brenda. Really, I'm okay. I just need to go shower and rest and eat."

She looked up at him. "The girls are at the house with us. You can come back so our med team can check you over." She led him off to the car. Giles followed with a nod to the military person who tried to stop them. Brenda looked back. "I don't think even if he brought back stuff, it'd infect others. His hellmouth taint means that he's not like everyone else." She got Xander into the car and fussed over him like one of his daughters would. She had won the betting rounds against the minis because they didn't need to see post-battle injuries yet. She grinned. "We played slayer rummy to see who'd get to baby you. The minis tried to win but we know you'd want them to remain a bit more innocent. So I won." She grinned sweetly at him. "And if I have to use handcuffs...well Faith said they're fun." He snorted but smiled and shook his head. "Good boy." She patted him on the hand. Giles got in to drive.

Thor shook his head, looking at Steve. "He is the most unusual warrior but he is one that will make sure many things are won. Even if he does have some strange methods to his ways. Without his help we would not have as many survivors as we have. Even my brother learned to appreciate his madness in the heat of battle." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You can come visit if you wish. We have much to talk about. We have found more on Thanos for when he appears down here."

"Will it be bad?" Steve asked.

"Worse than we had wanted. Worse than what we just faced." Steve nodded, following him onto the ship. He saw Hulk and patted him. Thor smiled. "He was most beneficial on our team. This is Valkyrie. She was a mighty warrior for us as well." She nodded at Steve. "This is Steven. He is the one with the shield that my brother swore about." She grinned. "It may have helped muchly if we had my battle mates down here during our battle but we probably would have lost them." He walked Steve off to the area he was bunking in to share that information. Loki was laying semi-comatose in the next bunk. Thor looked at him. "He was mighty in battle as well."

"It's good that he could protect your peoples."

Thor nodded. "It did help mightily." He sat down and pulled out the scrolls they had found before the main battle had started. He handed them over. Steve leaned against a wall to read them, grimacing at what he saw. "Indeed."

"Okay. So really horrifying." He looked up. "Thank you, Thor. I hope your people settle safely and easily wherever they end up."

Thor smiled. "It should not be too hard. There are still eight other realms." Steve clapped him on the arm and left to tell the others. Thor laid back, calming himself down again.

A female voice yelled out 'hello'. "Slayers Council people here to help," she called. "Raisa told us how to make a proper warrior's meal and we brought lots of water too. Come get food, people. You can't heal if you don't eat."

Loki moaned, holding his head. "They radiate."

"That's the hellmouth probably." Thor got up to get them both food. Loki needed it just as much. The slayer smiled up at him, handing over two large boxes. "For my brother as well?" he asked politely.

She grinned. "I'm Slayer Kinella, Lord Thor. I'm the senior girl in England at the moment. I was also sent to tell you that your former girlfriend is safely in Scotland at the moment. Lady Darcy is in New York assisting Stark find out he's a human." Thor smiled. "Sorcerer Supreme Strange would like a copy of the battle's tales so he can preserve it for the future generations. Also, we at the Council would like one so we can keep a memory of it. The last message was that it's safe. The president has said that you may stay here for as long as two weeks so your people can get medical treatment and food supplies." She handed him a second set of boxes and pointed. "Bottled water in huge jugs. All spring water since purified water can taste nasty and we're not sure if it would hurt anyone."

He smiled. "Thank you, Slayer Kinella. I will make sure those sources get a copy of the battle's tale." She smiled and handed over two plates of cake. He grinned, taking them back and coming back for mugs of water. The others on the ship came to get their own food.

"It's a great thing that we made eight hams. You guys need more food than we do because you're taller than we slayers are." She smiled at one. "You're ...."

"I'm Korg."

She held out a hand. "I'm Slayer Kinella. Head slayer in England."

He shook it. "Well met Slayer Kinella." He looked. "Is that food?" She handed him two boxes and a slice of cake. "Thank you. It's very kind."

"We slayers are warriors down here. We know what other ones need, even if we're all girls." He patted her on the head, smiling back before walking off so others could get food. Kinella looked at the military person coming up the ramp. "We're feeding them."

"That's fine, Slayer. I'm sure you know what people in battles need to eat to recharge. We have two other nurses here to help treat injuries."

"Agent Hill...." She came out so Kinella pointed. "More nurses?"

"Please," she said. They got let in to come help bandage injuries. She got some water and went back to helping the nurses. They could use the water too.

***

Xander woke up in the infirmary, blinking at Ophelia and Atlina. "Raisa's fine."

"Good. You're not," Atlina said with a smirk. "We're *so* going to fuss over you like you would us, Dad." He groaned but shrugged and winced.

Ophelia hugged him. "In so much trouble for nearly dying and leaving us to Mr. Giles."

"My will leaves you to someone else so he doesn't get overrun by you girls." They scowled. He grinned. "You would."

"Probably," Ophelia agreed. They fussed over his sheet and pillow then at his bandages. The nurses came over to run them off but the girls scowled at her until she huffed off again. "He's our father, lady. We're just like him only with boobs and both eyes." She smirked and waved. "Have fun." She got the soup from Daisy and settled in to make him eat it. "Here we go."

Daisy looked at her father. "Damn." Xander rolled his eyes again but let the girls fuss for now. They'd throw fits if they weren't allowed to fuss. He had some girly girl daughters, even with all the training.

Natasha Romanoff walked in, staring at them. "Ladies, can we get a report from him?" she asked politely.

"No, he's eating," Ophelia told her. "He has to eat before he dies on us and we're left to someone."

"I left you to a group of people and the only one remaining is Heimdall," he said dryly. "That way you guys could lighten up his life. I need to make a new list. Maybe I'll leave you to Thor so he can counter that stupid prophecy." Daisy snorted, shaking her head as she walked off. "It's that or he'll find you a boyfriend."

"I doubt that. I don't think either one could find a good boyfriend for themselves first. We'd have to see proof that they could find nice ones."

"I believe Thor is straight," Natasha said with a slight smile for the young one. "He used to date Jane Foster."

She shrugged. "That doesn't mean he's not bi or pansexual. There's all sorts of beings in the worlds so maybe he likes them a bit furry or something with giant brains so she mostly fit."

"That's a weird thought," Xander called after her. "Go play outside!"

"Fine!" she shot back. "Ladies, Dad banished me outside for weird thoughts about the pansexual and non-human body types throughout the universes. Let's go play tag." The minis squealed as they ran for the backyard.

Natasha looked at the remaining daughters. "Do all of you have those?" They grinned and nodded. "I suppose that makes you more philosophical in some ways."

"Did you meet Korg yet?" Xander asked.

"I did. He's a mighty warrior from what Thor said." She looked at the nurse. "Can we debrief him about the battle?"

"If the girls will let you. They won't let us near him."

"Hell no!" quipped with a grin and a wave for her. "We're a bit paranoid about his former lovers and you look like Dad's type of slightly evil."

The nurse smirked back at her. "I'd never go for Xander, ladies. I remember when he first ran away from the slayers to go to Africa."

"Still, he needs reformed evil or slightly less than evil, not hell goddess evil," Ophelia said, not looking at her as she let her father have more soup. "By the way, we can all tell. We have warning spells up." The nurse gasped so she smiled at her. "I'm going to tell Mercada. She is Dad's mini me." The nurse puffed up and disappeared.

"She was a good nurse, girls, and now I'll have to work overtime," the other nurse complained.

"We can take care of Dad and fuss over him. You only have two others to take care of."

"I can do it myself," Xander said.

"Fat chance, Dad," both girls said.

"We have the right to fuss over you when you've been in a war," Atlina said patiently. "You would fuss over us if we came in that injured."

"Thor made sure you couldn't go fuss over them?" Xander quipped.

"Yes they did," Natasha agreed patiently. "How did you defeat her?"

"Thor dissolved Asgard. Asgard itself is dead so she won but she lost as nothing got gained by her. Pyrrhic victory in the literal meaning. He won but it destroyed things."

She nodded. "That's about what he said but he didn't want to give details. We're hoping that her ...lover will react much the same as she does during battles."

"No, he's a mind fucker who only wants power," Xander said. "We found some things before the final battle in the main library's back shelves that weren't cleaned out."

She smiled slightly. "We got those." He nodded. "Would anyone know more?"

"Loki. He got tortured and mind screwed by Thanos."

"I hadn't asked him but Thor is highly protective."

"Yeah. He's the last of his family. Would you demand answers from a torture victim about the one that hurt them?"

"No," she admitted. "Though we do not see him that way."

"Because you only saw part of the story. Think of him like Barnes."

She considered it then nodded. "I can see that point. Could he give us more information?"

"I don't know. You might have to get him under hypnosis or something to get more details."

"I'll ask Thor if he can do that," she decided. "Anything else you've heard anywhere?"

"There's others that are going to be in danger because they know about the stones. I've heard they're going to be sent this way by a plot."

"Interesting. We'll be looking out for warriors from other cultures."

"One's human," Ophelia said with a grin. "He's a jackass but he's human. Raised up there or something."

"I can look that up. Thank you, Xander, and you ladies as well." She nodded. "Get better, Xander."

"I probably will, once they quit fussing." Both daughters swatted him and fussed over him some more. Natasha walked off smiling. He looked at them. "I really can drink my own soup."

"Suck it, Dad."

"Fine, Atlina." He sighed but let them do what they wanted to do. They were stubborn just like he was. They'd just do worse while trying to be subtle about it. It would drive everyone nuts.

***

Xander finally made it back to his house, and training center. The few minis he had were waiting on them. "When did you guys get here and did you have a sitter?" he asked.

The girls pointed. "We had a sitter and he told us how to defeat magic using idiots who were going to cause him problems."

Xander looked at the storage room. "Hey, Doc."

Doctor Strange walked out scowling at him. "I'm not a bunny."

Xander grinned. "But Bugs was cooler than being a surgeon."

"Possibly." He smirked a tiny bit at him. "The girls were good last night when they got sent back with me watching them. The ship?"

"Raisa and Sif. They're settling people somewhere."

"That's fine. Stark will pout."

"Stark can pout, it was more important to get people evacuated."

"It was," the sorcerer agreed. "I was looking over the artifacts. You gained three more?"

"I evacuated two of the three, the other floated after it. I'm going to throw it at Thor on his coronation day."

"They leave in three days."

Xander grinned. "We can do that." He looked at one daughter, who grinned back. "When did you get back?"

"Two hours ago. The ship's back in orbit."

"We can get it landed," Doctor Strange offered. "Stark would have somewhere."

"He still isn't allowed to tear it apart. Look, yes. Rip apart, no."

"I'll let him know. We can land it." Xander nodded, taking him to the ship, and letting him summon Stark up there. "You can land it, you may not rip it apart," he warned. "You can look, and touch, but not remove."

"Fine," Stark agreed, nodding. He settled into a seat, moving the ship down to a warehouse he had. He got up and called his lab to bring him people, some monitors, and a few other tools.

Xander walked him to the engineering department, and the sorcerer looked smug as he followed. "That is not allowed to be touched," he said with a point, looking at Stark. "It's a stone's piece."

Stark nodded, looking in the containment chamber. "I'll figure out how to make a more efficient engine anyway, Harris. Thanks for that."

"It's highly radioactive. So if it's breached...."

"We'll know and stop it as soon as it happens," he promised, looking at him. "You look like hell."

"The girls fussed so I didn't get many naps." He grimaced. "I'm about to go nap in my own bed while the girls handle each other for a few hours."

"They're going to get the minis into helping fuss over you. They'd miss you if you were gone." He walked off to look at the mystical systems. Xander got himself sent home and smiled at his daughter, who was married and dressed up in white and gold. "I'm proud. And you're still spending time down here."

"Yes, Dad."

Valerian smiled at him. "Of course. Neither of us can cook and training the slayers is important." She adjusted her collar. Her vest/corset was also white with gold embroidery. The skirt was split but longer in the rear than the front. The back fell to the floor and the front only went to her knees. Her hair was done up. Raisa was wearing a similar outfit but with the back of her skirt only being a few inches longer than the front. The three artifacts were in a presentation box. They were wearing ceremonial armor boots and their swords. Raisa took one of the parts of his staff to bring them to the ship. She walked forward, nodding at the officials there. "Valkyrie, we have things that followed us home. May we present them?" she requested.

"We're not that formal, child."

She smirked. "You'd be shocked at times. There's a ceremony for many things. Some of us have to follow them or shame our ancestors." The warrior woman rolled her eyes. They grinned at her. "Is our King here?"

"Thor?" Valkyrie called.

He came to the doorway, smiling at the girl. "You found a place for the refugees?"

"We have and Sif is monitoring the setting up," Raisa said. "My father sends these back. He protected two and one that followed the other two home." She bowed. Her wife bowed and held out the box.

He came down, taking the presentation box to put onto the table out there. He lifted the lid and smiled. "My mother's crown," he said quietly. "Where did he find that?"

"The Hall of Warriors," Valerian told him. "Your mother earned her spot and gave many of us women who battle hopes to join her and make her proud." Thor smiled at her. The next one made him mad.

Raisa looked then shrugged. "Dad thought it was important that the last sapling of the Life Tree was saved. Was he wrong?"

"No," he admitted. "He was not wrong. We can put it in the new town." He opened the last box and swallowed, nodding. "I... Where did he find it? Did he find my father's body?"

"He found his body and sent him off properly," Raisa said, moving forward to touch his bicep. "Dad said he went with the warriors that were lost in the first battle," she said quietly. "He said he sent you a note but it never got to you. So he honored him, even though he hated his ass for trying to make him take over the throne from you. He saved it so you can claim the seat, if not the cooties it held."

He burst out laughing, hugging them both. "You're both excellent young warriors, ladies. Thank your father for me."

Valerian smiled. "My father also sent something, Lord Thor," she said with a smug look. "He and the Asgardian ambassadors who went with the refugees and vulnerable are prepared and willing to work with you once you appear there. They said they will not burden you with a traditional ceremony for you to take over for a year. Though some probably want that year to take your measure, the rest are more than willing to work with you. So said the new Head of the Council of Asgard, my father."

He smiled at her. "Thank thee, Valerian. You do your line proud." He patted her on the cheek. "Not being part of that ceremony will take much stress off me for that first year and I thank them for it." She grinned. "Are you two coming to help?"

"Someone has to set up training areas to beat the snot out of the warrior wannabes with no sense and too much energy until they figure out they should be training or building things," Raisa said with a smile. "Plus there's children who need things to learn so they don't become the first uneducated generation of New Asgard. We both excel at those tasks."

He smiled and nodded. "You both do your trainers proud, ladies. Thank you. I will meet you there?"

"And Sif, Thor," Raisa said with a tiny little smirk. "We'll be going up to spare her temper with the wannabes."

He nodded. "That would be wise before we need to breed more sons." He carried them inside. "I will see you up there, ladies."

"Yes, sir," they said in unison then winked at Valkyrie before disappearing.

Thor looked out at her. "Raisa, the darker haired one, is Xander's daughter. My father found them together in his garden and demanded they marry. Then told her father four days later. He has agreed that they may stay wed since Raisa likes Valerian enough. They are both in training as warriors and quite good at beating the young warriors into being less egotistical. And Valerian once threw Loki out a window when she was eight and he was annoying her. Her father is a Councilor, and her mother was one of the healers. She is quite the young woman and Raisa plays at being shallow but isn't. She has quite the mind that has many twists and turns. She is much like her father in that."

"I learned to respect Xander during the battle," she said. "I will test the girls to see where their training is and if I can add to it." He smiled and nodded. "That may be the defeat of that prophecy."

"Xander is a highly overprotective father. If I even flirted with one of his daughters, he would make sure I am honorable at sword point in the middle of the night." He went back inside.

"Many fathers are that protective but they also become overbearing. At least his daughters get to grow up normally with normal restrictions and expectations."

***

"Hi-yah!" one of the minis yelled, waking Xander up. He blinked, looking around his room. No mini fighting. He looked under his bed, nodding at the two sleepy girls down there. "I think it's time to get up." He heard the battle yell again and sighed, going to see who they were attacking. Coulson. "Ladies," he warned. "We don't want him to hate us."

"They're adorable," Phil Coulson said patiently. "They were staff fighting and managed not to get me once."

"We know you're not a threat or else we'd have shoved you in the dumpster," one of the minis quipped with a grin for him. She looked at Xander. "You told us to practice in here."

"I did." He leaned on the stair railing. "For now, don't get the agent dented. His people are SHIELD and kinda weird." They sighed, going to the official practice room with their staffs. "Thanks." He slowly walked down the stairs, staring at him. "What's wrong now?"

"I came to check on you to make sure you're all right. Plus to get an official debriefing."

"Didn't Natasha do that?"

"No. She was working for Captain Rogers." Xander rolled his eye as he walked off to the kitchen.

"Dad, we made scrambled eggs and coffee," Cygyn called. "Sophie's getting new notebooks and we have a dart on her to make sure she's not kidnaped or anything. We let you sleep in because we wanted to play with makeup and stuff before battle pratice."

He frowned, leaning into the room she was reading in. "I don't care if you girls play with makeup, though yours is a mess." She pouted. "It really does look nasty." She held up a magazine. "Yeah, you can't pull that off, daughter. We'll see if someone can teach you how to do it properly, or just wear it like you did on Asgard that time. That looked subtly nice." She grinned, going to wash her face and start again. "And if the minis want to wear makeup the age is puberty plus a year."

"Yes, Dad. Thanks."

"Welcome. Just dress like a human earthling instead of an Asgardian mini warrior please. No more bra tops without a shirt."

"Yes, Dad," she sighed. All the older girls went to change and put on better makeup. They were teenage girls and things like that were important to them. Though none of them understood why teenage American girls squealed so often or lived on the phone.

Xander looked at Coulson, getting his breakfast. "They were being sneaky but sweet."

"It seems like it." He stared at him. "Your daughter and her wife presented Thor with things?"

"Artifacts the staff noticed and sent to safety before the last battle."

"Ah. Important ones?"

"His mother's crown? Probably. One was his father's crown. I found his father's body and he never made it to the honoring ceremony."

"I'm sure that would upset him. Some of the world leaders there to talk to him about things heard a quip from that one female...."

"Valkyrie."

"Valkyrie then. That they may be the cure to the prophecy that you'd take over the throne?"

"They're teasing Thor that he needs to find a decent wife someday soon. Kings need heirs. There's still the blessing on her that if she gives me grandkids they'll be just like me." He grinned sweetly at him while the agent shuddered. "Exactly." He ate a bite of eggs. "At least Loki can brew a calming potion. Valerian might be talked into giving him an heir without wearing his ring because she's married but they'd still be a great, wild thing."

Coulson nodded. "I can see how that would be a bouncy child."

"And stubborn," Atlina called before walking in. "Dad, I can't get my hair up," she pouted.

He turned her around to brush it and put it up in a sideways braid around her head for her. "It's like french braiding only sideways," he said quietly.

"Thanks, Dad." She plucked the hair that had fallen into his eggs off, skipping off again. "Can I go hit on one of the warriors?"

"No. They need time to calm down and resettle," Xander called after her. "Right now they'd probably be a bit overly hot from the remaining battle stress. Give it a few months."

"Yes, Dad. One's down here."

"Bring him in here. I'm dressed in jammies but I'm good enough." He plucked out another hair and ate another bite, nodding at the warrior. He was a young guy, looked nervous. "I'm not that mean of a father," he said. "You wanted permission to ask one of the girls out?"

"Yes, Lord Xander. I wished to ask our Raisa."

"You know she's married, right?"

"Our people will need children."

"Which they can do," Xander said dryly. "Your healers and the doctors on Earth can both make sure they have children."

"I could father them."

"Tip, kid. Valerian won't ever let a man touch her." The guy slumped. "And you won't be breaking them up probably. They're pretty happy together."

"But we'll need heirs."

"And they can do that while still together," Xander repeated. "I won't have them broken up." The warrior glared. Xander stared back. "I don't know why you hate them being together, kid, but the answer is no." The warrior attacked him so he moved out of the way and kicked him onto the kitchen counter. The guy tried to grab a knife so Xander got his wrist and got him turned around, pulling the knife hand up behind his back. He sighed. "You had to do this while I'm in jammies," he said dryly. "I'll be back, Coulson. Ladies?" he called. "Let me escort him home."

"They're on Aflheim," Raisa called. She walked in and paused. "Oh, him. Yeah, he hates lesbians." She got some coffee and walked off. "Have fun letting Thor kick his ass."

"Yup." Caught the part of his staff, letting it carry him there. He sighed as he walked the guy up to where Valkyrie was guarding the doorway. "He wanted to date my daughter Raisa so she wasn't with her wife. Claimed it would hurt them breeding."

She grimaced. "It's too bad he was saved when more worthy warriors were lost," she said.

"Yup. Thor?"

"Sleeping," she said.

"Loki?"

"Annoyed anyway," she admitted, going to get him. They came back out.

Xander handed the guy over, still holding the knife but his arm in a painful position that was paralyzing it. "He believes that he should break up lesbians so they can be bred."

Loki grimaced. "Our healers can make one of them carry a child between them."

"I pointed that out." Xander shrugged. He handed the kid over. The kid got free but Xander kicked him on the hip, knocking him over. "You're not worthy to stand in his presence. Or hers."

"She's just a warrior," the boy sneered.

"She's one of the reasons we won against Hela, kid. She's thousands of times better as a warrior than I am or you can ever hope to be." The kid hopped up and she knocked him back down and out this time. He took his kitchen knife back, looking at Loki. "It was give him back or bury him in the backyard. The girls might sniffle over that." The staff wouldn't take him back. "Crap. Are you out of residual energy?" he asked it. Loki groaned and powered it to let him go home. "Thanks," he called, looking up and smiling with a wave. "Didn't want to find a cab in jammie pants." He went back to the kitchen. The knife got tossed into the sink and he got back to breakfast.

Coulson put up his phone, which was showing live video from the site. "Who is that one?"

"Valkyrie."

"Is she native Asgardian?"

"As far as I was told, yup. You'd have to ask her for her back story. All I know is that Thor found her on Skaar or something like that."

"Huh. Interesting." He made that note for himself. "Is she staying?"

"Nope. She's helping Thor rebuild."

"That's fine. Does she get along with Sif?"

"No clue. I don't know if they've even met yet."

"Huh. I know the girls look up to Sif."

"They should. She's a great warrior who has more than that to her name. She lives a pretty normal life between battles and is someone that the slayers should look up to."

"I feel the same way about some of my female agents." He stared at him. "Are you really all right?"

"I'm fine. The only thing I need to do is an eye wash."