Disclaimer - I own no one except Safira, the rest are owned by Marvel or Joss or some other company with WAY more money that me. This is for fun.
Chapter 1 – Souvenir
"Go vacation in New York," Xander muttered as he ran down the street. "See the sights, get away from the girls for a while, take a vacation." He ducked as a beam of energy shot over his head. "And what do I walk into, a freaking invasion. Once again the universe's butt monkey."
He paused, looking at the unfamiliar landscape that had become even more apocalyptic with the bodies, and pieces of buildings laying on the street creating obstacles made of rubble. There was a roar of rage above him, and he saw the Hulk slam into the building causing small pieces of brickwork to fall towards Xander.
"Ack, watch it big guy. Us poor mortals down here can't handle getting buried alive. We bleed." The chaos surrounding him actually felt nice, but he missed his axe with an ache that couldn't be explained. As he stood there, strangely untouched by the commotion going on around him, he heard a sobbing scream. That sound he knew, it was embedded in his soul, the sound of a young girl in trouble. Xander spun, already tracking the sound and saw a mother covering her daughter from the overhead weapons fire, as one of the ugly aliens approached them leveling the strange weapon at them.
"Oh I don't think so, asshat."
Xander moved, clearing the piles of mortar and cars with ease he had learned in his three years in Africa, aware of every weapon leveled his direction as he headed towards the two women. A rebar with a chunk of concrete still attached to it lay in the road right in his path. Without slowing down he grabbed it, swinging it to gain momentum as he ran. With no warning, he slammed the chunk of concrete into the back of the alien's head, then pulled it back and shoved the rebar through the aliens chest.
With a strangle gurgle it looked at him then slumped, the energy weapon tumbling to the ground.
"Go, get up. They're getting everyone to the subways for shelter. MOVE!" He infused his voice with the same threat of imminent punishment, which usually meant no ice cream, he used with the slayers. The mom, tears streaking from her eyes, grabbed her daughter and they ran.
With a fluid motion Xander grabbed the weapon and looked at it. "Hmm, Stargate style staff weapon. I can work with this." Feeling a bit better with a weapon, any weapon in his hand, he turned and saw another alien waking down the street.
"Ugly bastards." He sighted up the creature, and pulled. Nothing. He gave it another look. "Oops, backwards." Swinging it around he aimed and pulled. A pulse of pure light streaked out and impacted into the alien, obliterating his head.
"Not bad. Still miss my blasted axe. Oh well, time to go hunting. And I really wish I had let Safira come with me. She would so be enjoying this." With a smile of pure glee he headed down the street using his new toy to kill any alien he could.
Time faded and he focused on getting people off the streets, killing where he could. The occasional red and gold streak flashed above him, and once a woman with red hair that reminded him of Willow landed in front of him. She arched an eyebrow at him, he smiled and shrugged, and she took off heading towards a flying disk of red, white, and blue. A crack of thunder as a man landed near the woman and man caught his attention, but about then one of the uglies tried to grab him, and he retaliated with a vicious swing of the staff weapon into the gut, then another to the throat.
"You asshats still need to breath." He grabbed a piece of glass, broken off from one buildings and slammed into the uglies skull. Looking up he saw the three watching him, but before he could respond the explosion overhead dragged everyone's attention upwards, and every alien around dropped as if the puppet master had cut their strings. He felt his own energy sap out, and sagged back against a car and then started to actually see the destruction around him.
"Oh cleaning this up is going to suck." A slow smile spread across his face. "And staying here and rebuilding, nice straightforward hard work, that sounds like fun. And way more relaxing of a vacation than standing in lines." His voice was swallowed by all the rubble around him, but just saying the words helped pull him out of his battle zone. He walked down the street, the staff hanging in his hand. His hotel should still be in one piece, and he was keeping this as a souvenir. Buffy would be jealous.
It was a long walk back to the hotel, and a smell of food from a nearby shop spurned his stomach into action. With a sound that resembled the cry of a hunting demon, it demanded to be sated. Following his nose he stumbled into a shop, their front wall crumbled, but they were cooking.
"You serving?"
"If you've got cash, all the machines are down."
"No worries." He pulled a twenty out of his pocket handing it to the man. "Keep it."
"What can I get you?"
Xander shrugged. "Food, as much as that will get me." Minutes later he sat at one of the little tables, after brushing the debris off the top, eating the food. Delicious.
Movement caught his eye, and a group of people stumbled in, the red hair and blue and white catching his attention. He glanced up to see the woman and the man looking at him and the staff weapon on the table.
He knew exactly who they were, and normally he might have gone into geekspasms over them, but right now food and then getting started on the clean-up mattered more than anything else. A half duck of his head at both of them, and he turned his focus back to his food, the really good food. When there weren't even crumbs left. He got up, dropped another five on the table, grabbed the staff weapon and headed out. There was a half aborted, "Hey, wait," that was shushed as he climbed out the entrance and headed to the hotel. He needed his steel toed boots.
As far as he was concerned he was never wearing anything else again, kicking concrete in sneakers hurt. A smile graced his lips as he contemplated bed, and then honest labor.
"Hey, that guy is walking out with a Chitauri weapon. Why'd you stop me?" Tony protested when Natasha, Steve, and Thor had all prevented him from stopping the guy walking out of the restaurant.
"He earned it." Black Widow replied, turning her attention back to her food.
"What?" Tony sounded petulant, but no one responded. He turned his attention to Steve. "Cap, why are we letting a civilian walk out of here with a staff weapon of alien technology?"
"Cause I saw him save at least three people and kill six Chitauri with it." Steve shrugged.
"I saw at least five drop because of him." Natasha mumbled through a mouthful of food.
"I too witnessed his bravery and skill. Though I did get the feeling it was not his weapon of choice. He saved multiple people as I watched from the sky." Thor's voice boomed, but even he seemed exhausted and it didn't have the normal volume.
"Oh. Do I get one?" Tony asked.
Everyone at the table rolled their eyes at him, including Bruce, and went back to their food.
Authors Note: I hope you enjoy this story. It is complete and I will be posting the rest of the chapters in a bit. There are a few more in this series. If you want to stay up on my original work - a new Urban Science Fiction series called the Kaylid Chronicles you can sign up for the newsletter at my website: badashpublishing dot com Sorry it won't let me put in the actual website.