The second the three ferals walked in, Xander knew he was in for it. He quickly slid the red-tinted 'sunglasses' into his pocket before turning to greet them.

"Hey guys." He said innocently. "I found some…"

"How'd you do it?" Shalimar demanded. I'm dead, Xander thought.

"Do what?"

"Let me think for a minute." Look's like that glare's genetic, Xander thought. "Hack the com signal, spot the ring or figure out what it was? Your choice." Xander gulped as Giles came out of the kitchen.

"I take it you took care of Spike then." He asked. In his hand was a large old book.

"Yeah." Buffy said, also glaring at him. "With help from Xander."

"Yes, so I gathered from Shalimar's outburst." The former Watcher looked over at his young friend. "I suggest you tell us how you did it." He said. I am so dead, Xander thought. He took a breath.

"First, Buffy, you might want to come over here so you can hit me." He said. Buffy continued to glare at him. "Okay, maybe not." He took another breath. "I'mHomoSupereiorIcananalyzedatafasterthananysupercomputerIonlyfoundoutacoupleofmonthsagopleasedon'tkillme." Buffy's glare was suddenly full of daggers.

"You shit!" She screamed. "You make me feel bad about keeping my mutantcy a secret and you neglect to mention you're a natural mutant? What, you think a man made mutant is beneath you or something?" Angel wrapped his arms around her, partly to calm her down, partly to stop her from tearing Xander's head off. Shalimar, however, wasn't held back by anyone. Her fist exploded across Xander's jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"I guess I deserved that." He said.

"Yes, you did." Shalimar agreed, moving back to Buffy's side.

"I wish I'd taken your advice now." Buffy said darkly. "When were you going to tell us?"

"I don't know." Xander thought. "It always seemed like a pretty useless power anyway. Correlating and analysing data, coming to a conclusion based on it. What possible use could that be?" Buffy's look change to one of amusement. "What?"

"Contradicting Apocalyptic prophecies." Buffy said, before cracking up. Xander gave her a confused look.

"I think what she's trying to say," Giles started. "is that you could gather the data from several prophecies, cross it with current events, and come up with a reasonably accurate assumption of what was happening in less time than it takes us normally." Xander looked at the Englishman.

"Oh. Yeah. Oops." He said after a while. By this time, every one was laughing.

"So, how did you find out?" Buffy said after finally managing to stop laughing. "When you spoke to me about your trip, all I got was something about your car breaking down, and you working as a male stripper." Angel raised an eyebrow at that. Shalimar resumed laughing.

"Dear God, lad, is that the best story you could come up with?" Giles asked with a grin.

"It worked." Xander said defensively. "I made her promise not to mention it, hence, not having to give any details."

"Sure." Buffy said. Xander gave her a withering look.

"Can we wait til everyone gathers, please?" He said. "I don't want to tell this story a hundred times." Buffy nodded.

"This had better be good." She said.

"I still don't believe you didn't tell me!" Willow screamed for the thousandth time once they were all gathered at the manor, Cane included. Joyce merely glared at the boy. After what he did to her daughter, he pulls something like this.

"Wills, calm down." Xander said. "Mrs Summers, if you're going to say something…"

"After what you did to my daughter…"

"Mom, settle down, please." Buffy said. "I'm sure he had his reasons." She turned her glare to him again. "And it had better be good." She muttered.

"Okay." Xander took a breath. This was not going to be enjoyable. "What I originally told you, Buffy, wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't a total lie, either. I made it as far as L.A, and then the engine fell out the bottom of my car…"

Xander's view. The past.

"Shit!" I muttered, kicking the tyre. This wasn't my day. I looked around at the City of Angels, kind of wishing, for the first time ever, Deadboy were around. Especially after I saw some girl being led into an alley by tall, dark and creepy. "I left Sunnydale to get away from this crap." I muttered, walking towards the alley, cross in hand. I know, not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I figured hey, it's just the one. I can handle one.

Like I said, the stupidest thing I've ever done. Because there wasn't just the one. There were more like ten of them, and they weren't too happy that I interrupted their meal.

"Didn't your mother's ever teach you it's rude to bite?" The first thing that came out of my mouth, and probably the last. At least, that was the thought at the time. Until the 'victim' showed she wasn't so helpless as she looked.

"You bloodsuckers need to be taught some manners." She said, getting to her feet. She had this unbelievably silver hair, and looked like a goddess. Especially when she floated about ten inches off the ground. A wind whipped through the alley and dark clouds gathered overhead faster than I thought possible. The lightening started flying from the woman in question, controlled, striking only the vamps, until there were no vamps.

"And I thought you needed help." I said with my trademark grin. The woman merely glared at me.

"You should not be here." She said. "You do not know what you are dealing with." I think that's when she noticed my cross. "Or perhaps you do."

"Yep, spent my entire life in a town full of them." I said. "'Course, I only found out about five years ago. Been fighting them ever since. Me and some friends."

"Impressive." The woman said.

"Xander Harris." I said, sticking my hand out. The woman took it.

"Ororo!" A guy came out of the sky. Literally, zoomed down faster than Giles around Jelly doughnuts.

("I beg your pardon?" Giles interjected. The other Scoobies grinned. It was true.)

My reaction was understandable.

"Holy shit!" I yelled as he landed, glowing slightly. "How-wow-wow…" I took a breath, calming myself down. "How'd you do that?"

"Cannonball can surround himself in a blast shield which makes him impervious to harm. It also allows him to fly." The woman, Ororo informed me.

"So I noticed." I said, slightly freaked. "And you control the weather, right?" Ororo nodded. "Cool. One more question, how do you do that?"

"We're mutants." A voice said from behind me. I turned to be faced with yet another hot boded babe, this one with black hair and a pair of strange tattoo's on her face. "Homo Superior. Like yourself."

"Me? No way, uh-uh, not happening. Sorry, but you've got your wires crossed somewhere… What do they call you anyway? Tats?" Cannonball snorted. I even got a smile out of Ororo. The woman in front of merely looked at me.

"An obvious assumption, considering my appearance." She said calmly. Talk about your ice queens. This one could have frozen a fire. "I am called Sage. I observe, I correlate and I come to a conclusion. This," She tapped her glasses. "is actually a computer, with a various array of scanners. Including genetic. You have the X Gene that makes a base line human a mutant. It's active, which makes me wonder why you haven't had any outbursts."

"Unless my powers the ability to attract carnivorous demons." I said, my head spinning. Me, a mutant? I'm the zeppo; there is no way that was possible. "Can you tell with that thing what my powers are, if any?"

"That's the odd thing." Sage said. "I can't seem to decipher anything but the fact that you're a mutant. We'd have to run some tests to figure that out."

"Great." I muttered. "I get to be poked and prodded til I blow something up." Cannonball guffawed again.

"Ah wonder how you became active?" He said, and I noticed his Kentucky accent for the first time. "Usually happens durin' times of stress an' what not."

"Times of stress?" I thought back on my life on the Hellmouth over the past five years. "Well, it would be easier to list the non-stressful times in my life." Cannonball laughed again.

"Ah like this one." He said. "Can we keep 'im?"

"Hey, I'm house broken." I said, burying my concerns under my humour, like usual. Inside, though, I was panicking. A mutant? What would the guys think?

The present.

"So you know why I kept it a secret." Buffy said. She was still a bit steamed, but she could understand why he did it. "And you still lost it?"

"I know I don't know why I did. I'm still trying to master the training I got off Sage, so I don't have full control over my emotions." Xander told her. "Anyway, after a few days, we found out, completely by accident, that I was like Sage; a living super computer. She started training me, pushing so hard, I thought I was going to go into meltdown. I survived, and came back. Sage gave me these before I left." He pulled the red tinted glasses out. "It's still hooked up to their network, so I can access whatever info they have stored, and I can get in contact with Sage if necessary."

"Wow." Oz said. Willow merely looked at her friend. There was something very familiar about this, suddenly it hit her.

"Ororo. Was she African?" She asked. Xander smiled.

"Yes, Wills." He said. "She was."

"You met the X-Men?" She blurted suddenly. The rest of them looked at her, then at Xander.

"Met and was accepted by." He said with a grin. "Well, by the external team, anyway. They pulled away from the home team based at the Xavier Institute to protect the normal people without any powers, while the main team took care of bigger threats." He didn't tell them of Sage's suspicions concerning Professor Xavier himself, or the fact that he agreed that the data she had supported those conclusions, not that there was much. They didn't need the world of the X-Men on top of everything else.

"Makes sense." Buffy said. "I mean, the big guns can't handle everything all the time. I still wish you'd told us earlier. A true friend can be trusted with the greatest burden." There was a collective coughing fit as she said that. Even Angel was a bit surprised. Cane, however, simply smiled. It would seem he was at least able to teach someone something. "What?"

"We're not used to you spouting philosophical like that." Her sister stated. "You surprised us."

"What can I say?" Buffy said, shrugging and pointing at Cane. "He rubs off on you."