Revelations In White Light

Author: Anime Ronin

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Summary: Challenge/Story Idea from SwordofChiyun that involves Xander getting kicked out of Scoobies after Graduation and revelations of his real father and shades of his mother's family's past.

Crossover: Yes, with Charmed and some hints of Hercules.

AN: Stars in the early 5th Season after Hiatus, or 2 ½ months after last chapter. Also note there will be a huge gap in between one part and another – it will be explained later.

AN2: Narrator stuff is denoted by & & marks.

AN3: In this fic, Glory actually has a mind – don't expect to see her for a while.

Chapter 7 – From The Mouth Of Hell He Shall Rise

{X/F/D's Place – morning}

He knew who it was even before he opened his eyes – for the past two and a half months Hope Dawn Williams, sister of Faith Williams, had been doing her best to get into his pants, despite the fact that she was only fifteen years old; she had grown up in Boston, but had been raised by one of Faith's aunts, away from the hellhole that had been Faith's home, and aside from having a penchant for crawling into bed with him, an act that Faith seemed to mirror as well, she and Faith seemed like night and day. Where Faith was emotionally closed off, Dawn let it all hang out, and visa versa, and while Faith had toned it down, somewhat, Dawn seemed to attract guys like flies to honey and didn't seem to notice. When he did ask her about her name, why she didn't use 'Hope', Dawn merely snorted, and returned with how cheesy that sounded to her and her family 'Faith and Hope' – like it was a sitcom or something. As much as he hated it, she was right, so he called her Dawn.

Speaking of which, "Dawn?"

"Yeah, lover boy?" She had taken to calling him that after the second day of Faith calling him 'Boy Toy' and while Faith and Sonja, now back in her right mind, as were the other ladies, thought that it was funny, Willow, Buffy, Jenny, Joyce and Giles most certainly did not (Tara was staying a neutral party in it all).

"While I seem to not be able to deter you from sleeping with me in the same bed, I do ask that you remove your knee from my bladder." She shifted the offending joint and he sighed, "Where's Faith?"

"Buffy wanted to work out this morning, said something about not wanting you to drive her into the ground anymore with her training."

Xander merely snorted, "She still can't accept that as a half-Slayer, she can still get her ass handed to her by me."

"You can hand me my ass anymore, lover boy ... or handle it, if you think you can."

He sighed and rolled out of bed – when she started making semi-serious remarks like that, open grabbing and partial flashing weren't far off, "I need to grab a shower, ALONE, Dawn – see ya at breakfast.

When he emerged into the kitchen twenty minutes later, clothed and ready to go, he was not surprised to see Dawn munching on cereal, Faith guzzling coffee and both Buffy and Willow chattering – he had finally come out and told them how betrayed he had felt because of them and if they ever pulled a stunt like that again, he would kill them. This had gotten some sore remarks from Buffy but both Willow and Giles had owned up to their past mistakes – as it stood, Giles was teaching Faith researching, Willow was being taught by Jenny how to focus her spell energies, not to mention her new girlfriend, Tara, as she had finally gotten around to tapping into the powers of the earth correctly, and was also teaching Dawn the rudiments of hacking, he was teaching them all down-and-dirty fighting and weapons usage, or rather, 20th century weapons usage. Joyce had taken both Dawn and Faith under her wing and was a mother figure to them all, though she still flirted outrageously with him over the 'robe incident', which Buffy was at first peeved over but eventually shrugged it off after the true culprits were uncovered. Discord, he could understand, Strife and Cupid as well, but what in the name of hell was Hestia, Greek goddess of the Hearth, thinking? Her only excuse was that she needed to let her hair down a little, to which he had replied that if she wanted to relax, look into Yoga. He was still a little sore over the entire deal, but the others had taken it too in stride, though Sonja and Jenny both told him that 'the offer' was still on the table.

"Sup, boy toy?" He looked at Faith and she smiled, "You feeling okay?"

"Right as rain. Why?"

"Because we have company." She pointed past him and into the living room, "Wicked babes, the both of them – you stepping out on me, Xand?"

He rolled his eyes, "No, Faith – if it's who I think it is, it's something I promised to a while back." He reached the coffee pot, grabbed a cup and some toast while Dawn came over and tried to grab his backside, but he orbed just as she got within range and landed in his favorite seat, looking at the trio of Greeks, "Greeting."

"Hey, kid – have a nice vacation?"

His protecting Monica and Diana, whom he had seen just the day before and was growing up fast, though she still loved keys, had earned him some major brownie points with the Elder's Council, not to mention piss off several members of the Powers That Be, and, as such, he had been given a nice vacation, "Yes, I did, but I get the feeling that the vacation is over."

The grin that Ares habitually wore vanished and he knew he was in trouble, "Yeah, it is. Look, Xander, I shit you not that this is a very dangerous assignment and if you don't want it, we'll understand."

"In broad strokes, what can you tell me?"

Athena took it up at that point, dressed in her toga and armor, but thankfully she had left her owl at Olympus, as it seemed to like perching on his shoulder and pecking at his temple, "Have you heard of the Golden Fleece?"

"As in Jason and the Argonauts?"

The goddess nodded, "One in the same. Do you remember the Initiative?"

He growled, "More than I want to."

Artemis took it over at that point, dressed in her leathers and armed, but on this occasion her hair was not as tightly braided as she normally wore it, "The remnants of the Initiative have stolen the Fleece, not to mention some of our other great items, from the families and resting places we have taken to hiding them over the past centuries and are trying to corrupt them to their own ways of war. This cannot be allowed to happen."

He nodded, his mind instantly going over the possible outcomes if some of the more recognizable things the Greeks had ever produced fell into the wrong hands, "Location?"

"Classified, but we can get you there." Ares sighed, "Look, this mission will involve the termination of numerous individuals who will be Tartarus- bent on keeping you away from those items. Can you live with that?"

"I'll learn to. Weapons?"

"Onsite procurement outside of what you bring with you, but I'd suggest bringing armor with you as well, Alexander." Athena stood, along with Ares and Artemis, and laid a hand on his shoulder, "Be ready to go in six hours."

He nodded and they vanished, allowing him to turn to the kitchen but was faced with Buffy and Willow and neither of them looked happy, "What?"

"You're going to go kill people?"

"More than likely." He brushed past them and went directly into the Armory, which he had been filling out as of late, with all-around weapons and started to strap himself into Kevlar as Buffy and Willow charged into the room, Faith et al on their heels.

"You can't do that! They have ..." He turned and pegged Buffy with a glare that told her, no, DARED her to finish that statement, "It's not legal."

"So is about 90% of the shit we do, Buffy. Look, I'm doing this job because I promised them I would – end of discussion." He orbed on standard BDUs and then strapped a tac holster to one leg, and then the other, filling them with the H&K USP .40 calibers with suppressors and adding numerous ammo pouches filled with full magazines.

"You could get KILLED!"

He looked at Willow, "So could any of you when you go out hunting vampires, Willow." Into the pockets of his Kevlar vest went odds and ends, but also several packets of pre-shaped C-4 with timers and detonators attached, "We're doing the same job, only my end of things gets more than a little dirty." He packed away several throwing knives and his favorite, a double- edged Randall knife he'd taken off of a vampire a while back before healing him to dust, "Now, if you don't mind, I am kind of on a schedule here."

"You're not going." Buffy took her patented 'Me Slayer, You Worm' stance and he looked at her for all of two seconds before snorting and going back to his work, "Damn it, Xander, what's so important about these trinkets."

"The Golden Fleece is NOT a trinket, Buffy – add to that those Initiative assholes have it now and are going to use it for themselves, something that is more than likely not good."

"What if it's to save their soldiers?"

"What if it's to make that Frankenstein of theirs work? Remember that? What if it had been allowed to go active? You're out-ranked on this one, Buffy, you all are."

"What about you? What makes you so much better than us?"

"Because out of all of you, Buffy, I am the only one capable of cold- blooded murder." He glared at her and walked over, pulling a pistol and, after racking the slide, putting it between her now very-wide eyes, "I'm the only person here capable of pulling this trigger and not losing any sleep over it – THAT is what makes me perfect for this job." He saw pure terror in her eyes as he eared back the hammer on the pistol and beads of sweat begin to pour down her face, "Now, are you going to back off NOW or do I shoot you?"

{Olympus}

"How very over-the-top of him, Ares."

He snorted and looked at Athena, "It worked, didn't it? Slayers, or, well, half-Slayers, tend to have an over-inflated sense of themselves, which is part of what got her canned in the first place and he knows how to deal with them."

"Faith seems nothing like that." Artemis seemed to have taken an unhealthy interest in the dark-haired Slayer and her little sister, but Ares knew that it was for reasons of pure greed on her part. She wanted the pair of them for her new army of Amazons and knew that they'd never leave Xander's side, which secretly irritated her.

"Because she knows that if she does get like that, she'll be taken down or out." Ares watched Xander prepare for the coming altercation with a calm that reminded him of his soldiers before a battle – they knew who they were going up against, where they were going and what the odds were of them getting back, but their minds also knew that once the battle was joined, there was nothing they or anyone could do about the randomness of chance and chaos. "Give me a dozen generals like him and I'd rule my own little corner of the world."

"Until you got greedy, brother." Ares turned and saw Hercules standing in his attire that he wore on Earth, jeans, shirt and shoes, but also wearing a grim look, "He's going, then."

"We'll get him into the instillation, but after that he's on his own."

Hercules nodded, "So, on a somewhat separate note, how's your new High Priestess?"

{Initiative Instillation – Mission Start}

Not ten seconds into the beginning of his mission and there was already a problem – apparently the people who planned the instillation were idiots because they had posted the entire floor plan of the place on a wall, which he memorized, but also everyone in the place that was not armed spoke only Italian, one of the few languages he didn't know how to make himself known in. Fortunately, though, the understanding that came from looking down the barrel of a gun was very clear – he knocked out and locked up a dozen people in the first few rooms and proceeded down a hall, pistols suppressed and at the ready even as kittens, no, full-grown tigers began to fight in his stomach.

"Halt." He went on pure instinct, turned and fired once, putting a single .40 caliber hollow point into the skull of the solider that was standing behind him, weapon drawn. He reacted without thought and drug the dead soldier off to one side, stripping him of anything that might look useful, including card keys, actual keys, the man's MP-5, mags and his lone flashbang grenade.

The next hour was a blur to him – instead of going directly for the centrally located items, he stopped off into the security rooms and took out cameras, guards, unlocked doors and checked the locations of people, things and if there was anything he needed to know about because, aside form the odd guard, it was WAY too quiet in the instillation. Finally, though, when he was sure that everything was set, he went into the storage room and grabbed the items that Ares and the others had sent him after – The Golden Fleece, Sandals of Hermes, a dagger coated in Hind's blood and something that looked like a gem-encrusted Rubik's cube. Of course, that was when the shit hit the fan.

"Very impressive, young man." He turned, weapons drawn, and came face to face with an older gentleman in a nice suit holding a pistol, no, a freaking hand cannon, "I must say that I am impressed, though, truth to tell, after you brought to light our Sunnydale compound to rescue that one young woman, I would have thought that you would have left us alone."

"You have no right to use these things, sir, and their owners wanted them back."

The man nodded, "Be that as it may, you are not leaving with them in your possession, not even with that teleportation trick of yours. You see, I made sure that after the Sunnydale debacle, we read up on you, Mister Harris, and it was a fascinating read, I must say."

"I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sir – who are you?"

"Call me George, or Oversight, if you must."

"Okay then, George, what happened to that doctor I took the hand off of? Last I saw of her, she wasn't looking too good."

"Maggie was ... dealt with, appropriately, Mister Harris. She cursed your until the moment she died."

"Aw, my heart's just broken right in two, see?" Taking a chance, he reached into his pocket slowly and drew out one of his little gadgets, which looked exactly like a pack of smokes, "Want one?"

"No thank you, son; I quit last year – disgusting habit, I must say."

Xander shrugged, "To each his own." He lit up the first smoke and took in a deep lungful before slowly letting it out and looking around, taking note of the several dozen soldiers that had come in, weapons trained on him, and recognized one of them, "Well, hi, Captain Cardboard! How's the arm?" Riley Finn growled and his finger tightened on the trigger just a hair too much, firing a shot that struck Xander in the shoulder and spun him around, but thankfully the vest he was wearing caught most of it, "Oh, that sucks – breaking the ROE's already? Not smart, son, not smart at all."

"What makes you say that, Mister Harris? We have you outnumbered, out gunned and in a tactically superior position."

"True, but I have you in ways that you can't believe, or did you think that I'd come in here without hedging my bets?" With that said, he mashed down on his right heel and triggered the remote detonator he had placed there, which set off the C-4 he had placed in several key spots around the base, "For future reference, don't leave pipes exposed, because all it takes is some C-4 to really fuck your day up the ass."

Fire alarms started to wail and by reflex, all of the soldiers began to fire even as he felt a feeling of lightness around his body – the sudden impact of so many bullets, calibers ranging from 5.56 mm, 9mm, 7.62mm, .45 cal, and the odd 5.7mm, on his body and in unprotected areas brought forth an agony that blossomed throughout his body even as he felt someone orbing him and the items out of the base as the ruptured gas lines began to detonate in the base armory, causing massive damage and what felt like a magnitude 7 earthquake shake the floor.

When the feeling of lightness left, all he was left with was the agony he was in as bloody gushed out of his body, coating the stone surface he had fallen to, and blurrily saw someone rush over to him and brush the hair out of his face before sucking back a breath.

"Alejandro?" Even as his world began to fade to black, he saw his mother's anguished face and noticed the robes she was wearing – the robes of the High Priest/Priestess of Ares.

"Mamma?" The world then faded to blackness of unconsciousness and possible death.

{Olympus}

Ares looked down at the image of his High Priestess covering her son with the Golden Fleece, it's magical healing abilities doing all it could to save him, but in his heart of hearts he knew it would not be enough. Xander would die if he didn't intervene, but the only option left was one he swore to himself he'd never take, not after the last time a mortal had gotten their hands on the stuff. Unfortunately, though, his only choice was the lack of options as he went over to a central table and grabbed the few remaining pieces of the slightly gelatinous substance and sighed as the others in the Pantheon looked at him and nodded.

{Road outside of Sunnydale – 3 months later}

To say that it had been a trying few months would be the understatement of the fucking century – first off, boy toy had vanished off of the face of the planet, not even Red's locator spells could find him, neither could his real dad, Leo, or anyone else up there, and then these strange guys dressed in armor started to come out of the fucking woodwork and trying to find 'the Key', which turned out to be her own baby sister, Hope Dawn Williams. Apparently some monks had made with the mojo and not only implanted her in the group, but an entire set of memories that involved her that had never existed before – it was like two lives, but if Faith had her choice, she'd take Dawn any day of the week. It had been a mindfuck on everybody, D included as she was taking it the hardest, but what really made it bad was that her best friend wasn't there to help her keep level.

The guys, who were called the Knights of Byzantium, or something, started hunting them down once they figured out who Dawn really was and apparently weren't afraid to attack right in broad daylight, which lead to their current predicament – they were on the road out of Sunnydale in a jacked RV, G being looked after by Red and Tiger, as Sonja and Jenny were out to lunch somewhere, not able to help at all, B was busy up top and Joyce was driving while she was the last line of defense for Dawn.

"We're going to die, aren't we, Faith." Dawn had lost about ten pounds in the past month, weight that she didn't exactly have to lose at all in the first place with as skinny as she had been, and looked like a scarecrow with baggy, sunken eyes and slightly hollowed cheeks.

"No, we ain't sis – they didn't bring enough people to get past me." Unfortunately, Faith knew that unless they got a miracle in the next few hours, they'd be fucked, hard, "We'll make it."

"There! Pull in there, mom!" B yelled through a broken window and pointed out an old gas station and Joyce followed the directions, allowing them to pull in and bail inside of the old place, Red and Tiger putting up some kind of magical shield. "Is everyone okay?" Since B had gotten her full powers back, she'd been a little overbearing, but remembered to check herself more often than not.

"No, we're not – these knights have wizards of their own and they'll break through our barrier, eventually." Red walked over and sat down next to D, who leaned into her, "I wish Xander were here."

"Ask and ye shall receive." There was a shower of golden sparks and a solid form dressed in black leather stood before them, one that had Faith first blinking and then drooling – X stood before them, decked out in full leather armor that looked just like the stuff Ares wore on the television show, with his family sword at his side, his hair longer and a somewhat cocky grin plastered on his face, "Hi guys, miss me?"

"Where in the HELL have you been?" B tried to take his head off with a punch, but to everyone's shock, he caught it with ease and held her hand there with a cold look at her.

"Olympus, if you must know – I'll give you the details later, but right now I have some Knights to kill." He came over and hugged her close, which she weakly returned as tears began to form, and then stooped down to hug D, who held on for all she was worth until she let go and fell into Red's side, "Don't worry – there's nobody out there who can kill me."

"What makes you think that, Xander?"

He looked over at Joyce and smiled, "What can kill a demi-god, Joyce?" With that said, he orbed out of the small garage area and to the other side of the shield, sword out, and began to tear into the knights with quick, brutally final attacks that left the opposition all dead – one could call it poetic justice, that the men who said they were doing God's will were being taken out by someone who called himself a demi-god, but she and B, who joined her at a window, though she was standing on a crate, saw that several arrows that were shot into him merely bounced off and that he displayed a strength that none of them could possibly begin to eclipse.

B was the first one to speak, "Well, great, Xander does it again."

"He always saves us, B – it's in his blood."

"Not that," B snapped. "He's stronger than us again! Why is it him that gets all of the breaks?"

"How about we listen to his side before we judge, Buffy." G-man looked more than a little worn out, but some of the herbs that Tiger had given him appeared to have kicked in, "There are very few ways to become a demi-god, as we know he was not born as one, and none of them are particularly easy."

"Nah, it was real easy, G-man," X said, orbing back into the room with a bloody sword in one hand and a rag in the other. "Only problem was making the choice – and after you do make it, one way or another, you always question that choice because you can't un-make it." Faith saw X raise his hand and instantly they all found themselves back in B's house, and both Sonja and Jenny were waiting there, looking very worried as they went to work on the numerous cuts, scraps and wounds they had as X cleaned his sword and then sat down, his armor creaking slightly and D becoming fused to him at the hip.

"So, Xander, you said something about explanations?" Joyce looked ready to pass out from shock, but settled for sitting down in her chair as X smiled that smile of his.

"Yeah, you see, it all starts out that night I went on the recovery mission. You see I nearly died..."

{Flashback – 3rd person POV, movie-style}

&You see, the guys who ran the Initiative back there had been studying me, you know, just on the off chance that I came there to the stuff. Well, I got the things but they were waiting on me, so I activated a backup plan that I was going to use to level the base, but when that happened, they filled me full of holes and someone orbed me to my mom, who was the new High Priestess of Ares. After that, well, I only know it third-hand. &

"Lord Ares, I beseech thee to help my son, your servant by blood."

"Oh, be quiet, Jessie – I'm here." Ares looked at Xander, who looked on the verge of death, and then at the pieces of Ambrosia in his hand, "Kid? Can you hear me?"

"Y-y-y-yeah."

"Look, I need you to be damned sure about this – not even I can save you, but this can, and there's a price."

"P-p-p-price?"

"Ambrosia, last of the stuff, and it'll make you a demi-god, at least."

{End Flashback - Sunnydale}

"Ambrosia? DEMI-GOD?"

Xander looked over at Giles and sighed, "Yes, Giles, as I stated before."

{Flashback}

&Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted...&

Ares looked down at the dying kid and saw him nod before taking the last of the Ambrosia and feeding it to the kid, a bit at a time, until it was all down his gullet and starting to work it's magic – at first, it looked as if he were too late, but soon a soft light started to be emitted from the semi- healed wounds on his body and once those had finished healing, the light spread to encase the body entirely. The last person to be given the food of the gods, or rather, that had taken it, had been Calisto, and he knew how well that had not turned out, as Ares had been the one to abandon her when she asked for his help against Xena all those centuries ago – she wasn't the most stable person to begin with, but the same could be said for the kid, so if he went bad, what would they do?

"Alejandro?"

"Will live – its all a question of how his cookies stay this time around."

{End Flashback}

"This time around?" He looked over at Willow and smiled sadly at her look of confusion.

"When I was still in training as a Whitelighter, the former Supreme Elder basically set up a hit on my family, the Halliwell's, to ensure that I'd show up and buy it too. Ares, Athena and Artemis did a spell to not only complete my Whitelighter training, but also fuse the two other spirits within me – only catch was that my mental stability wasn't assured after the fact."

Faith chimed in at that point, "Yeah, his cookies were all there, just not all in one piece, Red – I've seen him come close to losing it once or twice."

"But ... we exorcised the Hyena, remember? I mean, he never tried to get me again."

"You don't completely erase a spirit that powerful, Buffy – kind of like a hard drive in that you may erase a file, but little bits and pieces of it are still there, if you know where to look and what to look for." Willow and Buffy blanched at his words and he went on, "Soldier Boy provided the martial and weapons training, not to mention some of the tactical skills, but the rest of those skills, some physical attributes and a lot of my ... nasty nature, comes from laughing boy himself."

"And you didn't tell us this WHY?"

"Because you didn't need to know, Buffy, and more to the fact, Giles knew and I swore him to secrecy, so get over it." He hugged Dawn a little as she shivered and absently teleported in several bowls of fruit, putting a selection of cherries, melon sections and pear slices in front of her, "Eat up, Dawnie – you need to put a little weight on."

She looked up at him and snarled, "Are you saying I'm too skinny?"

"More than too skinny – a girl your age, general structure and level of activity needs to have about twenty to thirty more pounds on her, some of it muscle, some of it not."

"I swear if you're trying to make me fat I'm going to kick your ass, lover boy." She growled at him, but then her stomach growled at all of them as it registered that food was before it and not being put into it, "Quiet, traitor."

They all sat and ate in companionable silence for about twenty minutes, the fruit all being consumed and neither Dawn nor Faith leaving his side, but he could tell by the look in Giles' eyes that he'd figured out something else was up, "Go ahead and ask, G-man."

"How much longer are you going to be allowed in Sunnydale?"

Faith whipped her head around and he sighed, "Until tomorrow, noon – general consensus that I can't be around for what's coming because it's make things too easy for you guys and I'd put several old treaties between this dimension's deities and several other dimension's deities in jeopardy."

There was dead silence for several moments, even Jenny and Sonja were quiet, and finally it was Dawn who spoke, "So where are you going?"

"In the US, for starters – why I'm going to be told when Leo and the Supreme Elder get here, but I'll probably to keep me close enough to feel if anyone is really cheating." He looked over at Tara, who had not said a thing yet, "What's your view on this, Tara?"

She blinked and then looked down, obviously embarrassed, "Um, well, I-I am still getting u-used to you b-being a g-god and all. Demi-god, a- actually."

He grinned, "You and me both, Tara – I've spent the past three months or so learning everything that I could about it and I'm not even a fraction of the way there. Of course, that hasn't stopped anybody from naming me a patron god of people on Earth, though – I think that Discord and Strife were both thinking they were funny when they chose my new people."

"You're the patron god of telemarketers?" He looked up at Willow with a stricken look and she blinked, "Hey, I do remember that shouting match, you know."

"We were seven, Willow, and no, not telemarketers."

"Twinkie makers?"

He glared at Buffy, "No, but I do wish it were so. No, boys and girls, I am now the patron god of snipers – silent killers, tactical thinkers, precise marksmen and occasionally foul-tempered when they miss; Hyena Boy and Soldier Boy, and me all rolled into one, or so I was told."

"I say, huh?"

He sighed, "Buffy, snipers need to have a firm grasp on several concepts before they ever are asked to take a shot – first off, they have to know the weapon they are using and at what point he needs to be at to make the best use of that weapon. Second, he has to get to that point on foot or by some means that does not alert the intended mark, which alludes to stealth and practical thinking on where to shoot from. Third, he must be patient, willing to wait minutes, hours, hell, even days for the shot on the mark, he has to get into the mark's head, which means he's able to predict the mark's moves, and also do things in his head that will affect the shots taken."

Dawn looked up at him, smiling, "So if I become a sniper you're gonna be my patron god?"

He gave her a slightly suspicious look, "Marines?"

"Of course."

"Then maybe, but first you'd have to get past Faith, first."

The older sister snorted, "Yeah, like I'm going to let her kill people from a mile away or so. No, if she's going to do that kind of work, she's in the trenches with the rest of us." Dawn stuck her tounge out at Faith, who sneered back and then also stuck her tounge out at the younger sister while Willow raised her hand, as if she were in class.

"Yes?"

"Um, how is it that you're a patron god if you're only a demi-god?"

He shrugged, "Not sure, but like I said, it was tagged on to me a while back."

"And it was rather fitting, kid." Ares took that point to orb into the room, but also with the Supreme Elder, who had his cigar in his mouth, "But now on to business."

"Yeah, like where you're sending my Xander to." Dawn glared at Ares from her spot next to him and Faith, from the other side of him, glared at Dawn while both Buffy and Willow snickered a little, Giles looked amused, Jenny and Joyce were laughing aloud and even Tara was giggling.

Ares looked at him and he could only shrug as the elder Whitelighter nodded, "Los Angeles, for now. You come back for school at the beginning of the Fall semester – we'll have your cover story hammered out by then."

"How is it that I'm with the Greek Pantheon and yet you're hammering out my cover story?"

"Bureaucratic paper shuffling – you're still on our payroll until tomorrow, noon, but then the Greeks get ya."

Ares smiled, "You even get your own little corner up Olympus up there, kid – unfortunately, you're right next door to Aphrodite, so I'd be careful if you sleep there."

Xander only nodded and sighed, "Why me?"

Jenny looked at him oddly and Sonja smiled sweetly, "Do ya really want an answer to that?"

After a second's pause, he decided he didn't.

{Next Day}

If he thought Dawn and Faith were bad before, they were even worse that night – Dawn had shown in little more than a shirt with Faith in even less and he'd been forced to seek refuge on the couch after forcing himself not to do anything, as he was sure he wouldn't be able to stop if he started. He really didn't need to sleep, but he cat-napped and at dawn both Buffy and Willow were at his door, bearing gifts in the form of donuts, coffee and a mother, Joyce, to be precise – she made sure that he'd packed everything he would need, though he could teleport or make whatever he had forgotten, and she basically mothered him into submission and wrangled promises out of him of frequent calls and e-mails, as had the rest of the gang, save Sonja and Jenny, who promised to stop by on occasion.

Finally, though, he had his stuff packed and things ready to go as the girls broke down into weeping willows, though the original Willow was just as weepy, as the clock struck 12 and both Ares and the Supreme Elder, Josef, as it turned out, showed up and whisked him away – he didn't like the fact that something was going to happen and he wasn't going to be there to protect his girls, but Ares had been most adamant about that, as had several others higher up the food chain, one of them being Metatron, so he sucked it up and went along with the plan.

As it turned out, he wasn't going to be too far, Los Angeles, to be exact, and when he was told with whom he would be working with for the time being, he had laughed so hard that tears had come to his eyes and he'd fallen to the ground. He was about to do something that he'd never thought he'd get the chance to do again – annoy Deadboy - and he'd get to do it for an entire three months! As he orbed into the Hyperion Hotel, he decided that, yes, while life was occasionally harsh and cruel, sometimes it was just SO sweet.

Almost in accordance to his arrival, the radio sputtered to life with an old AC/DC classic, Highway to Hell, as the Fang Gang, which consisted of Captain Forehead, Cordy, a guy named Gunn, Wussley, an Agonic demon who ran a demon karaoke bar called Caritas, named Lorne, which got a snicker out of him as he'd been a fan of the show long years ago, a fresh-from-another- dimension super genius named Winifred Burkle, though she preferred to be called Fred, and an ex-cop named Kate Lockley.

"Hiya, Deadboy! Miss me?"

"Harris?" "Dweeb boy?" "Mister Harris?" "Who's white boy?" "Hi, tall, dark, and leather-clad." "Hands in the air!" "Um, who's he?" All of the answering cries, shouts, questions and greetings came as one, but he could only grin – he was going to make Angel's life a living, breathing Hell for the next few months.

"Alexander, if you please. We demi-gods DO accord a level of respect, you know."

AN: Alright, that last line did sound a little snooty, but I'm going to let him have a little fun at Captain Hairgel's expense this one time. Also, in case you haven't noticed, I'm messing with Angel's canon, too, as well as the timelines, to make the story a little more fun. Next chapter will take place between the middle of S5 and to just before the start of S6 and while there may be some Angel-whumping, there won't be much. R&R, AR.