Xander watched sadly, with a crying girl on each shoulder as the casket was lowered into the ground.

This month had just gotten worse and worse.

It'd started off with Xander and Oz getting jumped by a fledgling's sire when they went to stake him. They'd managed to stake them both, but had taken a real beating doing so. Oz had been healed a couple of days later by the rising of the moon, while Xander was still nursing a couple of cracked ribs and some major bruises. He'd jokingly asked if Jordy, Oz's nephew who had infected Oz with lycanthropy, needed a baby sitter. It'd made Oz laugh. Well, actually it'd just made a corner of his mouth twitch, which was the equivalent of a belly laugh in anyone else, but Cordelia and Willow read Xander the riot act and Cordelia had told him she didn't want to see him until he quit slaying.

Just a week later Buffy had returned and her welcome home party had been interrupted by a zombie uprising, which had left Xander with some interesting bites and even more bruises, it had also left him with a growing fondness for axes. He'd thought Buffy and Willow's little rant about him being more careful, as if Zombies attacking were something he could have just sat out, was the low point of the summer, but then his Uncle Walter had died.

Walter was the only member of his family that he'd really liked. Well, other than Walter's daughter's Cathy and Danielle. Cathy and Danielle were like slightly more geeky and less social versions of Willow, so of course they were his favorite cousins. Still, he had no idea why he was required to attend the will reading even if he was glad he'd be there to help the twins deal with things.

Xander held the girls while they cried and thanked the various distant relatives and friends of Walter that offered their condolences, since the girls were too distraught to.

There was a small group of people at the funeral he didn't know that stood together and were in suspiciously good shape, although the way they were dressed gave the opposite impression. Xander was positive that the glasses several of them were wearing were in fact plain glass and he had no idea what was going on with them.

Xander held the girls and did his best to comfort them while the grave was filled in. Giving them a squeeze, he slipped out of their arms long enough to stick some communion wafers in the soil and offer a quick prayer that he'd memorized. Sure, his uncle had died of a heart attack and not a gang member on PCP, but it never hurt to be careful.

He lead the girls back to the car where Sancho was waiting.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Anything?" Steve asked, as they watched The Chameleon's family depart.

"They prayer was in Latin and the wafers he stuck in the soil seem familiar," Phil replied. "I have a vague memory of seeing something like that done before, but nothing off the top of my head. I'll have to do some research and get back to you."

"Good man. Let me know if you find anything."

"He could just be a normal teen," Josie suggested.

Phil shook his head. "Normal teens don't carry an aura of darkness, pain, and death that radiates twenty feet from them."

"Is that bad?" Steve asked.

"Barron Battle's aura only radiated twelve," Phil said flatly.

"That's bad," Steve and Josie chorused.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Walter hadn't been super rich or anything like that, but he had been comfortably well off thanks to a few patents. He had a large five bedroom house with three full bathrooms and a two car garage set on a half dozen acres of forestry on the outskirts of Maxville.

'How in the world did he end up with an Amerind butler named Sancho who speaks with a British accent?' Xander thought to himself, still trying to puzzle out the complicated family servant as a means of distracting himself. Sancho had been a godsend, taking care of the funeral details and making sure everyone ate. If something needed to be done, Sancho would often be found doing it before it even occurred to anyone else.

"The will reading is tomorrow at noon, sir," Sancho said as Xander prepared for bed. "I've taken the liberty of laying out several selections of clothes for it."

"Thanks, Sancho," Xander said gratefully.

Sancho nodded and left.

Xander looked over at the clothes selection laid out on the desk and chuckled. 'He's either got one hell of a sense of humor, or I've somehow given him the impression that I'm a crossdresser,' Xander thought to himself as he took in the dresses laid out along with the selection of suits.

Xander flipped off the lights and climbed into bed. Tomorrow's will reading would tell him why he needed to be here and then he could go home. Well, once his cousins were feeling better anyway. School started in a couple of days, but family comes first.

He was almost ready to drop off when he heard the bedroom door open and close. The bed shifted a little and someone climbed under the covers with him. The glint of reddish blonde hair let him know it was one of his cousins and less than five minutes later the other one snuck in as well.

It reminded him of when they were kids and the summer they refused to call him anything but Bear, as they insisted he was their personal stuffed animal even though they were almost the same age as him.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Xander awoke with a start at the sound of his uncle clearing his throat, the sight of his transparent form hovering over the bed caused him to yelp. He quickly shook the girls awake, thinking Walter may have come back to deliver a message to them. 'How weird is it that I don't panic at this sort of thing?' Xander thought to himself as the girls stared at the apparition.

"Alexander, I had the honor of naming you and I think I chose rather well. I have… contacts in Sunnydale and have followed your exploits closely," Walter said with a smile.

"Thanks," Xander offered lamely.

"I would rather have raised you myself than let you grow up on a Hellmouth, but what's done is done. As you know, I'm dead and there was so much I wanted to say to you that I'll never get the chance to now."

"What about Cathy and Danielle?" Xander asked.

Walter flickered and his gray suit changed into a pair of bunny slippers and bathrobe. "My girls," he said wistfully. "I raised them the best I could, with my condition, but I wish I could have done more." He ran his hand through his thinning hair.

"You did a fine job," Xander tried to assure him, the girls watching but staying silent. 'Condition?'

"They need a stern hand to keep them in line and I'm afraid that responsibility is going to fall to you now."

"Wha…?" Xander looked at the two girls and they buried their faces in his shoulders.

"Plenty of affection and a little discipline is the key to keeping them happy," Walter said. "And now you can rely on them to tell you what they need. Take care of them for me."

"I will," Xander promised.

Walter flickered and was in his gray business suit again. "I'm leaving everything to you, Alex. My legacy is now yours, for good or ill."

Walter vanished, leaving the three in the dark and Xander was uncomfortably aware that Cathy and Danielle were in fact female. "Firm hand?" Xander asked, his voice cracking as some truly horrible thoughts ran through his brain.

"We'd act up to make him pay attention to us," Cathy admitted.

"It's pretty common among teenage girls, most simply aren't self-aware enough to know why they're doing it," Danielle added.

"Okay, I can see that," Xander admitted, thankful it hadn't been anything near as bad as he'd been thinking.

"We once wired his car with explosives and blew it up when he got involved in a project and ignored us for two weeks," Cathy whispered.

"When he was punishing us, he had to oversee the chores he made us do so he couldn't ignore us at all," Danielle added with a wistful smile.

"Note to self, never ignore the girls," Xander whispered.

The twins giggled.

"Please tell me he was right about you telling me what you needed," Xander pleaded.

"We will," Cathy promised.

Danielle sighed. "And right now we need sleep."

"Night," Xander whispered, deciding he needed a lot of sleep before he dealt with anything more.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Time to get up, sir," Sancho announced.

Xander awoke with Cathy and Danielle curled up on either side of him, their eyes still a bit red and puffy from all the crying they'd done.

"The girls will be fine, sir," Sancho said. "They just need a bit more sleep."

"I could use a bit more sleep," Xander muttered.

"Indeed, sir," Sancho replied. "However, I thought it best for you to talk to the executor alone so as not to stress the girls unduly."

"That probably would be best," he agreed.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Barron Battle pulled the trench coat he wore over his battered black and red armor a little tighter.

Walter was his wife's cousin, but he was also the one who had arranged for him to have a competent lawyer every time he'd been arrested, so when he'd been notified that Walter had died, he'd broken out of jail to attend his funeral. He hadn't intended to attend the will reading, but he'd already missed the funeral, so the least he could do was pay his respects to the family.

Barron Battle knew he stuck out, the fedora and trench coat he wore did little to disguise his massive frame or the double bladed battleaxe he was carrying, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that The Commander was little better in a suit and tie with Jet Stream and the Blue Mage.

The lawyer waited until everyone was seated before beginning, "Greetings everyone, this is the reading of the will for the estate of Walter Mitty. If you are not here for that, please leave at this time." Several seconds passed before he continued, "Alright, I will start with the reading of the will. I Walter Mitty-"

Xander stood up in the front row and started walking towards the back just before the sounds of screams and glass breaking came through the door. Peeking his head out the back door, he quickly pulled back and closed the door behind himself, scanning the room for weapons. Spotting Barron Battle's axe, he quickly grabbed it. "You don't mind if I borrow this, do you? Thanks."

The Commander and Barron Battle exchanged horrified glances as the door closed behind Xander.

"What just happened?" Jet Stream asked the Blue Mage, thinking she'd missed something.

"The Blood Axe has chosen a new master," the Blue Mage replied. "Poor kid."

"I-I'm free," Barron Battle said in wonder.

Typing By: Abyssal Angel

AN: Sky High doesn't get nearly enough use

TN: Is that what this is? No wonder I didn't recognize it. I tried out the source material once but I didn't like it much. Too much Hollywood style "High School Drama" ™. The premise was good, but I'm allergic to that kind of genre. One day I'd love to see a "High School Drama" ™ turned on its head by writing the setting out into what High School is actually like. It'd be a boring one shot, but it'd exist, and that would satisfy me like nothing else.