Dean didn't know why Hannah was taking a gymnastic class, but her classes were her business, not his. He just made sure that she had time to go to class and do her homework on top of her Slaying. This was a fairly quiet town, so that wasn't hard. He stood in the doorway to the gym and watched as two different classes were being held, one was Hannah's gymnastic class and the other was a martial arts class of some sort.

"Hannah, you'd be on the team without even halfway trying. You're a natural at this!" The man standing over Hannah as she packed her gym bag was pleading with her.

"It isn't fair for her to compete against normal girls," Dean said as he came over to stand behind her. "Hannah is a Slayer. Competing is out of the question."

"Who are you?" the man demanded.

"I'm her Watcher," Dean said calmly.

"I'm taking the class as part of my Slayer training, Mr. Ellis," Hannah said interrupting what was sure to be a testosterone showdown. "I need it for the flexibility training. I'm the smallest Slayer on record and incorporating gymnastics into my fighting skills helps to even up the odds. I learned that from Miss Summers." Buffy Summers was famous as the oldest and senior Slayer. Her size was always a surprise to those who met her face to face as she was only an inch taller than Hannah.

"You need every advantage you can get," Dean admitted. He had of course seen her fight and had trained with her, but if taking this class gave her even the slightest bit of advantage in a combat situation, then he was all for it.

"There is no way being in that pansy class can help. What you need is a real hard core fighting class," the braggart that spoke was the teacher from the martial arts class that was ending on the other side of the gym.

Dean had already assessed the so called 'hard core fighting class' and hadn't been the slightest bit impressed. He'd mastered the stuff this guy was teaching by the time he was nine. Of course his father had been training him from the time he was four, but that was beside the point. He also wasn't about to let someone like this call his Slayer a pansy. "Hannah, take this guy over to the mats and take him down. He's only human, so pull your punches. Give him three matches." He turned to the martial arts teacher. "Let's see just what this class brings to her fighting skills that yours won't."

Hannah took the jerk down three times in five minutes. She could have done it quicker and it showed. She also was showing Dean what the class she was taking was teaching her, rolling dives, splits, and other ways to avoid being hit. The jerk never laid a hand on her no matter how hard he tried and Hannah didn't hit him more than once.

Dean knew the kind of man this jerk was and didn't want Hannah to get into trouble with him. So he walked over and stood above the braggart and tried to explain the difference. "I mastered the moves you're teaching in this class by the time I was nine. My father is an ex-marine and I've been training since I was four years old. You've got a good basic class here but Hannah and I fight for our lives on a nightly basis.

"She's been fighting for three years and I've been fighting for nineteen. We don't fight strictly in one single style because that would get us killed. We use anything and everything that will give us any advantage at all, from her gymnastics to street fighting to the down and dirty tricks you teach ladies to get away from rapists. Hannah, what's the first rule?"

"Don't die," Hannah answered from where she was getting her bag.

"And the second?" Dean waited.

"Do anything and everything you have to so that you don't break rule one."

Dean nodded at her answer and shrugged at the jerk of a teacher. "That's the difference between someone who is fighting for her life and someone who is fighting by a set of rules. If you'd like to train with us, we usually work on hand to hand around three o'clock." Then he turned around and walked Hannah out of the gym.

Dean thought about the situation he had left in the gym and how lately everything seemed to be going like that. His entire life was devolving into a series of small battles that outsiders were forcing his family to fight.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURALSUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

The last thing that Marcus wanted in his town was Slayers. A family of Demon Hunters was bad enough but at least they were likely to overlook his work if the only reason they were here was to visit the boy in school. That he could handle, two Slayers were another thing altogether. Slayers meant trouble.

It was too bad that his forays into bureaucratic harassment didn't work. He really didn't think they would but he had hoped that they would push things back a little. But Slayers were ordered around by the meddling Powers That Be and there was a force behind that. They would go where the Powers wanted them regardless of what he did.

It was too bad that allied with a Seer there was little chance that his little empire wouldn't be discovered. He had sunk too much work into setting himself up as the man behind the throne to back out now. He looked at the ledgers on his desk covering not only the usual gambling, loan sharking, and prostitution rackets, but also the businesses that sold magical supplies and other things to anyone who wanted them, illegal or not, immoral or not. Sacrifices for magical or religious purposes were one of his most profitable sidelines.

The only good thing about this situation was that he WAS the man behind the throne instead of on it. He had set things up that way so that the human police would have someone to harass instead of him. He had too much work to do for them to be bothering him all of the time. Benjamin Blake was a figurehead and little more and he was well aware of it. That Marcus had to kowtow to him in public wasn't important. That Blake knew he was helpless without Marcus was.