Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS, or Predator.

Xander's actual road trip II

"Talking"

"Thinking"

The Slayers assigned to Xander Harris weren't too sure about him. He was their Watcher but he didn't seem like an actual Watcher. He also didn't seem like one of the famed Scoobies. If anything, he was a guy in his twenties with an odd sense of humor.

It didn't help that they didn't really know him. It had been nearly two years since the collapse of Sunnydale and he had only recently returned from Africa. Since the Council had started reestablishing itself, and with new Slayers being brought into the fold, it was common for a Watcher to be assigned a squad of Slayers.

Xander's squad were recently-called Slayers. They were still getting their feet wet, learning how to actually fight a vampire. But because they were Slayers, they were confident about their skills, bordering on cocky. So, while they would listen to Xander, it was only when they had to. Since he was at least five years older than them, he was pretty much another old Watcher. The only difference was the accent.

In Xander's defense, he took being called old in stride. What he did object to was being called British. He took his duties as their Watcher seriously, ensuring they trained and knew their enemies, yet it was all done with a friendly attitude and smile. His squad liked him, but they still couldn't see how he could've fought alongside Buffy Summers or Willow Rosenburg.

That all changed one night. It was a routine patrol through London. They had already been through two graveyards and dealt with any vampires that hanging around. No one had been killed and there were no injuries. In fact, it was all so easy.

And since they were Slayers, they wanted to go after what was next. "I'm telling you, we're ready," Martha declared as they walked through the park.

"I'm not saying we aren't," Isabella told her. "But we shouldn't go after a demon half-cocked. We're still learning."

"And that's what we'll be doing forever, if we don't take some initiative," Beth said with her Missouri drawl. "We show we can act instead of react and the bosses will know that we can handle the bigger stuff." She looked at their final member. "Vicky, what do you think?"

The brunette thought about it for a moment. "I think we should at least go do some research." The others groaned. Vicky was the bookworm in the squad, even for a Slayer. "Hey, better to do some research and figure out what demons we need to keep an eye out for instead of making a possible mistake."

"Or, you know, you could talk to your Watcher," Xander remarked from behind.

They all stopped and looked back at him. He wore a jacket to keep the night chill out while an axe's shaft rested on his shoulder. His one eye, the other covered by a black eyepatch, watched them with a vague amusement, with a little smirk to match. Embarrassment flashed through them. They had been so focused on their conversation they had forgotten he was there.

But after the embarrassment passed, they came back strong. "We already know what you're gonna say, Xander," Beth said.

"And that would be?"

"No."

He took a step back with a faux-surprised look, putting his hand on his heart. "Have you no faith in me? Do you think I would dismiss what you want, just like that?" he asked.

A moment passed as the Slayers considered each other. The question sounded genuine, but they also knew it could be the serve to a punchline. Their Watcher liked to do that. "Well, are we ready?" Martha asked.

"Not right now," he answered. Yep, there was the punchline. But before he killed their hope, he continued. "You're on patrol right now and I don't see any books."

"Ha," Vicky smirked at the others. "Told ya." She noticed that the smirk was still on Xander's face. Suddenly she had a bad feeling. "…This is gonna be another lesson, isn't it?" Whenever Xander decided to give a lesson, it could be beneficial but also very exasperating (that city-wide scavenger was still uncalled for, in their opinions).

"Yep," he said. "Guess how you'll be spending your afternoons?"

"Not during the weekend or Friday, please?" Isabella asked. Those were the only times they could go out and have fun.

The smirk turned kinder. "No, not on those days. Trust me, I remember being a teenager."

"Back when disco was rockin'?" The words just slipped out of Martha's mouth before she realized it. Her eyes went wide as her hand slapped onto her lips. "Oh man. Dad always said my mouth would land me in trouble!" Why didn't she listen?

But instead of saying something, Xander looked past them. His eye changed, turning hard and focused. It changed his whole appearance, surprising the Slayers. Suddenly, they could see how he was able to fight on the Hellmouth. "Girls, patrol's over," he told them. "Head home."

They were Slayers, women born to hunt and fight evil in the night. It was up to them to protect the rest of humanity from the supernatural. It was a responsibility they all took seriously. If their Watcher told them to do something, they would do it.

So, naturally, once they were sure Xander didn't see them, they followed him.

He didn't walk far, just to a nearby bench. After leaning against the back, he looked out to the park. "I know you're there," he called out. "You gonna keep hiding or you gonna show yourself?"

"Who's he talking to?" Isabella whispered. The others promptly shushed her.

The answer came when the space in front of Xander shifted, revealing someone else. But it wasn't just someone else.

It was a demon.

There was no other explanation the girls had. What else but a demon could be 7ft tall with tendrils for hair? It wore some kind of expressionless iron mask along with armor and netting for clothes. The shadows covered the rest of the details. And it wasn't important to the Slayers. What was important was it was staring right at Xander.

Xander, for his part, kept his hand on his axe. "So, which one are you?" he asked.

The demon didn't say anything. Instead, it reached for something on its arm. A voice echoed in the air, sounding very much like a younger Xander. "Shoot the duck already!"

While the Slayers had no idea what that meant, Xander did. "Dreads?" The demon nodded. He smiled as he came off the bench and lowered the axe. "Shit, man. You got big." The Slayers were surprised by the sight. Shouldn't he be killing the demon already? "Why are you here?"

"Oh great, now aliens want to kill me!"

Aliens? The Slayers looked at one another, wanting to be sure they had heard it right. They had, but they were still confused. Why did they hear a younger Xander talking about aliens? He was still talking to a demon.

Xander, on the other hand, had stopped smiling. "Them again?" The now-named Dreads nodded. "On Earth?" He nodded again and pointed north. "At least it's not in Mexico this time," Xander remarked. "But why are you here?"

Dreads looked at him for another moment, before pressing against his arm again. "We're in this together, Dreads," Xander's voice declared. "And we're getting out of here alive!"

"…You're letting me join?" Dreads nodded again. Xander turned thoughtful and asked, "Now?" When he got another nod, he nodded back. "Alright, sure. Shouldn't take too long, right?"

Somehow, the demon managed to look amused even with the mask. "The whole thing's coming down!" said Xander's voice again.

The one-eyed man scowled in good humor. "We're not having that argument again," he told Dreads as they walked off. "…Even if it was still your fault."

They walked into the shadows. The Slayers followed after but lost them when they slipped into the shadows. Even after they looked around for a good ten minutes, the situation hadn't changed.

Xander was gone.

Giles, having been a Watcher for several years now, and Buffy's Watcher, had seen and been through plenty of things both fascinating and horrifying. So, he had felt rather confident that whatever came at the Slayers, the situation would be handled with finesse and without much fuss.

But even Xander's squad bulldozing into the headquarters around midnight shouting that their Watcher had walked off with a demon alien was out there. It didn't help the fact that a few Sunnydale survivors, having been in earshot, asked if said demon was a woman. Even after Africa, Xander's luck with women (lack thereof) was well-known.

The squad didn't care about that, mostly (interesting gossip was still interesting). They wanted to know just who or what was that creature Xander had walked off with. Which meant they had to do research. The only times they were seen outside of the library was when they had to go to the bathroom and sleep.

It took a few days, and more than a few scoffs from Slayers their age, but the squad was able to find who they believed walked away with Xander. Once they had everything, they took it straight to Giles.

The second he read the makeshift report, he went pale. "Are you certain about this?" he asked the squad.

"Yeah," Martha nodded. "We're positive."

"Mostly positive," Vicky amended.

It wasn't appreciated. "Vicky, not now," Beth whispered to her.

"I'm telling you, the mask looked different," she whispered back.

"Who give a fuck about the mask right now?"

"It could be important."

Isebella put an end to the argument. "We didn't find anything about it, so let it go," she told Vicky. She also noticed Giles's shaky hand and the look of genuine concern. "Mr. Giles, is everything alright?"

"No, Isebella," he answered. "Far from it."

The demon they had seen was infamous to the old Council because it had never been seen, only heard about. But if the rumors were true, then it was a demon that's sole focus was on one thing:

Hunting humans for sport.

If Xander had been taken by one of them, Giles would've had the entire Council out in force searching for him, to make sure he was safe. But the problem was twofold. First was the fact Xander had gone willingly with the Hunter (for a lack of a better name). Second, they had no idea where they were. All Xander's squad knew it was somewhere north.

The uncertainty held the Council in stasis. Buffy was getting agitated, same as Dawn and Faith, at being able to save her friend. Willow was doing her best to distract with herself from the worry by any means she could. They tried to go through the days, but they kept looking for their friend, wondering where he was.

Then, just as Giles was about to make preparations for a funeral, Xander returned. He just walked through the front door as if nothing had changed. He would've gone straight for the bar, but his path was block by practically every Slayer and Watcher in the building staring at him. "Hey," he said with a small wave. Never mind the fact that his clothes were ragged, and he was holding a rod instead of his axe. A mark could be seen on his shoulder, just past the tear in his sleeve.

His squad crushed him in a group hug because they were the first ones to reach him. The rest of the Scoobies joined in and almost drove him into the ground with the weight. If anyone wanted to mention the tears, there were plenty to go around.

Once the hugging was over, Xander was all but dragged into Giles's office. All the Scoobies were there, along with his squad. "Xander, while I'm sure I can speak for everyone when I'm glad you're still alive," Giles said, "you still up and vanished for nearly a week. What happened?"

He considered his answer for a moment. "An old friend came by and asked for my help with something."

"You're friends with a demon?" Martha asked her Watcher. She still had a hard time believing that.

Xander grinned. "Martha, you'll find that some demons can be quite friendly. Us Scoobies should know." He gave Buffy a rather pointed look. She tried frowning back but it turned into a pout. The point couldn't be argued. "But Dreads isn't a demon."

His Slayers stared at him for a long moment. "He isn't?" It had certainly looked like a demon.

"No, he's an alien."

It took everyone a moment to understand just what he had said. Faith wanted to laugh and say, "Pull the other one." But the ease of how Xander said those words stopped her. Giles wanted to take his glasses off and clean them. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning," he suggested.

"Alright, but that's all the way back to the road trip." He settled into his chair, and everyone leaned in. "To start off, I lied."

"About what?" Buffy asked.

"Pretty much everything. I did make it to Oxnard. But after that, I got kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and taken south of the border." The other Scoobies bristled at the implication but didn't say anything. "At first, I thought I was gonna wind up as a drug mule or something. But instead, they took me to this old Aztec temple. From what I saw, this cartel was backed or being funded by a pharmaceutical company. Never caught the name, but now I'm willing to bet they had a specific kind of lawyer."

His words didn't mean anything to his Slayers, but the Scoobies understood. Thanks to Angel's actions, Wolfram & Hart was still recovering their losses. The Council did what they could to ensure that didn't happen. It was a slow process. "Were there others?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, a mixed bunch. Either the cartel grabbed homeless people off the street or from across the border. We didn't know each other. When we were sent into the temple, we pretty much got scattered. I don't know who kickstarted the whole fiasco, but I was the one who found Dreads."

Vicky had to ask. "You found a 7ft tall alien in a temple?"

He shrugged. "He was two feet shorter back then, probably a kid by his people's standards. My guess was he got captured and was tossed into the temple first. Anyways, I freed him, and he did his best to run. By then it was too late. The temple turned out to be a prison for another kind of alien, something Dreads called Serpents. By the end of the first day, they had killed most of the prisoners and were starting to take over the temple proper."

Giles immediately went into Watcher Mode. "What are they like?"

"Fast," Xander said. "And silent. If you're not paying attention to your surroundings, you're dead. They've got a tail that has a sharp end and can be used as a weapon. Close-quarters fighting is a risk because their blood is acidic. Almost lost my arm that way." His face gradually took on a haunted look. "And they're smart too. Able to use to ambush tactics. I think that was how so many of the prisoners died."

"How did you survive?" Dawn asked.

"Dreads and I wound up working together. Between the two of us, we were able to get out of that temple after jury-rigging a bomb that blew the whole thing sky-high."

His Slayers were a little impressed that he could do such a thing. Since Giles knew what Xander could do, he chose to focus on something else. "Was it absolutely necessary to destroy the temple?" There could've been information that told them who or what these Serpents were.

"Yes." His answer was short and hard. "Something in that temple was spawning those Serpents. I didn't want it getting out and I didn't know where I could find it. Plus, a bomb was the best way to get all the Serpents. Once everything stopped exploding, the both of us were miles away."

He didn't make it sound as if that was the end of it, Faith noted. If that had all happened in one day, what happened to the rest of the summer? "Anything else happened?" she asked.

"Well, we went on the run." Yep, there were the looks. "Whoever those company people were, they were very keen on getting Dreads back. I couldn't live because I was a witness to everything. Dreads had a way to contact his people, but it took some doing to get it built. Even then it would take them a while to actually get here. We spent a lot of time staying off grid while heading north. It wasn't easy, Dread being an alien and I a white kid with only high school Spanish to work with. But we got through it. Hell, we even bonded."

"You bonded," said Buffy in a very flat tone, "with an alien."

"Yes, as friends," he retorted. "It was actually nice to have a guy friend, even if he had unique dental." His friends were confused and curious. He waved it off. "Never mind. Look, bottom line is, we kept each other alive during those months, from both that company and the wildlife. Once Dreads' people arrived to take him back, I'm fairly sure it was thanks to him that I'm still alive. I didn't think I'd see them again after that. I was just glad I was able to get back across the border."

Something clicked in Buffy's mind. "So, that night at the Bronze…?"

"Literally the same day I got back to town," he told her. "How else would you explain my clothes?" He had literally grabbed the cheapest set from a thrift store. "And once I saw how bummed you were feeling and that you wanted some normalcy, I lied about how my summer went." And he had been prepared to take what happened that summer with him to the grave. They already dealt with enough problems.

"And what happened this time?" Giles asked, moving onto the next part.

Xander didn't disappoint. "Turns out there was another location up north with a similar Serpent problem. Dreads was part of the hunting party to take care of it. From what I understand, he asked that I be allowed to join the hunt as his partner."

"…You joined a hunt, with aliens, against other aliens?" Dawn asked, wanting to be sure she got that right.

"Yep," he said with no shame. "The other hunters didn't think much of me when I came aboard. That changed." Not only did the other hunters see how he and Dreads trusted each other, they saw how ruthless he could be. A fact known only by a few other Watchers.

"What happened?" Willow asked, half-curious and half-worried for her friend.

Xander shrugged. "I found out that the Serpents come from eggs spawned from a queen. We took care of them all." He jostled the rod in his hand. "Even got this as a reward from the guy in charge."

It didn't look like much to Faith. Just a metal rod with janky edges. "I think you got scammed there, boytoy," she told him.

He smirked and flicked his wrist just-so. The ends of the rod extended out fast until it became a spear easily reaching his shoulders when he stood. "I think not," he said, holding the weapon as if he was a ruler and it was a symbol of his authority.

Buffy stared at the weapon with stars in her eyes. "I want one," she declared, using the same tone she used when finding new shoes.

Xander laughed as he closed the combistick. "You'll have to get your own, Buff." He came to his feet and stretched. "Giles, I'll fill you in about the hunters and Serpents later. Right now, I need a drink and some food. Plus, I need to check on how my Slayers are doing." The squad in question, having stayed quiet as they listened, perked up at that.

They followed him out of the office. If they stared at his back with new eyes, that was fine. There were plenty of questions bouncing around in their heads, but one took precedence. "Uh, Xander?" Isabella asked, getting his attention. "Does this kind of thing happen to you often?"

"What? Go on adventures that wind up saving the world and Buffy or the others don't know about it?" he asked.

"…Yes?" She wasn't quite sure how to answer that.

He paused, for theatrics' sake, before giving them a very mysterious grin. "Stick with me, kid, and you might run into another old story of mine." He went down the stairs with a jaunty whistle.

His squad didn't take long to after him, clamoring for more stories. If what he had just gone through was used as a basis, the rest had to be amazing. Any doubts they had about Xander Harris were gone now.

Quite frankly, their Watcher was the coolest one, ever.

End

Author's Note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.

Not sure if Predators would actually take humans on hunting the Xenomorphs or hunting period. All I really had to go on was the last act of Aliens vs. Predators. I remembered that, the whole movie, and thought, "Why not put Xander in that situation?"

The Slayers' uncertainty about Xander being all that he is comes from how they see things. Buffy and Willow are pretty much their heroes, women who stand up and fight evil because they have the power to do so. Giles is respected because he guides them with knowledge and supports them but he's still pretty much in the background. But Xander? As far as they could tell, he was just a guy who helped out. For the most part, Xander would most likely agree with them.

Xander would absolutely have stories about what he's done, stories he's never shared. The main reason is that he believes that, since he will never step into the spotlight, there's no point in sharing the stories, not until they become relevant. He's not there to be the hero, just the guy who helps the hero.

Another reason, if a little underhanded, is that so he can start building his rep as a cool old guy, like Giles. A main thing about cool old guys is that they've seen a lot, and done, of things and keep it private. That way, it adds layers to their character as the years go by. I'd be willing to be that if he did it right, Slayers would at Teen Xander, then at Watcher Xander, and ask "That's the same guy?"

I'll see you all next chapter!