"Hey everybody," Xander greeted the Belcher family as he entered Bob's Burgers, trying to sound like Norm from Cheers.

"Xander," Bob called out then sighed, as no one else had done the same. "No one watches good TV these days."

Linda smiled at her husband, amused. She remembered when they were young and he'd sworn he wasn't going to become like their fathers who griped and complained about the good old days. "Xander, how did the speech go?"

"More a lecture," Xander said. "Near the end someone brought up some pictures of missing women and we figured out it was a cult doing it."

"Did you rescue them?!" Gene exclaimed excitedly.

"I did," Xander agreed. "Called the police before I busted in, so I'd have backup and then got jumped by the Teen Titans while fighting the cultists."

"What? Why'd they do that?" Linda asked.

"Because 'knock everyone out and figure out who the bad guys are later' isn't all that bad a plan when lives are on the line," Xander replied, giving the young heroes the benefit of the doubt now that everything was said and done and his head wasn't aching.

"How'd you do?!" Louise demanded.

"Raven was slammed into a wall and Robin knocked on his a… rear," Xander said proudly.

"Oh yeah!" Louise cheered.

"Police arrived to clean things up before we could continue, which is a good thing for me because I left any superpowers I might have had in my other pants," he joked.

"I wonder if there are actually super powered pants out there," Tina said softly.

"I honestly would be surprised if there wasn't," Xander said, causing her to blush and look away with a small smile on her face.

"Turns out one of the bad guys was a vampire and I got to test out if Thor's hammer was effective as a holy symbol," Xander said, sliding into a booth.

"Really?" Bob and Linda chorused.

"They were sacrificing the girls to a snake demon and decided that a museum was the best place to do it at," Xander explained. "There was a Norse cultural display and I needed weapons, so I grabbed a warhammer and a buckler with Thor's Hammer painted on it. Worked like a charm."

"Yes!" Louise cheered.

"Well, that was fast," Linda said.

"You're telling me," Xander said. "I thought I was going to have to have something made to test it out and probably wouldn't get to try it for at least a couple of weeks."

"Thor provides!" Louise cheered, throwing her hands up.

"I'll need double what I got yesterday, healing my various bumps and bruises makes me really hungry," Xander said.

"Was it a spiked warhammer?" Gene asked. "Cause edged weapons and spiked weapons are completely different proficiencies."

"Both sides are flat, want me to get it from my car?" Xander asked.

"You've still got it?" Bob asked as he set the burgers on the grill. "Isn't the museum going to complain?"

"The police said they were all reproductions and I let them know they could bill me for them," Xander said as he got up. "Be right back."

"Do you really think he did all that after he left here?" Teddy asked. "That's like... what superheroes do."

"There are superheroes without superpowers, like Batman," Linda replied, "superhero just means they deal with super stuff."

The bell over the door rang as Xander re-entered the restaurant carrying a shield and warhammer.

"Oh wow," Gene said as Xander set them on the table.

"Is that a tooth?" Louise asked as she pointed at the rim of the shield.

"I may have hit a few cultists in the face with it," Xander said.

"And there's another one over here," Gene said excitedly as he looked over the shield.

"Ok, more than a few," Xander said with a grin.

"Whoa, this is heavy!" Gene said as he used both hands to pick up the hammer.

"Burgers up," Bob said, Linda retrieving the order on two plates to give to Xander.

"Thanks," Xander said and immediately dug in.

"You could crack all the walnuts in an entire bag at once with this," Gene said, slowly lowering the hammer back down and trying not to drop it.

"Shield's pretty heavy too," Louise said as she examined it.

"So, what is there to do for fun around here? I've got a couple of hours before I head out for San Francisco," Xander said as he ate. "I've already seen one museum so we can scratch that out."

"Fun? That's a word I haven't heard in a while," Bob said with a melodramatic sigh.

Linda rolled her eyes and his children ignored his comment with practiced ease.

"You could come up to my room and paint me like one of those French girls," Tina suggested hopefully, then looked shocked at what she'd said, turning bright red.

"What? Like a mime?" Louise asked, confused as to why anyone would want that.

"I don't know how to paint," Xander pointed out while Linda giggled and Bob pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm willing to help you learn," Tina said, taking slow deep breaths to try and keep calm, a hopeful note in her voice.

"Graduate high school yet?" Xander teased.

"Not yet," Tina admitted, "but I get very good grades, in most classes."

"Keep at it," Xander encouraged her, "freedom is only a handful of years away."

"You could go on a tour of Titan's Tower," Gene suggested. "We've gone like a dozen times."

"Pass," Xander said. "We don't get along."

"There's not a whole lot of fun things to do right now," Louise said, "it's the start of summer. It takes at least a week before they really crank things up for the tourists."

Xander nodded. "I'll have to stop by in a couple of months on my way back home and see what they've got."

"San Francisco gets most of the local tourist business," Bob offered, "I only chose Jump City over San Francisco when we left Gotham because of the property prices."

"We could catch a duck," Louise said with a grin.

The kids turned to look at Bob hopefully.

"Really? What would you even do with a duck?" Bob asked.

"Let it sleep in the bathtub, feed it lots of birdseed, and get bored and release it after a week while pretending I'm heartbroken," Louise replied. "I'd spend most of the week trying to train it to attack people."

"One week?" Linda asked, more surprised at that than her daughter's plan to have an attack duck.

"I know my attention span," Louise replied confidently.

Bob looked at Xander who grinned, obviously willing to join his children in their insanity. "Alright, but only one!"

"Woohoo!" the children cheered.

"Let me finish eating first," Xander said, "then off to the park."

"You're really going to help them catch a duck?" Linda asked.

Xander nodded. "Chasing ducks in the park with them sounds like more fun than any other thing I can think of."

Linda smiled. "Yeah, it really does."

San Francisco

Xander looked around in confusion. Had he somehow driven into another country? The signs and advertisements were all in a foreign language. He wasn't sure which one, but an Asian one if he were to guess.

As his car reached the stoplight and he spotted the street signs he calmed down as they were in English. Apparently, it was just a section of San Francisco that was populated solely by a single racial group.

He might have guessed it was Chinatown, but the buildings were all American designed, if probably at least fifty years old. And if the movies that had shots of Chinatown were accurate, they were made like the ones from their home country.

He continued along, passing through several neighborhoods of varied ethnicities in a dazed sort of amazement, as it felt like he was driving from country to country, before turning and following signs down to the world-famous Fisherman's Wharf where it took a good ten minutes to find parking.

Even or maybe because it was late enough that the sun was setting, the wharf was crowded with tourists and street performers, something you didn't tend to see in Sunnydale, for obvious reasons.

Xander grinned and joined the crowd of tourists, eager to take in the sights.

Two Hours Later

Xander took a bite out of the bread bowl his clam chowder had been served in while watching a street magician perform a series of simple illusions when he noticed a moving gap in the crowd's reflection on a storefront window.

He casually turned his head and spotted a pale European man in an expensive suit pushing through the crowd and a quick glance confirmed he didn't have a reflection.

'First time I've seen one dressed like a normal person,' he thought to himself, probably unfairly but as they were vampires they could go fuck themselves as far as he was concerned.

Relying on good old Sunnydale instincts, he tailed the vamp through the crowds and into a series of alleys, some occupied and some not, taking care to alter the way he walked several times as Angel had once mentioned being able to tell when certain hunters had been after him by noticing their footsteps after a while.

"Marc," the vampire said as he exited the alley into the rear of a Denny's restaurant where an Asian man in a much nicer suit was waiting.

"Simon," he replied. "Do you have the package?"

The vampire chuckled. "All this cloak and dagger you people do is amusing. Yes we have-"

Xander flung his silver dagger and some sixth sense allowed the vampire to dodge, the blade sinking half a foot into the Asian man's chest.

"Hunter!" the vampire growled out, just before a feminine figure with long silver hair, her face covered by a half black and half orange mask dropped down and kicked the vampire into the back wall of the Denny's before pinning him in place with a katana.

"Dammit! This was my contract!" she snarled out.

"Which one?" Xander asked, wondering what he'd just stepped into the middle of and wondering who he'd just killed.

"The Asian," she replied with a frustrated sigh. "He was a child trafficker and the most likely suspect for the disappearance of a young girl and her family took offense. You here on the same contract?"

"No, I'm here for the other one," Xander replied, happy to find out the man he had killed might as well have been a demon as far as he was concerned.

"Oh," she said, smiling slightly. "Trade kills?" she suggested with amusement.

"Sure," Xander replied, "but mine is just playing possum in hopes you'll step closer to him to retrieve your sword."

"Wha-" she began when Simon snarled, his game face coming out as he tried to leap at her, the hilt of the sword stopping him cold as he clawed ineffectually at the air.

"Vampire," Xander told her. "He's not dead till he's dusted."

"Fucking vampires?!" she demanded, drawing another sword from behind her back as the vampire struggled to get loose.

"Yep, fucking vampires," Xander agreed cheerfully.

"I don't suppose you have a wooden stake and a mallet on you, do you?" she asked dryly.

"You only need the stake, their flesh parts easily to wood as it's a symbol of life," Xander explained.

"Huh, learn something new every day," she muttered.

"Just a thought, but if someone paid you for the guy's death, how much more would they pay for the guy's death and their little girl back?" Xander asked.

"About ten times as much, but once he gets his hands on them, they're taken out of the country the next day," she replied, "and I don't have the resources to track them."

"Pretty sure the vamp knows where she is and they were meeting to discuss the hand off," Xander said, recalling what he'd heard.

"How much of a cut are you looking for?" she asked, narrowing her eyes as she kicked the sword's hilt, driving the vampire back into the wall without even glancing in its direction.

"I'll take a ten percent finder's fee if you're offering, but I have to admit I'm mainly in it to kill vampires," he told her.

She smiled.

"You'll never make me talk, bloodbags!" the vampire snarled.

Xander pulled a vial of holy water out of his pocket and smiled, his eyes seeming to gleam in the dim light of the alley for a brief moment. "Let's test that theory, shall we?"

Typing By: Abyssal Angel

Beta By: Abyssal Angel, Mist of Shadows, Kyrin Fireheart