1. A Mutant Slayer?

Things to do in Boston when you're (supposed to be) Dead.

Summary: Faith never makes it to Sunnydale, and soon finds herself heading down a far different path as a result of Stryker's attempt to wipe out the mutant population.

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or Xmen. They are owned by Joss and Marvel respectively.

Note: X-men, X2 and XMFC apply. The others don't, aside from Liev being Sabretooth.

Events of X-Men and X2 have been pushed back in time a couple years.

Faith is sixteen at the beginning of this fic.

Chapter One: A Mutant Slayer?

Boston, Massachusetts - 1998

"You never even had a chance of winning."

Those eight words repeated on a loop in the mind of the bloodied brunette teenager as she came to, to find herself lying amongst the piles of garbage bags in the alleyway.

A couple moments pass before her eyes snap open and for the briefest of moments, flash yellow… almost catlike, and the girl lets out a gasp of shock as her sudden return to awareness caused the claws that had appeared last night to re-emerge.

She is silent for a couple moments as she stares blankly at her digits and the sharp, bony protrusions coming from the tips, as the events of the previous night come back to her in an almost overwhelming flood.

i*Flash*

She's in the midst of a fight with several of her tormentor Kakistos' minions, including the hated Mr. Trick.

*Flash*

She collapses to her knees as mind numbing pain assaults her mind, almost causing her to black out.

*Flash*

Confusion and pain as the razor sharp claws shoot out of her fingertips, but she is in too much pain to fight the vampires as they take advantage of her disorientation to begin beating and kicking her fallen form.

*Flash*

Feeling herself being dragged to her feet. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she hears someone whisper 'Find the mutants, find them and kill them all'.

*Flash*

She blinks as the pain suddenly ends, and struggles vainly as the vampires haul her to her feet, and hold her in place.

*Flash*

Her eyes widen in pain, shock and horror as Kakistos rushes her with a katana, driving it through her torso, impaling her halfway upon the blade.

*Flash*

Tasting copper in her mouth as the ancient vampire rips the sword out of her, and the flash of silver as he turns and swipes out with a smaller blade, catching her in the throat and slicing open the tender flesh.

*Flash*

Collapsing to a heap on the floor as the vampires holding her immobile shove her to the ground, and her hands clutch at her torn neck.

*Flash*

As she feels life fleeing her, the last thing she hears is Kakistos dismissive order to Mr. Trick to 'dispose of the garbage'. She blacks out, almost relieved at the lack of pain that comes with the oblivion of death.

*Flash*/i

Faith's eyes widen as the memories cease, and her hands both instinctively fly to her previously destroyed throat. To her surprise and relief she finds the flesh unmarred and smooth.

"What the fuck?" she wonders aloud, as she begins to pull herself up out of the garbage pile. Slowly she rises to her feet and mutely brushes the debris off her. As she does so she takes in the state of her clothes, ruined with the stain of her blood from her murder at the hands of the ancient vampire.

She looks down both ways of the alleyway, finding it empty of any life outside herself, and then when she's sure the coast is clear, her gaze falls to her hands in front of her.

For a few moments all Faith focuses on is her hands, her fingertips in particular as she tries to release the claws from them as she'd remembered doing just prior to getting impaled upon Kakistos' blade.

She should be dead. The Bostonian vampire slayer was sure of that more than anything else in the current moment. Slayer healing only went so far, and there was never anything about retractable claws mentioned in the slayer handbook. She also doubted that Kakistos was anything but sure of her demise, or she would never have been allowed such an easy escape.

The thought of the vampire in question serves to spur the young woman into action, and she begins walking away from the spot her 'dead' body had been dumped. She heads for the mouth of the alleyway swiftly, stopping only once to grab a discarded hooded sweatshirt from where it was hanging half out of one of the dumpsters lining the wall of the alley.

Quickly she wraps herself in it, covering up her bloodstained and torn shirt, before departing from the alley and losing herself in the crowds of people that littered the sidewalk by the bus stop.

To Be Continued…


	2. The Catalyst

Chapter One: The Catalyst

She'd managed to pickpocket a new wallet with about thirty dollars off some hapless pedestrian during her escape from the alley where she had been dumped by Kakistos' minions. Her own wallet and limited funds within had been lost during the initial capture of herself and her now deceased watcher two days prior.

While she felt a little bad about stealing from Mr. Curtis Flynn (as the ID in said wallet read), she needed some way to get fare for the bus that went to the stop nearby the apartment she and Linda Danvers had been living for the past two years. Hopefully the anti-entry for vampires would still hold with the watcher no longer among the living.

As she thought about Linda and what had been done to the first person to show her real kindness, a couple tears roll down her cheek and she rubs them away with the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt and lays her head against the window next to her seat on the bus. The watcher had deserved better than she'd gotten and with how bad a state Linda's body had been in at the last Faith had seen, it was unlikely that Kakistos would bother to dump the remains like he'd done to Faith herself.

A dead slayer being found by authorities would send a message to the council, who would know that it was either a vampire or demon that had done it. The authorities on the other hand, upon inability to track down Linda, would likely assume that she'd been the one to have 'murdered' Faith and left the body to rot in the garbage.

What none of them had anticipated, Faith included, was that the dead slayer in question would rise again and walk away from the improvised grave. With a little luck, Kakistos' wouldn't be any the wiser of Faith's failure to remain dead.

At least not until she came back on the ancient vampire for her revenge.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Miles away from where Faith was riding the bus to where she and Linda had lived for the past two years, in the basement of the 'administration' building of a private school in the town of Snow Valley, a blonde woman sat in a chair. Before the woman was an expensive looking array of computer equipment and machinery.

Emma Frost, the blonde woman, was still frazzled following the events of the previous day, and the blinding pain that had filled her mind as the late Colonel William Stryker had attempted to rid the world of her kind, the so-called mutant menace. If not for her connection to Eric Lensherr, the mutant 'terrorist' known to the American public as Magneto, it was unlikely that she'd have been able to learn the truth of the attack so quickly.

In the end, it turned out that Stryker's plans had backfired upon him in ways that she couldn't imagine that he'd either intended or would have thought possible. By utilizing the power of Class-B level telepathy on the unsuspecting mutant populous, both active and latent, Stryker had managed to bring a large number of mutants out of the latency stages of their development.

This was why Emma had locked herself down in the hidden basement 'recruitment center' as her favored students had come to call it. There were hundreds of new mutants literally overnight, and she had been sitting by the lesser version of Charles Xavier's Cerebro that she, Erik and the mutant called Forge had put together nearly a decade earlier when Emma had taken over the Massachusetts Academy and turned it into a training ground of sorts for teenagers and adolescents carrying the X-Gene. On one of the computer screens was a now sizable listing of all the names and locations of the newly active, some marked off with special symbols if the mutant in question was of any interest to her.

There was a Native American girl in Arizona that could make solid constructs out of the manifestations of other people's innermost fears.

A boy in NYC that could suddenly understand and speak any language he came in contact with, with perfect fluency.

In San Diego was a Hispanic youth who drew energy from the sun to fly and manage feats of superhuman strength while converting his entire body to dark solar matter.

i'New mutant signature found.'/i The electronic voice of the locator's A.I. filtered out through the speakers and drew Emma's attention from the list as it continued it's notification. i'Lehane, Faith. Age Sixteen. Boston, Massachusetts. Powers: Regeneration, Heightened Strength, Agility and Senses, Bone Claws./i

Emma quickly adds the name and details to her existing list, then stares at it for a moment before adding a symbol of special note to Faith's name to indicate her interest in the Bostonian.

No sooner has she finished the new entry to her list does the locator AI begin to spit out the next hit of newly-activated mutants.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

It had taken roughly a half hour for the bus to get where Faith was heading and she wasted no time disembarking, the scent of sweat and stale booze particularly irritating to her sense of smell. She quickly made the remainder of the distance to the apartment building in which she lived in the fringes of South Boston.

Paying no attention to the other people milling about the lobby of the building as she entered, she quickly crosses the expanse of the room and over to the small bank of elevators and presses the up button. A few moments pass and she steps into the small enclosed box as the doors open, and pressing another button, she leans heavily against the wall of the elevator car as it begins it's ascent to the tenth floor.

When the doors slide open again, Faith takes a couple slow steps up to the threshold and peers out tentatively, her gaze going back and forth between the corridor on either side of the elevator as she searches for waiting danger before finally stepping out.

Slowly she walks down the left corridor and turns down the connected hallway that housed the apartment in which she lived. Her key was lost, likely still inside the jacket that had been stolen from her by one of Kakistos' minions prior to their playtime, but such a thing was of little concern to her.

She stopped by the potted tree in the small alcove by the window at the end of the hall and crouched down for a moment to rifle through the mulch within the thick ceramic pot until she found the hidden spare. She then backtracked a couple doors to 1023 and quickly lets herself in.

She shuts the door behind her and flips the lock secure, before sliding down to the floor with her back pressed against the wood of the door as the weight of everything that had happened the past couple of days suddenly hits her full force and she lets out a near primal scream of rage and desolation.

Her eyes go wide as the claws from earlier make themselves visible once again, and she stares at them unblinkingly for several long moments before she puts two and two together.

"Rage must be a catalyst." She notes as she runs the tip of her right index finger over the claw protruding from her left index and winces slightly as the razor sharp protrusion slices open her flesh for the briefest of moments before her wound stitches itself up. "Well I have more than enough rage to make this work at least." She adds to herself, as her thoughts shift to how much of a stress relief it would be to use these claws to eviscerate Kakistos in the same manner that the ancient vampire had done to Linda as she'd been forced to watch.

Slowly she rises to her feet and with a bit of effort, pushes her rage down for the moment and then smiles a bit sinisterly as the claws once more retract. She stands by the door for a couple more moments before moving further into the apartment, making silent plans of revenge against Kakistos and his entourage in her head.

To Be Continued…


	3. Plans of Revenge and Recruitment

Chapter 3: Plans of Revenge and Recruitment

It was a number of hours following Faith's return to the apartment that she stood by the large bay window watching the sun set over the city. Soon it would be dark enough for the undead to come out to play, and she would hunt.

She would have to be careful in her chosen fights, however, as she was still under the assumption that Kakistos, Trick and the rest of that merry band of vicious bloodsuckers believed her to be among the dead. If she was to run across one or more of said crew in particular, she would absolutely need to make sure that they were taken out so that the Vampire 'king' of Boston wouldn't get alerted to her survival, or resurrection as it were. At least not until she was ready for him to know, until she was ready to go at Kakistos himself.

It would be a much different fight then their first when it came down to it, given Faith's newly acquired rapid regeneration. Through a bit of self-testing over the course of the day, she'd been able to discover that there was no wound that she inflicted upon herself that wouldn't heal itself up in a matter of seconds, from knife cuts to cigarette burns. Hurt like a bitch, but it was clear that nothing less than severe injuries would keep her down for very long now.

Shaking herself out of her musings, Faith looks skyward out the window and decides with how low the sun is on the horizon that it's time to get started. She turns away from the window and grabs the duffel off the kitchen table as she makes her way toward the small bathroom to change into the slayer attire that Linda had gifted her with a couple months earlier.

A few minutes later she re-emerges, now clad in a black bodysuit and black leather trenchcoat. She knew that it kind of made her look hooker-ish but she also knew that it would draw the attentions of the undead. She then walks over to the closet by the front door and rifles through the contents of the small enclosure for a couple moments, arming herself with a couple stakes, her jackal knife, holy water and she also grabs the red wig. The weapons she stores in the trenchcoat, well hidden enough that someone would need to be patting her down to find them. The wig she fixes upon her head, tucking her real hair beneath.

She takes a long look in the mirror on the closet door, adjusting the wig for a couple moments to make it look real, and when she is sure that she wouldn't be recognized at first sight by any of the vamps she'd previously encountered, she departs from the apartment and locks it behind her.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Emma rubbed tiredly at her eyes as she finally made her way back up to her office at the MassachusettsAcademy, having spent the nearly entire day in the basement working with the locator and compiling her listing of new mutants.

Six of her ten hellion students had gone with the previous year, graduating and heading off at different points over the summer months for higher education purposes, and she intended to fill the void with some of those on said list. They would be untrained as recently actives, needing guidance and even sanctuary for some that she would be all too happy to provide them. The world was a dangerous place for her kind, especially the new and she would do what she could to help them.

'Provided of course, that they are of use to me.' She thinks to herself as she enters her dark office and takes a seat at her desk. She turns the desk lamp on and begins pouring over the list, crossing off a good number of the mutants until she has about twenty worthwhile prospects for her school narrowed down.

She stares at the shortened list for a couple long moments before making a decision as to who she would try and recruit first.

[i]'Monet, Tabitha?'[/i] Emma calls out over her mental link to her two remaining female hellion students.

[i]'Yes, Ms. Frost?'[/i] Monet's voice sounds off in her head, followed by a less formal reply of [i]'What's up boss?[/i] from Tabitha.

[i]"I would like to see both of you in my office immediately."[/i] The headmistress of the MassachusettsAcademy requests, but both girls know an order when they hear it and voice their separate acknowledgements of being on their way.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Faith wished like hell she'd had earplugs as she sat at one of the booths at the back of the club, the blaring music giving her a slight headache due to her now more heightened than slayer sense of hearing. A half finished tall glass of Coke on the table before her as she watched the crowd.

She'd been there for an hour or so, hoping like hell that one of Kakistos' guys would show their face soon, as the club was the only known place that Faith knew there was a decent chance they'd be. The alley behind the club in question was where she and Linda had first been abducted, and it would be quite fitting to put one or more of her previous abductors slash torturers to rest in the place where it started.

Her prayers are answered as she takes in the smell of death nearby, and her eyes dart around the expanse of the club for a couple moments before falling on a pair of vampires by the bar. A dark grin forms as she recognizes both as Edwin and Avery, two of Kakistos' lieutenants, and Avery as one of the ones that had held her in place as Kakistos had impaled her upon his katana.

She rises from her seat and begins to make her way over to where the two are sitting, donning sunglasses as she goes to aid in not being recognized immediately, and putting on an act of drunkenness to entice her soon-to-be 'victims' into taking her out back for a private 'drink'.

All the while as she walks, she begins to build up on her inner rage over having been essentially brutally murdered, fully intending to make use of her newly found claws to rip the two undead assholes to pieces until they were dust on the wind.

To be continued…


	4. Alleyway Confrontations

Note: Thanks to AllenPitt at FFnet and JediKnight, Philister and Raxadian at TTH for their feedback thus far.

Chapter 4: Alleyway Confrontation

"Oh! 'Scuse mmeee." Faith slurred her voice as she 'accidentally' bumped into one of the vampires at the bar, Edwin, and half falls into his lap as she leaned against the bar. "Think I had just a tiny bit too much." She adds, still with the faux-slur as she looks up at the vampire's face and then to his friend for confirmation that it was indeed Avery.

"Not a problem miss." The oblivious Edwin replies, helping her to stand properly and exchanging an amused look with Avery. "Do you need help getting home or anything?" he asks her, taking in her apparently inebriated state.

"You would do that?" Faith asks, knowing that he was only trying to get her alone for what she imagined he saw as an easy meal. She gives Edwin a lopsided smile as both he and Avery nod. "And they s-s-say that chivalry is dead."

"Our car is out in the back lot." Avery informs her and she gives a small nod, allowing herself to be guided out by the pair of vampires.

She keeps up the drunken act by stumbling and leaning heavily against Edwin as the three of them go out the front of the club and begin to make the walk around the building to the private parking lot down the side alley.

It's a bit of a struggle not to cringe at the sight of the alley in question, knowing full well that it was the last place that Diana had been able to see the night sky prior to their capture, but she manages, knowing that she was soon to get a bit of justice for her watcher's death.

They'd only gone a few yards down the alley when Edwin suddenly shoves her against the wall, but not really with any force enough to really hurt even a normal human, and she lets out a small gasp of disgust disguised as surprise as she feels his lips suddenly on hers.

"Wait, what are we doing?" She breathes out as he pulls away from her mouth and begins to trail kisses down her jaw as he makes his way down to her neck. She brings her hands up between them to rest on his sides as he holds her in place.

"Just having a little taste of heaven sweets." Edwin replies, and she reads his words as just a little bite, although she doubts he or Avery plan it to be anything remotely little.

As Edwin continues to work his way to the base of her neck, she glances over at where Avery has taken up position as look-out and decides that it's time for action.

"Wait, wait." She mutters out to the vampire holding her against the wall. "Wanna tell you a secret."

Edwin's eyes are locked with hers a moment later, a quizzical look in his dead gaze.

"Always love a good secret." The vampire coos to the girl he believes to be completely hammered. "Let's have it then?"

"Oh, you'll love it, promise." She says, leaning her head closer to the side of his face so she can whispere in his ear, making use from his lack of his attentiveness on anything but her head and neck as she pops out her claws. "You're dead fucker."

Her piece spoken she suddenly bursts into action before Edwin can make sense of his current situation, and digs her clawed fingers deep into his sides and ripping large gashes on either side as she gets her leg between them and kicks him away.

"Ahhh shit!" Edwin screams out in pain as he crashes to the alley floor, and drawing the attention of Avery, who lets out an angry roar as he shifts into game-face to rush at her.

She doesn't make much of an effort to get out of the way as he lunges at her, tackling her at the waist and sending both to the ground. Unfortunately for Avery, he's not seen Faith's claws and is unable to mount a successful defense before the slayer digs them all into the back of his neck and severs his spinal column. With a heave, she shoves the dead weight off of her and kicks up to her feet.

Knowing Avery is going nowhere under his own power, she once more turns her gaze upon the wounded Edwin who was still trying to get to his feet and keep his insides in. She gives a look up to the end of the alley as he does the same and then allows a feral smirk to form upon her face.

"Uh uh uh." She mocks as he takes off limping towards 'safety', and with a couple quick bounds she has launched herself at him, and both go crashing to the ground. Faith takes more than a slight bit of pleasure as she grabs him by the back of the head to slam it into the pavement a couple of times to daze the vampire further.

One of her stakes come out and is swiftly shoved into his back and through his heart, and she quickly turns away before she can breath in any of the vampire dust. She quickly rises to her feet again and turns to stalk toward the paralyzed Avery.

"Your friend got off easy." She growls out as she reaches him and bends down to pick him up by the back of his shirt and pants, carrying him further down the alley toward the abandoned warehouse down the end that she'd already scoped out prior to going into the club, and had cleared it of the trio of random vamps so she wouldn't be bothered with what she planned to do with Avery. "I ain't done with you by a damn sight, gonna get medieval on your ass."

She lets out a bit of laughter at the broken moans coming from Avery as she drags him down the alley and into the warehouse, slamming the door shut and locking it behind her.

The next few hours or so would have been filled with Avery's screams of pain and suffering, provided of course that Faith's first move wasn't to rip out the vampire's voice box to ensure his silence as she gave him a taste of what she imagined Diana must have felt as she'd been tortured to death.

To be continued…


	5. The Socialite and The Anarchist

Note: Thanks to MaxGSandeman and CAPTSkip from TTH for the reviews on the last chapter.

Introducing M and Boomer(Meltdown).

Chapter 5: The Socialite and the Anarchist

"Why is it we always get stuck with these kinda jobs?" Tabitha Smith, the mutant Hellion known as Boomer, grouses as she stared out the window of the Cadillac that Emma had loaned them for the trip to Boston and their mission to locate and make contact with the new mutant there.

"God, I don't know Tabitha, maybe because Ms. Frost has more important things to do?" Monet 'M' St. Croix replies with no small amount of sarcasm in her tone, and she makes no movement to look at the sixteen year old blonde in the passenger seat as she drives.

"Whatever." Tabitha replies with a shrug, and pulls out a cigarette from the pack she'd hidden in the inside pocket of her jean jacket.

"Do you really have to do that?" Monet inquires with exasperation, wrinkling her nose in disgust as Tabitha lights up the cigarette and takes a deep drag.

"Nope, but I'm gonna do it anyways." The blonde answers with a smirk toward the seventeen year old driver, before she turns and blows the smoke out through the slightly open window. "I'm fuckin' bored and you won't even put a good station on."

"We're outside of Boston, there's not even a station worth listening to." Monet snipes back, rolling down her own window in an attempt to keep the smoke away from her.

"Says you." Tabitha counters, glaring at the other girl. "There's a reason they don't play classical music around here. It's shit."

Monet doesn't say anything in response, knowing full well after two years living in the same dorm with the New Jersey native that Tabitha was just looking to start another fight between them. They'd been friends once, but it was a long time ago, and after all that had happened between them, it was likely the only relationship that she and Tab would share would be merely professional as Hellion teammates. Instead she just opts to let out a light sigh, reminding herself that she only needed to deal with the blonde for one more year and then she'd be eighteen and be given the honor of being tapped to the Hellfire Club as her father had been some thirty years prior.

Tabitha on the other hand, had no intentions of joining up with the club when she herself graduated. She'd been vocal enough about that over the past couple of years, citing that it wasn't her scene following a visit to the Club's main headquarters in New York City. She had however, mentioned a couple times that she might go off and join up with Magneto's brotherhood, though that seemed like a pipe dream now with the master of magnetism tucked away by the United States government in parts unknown following the incident at Liberty Island some eight months prior. Still, Tabitha would prefer to make her mark in the world, without involving herself with elitists even among mutants.

There are no further words spoken between the pair of mutant girls until Tabitha points out the exit they needed to take off the turnpike.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Faith stood next to the table that her vampire victim was laid out upon, roughly an hour following the short fight in the alley, looking down upon her handiwork with unveiled glee shining in her eyes.

She was more than sure that with everything she had done to Avery over the course of their hour together, that if he was still capable of speech he would have told her everything from where exactly it was that Kakistos laid down his head at night to what kind of underwear he favored.

But such information was of little concern to her, and then there was always the chance that he would have lied to her, having known he had nothing to lose and was dead either way. She preferred the silence, as screams would only remind her of Diana's ordeal.

"So…" She utters out low, leaning down over the vampire so that she's in Avery's line of sight as he stares almost blankly at the ceiling high above them, his ability to move his head gone when Faith had severed his spinal column. "I think we've had enough for this life, yeah?"

Avery doesn't respond to her taunts, so she forces out a claw and sticks it into one of the open wounds, eliciting a gurgle of pain from the ravaged vamp.

"Glad you agree, and since you've been such a good sport about everything, I'm gonna take a little pity on you. Thirsty?"

She pulls out the bottle of holy water and unscrews the top before shoving the neck of the bottle into Avery's mouth and then moves back as the blessed liquid burns it's way through Avery insides and reduces whats left of him to ash, which settles upon the bloodied table.

"Damn." Faith says shortly, sounding a bit disappointed. "I was really hoping that would have started a fire… maybe I should invest in UV lights for the next one."

She shrugs to herself and turns away from the table, taking a few steps over to where her trenchcoat was hanging off a hook on the wall, Faith grabs it off the hook and throws it on in a swift, fluid motion and then strides away from the torture scene and out of the warehouse. In her pocket are the keys to the car Avery was unwillingly gifting her with, hoping she'd be able to find it fairly easy with the small device attached to the ring for remote locking, unlocking and the alarm for the car.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

"This is it." Monet announces as she pulls the Cadillac to a stop in front of an old house, the last known residence of one Faith Lehane, according to the file that Emma had been able to put together.

"You sure of that?" Tabitha questions, looking up the short walkway to the house and taking note of the overall appearance and seeming disrepair of said house. "Doesn't look like anyone's living here anymore, maybe Emma got old information?"

"Could be, but I'm not going back to the Academy until we know for sure that she's not here." Monet replies as she gets out of the car, Tabitha mirroring her movements on the other side of the car.

"If you're looking for Faith Lehane, she ain't." Both Monet and Tabitha turn toward the sidewalk at the back of the car to see an Irishman coming over from the house next door, smoking what looked to be a joint. "Hasn't been around since that Brit showed up after her mother's funeral, seen her from time to time around the city, but she don't come out this way anymore."

"I don't suppose you could tell us where she's living now?" Monet asks the man with a bit of hesitance.

"Dunno exactly myself, me 'n' her ain't exactly friends." The man replies with a shrug, his gaze moving between Tabitha and Monet for a couple moments, seeming to trying to read whether or not the pair was looking to start trouble for his former neighbor. "The Brit's name was something Danvers… Laura? Linda! That's what it was, last I heard they were living together. You find Linda, you'll find Faith."

"Thank you." Monet says with gratitude to the man, and moves to get back into the car.

Tabitha, on the other hand, lingers outside for a moment as she takes note of the joint being held by the man.

"Hey, I'll give you five bucks for a couple drags off that." She offers with a hopeful voice and the Irishman looks around for a moment to see if the police were trying to set him up before giving a shrug and holding out the joint for Tabitha as she walks over with a grin.

"Nice tattoo." The man says approvingly upon the sight of the Anarchy symbol on her wrist, and Tabitha gives a nod as she takes the joint and inhales deep for a moment.

"You like? I just had it done a couple months ago." The blonde replies with a smile before exhaling the smoke skyward and taking another drag before passing it back to the man as well as the promised five bucks. She's about to inquire about one more drag, but turns toward the car as Monet taps the horn. "Thanks for the smoke." She says hurriedly and runs back to the car, jumping into the passenger seat and just barely managing to shut the door before Monet peels out, looking to get away from this area of Boston as quick as possible.

The man watches the car until it turns around the corner, and takes one last hit from the joint before stubbing it out on the fence and pulling out his cell phone.

He quickly dials up a number, and waits for a couple moments as it goes to voicemail.

"Faith, its James. Just giving yah a heads up that yah might have trouble coming your way in the form of some punk rocker blonde and a mulatto in a Cadillac. Call yah cousin back if you need any help."

James hangs up the phone and turns to head back inside his own house. As he walks, he puts the half smoked joint back into his mouth and lights it with a flame that comes out of the tip of his index finger.

To be continued…


	6. First Contact

Note: Thanks to Allen Pitt from FFnet, and JediKnight, Radaxian, BrinLondoFive and Ltlconf from TTH for their reviews following the posting of the last chapter.

Chapter 6: First Contact

It hadn't taken long for Faith to find Avery's vehicle, an old yellow and black Chevelle that she was almost positive would need repairs in the near future. On the plus side though, with Avery and Edwin dusted there would be no one to report it stolen, as it was likely in her mind that the original owner was long gone by now.

She was currently driving around the fringe that separated Southie from the Harbor, keeping her eyes open for any of Kakistos' other minions and having little success a few hours later. It was currently four-thirteen in the morning, and the sunrise was less than an hour away.

It was blind luck that she'd stopped at a red light as a couple of people crossed in front of the car and Faith eyes go wide as she recognizes the male of the pair as Ezekiel, Kakistos' third-in-command after Mr. Trick, and it's only the drunken blonde at his side that holds Faith back from merely running the bastard down.

Ezekiel and the girl pass to the other sidewalk as Faith watches, thankful that the vampire hadn't looked her way as she'd be easily recognizable now that she'd shed the red wig and sunglasses disguise. After a moment she turns left and begins to follow the pair slowly at a distance. When they pass one of the alleyways, Faith hesitates for a couple moments as she tries to figure if the car would fit through the mouth of the alleyway and with the sound of a scream, she throws caution to the wind and slams on the gas as she turns down the alley, just barely making it.

The headlights illuminate Ezekiel in game-face as he turns from trying to subdue the girl enough to bite and upon seeing Faith in the driver's seat, he lets out a feral roar and tosses the blonde to the side as he begins to charge at the car.

Faith lets a wide grin at how dumb Ezekiel seemed to be, and floors it, racing right at him in some insane version of the 'Chicken' game. It ends with a crunch of steel and Ezekiel pinned to the wall by the front bumper of the car.

Faith calmly gets out of the car and gives a quick look over at the prone girl, finding her to be alive but unconscious with a bump on the head and tiny rivulets of blood coming from her neck where Zeke had tried to bite. She'd be fine, Faith had figured and so the slayer turned her attention on the entrapped vampire.

"You're supposed to be fucking dead, you bitch!" Zeke shouts at her and she gives a slight shrug in response as she comes closer.

"Yeah, well that makes two of us. Least I can still breath and walk in the sun, yah undead bastard." Faith retorts as she pulls out her knife, intending to use it to saw off the head of the walking corpse.

She dodges back as she gets within arms reach and Zeke tries to grab at her, then grabbing him by the back of the offending limb, she spins in close and slams his head down on the hood of the car and holds him there with ease as she brings the knife to the back of his neck. She holds it there for a moment and then shakes her head.

"Too easy." She decides with a shake of her head and instead cuts a line down the back of Zeke's shirt before ripping it from him.

She moves away from the hood, shirt in hand and over to where the gas tank was, pulling open the door and stuffing the shirt into the circular hole, then pulls out her lighter.

"Wait! Wait." Zeke yells at her, and as she looks at him she can see the desperation in his eyes. After all, no-one, alive or dead, ever wanted to be burned alive.

"Yes?" She asks, playing along for the moment.

"I can tell you where Kakistos is!"

Faith let out a bark of laughter in reply and flashed a smile at the pinned vampire. "See now, if you'd offered me my watcher's life back, then maybe, just maybe I'd have taken pity on yah." She growls at him. "I know where Kakistos is, yah dumb fuck. I'm saving him for last."

She doesn't listen to anything further that he has to say before lighting the end of the shirt on fire and turning away to pick up the blonde before making her way out of the alley. As she goes, the chevelle explodes behind her and sends Zeke into whatever the hereafter was for vampires as the fire consumes him.

As Faith walks out of the alley and turns in the direction of the home of her sensei Master Kanno, knowing that it was the nearest safe haven and with the man off on a trip home to Japan for a couple weeks she knew that she wouldn't be bothered.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Tabitha woke up with a splitting headache and upon opening her eyes, she does not recognize the room around her and shoots up into a sitting position on the bed.

"This ain't the hotel.." She murmurs out in confusion, before the events of the previous night come back to her. She remembered having another fight with Monet in the hotel room they had booked and leaving when she felt her control over her powers beginning to slip. The last thing she needed was to explain to Emma as to why there were monetary charges for damages to the hotel if one of her plasma 'bombs' accidentally went off. She'd used her fake I.D. to get into a bar and proceeded to drink herself stupid. Only vaguely did she remember the man that she'd left with and her eyes widen as her hand flies up to the side of her neck and finds a bandage covering the spot that she'd been bitten.

A sound outside the room draws her attention and she immediately charges up a small plasma bomb in the palm of her hand as the door opens and a brunette girl walks in holding two cups of coffee in her hands. The girl stops short as she sees the glowing yellow orb and her eyes flicker from the 'bomb' to Tabitha's face.

"Okay, what in the hell is that?" Faith demands, as she prepares herself for a fight.

To be continued…


	7. As Fate would have It

Note: Thanks to Allen Pitt from FFnet for the review on the last chapter.

Chapter 7: As Fate would have It

Faith remains standing at the door to the guest bedroom of Kanno's home, staring at the blonde girl and the orb of crackling energy in her hand.

"Witch?" She inquires as she and the blonde lock eyes, and then the blonde blinks in confusion.

"What? No!" the girl denies with a shake of her head, and as she realizes she still has the plasma bomb in her hand, and squeezes her fist shut to re-absorb the energy into herself. "I'm.. I'm a mutant."

Faith blinks at her, her mouth opening slightly in surprise of the other girl's admittal, but pushes down her visible shock.

"You too, eh?" She asks with a small smile as she sets down the two cups of coffee on the bureau against the wall next to the door. "Bet that would have come in handy against the vampire that tried to make you his dinner last night. These sure do."

As she finishes speaking, she brings Diana to the forefront of her thoughts and winces slightly as she feels the claws pop out of her fingertips before holding them up for the other girl to see.

"Whoa." The blonde exclaims, backing herself up a bit on the bed as she takes in the sight. "Those look sharp, you ain't gonna try cutting me or anything… and wait, VAMPIRES?!"

Faith gives a nod and lets go of the rage so the claws slide back in. "Yeah, vampires. You should be more careful as to who you let take you home at night."

"The one that bit me?"

"No need to worry about him. He ain't coming back, took care of his undead ass myself." The slayer-mutant replies.

"What like he's dead?"

"He was dead a long time ago, and you woulda been too if I hadn't been following him."

"This is crazy.."

"Yeah, it is. But still real." Faith replies with a shrug, remembering vividly her own introduction to the supernatural world a year and a half earlier. "Look is there anyone you need to call or anything? Friends or family?"

As if by fate, a cell phone begins to ring from the blonde's pants pocket and as the girl struggles to remove it to answer, Faith decides to give her some privacy and leaves the bedroom. She makes her way out t the small kitchen and drops onto one of the barstools at the island in the center of the room.

A notebook sits open on the surface and on the top page is a list she'd compiled as the blonde had been sleeping. Nine names are upon the list, the top being Kakistos, then Trick and the rest of the vampires in that crew. A fresh strike of pencil lead covers three of the names, being Avery, Edwin and Ezekiel, and as her eyes go over those names in particular, she wonders how long their absences would go unnoticed by Kakistos. Likely not more than a day or two, so she knew that she'd have to work quickly to take out the rest of them or risk Kakistos switching up and moving out of the old warehouse that he'd set up in.

Deciding that help of the mutant variety would only aid in the getting things done properly and within the current timeframe she'd set for everything to work out. She got up and began to head back to the bedroom to ask if the blonde would have any interest in using her powers to help Faith with her mission, knowing that there was a decent chance she'd get shot down on what she was going to ask, but she figured that she could guilt the other girl into helping her, Faith had saved her life after all.

As she comes up to the door, she stops as she hears the blonde still on the phone.

"No, Monet. I swear to god it's the truth." The blonde says with urgency into the phone. "You should come over here and meet her, she's mutant like us. We can always find that Faith girl later on, s'not like she'd be going anywhere."

Faith nearly drops her coffee as she realizes that the girl and whoever 'Monet' was, were looking for her, and storms through the threshold of the room.

"Why the fuck are you looking for me?!" the slayer demands, her eyes blazing as the blonde girl stands from the bed and turns to face her. "Who the hell are you?"

"Y-you're Faith Lehane?" The blonde asks incredulously, her eyes wide. "Ok, this is awkward."

"No shit." Faith snarls, though mostly only for show. As much as she took pleasure in commiting wanton acts of brutality against vampires, she had no intentions of hurting the other girl. However the blonde needed to come clean about certain things, namely as to why she was being sought by at least two people not of the undead variety.

"Tabitha? Tabitha!?" Both Faith and the blonde look to the cell phone hanging in 'Tabitha's' hand at her side. With a bit of a shaky hand, Tabitha raises the phone to her ear again and speaks.

"Monet, scratch that. You need to come over here now, it seems that Faith and my rescuer are one and the same." Tabitha says into the phone before Faith can stop her, and hangs up the phone before her eyes go back to the angry Faith, still standing in the doorway. "Okay, look. It's probably not what you think here."

"You came here looking for me, as to why I don't know, but either way I ain't one to be overly friendly with stalkers." Faith retorts, crossing her arms in front of her chest and staring at Tabitha indimidatingly.

"Okay so it is what you think, but I swear I'm not a stalker, and neither is Monet." Tabitha confesses, not wanting to find out just how sharp the claws Faith had shown her before were. "We came because the headmistress of the school that Monet and I attend knows that you're a mutant and wanted to offer you a place with us there. It's kind of a training center disguised as a private boarding school."

"Really… A school for mutants?" Faith replies, her interest piqued. "Tell me more."

To Be Continued…


	8. The Job

Note: Thanks to JediKnight at TTH for the review of the last chapter.

Chapter 8: The Job

Monet was still a bit annoyed that Tabitha had taken off on her last night, and by the blonde's own admission had nearly gotten herself killed by what she unwaveringly claimed had been a vampire. In all honesty, she wasn't all that shocked, having known of vampires for some time. It helped that she was the grand-niece of a former Watcher's council head from the Morocco division, and had grown up hearing tales of such that her great uncle had called 'warnings'.

She pulled the Cadillac to a stop outside the small house that she'd been told by Tabitha to come to, and turns off the car before getting out and making her way around the car to head for the front door.

She knocks a couple of times and then waits for a moment or two before the sound of footfalls on the other side filter through and the door opens to reveal both Tabitha and a brunette girl that she assumes must be Faith Lehane standing just inside.

"What the hell were you thinking Tab?" She immediately starts in on the younger girl. "Do you have any idea how pissed Emma would be if she found out you went and got yourself killed."

"I wanted a drink, get over yourself." Tabitha snarls back, glaring up at the taller girl. "Besides, if vampires are real it could have happened anywhere, here or SnowValley. The academy even."

"Not if they weren't invited in." Monet disagrees and Faith, who's gaze had been going back and forth between the two other girls stops on Monet in surprise.

"Wait, how did you know that?" The slayer inquires confused, having been under the impression that Monet hadn't been so believing of what Tabitha had told her on the phone.

"My great-uncle had a few run-ins back in the day, hunting them was a bit of a job." The Moroccan-born mutant replies as she turns to face Faith.

"Watcher?" Faith takes a wild stab in the dark, and gets confirmation when Monet's eyes widened.

"How did-"

"Slayer." Faith says simply, indicating herself with her thumb. "Or I was, not too sure how that holds up seen as I should be dead. S'only cause of this mutant thing that I ain't, thank god for fast healing."

"Jesus Christ." Monet breathes out, not expecting to hear that answer. "I think I'm gonna need a drink myself now."

"There's beer in the fridge and a few bottles of the harder shit in the cabinet over in the den." Faith replies without pause. "We should talk first though, this knowledge you have on vampires already should make it easier for me to ask you guys about a certain thing I'm gonna have to get done before I make any promises about going back to this 'academy' with yah guys."

"Somehow I'm thinking I'm not going to like this." Monet replies, rubbing her fingers against her temple and Faith grins a little.

"Yeah, it's doubtful." The slayer turned mutant agrees with a quick nod. "It's something that absolutely needs doing though, and it would be quicker and easier to get done if the three of us worked together to get it done. Tabitha tells me that you have super-strength and can fly?"

Monet gives a slow nod of confirmation to Faith, and the Bostonian girl's smile widens.

"Perfect." Faith remarks with a nod of her own. "Ever heard of a vampire called Kakistos? I'm gonna kill him."

Monet faints dead away, and Faith snaps into action, catching her before she hits the floor and then throws a look over her shoulder at Tabitha.

"Guess she has heard of him."

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Monet woke up about ten minutes later with the help of the smelling salts that Faith had managed to find in Kanno's small office after she and Tabitha had moved her onto the couch.

"Please tell me that you didn't say that you were going after Kakistos?" Monet requests as she pulls herself up into a sitting position and looks between Faith and Tabitha where they sat in adjacent chairs.

"Fraid so." Faith replies with a determination in her tone. "He killed my watcher… and technically he killed me. Probably doesn't even know that my death didn't take as it should have. Woke up yesterday morning covered in blood in a pile of garbage."

"That's fucked up." Tabitha exclaims, not having heard the full story yet.

"Yep, so if I'm gonna go with you to this school I really need to do this first. It would be much easier if both of you were to help, we might even be able to get everything done tonight."

"I'm down." Tabitha offers immediately, her hand drifting to her bandaged neck as she speaks up. "Figure I owe you as much anyways. M?"

"Somehow kind of thinking I'm going to be regretting this, but yeah. Unless of course there's a chance you can be talked out of this." Monet replies, the last part directed at Faith more than Tabitha.

Faith shakes her head with a grim look on her face. "Nope, I'm doing it either way. You help me with this though and I promise that your headmistress will have a new recruit when all is said and done."

"Fair enough." Monet says as she leans back into the couch to get more comfortable. "I'm assuming that you have a plan?"

"Somewhat, but it's gonna need a bit of revising. I'd figured on going all one woman army on their asses, but it'll be easy enough to adapt to make it a three-person job." Faith replies, and then jerks her head to the side at the sound of someone coming up to the entryway into the den.

"Better make that four-person job." Faith's older cousin James Foley says as he comes to a stop at the threshold. "You should really start picking up your cell phone, I called about a dozen times."

"Lost it a couple days ago." Faith replies as she stands up to properly face James. "What are you doing here?"

"Followed her from your apartment building." James says with a nod to Monet. "If you're hunting vampires, there ain't no way in hell I'm gonna let you do it alone, mutant or not."

"Can't let yah do that cuz, not going to put anyone in danger that can't fight these bastids so I can fail them like I failed Diana."

"Who said I couldn't fight them?" James inquires with a smirk as he holds his hand palm side up and the three girls watch as a small fireball forms an inch or so off the surface of his palm to the shock of all three.

To Be Continued…


	9. Night of Reckoning, Part One

Chapter 9: Night of Reckoning, Part One.

"You're a mutant too?" Faith asks her cousin with wide eyes.

"Fraid so Fay." James nods affirmation and with a look to his fireball, lets it fade away to nothing before his eyes come back up and his gaze flickers from Tabitha and Monet before returning to Faith. "For a few years now."

"Why didn't you tell me?" She demands angrily. "I could have really used your help a couple nights ago. If I'd had a firestarter, maybe Diana would still be alive."

"Dormer's dead?" James replies, his mouth dropping in surprise over the news of the death of his cousin's guardian. "How?"

"Kakistos." Faith answers, raising her right hand and tucking her hair back as it had come loose and flown into her face with her quick turn just a couple moments earlier.

"Fuck." James curses, having heard of the vampire in question before, whisperings amongst the Boston Underground of those who fought back against the night. "We'll make the bastid pay for that."

"Damn right." Faith agrees wholeheartedly, and turns away from James to look at the two hellions. "Once we start this, there's no turning back so if either of you want to back out, now is the chance."

Monet and Tabitha share a look between themselves and then turn back to Faith, both shaking their heads.

"Good." Faith gives both girls an approving grin. "Here's how it's gonna play…"

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Night had fallen and the four mutants were sitting inside James van down by the area of the docks where Faith knew Kakistos' to be hiding. If all went well and as planned, it would be quite the day, or night as it were, of reckoning for the ancient undead bastard.

"Okay, so everyone knows what they're doing, yeah?" Faith asks as she adjusts the on of the transmitter ear-pieces that Tabitha had found in the trunk of the Cadillac. The group had gone over the plan several times before heading out to the docks and one further time on the ride over so that there would be no mishaps barring unforeseen circumstances. The other three give quick nods and Faith mirrors them with a quick one of her own. "Good, let's do this then."

She throws the sliding side door open and the four of them disembark from the van, and in almost a blur of movement, Monet grabs James by the lapels of his coat and shoots skyward as Faith and Tabitha watch.

When both have disappear into the darkness of the sky above, they turn and begin toward the entrance stairwell that led into the basement of the massive warehouse. It's not hard for the pair to locate and soon Tabitha is crouched down as she works on the lock on the thick metal door, making quick work of it.

"Remember, aim for the head and heart, anywhere else will injure but really only serve to piss them off." Faith reminds one last time and Tabitha nods.

"Any other advice?" the blonde asks, still sounding a bit nervous.

"Yeah, don't die." Faith replies without humor before opening the door and stepping inside, then waiting on Tabitha to enter as well before pulling it shut. She presses her right index finger to the small button on the transmitter. "We're in. Start the fireworks."

"On it Fay." James' voice filters into her ear, and she nods to herself as James can't see.

The slayer leads the way down the dimly lit corridor before them, bringing her claws out as her hands hang at her sides, and a couple feet behind her, Tabitha charges up a couple plasma bombs, holding them in her half-closed fists for the moment.

It's only a couple moments before they come up to a closed door and Faith holds her clawed hand up to signal for Tabitha to wait, and presses her ear to the door, using her slayer hearing to determine if there was any (un)life awaiting them in the room.

"I count five inside, get ready to throw them things." She orders and grabs the door handle, twists it and yanks open the door.

Without missing a beat, Tabitha hurls both of the bombs into the room and they detonate upon impact with the ground, filling up the room with blinding light and the surprised shrieks of a half dozen unwary vampires.

"I'm blind!" Faith hears one of them yell as she bursts into action, running into the room and ripping the head from the nearest bloodsucker as he turns to face her.

He'd not even crumbled to dust before Faith had moved onto the next target, attacking a female vampire and driving both her clawed hands into it's chest with an almost feral scream.

Behind her, Tabitha charges up a couple more bombs, which she flings at the blinded one and blows him into three pieces with the resulting explosion, and all three pieces of the vamp dust before hitting the floor.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

i"We're in. Start the fireworks."/i James hears Faith say over the communication device and gives a quick look above him at the floating Monet, and replies back that he's on it.

"Get us close to the skylight." He instructs and then looks downward as Monet begins to descend. As they lower, he gathers up his energy and sends twin 'beams' of fire toward the roof, scorching the concrete and setting the wood ablaze.

From their position, both can hear the sudden yells of panic and confusion from within and James grins. "Get us down to the roof before they get up there to put it out, I'll get anyone that comes out through the roof access with more of this."

Monet nods and flies down to the roof as instructed, letting go of Faith's cousin as they reach the surface, and then both are running toward the door, getting about fifteen feet from their entry point when the door in question flies open.

"Roast in hell yah bastids!" James roars and unleashes a huge pillar of fire from his palms that goes right into the open access stairwell, and instantly dusts all eight of the vampires within. "Aha! I love this shit!"

Monet just shakes her head and takes the lead as the fire recedes, James falling into step behind her as they enter the building.

To Be Continued…

Notes: It's the beginning of the end for the first part of this fic series, and likely will have 3-4 more chapters and an epilogue before I move on to the next part of this.

2) Thanks to JediKnight, MaxGSandeman and Raxadion from TTH for the reviews following the posting of the last chapter.

3) Also, I had just noticed on FFnet that the last couple paragraphs of the first chapter were missing. This has been rectified.


	10. Night of Reckoning, Part Two

Chapter 10: Night of Reckoning, Part Two

It didn't take long for Faith and Tabitha to dispatch of the remaining two vampires in the basement room. One tackled by Faith as it tried to escape out the back door, and summarily disemboweled and decapitated by the angry girl. The second dusting after receiving a plasma bomb right to the face and having it blown apart in a mess of blood and dust.

"This is kinda fun." Tabitha comments as she wipes the filth from the front of the red and black hellion uniform that she and Monet had donned for this mission, having found them in the trunk of the car Emma had loaned them when they'd been getting the communicators.

"Yeah." Faith mutters her agreement, moving past where the other girl stood as she headed for the door that led into whatever room came next. She grabs the handle and slowly pulls the door open a couple inches, to peer through the crack, quickly discerning that it was the corridor and stairwell that led up to the main floor of the warehouse, and also that it's unoccupied.

"We're clear, ready for round two?" She asks, turning back to face Tabitha, who gives a sharp nod.

"Hell yeah." The blonde replies, and charges up a couple more bombs for the likely chance that she'd have to act quickly, knowing that by now the roof must be on fire as per Faith's plan.

"Good, just remember once we get up there it's gonna be a lot more open and with a lot more of the walking corpses and if we get separated, don't let any of them get within arms length of yah, kay?"

"Gotcha." Tabitha nods again and Faith turns away to pull the door open fully before stepping through and starting down the short corridor, with the blonde taking a half-moment to psyche herself up before falling into quick step behind the brunette.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

James was the first to start the descent of the roof access stairwell, Monet a couple feet behind Faith's cousin as he led with his hand outstretched and flames licking the air above his fingers, ready for action if any more of the vamps came to try and put the roof fire out.

"So how long yah been a mutant lass?" He inquires in a whisper, making small talk while it was still relatively quiet.

"About three years now." Monet whispers back from a couple feet behind him. "You?"

"Eight in October." James replies as he reaches the base of the stairwell and steps out, only to let out a cry of surprise and pain as he gets hit in the face with a suckerpunch by a male vampire who'd been lurking in wait after witnessing the deaths of over a dozen of his fellow minions.

Before James hits the floor, Monet bursts into action and surges forward to grab the vampire by the throat, and gripping it by the shoulder, she pulls it's head off with her bare hand as the vamp hisses at her and tries to grab her as well, likely to bite. Monet wasn't too worried about falling to such an attack though, so it does little to throw her off her game.

Like Faith, if Monet hadn't been a mutant she would have been dead as well years ago, having discovered the extent of her mutantcy during a botched mugging in London where her attacker had shot her in the chest with a .38 only to have the bullet flatten against her skin without going through.

"You alright?" She asks James as she turns around from where the dust was settling on the floor.

"Yeah, I'm good." Faith's cousin nods as he pulls himself up to his feet and brings his right hand up to press against his forehead where the vampire's punch had caused a small wound that is now bleeding lightly. "Had plenty worse in bar fights."

"I bet." Monet replies with a smirk as she takes the lead this time, knowing that she would be a better shield against anything else that jumped out of the shadows.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Kakistos was pissed as all hell as he looked up at the skylight to find that the fire hadn't been put out despite the third of his minions that had been sent to take care of it.

The ancient vampire had been having a bad couple of days since he'd taken care of the slayer bitch Lehane and her pesky watcher, first with his lieutenants Ezekiel, Avery and Edwin going missing in action and then the failure for a death notice for Lehane to show up in any of the local papers. To top it all off, Trick had been unable to find the bitch's body where it had been left but the blood was still there.

With an angry growl he turns to face Trick and the Russians, Sergei and Conrad. "You two, get up there, now!" He orders of the two brothers who nod and begin to follow his instruction only to stop short as Faith's voice fills the room.

"Ain't gonna do any good!" She calls out mockingly and all four of the vampires turn to face the origin point of the call and Kakisto's eyes narrow as Faith steps out from behind a couple of stacked crates.

"I killed you." Kakistos snarls, taking a step forward with hate blazing in his good eye.

"Yep you did." Faith agrees with a nod and a shrug. "Wasn't your fault it didn't take, but I figured that the least I could do was give you another try, only this time it's you who's going to die."

"Brave words." Kakistos replies with a tense voice.

"Dumb vampire." Faith retorts, flashing a toothy grin at her nemesis. "Light 'em up Tab!"

Before either of the Russian brother vampires can move, both are blown apart as Tabitha unleashes her bombs, hurling them into their backs from where she'd snuck around as Faith caused a distraction.

"Shit!" Trick's voice yells as he throws himself away from Tabitha's range of aim as Conrad and Sergei fall to pieces and dust.

"GET THEM!" Kakistos roars and then dozens of vampires begin charging out of hiding among the stacks of crates, running in a number of directions, at Faith, at Tabitha, and at James and Monet who have just entered the main area of the warehouse as well, and all with murder in their eyes.

To be continued…

Note: Thanks to Raxadian, MaxGSandeman and Sandi from TTH for the reviews on the last chapter.


	11. Night of Reckoning, Part Three

Chapter 11: Night of Reckoning, Part Three

i "GET THEM!" Kakistos roars and then dozens of vampires begin charging out of hiding among the stacks of crates, running in a number of directions, at Faith, at Tabitha, and at James and Monet who have just entered the main area of the warehouse as well, and all with murder in their eyes.i

All four mutants burst into action as well, as Kakistos and Trick make their way to relative safety at the back of the room.

Tabitha dives out of the way of a female vampire as she rushes her, and spins mid-flight to throw a plasma bomb which connects with the vampire in the back and explodes, dusting her instantly. She has little time to celebrate however as three more take notice of her and let out feral growls before they rush at her as well.

"Aw, shit." She curses as she scrambles to her feet and takes off into the rows of stacked crates with the trio giving chase, growling and snarling after her. As she runs, a couple more bloodsuckers fall into step behind their fellows, all intent on draining the blonde dry and thinking quickly she begins to throw smaller versions of her plasma bombs over her shoulder without a glance backward in the hopes that they'd be slowed down for long enough for her to get a better and safer vantage point.

It works well enough, but soon she finds herself at a dead end with the vampires closing in, so with haste she quickly climbs atop one of the stack, reaching the top just as one of them grabs her by the ankle in an attempt to pull her down.

"Fuck that!" She screams and unleashes as much energy into a bomb as she can before shoving it into the vampire's face with as much force as she can muster, holding on to the top of crate with her other hand. The vampire roars in pain and falls away from her, releasing it's grip on her with it's sudden descent.

It never hits the floor and she finishes pulling herself up to safety before charging up a couple more normal sized bombs and begins to unleash hell on the remaining vamps trying to climb up to where she's perched.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

James charges up twin fireballs in his hands as Monet moves to meet the first of the vampires that come at them, the Moroccan born mutant punching out with her fist to drive it through the chest of the male vampire who lunges at her.

Severely wounded, the male vamp can do little as Monet rips her fist back and kicks it in the chest to send it sprawling into two others and sending all three to the ground in a heap. A second later, all three are alight courtesy of one of James' fireballs and let out agonized screams as they all burst into flame.

Monet turns back to give James a nod of thanks, but her eyes go wide as she takes in the sight of the male sneaking up behind Faith's cousin with a wooden two-by-four in hand.

"Look out!" She yells at the Irishman, who turns to face the lurking vampire just in time to catch a blow to the side of the head that sends him sprawling to the floor, unconscious and bleeding slightly from the temple.

"No more fire girlie, what else yah got?" The vampire with the wooden weapon mocks and Monet throws him a glare before turning and snap-kicking the vamp trying to sneak up on her in the head and knocking it clean off to fly across the expanse of the warehouse.

Turning back to face the vampire who'd knocked James out, she gives a grin at it's suddenly nervous look and begins to stalk toward him

"A fair few things actually." She replies before suddenly flying at him in a blur, catching him in the midsection with her shoulder and sending him flying into the cement wall behind with a sickening crunch.

Taking up position to stand of the prone form of James, she raises her fists and beckons the rest of the vampires coming toward her onward, knowing full well that there was no chance that any of them would be able to get their fangs in her if a bullet couldn't do it.

"What else you got?" Monet mirror's the vampire's question, directing it at the others before bursting into a flurry of punches and kicks as they rush her as one.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Faith takes a step back as a massive vampire runs at her with ferocity and speed, timing her movements just right so the she bends at her knees and does a backflip away from the swipe that the vamp takes at her. Mid flip, she feels a ripping pain in her foot as it makes contact with the vamp's chin and as she lands on her feet again, finds that a claw from her left foot's that she wasn't aware she'd had, had caught the vamp in the underside of his soft pallet and ripped through it's face.

As it collapses to it's knees before her, she wastes no time in striking out with both her clawed hands and catching the vampire in the face, utterly destroying it's eyes and ability to see. With a quick lurch, she grabs it by the shoulders and throws it away from her to crash into a stack of crates, which splinter under the impact and a piece of broken wood dusts him.

Turning toward where Kakistos and Trick are, she begins to stalk towards them with murderous rage in her eyes, and despite the eight vampires that rush at her in defense of their master, she makes short work of them, her form in a near blur as she swipes, tears and slashes her way through her attackers and reducing them to dust in a matter of moments.

With the eight of them gone, she now has a clear path to where Kakistos and Trick stand, the former just behind the latter.

"You're going to die." She snarls and takes a couple steps forward before Kakistos grabs Trick by the back of his business suit.

"What the hell boss?" Trick manages to get out before he's airborne, crashing into Faith and sending both to the ground as Kakistos turns and runs for the roof access.

Without much thought behind it, Faith brings both hands up in a clapping motion as Trick tries to get up, and Kakistos' second's head rolls a couple times on the floor before exploding to ash along with his now headless body.

Faith kicks to her feet and starts to run after her nemesis, stopping for a moment as she hears Monet yell to her.

"Faith! James got knocked out!"

The slayer turns and looks to see Monet covered in vampire ash and holding the limp form of her firestarter cousin in the Moroccan girl's arms and then Tabitha joins them.

"Get him and yahselves outta here!" She yells and then turns to run toward the second roof access stairwell.

"What about you?!" Tabitha yells back from across the room.

"I'm finishing this!" the slayer yells back before disappearing into the stairwell after Kakistos.

To Be Continued…

Note: Thanks to Syed from FFnet, and Raxadion, JediKnight, JaCee and Jormunguard from TTH for the reviews for the last chapter.


	12. Absolution

Chapter 12: Absolution

ibThree Days Earlier/b

Faith was only half conscious as her limp form was dragged roughly out of the locked 'cell', a closed off and unlit concrete room where she'd been kept for at least the past twelve hours or so following the short fight in the alleyway outside the club that she and Diana had gone to looking for vampires to hunt, only to run afoul of Mr. Trick, Ezekiel and Avery.

Diana had been restrained by Mr. Trick with little effort as Ezekiel and Avery had proceeded to beat her senseless before both she and her watcher had been dragged off to 'meet' their lord Kakistos.

The young slayer let out a groan of pain as she was forced to her knees in front of the ancient vampire, and her hair fell down in front of her face as her head hung in front of her, and the only reason she didn't fall to the ground was that Avery and the Russian vampire Conrad kept her upright with their steel grips on her shoulders to hold her down and in place.

"You've been causing me quite a bit of undue problems these past weeks, Ms Lehane." She hears Kakistos say as he moves close to tower above her, and shakily she raises her head upward to stare at him through the veil of dark hair obscuring her face.

"It w-was my p-p-pleasure." Faith croaks out, flashing the vampire master above her a bloodstained and toothy grin of defiance and then her head snaps to the side and blood sprays from her mouth as Kakistos viciously backhands her with his cloven fist. She collapses sideways to the ground, her vision swimming with pain before she's hauled back up into a kneeling position by Avery and Conrad. She winces in pain as Kakistos grabs her by the chin and forces her to look up at him again.

"I am going to take great pleasure in smothering out that fire of yours." He snarls at her before shoveing her chin away and her head falls again as the vampire master backs off a bit. "Bring the watcher!"

Faith lets out an agonized scream a moment later as Diana is dragged into her line of sight by Edwin and Sergei, the watcher's figure a bloody mess, and looking even worse off than Faith herself.

"d-d-Diana!" She manages to choke out, blood dribbling out of her mouth as she struggles in vain against the grips of the two holding her, but with her injuries there is little she can do to get herself free. As she watches in horror, Kakistos moves up to where Diana is being held and after a quick look and sick grin to Faith, the vampire turns and plunges his fangs into Diana's neck before ripping her throat apart with his teeth.

"Noooooooooooo!" Faith screams and begins to thrash wildly against he two vampires holding her down, with all the fight left in her.

"Let her up." Kakistos orders as he turns back to face Faith, Diana's blood dribbling from his fangs.

Faith rises shakily as she's suddenly released and begins to hobble over to where Kakistos stands, hoping that she can at least take him down before she's killed.

*Flash*

She's in the midst of a fight with several of Kakistos' minions, including Mr. Trick as Kakistos watches in amusement.

*Flash*

She collapses to her knees as mind numbing pain assaults her mind, almost causing her to black out.

*Flash*

Confusion and pain as razor sharp claws shoot out of her fingertips, but she is in too much pain to fight the vampires as they take advantage of her disorientation to begin beating and kicking her fallen form.

*Flash*

Feeling herself being dragged to her feet. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she hears someone whisper 'Find the mutants, find them and kill them all'.

*Flash*

She blinks as the pain suddenly ends, and struggles vainly as the vampires haul her to her feet, and hold her in place.

*Flash*

Her eyes widen in pain, shock and horror as Kakistos rushes her with a katana, driving it through her torso, impaling her halfway upon the blade.

*Flash*

Tasting copper in her mouth as the ancient vampire rips the sword out of her, and the flash of silver as he turns and swipes out with a smaller blade, catching her in the throat and slicing open the tender flesh. This done, he leans in close to whisper in her ear. 'You never even had a chance of winning.'

*Flash*

Collapsing to a heap on the floor as the vampires holding her immobile shove her to the ground, and her hands clutch at her torn neck.

*Flash*

As she feels life fleeing her, the last thing she hears is Kakistos dismissive order to Mr. Trick to 'dispose of the garbage'. She blacks out, almost relieved at the lack of pain that comes with the oblivion of death.

* End Flash*/i

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

bNow/b

"Kakistos!" Faith screams out as she clears the threshold of the door that led out onto the roof, her eyes darting around wildly for any sign of the vampire in question, her clawed hands hanging at her sides as she bristles with rage and the want to tear Kakistos to pieces. "Where are you, you son of a bitch?!"

"Behind you." She hears him whisper and then lets out a cry as she's kicked in the back and goes sprawling to the roof's surface, rolling a couple of times before she brings herself to a stop, crouched low as she turns to face him, only to find the spot he'd been a second or two earlier.

Her eyes dart back and forth about the expanse of the roof as she rises, trying to find the vampire amidst the smokestacks, air-vents and the still burning skylight and section of roof set aflame by her cousin just a little while earlier.

A sudden flash of movement draws her attention as something darts between two of the smokestacks about ten yards away and she bursts into motion, running at a full-on sprint toward the figure's hiding spot.

She runs around the corner of the smokestack with her claws out and ready to hack and slash, but once more finds that Kakisto's isn't there.

"Enough of you're goddamn games yah motherless fucker!" She scream in rage and irritation that after everything that he had done to her Kakistos seemed unwilling to face her. Suddenly she hears a slight thump behind her and spins around, already preparing to shred the vampire to pieces.

Things don't quite go her way and Faith lets out a scream of pain as she suddenly finds herself once more impaled on Kakistos' katana with a flash of silver and she falls forward with her head against his chest as he slowly lifts her up, still stuck fast on the blade until her feet are dangling a couple inches off the ground.

"Ughhnnn.." She moans as he twists the blade in her gut, then slumps seemingly lifeless against him as he laughs heartily, and uses the hand not holding the katana to brush her hair back almost gingerly as he prepares to take a bite of the slayer that had been so hard to kill.

"I told you that you would never be able to w-URK!" Kakistos is cut off as searing pain rips through his chest and looks down to find that Faith had slammed her left hand, still clawed, into his chest cavity.

"D-didn't come here to w-win." She chokes out, her blood flowing from her mouth, much more steadily than before. "I came to drag you down to HELL!"

With that said, she rips Kakistos unbeating heart from his chest as he roars in pain and tries to throw her away from him.

As she hits the ground, still half-stuck on the katana, Kakistos explodes into flame and ash and she lets a small smile form on her face. Slowly and shakily, she rises to her feet and grips the handle of the katana with her hands to pull it from her stomach, all the while wincing in pain as she feels the sharp blade further tear her insides.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, she pulls it free and drops it onto the roof atop the pile of ash. Faith is still for a couple long moments, just staring at Kakistos' remains before finally she moves forward a step and spits on the pile before turning and beginning to make her way back toward the stairwell to escape.

She only makes it a couple of steps before she falls into blackness, her body impacting the surface of the roof with a loud thump and a pool of blood begins to form around her lifeless body as the moon shines down upon her, lighting up the spot she'd fallen almost as if it was daytime.

To Be Concluded…

Note: A very special thanks to Kevinn from TTH for the Rec, it's very much appreciated. XD


	13. Epilogue: A New Day

Epilogue: A New Day

Faith's eyes snapped open to find that the world around her was filled with light, and as she pulled herself up to her feet, she quickly discerned that she was no longer on the roof of Kakistos' warehouse, or Boston even if the Ancient Rome-esque pillars that were holding up the ceiling of the massive white room she now found herself in were any indication.

With a shaky hand, she lifts the bottom of her shirt to find that her stomach is once again undamaged and smooth before dropping it and turning in a slow circle as she surveys her surroundings.

Finding the room to be unoccupied aside from herself and no noticeable exits anywhere around her, she frowns and shakes her head in annoyance.

"Great." She mumbles to herself. "If this is what heaven is supposed to be, I want my deposit back."

"Oh this ain't heaven lass, they ain't quite ready for you yet." Someone says from behind her and slowly she turns to face the origin of the voice, finding a man standing a couple yards away from her. "They do, however, have a place reserved for you when it comes that time."

"W-who are you?" She asks, confused as to where she is and what she's doing here if this wasn't heaven.

"Name's Whistler." The man says, tipping his hat to her before removing it as a show of respect, before he answers her unasked questions. "Place don't really have a proper name, it's sort of a rest stop between life and death."

"Why am I here?" Faith presses, something about the man hauntingly familiar to her, as if they'd met in another life or something.

"Because the game has changed." Whistler replies, his gaze locking with hers with an intensity she couldn't quite describe. "The course of events of the past few days is far from what should have been."

"Meaning?" Faith demands with slight irritation, not having the patience for such vagary on the best of days.

"You were always meant to kill Kakistos, but the where, how and when have diverged from that which was foretold."

"I don't understand."

"Well that's two of us sweetheart." Whistler replies with a shrug. "I didn't create the rules, I'm just an… enforcer of them. If you need someone to blame for the offer that I've been authorized to make to you by order of the people upstairs, well you can lay that at the feet of Alexander Harris.'

"What is this offer?" Faith inquires tentatively, unsure if she's going to like what she's about to hear.

"There are two paths ahead of you, my dear. Both come with their own trials and sacrifices." Whistler intones, his voice a bit heavy. "On the one hand, you can remain the slayer and have the constant threat of vampires and demons seeking you out, whether or not you continue to fight the good fight; and on the other hand, you can walk the path of mankind's next evolutionary step and define your own destiny. Either road has repercussions of it's own, but in this instance, the Powers that Be have decided to leave the choice up to you, but they do need an answer now so that certain things in the world can be rectified should you choose to remain a slayer. Two is one thing, but three… well that is too many, for the time being at least."

Faith stares at Whistler for a couple long moments, thinking over things in her head before she comes to a decision.

"What if I refuse to make a choice?" She asks, feeling a bit rebellious that these people, whoever it was that Whistler was talking about, deemed fit to play with her life in such a way.

"Then they will make it for you as they've done all along." Whistler answers honestly and she gives a grim nod.

"Can I still hunt vampires if I choose not to be a slayer anymore?"

"You can, though why you'd want to is quite a mystery, innit?" Whistler says as he pulls out a pack of cigarettes, taking one for himself before offering one to Faith, who takes it and tucks it behind her ear. "They're offering you your life back, to make of it what you will. If it was me, I'd take them up on it."

"Okay." Faith says, giving another nod, as it becomes clear to her what her choice will be. "I want out. I don't want to be a slayer anymore."

"Figured as much." Whistler replies, giving her a small smile. "You did good kid, keep at it. We'll be needing you down the road either way."

"So what happens next then?"

"Well that's on you, really. For once, destiny doesn't really factor into the equation." Whistler answers with a shrug. "I would imagine the place to start first though, would be waking up. You got a couple friends missing you something awful."

"Wake up? How exactly do-" Faith is cut off mid-sentence as the world around her explodes with light and for the briefest of moments, she can feel herself freefalling amidst the blinding white.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

"I think she's coming around." Faith heard Monet say before her eyes flew open and she snapped up into a sitting position on her cousin's couch in his South Boston home.

"Welcome back Fay." Her gaze shoots to her cousin, standing just a couple feet from her with a bandage wrapped around his head and staring back at her with a look of relief on his face. "Had us worried for a bit there."

"What happened?" Faith asks, a bit disoriented following recovery from her most recent 'death', but then shakes her head as James opens his mouth to speak. "No, nevermind. I remember."

"Did you get Kakistos? Monet said that the roof was burning pretty bad when she found you up there and brought you back." Tabitha asks, dropping onto the couch next to where Faith sits a moment later and the former slayer turns to look at the blonde for a moment before nodding.

"Yeah." Faith confirms, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth, before an overwhelming feeling of lethargy fills her and she lets out a yawn as it hits her that she'd not had any proper sleep since this whole thing started four days ago. "It's over, he's gone."

As she says this, she reaches up to brush her hair back, and her eyes go wide as she pulls an unlit cigarette from behind her ear, and holds it before her for a moment before grabbing James' zippo off of the coffee table before her and lighting it up between her lips.

"So what happens now?" Monet asks from where she'd taken up residence in the chair on the other side of the table, fixing Faith with a look of concern.

"I don't know." The ex-slayer replies, not having an answer for such things as she takes a heavy drag from the cigarette. "Alls I know is that I'm free… And I really want to have a good long sleep."

A snort of amused laughter comes from her cousin, and he speaks again. "That's something I think we can all embrace."

Faith doesn't speak again, she just takes another long drag from the cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray before leaning back into the couch and closing her eyes as a full smile finally forms upon her face.

[i]If I leave here tomorrow,

Will you still remember me?

Well I must be travelling on now,

Cause theres too many places i got to see.

If I stay here with you girl,

Things just couldn't be the same.

Cause I'm as free as a bird now,

and this bird you cannot change

and this bird you cannot change

and this bird you cannot change

Lord knows I can't change...[/i]

Not the End, but a New Beginning…

Note: Thank you to the following people who took the time to review or recommend this story.

Allen Pitt and Syed from FFnet

JediKnight, Raxadian, MaxGSandeman, JaCee, Kevinn, Jormunguard, Sandi, Philister, CAPTskip, BrinLondoFive, and Ltlconf from TTH

Hope to see yah all continue to follow with the sequel, coming VERY soon, and until next time, much love from your friend The Stoner Guru.

PEACE OUT.


End file.
