The Beast and Dragon, Adored

Summary: Post "Chosen". Post "NFA". The new Council shows up in LA right after "NFA" looking for Angel . Instead, they run into Faith and whats left of the Fang gang.

Disclaimer: My name is Joss Whedoon...if you change and rearrange all the letters. Okay, so the characters aren't mine. The title is from a Spoon song of the same name.

Notes: Main focus of this story is my favorite character, Faith. Most of the scoobies will make an
apperance. Pairings will be explained in the fic.

FYI: I am terrible at fight scenes. I dislike most original characters, so most of the bit players don't have names.

Warnings: Mild swearing. Character death. Not promising a happy ending.

Please feel free to point out any mistakes. And most importantly Review.

Chapter 1: Angel which Redeemed Me
(Gen. 48:16)

"God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.
-Aeschylus

Muted voices creeping up from the lobby of the hotel chased the death-like stillness from the dimly light room. Judging by the dust and general disarray, the hotel room had obviously seen better days. The only two occupants of the room, judging by the blood and general disarray of their personages, had also obviously seen better days. Neither tattered individual seemed at all inclined to investigate the disturbance coming from below. One reclining on the unmade bed limbs carelessly arranged around him, a Zen-like peacefulness engulfing his tall ebony figure. The other, a brunette girl, with the wary stillness of a predator about to go for the jugular, was poised on the edge of a ratty recliner facing the prostrate man. Each seemed to be staring across some unfathomable distance, the untouched and untouchable.

Finally, after a loud shriek of what sounded suspiciously like "Spider!" erupting from below, the brunette girl, eyes still unfocused on some distant world, agilely rose to her booted feet. Weary eyes gradually returning back to reality, focused on the handsome face of the black man. She seemed on the verge of speaking, but then, instead, swiftly stepped forward and pulled a thin generic hotel blanket over the vacant body of one Charles Gunn. Former street kid, dedicated demon fighter, card carrying member of team Angel, and most recently a semi-ambiguous lawyer, now gone. Dead, found alone in the filthy alley behind the Hyperion. Dead, drenched in rain and sweat and blood. Dead, fighting an evil law firm, of all things. Dead, fighting a war from the inside the belly of the beast. He was brave and loyal and kicked demon ass. But in the end, he was just dead.

With a final glance around Angel's former room and at the lifeless body of a man she barely knew, Faith turned toward the door. The slayer retrieved Angel's favorite broadsword from where she'd leaned it against the doorframe. Faith found his sword abandoned in the alley near Gunn, no clues to tell what happened to its owner. She turned out the lights and silently closed the door behind her. Stealthily Faith slipped into the shadows of the dark hallway to investigate, and if needs be, tear limb from limb whoever or whatever had disturbed her silent vigil, Gunn's lonely wake.

Chaos, absolute chaos.

"Would you please get down from there?! You are supernatural warriors with a sacred calling to protect all of mankind. Try to have a little more pride in your calling…"

Rupert Giles, former librarian, watcher turned ex-watcher turned watcher again, and now official head of the newly re-organized Watcher's Council, could only share a covert grin with his Slayer and his fellow former dark magic user: in truth two of his children. The three of them stood off to the side, vastly amused at the sight before them. Anything to distract them from this supposed "rescue" mission turned salvage mission was welcome.

After arriving in LA to find the crumbled ruins of Wolfram and Heart and all the major players in the demon community wiped out, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the Council had been wrong to abandon the Fang Gang. Wrong about Angel. Wrong not to come to the aid of the LA team. Wrong about so many things. And now it seemed too late. No trace of Angel, or in fact, any of his group had been found at the ruins of Wolfram and Heart. The Council teamcomprised of Giles, Buffy, Willow, several Watchers (each with varying degrees of experience), and several of the newly minted slayers (with practically no experience)were hoping to find some sort of clue or direction at Angel's hotel. Hopefully, searching the hotel would produce answers or at the very least, a base of operations. If, of course, the current crisis could be handled.

The current crisis being one large furry spider, two very agitated well-armed slayers perched on a dusty countertop, and one persnickety young watcher that rather resembled Wesley in his Princess Margaret days. The rest of the party was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

"…Try to have a little dignity," The young watcher's attempts at cajoling the girls down from their perch earned him nothing but a pair of glares.

"Dignity? Dignity! Do you see the size of that thing? I bet it drags off small dogs to eat for breakfast!"

This from a dirty blonde slayer, barely eighteen, waving her short sword frantically in the general direction of the spider. Her crossbow-wielding compatriot joined in.

"Oi! Dogs for breakfast, toddlers for lunch. I'm not going to be dinner. I'm not going anywhere near it!"

After several more moments of nearly apocalyptic tenseness, the fastidious young watcher made a breakthrough.

"Oh, bloody hell. Would someone just get rid of the thing?"

What a wonderful idea. This solution seemed to agree with the trigger-happy slayers and the almost unnaturally large arachnid was subsequently turned into a pincushion, beheaded, and finally mashed into a paste. Thus general order was restored or, as everyone was finding out, what passed for order around any number of slayers. And everyone was finding out quite a lot about working with these chosen girls.

The past year had been all about discovering and redefining what a slayer was and how the council fit in. The past year had been very busy indeed. Busy trying to organize funds and resources. Busy gathering up any active watchers fortunate enough to be absent from Council headquarters the day of the explosion and convincing some retired (in some cases disillusioned) watchers to come back to the fold, and recruiting brand new watchers from outside their exclusive circle of occult experts. Not to mention the newly called slayers. How does one even begin to tell a fifteen-year-old and her family about the demon world? Or a thirty-eight year old mother of two? What to do with a delinquent slayer? Or the disabled and ill slayers like Dana? Luckily, only a handful were extreme cases and thanks to the First, the number of slayers to train wasn't too overwhelming. Yet.

The past year had seen the makeshift family from Sunnydale separated at all corners of the world. Giles back in London piecing together the new council. Willow, still with Kennedy to the surprise of some, in San Paulo working with the local coven and collecting slayers (or in Rio working on their tans). Xander doing well, navigating his way around the poverty ridden countries of Africa with his usual self-depreciating efficiency. After shooting all over Europe pocketing fledgling slayers, Buffy and Dawn settled down in Rome. Dawn very successfully in school and working part-time translating ancient texts for the council. Buffy doing everything from shopping (on the councils dime of course) to having a fling with the Immortal to terminating the fling and the aforementioned Immortal because of his rather shady business dealings. Even Andrew pitched in and was becoming a somewhat useful human being. Andrew's report of the situation in LA had only backed up the decision to keep their distance.

Angel's motives for taking control of the evil law firm, the instability of Wesley, one of Angel's team even getting frankensteined by one of the law firms disreputable associates. With Cordelia missing, from all reports probably dead, and the only players of the LA team that seemed kosher being a tiny Texan scientist and a karaoke singing demon, the situation had been far from picturesque. So the council, scoobies included, stayed away. Angel had once asked for help, they'd stupidly ignored his plea. So when the end came, they faced it alone. And now the only thing to do was try to put humpty back together again.

With an effortless and almost imperceptible shift in demeanor, all eyes turned to Buffy. In any suburban mall, the sun haired slayer would be indistinguishable from any typical California girl. A petite vapid blonde, perhaps, or a self-involved young college student. She would be mistaken for any other an average girl...anywhere but here. Just a few little things altered her presence, squaring her shoulders, straightening to her full if still diminutive height, chin up, eyes pools of liquid calm. The blonde slayer slipped on what the girls called her General's face.

"Alright, we need to search the hotel. Doesn't look like any hairy evil has been hiding out here but safe is better than waking up dead in the middle of the night 'cause we didn't check under the beds. That's you slayers."

Of course, once Buffy opened her mouth, it was hard to think of her as cold-hearted general. Really, 'Hairy evil?'

Buffy continued, "I want watchers snooping around offices and whatnot. Look for clues, smelly books, anything that might be useful. After we get set up, I want to send teams to last known addresses. Look around, pester neighbors. Uh, but nice pestering. We don't want anyone calling the cops. Wills and Giles will stay here and hack into the police database, see if they know anything. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I got one."

Almost as one, weapons readied, the slayers twirled to face the undetected source of the smoky voice. Apparently, the incident with the spider had shot the nerves of the crossbow-wielding slayer all to hell because as soon as she'd turned, a wooden bolt flew lightening fast from the bow straight at the origin of the voice. A crossbow bolt aimed by the steady hand of a slayer normally spelled R.I.P. or at least great debilitating pain for whatever unfortunate creature it was aimed at. Imagine their surprise when.

Faith smoothly plucked the wooden messenger of death from the air as she sauntered down the stair in her docs and warped attitude.

"Well, I guess the teachers were wrong when they said any question's a good question." Twirling the crossbow bolt between her fingers, the dark slayer ambled across the tiled lobby floor. Stopping in front of her almost murderess, Faith lazily passed the bolt back. Sneering at the wide-eyed crossbow girl, "Careful with those, you wouldn't want to accidentally kill anyone."

With that the dark-haired slayer upstaged the attention of the entire room, as only a good train wreck or David Bowie outfit could. Faith hopped unto the counter, booted feet dangling in the air, waiting with devil-may-care attitude for feast or famine. The only indication that the brunette was not as completely blase as she projected was the obvious care with which she placed Angel's broadsword next to her. The peanut gallery was at a loss. Luckily, Buffy, as always, was quick on her feet.

"Faith…"

"B."

Ah yes, this was definitely the conversation grammys were won with.

Last anyone heard Faith and Robin Wood had been an item. An item, subject to bets on the longitude of their unlikely pairing, but together and protecting the Cleveland hellmouth. Wood was working for an affluent private school as an assistant administrator and Faith continued the training of a small contingent of the surviving Sunnydale slayers. So what exactly was Faith doing in LA?

"So Faith, what exactly are you doing in LA?" Good question. As always, when confronted by her onetime nemesis, Buffy tensed up, giving a show of her best big-sister-what-have-you-done-this-time glare. Though they'd had several semi-meaningful conversations since Faith broke out of prison, the two original slayers were far from best buds.

Lounging back onto the counter, obviously unfazed by both Buffy's mild annoyance and the spectators, Faith just smirked, seemingly all knowingly, at Buffy, the room, the room's occupants, and the world in general. "Ah, you know B. Thought I'd check out the hotspots, a little star watching, work on my tan, maybe a little shopping on Rodeo drive."

Buffy's annoyance rose. Arms now crossed across her chest, the blonde shifted from her best big-sister-what-have-you-done-this-time look to her I'm-not-in-the-mood-I-will-bath-in-your-blood-and-make-handbags-out-of-your-lower-intestines-if-you-screw-with-me glare. This glare has been known to whither flowers and most other types of woody vegetation.

The only palpable change of Faith's demeanor was her eyes. Still posed as a captivating centerfold ripped from some glossy magazine page, inviting lips still twisted, but as always, her eloquent eyes destroyed the well-manicured lie. Faith's maxim of misdirection lived on. Say one thing, do one thing, feel another.

The dark slayer's eyes flashed sorrow then hardened, "A friend called. Asked for backup. From the look of things, missed last call."

"Do you know what happened, what caused the big shake down at Wolfram and Hart?" Willow, curious as ever, jumped straight in.

"Where the others are?" The controlled desperation scrawled on Buffy's face was plain, "Angel?"

"Don't know about the watcher or the little Texan that could. Heard a while back, Queen C was in a coma, never woke up." At her mention of Cordelia's coma, Faith hunched her shoulders together, visibly disturbed at the idea of never waking from a coma. All traces of her flippant attitude erased at the next news. "Gunn's upstairs."

"Well, that's good," the red-head, not wanting to catch the absolute sobriety with which Faith had delivered that line, started babbling, "That's good. We'll just find out from him what's going on. Then go, get Angel and Wesley, did I tell you that Wesley looked like the Marlboro man last time I saw him, and that nice Fred. I definitely want to give Angel a piece of my mind. Not literally 'cause, hey, ouch, I need that. I mean… what were they thinking, taking over a big evil law firm like that. It could have been…"

Faith ever so delicately interrupted the witches' nervous ramblings. "He's dead, Red. I found him…in the alley out back."

Willow quickly sat down. Giles, knowing what was coming, slowly took of his glasses to clean them. As if not being able to see would stop him from seeing. The random assortment of nameless white hats faded to the edges of the room, uncomfortably aware they had no personal stake in this very personal matter. Buffy just stood next to the seated Willow and Giles, oddly blank.

"It's a mess back there. Lots of demon parts. Musta been a helluva fight. No sign of the others." For further evidence of the futility of the situation, Faith gestured with her best Vanna White in mourning to the naked blade beside her, "Just…Angel's sword. Just a sword."

Just a sword. As if that wasn't proof enough.

Okay, so ends chapter number one. Next up, we find out who survived Wolfram and Hart. Please review.