A/N: trying this idea out. Let me know what you think. A little background regarding slayers is included in this chapter, so if you aren't familiar with the series no worries! Hopefully it won't be too confusing. The basic idea: slayers fight demons and vampires, and they're always young women.

Solo Girl
Foolishness

A tall, scholarly man sat in a tiny room. It resembled an office, except there was no computer. The place was cramped; all four walls were lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves, weighted down by heavy ancient tomes of all the lore and legend available to the man. In the middle, there was a sturdy table, and two chairs. A Mr. Ian Hadley occupied one of these, and in the other was a young woman in a blue dress, glaring fiercely.

"I'm sorry, Linnet," said Hadley in a mumbled way. He adjusted his glasses anxiously, but then seemed to resolve his determination. "You cannot stop her on your own."

The young woman shook her head, two long braids swaying with the gesture. "I can take her." She leaned forward eagerly, desperately, her green eyes hard and obstinate. "I can if you just let me try."

"You already tried!" Hadley exclaimed. Normally a stiff man in his tweed suits, he fell apart in the face of Linnet's ambitiousness — which was often more like recklessness. "She nearly killed you, or did you forget?"

Linnet sat back in her chair. Her bottom lip protruded in something akin to an angry pout. "She got lucky that time," she muttered. The worry in her watcher's eyes didn't escape her. "Hadley, I'm a slayer —"

"As though I don't know that."

She ignored the interruption. "She's just a little witchy demon bitch. It's not like she's a hell god. She's not the First, for Christ's sake!" She sighed. "I can take her, without a whole army behind me."

Hadley tore of his glasses and leveled her with a stern gaze, an annoying habit that seemed universal among watchers. "Linnet, I know you are determined to prove yourself. I know you want to be recognized among the likes of Buffy … but this is foolish. I'm calling in as many slayers as we can get. I might even see about contacting Willow."

Linnet gaped. "For this? You're going to bother them all for this?! One demon! God, they'll think I'm inept."

"You underestimate Hecateri. This is serious, Linnet. Apocalypse serious."

"Yeah, and I handled the last one just fine without any backup dancers."

"I forbid you to engage her." Her watcher's eyes softened. "Please, tell me you won't do anything to get yourself hurt."

Grudgingly, Linnet nodded, and agreed to heed her watcher's will. But, well, her legs were crossed underneath the table, and of course that invalidated any promises.

At nineteen-years-old, Linnet Dalton was getting on in age for a slayer. She knew she had to be good to survive this long, even acknowledging that the job really wasn't quite as fatal as once was. Since the activation of all the potentials, it'd been fairly easy work. There were hundreds of slayers scattered across the States, and that had the demons and baddies of the night tiptoe-ing around, creating as little havoc as possible. Where Linnet was stationed in Richmond, Virginia, nine times out of ten the dead bodies that popped up were courtesy of your run-of-the-mill human killers. Sometimes she went a whole week without dusting a damn thing.

Still, evil went down, and it wasn't always a fair match. It took real presence of mind and skill not to get stabbed with your own stake, and Linnet was very aware of it.

She was good. She trained every day, nearly all day. Sometimes she missed school to train, though she did try to be a good student. She just couldn't see how math for the liberal arts was half as important as her "destiny." Staring at numbers in class and knowing that vampires roamed the earth kinda made sitting still a bit tough.

The point was, she could take one lone demon, super strong and witching powers be damned.

As she approached the old warehouse, she felt a spike of hesitation in her gut. The thought that this might be stupid, that Hadley might be 100% right, invaded her mind against her will. It was true, after all, that her last encounter with Hecateri hadn't gone well. Linnet had barely escaped with her life, and the next day she missed English and Geology because of her wounds.

She inhaled deeply. Now was not the time to have doubts. Resolute, she pushed through the heavy delivery doors with ease, but her bravado crumbled at what she saw before her.

Hecateri stood upon a dais, donned in black, unflattering robes, her bald yellow head shimmering beneath the electric lights. At her feet was a giant cauldron, the contents of which seemed to be boiling, and surrounding her — oh, just six kailiff demons. And they were all staring at her.

Okay, Linnet thought to herself, what keeps a good slayer alive?

"Knowing when to run," she muttered to herself, before turning around swiftly.

She'd barely taken one step when the raspy voice of Hecateri ordered, "Halt!"

For reasons that were probably magical in nature, Linnet was dismayed to find that she obeyed.

"Turn around."

She was horrified when she did.

Hecateri smiled a hideous, sharp-toothed smile. "Slayer. You're more of a fool than I took you for."

Linnet smiled back unhappily. "Yeah, it seems that way, doesn't it?"

The demon woman stepped down from the dais, approaching the slayer with a brutish gait as the kailiff minions lined up behind her. Hecateri leant down to stare Linnet in the eyes.

"How does it feel, knowing tonight is the night you're going to die?"

Quashing the fear rapidly overwhelming her, Linnet stuck her nose in the air. "Fabulous, knowing there's a whole army of slayers on their way to kick your ass back to hell."

Hecateri's greenish lips turned down in a snarl. "You slayers think you rule the world," she declared bitterly.

"Maybe because we do?"

Linnet's head snapped to the side as Hecateri backslapped her. The teenager winced, but otherwise made no acknowledgement of the stinging pain in her jaw.

"I should teach you a lesson," said the demon bitch.

"Don't bother, I always fall asleep during lessons," Linnet quipped. Discreetly, she tried to move her legs, but she was completely immobile. Oh, hell.

The kailiff demons were looking restless, but Hecateri seemed to be thinking. "A single slayer is weak."

Linnet let out a short bark of laughter. "Where have you been all of history?"

Hecateri's gaze shifted back to her. "Before that witch changed everything, slayers barely ever made it to eighteen years. Why? Because they were alone. You're foolish, girl. You'd be dead by now if the world were still as it was."

Indignant, Linnet scowled. "Please, I'd still be exactly where I am." Ignoring the fact that where she was, she was about to be killed, barring the appearance of a much hoped for deus ex machina.

Hecateri grinned wickedly. "Ah, we'll see how long you survive in a random world, all on your own." She took a step back from the slayer, gesturing for the kailiff demons to stay behind her.

"What?" Linnet demanded. "What are you doing?"

She began to chant, slowly at first, and then quickly, in a language the young woman before her didn't recognize. The words lilted and twisted in an eerie way, Hecateri's voice rising and falling. Linnet became seriously alarmed when shimmering tendrils of light encircled first her feet, then her legs, as the spell climbed up her body. In vain, she struggled to move.

"What are you doing!" she shouted above the chanting, all pretense of calm abandoned. Her soft features contorted in panic. Hecateri's focus was not broken.

Finally the light engulfed her, and abruptly went out. The chanting ceased. The fetid smell emanating from the cauldron vanished. The world crumbled away, and the slayer was left in the black.

A/N: so, thoughts? Good idea, bad idea? Should I continue? Reviews of all kinds are very much appreciated.