Getting Over Buffy Summers in Four Easy Steps, and Mostly by Mail.
Disclaimer: These characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Dark Horse Comics, and a lot of other people who are not me.
Warning: If you are a fan of the Buffyverse, you may have noticed that girls sometimes like girls. As they do in this story. If this offends you, there are lots of other stories out there for you to read.
Spoilers: Through the Season Eight Comicsverse.
The first package was oblong, non-descript, wrapped in thick brown paper. Satsu unwrapped it curiously, wondering who had the mailing address to send care packages to underground slayer training compounds. It turned out to be a large bottle of Jack Daniels. With a note. In surprisingly nice handwriting.
"This will help. – F."
Faith. Satsu thought it was kind of weird to get a present from a slayer she'd never met before. Especially one who was mainly known for sometimes trying to allegedly murder her recently-ex-not-really-girlfriend. But it seemed pretty friendly for a murder attempt.
Satsu drank the whole bottle while sitting on the rooftop that night after patrol. The next morning her head felt like a bowling ball that had been sneezed on by a fyarl demon, and her mouth felt like she'd swallowed an entire shipment of vampy cats.
Maybe Faith was trying to kill her after all.
Then she realized it was the first night since she came to Tokyo that she hadn't dreamed about Buffy.
***
The next package was an ipod full of angry sounding songs. Some of them weren't even in English. Listening to them made Satsu want to spend more time hitting the heavy bag in the training room, which she started doing for a few hours each night after finishing patrol. It was really helping her right cross, she thought. And it was better than staring at the ceiling, wishing she hadn't tossed the cinnamon lip gloss, and wondering what the weather was like in Scotland.
Stupid, she thoughts, as the bag swung backward. It was always cold.
***
The next time the smiling Wicca on mail call dropped something on the edge of Satsu's bed, it was heavy and oddly shaped. Satsu tore off the paper to find a wicked looking dagger with an engraved handle of crosses. This time the note was from Mr. Giles, in tiny sort-of fussy writing.
"We believe this was one of the weapons forged by Brighid the Vampyr Slayer in seventeenth century. Faith wants you to have it, and says you should kill something with it. Hard."
Satsu was more partial to long swords. They were so graceful. But she could make an exception.
That night, she took out two spindly-backed fire demons, a sunnesien shape shifter, and a rogue polgara. Stabbing was very personal, in a way that was as oddly satisfying as it was disturbing. She tried using the knife on a vamp, just to see what would happen, and discovered that Brighid must have used Holy Water in her metal working process, because stabbing vamps with it made them sizzle briefly and then poof.
She thought maybe she should write a thank you note. Her kill count was way up. She didn't even bother to wonder if Buffy would notice it in the squad reports. She kind of wondered if Faith would, though.
***
Satsu wasn't sure there would be a fourth package, but there was. Mail ordered from a store in Los Angeles, judging by the box. From which Satsu removed a pair of leather pants. Red leather pants. Tight red leather pants. So soft that they were kind of buttery feeling. Not really her style, of course. Satsu thought she caught a glimpse of the Wicca on mail call drooling a little at the sight of them.
It would, Satsu thought, be very rude not to wear them.
The first night she wore them out on patrol, she just happened to be scouting for vamps in a night club. In the half hour she was there, she got six phone numbers (one from a girl she was ninety-five percent sure might be a werewolf), two semi-lewd propositions, and an extended groping on the dance floor by a woman who could shoot small bolts of electricity from her hands.
And she looked like a bad ass when kicking the stupid back alley vampire gang in their collective heads.
***
A few nights later, Satsu was patrolling another Tokyo night club. She was wearing the red leather pants again and had the knife concealed as a hair accessory.
She saw a vamp heading out the door with a dark haired American girl, who was dressed very much like a "cleavage-y slut bomb," which had always been Dawn's description of Faith. Somehow, she must have forgotten to mention "smokin' hot," Satsu decided.
She watched from the doorway as Faith pummeled the vamp with easy, almost languid, athleticism. It wasn't long before Faith smashed the vamp into a wooden cart, staking him with his own momentum.
Satsu grinned at the older slayer, who was only slightly out of breath after the tussle.
"Faith," she said, trying to project cool slayerness. "What are you doing in Japan?"
"Didn't you hear?" Faith asked. "I'm all about helping troubled slayers, now."
"Are you saying I'm troubled? Because I was in love with Buffy, now I'm troubled?"
Faith closed the distance between them, smiling lasciviously and raking her eyes over Satsu in a way that made vampire neck gazes seem downright proper by comparison.
"Not anymore," she whispered, as she pulled Satsu in for a deep passionate kiss.