The Lost
Part 1, Arrival
18 East1
PLACE: Unknown
TIME: Unknown
The falling sensation, sense of vertigo and disorientation that Faith is feeling quickly passes as soon as she feels solid ground beneath her feet. While guardedly looking around she gives herself a quick pat down to ensure she has arrived in one piece.
"Everything where it's supposed to be," Faith says to herself, "including my fanny-pack and sword, thank God." She then looks at her watch, it reads 9:05 AM.
"Well, that was the wildest ride I've ever been on." Faith looks around seeing no movement anywhere and nothing that's even remotely familiar. "Now where am I and more importantly where's 'B' and Spike?"
She suddenly realizes that she can see. There appears to be some kind of dim light illuminating what she now recognizes as a natural cavern. The light appears to be coming from the cavern walls. She walks over to the closest wall and reaching out her hand lightly rubs the surface. Pulling her hand away and looking at it, she can see that the walls are covered in some type in moss or fungi that is emitting its own natural light.
"Cool." Then freezes for a moment, her mind back tracking, as she turns and looks around again.
"Whoa." Big cavern, really big cavern, definitely not the Hellmouth I was in a short time ago. Something Different. She reaches out with her Slayer senses but can't detect any threat nearby, though she is picking up a low grade evil buzz that seems to be everywhere at once.
As she walked alone what her senses were telling was the northern wall of the cavern, she spots several mounds of clothes scattered throughout the cavern floor. Sensing nothing malicious or evil, Faith ignores the piles, electing to continue along the northern wall heading to the western portion of the cavern. As she walked she looked up trying to judge the cavern's size. It was huge. The roof rising well over on e hundred feet, complete with stalactites. A closer look was difficult given the low light levels, but she thought she could she what looked like bridges connecting some of the stalactites. That of course wasn't possible. Was it?
A few minutes after beginning her walk, Faith came to an immense crevasse. Standing near the edge, she looked down but saw nothing but darkness. Shrugging, she turned south following the crevasse to try and determine where it lead, all the while looking around searching for any sign of Buffy or Spike.
Shortly she reached what she was able to determine was the center of the crevasse which see saw stretched all the way to the southern end of the cavern, maintaining what appeared to be at least a width fifty to sixty feet.
"Where the hell am I?" she asked herself. Then looking down she found a fist sized rock. Picking it up, she leaned slightly over the edge dropping the rock. She then listened for the impact. And listened, and listened. Nothing was heard after about thirty seconds.
As Faith was listening and watching there appeared to be some kind of movement from the depths of the crevasse. At first just one object moving, not down but up and considerably larger the stone she dropped. Then a second and then a third object moving in the darkness ascending towards her. Her Slayer senses started going off the charts, it reminded her of being below Sunnydale fighting the Turok-Han.
Faith stepped back about ten feet from the edge of the crevasse and prepared for battle bringing her sword up to the guard position and waited. She didn't have to wait long. As they finally appeared over the edge and into the light she just stared in shock and counted. One, two, three . . . eight, eight things that she had never even remotely seen or heard of before, except maybe at SeaWorld and that was in a water tank not hovering in the air, appeared before her.
'Ok, definitely not in Kansas anymore.'
As they approached her, she got a good look at them. They resembled nothing so much as a giant exposed brain with a beak and maybe six to eight, five to six foot long tentacles. As the last of them cleared the edge of the crevasse, the last one started emitting bird like squawks and chirps. As it did this, the others started to fan out into a semi-circle around her while the one emitting the sounds moved past her and further into the cavern.
"So, you're the boss man, er, thing," Faith says, "and just to let you know you are the ugliest thing I ever killed."
They didn't waste anytime, attacking immediately in a coordinated effort. The things started attacking with their tentacles, which Faith had noticed had metal tips attached to their ends. She started backing away further from the crevasse edge blocking and evading their tentacle strikes. She noticed surprisingly that every time she struck a tentacle, even with the flat of the blade, that the tentacle went limp. With this information she intensified her attacks. As soon as all the tentacles from one of the creatures stopped moving she threw her sword at the beak with all her strength, the missile flew true, entering the creature's mouth and imbedding itself to the hilt. The creature let out a cry and fell to the ground, dead.
As soon as her sword left her hand Faith raced toward the creature, evading the other's tentacles. She reached the fallen creature and thrust her hand in its mouth, grabbed her sword by the hilt and pulled it free. As she did this she felt not one but two tentacles strike her.
"Arrrgh," Faith cried out, it felt like when the 'Beast' struck her. Swinging blindly at the offending appendage with her sword, by chance she felt it make contact and slice through a tentacle. Faith quickly reset herself to continue the attack. However she wasn't fast enough as four tentacles struck her nearly simultaneously and felt them wrap around her pulling her up off the ground, up toward its beak.
Playing opossum Faith bided her time until she was level with its beak. She thrust her sword into its mouth. The creature immediately released her as it too died. Recovering quickly after falling ten feet to the cavern floor Faith regained her orientation, located the nearest creature and attacked. Trying a different tactic she found a stalagmite close to the creature. She ran toward it and up on it. When she reached the top she jumped onto the creature landing on its rather large head. Lifting her sword above her head Faith struck down with all the force she could muster killing the creature instantly. As the creature fell she jump off and hit the ground rolling coming up in a defensive position, ready to strike again.
Bleeding now from a dozen different wounds she'd received thus far Faith prepared to attack again. Faith began looking around trying to decide from the plethora of enemies which one she should or could attack with the greatest chance of survival. Suddenly she saw a narrow corridor open straight to the creature she had assumed was the leader. Without further thought she charged. As she ran towards the assumed leader she saw that the others that had previously been ignoring her now turned to attack.
With her decision made, Faith she charged down the corridor avoiding most of the attacking tentacles until she reached the last two in line before the she reached the leader. As she passed they struck out hard and fast, scoring a hit on her torso which knocked her off her feet. Faith could feel a couple of her ribs crack as she hit the ground. Not to be deterred, she immediately got up, ignoring those two and continued towards the leader. When she got within fifteen feet of her target, with all of her remaining strength she leapt at the leader sword posed to strike a killing blow. About halfway there six tentacle shot out from the leader at an incredible speed. She had nowhere to go. It was a trap, they lured her in and she took it, hook, line and sinker. Two tentacles wrapped around her already injured torso, squeezing tightly, she could feel her ribs grinding and was on the verge of passing out from the pain. Also one tentacle each gripped an arm and one per leg as they slowly drew her in toward its snapping beak. Suddenly realization came to her.
'This is it.'
'The end.'
'I'm going to die here, alone.'
As she got closer to her death, a scene flashed before her eyes, a memory of not so long ago. Her at the bottom of a stair case, Angelus standing over her with a shotgun asking, "Do you want to die?"
Knowing the answer to that question Faith started to struggle harder than ever before. As she got to within two feet of its beak she cried in blood curdling scream of defiance, "I HOPE YOU CHOKE!!!"
As Faith was drawn closer to the creature's beak and her own end and she could feel the hot fetid breath of the creature, the unthinkable happened. The creature for no apparent reason exploded. The force of the explosion threw her about fifteen feet where she landed unceremoniously on the ground covered in blood, guts and brain matter and a couple of tentacles still attached to her. Getting up on her knees and pulling off the remaining tentacles that were still attached, she noticed one tentacle had a band of metal around it almost like a ring. Before dropping the tentacle she removed the metal band and looked at it.
"To big for me to wear, maybe I can get it resized later," Faith said as she absently placed the band on her right ring finger to see how it would look. Instantly the ring resized itself to fit her finger perfectly. Shocked, Faith immediately grabbed the ring pulling it off.
"Way cool, a magic ring!" she then tentatively put the ring back on her finger, but didn't feel any different. Deciding to put off any inquiry until after she located the reason for her unexpected salvation, she ignored the ring and leaving it on.
Faith then looked around, sword still in hand, to see what had happened and preparing to fight it out even in her fatigued condition. She was shocked to see the remaining creatures exploding methodically one after the other, sending blood, guts and gray matter over a very wide area, until there were none let.
"At least I know the reason for my respite," Faith quipped.
Now totally confused and apprehensive, Faith stood with the help of her sword her back to the crevasse and surveyed the destruction all around her, wondering just what the hell happened.
From behind her on the opposite side of the crevasse she hears her name called.
"Faith?" She hears in a shocked voice yet full of hope. A voice she easily recognizes. Wearily Faith turns around and looks across the crevasse and sees a petite red head she has recently called friend, standing there smiling.
"Red, your timing couldn't have been better," Faith calls back, extremely grateful, with a lopsided grin on her face.
"Faith, what were . . . ," Willow began but didn't finish. Faith saw Willow's eyes widen then narrow as if Willow's focus was behind her.
Faith started getting a real bad feeling and was about to ask Willow about what she saw, when eyes went wide in shock then narrowed as she spotted movement, a lot of movement behind Willow.
"BEHIND YOU!!!" They both shouted at the same time.
Both turned around and Faith prepared to defend herself. At seeing all the movement, Faith realized that they were they lumps of clothing she had earlier dismissed as not a threat. Though with the creatures now dead, she was no longer receiving any threat from her senses, weird.
"Can't I just get one break?" sighs Faith quietly.
TBC
