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…