CHAPTER TEN:

Captured…

Sunnydale, California – September 14, 2004: 0912 PST

Faith watched as her team got ready for their second last portal trip. Her encounter with the bikers was the big news going through the unofficial gossip news channel in the warehouse among the Potentials. Faith knew that the Potentials would look at her and talk behind her back, but she didn't care anymore.

Just one more trip and I'm out of here. I'll worry about what to do after I leave.

Faith turned to her team, "Is everyone ready to go."

She saw and heard the other members of her team acknowledge that they were ready to go.

Faith looked over and could see Willow getting ready, as usual, to open the portal. Everything looked like it was running like a well-oiled machine as everyone knew their role and what to do by now.

Faith watched as Willow cast the spell and then it came to her—she knew what she was going to do. She was going to go back to that world where Michael had been on. She was going to track down the Mage that Michael had gone in search of, that was what she was going to do. She actually started to feel better now that she had a plan. It was a rough plan with a lot of risk and danger involved, but what other choice did she have? Anything was better than wandering around here feeling sorry for herself. She would deal with all the planning and the supplies she would need when she got back from this trip.

Faith was lost in thought and feeling a sense of self-satisfaction about her new plan, when Buffy and Xander wandered over interrupting her thoughts.

"We have a slight change up in today's schedule." Xander said.

"What's wrong now?" Faith asked.

"Nothing really that affects you and your team. One of the Potentials on Kennedy's team had a little too much fun last night and is just recovering. Her team is going to go through their portal a little bit later that we normally stagger you guys going through." Xander said.

"So we're still a go then?" Faith asked to confirm.

Buffy nodded and said "Yes … You're still good to go."

Everyone turned to see the portal open. Even though there was a very little chance of finding Michael, that didn't stop Faith from hoping that she would get lucky this time. She said a little prayer to herself and went through the portal followed by the rest of her team.

oOoOo

Everything looked quiet and peaceful. Faith and her team had arrived in a slightly wooded area with clearings scattered about. It was looking like another boring straight-forward run, which didn't raise her hopes.

It was all straight-forward that Faith didn't even have to say anything to her team as they went right to work like the old hands they were by now, but nevertheless Faith went over the routine—as usual.

"Stacy … Lisa … You've got the beacon."

"Kylie … Madison … 200 meter sweep."

Faith finished off by adding, "I'm going to head that way … It looks like higher ground. Okay let's do this."

oOoOo

Stacy and Lisa were at work doing their routine of setting up and checking the beacon.

"Just one more of these trips and we're done." Lisa said with some relief.

Lisa didn't get any reply from Stacy, so she continued on, "… I have to admit I would've never thought over a year ago that I would be traveling to different worlds … It's been quite the rush …. Don't you think?"

Lisa looked and could see that Stacy was in one of her moods. She was concerned and tried to find out what was going on. Stacy kept to herself most of the time and Lisa was about the closest thing to a friend that she had.

"What's wrong? You've been pretty quiet." Lisa asked.

"It's not right."

"What's not right?"

"It's not right that we are abandoning Michael like this! We can't give up on him! Buffy and the others are wrong to do this! Michael wouldn't give up on us!" Stacy said with emotion welling up in her voice.

Lisa had been having similar thoughts as Stacy, but she was also a realist to the situation they faced. They had to call the search off some time.

"Geezzz … Stacy … like I've said before. You would think that we were looking for your boyfriend." Lisa said with some derision in her voice and shaking her head.

Stacy didn't respond to the comment. She focused on her work and keeping her thoughts to herself.

oOoOo

Kylie and Madison tromped their way through the woods as they did their sweep. They were half way through the sweep and Madison was having a hard time keeping up.

"What's the matter Madison? Still trying to recover from The Bronze?" Kylie said with a laugh.

"Bite me Kylie!" Madison replied with her own laugh. Madison was feeling a bit out of it from the party at The Bronze, but that wasn't what was slowing her up.

"I got a rock in my boot ... I got to get it out as it's killing my foot."

Madison found a log by some brush to sit down on.

"I'm just up ahead … I'll be right back." Kylie said laughing and shaking her head at her friend's discomfort.

Madison nodded as Kylie continued on the sweep. It didn't take long for her to be out of sight as she disappeared into the low brush.

Madison hummed as she unlaced her boot, took it off and shook the rock out. She had her boot back on and laced up. She was about to stand up when a large hand came out of the brush behind her and covered her mouth…

Kylie was calling for Madison as she returned to the spot where she had left her, "Hey slow poke … Let's get going … What did you have in—" She never had a chance to finish what she was saying as a pair of hands reached out of the brush and covered her mouth and grabbed her.

oOoOo

Stacy and Lisa had finished setting up the beacon and were standing around waiting. They saw Faith re-enter the clearing walking towards them.

"How're things going?" Faith asked.

"Beacon is up and running and all quiet here." replied Lisa.

"Where's Kylie and Madison?" Faith asked.

"They haven't gotten back yet from their sweep." Stacy reported.

"That's funny … They're usually done their sweeps by now." Faith said.

Faith opened the com channel on her headset, "Kylie … Madison … You out there?"

Faith repeated again, "Kylie … Madison … Do a check in?"

Faith started to get a bad feeling, "Stacy … Lisa … Very quietly and very slowly unsling your weapons and take the safeties off." she said in a whisper.

"What's going on?" asked Lisa trying to stay focused and not panic.

"I think we're being watched." Faith responded.

The women unslung their weapons and tried to look nonchalant about it.

"What now?" Stacy asked trying to control her fear looking around at the woods anxiously.

"We now go for a little walk to the edge of the forest closest to us as we're too exposed out here." Faith said trying to keep her voice normal as her eyes darted back and forth checking the tree line.

"Why don't we open the portal and head home?" Lisa asked trying to control the fear in her voice.

"One … We don't want to show whoever is watching us the portal and how to open it. Two … We don't know who we are dealing with. And three … We aren't leaving Kylie and Madison behind without knowing what happened to them." Faith replied.

The women were trying to look calm and walk nonchalantly to the tree line. It was a long 100 meters away.

Damn! We're too exposed … It's too far to the trees, Faith thought.

Faith was praying to herself that their luck would hold and make it to cover, but they only got about half way to the trees when their luck failed. They heard what sounded like thunder echo through the forest and it was coming closer. The women tensed up at the unknown coming at them.

"Get ready to run …" Faith whispered to Lisa and Stacy. She planned to lay down covering fire for her two potentials, so that they could make for the tree line.

Faith heard the thundering sound come closer and she thought she saw movement and shadows in the trees. Suddenly out of the forest, on the far side of the clearing, came horses with riders on them. The horses galloped across the field. She counted at least twenty horses and riders coming towards them. Her hands were sweating as she tightened her grip on her weapon.

The riders pulled the reins and stopped the horses about twenty meters from the women surrounding them in a half-circle.

Faith first thought that riders were human as they appeared human shape from distance. But as the riders got closer she could see that the riders were not human. Their faces were an ugly cross between a lizard and a man. Their skin was a brown green color and they had what looked like was a permanent snarl on their faces showing some very sharp teeth. Their noses—or what you could call noses—were flat compared to a normal human's nose. Her first thought was that they looked like some of the demons she had seen and fought against back home … and that wasn't good news.

What struck Faith as odd—or funny depending on your point view—was that the riders were all dressed up in clothes that looked straight out of some movie about medieval times. They were wearing chainmail and armor. They had shields and swords. The bad news was that the riders had their swords drawn and the way they were looking at them and held their bodies did not indicate that any sort of friendly encounter was going to occur.

Her mind was racing looking at plans and what and how she could react. With the riders only having swords, she knew that they could shoot their way out as they had superior firepower, but there was still something troubling her about the whole situation … something that she'd missed.

"Drop your weapons and surrender!" one of the riders, who was obviously the leader of the group, yelled out to Faith and her two team members.

Faith, Stacy and Lisa tensed up and got ready for the confrontation.

"Why should we?" Faith said as she started to raise her weapon.

"Because if you don't your friends will die and then you will die!" the leader said with that permanent sneer showing.

With that said, the leader raised his hand in an apparent signal. Faith watched as across the clearing out of the forest, several warriors came out and they were holding Kylie and Madison—knifes held to the their throats.

Faith was trying to weigh her options when more warriors came out of the woods behind her and her potentials and she saw that these guys were holding crossbows pointed at her and her potentials.

"Son of a bitch!" Faith said biting her lip angrily as she realized that they were screwed. She lowered her weapon to the ground and motioned to the others to lower their weapons as well.

The demon warriors quickly moved in to take them prisoner…

oOoOo

Sunnydale, California – September 14, 2004: 1549 PST

Kennedy wasn't happy or impressed with the situation. Her team was to have gone through their portal at least three hours ago, but one of her team members, a girl named Dallas, had partied too hard the night before and was just to the point that she could move and function to do her job.

Kennedy would have rather gone ahead and left Dallas behind, but the work required her to have a full team of five members and there wasn't enough time to bring in someone else as a replacement.

Willow was getting setup for her spell. She looked over to Kennedy and she could see that her girlfriend was fuming over the delay. Willow smiled and shook her head as she compared the contrasts between Kennedy and Tara. If it had been Tara, she would have been all laid back and maybe even apologizing for the delay like it was her fault. Willow caught Kennedy's eye and she smiled and winked at her. It took Kennedy a minute to realize what Willow was trying to communicate and she sighed and smiled back and tried to relax.

Willow pushed anymore thoughts of comparing Tara and Kennedy away as she concentrated on performing the spell. As usual the portal formed and Kennedy took her team through.

oOoOo

Kennedy and her team found themselves on a forest covered world, it seemed that most of the time they were arriving in wooded areas. But this was different from the other dimensions they had been too, this had an eerie look and feel to it. A lot of the trees were dead or dying. The place felt damp and smelled musty from the decay of the forest. There was even a low mist that seemed to cover the forest floor.

It feels like death lives here, Kennedy thought as she shuddered as the whole place gave her the creeps. She quickly regained focus of the task at hand and gave orders to the other potentials in her team to get to work.

"I'm sure that Faith and her team are having a much better time than us." Kennedy muttered to herself.

oOoOo

As Kennedy was muttering that statement to herself, Faith and her team found themselves prisoners of the "demon" inhabitants of the world they were on.

Faith and the others had been disarmed and stripped of their equipment. All the women then had had their hands bound tightly with rope and tied together in a line. They were then led—dragged by one of the demon warriors on horseback.

Faith was at the front of the line, walking behind the horse-mounted demon warrior. Behind her were Lisa, Stacy, Kylie and Madison. She had been able only to briefly talk to Kylie and Madison to check on them. Kylie was alright other than a few bruises. Madison had been roughed up a little bit more by these demons, but she was managing.

Faith tried to stay focused and observe the demons and what they were doing trying to find something that she could use and exploit. From what she'd seen these demons were no slouches—they were smart and organized—which made a bad situation worse. She heard the leader order some of his "men" to ride ahead to notify someone else. Faith hadn't caught all of it, but she heard a name mentioned—Paymon. She figured that there had to be someone else higher up in the food chain that this leader reported to.

They found themselves being forced marched, moving further and further from the portal site.

Faith was trying to control her fear and concern. She knew that they would have to try for an escape, but the longer they waited the further away they were from their return portal. She could see that the guards were too alert right now, so any escape was doomed to fail. But how long would she have to wait? She needed time to lull the guards to relax and to not get further away from the portal point.

Besides this problem to deal with, she was watching how the guards were looking at her and the others in her team and she was getting a bad vibe. She could see a look in their eyes. She wasn't sure if they were going rape or eat them or maybe even both in no particular order. She could feel the tension building as the guards kept looking them over and the longer they waited the more chances of an "incident" occurring.

Faith started to drag her feet to slow down the pace. This would cause the rope that was attached to the rider's horse and her wrists to go tight, forcing the guard to yank on the rope and yelling at the prisoners to keep up. She kept her gaze down to avert her eyes and acted as the docile and non-threatening prisoner. She wanted to have the guard holding on to the rope thinking that he had complete control of his defeated prisoner.

It felt like they had walked for miles down a wooded lined dirt road. Faith was still keeping an eye on her surroundings and she could see that their captors were starting to let their guard down. Some of the warriors started moving at a bit faster pace moving ahead of the rider pulling the walking prisoners.

The group was approaching a bend in the road that went around a small wooded hill. Faith thought she heard rushing water. As they rounded the bend, Faith saw that there was a bridge that went over a wide and rushing creek with high banks that cut through the land. She looked further and off in the distance she saw a castle—an honest to goodness castle with walls, towers and gate.

The castle was maybe at the most a couple of miles away and Faith knew that once they were within the castle walls they were really screwed. It was going to be now or never. She wanted to do it on this side of the creek before they crossed the bridge.

The warriors knew that they were close to their home and in their zeal, they increased their pace to get back there faster. They thought that the prisoners were no threat and in their haste they left the horse-mounted guard and Faith and the other prisoners behind them as they galloped ahead towards the castle. This momentarily left Faith and her team with just one guard.

Now or never, Faith thought as she took deep breaths and focused on what she was going to do.

She quickened her pace to get closer to their horse-mounted guard. This put some slack in the rope and then she slowed down to let the slack play out. She saw that the guard wasn't paying as much attention as he should as he was looking bored and towards the castle looking to get home.

Faith concentrated as the rope played out—it was all in the timing. The rope started to pull tight—There! The guard was about to yank on the rope to pull the prisoners, she beat him to it and pulled hard and fast using her Slayer strength. She caught the guard by surprise and off balance, he tried to hold on to the rope and stay on the horse and failed at both. The guard fell from the horse hitting the ground with a heavy thud and Faith could hear the demon exhale heavily as he got the wind knocked out of him.

She didn't hesitate for a second as she ran towards the guard on the ground and the guard's horse. The rest of her team had been taken by surprise by Faith's attack, but they quickly recovered and followed her. The guard was struggling to get up and recover from his fall, but he was still off balance and wasn't looking as Faith ran up to him. She kicked the guard in the face in one smooth motion, without even breaking stride. The guard fell back to the ground with another heavy thud and was out cold. She grabbed a dagger from the guard and then continued for the horse that was standing close by.

Faith tossed the dagger to Kylie as they reached the horse. Kylie didn't hesitate as she started cutting at their ropes. Faith pulled a sword from its holder on the saddle and grabbed a loaded crossbow also hanging from the saddle. She had been keeping one eye on the other guards during her assault. She could see and hear the other guards shouting and turning around at seeing their escape. The guards were coming back at a gallop and she knew she only had moments before those riders were upon them.

Faith quickly sized up the situation and her options, it was unfortunate their weapons were on one of the other horses as she could have easily held off those demons, but that wasn't in the cards. Kylie finished cutting the last of the ropes and Faith looked at her team.

"Everyone make a break for the portal site and get home … I'm going to buy you some time, so get going! Split off in pairs and don't group up and don't stop!"

Faith saw that Kylie was going to protest the order, but she quickly shook her head and said, "We aren't all going to make it … This is the only way if anyone is going to have a chance."

With their rope restraints removed, Kylie, Stacy, Lisa and Madison made a break for freedom. Kylie and Stacy made for the trees back the way they had come and Lisa and Madison made a dash for the creek and for the tree cover along its banks.

Faith took position in the middle of the road as the demons came galloping back towards them. As the first rider approached, she drew the crossbow and fired it at the demon. She saw the look of surprise on that demon's face as he was hit dead center in the chest by the bolt, falling from his mount. She quickly dropped the crossbow and picked up the sword. The demons had drawn their swords.

"Damn it!" Faith shouted in anger as she realized that these demons weren't stupid. The riders were splitting into groups to track down the two groups of escaping prisoners and attack her all at the same time.

She couldn't give any more time to worry about the others as she had her own worries as a demon warrior was riding down on top of her with his sword drawn. The warrior rode by and he swung his blade at her trying to take her head off. Faith ducked and met his blade with her blade. She saw the look of shock and surprise on the demon's face as he realized that he was engaged in combat with someone that had skill and strength.

Faith didn't have much time to bask in surprising her opponent as another rider was bearing down on her. She managed to duck and roll out of his way and came back up into her fighting stance. She caught movement out of her eye and saw that three more demons had ridden up and dismounted. They had drawn their swords and were now rushing to attack her.

Faith parried and dodged the first demon warrior's sword blows. She kept moving trying to avoid the other two demons—trying to buy some time for the others. Out of the corner of her eye she saw helplessly as the two other groups of demons chased down her team.

She saw Kylie and Stacy being dragged kicking and screaming from the forest by demons that had dismounted and chased them into the woods. She saw the other group of demon warriors use their crossbows and shoot at Madison and Lisa. Faith saw Lisa get hit first and fall to the ground and then Madison took at bolt in the side and fell into the creek.

Faith was pissed off now. She wasn't going down without a fight. The three demon warriors charged her again. She faked moving one way and jumped the other way and as she jumped she swung hard putting her strength into a back swing with her sword—taking two of the demon warrior's heads off with one blow. The third warrior was shocked, but he recovered and was facing Faith again. He made a move to lunge in and she smiled as she was going to meet his lunge and plunge her sword into his chest. She was so absorbed in getting her revenge that she missed another rider coming in fast from behind her—the rider struck her hard with his battle mace causing her to collapse unconscious.

The surviving prisoners were gathered together quickly and thrown roughly on the backs of the guard's horses and carried towards the castle…