FIC: A New World (9?)

Faith exploded with laughter as Xman finished the story of when Anya had thought she was engaged to Giles 'cause of a miscast memory spell by Red. Man, Xan was a shit-hot storyteller. She trailed off in mid-laugh, her gaze dropping to the carpet.

"Faith," Xander's concerned voice cut through her musings. "What's wrong?"

She didn't break from her inspection of the floor. "I..I'm having a wicked time shooting a breeze with ya X, you tell a hell of a story."

"But you feel like betraying Wood by not being miserable?" Faith nodded, just the mention of the former principal forming a lump in her throat. "I've spent the last year thinking like that. That spending every moment remembering Anya was like a memorial. But now…"

"Now?" Faith looked up to see an otherwise expressionless Xander wipe away a tear.

"Now I think, no I know that Anya would want me to remember her always." Her companion chuckled. "If I didn't, she'd come back and haunt me. But she'd be," Xander grinned at her, "'wicked pissed' at the way I've wasted the last year." Xander took her hands in his. "Anya, and Wood too, wouldn't want us to be destroyed by their deaths."

"I guess," Faith replied slowly. What X said made a sort of sense. Hurt, grieve, but don't let it become you. Kinda like something Fang would say. "But-."

Her head snapped towards the window at a faint sound on the outside fire escape. Hushing Xander to silence, she backward rolled to the other side of the bed and crept towards the window. Suddenly the window exploded inwards, showering her with glass.

Ignoring her multiple cuts, Faith sidestepped towards the window, driving an elbow into one of the two newly appeared shapes stood on the balcony while at the same time kicking the gun out of his right hand. Before her would-be attacker had time to react she had him by the throat and flung him head-first into the wall.

Only now did the other intruder begin to turn towards her. "Too late!" she crowed as she drove her foot into the man's balls, driving him to his knees. Damn, it felt good to deliver some quality violence. Faith smirked as she slammed a downwards arcing right into the man's face, splitting down the middle of his nose and knocking the now unconscious thug onto his back.

"Faith! On the ground now!"

Faith dropped stone-like to the carpet. Her Slayer hearing picked up the sound of something flying over her, and as she rolled onto her back as she saw an object smash into the face of another suddenly appeared attacker, knocking the stunned man back a step and over the waist-high balcony railing with a scream.

"Thanks X!" Faith bounded to her feet and launched into a spinning back-fist that smashed into the last thug's face, sending blood splattering, and him following his companion over the railing. Faith grabbed hold of the man she'd thrown into the wall, it was past time for some answers. "Who sent you?" she screamed into the dazed man's face.

"No time for that," Xander snapped. "What about the others?"

"Damn!" Faith threw the bleeding body out of the third floor window. Xan had a point. "Thanks for the save X. What did you throw at him anyway?"

Xander grinned. "I grabbed the Gideon bible off your bedside table."

Faith threw her head back and laughed. "Me, saved by the good book? How's that for irony?"


Giles smiled as he heard Faith laughing in the room opposite. It was a beautiful sound, and one, Giles grimaced, that thanks in large part to his own actions, he'd heard all too rarely in the past. But that would change, he silently vowed. No matter what it took, he'd make it up to her.

His scowl deepened as he thought of the mayhem enacted. All those innocents murdered, and yet it was more even than that. It had taken bloody hard work to re-build the Council, finding those worthy of being Watchers, rooting out the rotten apples, putting new laws in, re-building the library, and finding the Slayers. He didn't know if he had the energy to do it again. And yet it seemed he had little choice.

His train of thought was interrupted by a thudding on the hotel's thin outer wall. Eyes narrowing and mouth drying, he reached for the .32 concealed beneath his pillow. As his finger closed around the automatic's handle, his room's window burst inwards and two men rappelled in.

Calling on skills he hadn't used in well over two decades, he quickly aimed and fired off two shots into each of the intruders' heads even as he flung himself to the floor. He watched in horrified fascination as blood flew out of the back of his attackers' skulls, their bodies jerking spasmodically on their jumplines. Rolling to his feet, Giles raced towards his room door. And was hit square in the face when the door flew open.


Rona looked across to her fellow Slayer laid on their room's other bed. "You heard that?"

"The glass breaking?" her best friend nodded as they both bounded to their feet. "You check on Giles, I'll see to Faith and Xander."

"K," Rona nodded before hurrying to the door.

Vi cursed as she entered the corridor and turned towards Faith's room only to see half a dozen armed men charging up the stairs. She dropped into a forward roll that took her to the landing linen cupboard. Springing to her feet behind the heavy wooden furniture, she lifted it away from the wall, turned, and flung it over the ornate railing. She grinned as she watched the makeshift missile crash into the troops, knocking them over like bowling pins, the sound of their shattering bones and pained screams sweet music to her ears.


"You broke my bloody nose!" Giles glared up from his knelt position on the ground, blood dripping down his face.

The black Slayer stood in the open doorway pouted. "I was coming to see if you needed help!"

"I was fine! Was," he muttered as the dread-locked Slayer dragged him to his feet.

"Maybe you should add a section to The Slayer's Handbook about checking for hidden Watchers before kicking in doors."

"Yes Faith," he shifted his glare to the newly arrived denim-clad Bostonian stood smirking behind Rona. "Very amusing." Secretly he was pleased to see something of the old swagger back in Faith. "Is anyone hurt?"

"Just them. What's the plan Xan?"

Giles was briefly surprised and hurt that he'd been supplanted as group leader. Comforting himself that at least it meant the former convict was listening to someone, and that it aided him with his long-term plans, he listened to his son's reply. "Down the fire escape and to the SUV." Xander paused. "That's why I said park the car four blocks away. If our cover was blown they'd be less likely to also find and either sabotage or bug it."

"And we go to another hotel?" Vi asked.

"No," Xander shook his head. "We'll drive for a while and park up somewhere and sleep."

"Oh joy," Giles muttered.

"What's up Tweedy?" Faith smirked. "Getting too old to enjoy spending the night with three hotties?"

"Hardly," Giles bristled at the suggestion before ruefully smiling. "It's just I had the misfortune of spending several weeks sharing a room after Sunnydale with Xander and his snoring is no-one's idea of fun."

"Hey!"


Connor glided soundlessly through Rome's hushed streets, a somewhat less stealthy Dawn clinging to his hand, an experience that he silently admitted had its attractions. He stopped, his sudden halt causing his companion to bump into him. "At least tell me when you're going to stop!" Dawn hissed in his ear.

Ignoring the girl's admonishments, he wondered idly if this was what his dad had gone through when dating her sister, he looked around, his senses tingling. "Vampires near-by," he whispered.

"Where?" Dawn's heart began to pound.

"Oh," Connor's mouth dried when a tall straggly-haired vampire stepped out of the shadows, followed quickly by another ten or so of his kind. "I think you'll find we're near-by." The demon morphed into his true face. "Kill the boy, and," the monster smiled, "after we've played with the girl, our orders are to kill her too."