Assumptions

Chapter 2

It had been a long day and Faith was tired. Alls she wanted to do was get her patrol over with and get some sleep not baby sit B's kid sister. She liked Dawn the girl had spunk. But in the end she was a teenager. A regular teen where every bad thing that happened to her was the end of the world, she had to admit that sometimes that was the case. She was a little bit of a drama queen and a little much for Faith at time's but she was a good kid none the less. Tonight however she didn't have the patience for her. She had a kid in her office earlier that day. Her name was Jade Rosten. The kid was tough. Reminded Faith allot of herself. She had the attitude of a bull dog on the defensive. That day she had gotten into a fight with one of the Wicca's that Willow had been training, a snobby little rich girl named Allison Water, Jade wouldn't talk about it, just sat there as Allison blamed her for the whole thing, Willow was in the office as well buying into the girls story. Giles had been summoned and Jade had been threatened with expulsion. Panic had invaded her eyes then was quickly replaced with an I don't care face.

"Jade." Faith leaned forward. "It's all right." Willow had scoffed and looked at her with disbelief Faith had just continued. "What happened, I wanna hear your side, if you tell me I'll try to help you out kay." Jade had looked at her cautiously. Then nodded.

"I didn't wanna fight." She finally confessed. "It was an accident I was getting my lunch someone bumped into me. Took me by surprise." She shrugged. "I accidentally fell into Allison, my milk was open I was thirsty, It spilt on her." She looked down Willow huffed but Faith was relieved to see that Giles was taking her seriously. "She got made I tried to explain she pushed me. Then her friends all started to push me. She's got a couple of the older slayers in her group. Then Allison, or maybe it was one of her friends, did something I'm not sure what but I couldn't breath it felt like someone was choking me. It was only for a couple of seconds. But I panicked I hit her." She started to fidget with her hands. "I don't like being choked, It scars the shit out of me." She whispered the last part. That's when Allison had surprised Faith. She looked down somewhat ashamed.

"Sorry, Jade right." Jade nodded. "I didn't choke you I'm not that powerful. Not yet anyway. I shouldn't have assumed you spilt it on purpose." She was genuine about it. "Um one of the girls I hang with has the power Courtney Mackay. She was telling me about that spell actually, she's been having a hard time controlling her power. She might have done it by accident."

It turned out that Courtney had done ,it had been an accident, she had apologized and was assigned extra sessions with Willow to control her powers, Jade had and Allison had gotten detention which they readily accepted, they other girls who had been involved had also gotten detention. Then Willow had started ranting saying that Jade had should be expelled before she caused more trouble. She had actually called the girl a hoodlum. That's when the fight started. Insults were thrown back and forth until Faith had stormed out. She had to get out of Willows site before she threw a punch at her. Then she had taken her dry cleaning in. Which was uneventful, but when she took her bike in the mechanic tried to tell her that she needed new breaks and a new transmission, along with many other things. Faith was good with cars. She wasn't all the great at repairing transmissions and she may have needed a new one but she doubted it. But she new for a fact that at the moment she the transmission was the only thing that needed repairs she had looked over the bike herself three times, hoping that she wouldn't have to pay out her ass to get it back in working order. She had fought and cussed the man out for half an hour. Finally she had gotten him to do what was only necessary. Then she had to talk a bus home because Robin was still working and Tara had gone out of town, there was a problem with one of the covens near by, she had gone to help out and wouldn't be back until the morning the next day. It was already dark when she got home. She grabbed a couple of stakes and a dagger and headed out meeting Robin and Dawn out front heading towards the nearest cemetery in Robins truck.

There wasn't much action, they had come across a couple of vamps that Dawn had taken out easily with the crossbow she had armed herself with. Faith was getting bored. She wanted to get a little fight in., go home, give Robin a good ride, have some cookies are something, then get some sleep. She felt her senses tingling. She looked around In the distance she saw an ugly ass demon. It was tall around 7'. With scaly green skin. It's head was completely bald the eye's were small and completely black. The thing that was most disturbing was it's mouth. It took up the majority of the things face with large sharp teeth. And it was running towards them incredibly fast. Faith took out her daggers will Dawn aimed her crossbow. Robin stood beside Dawn with his ax in hand. When the demon was close enough she launched into an attack. The demon swiped at her. That's when she noticed his claws. Razor sharp with what looked like honey dripping from them, most likely venom thought Faith. "Watch the claws." She yelled back towards the other two. The demon continued to swipe at her and she side stepped them all. Dawn aimed her crossbow then fired the arrow hitting his neck imbedding in it's skin. It roared in anger, kicked Faith with it's long legs making her fly smashing into a nearby gravestone. Her head was swimming she staggered to her feet, just in time to see the demon slice in to Robin who had charged it with his ax. She was going to his rescue when a flash of blinding light emanated from him and when the light faded a boy about four our five stood in Robins place. The Demon charged the boy who looked very confused and very frightened, Dawn picked up the ax and charged the demon as Faith rushed forward as fast ash she could. It was to fast for Dawn though, and it's claws and sliced a part of her arm just as Faith jumped on it's back. Faith watched in horror as Dawn to transformed into a five year old version on herself. Faith was only distracted for a second but it was all the time the demon need to cut into faith who had wrapped her arms around the things neck and had just twisted it's neck killing its it's claws ripped into her shoulder. A blinding flash and an instant later a very confused five year old Faith stood with dough brown eye's and tattered clothing.

The girl looked around. Just a minute ago she had been at home, cleaning the trailer before her mama got home. Now she was in a grave yard, at night, with two other kids about her age. She wasn't sure what was going on but she knew she didn't like it. Then again she didn't like most things in her life. She looked at the other two kids hoping that they knew what was happening. They didn't of course there was another girl with brown hair and big blue eye's who was looking around and was on the verge of tears. The other a dark boy, was staring at the monster with terror in his eye's. Than as if the situation couldn't get any worse it started raining. The blue eyed girl started crying and the boy brought his coat over his head in an attempt to keep dry. Faith looked in the distance there was a tin shack up on the hill. She turned to the others and pointed to it they looked at her and then followed glad that someone else was leading the way. They entered the shack winch turned out to be a shed. There wasn't much in it. A lawn mower some green tarps, and some other things here and there that Faith didn't recognize. They huddled in a corner the blue eyed girl in the middle none said a word. They were all terrified. The others fell asleep within a few minutes. Faith didn't, the pounding of the rain on the tin roof was keeping her awake. Her position curled up around the other girl was making her ribs to hurt. Mama had gotten made when there wasn't any Gin in the house and had thrown her against the wall.

Buffy was in a panic. It was five in the morning and Dawn wasn't back yet. She went out to the car park that was apart of the building, she was planning on going out looking for Faith, Robin, and Dawn. That's when she saw that Faith's bike was gone. She took a deep breath. Her eye's smoldering in anger. Faith was supposed to watch Dawn tonight and once again Faith had screwed up. She swore that if Dawn was hurt she was going to kill Faith. She rushed back into the building and headed to Faiths room. She entered and went to the closet. There was barley any of clothes in there that would belong to Faith. She stormed out again she grabbed Willow and Xander. Who were very grumpy until they heard that Dawn was missing that wasn't usually good. Giles was awake in the kitchen when they went down heading to go search the streets of Cleveland. He was a little surprised that Faith had taken of he thought that she would have at least told someone. He would figure out that later for right now they needed to find Dawn, and Robin. He grabbed his coat and they followed out them out to the van that they had all climbed into. It was taking longer than they thought. They were searching the streets as they made there way towards the nearest cemetery were Dawn was allowed to patrol. It was a small cemetery so there wasn't allot of activity. Dawn hated her for it but Buffy wouldn't budge. It was getting light when they reached the cemetery. They climbed out of the van and started there search for the two missing scoobies. They had been searching for about half an hour when Xander stumbled upon the demon that lay near a large gravestone. Giles The rest came to stand around it. Buffy Stared in amazement at it. It was huge and well gross. She looked at Giles who had taken of his classes and was cleaning them. That wasn't usually good.

"What is it Giles." He looked at her and took a deep breath.

"Well it looks like a Pedohoro demon. I've never seen one in person, only pictures." He shook his head.

"And." Said Xander.

"Oh yes, um this particular demon, which are supposed to be extinct, there claws have a venom in them, when it inters the blood stream it alters time sort of, the victim turns into a child." Everyone looked at him in horror. "The demon eats people. Even though it has enormous teeth it doesn't chew. The person has to be small enough to eat whole."

"So it turns people he comes across into children so it can eat them?" asked Willow Giles nodded. "You don't think that it ate Dawn and Robin do you."

"I don't think so. It's dead and there was no other slayers scheduled to patrol this particular grave yard. it's possible that they killed it, getting scratched in the mean time."

"Great that's just great so my sister is most likely a little kid again that's perfect." Buffy looked around. "Were would they have gone?"

"Well it was raining really hard last night they might have gone for shelter, the crypts are all locked." Xander looked around. Then pointed to the shed that Faith and the others had taken refuge in. They all nodded in agreement and headed over to it.

Faith must have drifted of to sleep. She woke up slowly and it took her a few minutes for her to remember were she was. The girl next to her was shivering. She looked at the girls clothes and noticed they were warmer than her own, but she was used to the cold. Faith stood and noticed that the rain had stopped pending on the roof. She moved toward the back of the shed, she grabbed a green tarp to wrap around them. She had was just reaching for one of the larger tarps when she heard voices coming from just outside the shed. She ducked down behind a large box just as the door opened. A blond lady entered followed by another with red hair. Then brown haired man with an eye patch like a pirate. Then an older man. The blond sighed in frustration.

"There they are." She moved towards the other two children lifting the blue eyed girl in her arms. The other lady picked up the boy. Faith was about to go to them hoping they could help her go home when the Blond lady spoke again.

"I'm going to kill Faith Swear." She hadn't said it loud but her tone was dangerous and low. And her eyes were narrowed. Faith pressed herself harder against the wall. Wrapping her arms around herself protecting herself.

"Buffy, now's not the time we need to get them home and back to normal." The older man said. His voice was calm and gentle. It washed over Faith calming her. The group left and Faith was left alone, scared, cold, and hungry.

She waited until she knew that the group was a safe distance away. She crept to the door and looked out, the cost was clear. Walking around the commentary was very creepy. Even in the day time. She saw an exit and found herself on a street that was deserted. She looked around hoping to find something that looked familiar so she could find her way home. All around her she could only see homes, she didn't live next to anything this nice. In the distance she could see some buildings. She started walking. The trailer park she lived in was close to a big office building. She just hoped her momma wasn't to angry that the trailer wasn't clean when she got home last night. If she even got home last night.