Faith went to her first four classes, then her and Xander grabbed lunch at a nearby fast food joint. They both went to 5th period
together, then parted ways for their next class. During 6th period, she heard that one of the cheerleaders had broken her leg, and that they were trying to find a replacement for her.

Faith thought, fleetingly, that she'd always wanted to be a cheerleader, but shoved it to the back of her mind.

So, when 4:00 rolled around, she vaguely wondered what she was doing in the gym at the tryouts.

One of the girls at the table leaned over to the other, and in a snobbish voice said, "Excuse me. Where'd you park your Harley? Get real."

Faith, with her Slayer hearing, clearly heard it, and mentally grinned. Next to Xander's Jeep.

"Tattoos' are strictly verboten. Sorry." The girl smirked.

Faith flipped her off, then licked her middle finger, and ran it down the drawing on her arm.

"I got bored during fourth period."

"You need to fill one of these out."

"Did it." She held up the filled out form. Faith walked over to the table and handed it to one of the girls.

"Missy, is it? Ok, before we start, I'm afraid we're gonna need to make sure you can do a standing back tuck. Standard procedure. You
understand."

"Standing back handspring back tuck okay?" Faith asked. She took her keys, and wallet out of her back pocket. She had always loved doing this sort of stuff, gymnastic stuff. It was challenging, and yet so easy, because of the Slayer thing.

A standing back handspring was easy, and to just add a back tuck was simple.

"Where's this girl from, Romania?" one girl muttered to her neighbor.

"Can she yell?" another one asked.

"Well try an oldie. Awesome, oh wow! Like totally freak me out! I mean, right on! The Toro's sure are number one."

"I transferred from Los Angeles, you school has no gymnastics team, this is a last resort. Ok, so I've never cheered before. So what. How
about something that actually requires neurons?" Several of the cheerleaders looked pissed. Especially the two on the right.

"Do it." the Asian one said.

"Front handspring, step out, round off, back handspring, step out, round off, back handspring, full twisting lay out." the blonde smirked, sure that Faith could never do that.

Once again, challenging, but not difficult. When she finished the challenge, she smiled, before turning a blank face to the cheerleaders.

"Missy is bank." The blond in the middle seemed impressed.

"Uh, bankrupt. We've already so decided on Jamie."

"Courtney, this is not a democracy, it's a "cheerocracy." I'm sorry, but I'm overruling you."

"You are being a "cheertator," Torrance, and a pain in my ass. We already voted. Besides, Missy looks like an uber dyke."

You'd think after all the rejection in her life, Faith would be used to it. But it still hurt. She grabbed her keys and wallet, and walked
out of the gym. She wasn't really sure why the comment had made her so mad, it was nothing compared to what Cordy could come up with.

She got on her Harley, and tore out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

She was surprised, later, to find Torrance on her doorstep. She was even more surprised when Xander took her side. So, when she agreed to be on the squad, she was well past surprised, and into shocked.

They started patrolling that night. They didn't find much other than a few vampires. They were easy to take care of, and they got in early
enough to get a good nights rest.

They both got up the next morning, and had breakfast together again.

Faith decided to take the Bug to school today, since she had 'practice' after school today. She threw a bag with work out clothes in it into the back seat. She grabbed her license, and some money from the stash in her underwear drawer, and shoved them into her pocket.

After school, she went to practice, and sat and watched so she could learn the new cheer that they were learning. When she realized that it
was stolen, she was disgusted.

I can't believe that they'd steal something so stupid as a cheer. How hard can it be to come up with one? Now, if it was a spell or a ritual, I could understand stealing it. But a cheer?

She walked out, and wasn't surprised when Torrance followed her out. She was amused when the little cheerleader offered to kick her ass for her, though.

"Would you just get in?"

They stopped briefly, for something to eat, then headed for LA. Faith knew she was taking a big risk here, entering the Los Angelus area.
That was the territory of the guys who were trying to kill her, after all. But Torrance had to see this.

One of the potentials that was activated when Buffy pulled her little stunt was a cheerleader at an inner-city high school. The Compten
Clovers, or some shit like that. The girl, who's name Faith couldn't remember, had drug Faith to some of the football games, and made her
watch the cheerleading. She had to admit it, they were good.

They showed up when the basketball game was about halfway over. As the music started, Torrance started to look ill. The cheerleaders inside already knew the cheer, when Torrance's girls were just learning it.

So, it wasn't originally theirs. It was the Clover's. They watched for a few minutes, then went outside.

"You really didn't know, did you?" Faith asked.

"No." she answered, hugging herself.

"You ok?" Faith asked, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"I guess."

Faith opened her mouth to say something else, and noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. She swung around just as the captain of the squad yelled "Hey!"

Faith noticed the girl who was a slayer. They nodded minutely at each other. The other girl, Trisha, Faith remembered now, widened her eyes to show she was surprised to see her. Faith made a hand gesture to tell her that it wasn't slayer related. She blinked twice to say she
understood. Buffy and Faith, with help from Willow, and strangely, Xander, had developed a series of signs and then taught them all to the slayers that they trained.

"Did you enjoy the show?" the captain demanded.

"Yes, were the ethnic festivities to your liking today?" another one spat out.

"You guys are really awesome."

"Really? Ready to share some of those trophies?"

When the smallest of the three cheerleaders that followed them out said, "Can we just beat these Buffys down? So I can go home? I'm on
curfew, girl." Faith almost burst out laughing. Apparently Buffy'sname had become an adjective.

"There's no need for that."

"She's right. See, then we'd be doing them a favor. Then they could feel good about sending Raggedy Ann here to jack us for our cheers."

"Raggedy Ann?" Torrance asked, confused, but sick to her stomach with a guess.

"Ugly redhead with a video camera permanently attached to her hand. Y'all been coming up here for years, trying to steal our routines."

"And we just love seeing them on ESPN."

"What are you guys talking about?" Torrance asked.

" ' Brr it's cold in here, there must be some Toros in the atmosphere'? I know you don't think some white girl made that shit up."

Torrance tried to say something, but the other captain interrupted her. "Our free cheer service is over as of this moment."

"Over!" another one said.

"Finito!" said the third.

"Every time we get some, here y'all come, tryin to steal it, puttin' blond hair on it and callin it something different. We've had the best squad around for years, but nobody's been able to see what we can do. Oh, but you better believe all that's going to change this year. I'm captain, and I guarantee you we'll make it to Nationals. Hand over the tape you made tonight, and we'll call it even for now."

"We don't have a tape." Torrance held up empty hands.

"Really. We just came to see the show."

"What? Come on, Isis. Let me do this." the smallest one said.

"You know what? Let's go." the captain, Isis, said

"Wait a minute. So that's it? We're just gonna let them go?" she demanded.

"Yeah. Because unlike them, we have class."

"I swear, I had no idea." Torrance said.

"Well, now you do." Isis said, and turned away.

"Hmmp. You been touched by an angel, girl." the short one angrily told the two girls.

"Jenelope, let's go." Isis said. She turned and walked away. Trisha rolled her eyes at Faith, and Faith smirked back. Faith winked at the
younger girl, and she giggled quietly. Then she turned and walked away with the rest of the cheerleaders.

Faith and Torrance got into the car, and left. A few minutes later, Faith burst out with, "We so almost got our asses kick back there! I mean, I knew I'd seen those routines before. We used to play East Compten all the time."

Faith paused, and looked at Torrance. "You really had no idea, did you?"

"Do you know what this means? My entire cheerleading career has been a lie."

"Well, look on the bright side. It's only cheerleading." Faith tried to laugh it off.

"I am only cheerleading."

They were lucky that the cheerleaders hadn't attacked them. Faith was sure that she could have handled them, but then her cover would have been blown. And then, later, when Torrance asked if she believed in curses, she almost lost it again.

Like Angel's curse? Yep, I believe in that one. Thankfully. I haven't met Angelus, and I'm sure I don't want to, either.

But then that silly story about the spirit stick. Finally, she dropped Torrance off at her house, and then went home. They patrolled again, setting up a routine for each night. They'd come home from school, do homework, one or the other would call for takeout or delivery, or, if they wanted to, cook dinner. After dinner, if nothing else was going on, they'd watch a movie, then go patrolling.

They checked in with Angel every two days, and invited Spike to go patrolling with them most nights. Spike thought the idea of Faith as a
cheerleader was hilarious, and he and Xander got hours of teasing her out of it. Xander promised that he'd get pictures at the first available chance. Here was his chance.

The next football game for the team was a home game, and it was the first time that Faith would be joining the squad in performing. The
first time she tried to join in the cheering, she was so self-conscience that she was sure she looked like an idiot. When she saw Xander in the stands laughing at her, it didn't help. But she was laughing at herself too.

Remember, you wanted to do this, so suck it up, and try harder.

It was sad, watching the football game. The Toro's got creamed. It was like watching Faith, Buffy, and Spike take on some fledglings. Sad,just sad. Xander was glad he'd brought a book. He had fun flirting with Torrance, though. It got a bit more exciting when the other cheerleaders showed up. He was sorry to say it, but he missed the action of Sunnyhell and L.A.

Life continued. The days slowly flowed by. Nothing too exciting happened. They found a guy, through Torrance's boyfriend, who would
teach them a new routine. The catch was that he was charging them 2,000$. So, the squad put on a car wash. Faith couldn't believe they
roped her into helping.

Xander heard about the carwash through Faith, when she was complaining about the lameness of it all. She couldn't understand why they
couldn't just go steal it. She was just joking. Or so he told himself. He decided that he'd have to show up, and "support" the team. Besides,
it was a good way to see Torrance in a bikini. He'd borrowed a Spike's car, and gotten it covered in mud and grass. He wouldn't do that to his baby, but he'd do it to Spike's car, no problem. Besides, it was going to get cleaned, right?