See first chapter for disclaimers.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this. As usual, if you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy. RandR.

PREVIOUSLY: Sofia the First (special guests: the gnomes of Fable III)

Alien Demon Whatever

"Ever consider labeling these controls?" Xander asked irritably as he examined the console. "I have no idea what I'm looking at."

His host didn't even glance at him. "There are multiple reasons we do not. One is to make using them difficult people who should not be touching them to begin with."

Xander grimaced at the words, finding them a bit harsh, considering the source. He forcefully reminded himself that he wasn't the only one with a friend at risk. "Sorry. I'm feeling useless."

"You brought us vital information about our captain's situation." The other's tone grew conciliatory, not that there was too much difference between any of the man's tones. Only long practice watching allowed him to notice the shift. He hadn't looked up from his work once during the conversation.

"For now, you can do nothing but trust us to rescue your friend and our people."

"Patience isn't our strong suit. I'm sure you've noticed."

"I have." The other answered, his tone drier than usual.

OOOOOOOOOO

Faith bit back a curse as she nearly dislocated a shoulder tackling the large demon or alien or whatever-the-hell-it-was-this-time. She managed to spoil its aim and grab its weapon before rolling to her feet and dashing off. The creature scrambled to his feet behind her and shouted something that was probably not a compliment. That was as much as she dared risk at the moment. Whatever the things were, they were big and very solidly built. She already knew that she wasn't a match for it in a straight up contest of strength.

Faith hadn't a clue what was going on. The aliens/demons/whatevers were apparently the dominant species of whatever world they'd been dropped on this time. They had captured Xander shortly after the pair had arrived in the bizarre looking forest, and she hadn't been able to prevent it, barely managing to get away herself. While the fortress he'd been taken to was nearly medieval in appearance, their weapons were anything but primitive. She'd spent over an hour carefully moving through a forest that consisted of tall spindly trees with gray feathers instead of leaves and thick undergrowth of the same color. Nothing brightly colored would go unnoticed for long.

She wasn't dressed to blend, even if she didn't have Xander's questionable fashion sense, but she managed to camouflage herself well enough to scout around the fortress, looking for possible entrances. She'd been at it for a while when she saw the other humans. There were two of them. They wore brightly colored and instantly recognizable uniforms that were clearly not intended for sneaking around, especially in their current surroundings. That was probably why the locals attacked them immediately.

They both fought bravely but with no more success than she had had. The one in the red shirt went down with a fatal wound almost immediately, but they seemed intent on capturing the one in the gold. Anyone the locals wanted that badly was someone she wanted to talk to.

Not trusting her skills with the strange weapon, she closed to point-blank range before firing on one of the three menacing the other human. The weapon was set to kill, which distressed her, but she reminded herself that she didn't know if the energy weapons even had a stun setting.

She took advantage of the surprise to deliver a full strength kick to the side of the knee of the one holding the prisoner off the ground by the back of his uniform shirt. That one let go, howling in anger and pain. His prisoner was quick to take advantage and run for it. Faith joined him, firing a few times over her shoulder to make them duck.

The man gave her an incredulous look and she tossed him the weapon. "So I ain't exactly gun Girl. Sue me."

He chuckled and sent several more accurate shots toward their last pursuer. "Come on. There will be reinforcements all too soon." He took the lead and headed through the trees, changing course randomly and trying to stay out of sight.

"Blending would be easier if you ditched the neon shirt." Faith pointed out. "Or at least got some camouflage." She showed him the feather-like growths and how to make the same sort of cloak she had. "This'll make sneaking around easier."

"Impressive. How long have you been on this planet?"

"A few hours but it's not the first time I've had to do something like this." She pointed out a particularly dense stand of trees. "In here." They slipped between the trunks and settled down to wait and compare notes.

"We were called here to open negotiations." The man explained. "A straight forward diplomatic mission went bad when they seized two of my officers. I barely escaped. I've been cut off from my ship ever since. Some kind of jamming." He glanced at her. "And how did you get into this mess?"

"My friend Xander and me were stranded here a few hours ago." That was basically true. "The locals proved unfriendly. They caught Xander, but I got away. I've been scouting out their castle ever since." She shared what she'd learned, and they worked out a plan between them.

OOOOOOOOOO

Xander sat at the table in the rec room eating a simple meal and trying to restrain himself from rushing back to help Faith. He had been told that there was nothing to do but wait, and he believed them, but it wasn't easy doing nothing.

Ever since he'd been snatched out of the castle by his hosts' technology, the crew had been trying to recreate the circumstances. Apparently, there was technology in the castle that made getting sensor readings next to impossible. They had punched through it once and managed to bring Xander and one of the captive crew on board, they being the only human life signs they could lock on to. The locals had since adjusted their tech to prevent that, and the effect was spread well beyond the castle, meaning that Faith and anyone she might rescue would have to travel over fifty kilometers to get beyond it.

He had heard whispers, as he sat listening, of demands, but couldn't be sure of anything. Might just be ship-board gossip and speculation. It sounded reasonable, though. Why kidnap them otherwise? He knew there were probably multiple reasons, but none that occurred to him made any more sense. He had asked why they didn't send down an armed party to rescue their people, but had been told that, aside from the risk to the hostages, the political situation was…delicate. They couldn't simply brute force their way in.

He knew that he and Faith had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as per usual. Or the right place at the right time according to their so-going-to-get-a-beating-as-soon-as-they-found-him travel agent.

He knew Faith could handle herself, but that didn't stop him from worrying and wanting to do something to help.

OOOOOOOOOO

Faith watched from her place under the clump of bushes, ash gray as most of the planet's vegetation seemed to be, as the latest patrol passed by. Mapping out the patrols and timing them was taking far too long, in her opinion. Unfortunately, it was necessary. There was no regular traffic in and out of the castle to sneak in with, and they couldn't exactly blend in with the locals anyway. The little box her new friend carried told them where all the sensors were and helped them to avoid less obvious traps, and they had gotten closer without being detected than they could have otherwise. They still had the 'old school' security to get by, though.

It took another hour, but the two managed to get inside unobserved. Her priority was finding the prisoners, but it was pointed out that if they deactivated the machine interfering with his ship's technology they and the prisoners would be safe within a minute or two at most.

"You have a lot of faith in your crew." It wasn't a question,

"They've earned it."

"Okay. Let's find the thing and bust it, then."

Ten minutes later, they were crawling through the castle's surprisingly modern and roomy ventilation system. "I thought this only worked in old movies," she muttered. "What kind of idiot has air ducts big enough for enemies to crawl through?"

The man leading the way, at his insistence, only chuckled. It sounded patronizing to her ears, which pissed her off, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment. She concentrated on moving quietly as they passed occupied rooms.

Eventually, they came to a control room of some sort, based on the number and type of machines in the room. There were no access points in the room large enough to use, even if it hadn't been full of technicians and had guards posted at the doors. Faith wondered briefly about the disparity between guards and techs. Where the guards were large and solidly built, the technicians were shorter than her and rail tin, looking almost fragile. They almost looked like different species.

"This is the right place," he whispered, "but I can't get a clear shot through the vent. We're going to have to clear the room."

"Start a fire?" Faith whispered back.

"That'll do." He agreed and they made their way to an empty storeroom. "No telling what kind of fire suppression system they have, so we better make it big." He looked at the weapon.

"Can you set that to overload or something?" Faith asked, remembering snatches of old episodes. The man shook his head.

"You've read too many adventure stories." Again, he sounded patronizing, but Faith ignored it. "That doesn't work in real life. Built-in safeguards prevent that sort of tinkering. If enough of them are set on fire, though… That could work."

"Armory?" Faith was dubious. "That's gonna have way too many guards. Let's just go with an ordinary fire." The man nodded, and they set to work.

Twenty minutes later, an alarm went off. The guards began to gather and hustle the smaller creatures out. Faith, on asking, had been told the smaller ones were the male of the species. Unfortunately, the guards and techs in the control room did not leave. They sealed the doors and vents and settled in to wait out the crisis.

"Well that worked brilliantly." Faith groused.

"It was worth a try." The man thought a moment. "We should still be able to take advantage of the evacuation, though." The man then grinned confidently. "Backup system. Come on." He led the way past the entrance to the vent system and carefully down the now empty corridor to a door with a sophisticated lock. He used the stolen weapon to destroy that lock. This immediately set off yet another an alarm, so the two hastened inside and blocked the door as best they could.

The room contained a variety of interesting equipment hooked up to pipes and cables disappearing into the floor,, walls, and ceiling. After a brief examination of the equipment, the man gave up on trying to do anything clever with the controls. "I can't tell which control does what." He sighed.

"So… Just break things?"

He grinned and drew the weapon. "I like the way you think." When he depressed the firing stud, though, nothing happened. He frowned and examined the weapon. "Localized dampening field, probably because we shot our way in. Energy weapons won't work inside them."

"No problem." Faith grabbed a heavy and important looking cable, and with an application of slayer strength that left her companion gaping, yanked it free of the machine it was connected to and introduced the sparking end to what looked like a junction box. The effect was every bit as dramatic as she'd hoped.

The lights went out. The alarms cut off. There was the sound of a not-so-distant explosion and the room shook.

"Time to leave." Faith said as the emergency lighting came on for a second before failing.

"Agreed. Let's find the prisoners and get as close to the outside as we can. It will make it easier for my ship to pick us up." It wasn't that easy of course. They had to dodge fleeing locals and even fight through once or twice. The weapon Faith had stolen started working again at some point, but she'd made a lasting impression on her companion by then.

They never reached the cells. Faith wasn't sure what to think when the world suddenly dissolved around her.

"Well. I always wondered what that was like." Faith admitted, looking around the room she found herself in. She was there with gold shirt and a grumpy looking man in a blue shirt. He glanced over at Faith and then at gold shirt.

"Seriously? What is it with you?" Then he turned and left the room without waiting for an answer.

"Do I want to know?" Faith asked, actually having a pretty good idea what the grumpy man had been talking about.

"Probably not." The man said, sounding torn between amusement and irritation. Then he refocused on Faith, giving her a smile she remembered seeing more than a few times as he stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "I couldn't have pulled this off without you. Your strength is what got us through, and I'm not just talking about your muscles." He placed a finger on her forehead. "I mean this." He moved that finger down to her breast bone. "And this."

Faith could only blink at him in wonder for a moment as the man smiled at her. That was how Xander and the ship's first officer found them when they entered. Each cocked an eyebrow at the scene.

The slayer glanced over at her friend and let out an amused snort. "Wow, Xan. He's even cheesier in person!"