"Are you ok, Faith?"-Wesley asked and tried to smile. The brunette Slayer was making him nervous, she appeared to be so relaxed and really deadly at the same time. Buffy was a total good girl and Wesley wished she'd been the one in El Salvador with him. After all, she was more experienced and Faith was too hot headed. Especially now that she was head over heels in love with the blonde Slayer.
"Five by five, Wes. Ready to knock them all dead... deader. Don't you worry your little English head."
"Ok, good. I may not be the best warrior, but I will help you any way I can."
"You just WATCH my back."-Faith said, lit a cigarette and walked out in the night, with Wesley right behind her.
She hid in the shadows, for the first time really trying to use her Slayer abilities to the max. This time she was alone, without Buffy to help her...or distract her. Faith had to admit she missed THAT distraction.
Every inch of her body was telling her something was wrong and she did her best not to atract any unwanted attention. She walked hiding in the shadows, listening to every sound like a black panther while stalking its prey. There was no space for mistakes and Faith did her best to be hundred percent focused and ready for anything. Her mind and heart were racing. She couldn't help wishing Buffy was there with her even though a part of her wanted to prove she was as good as Buffy was. She loved Buffy a lot, but when it was about Slaying, Faith didn't like the fact that everybody looked at Buffy like the leader all the time when in fact, it was Faith who was the active Slayer. Faith wasn't even quite aware she felt that way, but while sneaking in the shadows to catch the bad guys, she realized she wanted to do it right to prove them all she could be as good as Buffy, or even better, if they all just believed in her.
"Faith?"-Wesley whispered, trying to catch up with her. Faith walked too fast for him to follow, even when she wasn't trying to walk fast.
Faith was usually pretty carefree and relaxed while Slaying, but this was different and it made her so tense she wanted to jump out of her skin and at Wes' throat for saying her name. She glared at him, which was enough to make him walk faster and keep his mouth shut.
They reached the perfect spot Faith had been looking for. She needed a place which would make it easy for her to see Mayor's guys no matter what direction they were coming from. She smiled when she saw a little house on the tree. Some kids must have built it to play in there, it even had a rope to climb up. It had no roof, though, which would make it easy for her to observe every corner.
"After you..."-she said to Wesley, who clumsily climbed the rope and took a deep breath when he got in the house, hoping it won't break down or something. He was so confused and freaked out he forgot about his bag of weapons, but luckily Faith was strong enough to have it in her left hand while climbing. Then she pulled the rope up, she didn't want anyone to see it. She was dying for a cigarette, though, and figured cigarette smoke wasn't the most obvious thing, so she lit one.
"I don't think you should..."-Wesley said and glared at Faith and the cigarette, but Faith didn't really care, she just wanted to relax a little. Five cigarettes later and countless wasted nerves, Faith finally heard the noise- the helicopter was landing. She was thankful the tree branches kept them hidden even though the tree house didn't have a roof. As soon as the helicopter landed, she jumped off of the tree and ran to it. Black clothes helped her be almost invisible in the night and her enemies didn't see her. She was sure they would hear her heart thump, though, it was going completely wild.
Clutching a stake in one hand and checking for the knife hidden in her pants' pocket, Faith stared at the helicopter door, waiting for it to open. She was ready to attack, every muscle in her body was tight and ready to strike, hurt and kill. She gritted her teeth and smiled when the door finally started opening.
Wesley watched her from the tree house, clutching a crossbow in his hands tightly. His palms were sweaty and he hoped he wouldn't need to use the crossbow, but he knew his aim was good enough to dust a vampire or kill a demon if Faith needed him to.
When one vampire got out of the helicopter, Wesley's grip on the crossbow tightened. He watched another vampire hand a big box to the first one before he got out of the helicopter too. The box appeared to be metal, locked, and huge. Wesley knew the box didn't contain anything good and he started getting more and more nervous. Why wasn't Faith attacking?
Faith was waiting. As much as she wanted to Slay those vamps, she knew she had to wait for Mayor's lackeys to take the box away. Where were they? She hid and watched, patiently, for what seemed to be an hour... In fact it was less than ten minutes. Mayor's guys showed up, Faith recognized Alan Finch and one more jerk, she couldn't remember his name. They nodded to the vampires and gave them an envelope, which probably contained money, because the bloodsuckers grinned happily, showing off their sharp fangs.
It was time to erase those ugly smiles off of their faces, Faith concluded, and attacked. She was so fast and quiet, she made the three men gasp when the fourth exploded and turned into a pile of dust that covered his friend's shoes.
"Aww, you didn't see that coming, did you? If we were in a tv show, this would be such a twist! Uh, damn."
"You... you are..."-Finch stuttered and Faith grinned.
"I'm Faith. Faith the Vampire Slayer."
"You're su-supposed to b-be..."-poor bastard really struggled with the words coming out of his mouth.
"Working with the Mayor? Right. Sorry I lied, won't happen again."-Faith gave him one of her adorable dimpled smiles and staked the other vampire, which left her to deal with two human men now. She liked them much less than vampires, at least she was allowed to kill them. Killing humans wasn't something she was quite ready to do yet.
She placed a stake in her sleeve and took her knife out. Maybe she wouldn't kill them, but hey, some mutilation might come in handy. Her eyes sparkled when she saw the blade shine, it was sharp, beautiful and deadly. And the next moment it was under Finch's neck. He gasped and his eyes widened in horror, Faith moved so fast he couldn't even try to react. The other guy stared at her and said: "Hey, let him go... We won't tell the Mayor you're not on his side if you just back off."
"Of course you won't... I'm not in the mood for games, I just wanna get rid of this fuckin' box. So, before you shit your pants, do you think you could blow it up for me? I don't want to get upset and slide this knife suddenly... It would be bad wouldn't it?"
"I can't... I... The Mayor would kill me..."
"He'll be dead soon anyway, so you really have nothing to worry about. You and your buddy here could just fly anywhere and take the money you gave to those two piles of dust. It's all five by five, you know?"
The guy looked suspicious and she made a little cut on Finch's neck to make him think faster.
"Fine, ok, ok, I'll do it. Just don't kill us. Ok? No killing?"-the guy sounded pretty much desperate and Faith smiled.
"No killing. You got any explosives here?"-Faith asked, feeling pretty pleased with herself.
"Y-yeah. Just give me a second."-the guy, whom Faith started calling 'Mr. Sunnydale 1977' because he had a very pretty face, even though he was aging slowly. Plus, it seemed like the wasn't the brightest man in the world. The look on his face was a constant confused expression, and Faith could have bet her ass women kept falling for it. It made him look kind of helpless...Which he obviously wasn't if he had explosives in his vehicle.
Mr. Sunnydale 1977 returned, holding a bomb in his hand. He placed it on the box carefully, started walking backwards and told Faith to get away. When he made sure he was far enough, he pressed a button on a device in his hand and the box went poof, as Buffy would have said.
The bad thing about the box going poof was that the piece of metal ended up stuck in Faith's abdomen. The brunette Slayer dropped the knife, pushed Finch away and dropped to her knees.