Fleeting

Part X - Release
A/N: ha ha! new part. i had to write this one and the next one to add this, cause, as you know, i do have a tendancy to put the next part's title at the end of the current part. so i had to write it, to come up with the part name, so i could post this one. got it? no? good. then on with the fic!

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“Skip, will you just stop *hovering* over me?” for a demon so big, the guy could really flutter about the place if he wanted too. A short while after he’d brought Faith back to her make shift apartment, he’d been called away and shimmered out of there, leaving the brunette on her own for a few days.

The time away from him, as he’d been pretty much spending days with her before she left to find that killer, he’d spent attempting to stop her from going, warning her of the consecuences should she have been found. Apparently, the demons who worked down here, weren’t like the demons from her home dimension.

The ones back on earth were all tainted by humanity at one point or another. The only ‘pure’ demon that had ever existed after the time of the old ones, being the mayor. But here, here every single demon that worked for the place was pure. Bigger, stronger, faster. and so much more crueler than the ones she’d come to know and hate.

If they’d caught her, she wouldn’t have been getting out of here alive, at all. Everyone but the prisioners here were willing to just look the other way while she tried to get out. Not that they were exactly happy about that, which is why all their charges had been running all over the dimention since she got here.

They didn’t want her to escape anymore than their charges. But the rules are the rules, and by their own laws she must be allowed a fair change of getting out and getting home. But that doesn’t mean they can’t set their charges on her.

Skip had shimmered back in here about an hour ago, muttering under his breathe and pointing at her occasionally, as he paced across her floor. she didn’t exactly know what was going on, but she got the impression that it was her fault.

Call her a gluton for punishment.

“I would, except now? The rules have changed. Or at least, some of the rules have changed.”

“What the hell you talking about?”

“Oh nothing. Just that the demon that was to torture warren’s really pissed off with you, because hey, his new charge has no skin left so now he has to heal, which means the demon in charge of warren, who’s called malic by the way, has nothing to do for a couple of years.”

“So what’s all this gotta do with me?”

“Well the fact that malic and a couple of his buddies have decided to join in tightight against you escaping might have something to do with you.”

“They don’t stick to their rules much, do they?” Faith jumped out of her chair and headed over to her weapons chest, flinging it open and pulling out weapons at random. Quickly looking at them and then laying them to the side of her chest.

“Well… the rules you see, they’re.. well they’re more like… guidelines, you see.”

Great! Fan-fucking-tastic! Could my life get any fucking worse right now?

“Well er.. as malic and his crew are heading over to the main office to find out exactly where you’re hidden away down here? I’d say yeah. Yeah, it really could.”

“will you *please* stop listening to me think!” skip held up his hands in the age old gesture of surrender as she turned back around and started to calculate in her head how many weapons she could carry, and how many weapons she could throw away after she’d finished using them.

Shords? Unless some fucker snaps the blade, I’ll only need one. Crossbow? Too long to load, leave it. lowbow? An evil grin settled across her face as she picked up the quiver full of arrows. She might not have been all one with the magic like willow and tara, but she’d learnt a few things. Useful things. Like how to make a quiver of bows last forever.

Stripping off her vest and pants, she strode to her closet and pulled out a pair of dark brown and heavily beaten up leather pants. They might not look like much, but they’d saved her life on more than one occasion. Besides, they made her ass look great, aswell as being really comfortable to slay in.

“You seriously gotta wear leather? In *hell*?” she threw skip a look before yanking on a new pair of boxers, before sliding the cool material over her legs and snapping the button shut. She dragged on a sports bra, putting a new white vest over the top, before slowly, lovingly sliding the matching dark brown leather jacket off it’s hanger.

Lifting it to her nose she took a huge noseful of that old beaten up leather smell, relesing it’s smell and feeling comforted by it.

She’d made a few adjustments to it since she’d started to pack a lot of weapons, back home on earth. Just on the right shoulder blade, there was a slice in the material, that was hemmed around the edges to stop the leather from fraying or cracking. Inside, diagonally across the back was the sheath for the sword she always loved using.

Walking back across the room to her weapons chest, pulling on the jacket as she went, she bent down and slowly pulled out a sword that was tightly wrapped in an old lenght of silk. She took her time slowly unwinding the material from her sword, watching as inch by inch of the silver blade was revealed.

Intricate designs were woven into the metal, swishes and slices, wreaths of lorrel leaves and designs which only her best friend could ever have come up with. The handle was padded leather, a length of gold thread wrapped around it to hold it in place.

She stood there, turning the blade this way and that, watching in pat fasination as the light in the room glinted off the metal. Buffy had gotten this for her for her 19th birthday. They’d hired out a corner of the espresso pump and all sat around listening to music and drinking, watching as Faith took each presant in turn and unwrapped them all. This was the last one to emerge from the pile.

It had come in a darkly stained wooden box, with the words ‘Heroes are born, not made’ engraved over the top. And inside the box lay this beautiful piece of weaponry, shinned and buffd to perfection, laying in a bed of satin.

Yanking herself back out of her thoughts, she took firm grip on the handle and flipped it upwards, grabbing the tip of the blade and dropping it into the sheath hidden in her jacket.

Slinging her quiver over her head and tightening the straps around her chest, then quickly snapping her bow over her head and chest too, she looked up at skip and gave him a soft smile. No, he didn’t want her to leave, but not because he wanted her to stay here. Because he was terrified that she’d not make it out alive. He’d told her that if she died trying to get out of here, she’d never get out at all. That it didn’t matter where her afterlife was supposed to be, if she died down here, it would be the last place she’d ever be.

“Don’t worry skip.” Shrapprapped a knife to the outside of each of her ankles, before picking up a sort of utility belt and clipping it around her waste. On it it held the knife that the mayor had given her, a bottle of holy water and enough stakes to pin a tail on every demon standing betwenn her and the exit. “I won’t be coming back.”

She leaned over, silently thanking him for all he’d done for her and gave him a short, one armed hug, before walking over towards her front door and looking outit. it. it was night here, the streets and alleyways darkened and hidden in enough shadow to get her to the edge of the city.

She looked over her shoulder at him one last time, before slipping silently out of the door and shutting it behind her.

“That’s what I’m afraid of kid.” The big red demon said, taking a look around Faith’s apartment, even as it began to fade and shimmer back to it’s original, decaying self. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”


Continued Next in: A Sword Throught Me