A/N:- I've realised some of my formatting may be off as apparently this system doesn't like me having more than one paragraph italicised at a time. I'm going to fix that now. In the mean time, here's more...

How to Play the Game

When Duncan had challenged her to this fight, Buffy's initial impulse had been to overwhelm him. She could easily best any human with her enhanced strength, and for all intents and purposes, that's what Duncan was. He might find it a lot easier to bounce back than mortals would, but his longevity didn't come alongside the increased speed or strength of her natural foes.

If she did that, defeated him using brute strength and lightning reflexes what would it prove? Although Duncan claimed to merely want reassurance that she could best any headhunter who might mistake her for his kind and try to take her false quickening, she knew that he wouldn't be satisfied by a demonstration of power. The Immortals lived their lives by a game of skill and honour, evident in the fact that their primary weapons were still blades; they didn't take the easy route provided by modern firepower.

So she treated the test of skill for what it was, and attempted to dampen down the flows of energy that surged through her to pump power into every cell. Buffy had sparred with Faith a number of times since that first bloody fight in the basement of the Hyperion and had learnt how to keep her powers to a minimum so that she wouldn't unnecessarily injure her friend. The mental requirements of constantly suppressing her strength distracted her enough to lower the speed of her reactions down to something vaguely normal.

Normal for a Slayer anyway.

She missed those fights, more an exercise in trust and skill than the proof of superiority they could have become. Perhaps she might be able to have something like that again here.

They faced one another; bowing, readying their blades and circling, watching each other's steps, assessing their capabilities. Moving and then pausing. A careful observation of every minute detail of the other's reactions, their posture and footwork, the flow of their dance.

Then in a sudden flurry of motion the test began in earnest. Their swords clashing together, bodies in constant movement as each maintained their centre of gravity and sought to disrupt that of their opponent.

As he tested out her skill with a sword she realised that if she had still been just Buffy her superior strength wouldn't have been enough. Here was a man with the skill born of centuries of practice, repeating katas until his entire body had been honed into a weapon. He used her strength as a boon, surprised by it but not so much that he didn't use his knowledge to slide around it and turn it back against her.

She might not have beaten him before, even with the training she had done with blades. Buffy had never had the time to truly devote herself to a type of combat that by its nature was impractical to modern life. Slayers were no longer able to disguise themselves as youths with a sword openly displayed on their belts as they once had. She had needed to hide whatever weaponry she carried on all but a few occasions, discouraging any regular use of something so difficult to conceal.

I wonder if they'll show me how to do that.

Immortals carried swords on themselves at all times, proved by the rapier that Amanda had put aside on entering the apartment, drawing it from somewhere beneath her form fitting clothes. That skill would be useful to gain, learn to hide more weapons discretely about her person. Without such tricks in Sunnydale, she had never got into the habit of using a sword. And so when Giles trained her in swordsmanship, she had picked up the basics as quickly as she had every weapon but she hadn't become proficient, had never made a sword an extension of her body.

And that should have been her downfall.

Unfortunately for Duncan, she wasn't just Buffy anymore. She was the Chosen One with all the knowledge that came with it. Where he had centuries of practice to call upon, she had millennia. He might have trained his body to do what was needed to win, but over the centuries her very soul had absorbed more stances and fighting styles than he could hope to learn in another 400 years.

The only difference being that his mere presence before her meant that he had survived. His own desire to live was strong enough that it had overcome anything he faced. Beaten, according to Amanda, others with centuries more years to their name.

Buffy may not be used to it, may not expect it, but within her were the memories of all those failures; reminding her that she wasn't always the best, hadn't always won the fights.

**He had been a decent swordsman in life and death had done nothing to remove that knowledge, using the century that had passed since then to hone his skills. Even once he fought his way to the top he didn't let them stagnate, controlling those beneath him with a sharpened sword.

Her own blades danced in her hands, more than tools, weapons. The pair of swords that she had been given the day she was found. That none other would wield. No other could. The metal moulded to fit in only her grasp, their weight something no one else could bare.

She had been winning against his men, shimmering silver flashes of death spinning around her as her blades moved with deadly intent, blood and dust flying in every direction. She had been winning until he joined the fray.

One-on-one she would have been hard pressed to beat him but now, with half a dozen of his men attacking whenever she was forced to give an opening she didn't have a chance.**

It was fun to test her skill, every time he dug deeper, pushed her further it sparked something in her, the memory of the correct riposte came to her even as she was moving, her body reacting before her mind had time to think, to remember. He was disarmed again, for the second time so far; the more desperate his attacks became the more unforgiving a retaliation they demanded.

This time when he was disarmed she didn't pause and give him a chance to recover. Buffy was beginning to bore of this fight, but before she could reach him he dove over the weights bench, giving himself the respite needed to retrieve his blade.

He certainly was persistent; refusing to submit even as he reached the realisation that defeat was inevitable. Buffy wondered what he would make of Faith, of her equally relentless need to win.

Of the two slayers before the fall of Sunnydale, Faith was by far the more skilled with a sword, her fascination with all and any blades giving her a dedication to training that she so often lacked. Ironically this love that had caused so much of her trouble, was a skill she honed while in the care of the state, the discipline involved in instruction in fencing apparently considered an asset.

With their differing gifts would Faith defeat this man or would his skill with a blade have driven them to an impasse? Either way the fight would be bitter and long, each using the full extent of their abilities in pursuit of victory.

**The foils crashed into one another, she was using neat economical movements to parry each attack, staying in close to her opponent so as to be squander as little energy as possible. Saving that for when she would most need it.

She spotted an opening and lunged forward, the thin blades smashing against one another as she put all her might into driving him...

"Stop" he called, pulling off his helmet to reveal the frown marring his chiseled features, "You know this is not an exercise of strength Clarissa."

"Yes, I'm sorry sir."

He stared at her, judging the truth of her contrition, "Remember that here the objective is to perfect your form, your true enemy will not be bested by strength alone."

She nodded, not willing to let her voice betray how much she hated disappointing this man, her watcher.

"Right, lets start again shall we?" He shot her a slight smile as he donned his helmet, letting her know she was forgiven, "En guarde!"**

As they met once again, swords clashing together, Duncan's attacks became more reckless. He had long realised that his dismissal of all claims regarding Buffy's abilities had been in error and was quickly reaching the realisation that she wasn't just good. She was better than him, a more knowledgeable swordsman than any of his most skilled opponents. That was without taking into account a power in her swing which left his bones aching with every impact and a speed of movement that defied belief.

Buffy danced through styles he knew and those he had never seen, countering his moves with parries that left him stumbling back in a desperate attempt to regain his footing. Occasionally Duncan returned the favour, using every trick in his repertoire to weaken her guard, feeling a surge of pride whenever he made her miss a step.

Each time that happened he pushed forward, hoping to catch her off balance, to finally take control of the fight. With every ounce of his attention was on her body, watching her movements so as not to miss any betrayal they might give of her coming actions, he missed the change in her expression. Duncan didn't see the enthusiasm for the fight dim as her and a sense of purpose take its place.

She'd had her fun, now it was time to demonstrate once and for all that it wasn't swordsmanship she hoped to learn from him.

They were back in his home before Duncan made any comment on the fight, "I don't understand."

"Why she sent me here? Me either." Buffy flashed a smile at Amanda before she could take any offence, "Not that I'm not glad she did." And she really was glad that she had met the woman again. She had changed, they both had, that was as inevitable as the passing of time, but the fragile beginnings of camaraderie between them was something that felt more real, safe than anything had in her last years in Sunnydale. Amanda wasn't perfect, but she didn't claim to be and didn't expect anyone else to be either.

"What did she say?"

Buffy thought back to that conversation, to when it had changed. "She was putting on a bit of a cryptic all knowing routine, telling me off and I got… annoyed. I told her that I had been fighting for longer than she could imagine. That I exist for… to cause only death and destruction. That I watched the world fall apart."

It had collapsed so many times around her.

She had seen the end of the world too often in those early years; when the whole of so many mortal's existence was in a single valley, island or oasis and it was all too easy for an apocalypse to wipe out every trace of those worlds. When total destruction could come thundering from nowhere, from the sea, past the ridge, over a dune, from places so close and yet too distant to imagine.

"I should have known." He said in a resigned tone.

"What?" Again mentioning death had gotten an almost violent reaction from an Immortal, but she didn't understand what this all meant.

"Cassandra wasn't sending you to Duncan" Amanda said, the answer to her earlier question suddenly clear.

Buffy looked between the two of them, hoping one of the two would get to the point before she got too annoyed at all the cryptic to-and-froing.

"She was sending you to Death." Duncan stated, his voice oddly even.

~ To Be Continued... ~

A/N:- Please let me know any thoughts/comments you have on this.