The unmistakable clash of metal hitting metal resounded through the house, amplified by the hard walls of the basement. Thomas flicked Artemis' short sword away with his much larger katana. This, he knew was where he belonged. In a training room, swinging his blade against a foe who was physically stronger than he was.
She thrust again, barely missing her mark, and he parried, swinging her sword down to the floor, where she would have difficulty blocking him. She took her left hand from the hilt of her blade, using her weaker side, with a one handed grip, to gain speed in a fast spin upwards. As he relaxed for a split second, allowing his trainee to regain her advantage, just so he could show her how it could be taken, he kept his defensive up.
Before he could register that it had gotten into her hand, she threw the dagger that she kept in a hip sheath at him, forcing him to drop his attention from her for a split second in order to deflect the tiny, yet potentially deadly, blade. She swung, hitting him in the chest with her sword.
"Hit." He said it softly.
She dropped her sword to her side.
"You weren't supposed to use that dagger," he said, flipping it to her with the tip of his katana. "This was supposed to be a training exercise in swordsmanship."
"You told me before to use whatever advantage I can come up with." She re-sheathed her precious dagger, a solid silver relic of days gone by, when she had been an only child, being trained by her parents to save the world.
"In the real world, yes. This isn't the real world." He glared at her.
"What the hell is the real world?" Artemis enquired. "I mean, reality is supposed to be all 'magic doesn't exist, demons aren't real and there are no monsters under your bed.' At least, that's what my classmates always told me. How do you define real?"
Thomas was stumped. He, like Artemis, had grown up knowing about demons and magic. He'd been born into a Watcher family, but his parents had been murdered when he was young, and he had been raised by his sensei.
His sensei was one of the hanta-kira no akuma. His entire life had been devoted to mastering the sword and destroying evil. He had trained Thomas in swordsmanship, basically since Thomas was able to support the weight of a sword. The day Thomas had gone to the Watcher's Academy had been one of his sensei's proudest days.
Sensei understood that Thomas had needed to leave with Artemis, and that they might never return. The day that Thomas had left for the Academy, he and his sensei had come to a silent agreement. All Thomas ever had to say to have full permission to leave, at any time, was the word akuma. It meant demon.
Artemis realised that he was taking awhile to answer, but chalked it up to him having to translate his thoughts into English. Although his English was flawless and virtually unaccented, Japanese was still Thomas's first language.
"I guess," he started, softly, "that reality is the truth, and that the real world is anything beyond the walls of the training room."
"So the training room isn't real, and it doesn't matter if I do this?" Artemis slashed the punching bag which hung from the ceiling.
"Artemis! You must curb your destruction." He swung his sword at her, and she ducked, the blade just grazing her spiked hair.
Artemis came at him again, and in the ten minutes of graceful, ordered chaos that ensued, she was disarmed four times, and hit seven. The hits bruised her legs and chest, but still she fought. He was better than her, any day, any time, but she was stronger and he had trained her. She knew a few of his tricks. Still, it surprised her when he faked going to the left side of her head, then swung around and came at her less protected right side.
"If this were the outside world, you would now be dead," Thomas said to her prostrate form.
"Bravo," came a slightly mocking voice, from the top of the stairs. "You train your Slayer well."
"Good morning, Faith," Thomas said. "She's not a Slayer yet. I pray that it never becomes necessary for her to replace you or Buffy."
"Who the hell are you?" Artemis picked herself up and dusted off her coat.
Faith came the rest of the way down the stairs, and extended her hand. Smirking, she said, "Faith. Slayer. You are?"
"Artemis Hebe Floyd. Future Slayer."
"Potential," Faith corrected. "You can't know that you will be a Slayer."
"Future. I didn't get sent to a nuthouse for a year because I was a mere Potential."
"You were in a nuthouse?" Faith looked skeptical. "What'd ya do, try to kill yourself?"
"Nah. I didn't stoop that low. I tried to kill my baby sister. You don't want to mess with me."
"I've spent that last little while in prison for murder. I think you'd be better off not messing with me."
Artemis answered Faith by swinging her sword at the Slayer. Faith ducked into a roll and came up next to Thomas, who was standing a few feet away, next to a small rack with several other swords on it. She grabbed for his katana, which he held out of her reach while he handed her a dagger. Seeing this, Artemis dropped her sword and drew her preferred weapon, the dagger on her hip.
"Think you can beat me, Arty?"
Enraged at hearing Faith use the nickname her family had always called her by, the one she hadn't heard since the day her first Watcher had appeared on her doorstep, Artemis lunged at Faith. She held the dagger like a street fighter holds a knife--turned inwards against her forearm, perfect for reaching out and slashing at an opponent.
Faith reacted quickly, kicking at Artemis' wrist and causing her to nearly drop the dagger. Artemis curled inwards on herself, forcing Faith to get closer in order to attack again. Artemis had seen opponents like this before. They'd never bide their time. They always wanted action.
Predictably, Faith came in close and raised the dagger to hit Artemis, sacrifice style. As the blade descended, Artemis reared up, knocking Faith's arm aside and slamming her to the ground.
"Cry Uncle," Artemis commanded, her razor-sharp dagger pressed against Faith's throat.
"Like hell I will, Psycho." Faith smiled and drove her knee upwards into Artemis' stomach.
Faith launched herself to her feet, staring Artemis down as Artemis put a hand to her side.
"Excellent fighting," Thomas said, believing this to be an unforeseen training session. "I'll take over now Faith."
Faith ignored him and punched Artemis in the face, causing blood to pour freely from Artemis' nose and mouth.
Artemis looked down and saw blood trickling down her front, soaking her tube top before it began running down her stomach. "You're gonna pay for this."
Artemis attacked again, viciously stabbing in and out with her right fist, the dagger safely back in its sheath. She moved very quickly, doing the work of two hands with her one and therefore surprised Faith when she came in with a strong left hook to Faith's jaw.
After a moment more of this, both the Slayer and the Potential were bleeding from numerous small wounds and scratches, as Faith kept her dagger out. They were clearly out to kill.
Thomas looked at the women, who were absolutely consumed with their fight, and couldn't see a way to break them up without hurting them, and most likely himself, in the process. Artemis had Faith down again. Seeing his chance, he launched himself at Artemis, knocking her to the ground.
Faith, who was still slightly injured from her adventures in LA a mere 48 hours before, stayed down as Thomas held a struggling Artemis against the floor. He knew that he wouldn't be able to hold her for long--Slayers, even Potentials, were naturally stronger than most humans, and Artemis had been in training since she was old enough to walk.
Artemis broke an arm free and started beating him around the head. He used one arm to block, while trying to hold her with the other. A second later, she broke free and came up in a fighting stance, ready to knock him out if he got too close to her. He did, and they turned a dance of violence around the basement, fighting as enemies for the first time.
This went on for the better part of fifteen minutes. Artemis, already injured, was panting and starting to show signs of weakening. Thomas, while sweating slightly, showed barely any signs of wear. He'd fought like this with his sensei for hours on end, since he'd been a few years old.
"Put her down," Faith gasped from the floor, where she was still lying. She was leaning in a semi-sitting position against the wall.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Kill her. She's too dangerous to let live."
"I won't do that. She's not in control anymore."
"Fakku," he said, as Artemis nearly hit him.
It did appear that Artemis had lost any semblance of control and sanity. She was wild-eyed, and had nearly forsaken years of training in the martial arts to adopt a more feral fighting style, while she instinctively kept some of the blocks. It was a deadly combination. Her speed and instincts, for she appeared to be working solely on the instinctive level, provided Thomas with little opportunity to get a hit in that would drop her to the floor. He debated pulling his katana out of its sheath, but realized that that would be as dangerous to him as it would be to her.
Again and again she hit him, her instincts startling him with attacks he would never have seen coming. Still, his training had been more complete and intensive than hers. He looked as though he was taking the hits, it felt to her like he was, but not one of them hit him hard enough to even get close to injuring. Finally, she left a small opening and he took advantage of it, hitting a pressure point in her neck, causing her to fall to the ground, unconscious.
He stalked over to Faith. She raised a hand, expecting him to help her up. He simply stared at her.
"What's your problem?" she asked, starting to pull herself up. She used the wall to brace herself.
"Do not ever tell me what to do with Artemis. She is my responsibility. You have nothing to do with her or what happens to her. You do not know why she is this way. You couldn't." With that, he stalked back to where Artemis was stirring.
He hadn't hit her very hard, just enough to drop her. She felt it though, and knew that she had to have gone pretty ballistic for him to have done that to her.
"Look, if I hurt you, I didn't know what I was up to."
He knew, from past experience, that she wouldn't give him any more of an apology than that.
"Pick up your sword," he said. "We're still training."
****
After she had stumbled up the stairs, Faith found Buffy in the kitchen.
"That girl's a complete psycho! She tried to kill me, and her Watcher."
"Artemis?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah. She went absolutely nuts and just, I think it must have been a training session that went wrong."
Buffy turned to Giles. "Okay, now what?"
Giles looked pensively at Buffy. "I thought she was better now…This shouldn't have happened."
"Better? What's that supposed to mean?" Faith glared at Giles.
"She spent nearly a year in an institution, after she tried to kill…" He stopped, as he realised how incriminating that sounded.
"An institution? So, what, we now have 2 psychopathic Slayers? No offence, Faith."
"None taken. She really is a psycho? I mean, she said she was, but I didn't believe her."
"She's had problems in the past. I was assured that she had completed her treatment and showed no signs of further mental illness."
"So, we have proof that she's a psycho. Now what?" Buffy looked at Giles.
"Wait. Who'd she try to kill?" Faith asked.
"Her baby sister."
"How dangerous is she?"
"We have no way of knowing."
"We do." Faith stared at her hands. "Lorne."
So. Next chapter Lorne reads Artemis. Stay tuned!!
Please Review!!