Nothing is mine. Aside from that usual disclaimer, my discipline in writing this story is waning, so unless there is a review it may be a long while before I resume the storytelling. It's not for sure or meant to be a threat at all. I just have no way of knowing if anyone is reading or enjoying the story, so I'm writing it mainly for my own enjoyment. If I find out someone wants to be updated I'll probably be spurred to write whereas I won't be if no one says a thing.

1.

"Hey." Spike didn't really have much else to say to Vicious. The last time they'd been together Vicious had thought Spike was aiming a gun at him. The time before that Vicious had woken him up with a sword to his throat.

"Spike," said Vicious. He had his coat on. He'd been about to leave. "The Van have requested my presence."

"The what?"

"They're prescient. Genetically modified to predict the future. The Elders procured them so they could distance themselves from our doings."

"Prescient? Then what about--"

"I've been doing research," said Vicious. "Come. Walk with me." Spike followed him down the fire escape. "It's a limited prescience. They're the result of a breeding program. That's the first problem. They're so inbred they're incapable of communicating except in riddles. Idiot savants. Second, they're only prescient when given the right information. It's sort of high-capacity statistics they're able to do. When given misinformation... The only real danger they are to us is in terms of telling character. And everyone already suspects mine. They would be a danger to you, and to Julia. However, only Mao and I have access to them. And the Elders." He shrugged. "Stupid really."

"Yeah," said Spike, lighting a cigarette. "Stupid." He sighed, making a note to fill in the blanks later. They walked in silence for a few moments. Neither knew how to start the conversation they knew they needed to have.

"What would you have done, Spike?" Vicious asked after several minutes had passed by. They had turned onto a side street. "The day the ISSP came to do what they did to Komodo?"

Spike took a drag from his cigarette. "I never thought about it," he said. "I mean, I tried not to. But in my defense when it came down to it I lost an eye for you. And I was willing to lose more."

Vicious nodded, sighed. "I'm... sorry." He looked up at the sky. It was grey, hinting at rain. Atmosphere akin to Earth's only because of human tampering. "When Julia wouldn't tell me... I knew before she told me. I had a lot of time to wonder what her motives were, what she was thinking from the first time she kissed me. How she could have kissed me at all. I had a lot of time to doubt."

"I understand," said Spike. A figure emerged from an intersection a few blocks down. Stayed in place. Immediately Spike knew the figure had intentions. He looked behind him, and saw that Vicious had noticed too, was scanning the tops of the buildings. Behind them was another figure.

Spike and Vicious shared a barely perceptible nod before taking positions back to back. The first figure was already shooting. Vicious deflected a shot with his blade, and saw terror in the figure's reaction. That was why he used his sword to deflect shots. No one short of myth could do that. Whoever saw that knew they were doomed. And knowing they were doomed made them more susceptible to desperation and desperation's ensuing mistakes. Vicious aimed and fired. The figure fell. Spike had taken out the other figure, but there were still shots. They were coming from above. Vicious couldn't find the figure. One of the shots bit into his shoulder. His sword arm. He could feel the unwravelled, broken muscles. And then there was another shot from Spike. The shots stopped.

"You all right?" Spike was facing him.

"Yeah. Nothing a little microsurgery won't fix."

"You go to the Van. I'll ID the bodies."

Vicious nodded. Spike turned on his communicator and put a call in to clean up. Vicious started to move away, saw Spike bend over one of the bodies. He stepped over the body of the one he had killed. He looked like boy. His face was crumpled up as though he'd fallen asleep crying. Vicious was rarely moved by anyone he killed, but the expression of the boy's face, cemented by quick expiration, would stay with him, if only for a short while.

2.

Vicious stood in his studio later that night, moonlight flooding through the window. Microsurgery had repaired the muscles in his arm, though a wound that signalled the invasion was left. He wore no shirt, so that his movements wouldn't be restricted. A block of wood was before him. Something his sword master had taught him, long ago, as a boy. Hitachi, his name had been. His father had killed him when he was nineteen. By then, Vicious had surpassed him. But that did not mean that he had no need of further instruction. Hitachi had seen the point at which Vicious surpassed him, knew the trajectory of where he was going. Hitachi could have guided him further, and Vicious had wanted that. Swordplay was an art, and that was what this exercise proved.

The first figure had been simple. An hourglass. Turn the block of wood into an hourglass. Cut fast enough so that the wood will not shift in its position. Know when the cut must stop, because sometimes, it was more vital to stop than to carry the blow through. Sometimes, you couldn't let your sword carry all the way through. You needed to stop so that you could bring it to another position. Cut so precisely that you could carve a sculpture out of wood, and with the speed at which you could murder. It was an exercise. One with infinite lessons embedded in it, so many that you never could learn all of them. So many that some you carried with you without knowing it.

"There is a traitor," the Van had said. Vicious could have smirked. Yeah, there was a traitor. Quite a few. Good call.

He had decided to carve a bodhisattiva.

Mao had looked at him when they said it. Vicious was starting to despise Mao. Mao had never trusted him, always pitied him, and now feared him. He knew Mao had had conversations with Spike when they first started to be friends.

A bodhisattiva, one who had achieved enlightenment, but who returned to help those who hadn't.

Vicious began. He swung the sword in a clean arc, a quick arc. He knew exactly where the sword must stop, and at that point he twisted the sword, drawing a chunk out of the wood.

Mao had told Spike that Vicious was dangerous.

He was.

Vicious brought the sword to the other side. Symmetry was important to him. There is no light without darkness, no strength without weakness. Vicious knew this, understood it. But it brought him no closer to enlightenment. That was why he identified with the bhodisattiva. Because he rejected nirvana. Because he knew this world was more important than the next one. Because he knew that while the world would never change, would always have horror, it was still necessary to bring the light. Vicious brought the darkness; the statue brought the light. He heard the door open behind him. He knew it was Julia.

She stood within the frame of the door, and leaned against it, watching Vicious's body accompany the movements of his sword. Underground rivers of muscle flowed and changed course. Like water. Spike had said something like that, about fighting. That you had to move like water. Like Vicious moved now. His hair swayed with his movement. He was beautiful, and her heart nearly broke at it, for him. She hadn't felt for him this way for a while.

He finished, and turned to her. She saw that he had been carving a statue. It was simple but complicated at the same time. A basic representation, but every detail accounted for. She moved toward it, towards him. Saw that it had perfect matching eyes, and simple robes hanging in a clean line to its feet. She looked at him and smiled faintly. Sweat beaded his forehead. She saw the bandage on his shoulder and brought her hand up to it, touched it, touched his chest lightly with her fingers. Those rivers were rigid now, like stone. Or metal. His eyes were yellow and hungry, and her gaze was food enough. The line between them tensed and brought them closer, but slowly, the fusion of their bodies and souls moving towards each other as though they would never touch, as though Xeno's paradox was the law of all movement. But they did touch, finally, breaking the paradox, still gazing as they kissed. He gasped and brought her tighter into him, pushed her top from her shoulders and her pants over her hips. He brought her up and held her legs so she was on a level with him, and broke contact with her lips only to crush his against her collarbone. Pink bloomed faintly at this. He was inside her. It was a relief like no other. He had regained the full extent of her relief, and she his, and their need crested in a great wave and crashed and they crashed against each other like water, and settled into earth.

There was a hazy afterglow of consciousness, and Julia's thoughts resolved. She thought, briefly, of Allistaire. Julia wondered if she could only feel this way when she had something to hide from Vicious, or if it was only a coincidence.