Chapter 4: A New Fight

Warning: I don't know; maybe language and innuendo somewhere along the way.

Disclaimer: BtVS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. characters belong to . I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission. Blade characters belong to Marvel Comics and New Line Cinema.

Additional WARNING: Some seriously dark behavior on Nya's part coming up. Torture-type behavior. Honestly…we're talking FR18 or FR21 here folks!

A/N: Slight canon change here. 'Lie To Me' came before 'Halloween'.

A/N2: Thanks to my betas…zigpal, ktweaver and AshDawnSoulmates.

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Paris

1867

Well, it took just over a hundred years as a daywalker and the help of a seer friend, but Nya finally learned there were two classes of vampires. The ones she was used to dealing with, and the others called themselves 'Purebloods' – vampires who were actually born that way.

Nobody could explain to her how that was possible, so she just figured it was some kind of mutation from way back in the vampire line. Then she decided it didn't really matter since they were all evil and needed to die anyway.

The disturbing thing about those Purebloods was that they were sneakier than other vamps. Ones like the Master were all into carnage and ending the world. But these other guys simply wanted to rule it – with the humans still there to be their slaves and food source. Sick part was their plan actually made more sense to Nya than the Master's.

Even more unnerving was how they were going to control everything. The human world wouldn't even know they were being ruled by the bloodsuckers – except for those that chose to become vampire familiars.

Those idiots were like those nutcases Ford hung out with. At least he was terminally ill; the teensiest, tiniest part of her brain kinda, sorta got where he was coming from. Or she would have if she didn't know the truth about what happened after a person was turned.

Now, of the two classes of vampires, Nya decided that the Purebloods were really the bigger threat…in the long run. She could even envision them growing so powerful that one day they could even be open about their vampirism. Maybe even get themselves classified as citizens somehow.

She shuddered. 'Undead Americans.' What kind of world would that look like? She, for one, didn't want to find out. So, while she killed the 'lesser' vamps when she came across them, she actively hunted the Purebloods across the globe.

Occasionally, she would run across somebody who wanted to join her fight – usually out of a need for revenge for a loved one's death. If the current seer she was in contact with okayed the person, she would train them, then send them out with the warning to stay under the Council's radar. It wasn't long before she had a worldwide network of hunters.

And it was on one of her hunts that she met Whistler.

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The Ozarks

1961

Nya was tracking a particularly sadistic Pureblood when she heard the screams from a nearby cabin. She raced towards it, hoping to stop the vampire in time. As the smell of blood hit her nostrils upon entering, she knew that she had failed. But there was still one that she could save. By the looks of him, he was the father/husband of the dead females.

Then Nya caught the smell of sex hanging in the air, and her fury ignited fully. It wasn't enough for these monsters to kill or feed? They had to violate their victims as well? And in front of the man who would feel responsible for their safety! This one would get no mercy from her.

As Buffy, she had only tortured the one time, and that was to find out where her friends were. As Nya, however, she became quite adept at hurting the monsters. If she had ever left any alive, she would have had the most fearsome reputation in the underworld. But since she didn't want any reputation at all, she always killed those she came in contact with. It was what kept her off the Council's radar as well.

Pulling the vampire off the man, she dragged it out of the cabin and tied it up between two thick trees. No sense in letting it escape because the trees snapped. For the next hour, she used every tool in her arsenal to punish this thing for all of its crimes against humanity. When she took a break, Nya saw the man staring at them from the doorway of the cabin.

Walking over to him slowly, she kept herself as non-threatening as possible, which didn't really work with the vampire's blood staining her skin and clothing. He backed up slightly when she approached.

"I'm not a threat to you, sir. I only wanted to ask if you wanted to kill it," she said softly.

Despite seeing how violent she had been to the vampire, Whistler stepped forward again. "I can see that…I think. Who are you? Is that really a vampire or is my mind making that part up?"

"It is a vampire, and I'm the thing they fear," Nya answered with a glint in her eyes that terrified any vampire or demon that came across her.

Whistler nodded, understanding how that was possible. Then he remembered her offer and asked, "So, how do I kill it?"

Shrugging, Nya explained, "Depends on how much you want it to suffer as it dies. Beheading or staking are relatively painless. Holy water, sunlight or burning cause the most pain. There's just one more thing I want to do before it dies."

"What's that?" Whistler wondered, thinking what could be left?

Nya ground out evenly, "Castrate it."

He watched in horrified fascination as she took a canteen out of her bag, then opened the lid. After checking the gag in the vampire's mouth to be sure it was still firmly in place, she stripped its pants off and shoved its penis into the canteen. Whistler's eyes widened as he watched the sheer agony on the beast's face. Whatever was in the canteen was hurting it intensely. Well, intensely would have to be an understatement given the look on its face.

When she pulled the canteen back, Whistler cringed to see the stump that was left where the liquid didn't touch it. As a man, he felt bad for how much that must have hurt. But the sympathy he felt was minimized by the memory of that thing raping his wife and daughters – the youngest one was only 8 years old.

Still, he decided that she had taken care of punishing it for him, and chose to give it a quick death. Whistler took the offered sword she held out for him – like she expected his choice – and quickly separated the vampire's head from its shoulders. He was startled when it burst into a mist of blood.

"That's how the line of vamps from Purebloods die. Other kinds just turn into dust. Not as messy," Nya recited as if she had said this many times before. "I used a mixture of holy water with flecks of silver on his…" she trailed off.

Whistler just felt empty now. "What do I do now?" he asked absently.

Nya studied him, then made her decision. "That depends; do you want to go on with your life or do you want to stop those things?"

"My family was my life. Can you-- will you teach me?" Whistler corrected himself. She was the scariest thing he'd ever seen, but she just saved him and helped avenge his family's deaths.

"I'll need to have you checked out first, but I have a good feeling that you'll pass, so sure. What do you want to do with…?" she pointed at the cabin.

Feeling completely out of his depth, Whistler left it up to her. "What do you suggest?"

"Do you have any other family that would look for you? Like your wife's family?" Nya inquired after considering their options.

Whistler shook his head, "She was an only child and her folks are dead. Same for me."

"Then grab what you want from the cabin and we'll torch it," she ordered. "The authorities will think that you all died in the fire."

"And when they don't find my body?" Whistler pointed out.

"They'll have a body. While you pack up, I'll get one to put in there," Nya countered.

The tone in her voice worried him. "You aren't going to kill someone, are you?" he checked.

"No. But there are plenty of unclaimed bodies at the morgues." She took in his look of disgust. "Rule one is you can't be squeamish. There's a lot of things that are less pleasant we'll have to deal with."

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On the road

Several hours later…

"Thank you for saving me," Whistler said softly, breaking the silence since they left his family and home in flames.

Nya's face changed, and she looked compassionate. "I'm sorry I wasn't in time for your family."

"At least you made the vampire suffer for it," he replied cautiously.

"Yeah. Well, rape has always been a sore subject for me – ever since I saw a guy I cared about try to rape a woman. He claimed he was only 'seducing' her, but I know what I saw," she snorted in derision. "From then on, the vampires I catch that I see are rapists earn a more painful death."

Whistler nodded, then asked, "And the human rapists?"

Nya's hands tightened on the steering wheel in an effort to control her anger. "I can't kill them. However, there's nothing that says I can't knock them out and call the police to take care of them."

"Why can't you kill the human ones?" he demanded. "Especially if they deserve it."

She gave him a rueful smile. "That would make me a murderer. Humans have their own system of laws and I'm not part of it. My job is to protect humanity, not just the parts of it I approve of."

"Does it bother you that you may have saved rapists or killers?" Whistler pressed, wondering how much danger he was getting himself into by asking her.

But Nya just sighed, "All the time, but I can't afford to make those kinds of judgments. If I did, where would it end? The whole slippery slope deal."

Whistler took a better look at her then commented, "You sound like you've been doing this a long time, but you hardly look 20 years old."

"I'm a different sort of creature. I was born a regular girl, then when I turned 15, I became a Slayer – a mystically-powered fighter for the side of good," she said. "A couple years later, I dressed up for Halloween in a 18th century noblewoman's costume to impress that guy I mentioned earlier. Something happened and I became the noblewoman I was trying to look like."

Then she chuckled, but it wasn't a happy one. "Only problem was she happened to be a vampire, and the fight between the Slayer essence and the vampire one, the body I was in became something else. Now, there are some similarities between me and vamps, but the Slayer side burned out the evil parts – most importantly, the bloodlust. I have to eat food to survive instead of feeding on people or animals' blood. But I do feel stronger if I have plenty of protein in my diet."

Surprised by her candor, Whistler felt he had to ask, "Why are you telling me all this?"

Nya turned from the road to look him direct in the eye. "Because for the past 100 years, I've been looking for the one the seers have told me will be my partner in my fight. Each time I take on a…student – for lack of a better word – the seer who is alive at that time tells me if that person is the one or not. The seer told me that you will lead me to him. So you get the unedited version of my life."

"Wait! Did you say 100 years?" Whistler almost shouted as his mind processed that part of her speech.

"Oops. Did I forget to mention that I was born in 1981?" She gave him an apologetic smile, looking nothing like the killing machine that tortured the vampire before. "The spell that did this to me also sent me back to 1753."

Whistler ran his hands over his face and through his hair several times. "Ahh!" he groaned as if in pain. "You know, I really want to call you a crazy nut and run as fast as I can."

"But…?" Nya prompted.

"This seems normal after learning that vampires are real," he responded with a dry chuckle of his own.

Impressed that she hadn't broken his mind with her tale, Nya declared, "You really are the one!"

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Colorado

1975

"Hey, Whis? Can you help me tie this guy up for the police?" Nya called out when her friend finally caught up with her. She had been missing for a few hours, and he was worried.

Whistler looked at the man with curiosity. "What's the deal?"

Nya smacked the unconscious guy on the head. "He tried to kidnap me so he could rape me."

Unable to stop himself, Whistler laughed. Of all the women this guy could have picked, and he chose Nya? "What is he? Mental?"

"Well, hopefully I don't have a reputation that he would have heard to warn him that was a bad plan," Nya sort of justified the would-be rapist's choice. She actually was happy he picked her instead of somebody who couldn't fight back.

Worried that the guy would walk, Whistler asked, "You think the police will hold him?"

"Oh yeah. There's plenty of evidence in the car that I'm not the first one he's tried this on," she answered, looking confident.

"What if he escapes before they get here?" Whistler pointed out.

Nya got that scary look on her face, usually reserved for vamps and demons. "Doubt it. He has a broken leg…3 places. Hey, I said I couldn't kill them. Never said I couldn't hurt them," she said defensively.

Whistler held his hands up in surrender, "No complaints from me; not if you know he's a rapist."

"Let's stick around a while to be sure he's taken care of," she said, realizing that she probably overreacted. Nya knew that he trusted her judgment.

They watched the trial of the charismatic man who lured women to their death by preying on their kindness – pretending to be injured and needing help. Turned out he was the suspect in murders and rapes in a few other states as well.

It was a lucky break that the state he was caught in had the death penalty, for which he received for the crimes the police were able to tie him to. His serial killer days were over when the switch was thrown three years after his conviction, saving who knows how many lives? Nya knew she wasn't the one who personally threw the switch, but she felt the satisfaction anyway for stopping him.

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Detroit

1977

Pulling along a reluctant youth, Whistler informed Nya, "Found a stray."

"What are you talking about?" Nya inquired, looking up from the weapon she was working on. They kept trying to come up with more efficient ways to kill the baddies they fought.

"This kid was feeding on homeless people in broad daylight," Whistler said, knowing there was an inquisition coming and braced himself.

Nya didn't disappoint him. Her eyes narrowed in anger and/or confusion. "A vamp that can go out in the sun? Is there a reason you didn't stake him?"

Not backing down from her glare, Whistler answered honestly, "Just a hunch. You know that partner you were looking for? This could be him. You know it's not me, I can't keep up with you much longer, Nya," he reminded her, pointing to his injured leg.

"Okay. I'll trust your instincts for now, but if he continues to kill, I'm getting rid of him," she threatened.

Tired of being talked about like he wasn't there, the young, black vampire growled indignantly, "Hey! I'm in the room, you know!"

Nya smiled at his attempt to intimidate her. "Uh-huh, and you're really adorable with your bad boy look. Sorry, but it takes a bit more to throw me."

"Who are you?" he asked, kind of bugged that she treated him like a kid.

"Your mentor or your executioner – take your pick," she replied. "Do you want to kill humans or vampires?"

Trying not to pout – because how would she ever take him seriously if he did? – he shot back, "How am I supposed to feed?"

Nya shrugged, not worried about that. "We'll figure something out. Most likely get blood from a hospital or something. So…?" she prompted.

"Alright. We'll try it your way," he said, crossing his arms defiantly.

"Glad you're so enthusiastic about it. What's your name?" she inquired, trying not to roll her eyes or laugh at his attitude.

"Blade."

Nya had to laugh then, and Whistler chuckled under his breath as well. "Doubt it, but if that's what you want to be called. Take a seat and tell us about yourself, Blade."

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A/N: Next…Reunion and goodbyes.