It was late in the day after the dojo had closed. MacLeod had just gone out shopping, which left Viv and Richie in the dojo, Viv just putting away her sports fencing foil and face mask.

“So Viv, why the inscription?” Rich asked idly.

“Veni, Vidi, Vici. When the olds bought it for me they just put my initials on it, but I added the Vidi Vici because unlike them I can actually read Latin and it was kind of embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?”

“You don’t know the translation? ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ Course I prefer it when I can say Vidi, Vici, Veni.” Viv smirked, and counted the seconds as Rich turned the translation around in his head then grinned.

Rich finished putting most of the equipment away, which just left washing the floor and his jobs for the day were done. Not his favourite task.

“So Viv, you want to fence some more?” he asked, picking up a foil.

“Sure, why not.” Viv said, and finished putting the inscribed sword away, then fetched out TLF.

Richie shrugged, then swapped that weapon for a rapier of MacLeod’s. He stepped over to face Vivianne, who saluted him with her sword then attacked. He let her have the upper hand for a while, watching her moves, then he went on the offensive. Before long his experience with the style of weapon was showing, and he was pushing Viv harder than she had expected. Truth be told, their little judo lessons had made her get rather used to the idea that she could beat him in her sleep. Finding herself so hard pressed so unexpectedly, and with live steel, was doing bad things for her composure. Him grinning wasn’t helping much either.

So he thought he could beat her then? Right. They’d just see about that.

Viv pulled out the stops and stepped up the tempo, slipping into a state of mind she rarely bothered with for practice, empty of everything except the moves and the world, what she was doing and where all the furniture was.

Richie noticed her expression go blank and a strange sort of calm slip over her. Right then what had been a fun practice suddenly started to feel rather dangerous. She got faster, smoother. He was reminded of how her standard had stepped up when facing Mac that first time, and he got very worried. Instincts honed in real challenges clicked in and he got serious too. The whole atmosphere of the room changed. The two young Immortals stopped just being friends practising together, and showed their potential as deadly players in the Game.

Steel flickered through the air, clicked together lightly as every move he blocked turned into a new one lightning fast. Viv couldn’t put much power behind her moves, she wasn’t strong at all, and her stamina was bad, but with the way she moved a fight could be over so fast you would barely know it happened. Whatever Richie tried to do she was one step ahead. He thought he saw a gap and his sword flicked out at her neck, but just cut empty air a hair’s breadth from it as she side stepped away. Right then Rich realised what he had almost done and hesitated. This was meant to be a friendly match, a practice. He could have killed her...

Viv watched her opponent’s moves, got a feel for his rhythm. Years of training echoed through her. >>Watch their heart, centre of the chest, telegraphs their movements... >>, she saw the stroke aimed at her neck just as he committed to it and stepped aside >>...and when they don’t got the heart for the fight anymore... >> the enemy froze, uncertain, losing commitment to the fight, and she struck. His defence was wide open and TLF sliced into him, fight won... and then the sickening feeling of her blade sliding through Richie’s flesh brought her back to full reality with a jolt.

“Oh my god... Richard...”