Magic Multiverse 39 (Patreon)

[+20 Tantric]

[+15 Bojutsu]

[+10 Boxing]

“Are you sure you want to spar with me, handsome boy?” Faith challenged with a playful smile. “Because don’t expect the gloves to blunt it.”

It was almost noon, and they barely moved down for sparring. After Buffy’s delayed departure, they had decided to take a nap, followed by a late breakfast and a shower, which meant their initial plans for sparring had been delayed quite a bit.

“Believe me, I don’t,” he said with a playful smile. “I know exactly how badly the punch of a Slayer hurts. But, either bruises and a few fractures now, or a vampire takes my head. Fractures are better.”

She shrugged playfully. “Your funeral. So, what are the rules?”

“Let’s start with simple boxing rules first, no kicks, throws, or grabbing, and only targeting the head and the torso. That, and try to hold back to a degree.”

“How much, because if I hold back too much, there’s not much point.”

“Try to keep it around a fledging vampire level, and we can increase it once we’re more familiar with each other.”

Faith’s smile turned sexy. “Oh, I think we’re familiar enough.”

He chuckled. He had already realized Faith flirted when she was angry or uncomfortable, but she also flirted when she was comfortable or relaxed. An amusing range.

Not that he had a problem with it.

“The sooner we start, the sooner we can finish, and you can lose to me in our other sparring,” he responded.

Her cute frown was amazing. “That was just beginner’s luck.”

“We’ll see,” he responded. “Ready?”

“Five by five.”

He took his modified defensive stance, once again ready to stretch himself to the limit, but when she attacked, he found himself parrying her punches with ease. Two taps left her guard wide open, allowing him to deliver an easy body punch.

His win.

“Well, that was a cheap shot,” she frowned, though her complaint was clearly not about the pain.

Naturally, there was didn’t reward for him due to lopsided rules, but it wasn’t why he was frowning. It was too easy. “Careful about your guard,” he said.

“Fine,” she said. She raised her guard and attacked again, but her attack was the same. Her reflexes helped her somewhat, but not that much. Two more parries, and he scored another hit.

He hummed. He would have said it was the effect of her recent coma, but her reflexes and general movement had no issue.

Maybe he had been underestimating how much training Buffy actually had. Based on her vague explanation, he assumed most of her skills came from her Slayer skills, but based on Faith’s reaction, training might have been more important.

“Alright, come to me faster,” he said, curious how it would go. It limited him somewhat, but not as much as he had feared. It meant his boxing technique was coming along nicely.

He also won five in a row, and he could see Faith getting frustrated. “This is bullshit,” she muttered.

“Faith, have you ever been trained in boxing?” he said, deciding to tackle it openly.

She shrugged and avoided his gaze. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m the slayer. I know all that stuff,” she said.

“Just out of curiosity, let’s switch to staff,” he said, throwing her one of the padded practice staffs, and grabbing another for himself. “Just try not to take my head off.”

“No promises,” she said, smirking.

He attacked her with bojutsu, starting with some simpler attacks, which she handled easily. Unlike boxing, he didn’t have a specialized fighting style against stronger opponents, yet he was able to keep up with Faith easily.

Naturally, that only worked when she was limiting her raw power and speed significantly, but still, it was problematic. Not in terms of helping him train, as for that, he could just create different scenarios, but in terms of her fighting against bigger threats.

Buffy talked about some of the times where she had to fight things that were physically stronger than her, relying on her technique to survive. Faith’s training was clearly neglected.

Of course, even more problematic was how to ask her to train.

He hadn’t worked with Faith long enough, but implying she was weak and needed to train wouldn’t work. She probably had a warped mentality about what being a Slayer meant, and trying to change it would be dangerous, especially with her fragile sense of self-worth.

Of course, there was a chance he was worrying for nothing, but considering the stakes, he wanted to be cautious.

“Alright, we might have to make some changes,” he said.

“How so?” she asked, already defensive.

“Your slayer instincts are amazing when you’re going at full power, but you need to learn some techniques to help me train,” he said.

She relaxed. “That seems a lot of work.”

He smirked. “Well, you’re going to be living here with me for a while, so either that, or you’ll be the maid, cleaning and keeping things in order to pay your share. Which would you prefer?”

“On second thought, maybe learning how to punch you better is a better way.”

“Perfect,” he said, inviting her to a reinforced bag he had installed for Buffy. “Now, just for the sake of completeness, I’ll start with a basic jab…” he said, going through the mechanics.

Three repeats, and she was able to deliver the punch perfectly. He watched her, fascinated. Even with his own mysterious advantage, he was fascinated by the speed she learned. “Something wrong?”

“Nope, I just didn’t expect you to perfect it that quickly.”

“Why? It’s just a punch. I’m not that stupid, you know,” she said, going back on the defensive.

He chuckled. “You also haven’t trained with other people,” he said. “Learning how to throw a proper jab takes several sessions, even for the talented.” He smirked. “I mean, I’m pretty much a genius, and even for me, it took longer,” he lied, as it was to help her confidence.

“Naturally, I’m amazing,” she said, considerably calmer.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now, let’s move on to the other five core punches…”

Admittedly, boxing wasn’t the best technique for her to focus on, because unlike him, she wasn’t suffering from a lack of strength that was desperately limiting her choices. But, it was the only technique he could truly train her on.

It was either that, or asking Buffy’s help to train her, and it didn’t take a genius to realize how bad it could go.

And, limited utility was better than no utility.

&&&

Four hours later, they were at the kitchen table, eating. At the same time, he was thanking every divine being that his Tantric had been upgraded to Master, because its increased recovery benefits were the only reason he could still feel his legs.

Somehow, training Faith proved to be the most exhausting thing he had ever done. Part of the issue was the speed she had learned. When they had started, she had been a pure amateur, bad enough that the System would have ranked her Uninitiated.

Four hours later, she was in a position he would assess as the midpoint of Intermediate, a development that took weeks for him even with the System. And, that was purely in terms of technique. Combined with her speed and instincts… Yeah, menace didn’t even begin to cover it.

Yet, the exhausting part was her enthusiasm. When they started, he had assumed that she would quickly get bored, and he would need to find new ways to keep her engaged constantly.

He didn’t need to. Her own improvement, and the barest of compliments about her learning speed and skill, had been enough to encourage her. She was starved of anything positive.

“So, what’s the deal with you and boxing? You’re really good. Shouldn’t you be a famous boxer or something?”

He shrugged. “Well, it’s mostly about what I wanted to be growing up. I always wanted to be a footballer,” he said. “Soccer player for you heathens,” he corrected.

She chuckled, but he could see a deep sorrow in her tone. “I know.”

He didn’t poke at that. He guessed it was about her dead watcher. “It was how I started. Growing up poor, football was the dream. And, since I was the best player in the youth club, I always believed that I had great hopes.”

"That's adorable."

He sighed. "It was less adorable when a bad tackle tore my knee apart at sixteen, costing me eighteen months where I didn’t even see the pitch. By the time I could run again, everyone I'd been competing against had moved past me.”

“That’s it?”

“It would have been, if I wasn’t a stubborn idiot, but I insisted on playing for an amateur club, trying to prove myself. Unfortunately, once a step behind, always behind. When people my age got trained by the best coaches while I tried to kick the ball against a wall, it’s hard to catch up.”

“Why the obsession? Don’t tell me you like little shorts too much.”

“Well, at first, it was the dream. Then, it was the money.”

“How much money can there be in it?”

He chuckled. “You’re kidding, right? Top players get around five million pounds a year. It’s more than seven million dollars. Even the average Premier League starting midfielder clears two million dollars a year, easily.”

She gasped. “You’re kidding. Two million. For kicking a ball around."

"Yearly."

"That's insane," she started.

He shrugged. “That’s the temptation. Only when you fail, you realize you pushed too far without a safety net, and you’re alone and screwed.” She hummed, understanding what he meant much better than Buffy ever could.

“So, from rejected footballer to vampire-hunting boxer, how did that go?”

“Well, a few months ago, I finally hung the cleats, but joined a shady boxing gym because it was the only place I could afford. The owner realized that I was good enough to fill an emergency slot for a local underground match when their scheduled fighter fell through. He expected me to lose, but I won, and it turned into something semi-regular. Soon, every fight gave me a few thousand pounds, which was just enough for me to commit to destroying my body.”

She shrugged. “I can see the charm. Maybe I should try it as well.”

“No chance,” he said.

She looked, surprised. “What do you mean, I can sweep anyone?”

He laughed. “Exactly. To people, it’ll look like a fake fight. Supernatural complicates things. Even I can’t fight anymore.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Well, I can’t fight official matches, because my performance would look like I’m using performance-enhancing drugs. And, underground fights…” he started, then explained to her exactly how his latest fight led to a recruitment effort.

“Vampires recruit like that. I thought they just picked people from the streets.”

“I thought the same, but apparently, the smart ones act differently. Thankfully, they didn’t expect the random boxer they summoned to be packing holy water. But just to be on the safe side, I stopped fighting.”

“So, how did you learn about vampires if that wasn’t your first encounter?” she asked, as they still hadn’t finished their meal.

“Funny story,” he said. “One night, I’m practicing after my shift as a waiter, I was alone at the gym when a guy wearing very expensive clothes walks in and starts punching the bag bare-handed. The weirdo even had a stake on his jacket.”

“Let me guess, with a British accent,” she added. He gave her an amused gaze. “Not like yours. Like proper British, the kind that scares foxes because the hunt is about to start.”

“Posh accent, exactly,” he said.

Her expression darkened. “A watcher.”

He guessed she must not have a lot of good experience with the Watchers, which was no surprise. Even Buffy’s account of them was entirely negative. She seemed to be fond of Giles, but considering Giles was fired for actually being nice, it didn’t exactly help the Council’s reputation.

He decided to distract her with a joke. The story he told Buffy about why he first came to America seemed to be a good idea. “Yep, you’re right. He was from the Watcher’s Council, of course I didn’t know then. I just thought he was having a mental breakdown, so I offered to spar with him so I could make him pay for the drinks afterwards.”

She laughed. “Damn, I should have thought of that.”

“Yep, though the more drunk he got, the more he talked about the vampires and stuff. It kind of saved my ass when I met my first vampire.”

“That’s absurd,” she giggled.

“That’s not the funniest part,” he said.

“It’s not?”

“Nope. I had two encounters with vampires after that, so I decided to move away from London to somewhere with better weather, assuming it would be safer. So, when the opportunity arrived, I picked Los Angeles.”

She laughed. “Oh, you can’t be serious. How long it took for you to encounter your first vampire. A week? Two?”

“Nope. The first night. So, I proved my genius by picking a smaller city, because it would be safer. A small city with a cheap college.”

Faith’s eyes widened, and she started laughing so hard that she got a cramp. “You can’t be serious. Sunnydale?”

“Well, it had the Sun in the name. I hoped it would have less vampires. How could I guessed that it was false advertising?”

That made her laugh even more. “Stop. Please,” she begged.

She was still laughing when Buffy returned. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I was telling Faith how much of a genius I was by coming to Sunnydale to run away from vampires,” he said, which was enough to make Buffy explode as well.

It might not be the truth, but it was a fun story … and the more Faith and Buffy acted normally, the better. He couldn’t afford to trigger Faith’s very apparent abandonment issues.

Buffy joined the dinner, which he made an effort to keep them entertained with his stories from his playing days, intersected by occasional kisses. After that, Buffy went upstairs for a quick nap before the evening patrol, and he dragged Faith back to another spar.

“Are you ready to be demolished?” she said smugly.

“We’ll see,” he challenged with a matching smirk, but he had a feeling that it wouldn’t go as smoothly. Her technique improved a lot. Normally, someone working on their technique required a lot of sparring to make it combat-ready, but he suspected that Faith wouldn’t need that.

A minute later, he was on his back after a painful hit to the face, knocking him down, confirming his suspicions. Her slayer powers meant that, once she had learned the basic techniques, she didn’t have any trouble adapting to the fight.

“How was it?” she teased, smirking as she stood above him.

“Like I got hit by a truck,” he said, but he took her hand to stand up. “Any interest in kissing it better?”

“Maybe if you earn it,” she said, swaying her hips as she walked back to her starting position.

“Alright, I will start using some really annoying techniques. Try not to hit too hard once you get frustrated.”

“You haven’t learned your lesson,” she said.

“Maybe,” he said, smiling. In their previous bout, he wasn’t holding back, but he had used a deliberately direct, offensive version to test how much she had improved. It was time for the real test.

It would annoy her, but it was important to keep her interest active.

He deployed his evasive style in its full potential, always moving back even as he parried her punches, treating the fight as a chess match … well, metaphorically, his actual chess skill wasn’t involved.

Barely a minute, and Faith lost all discipline. “Stand still and take it—“ she growled, which he chose to reverse the attack, delivering another body hit.

“Got you,” he teased, shifting his gloved hand to her waist, pulling her closer. “Now, I’ll get my kiss.”

She was considerably less annoyed than before once he pulled back from the kiss. That was a good reaction, because without that distraction, he had a feeling Faith would have stopped after the loss. It was easy to dismiss it as being a sore loser, but he could see that it was deeper.

Luckily, he didn’t need to understand exactly what was behind that. All he needed was to keep her frustrations under control. His kisses worked as a reward perfectly.

It proved necessary, because he had noticed one persistent flaw of her. The longer the fight lasted, the more direct she started to fight. Which probably worked well with her full instincts, especially holding a weapon, but under the rules of the spar, it caused her to lose consistently.

So much that he had to switch back to other styles. She noticed. “How dare you underestimate me?” she growled.

He pushed his best confused expression. “What do you mean?”

“You switched your style, so I can win,” she blamed.

It was true, of course, but he had no intention of admitting it. Instead, he sighed. “Faith, we’re sparring to help me, so that I can develop multiple styles that I could use depending on the circumstances. My extreme evasion style is good in an open field, but have you ever imagined how it would work when I find myself in a small room with a vampire?”

“Ah, it wouldn’t go well,” she admitted, blushing. “Sorry, I just…”

He chuckled with a deliberate sense of irrelevance. “Faith, you can throw a car at me if you get angry. Do you think you’re the weaker party here?” he asked.

“Well, if you put it like that,” she said, relaxing.

He smiled, and did his best to last long without the mobility, trying to stay inside a small imaginary circle. Just like that, the spars started ending with him on the floor once again, occasionally forcing him to stop and use Tantric for healing.

“Alright, that’s it for today,” he finally called when he noticed the sun was about to go down. “I still need to prepare for the patrol.”

“Yes, our patrol—“ she started.

“Nope, not for at least a week,” he said. “The police are still looking for you. You better stay inside for a while.”

“For how long?”

“In a normal town, months. In Sunnydale? A week at most,” he said.

She shrugged. “You have a point,” she said.

“Want to watch me brew the potion?” he offered, expecting her to be curious or suspicious.

“Not really,” she said with a shrug, which surprised him, but he didn’t care much as he carried them from his car, and decided that the kitchen was the best place to brew. The basic healing potion was not complicated enough to require a dedicated room.

He hummed as his blade danced, cutting the ingredients smoothly. The potion itself was simple enough that he would have been confident in brewing even when his still was still Basic, but lack of ingredients kept him back.

The potion recipe required a wand, technically, but bypassing that requirement with Wiccan magic was easy; especially since the simpler potion recipes were quite robust. He suspected the same wouldn’t be true for more complicated potions, but that was a challenge that could wait.

Half an hour later, he was bottling the bubbling liquid when Buffy walked down the stairs. “What’s that?” she asked.

“A healing potion,” he said. “Another finding from my trip to London. I was lucky.”

“How effective is it?” she said.

“If I take it before going to bed, it’ll heal serious sprains and bruises by morning. Cuts and fractures would make serious progress,” he said, proud of it. It was incredible. Technically, he could achieve the same with Expert Tantric, but since the effects could overlap, it was not an issue.

“Ah, nifty,” Buffy said with a shrug and walked toward the storage room where they kept the real weapons, dismissing it just like Faith. “Leave in ten?”

“How about fifteen? I want to clean the cauldron,” he said, chuckling at her disinterest. First Faith, now her.

But then, considering their permanent healing factor was significantly better, maybe they had a point.

He shrugged. As long as they didn’t find his brewing weird, it was fine.