New York City-Seven Years Later

"Elizabeth, you cannot allow this fear of being stabbed to rule you in combat." Buren said to her as Raj circled with a rather, large silver blade. It was not often that they used knives in weaponry lessons, but it was a rare occasion. James bit down hard on her lip and circled closer, eventually settling into a rhythm with Raj, him going to the right and her left. Then, with the speed of a cheetah and the lithe of a panther, James flipped backwards. The knife slipped into her mouth as she held it by the handle in between her teeth, but as she fell onto Raj's broad shoulders she delicately removed it from her teeth. James rounded one arm around Raj's neck and the other, which held the knife, was brought to his neck, while her legs twisted around his waist in a powerful grip.

"You learned." Raj chuckled and allowed James to cling to him for a moment longer, before grabbing her thighs and whipping her off of him. The eighteen year old fell gracefully and landed in a gliding crouch. She met his eyes defiantly and swiped up her knife from the ground and ran at him with a fluid-like movement. Her legs sprang upwards and through her tightly fitted training gear each and every one of her leg muscles visible. She collided with Raj and onto the ground. She silently cursed, the ground was not her ally. She was comfortable in the air, but not on the ground where she could easily be trapped.

Raj spun out of her grasp and she fell to the ground, while her knife still held in the position where his neck should have been. James spat and gave a backwards twirl through the air, before getting back on her feet. She narrowed her eyes at Raj, as she thought quickly of a plan. The only way to defeat Raj would be to lower him to the ground with force. She had taken Raj down one in her eleven years here with Buren, and that had been almost by accident. His back had been turned, his guard lowered for less than a second, but it had been enough for James to leap onto him and take him to the ground beneath her powerful legs.

James had already tried that approach, obviously Raj had seen that coming and had learned the first time what that had done. He wasn't willing to do so again. She pushed back a bead of sweat that dripped from her hairline. She slipped the knife through her fingers absently as she watched him like a cat, circling closer around her. He danced like a master as he wove his way closer to her. James began to back up from the center of the circle, but was starting to form a plan. She spared a glance up and noticed the ceiling had notched ridged into the top. Her hand could easily fit in the spot right above her…

There was a moment before Raj leaped and she bounded for the sky. It was an instantaneous moment where both of them defied the law of gravity. Where she met the air with her fist as she grabbed onto the notch of the ceiling, and managed to slip onto the ledge with excellent balance. She smirked down at the older boy. "You were saying, dear brother?" James found herself saying. She stopped, Raj, as her brother? She had been closest with him out of all of Buren's sons, but a family? No, she had a family. Raj turned to his father with wide eyes.

"How did you get there, little one?" He asked with shock and James, in turn, shrugged with carelessness.

"I just got better, Raj." She flipped and twirled through the air until she landed on him. She pulled her dagger out once more and curled the blade soundlessly against his neck so a sliver of blood dripped from the cut. "And, now, you're dead." She chuckled and got off of Raj without a second breath, and whipped her thick strawberry golden hair from her shoulders.

"Or perhaps, I let you win." Amusement thickened his voice as a smile wove its way into his vocal cords. James stopped walking and tightened her fingers around the dagger and for a half second, nothing happened. Raj was about to pick up a towel to wipe the sweat from his brow, but a dagger spiraled through the air and landed inched away from his head in the wall. He looked from the dagger to James with shock.

"Once more, brother, you betray your own words." James said with a rather snide tone. Raj laugh filled the air and his eyes crinkled around the edges. He put his arm around James' slims shoulders and walked her out of the training ring.

"I'm proud of you, little one. I'd say you're pretty much ready…for anything, now." Raj said quietly, and if James hadn't known better she would have thought she heard a twinge of emotion in his voice. He slipped his thick, powerful arm from her shoulders and walked to the door, leaving James and Buren.

James turned back to the man who had beaten her across the face more times than she could count. His face was older than when she had first come to him. Wrinkles etched their way across him like cracks in a city walk. His eyes, although old and wise, still contained their blackish fire that had terrified James to nightmares. "You are done, Elizabeth." He said with a quiet reserved tone.

"That is a lie." James hissed through her teeth.

"What do you mean, child?" Buren asked with mock innocence.

"My name. Elizabeth is not my name!" Her blue eyes, flecked with gold and green seemed to burn wildly with hot fire. Buren's own eyes seemed to laugh at her. "You said I had to "earn" my own name." She snapped. "So, are you saying I have earned it."

"You came to me, Elizabeth, as a confused little girl. Your own name was not meant for you, because you were so young and innocent. You needed to be hardened to a warrior like your mother, the soldier your father was, and you needed to be strong. It would have been impossible for me to call you that name because it was meant for someone who had seen so much and cried so little. You had to become the man that name was meant for, my child."

"And, yet, you still do not call me it. So, what else must I learn from you?" James picked up the knife that had been tossed to the ground. She focused on the targets that were pressed up against the back wall, and lazily threw the knife into the red circular middle.

"Nothing, child, you are finished." The girl's anger simmered hotly. It flared inside her gut and made her skin turn from its delicate pale color to a flaming red.

"I'm not a child, Buren." Her voice was on the verge of a scream with its rising volume.

"Mayhap you should control that anger of yours, it's a beautiful thing unleashed in battle, but to your superior, I find it rather insulting." Buren's tone was calm and seemingly comfortable. James knew better than to fall for his tricks. She walked over and grabbed the knife from the bulls-eye. "Your inner storm has never been calmed, I can only do so much with your focus and mentality until you learn to quell it."

"Let me give you a little lesson, Buren. Since the time I was seven you have beaten me raw, ripped away every right I deserved, and ardently criticized me of my looks and personality. Yet, you find I'm not ready? Not ready for what! For God's sake, Buren, you whip me to my knees, but for what purpose?" James' voice quivering from her rage building inside of her.

Buren was silent. His face had been expressionless, but his eyes betrayed his very inner thoughts. James noticed the emotion that hung there in clumps and mountains. He picked up a gun that sat on a small counter in the corner of the room. He raised it and aimed at James. Her eyes widened as he pulled the trigger, the balanced gun aimed directly at her forehead.

"What the hell are you-" The loud crack of the gun sounded and reverberated through James' bones. Her clear eyes watched the bullet as it seemed to slow down in time, and with a swift roll out of the way, she was clear of it. "Buren!" She cried, but he fired once more. The teenager leaped out of the aim of fire and grasped onto the notch in the wall. He kept firing at her without a single twist of sentiment or fear. Another bullet was unleashed and twirled dangerously slow towards her stomach, James flipped gracefully out of the way as it zipped past her side, but only barely.

"Do you want to kill me?" She snapped.

"No. I want you to realize something." He pulled the trigger at her once more.

"Please, enlighten me."

"You must realize that dodging the problem is not going to stop it." Another bullet racing towards her heart, but she quickly rolled out of its path. She thought about what her teacher said and then flipped directly over Buren's head, and landed in a lithe crouch on her knees. Before she could act, he had his gun paused directly at her forehead. Thinking for only a half second before the gun went off, James leaped and spun her boot directly into Buren's face. His gun flew out of his hand and went off, a bullet splintering into the wall. He fell to the ground with a hand to his face. "Oh, my child, you have grown." He sat up and rubbed the side of his face. His eyes seemed to glitter morosely, a lump of emotion sat inside of them. James had never seen it in Buren's eyes.

"You almost killed me, Buren." James said with a clipped tone.

"I would not kill you." His face expressionless.

"I would say differently."

"James, you are finished." His face took on the air that he had used that name for her, her entire time with him. He acted like it was not the most, single monumental moment of her life. It was like hearing the most beautiful music, or seeing the most prestigious painting. James' eyes widened and for a moment she was tempted to fling herself around him. She was tempted to sink to her knees and begin to cry with joy. Joy of being free from this prison, but she blinked and the thoughts were gone. She molded her face into a expressionless, clean slate with only a slight twitch of her lips to show she had heard him.

"You called me by my name." Her words barely quivered, but she felt the happiness cling to her like a blanket.

"Because I am finished with you, go, find your father." Buren waved his hand dismissively towards the door. He could have been telling her to go get a glass of water or fetch him a knife; instead he was setting her free. James swallowed and with a dignified swoop of her hair, she turned and walked out of the room. She slowly walked through the hallway, taking each step with a slow, steady pace. She didn't want to forget this place, although it had been hell, she couldn't forget it. It had been her home for most of her life.

Wide glass walls followed her as she pushed the doors open out of the training sector. Her long copper, raspberry hair gently moved in the breeze as she stepped out into the brisk, winter air. It had been a long time since she had been out in the open air. James didn't care that the air was frigid, it felt like heaven. The cold air made her feel as if life, reality was happening, at last. She was not imprisoned in that awful place. She was free.