"You mentioned dagger training. Are you good enough to give me a run for my money so I can get in some practice against two people who don't actually want to kill me at the same time? I'm worried I'm going to fixate on combat patterns that only work for a single opponent and not for a single opponent and their friends and cousins and neighbors too."

"I don't know about an actual run for your money, but I can brandish it threateningly at you if that would help somehow," says Amariah.

"Now that sounds like fun."

"And since I'm not actually good with it, just capable of not cutting off my own fingers, I guess I won't have to worry about getting past you and hurting you, but are you going to be at risk of hurting me? If you're still learning, do you know how to pull your punches? I can do healing spells on myself if it comes to that, but only if I'm conscious and I have an intact trachea to recite verse and so on..."

"That is a risk," admits Juliet. "I don't really have to pull my punches with Sherlock; he's more durable than that. And I don't want to, like, embed a habit of punch-pulling. Sherlock, do you think it would be long-term disadvantageous to have a habit of engaging a primary opponent one at a time and only dodge the next person until the first one is down? Because if that's something reasonable to aim at, Amariah can weave around and be stabby and I can take you down while trying not to get stabbed?"

"It might do you good to have an option of pulling your punches, if you can separate that from the rest of the programming. It's not inconceivable that you may someday have to fight a human who is intent on harming you, yet prefer to leave them alive. As for the dodging... it is not the only good way to engage a group, but it is one such way." He quirks a smile. "Really, what you need is four of me. Perhaps I should advertise in the dimensional hub."

Amariah raises her hand. "I'd like to point out that there are also nonhumans worth leaving alive."

"I can already sort of feed the programming goals, including don't hit that person too hard - I'm just not sure any of the progamming knows how strong I am or how much an unenhanced person can take. D'you think other yous would want to participate even if you could find several of them all at once? Especially if they're not vampires, especially if they come from worlds similar enough to have literally been scared of turning into you? Do worlds even cluster that close together?" Juliet asks, directing the last question at Amariah.

"That does sound like our world," Sherlock agrees.

"You don't appear to be an asshole," Amariah says. "Do you eat people? I'm not sure biting and leaving them alive and well like with Kas counts as eating them. More like tasting. Say, was he tasty?"

"Yes he was," Sherlock says cheerfully. "In the vast majority of cases, turning into a vampire does make someone much nastier than they previously were. I am, as ever, an outlier. And I did eat people for a while, but it's not a sufficient draw to be worth how much it will piss off Juliet, so I stopped."

"Were you at least choosy about it? Golden's husband reportedly used to eat people, but he can read minds, so he only ate bad people."

"She married a guy who can read minds?"

"Well, he can't read her, unless she tries really hard to let him," says Amariah. "Stella makes it sound like at this point he's her glorified radio."

"I only ate boring people," he offers. "That is probably not the kind of choosy you meant."

"Nope, that is not what I had in mind. Oh well. Shell Bell's Sherlock killed twenty approximately innocent people on live national television. My Whistle killed some nasty individuals, even. Also, I assassinated Shell Bell's former president for her, he was bad news." Pause. "Actually, I think he was an alt of someone the other other Sherlock and Tony knew? I wasn't there, but I think they brought him to Milliways with them and then sent him home after Shell Bell screamed and drew her fire wand on him."

"...If that's who I'm thinking of, I've killed one of him too," Sherlock reports with excessive cheer.

"Well, the President's name was Coriolanus Snow, but I don't think they matched and I don't remember the other one's name," says Amariah. "I might recognize it...?"

"Obadiah Stane."

"Yeah, that was it. Shell Bell seemed to think that other Tony liked him but hers emphatically didn't and neither of the other Sherlocks did."

"Anyway, all this talk of who everyone has killed - I'm at twenty-one miscellaneous vampires and I don't have their names - isn't answering the question of whether otherworldly Sherlocks would be willing or able to be helpful even if accumulated in sufficient quantity," says Juliet.

"Any Sherlock from a world like ours would be delighted to train up a Vampire Slayer, especially one as brilliant as you. They might have some trouble fitting me into the picture, but perhaps not as much as they'd think."

"Shell Bell's would probably help if Shell Bell asked her to," puts in Amariah. "They're adorable. You have no idea how adorable."

"We'll see who we can scare up after someone finds a door to send you home through, then," says Juliet. "...How long is that likely to take?"