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Given how often he had found his feet turning there as late, Athene had deliberately decided against patrolling in the park. Instead the dark-haired senshi had chosen to go deeper into town and patrol the alleyways that ran behind some of the shops. It was not an area of town that he ventured into as his non-powered alter-ego and he found himself wrinkling his nose up as he caught the scent of rubbish left dumped in the alleyway intermixed with a strong smell of alcohol.

The alleyways had been mostly deserted apart from the couple of out-of-it drunks that he had stumbled across earlier and Athene had been contemplating heading back to a more savoury part of town. In fact the dark-haired senshi had turned and just start to take a few steps back when he had sensed a chaotic aura further down the alley and had turned back to investigate.

It didn’t take long for Athene to discover the source of the aura, as it happened the source of the aura wasn’t that far ahead of him. Sensing auras was a two way street and it seemed that the other had picked up on his as well and was heading in his direction.

A look of puzzlement flickered across the dark-haired senshi’s face as the source – a taller blond senshi – waved at him as he headed in his direction, but as the other got closer Athene realised that he recognised this senshi.

“Sailor Virtus” he said quietly. They had had a fight that had not quite been a fight during their last encounter. They had been at differing power levels then, although it seemed that Virtus had ranked up since that last meeting.

Given their fight but not-quite fight during their last encounter, Virtus’ ‘nice to see you again’ statement was the last thing that Athene had been expecting. “I am well thank you” Athene acknowledged quietly and then because it seemed only polite he added. “I hope you are too.”

Listening quietly as the other asked him about joining up with the Dark Mirror court, Athene shook his head once Virtus had finished speaking before saying quietly, “I’m not interested in joining your Court” a brief pause on his part before he added “But we don’t have to fight – not if you’re not going to steal energy from the civilians.” The dark-haired senshi wasn’t the sort of senshi to dash in looking for a fight and he didn't particularly want to fight Virtus.

Athene bit his lip “Couldn’t you take a day, um night off from doing it?” he asked quietly as he watched the other senshi raise his fists, not making any attempt to reciprocate – at least not at this point.

Despite his few lessons in Aikido in order to better defend himself – the dark-haired senshi still didn’t particularly want to fight if he didn’t have to. Besides the only thing he could do with any great reliability was fall down properly – probably not the best skill to have if they ended up having to fight.

Maybe he would be lucky though and it wouldn’t come to it. Maybe Virtus would agree not to bother with the energy stealing tonight (and yes it was totally stealing and not borrowing) so that Athene wouldn’t feel obliged to have to try and stop him.

Virtus lunging at him took Athene by surprise. Granted the dark-haired senshi hadn’t really expected the Dark Mirror senshi to suddenly decide to take a night off from energy-draining but he hadn’t expected the other to rush at him swinging either.

Making a sound that sounded very much like a startled 'Ack', Athene took a a step back and raised his hand into one of the ready defence positions that he’d been learning in his Thursday evening Aikido self-defence classes. It was clumsy – much clumsier than the way he’d seen it demonstrated, but it was enough to stop Virtus’ fist from making direct contact with his face.

He couldn’t remember the second part of the move, so settled for trying to use the hand not blocking the other’s fist to try and push out at the blond senshi.

It had been the gatecrashed senshi and knight meeting that had been the catalyst that had eventually driven Athene’s civilian counterpart to start taking self-defence classes, it was probably a measure of how much he disliked fighting in that he had settled on one that was more about attempting to use the strength of the opponent against them rather than outright attack.

Despite him diligently turning up each Thursday evening, the self-defence classes were very much a recent thing – the dark-haired senshi hadn’t really had that many lessons yet and although there were a few things that he’d learnt, he had yet to become proficient at anything other than properly breaking his fall – something he’d seemed to pick up relatively quickly.

Unable to stop Virtus from grabbing his arm, Athene instead tried his best to yank his arm sharply forward and down towards him as his instructor had tried to teach him. If it worked then maybe he’d be able to get the other off-balance. Problem was that the move had seemed a lot easier to do in demonstration, now when attempting to use what he’d learnt in real-time, the dark-haired senshi couldn’t be sure that he was doing it right. Shame that ‘breakfalling’ wasn’t something that was required – Athene was pretty sure he’d managed to get that right.

Actually unknown to Athene both his and Virtus’ plans at least partially coincided – the getting away part not the taking a swing bit.

The dark-haired senshi hadn’t really been expecting to actually manage to get the taller senshi and he wasted a few moments trying to remember what he was supposed to do next before trying to twist his trapped hand out of the other’s grip while using his free hand to try and shove at the hopefully still off-balance senshi in an attempt to both free and give him a chance to try and put some space between them.

“Look I honestly don’t want to hurt you” he admitted.

Athene hadn’t quite expected Virtus to fall over like that, surprise flickering across his face as the taller senshi went down.

His surprise had left him not quite as on guard as he perhaps should have been, which meant the blonde’s decision to charge at him from a half crouch took the dark-haired senshi completely by surprise.

It was enough to send him tumbling backwards, although Athene remembered to keep his head tucked forward and his spine curved, while trying to use the palm of his hands to hit the ground as he’d been taught.

He managed to get it mostly right – Athene was learning practicing in weekly lessons wasn’t quite the same as putting it into practice – although he misjudged the timing of when to let his palms hit the ground causing the impact to jar more than it should have. Unfortunately the impact with the ground also knocked his glasses wonky.