Pretender — Vladimir Duran

A Rising Knight: Vol2, Iss6There are those who make the mess and those who clean it up. These are the people who clean up after Vlad. The ones who hide the ripples of his existence and pay the price for protecting the world. This is the price they pay for trying to find a bit of justice in all the dirt. Next time Cleaners.PretenderA Rising Knight: Vol2, Iss7Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the lion posing as the lamb. Vlad has to spend a lot of time pretending to be human. That doesn’t mean he’s good at it. Ever wonder what would happen if you gave a teenage boy the power to do anything? He’d use it.ExcerptAdvance, retreat, advance, advance, parry six, faint, advance, Change of engagement, lunge, touch. Four line, chest. Three zip, Vlad's match. Repose. Sweat stench filled Vlad's nostrils so thickly he had to force himself to breath. A fencing helmet was suffocating enough on its own. A school fencing helmet was worse. They got passed around from student to student and class to class for years becoming repositories for a thousand layers of perspiration. To a nose as sensitive as his, it was like being locked in a room a dozen wet dogs. Vlad ignored it. There was work to do. He and his opponent squared off once again, five feet separating their blades. They measured each other. Fencing was about out thinking your opponent, as much as it was a about beating them with three feet of curved and blunted steel. Beyond the dark mesh of the steel cage he wore on his head, the wizard tracked his enemy's eyes. The eyes were the key, they told you where the blade wanted to be. Metal clanged on metal as twenty five other pairs of students spared against each other. Duels to were fought all over his school's large cafeteria. Coach Stein strolled tall and mustachioed through the shifting maze of combatants. Occasionally he would give a word of instruction here or stop to watch a quick bout there. This was not a beginner's class; he trusted them to know the basics.