Seth had just crawled out of his bed to start, a rather important day. He usually had a rather bocling schedule: Crawl out of bed, go downstairs, greet the Matron, shower, comb his rather rough messy neck length black hair that had a tendency to cover the upper left portion of his face, put on his rugged black T-Shirt and White Vest, and leave to " A's Weapon Training". His White Vest was an indicator that he had near mastered 3 different weapons, the sword, the shield, as required by tradition, and then his personal favorite, the Glaive. "A's Weapon Training" is where he spends a majority of his day, honing his skills with a variety of such weapons, but today was a special day at "A's", her school was due to be inspected any day now. With that in mind, he began to hurry, faster than normal there.
"Aha! My finest student returns!" Alicia, The Weaponmaster, bellowed as Seth approached her and, who Seth assumed to be, the Inspector.
The school seemed abandoned, save for the sound of chopping and sizzling from the school's renowned chef Alistar, whom was more than likely prepacling a fantastic lunch for The Inspector. Alistar had completely remade himself over the course of the past few months, he used to be a rather, pudgy, lovable guy with long brown hair, after his love, Jen, was killed while hiking by a pack of wolves; he seemed to have just given up. He stopped eating, save for what was barely needed to live, which caused him to lose massive amounts of weight extremely fast, shaved his head, and grew a soul patch much similar to Seth's, except the color, Seth's was black, his brown. Besides cook, the only thing Seth had seen Alistar do is sit at his one person table, and play Chess with himself. Seth used to offer to play with him, but he would simply sit there and stare at the game, as if Seth didn't even exist.
He turned his attention to the inspector, "So, "Seth", what are your weapons of choice?" the inspector said in a, rather deep friendly tone. "Well, I'm pretty good with the basics." Seth replied. The inspector sighed slightly. "Do you excel with anything, besides the basics, consisting of Sword, Shield, and Bow?" "Well, lately, I have favored a rather different weapon, I was afraid of what you would say if I introduced it out front, anyways, I have taken a very fond liking to the Glaives, the only time I have trained with it is back at the orphanage though." Alicia had an odd look on her face. She hurried over to Seth's side and leaned in close to his ear. "Are you sure about this Seth? Why didn't you ever confront me about the glaive, I have experience with it also, I could have officially trained you with it had you told me." She whispered. "Don't worry, I have this under control, I've been practicing for a year or so with this." Seth replied. "Seth, I respect your skills I'm sure you have with it, but this is THE inspector, the one who decides if I'm still qualified to run this school or not. Your rather good with Archery too, you could use that." She replied. "Please Alicia, let me use this, I won't let you down, I promise." Seth said. He turned and looked her straight in the eyes. Well, sort of, her dark red hair swooped to the left and covered most of her eyes, but he still made serious eye contact. "Alright, I trust you" She said giving him a grin. "Now, go wash up, you smell of a long days training." He whispered. Alicia's eyes widened, she turned said "Please, inspect Seth here while I, uh, tend to other duties that demand my immediate attention."
"Sounds alright to me." The Inspector said. Seth and The Inspector began to walk to the Training Room.
"You can call me James." He said to Seth. "James" Seth replied. "That your real name?"
"Oh, of course not, it's my cover name, I'm not authorized to give away my actual identity."
"Oh, uh, right then." Nobody knew the Inspectors real name, but he was easily distinguished by his solid black robe, odd wing like hat, and his signature beak-like mask. They had made it to the training room, the walls were lined with training dummies, each had at least 100 different cuts and most were missing an arm, or had an arrow in its forehead. He grabbed a glaive from the racks of weapons and turned to face "James". "So what happens now?" The Inspector threw his bag aside and unsheathed his daggers from his sides. "These are Jane and Emily, they've served me well in my inspections for as long as I can remember. Their excessively short statures allow for the fastest possible, and flexible, movement. Their designed to wound rapidly, they can be fatal with enough force put into them but I use them for rapid punishment to students who let their guard down. The best offense is a defense is what they always taught us. Anyways, The Test goes like this, we will duel, if you can keep your guard up against me for a set amount of time, then you will pass. If you actually manage to get a hit or two on me, I will be very impressed."James said to Seth. "Sounds reasonable." he replied. He moved himself into a defensive stance, using his glaive to cover as much of his body as possible. The Inspector took off his robe, exposing his ghostly white skin, and his black leather armor with deep purple threading near his assortment of pockets. Seth also noticed a bell hanging from his front upper-right pocket. "Right then." A few seconds passed. "Let's begin!" He yelled.
Seth was prepared for the worst; he had heard how "James's" attack speed was out of this world. What he heard was true; The Inspector rushed towards him and began mindlessly stabbing at Seth's glaive. This happened for a few seconds, having to tilt it left and right occasionally, when he suddenly felt a burning pain in his side. The inspector had got him from the side; Seth never even saw it coming. Now irritated, the exact moment his dagger was about to make contact with his glaive, he shoved James to the side and sliced at his lower torso armor, causing a good portion of it to fall off, Seth thought he even saw some blood ooze out. The Inspector Jumped backwards, seemingly startled by this blow. "Very well done! I may have underestimated you!" he exclaimed. "Thanks." Seth replied chuckling slightly. "Now, let's see how you fair when you have one of your senses taken away." "What's that supposed to mean?" Seth thought to himself. The Inspector dropped something on the floor and the room began to quickly fill with a smoke like substance, and James had vanished. Seth looked around furiously but was unable to see any sign of James, he could barely even see hit own glaive in front of him. He heard the clinging of, a bell, behind him, he suddenly remembered the bell hanging from James's pocket he turned to take another slice at what he assumed to be James, but it was in vain. He felt the inspectors blade sink into his left shoulder, it was a very deep wound, it forced him to kneel over in pain "So, that's how were gonna play this game huh? Alright, I'll play, but I can't let something like that happen again." He thought. Seth gathered his energy and moved to the corner of the room to collect his thoughts. He was severely bleeding from his wounds, and he started having trouble thinking clearly. Seth thought he had outsmarted the inspector, he would simply wait in the corner until time was up. He felt reinvigorated by something, the only thing he could think was "FIND JAMES." He closed his eyes and focused everything on trying to listen. Many minutes passed and he didn't hear any movements whatsoever. "Come on then! Put some effort into it coward!" Seth cried out. The moment he finished taunting James he ehard the bell cling again, the sound of cloth shuffling, and, finally, footsteps. "Where is he though?" seth asked himself. He stopped breathing fir a few seconds and realized that it sounded as if he was, above him? He had to act quickly, he grabbed the nearest training dummy, and held it with his left hand as a makeshift shield. He heard the inspectors dagger rip into the dummy, a shot that seemed indeed lethal to a human had he not blocked it. He heard the inspector run to the other side of the room, a bit of grunting face and cloth shuffling, what he assumed was him making his way upwards, to the beams above him. He felt like a sitting duck. He walked forward a bit, keeping his glaive as close as possible. He heard another grunt, and the sound of wind rushing by something. Something told him James was attacking. He grabbed his glaive with both hands and mustered and all off his strength into a single upwards slice. Sparks flew as the side of that his glaive made contact with the tip of the inspector's dagger and watched as both weapons shattered from the amount of force at contact. He heard the Inspector gasped in shock. "Dear god." He heard James whisper. "All right! Open a damned window, dear god, get this smoke out of here, and contact the nearest blacksmith wouldya?"