New light shined from the morning's opalescent sky.

I hid in the scaffolding, molding my limbs to the contours of the platform, waiting, waiting for him to come.

I saw him enter, a brief deviance in the background. He scanned the room, the ceilings, the floors, the corners. The scaffolding. But I didn't move.

He walked to a spot directly under me. I took it as my cue to jump.

He sensed me a moment before I hit him, his hand drawing back to retrieve his sword. Mine, already drawn caught his hand with the tip and I felt him scream inwardly.

We fought swiftly, smoothly, invisible to the untrained human eye and to most of the trained. We were nothing but a background, chameleons. Onlookers would make nothing of us but for a slight blur of the air if they were so inclined to catch even that. Our sounds, however, would ricochet off their minds, sending them in the direction of ghosts and they would scatter.

I pinned him up against a wall, reached out my hand and yanked off his hood.

"You win," he said.
I didn't speak, but activated my voice cloaker.
"You win," he repeated. "I have failed."
"You never fail," I said, my voice coming out thick and foreign to my ears.
"Before you check mate, show me who you are."
I dug my sword harder into his neck.
"Please," he begged.
"I will not check mate," I replied.
He tried to swallow and stared, wide-eyed at me.
"But you are the Black Knight. You kill each one. You never let anyone survive."
"Perhaps the Black Knight can be surprising," I said, calculating my words.
"From everything I've learned of you, I should be dead already."
I deactivated each of his protective devices, including communication. He watched me do this, resignedly.
I tossed his sword to the floor and all of his gear.
"Now you," I said. "Show me yourself."
He deactivated Chameleon.
"What is this?" he asked. "I have studied you long and hard and you have never done this."
"It's different this time," I said through the voice cloaker.
"What is?"
"My victim."
"How?"
I deactivated my own Chameleon but kept my hood on.
"Goodness gracious, great balls of fire," I said. "Does he not understand?"
He gaped at me and went pale.
"You're twelve years old," I said. "Same as me. Don't you know, Mac?"
"You? You?" he screamed, pressing himself deeper and deeper into the wall.
I let my sword drop and pulled off my hood.
"I'm sorry, Mac," I whispered. "They made me."
For the first time since I'd known him, the strong, the brave, the brilliant MacKenzie Lawrence fell to his knees and cried.
I knocked his chin up with the dropped sword.
"Don't cry," I ordered.
"But Alyson...I trained with you. You were my...my..."
"Friend?"
He nodded shakily, still crying.
"It's been a long time since I've heard that word spoken and even longer since I've spoken it myself," I said. "They tricked you. I would train with you, pretending I didn't know."
"I see."
I stared down at the ground and put my sword back into my leg.
"You know they took me from a playground? I was one of the first of the new wave. We had parents. Did you?"
He nodded.
"They took me from a friend's backyard. I was three."
"So was I."
"Are you going to kill me now, Knight?"
I looked him in the eye but my vision was blurred with tears.
"No, Mac. You kill me."