Today was the day. The fourth Thursday of November. It was a lot more than just a relaxing Thanksgiving feast for the fencers at LFM. The new and improved League was forming. Only the best, chosen by officials and coaches from LFM were let into the team. The Legends, consisting of seniors, second- and third-years, and even a few first years were all included in the aggressive ten-person group.
    Max was one of the newest “legends” in The League. It was amazing how all of the Legends were so good at what they did, fencing. But what was more amazing was that they fenced so differently. Each person handled the lessons differently. Oh, the lessons. Coach John the strangest private lessons. Yet everyone survived them. Bryan went for speed. He would make simple attacks but would move fast enough to land them before his opponents could react. Lance was a trickster. He went for mind games, and was more intimidating than he looked. He could stop pretty much any attack just by moving back and forth, using irrational fear to his will. The young and the old, the big and the small, the legends all came through.
Striding confidently through the long corridor to the changing room, “Lightning” was ready. It was the first annual tournament of the Legends League, yet Max wasn’t expecting too much. Max had been to tons of fencing tournaments before, and they were all relatively similar. Max was prepared.
However, Max definitely wasn’t expecting that a simple figure in the door of the changing room - a tall, lean boy about the same age as him - would change a perfectly normal day. The boy had a typical build, with strong upper legs and slender arms. As he walked past Max, he gave a quick glance.
    Max froze. The boy’s face felt so familiar. He felt a sudden warmth rush through his body, and knew it was connected to the boy. But Max couldn’t identify him in any way. It was only until the boy in the hallway had walked twenty feet past Max’s spot that Max could place a name on the face: Marc.
Max suddenly stopped and turned to watch the boy. How could it be Marc? It shouldn’t have been possible. It didn’t make sense - it had been at least three years since Max last saw Marc. At that moment, Marc also stopped with a gasp of realization, spinning to face Max. They stood in the middle of the hallway, their eyes widening.
    They stared at each other for a good five seconds, with their eyes widening.
“Well, this is pretty awkward,” Max muttered to himself.
Max slowly turned away and headed back to the changing room. He switched to “auto-drive” and suited up, not able to decide how to handle what he just saw. Max had just seen his past friend… in the school hallway. Casually. When Max injured his arm, he had to stop fencing for half a year. But when he returned, Marc, his friend from the fencing classes, had completely disappeared. There were even rumors about Marc quitting fencing. So how could he be here? Max stood up, adjusted his knickers, and walked out the door. He got five feet into the hallway before realizing he had forgotten to put on his chest protector, the first step to suiting up. Well, time to restart! He regretted wandering off task with the fencing tournament at hand. He took off all his layers, put the chest protector on, and climbed into all his equipment again.
    When Max got down to the gym again, it was action time - the first round of the tournament. Max tried to pretend nothing had happened in the hallway and focused on the upcoming bouts (games). Lightning would strike again. “The pool groups have been posted!”, the director shouted over hundreds of voices. Silence rose over dozens of fencers as they stampeded to the wall. They all stared up at the three simple, white papers stapled to the bulletin board, shoving each other for a good view. Max checked the three pages for his name. Finally, he finally found the Legends team under the Pool 5 column, with “Strip 7” scribbled in marker.
    He headed over to his strip and took a look at the opposing team - pretty typical, comprising of a few people he had fenced before and several new opponents. The referee yelled out a few commands: “Team 1: Number 1 - Bryan! Number 2 - Lance! Number 3 - Max! Number 4 - Will! ...” Max didn’t pay attention to the other team - he didn’t mind who he would fence. Max was just ready to spectate the bouts for any new tricks he could use. The referee continued: “First bout, Number 1’s! On deck, Number 3’s!” Max frowned for a second. Normally, the bouts were played in number order. He shrugged. Max was ready to go second.
    The first bout was fast. A fast, “5 - 0” win by Bryan. Nothing to brag about, though, considering he had fenced an 11-year-old. The whole pool watched intently, and were disappointed by the anticlimactic game. Just as Max was at the end of the strip, ready to hook up, Marc appeared, panting. “Am I late?”
    Marc made a brief explanation that the equipment checks dragged him down. Then the referee revealed that Marc was number 3, and that he was just in time to fence Max.
    Well, now Max’s past friend who had supposedly quit fencing was at Max’s monthly team fencing competition. He was also on Max’s opposing team, which was about a one-in-thirty chance, and to top it off, they were going to fence each other next. What more could Max expect?
    Max tried to hook up to the strip as slowly as possible, but it could only buy him about ten seconds of time - obviously insufficient. He was going to have to deal with the situation. He finally got everything hooked up and performed all the blade checks. The bout was going to start.
“En garde, ready, fence!”, the referee shouted.
    Max and Marc - two friends, separated by time and luck, now clashed. In fact, they were more than just two friends. Two legends. The Lightning Legend and The Leaping Legend. Now opposing each other in a five-touch fencing round. Agile and strong, each had their own unique style. It had been a good four years since they were together, and even longer since they were forced to fence each other. And besides, Marc should have quit fencing a while ago. Marc’s presence here alone was a miracle! How Max got into this situation, he wasn’t sure. All he was expecting was a normal day at a normal fencing competition. Well, way to toss that idea away.
    Marc charged.
    With too many empty blanks in the situation, Max used the classic method: go defensive.
    Marc started slow. He advanced into Max’s side. Max, playing defensively, sacrificed some good ground for a possible trap. Max locked his eyes on Marc’s blade, ready to spring a counter-attack, or rapidly retreat.
    Marc got a bit faster, almost moving nonstop. Max kept the pace too, and they built up some tension. Suddenly, Marc sprung. In a blink of an eye, he jumped, extended his arms, and circled twice around Max’s blade, and ended with a long lunge. But Max met the attack with his own speed. He had predicted the attack, and instantly retreated, hopping backwards, his own blade darting back and forth to counter Marc. He lightly blocked Marc’s lunge with a slight retreat, and made a quick flick of the blade. Marc wasn’t able to react for a few moments, and Max’s hit landed. “Score: 1 - 0”.
    The round went on for quite a while. Max and Marc fenced similarly, yet distinct differences separated their styles. There was a traceable connection between the two. The bout was a typical, aggressive fencing bout, but was also so much more. It was the highlight of a friendship, the clash of two true legends, and possibly the hardest bout the referee had directed in his life. The three short minutes packaged quite a bit.
    Eventually, the score was a tied “4 - 4”. Both Max and Marc were both one point away from their win, and a possible team carry. And there were ten seconds left. Once the referee gave them the “clear”, they both charged. Max flicked his blade, provoking an attack from Marc. Marc went for the bait, circling his blade and lunging. Max quickly stepped back, knocking Marc’s blade aside, and lunged back for the touch. He missed by half an inch, and as Marc retreated with bounds, Max advanced twice and went for another lunge, making it longer this time. Right before his point collided with Marc’s lame, the buzzer went off. “Time’s up - no touch!” the referee practically shouted. The whole Legends League “awww”-ed and sat back down in disappointment.
    To overtime it was. The referee spun a counter for priority - to determine who would win if no touch was scored in the extra minute. The counter landed on heads, Max’s side.
Max and Marc went even harder in overtime. They both tested brave attacks, but none of them landed. Eventually, with four seconds left, Marc was closing in on Max. But Max saw something flash in Marc’s eyes. Marc stopped, in the middle of his attack, and retreated. Max, confused about Marc, stayed still. The buzzer rang, and Max had priority. So, the result: 5 - 4, for Max.
It might not have been as obvious for the audience, but Marc’s actions were clear to Max. Marc had just let Max win, taking the bout for free.
Max was in shock. Max knew he would probably never do that for anyone, friend or not.
The rest of the competition was a blur. The Legends ended up barely winning. There was quite a possibility that Marc could’ve stopped the team from winning and brought his own team up. But Marc had done it all for Max.
    Eventually, everything sorted itself out. After the competition, Marc, being the mature guy he was, took the initiative and went up to Max first.
    “Hey, you fenced well today.”
    “Thanks! I only won from priority though. With a few more seconds, you would’ve probably won!”
    “Well, winning is winning,” Marc grinned.
    Max smiled a little, then paused.
Finally, with a slight smile, he asked “You never really quit fencing, did you?”
    “Of course not! I love fencing. Although I know it must have seemed like it when you got back with the newly healed arm.”
    “So what happened?”
    “Well, the lesson times didn’t work for me. So I took a break off fencing and waited until the coach opened a new night session. I’ve been training with some of our past friends from our first year of fencing!”
    Max grinned. “Well, everything’s fine now. The past doesn’t matter. Oh, and by the way…”
    Marc smiled, ready for a surprise. “Yeah?”
Max used his arm as a mock fencing foil, and lightly tapped Marc on the stomach, faster than even Marc could react to. “We do have room for another Legend in our league.”
The duo, the legendary Lightning-Leaping duo, was back.