Michael arrives at R.O.C.A. at 11:42 p.m. Zack and his two buddies have entered the security codes that Zach found on his dad's desktop computer in his classroom during the lunch hour earlier that day. They tell Michael that they'll turn the security system back on at 12:00 thus locking the door from the inside. Michael starts stretching on 'his' side of the gym. By 11:58 there are about twenty-five students there to watch the spectacle. There are about twenty students on Zach's side, three on Michael's side, and two seated right in the middle.

"That figures" Michael mutters to himself.

At preciously 12:00 midnight the doors are locked and Michael and Zach meet at the center of the fencing area - which has been mapped out on the court about half-way between the bleachers and center court. Kate, meanwhile, uses the master-key card that Jonah gave her up on the mountain to get in the front door and quickly moves down the darkened hallways toward the back of the building when the gym is.

Levi, one of Zach's friends and the number two fencer on the team, announces, "I'll be the referee. I'll call 'breaks', 'starts', award 'touches', and announce the winner. The winner will be the first person to land four 'hits'. If either of you doesn't want to continue, then you 'take a knee', understand?"

Kate finally reaches the door that connects the cafeteria to gym and swipes the card. She hears the locking mechanism move, but the bolt doesn't move the entire way, so it still stays latched. She pushes on the door but it doesn't open. She puts her shoulder against the door and pushes - it still doesn't open.

Both Michael and Zach nod, and Levi calls out, "En garde, Prêt, Allez!" The duel begins.

Kate backs a few steps away from the door, sighs deeply, and with the words of the REO Speedwagon song still playing in her head, she runs - shoulder first - directly into the door. "And if I have to crawl upon the floor; come crashing through your door; baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore." The locking mechanism finally gives way - the bolt retracts, and the door slams open, sending the speeding and off-balance teen tumbling to the floor. The duel stops dead as Kate comes crashing through the door.

Levi blurts out, "What the...?!" as he whirls around to see what happened. Both Michael and Zach watch in disbelief as a red-faced Kate picks herself up off the floor, puts up the hood on her sweatshirt, and quickly walks to the bleachers and sits down in front of Michael. But what no one noticed as the duel continues was that a dark shadowy-figure slipped in the same door before it closed after Kate. It then walked to the edge of the bleachers, still unseen.

Levi calls out, "En garde, Prêt, Allez!" The duel continues. In the first 30 seconds both young men are tentative, staring down each other, plotting and formulating their strategy. Then they engage with their foils - attacking, parrying, back and forth until Zach's foil connects with Michael's forearm. Levi yells, "Arrêt!" which means break. It's easy to spot the blood-red line going across Michael's milky-white skin. He winces as Levi announces, "One touch, Zach!" then "Allez!" which means go. About a minute into the parrying and thrusting, Michael catches Zach directly on the bicep with a perfectly timed lunge.

Zach mutters under his breath, "lucky" as Levi calls out, "Touch, Michael, tied one to one. Allez!"

Now that each boy has drawn "first blood" the pace seems to quicken. Just twenty seconds later, the tip of Zach's foil slashes across Michael's chest leaving a hole in his navy-blue R.O.C.A. tee-shirt. "Arrêt!" Levi yells and walks over to Michael. He puts his finger in the hole of the shirt and sees there's a one inch cut in Michael's skin. "Touch, Zach, two to one!" Levi announces.

Zach, now smiling broadly, has the confidence (or maybe over-confidence) he needs. He circles around Michael like a shark circling around wounded prey. Michael is calm and patient, though warily watching the shark circle. Zach can sense victory and wants to finish Michael quickly. He pounces quickly, lounging at Michael, but Michael is able to turn away every attack. Zack's parry-riposte becomes more aggressive. Michael, like in a chess match, is waiting for Zach to over-extend himself, and then Michael strikes back.

"Arrêt!" calls Levi.

"What for?" says Zach as he steps back. Suddenly he feels a stinging sensation on his right wrist. He looks down at it just as the raised welt starts to turn bright-red. "You're not going to count that are you?" demands Zach.

"It's bleeding, Zach, I can see it from here. Touch, Fortress, score is tied two-to-two." Levi says.

Now Zach's countenance has changed - his confidence is now replaced by anger. His eyes start to glow red with hatred "I'm going to destroy that little..." His voice trails off.

"Allez!" yells Levi.

Zach's strategy is simple now - he's three inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Michael, so he'll just overpower him. Zach's aggressive parry-riposte is starting to take its toll and sap his energy. He continues his wild swings and thrusts. Michael even feels Zach's foil point go whizzing by his ear. Then, it's a furious series of wild thrust & parry, thrust & parry, thrust & parry, thrust & parry until -- "Arrêt!" yells Levi.

"He must have seen something" both boys think. They both stand motionless facing one another, then Michael's eyes widen as a long, thin, red mark appears on Zach's cheek. Zack slowly puts his left hand to his face, touches it, then slowly turns his hand to reveal blood, on his hand!

"Nooo!" Zach yells in rage.

"Three touches-to-two, Fortress. Allez!" Levi calls.

Zach, now totally enraged, simply charges at Michael with no real thought or strategy. He aims for Michael's chest as he lunges, but Michael, still calm and cool, easily blocks it and counters with his favorite parry-riposte that sends his foil point directly into Zach's shoulder. "Argghh!" Zach screams in a combination of pain and disbelief.

"Final touch, Fortress!" yells Levi.

The pain, Zach thinks to himself, I lost to a guy I've been making fun of the past month. He hangs his head as Levi lifts Michael's arm and announces "Fortress wins four touches to two!" as everyone in the little crowd, except for Zoe, cheers.

Kate runs out to Michael, who is somewhat in disbelief. She hugs him and standing on tip-toes pulls his face down to hers and kisses his check. In the background, the dark shadowy-figure moves silently just on the edge of everyone's vision closer and closer to Michael and Kate.

Suddenly the cheering is interrupted and drowned out by Zoe screaming, "Kill him! Kill him now!" to Zach who still stands about eight feet away from Michael. Zoe, who has jumped off her seat on the bleachers, is walking quickly toward Zach, who still has his head down and his foil at his side. "Kill him like I told you!" she demands. When Zach just looks at her with a lost and befuddled gaze, she yells "Fine, I'll do it myself!" and she grabs the foil from Zach's hand and lunges forward toward Michael and Kate with the point extended.

At the same exact time the dark shadowy-figure, which has maneuvered right behind Michael who is still holding his foil at his side, grabs the handle of the foil around Michael's hand, raises it, and points it at the oncoming Zoe. Michael's point, with his arms at least six inches longer than Zoe's, easily finds its target milliseconds before Zoe's point can reach Michael. It all happens so fast, that the gasp from Kate's mouth barely makes it completely out in the time that this happens. The tip of Michael's foil, as directed by the dark shadowy-figure, hits Zoe directly in her left chest. It pierces her jacket, shirt, skin, and muscle tissue going between two ribs before striking directly in the middle of her heart. Time seems to stand still for a moment, and then begins again in slow motion. Zoe slowly looks down at the foil blade sticking in her chest. Then you hear the dull clatter of Zach's foil hitting the floor. Then Zoe tilts her head back slightly and screams a horrific, unearthly scream that makes the hair on the back of everyone's neck stand up. Then her mouth, still slightly open, allows a little, silvery-white cloud-like mist to escape from it. The tiny silvery-white cloud is followed by a dozen, then a dozen more. They swirl around her head as they're joined by dozens and dozens escaping from her ears, nose, and even eyes. They swirl around her body now hundreds upon hundreds starting to rise toward the gym ceiling. In a short time the gym ceiling is filled with a thousand of these silvery-white mists. One of them finds an escape-route - an exhaust fan on one end of the gym wall close to the roof, and soon all the tiny clouds pour through the fan escaping into the dark spring night.

After all of the clouds have left Zoe's body, she looks Michael in the eye and says "Thank you". At this point the figure pulls back on the foil and Michael pulls the point from Zoe's body. Her body stands for a few seconds on its own, then since the power that was holding her together had left, she quickly falls apart. All her blood and internal fluids now exit through every orifice, her bones start to dissolve, and her organs melt. Her body falls face-first hitting the ground with a sickening "splat", just inches from Michael, Kate, and the figure. Only now does Michael afford himself the opportunity to see who is behind him.

"Dad!!" he cries after turning around. The two hug then Michael, shaking a bit from all the excitement exclaims, "What in the Hell was that?"

"Exactly. That, my son was a battalion of demons" replies Jonah.