#volume five

Born Bad

Warning!  The following will contain spoilers for Fence:  Rise (Volume Five).  Please proceed at your own risk.  Volume Five is in the bag, and, as usual, I cannot wait to see The Halverton Training Camp story arc concludes in the next issue.  Naturally, I had some thoughts in order from least important to most important.

It was great seeing Kally and Tanner again if only for a moment.

So far, I like MacRob the best out of the competing schools, Halverton is okay, but I cannot stand the snobs from Lowther who seem to think their all that and a bag of chips despite placing fourth.  I’m very interested to see more of Terrell Holmes, Nate Spencer, Gian Torres, and Marcus Washington who all seem very cool and interesting new additions.  I’m also curious to  see more of Hector Ramirez and Stefano “Van” Remo as we didn’t see much from either of them.

I adored Dante letting Bobby put pom hair ties in his hair.  If that isn’t love, I’ll eat your hat.  Unofficial boyfriend anyone?  It was also great Bobby getting the role of Team Manager; I’m happy for that little ray of sunshine.

The only reason Aiden isn’t better at fencing has to do with his personal lack of interest and Harvard’s ranking.  If Harvard improves his low lines, Aiden would likely move up alongside of him.

I suspect Seiji will at minimum either lose a point or even a practice match in the next volume.  The question is will it be Scott Langtree (who will be disappointed not to gain a new teammate), Marcus Washington (who shows the greatest talen), or Saunchul Park (who is clearly out for blood) that lands the blow.  Seiji is very disciplined and fast, but he is also arrogant and a bit predictable which is likely a major contributor to how Jesse beat him.  He may want to be a bit more dynamic in how he approaches his future matches.  As for Jesse and Seiji, I’m not surprised they were more at one time than simply friends as it was heavily hinted at in France.  I don’t for a moment believe Seiji ever saw Jesse in that way nor do I think what they had together was in any way healthy.  The real villain is Robert Coste.

I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed that once again Nicholas is at the bottom of the fencing order.  In all fairness, he is being forced to improve his two weakest areas of technique and defense through these drills.  I’m pleased he’s shown improvement, and I look forward to him proving once again to be a fast learner.  All he needs is Jesse’s skill to be monster at fencing possibly even the greatest.  I suspect the series will end with some combination Nicholas, Seiji, and Jesse on the piste at the state finals.

Previously, I have posted about which person will be the first to realize how Nicholas is related to Jesse.  Once again, we have movement in which Bobby Rodriguez noticed similarities in Jesse’s and Nicholas’s respective styles.  I suspect Coach Williams may already know, but if she does, she isn’t making it obvious in any way.

Finally, we have the return of Kyle Allen who conveniently didn’t mention how he was Jesse’s cousin, though I suspect his mother is Robert Coste’s sister making him also related to Nicholas.  I can say he is clearly overplaying how close he is to Jesse as he had no idea who Nicholas was, or the fact Jesse is eyeing him as threat for Seiji’s attention and a potential threat on the piste.  Likewise, he isn't attending Exton with Jesse Coste even though they are "so close." Out of everyone, he would be the last person to recognize and except Nicholas Cox as Jesse Coste’s long lost half-brother.  I would love for the rematch where Nicholas wipes the floor with him, but I’ll settle for his shock over Nicholas finally beating Emmet Scott by the end of the training camp.

All right. So Ozma was calling the shots again. Clover had his feelings about that, but James had also slept through an entire weekend after visiting him, only getting up long enough to eat, and while Clover suspected there was some magical intervention going on there, the fact that James had gotten some actual, real rest, well, he supposed he could live with that.

But with Ozma calling the shots again, their trajectory was going to change somewhat. Even if he was sticking, at least for now, with James’ plan, he was obviously going to make some alterations to it. That was natural; Clover had no beef with that.

So now he and Fenton were on their way to Haven Academy, to pay a visit to the headmistress and see if it would be wise to bring her into the fold. Ozma wanted the schools and the vaults back in their arsenal, and he was right in that having two of the relics at Amity was unwise. Ozma had also sent emissaries to Atlas; if even one team was successful today, hopefully they could get the lamp out of Amity and make it a little less desirable as a target.

And the fact that he and Fenton were on their first real mission since they brought Fenton into the fold, well, that was kind of nice, too.

I crave a thousand pardons for the spoilers contained below.

But after watching today's episode it occurs to me now in forward-retrospect that Blake Belladonna has, like, THE most amount of quasi-canonical pairings. So many people want to hit that. I mean, we've got Adam Taurus (may he burn in hell) who basically embodies the whole Creepy Stalker Douchebag Ex, Whom I Must Have Insane Or Drunk To Get Involved With, And I Regret Everything Now© –though all humor aside, they were canonically a (very unhealthy) couple for at least a little bit according to Ilia and the hints Sun has dropped. Speaking of which, we've also got Sun, who also is canonically confirmed to at least have a mild crush on her.

And speaking of canon crushes, we've got our resident ninja-chameleon Ilia Amitola, who dropped a bomb on the fandom this morning by her very-badly timed confession of a (former?) crush on Blake and a jealous streak regarding Adam.

And speaking of lovely lady relationships, there's the whole thing with Blake and Yang, which I think needs no introduction or explanation.

• Adam Taurus • Sun Wukong • Ilia Amitola • Yang Xiao Long

Four. Four canonical love interests, or rather people interested in becoming lovers. Maybe that doesn't seem so much, but then again, this is actual relationships, not desperate attempts by the fandom to pair together various characters. This is stuff that's actually true, that, like, really happened within that world.

Chapter 1: DRUNK QROW IS THE BEST QROW

Chapter 2: .....murder and kidnapping... Whoa...

Chapter 3: Ozcar is amazing!

Chapter 4: D'awwww... Everything is slowly getting better....