Words With Fiends by Ali Brandon

Tomlinson limped off in the direction of his office—apparently his gout, as well as a head cold, was kicking in—leaving the class to the tender mercies of his two stepsons.
    â€œGreat, the Steroid Twins,” Robert murmured as the pair sauntered to the front of the room. “Hope you ate your Wheaties this morning.”
    Darla gave a commiserating nod. Hal and Hank seemed to delight in tormenting the students. Their favorite pastime was piling on the warm-up exercises, whether it was running laps around the mat or doing sit-ups and push-ups. By mutual agreement, however, the class had found a way to undermine the twins’ petty tyranny. After the first dozen or so of each set, they’d begin “accidentally” accelerating the shouted count by skipping a number every so often, which ended up knocking down the total by a significant number of reps. So far, Hank and Hal did not appear to have caught on to the subterfuge.
    Darla snarkily attributed the plot’s ongoing success to the fact that the men simply didn’t know how to count past ten.
    If someone in the class hadn’t told her, Darla never would have guessed that the brothers were fraternal twins, for they looked about as much alike as she and Robert did. Hal was close to six feet tall and rocked the bald head, tattooed neck look. In flagrant violation of dojo rules, he’d lopped off the sleeves of his black gi jacket to better display an impressive set of tattooed biceps. Hank was shorter and stockier than his brother, and had chosen to let his black hair grow long enough to wear in a ponytail, rather like his stepfather had worn in his younger days. Hank, too, went in for the sleeveless look, with arms even bigger than his brother’s, but minus the tattoo ink.
    Though now in their early twenties, the pair apparently had been part of the dojo since their grade school days. A good portion of the trophies and ribbons on display in the front case belonged to them.
    â€œAll right, people, line up,” Hal called, despite the fact that the students had already arranged themselves into two lines in order of rank, meaning that Robert and Darla were in the back.
    Hank chimed in, “Now, bow to the flag, bow to the instructors, bow to each other. Oh, yeah,” he added in a bored tone when the bows were completed, “don’t forget to repeat the creed.”
    â€œRun when you can, fight if you must, never give up, and never let injustice go unpunished,” Darla obediently chorused, preparing herself for a dose of Hal and Hank boot camp.
    The twins must have been in a better mood than usual, however, for the warm-up was relatively short and comparatively painless. By then Master Tomlinson, accompanied by Roma, had returned to his usual spot in front of the class.
    â€œLet’s run through a couple of katas, and then I have some new self-defense techniques to show you,” he began.
    The hour-long class flew by, the students rotating partners as they moved through the various drills under the sensei’s direction. Darla suffered a momentary bit of angst when she found herself paired up with Chris during one technique, but apparently the lesson of being banned from the tournament had sunk in, for the teen was remarkably subdued. As the drill commenced, he was careful to pull his punches and even offered Darla a grudging compliment on her progress. She was so shocked by his unexpected praise, however, she forgot to block his next attack—and for that momentary inattention, promptly found herself on her rump on the mat.
    Unfortunately for her ego, Master Tomlinson had turned his attention to her just in time to witness her ungainly landing. But barely had she hit the ground when a panicking Chris was grabbing her hand and dragging her upright again.
    â€œSorry, Master Tomlinson, it was an accident. I thought she was blocking me, honest,” he sputtered, blue eyes wide beneath his curtain of bangs as