Chapter 71: Two Against One
**CHING**
Eleanor’s blade met the axe head-on, and the impact sent a shock straight up through her wrist, hard enough to make her stagger back a few steps.
The way he moved... he struck with force and used his size to his advantage.
He was fast for his size, faster than she had expected and the man was built like a mountain.
However, despite this, she was still faster than him, blitzing in and out of his blind spots before striking, ducking under the follow up swing and driving a burning slash across his exposed forearm before retreating out of range.
"Quick little thing, aren’t you," the man said, grinning through the shallow burn, seemingly unbothered by the pain. "Doesn’t matter how fast you move. You still can’t hit hard enough to actually put me down."
Eleanor grit her teeth. Though she didn’t want to admit it, he was right. His size made it hard for someone like her to put down using force...
He wasn’t wrong, and Eleanor felt the truth of it in her own bones with every exchange. She could land strikes, plenty of them, fast and precise, but his sheer bulk absorbed the damage in a way that anybody would see as unfair.
Every hit that would have staggered a normal fighter barely seemed to make him flinch. He shrugged off every attack in a way that began to frustrate her.
Behind him, the collapsed entrance stayed as a reminder that trying to run from this fight wasn’t an option either — whatever was going to happen was going to happen here.
’I’m going to have to wear him down. It’s just going to take longer than I’d like, and I don’t know if I have longer.’
She darted in again, blade flashing low toward his knee, and he anticipated it this time, pivoting with contrasting reflexes to his size, faster than his frame should have allowed and catching her wrist mid strike in one massive hand.
"Got you," he said, and began to twist.
She clenched her jaw as pain flared up her arm, her wrist bending toward an angle it was never meant to reach, not naturally...
"Incoming!!"
Something slammed into the man’s side, and Eleanor stumbled free as Mark’s shoulder drove hard into the axe wielder’s ribs, the impact enough to actually shift his footing for the first time in the entire fight.
"Sorry I’m late," Mark said, gauntlets flaring faintly. He turned towards where he stood, watching the three guards that surrounded him lie on the ground in pain. "Traffic was murder."
"You have terrible timing," Eleanor said, cradling her wrist. In her voice, relief and pain mixed together as she stood up with shaky legs.
"I have excellent timing. You’re just impatient." Mark planted himself between her and the axe wielder,"what’s going on? Why does Ryker want us dead all of a sudden...?"
Eleanor raised her sword, flames flaring and taking a stance. "I don’t know, but whatever it is, has something to do with Lucas."
Mark sighed. "That boy.. first he’s itching to leave, then he’s got the leader of a faction this big breathing down our necks. He’s going to get us killed one of these days..." He turned to the axe welder. "Heyyy Joro. Why don’t we take a seat and talk about this, huh?"
Joro looked at him and growled and Mark blinked. "I guess not."
Eleanor rolled her eyes. "A giant man with orders to kill us is standing in front of you and you want to talk. Smart, Mark. Real smart..."
Mark chuckled and turned to her. "You good?"
Eleanor flexed her arm and nodded. "I’ll manage."
The man lifted the axe back up with a low, irritated growl. "Two against one. Hardly fair."
"You brought an axe to fight someone half your size," Mark said. "Fair left the building a while ago."
He surged forward first, drawing the man’s attention fully onto himself, gauntlets catching the axe’s heavy downswing with a clang that Eleanor felt even though she was standing several feet away.
The impact staggered Mark back a step, but he held, exactly as he always did. "Woo!"
That brief moment of distraction was all Eleanor needed.
She darted in low, flame igniting bright, and drove a burning slash across the back of Joro’s exposed leg.
He roared, more in fury than pain, and spun to retaliate, but Mark was already there again, absorbing the follow up strike on raised gauntlets while Eleanor retreated and waited for the next opening.
They fell into a rhythm within a few exchanges — Mark drawing the heaviest blows, planting himself in front of the axe while Eleanor darted in and out, punishing every opening his presence created.
"Left side," Eleanor called, "I’m going in from the left."
Mark adjusted instantly, catching the follow-up on his arm in a way thaty forced Joro’s left side open, and Eleanor’s blade found the opening a half-second later, biting deep into the meat of the man’s shoulder.
He staggered, blood leaking from his skin, and for the first time since the fight had started, real strain showed plainly on his face.
"You’re actually pushing me back," he said, disbelief bleeding through the words as he retreated another step. "That’s... that’s not supposed to happen."
"Happens a lot. " Mark said, driving another gauntlet wrapped strike into his exposed ribs.
Joro staggered further, breathing hard now and bleeding from the edge of his mouth and something flickered behind his eyes as he assessed the two of them properly for the first time. They weren’t what you would call an easy kill anymore, and a smile found its way on his face.
"Fine," he said, straightening, his dark smile spreading across his face. "I didn’t expect this to actually take this long but I guess there’s no point in holding back."
"Let’s see how well you two work together against this."
He planted the axe’s head into the stone floor, and the air around him began to shift, becoming thick and heavy. Red energy bending the air around him and both Eleanor and Mark stepped back as they felt the pressure pressing down on them.
"Elle, you have a plan, right..?"