"Begin," Kai ordered before Elena finished moving into a defensive crouch.
Fyr struck, lunging forward without warning.
Elena barely whipped her staff up to protect her head in time. An ache immediately rose in her wrist and hands as the force behind the blow transferred through the staff.
"Someone's eager," Elena snarled.
If that blow had connected, it would have damaged her skull. Forget something as cute and minor as a concussion. Her face would have needed re-constructive surgery.
Elena parried, shoving him back a step to create a little space.
Fyr circled her. She moved with him, determined not to let him catch her off guard again.
He feinted with his staff, trying to draw Elena out to assess her abilities.
Elena didn't fall for it, hunkering down in an attempt to give away as little as possible. She analyzed her opponent, doing the same thing he was. Trying to find a weakness she could exploit.
The problem was that he was good. As fast as Tommy but lacking Aunt Kira's cunning and power.
Fyr attacked again, going from absolute stillness to lethal motion in a split second.
Elena fell for his trap, moving to block his strike to her head only for him to change target at the last second and aim for her leg. She deflected just a beat too slow, redirecting some of the force away to reduce the blow from bone breaking to something a little less painful.
Not by much though, she thought with a grimace as her leg threatened to buckle.
Elena limped backward out of reach, the muscle protesting in a way Elena knew meant it was already bruising.
Careless, El, Elena scolded. Auntie would have made you do extra training for being so reckless.
"What's the matter, new girl?" Fyr rumbled, speaking for the first time since the fight had begun. "No longer think this is a game?"
Elena gave him her crazy smile. The one she'd practiced in the mirror after seeing it on Aunt Kira's face a time or two. Usually directly before Auntie did something that left the people around her shaking their heads in disbelief.
"The joke is on you. The moment this is no longer fun is the instant you lose."
And that time was fast approaching.
Elena blocked Fyr's next attack. And the one after that.
Fyr re-doubled his attacks until the sound of their staffs banging against each other reverberated through the room.
The arrogance on Fyr's face pissed Elena off. The assumption that he'd automatically win.
All the frustration and fear she'd buried since her arrival bled into the fight, giving her strength as she returned his blows with decisive ones of her own.
Satisfaction filled her when one of her strikes snuck under his guard.
Take that. Who is the easy mark now?
Elena blocked his next head strike. He followed it up with a blow to her torso. Also blocked.
She leaned back almost parallel to the floor to avoid his staff to her face.
She recovered her balance a second later. "You asshole. Were you trying to disfigure me?"
Wreck the adorable features that had convinced Auntie to go against her better judgment on more than one occasion?
She bet that was exactly what he was doing. It wasn't the first time either. From the very beginning, he seemed to be gunning for it.
