He promptly follows up, advancing with a flurry of strikes. All moves that would take down most opponents.
Left jab. Right cross. Spinning back kick.
I block the first two hits, but the back kick catches me in theribs. Air puffs out of my lungs as I leap another step back and anticipate his next move.
I duck in time to escape his follow-up hook and counter with a strike to his solar plexus. He grunts taking it, obviously recognizing the same thing about me that I have about him.
We’re two capable men. Two expertly skilled fighters.
We circle each other with sheets of rain bulleting down and droplets clinging to our faces.
As focused as I am on Black Shell and our battle, out of the corner of my eye, I’m also preoccupied by the wardrobe.
By the fact that my rabbit is trapped inside. The winds and rain don’t help the situation, making the rock slippery and nudging the wardrobe more and more against the edge of the cliff.
If I outright run over to the wardrobe to try to force it open, Black Shell would follow, and in our hasty struggle, we’d probably send the wardrobe toppling over the cliff’s edge. It’d make the situation infinitely worse as I couldn’t get it open in time to pull her outandfend off Black Shell.
The only way out of this scenario involves me incapacitating him. Ensuring he’s vanquished for good.
Only then will Monroe truly be safe and this vendetta settled once and for all.
We attack each other at the same time, rushing forward to test our might against the other. My leg swings through the air in an axe kick and catches him in the jaw as his arms grapple for my midsection and wrenches me back down to the ground.
We go down hard, crashing onto the wet, jagged rock and scrambling to be the first to rise.
I launch another kick, this one a front kick that he avoids by diving and rolling. Suddenly he’s behind me, and I’m twisting to keep up.
We clash in a mix of blows and blocks, Black Shell issuingseveral punches and strikes while I do the same, and we both manage to play defense with our forearms.
It’s dizzying how quickly we both move, neither of us relenting as he catches my fist and I skillfully reverse his move with a twist of his arm.
Then he’s doing the same, spinning us back around in another endless circle.
He anticipates my every move like I do him, making it difficult to gain an advantage. It might come down to stamina as we back off each other and return to circling.
I’ve reset my stance, fists held up offensively and defensively as we rotate around each other and wait for the other to make the next move. He’s mirroring me, rolling his shoulders, eyes gleaming with thirty years of hatred.
He lunges first.
I sidestep and snap a side kick into his thigh, dead-legging him. He stumbles but recovers instantly, spinning into a hook kick that almost throws me off. I’m able to block at the last possible millisecond, though pain shoots from my wrist to my shoulder anyway from absorbing the blow.
We trade more strikes in rapid succession. His fist cracks against my ribs, landing three hits as my side twinges and the splintering pain tells me he’s likely broken one.
But I’ve never let a fractured rib slow me down during combat.
I drive my elbow into his face in retaliation, the cartilage on his nose crunching as it explodes in a spray of blood.
He snarls and comes at me harder.
A brutal combination forces me back toward the cliff’s edge. Left hook to my body, then a right cross to my head, followed by a spinning elbow I duck but not fast enough. The elbow lands hard, connecting with my cheekbone as that side of my face instantly throbs from pain.
He’s cut me above my eye, the blood mixing with rain and blurring my vision.
Having now gained an advantage, he presses it, driving forward even more aggressively. He leaps and his knee clips my jaw.
I’m sent tumbling backward, knocked off balance so I crash to the ground with teeth clacking together and a wave of dizziness making me forget time and place.
But it’s only for a second. That’s all I allow as he rushes to deliver an axe kick, but I roll out of the way in time. His boot slams down onto the rock and gravel instead, kicking up pebbles and splashing rain water.
