Chapter 31: Tandem
Lucas rolled his shoulders, flame still crackling wildly around his knuckles and glanced down at the notification hovering at the edge of his vision.
[Survival probability: 71%]
It hadn’t dropped. Not even a single percentage point, despite the second Hestia now coming fully into view, jaws already parting around a roar that shook loose bark from nearby trees.
’Still seventy one. If this were going bad, it would’ve told me by now. Even broken, it’s never been quiet about actual danger.’
Needless to say, this was the highest chance of survival he’d received since coming here.
He’d learned that much the hard way, across every failed loop before this one, the number always dropped the instant real disaster loomed, glitched or not, late or not. Watching it hold steady now felt like the first honest thing his own system had ever told him and something in his chest steadied at that, a fragile and genuine confidence settling into his stance as he squared up against the approaching beast.
"Coming through."
Eleanor arrived at his side in a blur, holding a blade of solid flame condensing into her outstretched hand.
It wasn’t [Ignition]... It was nothing like his own fire, but something hotter and sharper.
Basically elemental control given an edge and she planted herself beside him with the easy, deadly confidence that made him blink in disbelief.
’Does she not know how dangerous this shit is...?’
"Mark and the others have the first one occupied," she said, eyes locked on the second Hestia as it stared down on them. "This one’s ours."
"Ours," Lucas repeated, his voice carrying a scoff.
"Don’t get sentimental. Fight."
The Hestia lunged.
Eleanor moved first, flaming blade carving a bright arc through the air and Lucas fell into step beside her instantly, the two of them finding a rhythm that felt less like two separate fighters and more like a single coordinated weapon.
Where her blade forced the beast to flinch back, his fist was already there to punish the opening. Where his flame drew its attention low, she would raise earth to block the swing before it could land.
"Left!" Lucas called, catching the same shoulder signal he’d learned across two failed loops and Eleanor didn’t hesitate, pivoting into the opening with a water-lashed strike that staggered the creature’s stance before its paw ever completed the swing.
"How did you—" She caught herself mid-sentence, saving the question for later, trusting the warning enough to act on it first and interrogate it after.
They moved like that for several exhilarating minutes Lucas calling patterns, Eleanor executing with a precision that made every hit land exactly where it needed to, both of them reading each other’s positioning with an instinct that felt less like recent partnership and more like four years of friendship finally finding its truest expression.
**WHOOOSH**
When Lucas ducked low to avoid a swipe, Eleanor’s flame blade was already swinging through the space he’d vacated.
When her elemental barrage forced the beast backward, Lucas was already closing the distance to punish the retreat.
It was, if he let himself think about it for even a second, genuinely remarkable to watch her fight like this.
Four years of knowing Eleanor as a classmate, a roommate, a friend who agonized over exams and burned food in their shared kitchen... none of it had prepared him for the sight of her commanding earth and water and fire all at once, expression fierce and focused, every motion deliberate in a way that made her look less like someone thrown into this nightmare and more like someone the nightmare itself should have been afraid of.
Matter of fact, they moved in tandem like two seasoned fighters who had seen way worse...
"Left again," he called, catching the tell mere moments before it committed. "It’s about —"
"Got it." She didn’t even glance at him, trusting the call completely, water lashing out to slam into the beast’s stance just as its paw swung wide and useless through empty air.
"Damnnn you’re pretty good." Lucas called, dodging a paw mid swing.
A short distance away, Mark’s fight had taken on its own chaotic rhythm... Callum’s pale light flaring bright to blind the first Hestia’s better eye, Bertram’s machete carving wide, desperate arcs whenever an opening presented itself, Lora darting in with short, precise bursts of speed to land strikes and vanish again before retaliation could land.
It wasn’t as clean as what Lucas and Eleanor had going, but it was holding and that was more than enough for now.
"Bertram, your six!" Iris’s voice rang out from somewhere near that fight, arrows loosing in rapid succession and Lucas caught the glint of one finding its mark in his peripheral vision before turning his full attention back to his own battle.
The Hestia in front of them roared, fury building as strike after strike found it’s mark, and Lucas felt the old, familiar pattern recognition kick in fully now — the way the creature’s injured side betrayed it, the specific single moment dip before its heaviest blows, details burned into his memory across two deaths he’d never admit to having survived.
"It’s guarding its right again," he called. "Same as last... same as before. Hit that side while it’s hurt."
Eleanor’s blade found the exposed flank instantly, flame meeting fur that had already been weakened by the earlier exchange and the Hestia shrieked, staggering sideways into a stance that left it dangerously open.
"Lucas!" Her voice came sharp now, cutting through the clash of combat. "How do you know its patterns this precisely? You’re calling this like you’ve fought it already."
Lucas’s stomach dropped, old panic flaring even mid-fight, and he forced his voice to stay light despite it. "Educated guesses, Elle. Guarding behavior’s pretty universal in wounded predators... protect the hurt side, favor the good one. Basic stuff."
"That’s not basic. That’s specific." She didn’t take her eyes off the beast, but he could hear the sharpening focus in her tone even through the chaos, the same suspicion he’d watched surface and recede a dozen times now across every version of this conversation. "We’ll talk about this properly. After."
"Why does everyone ask me why I know things? Can’t y’all just go with it?" He said with a grown.
Eleanor however, didn’t say anything else...
He drovee his advantage instead, flame roaring hotter around both fists as he closed the last of the distance.
"Together?" he called.
"Together."
They struck at once — Eleanor’s blade driving deep into the exposed, weakened flank, Lucas’s flaming fist crashing into the same wound a just moments later, fire meeting elemental precision in a combination that tore a scream from the creature loud enough to drown out the sounds of Mark and the others still locked in their own fight nearby.
The Hestia staggered, half its body seared and bleeding, stance finally buckling under the weight of injuries it could no longer protect.
Lucas felt the shift in momentum the way he’d learned to feel it across every fight he’d survived so far... that precise, narrow window where a beast stopped being a threat and started being prey.
"This is it," he said, breathless, flame gathering hotter around his knuckles for one final strike. "One more. Right now."
Eleanor’s blade rose beside him, matched fury and precision both, sweat and soot streaking her face, hair coming loose from whatever knot she’d tied it into that morning, and for one suspended second the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder against a creature bleeding out from a dozen coordinated wounds, close enough to finish it that Lucas could already feel the fight tipping fully into their favor.
"Let’s end this..."
Eleanor’s blade angling for the throat, Lucas’s fist cocked to drive flame straight into the wound the moment her strike opened it.
Then the Hestia threw its head back and roared.
It wasn’t the sound of a creature dying. It was something else entirely. sharper, louder, a different pitch altogether that carried past the clash of the ongoing battle in a way that made every hair on Lucas’s arms stand on end.
Eleanor’s blade faltered, her eyes narrowing toward the wounded beast.
It roared again... even louder this time and even the others fighting against the other beast stopped and turned...
The first Hestia snapped it’s neck towards Lucas and Eleanor and snarled...
Lucas gritted his teeth as the system window appeared in his view again...
What he saw was, in all honesty, something he had expected but what he hopped wouldn’t turn out true...
"Shit.."
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