Schism

Alexis stepped into the room, sword drawn and gaze fixed upon Seoras.

“That’s what I thought, stumbling upon your handiwork. Did you take a wrong career turn in your aspiration to become an assassin?”

Seoras rolled his eyes in annoyance and raised his bastard sword to point at her with a sneer.

“Come off it, Greyriver. We get payed to kill. That’s what mercenaries do.”

“Simple workers. Children.”
Alexis snapped angrily and raised her own blade.

Seoras just chuckled darkly.

“Funnily enough, that kind of jobs happen to be pretty profitable. And despite what your daddy may have told you for bedtime stories, mercs better see to it that they feather their nest swiftly for their happily ever after.”

He stared at her with dark intent, his blade meeting hers.

“And you are not going to ruin this for me, little heroine.”

With that he grabbed his sword handle with both hands and opened the fight with a series of slashes. Alexis focused on deflecting his attacks rather than full on blocking them, being aware how powerful her former leader could swing that sword.
She retaliated promptly, making use of the relative speed of her lighter blade.

They exchanged blows, circling each other, neither quite managing to land a substantial hit upon the other. To Alexis that didn’t come as a surprise, she had been fighting alongside him for a few years now and was well aware of his capabilities. Seoras however seemed to grow rapidly frustrated that she could stand her ground against him.
Maybe he had been a little too sure of his superiority.

They eventually found themselves with crossed blades in the burning corridor leading to the stairs down. It was at that moment that they could hear loud bells sound outside. An alarm. It seemed that the workers had been able to organize themselves by now.
Seoras’s eyes widened in realisation.

“That’s your doing, isn’t it, you bitch?! Your the fucking bane of my existence, is what you are!”
he roared and began to slash at her with renewed vigour.

“But no longer! I’m gonna be finally rid of you!”

Alexis went on the defensive to resist his furious barrage of attacks.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see the lady try and make good use of the distraction to manoeuvre her wounded husband away from the fight and towards the stairs. Alexis stepped backwards, attempting to draw Seoras away from them.

Unfortunately, despite his rage, he noticed what was going on.

His gritted teeth turned into a toothy grin.

“Still trying to protect the innocent, ay? Guess what - you fail.”

He whirled around to the terrified couple and swung down on them.

Alexis screamed
“No!!”
and instinctively reached out with her left arm.

Seoras grinned and changed the direction of his attack, having foreseen that exact reaction, and swung full force at his former companion.

Having left herself in such a vulnerable position, it was all she could do to barely bring her shield between Seoras’s blade and her torso. The angle was more than awkward and the power behind the swing took its toil as well.
Alexis felt her shoulder scream in agony and she was slammed against the corridor wall by the impact, Seoras’s bastard sword partially splitting her shield and biting into her arm in the process.

She was dazed for a second, as Seoras stepped up to her, positioning his blade for the fatal thrust. If course he couldn’t resist to gloat.

“There’s your reality check, girl. Not that you’ll make much of that lesson. This is what all those noble heroics get you.”

He took his sweet time pointing the blade at her heart, knowing her arm was too damaged to muster any kind of last resort defense. Forgetting however her legs were just fine.

“Duly noted.”
She hissed, wrapping her legs around his ankles as she jerked around, tripping the man to the ground.

She had lost grip on her sword when she collided with the wall, but her dagger was still faithfully by her side.

Alexis rolled her aching body onto the mercenary leader before he could recover from his surprise and brought the dagger to his throat.

“So how is smug arrogance treating you?”
she hissed into his face as he struggled to push her away by her wrist.

Any response he might have given however was lost as both of them heard an ominous crunch above them. Alexis reacted on instinct alone, throwing herself around and rolling away from Seoras, as he did the same into the opposite direction.
Not a breath too soon as a burning roof beam finally lost its fight against gravity and crashed between them, followed by a whole slew of debris.

Alexis forced herself back to her feet and stared through the impromptu barrier separating her from her opponent.
Seoras stared back, eyes burning with fury that could put the flames to shame.
There was a moment where both considered to push that beam away somehow, to bring this conflict to an end.

But then Alexis heard the panicked voice of the lady behind her, and priorities shifted. Still staring at Seoras she put her left hand to the wall and pushed exchanging a moment of blinding pain for relief as her shoulder slid back into its socket. Then she stepped back, shortly bending down to retrieve her sword that in a stroke of luck had found its way on the same side she had ended up on.

“Enjoy your golden future, Seoras.”
she said flatly, watching as he as well stepped away from the burning debris.

“This world is gonna eat you alive, Greyriver.“
he snarled before he turned to find his own way out of the inferno.