It took 20 minutes for Emmett to recover, but once he did, he went over to the training grounds and slowly began to flatten it. It took a while for him to fully flatten it.
While Emmett was fixing the training grounds, his dad showed up with his group of six guards. Half of them were covered in sweat while the others looked hungry. His dad was the only one who was completely fine.
He turned to his group and told them all to take a few minutes to relax before making his way to the main four at the training grounds.
He walked up to them and said, "Morning everyone. I see you guys are having fun; seeing as there were two decently sized explosions."
Ellie, Emmett, and Ian all said, "Morning Dad," while Kevin said, "Mornin' Mr. Crest, how's it goin'?"
"I'm doing good. So, how's the sparring going?"
Kevin replies, "It's going fine, we had a close match but in the end, I came out on top."
"It must have been really close since there were two large explosions."
"Ya, Emmett really did surprise me
"Well, it looks like he's almost done fixing the terrain so I'll leave you guys to it. We're going to go patrol around now so you kids enjoy yourselves."
Ian's dad left the four and gathered his group to patrol the town.
By this time Emmett had finished fixing the training grounds and was walking towards the others.
"Okay guys, I'm done. Ian, Ellie, it's your turn now." Emmett said as he waved the others over.
Ian still wasn't too sure about the fight so he said, "I know that Ellie and I are supposed to use our base power, but that still seems unfair. My base is at 31 and her's is at 20."
Kevin was going to say something but Ellie cut him off and said, "Don't worry about me. This will be a great learning experience for me since I don't know what it's like to fight someone stronger than me."
afterwards, Ellie threw a wooden sword towards Ian.
"What's this for? I don't use sword skills." Ian said, confused about what was going on.
"Well, it's the only kind of weapon I brought so deal with it. Plus I don't want you to be disarmed in this fight. I want as fair of a fight as possible." Ellie said while swinging her wooden sword around to warm up.
Ian looked at the sword for a few moments trying to figure out how to use it when he suddenly got an idea. He placed the tip of the sword on the ground while still holding onto the handle. Then, with as much force as he could, he kicked the sword, splitting it in half.
Ellie, Emmett, and Kevin looked at him with shock. They didn't expect him to break the sword, but no one was as surprised as Ellie was. Not only was she surprised, but she was also infuriated.
Ellie had three different wooden swords that were given to her by her father and the one that Ian had just broken was the second one she got.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! THAT'S ONE OF MY PERSONAL SWORDS!" Ellie yelled at Ian while running up to him.
Ian was surprised by this, he thought that the sword was one of the ones his dad had stored since he has many of them. But now hearing this, Ian said, "Oh crap. Why didn't you say anything? I would have used something else instead of your sword."
Ellie was furious and was about to scream at him some more, but instead, she took a long breath before calmly saying, "You know what, I'm not even going to bother yelling at you, instead I'm going to go all out and show no mercy."
Ian knew he had royally messed up but did not try to argue, he just followed Ellie's lead and walked to the battlefield. He was still holding onto the broken sword which was now the size of a knife.
Ellie had a very calm yet serious look on her face as she gripped her sword tightly. This worried Ian, but not as much as how the fight would turn out since there was a large power gap.
Ellie took a strong stance with her legs spread apart and held her sword with two hands in front of her. She was fully focused on Ian, not wanting to give him any chance to surprise her.
Ian took a completely different stance, he crouched down extremely low as if he was getting ready to pounce on his prey. He had his left hand stretched out in front of him to defend, while his other hand was close to his side with the broken sword ready to strike. His face still looked worried but after a while he got serious.
The two of them were staring at each other waiting for the other to make a move. A few minutes went by and neither of them moved an inch.
Ian stood absolutely still. His breathing was calm and without a hiccup. His eyes too did not move from their stare on Ellie, and even though he had his left arm stretched out he still wasn't tired.
On the other hand, Ellie looked as if she was starting to lose patients. Her face went from being serious to slightly annoyed. Her breathing started to get deeper. Looking carefully she seemed to be getting a bit tired of holding the sword up straight but she still did not move, not wanting to give Ian a hint of weakness.
Emmett was getting bored of watching this staring contest but Kevin still watched them intensely. He could tell that Ellie was getting tired and impatient. However, he wasn't sure what Ian was thinking. He had never truly seen Ian fight, he had only seen him hunt a few times and those fights would end extremely quickly.
As time went by neither of them made a move. Ian was like a statue while Ellie was struggling. She couldn't keep the sword up for much longer but still maintained her stance. The only way to tell that she was having a hard time was by the sweat that was dripping from her face.
While Ellie was on the verge of giving up, Ian kept watching her. He knew that it was only a matter of time before she slipped up and so he waited.
He was great at ambushing since it was his main form of hunting. He could wait for hours before making a move on his target. And he knew that Ellie would slip at any moment now.
Suddenly it happened. Ellie could barely keep her stance any longer so the moment her hands twitched was the moment Ian started running towards her.
This was all Ian needed to make a move. Ellie had shown him a sign of weakness and he was going to use it to his advantage. He rushed her from a low angle with his broken sword ready to strike.
Ellie knew that this was bound to happen so she prepared for it. She swung her sword down to prevent Ian from hitting her, hoping that he would try to dodge that attack instead. She timed it just right so the sword would hit him if he didn't move.
But Ian did not step aside. Instead, he swung his broken sword up to block the attack.
The two weapons collided and stayed together. Ellie and Ian were pushing against each other trying to knock the other away. They stayed like that for a while, Ellie struggled to keep Ian in place but Ian had no trouble at all.
Ellie used as much of her power as she could to push the sword down but Ian showed no sign of budging.
Ian got tired of the stalemate and used a bit more force to push Ellie back. While Ellie was stunned, Ian moved forward to strike.
Ellie, however, knew this would happen and used the force from Ian's knockback to swiftly swing her sword back at Ian.
Ian wasn't going to be able to land a hit without getting hit so he moved out of the way.
Still using the momentum of the first swing, Ellie kept throwing multiple strikes at Ian. There was little delay between each slash to where when she swung down, Ellie could easily turn the sword around to slash upward. The slashes looked more like one continuous attack that would not end until it hit its target.
However, Ian was able to dodge each strike with little effort. While Ellie started to sweat and show signs of fatigue, Ian showed no sign of getting tired. Even if Ian was able to dodge Ellie's attacks, he was still getting slowly pushed back.
Ian was trying to look for an opening that would give him the highest chance of landing a hit, but It didn't take long for that to happen. As soon as he saw one he moved to the side to strike.
Just as he was about to land a hit, Ellie moved out of the way using the momentum of her sword to launch herself.
Ian knew that Ellie was smart when it came to combat. She would not allow herself to get hit so easily.
Ellie got frustrated with her inability to land a hit and decided to use a sword skill that her dad taught her. She ran towards Ian, ready to strike him from above.
Once she was in front of him, she swung her sword at him, but Ian was prepared. He moved his broken sword up to block the attack but was surprised a second later.
Before Ellie's sword collided with Ian's, it took a sharp turn and was now coming at Ian from his side.
Ian did not expect this and quickly moved his weapon to block the attack. As soon as he blocked the attack, Ellie moved to attack again with the same skill.
When Ian tried to block the incoming strike, the sword would quickly move out of the way to attack from a different angle. Even so, Ian was still able to block every attack.
Ellie continued her flurry of attacks using the same sword skill, hoping that one would land. Though none of her attacks met its mark, she was still slowly pushing Ian back. However, if none of her attacks landed soon then she would get tired very fast.
While Ian was blocking every attack, he once again was looking for an opening to strike. It was a bit more difficult since he had to make sure that he could follow Ellie's sword to block it. It did take a while longer to find an opening, but once it appeared, he quickly acted.
He was about to throw a strike at Ellie when he felt that something was wrong. He quickly changed his plan and not only blocked Ellie's attack but also pushed her away. As soon as he did that, he turned to his left and put up his arm to block an incoming punch.
The one who threw the punch, however, was Kevin. This surprised not only Ian but Ellie and Emmett as well. None of them expected Kevin to attack Ian out of nowhere.
When Kevin's punch was blocked, he moved back and gave Ian an angry stare before saying, "You liar."