Max's allies continued their fight and, with their high skill, they were able to do rather well even if they were outnumbered.
They moved like a single organism at times , a ring of shoulders and elbows and feet , each person aware of the other's breathing, of the small shifts that said where an opening might appear. The group had naturally formed a circle of sorts, where they were able to cover each other's backs in a fight. It looked messy to anyone not part of it, but there was a rhythm underneath the chaos. They had practiced this kind of movement before, in other places, for other reasons; it showed now in the way they flowed.
It wasn't their first time fighting with each other, and on top of that everyone appeared to have been training in their own way. Small habits surfaced: the tilt of an elbow, the way a shoulder rose and fell, the quick breath before a strike. Even the pauses carried meaning , seconds taken to reset, to notice, to plan.
