The girl isn't an amateur, Eliot will say that much - but she's not a full pro, either. There's this sheen of professional boredom that she lacks, somehow. So he gives her the courtesy of his all, flurry of punches and kicks and sweeps, and she matches them, move for move. They grin at each other, bloody unrepentant, and in the end Eliot doesn't pull the last punch, but doesn't follow up on it, either.

They end up laying on the floor companionably, after, sharing a smoke and maybe gearing up for round two, and Eliot says, "Do you have a name, stranger? Haven't seen you in the game yet."

"Jenny," she says, and he nods and tastes the name, pins it down to remember.

"Why do you need this thing, anyway? Ugly monkey, shitty owners."

"To save the world."

Eliot laughs. She plucks the cigarette out of his hand, and when she exhales, he turns over to catch the smoke with his lips.

When he wakes up, after, and she's gone with the artifact, he doesn't follow. It ends up badly for him, with a dungeon and a torture cell and several months of time lost, but for some reason he's never found it in himself to be bitter about it.

After all, the world continues to turn; whatever she needed it for, it must've worked.