A weird voice test

[extraseconds]

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-First Attempt-

[Ekko wants something from you, but he's just some punk kid with some kind of glowing bat, and you are some kind of amazing badass. There's no way he's gonna come out on top here.

Looks like he's gonna try anyways.]

Come on, let's see what you've got!

-Second Attempt-

[A brief sensation of deja vu, that fades as quickly as it appears. Ekko wants something from you, but he's just some punk kid with some kind of glowing bat, and you are some kind of amazing badass. There's no way he's gonna come out on top here.

Looks like he's gonna try anyways.]

Okayyyy...Take two.

-Fourteenth Attempt-

[A brief sensation of deja vu, that fades as quickly as it appears. Ekko wants something from you, but he's just some punk kid with some kind of glowing bat, and you are some kind of amazing badass. There's no way he's gonna come out on top here. Especially with how beat up he looks.

Looks like he's gonna try anyways.]

Gotta get it right sooner or later!

Comments

1st

[24points]

Oh? Very well then, come at me however you'd like.

[extraseconds]

[Z-Drive Activate! Anchor point secure.

Ekko charges Sakuya with a straight forwards charge and horizontal swing of the bat at the side of her head. Also yelling. So much yelling. If you didn't know better, you'd almost think he was TRYING to start with an obvious attack just to see what she'd do.]

[24points]

[What she does is instantaneously disappear from sight, a fraction of a second before several knives fly straight at Ekko's back.]

[extraseconds]

Where-

[And then the knives hit. Not anywhere immediately fatal, but this kid isn't going anywhere other than to a heap on the ground. THAT didn't go very well. Ekko held on to consciousness for a few more seconds, looking around blearily.]

How'd you...

[24points]

[Sakuya shrugs.]

Maybe I'm just too fast?

[extraseconds]

Fast one help you next time.

[As a last desperate action, Ekko reached out and flicked a switch on the back of his right hand.

Everything stopp-]

2nd

[24points]

Oh? Very well then, come at me however you'd like.

[extraseconds]

Hmmm...

[-ed. Ekko winced, shifting under the phantom pain of the knife wounds that weren't there anymore. He charged again, this time waiting for her to vanish and then immediately rolling to the left and spinning around to switch directions.]

[24points]

[Ekko was rewarded with the sound of several knives embedding harmlessly in a wall. Wow, she throws those things hard.]

Hmm, your instincts are good.

[extraseconds]

Your moves are good. Just...not good enough.

[He knows she throws those things hard. He really, really knows. As truly and intimately as it is possible for a human being to know how hard someone threw a knife at them.

Ekko closed in, but he had a feeling that "run and hit" wasn't going to be enough for Sakuya.]

Prose format is starting to make more sense for this

[24points]

Sakuya actually physically dodged a few hits - whatever she was doing, apparently she couldn't do it all the time. Then again, it wasn't her only trick, either.

As she backpedaled out of reach of Ekko's swings, a spiraling stream of knives drifted out into a ring around her (where were all those things coming from), before snapping around to fly towards him in a steady stream of high-speed murder.

[extraseconds]

"Where do you even keep all of those!?"

But Ekko was not a one trick pony either. As the knives spiraled and prepared to strike, he whipped a gizmo off his belt and tossed it into the air between them. It's arc through the air wound to almost a halt as time slowed to a crawl in a bubble around it. A bubble that conviently was between him and Sakuya's knife barrage, giving him an extra second to dodge and circle around to get at her directly again.

[24points]

It's a trade secret.

Sakuya shrugs, and flickers strangely for a moment. This time, she doesn't disappear, but that's because she wants something for Ekko to keep his eyes on as about a hundred knives descend from directly above him.

[extraseconds]

He ALMOST dodged this one. A chance reflection of light gave it away, but it was just too many knives to dodge fully, and the timewinder was still overheated. Ekko took a nasty cut on the arm and dropped the bat in pain.

"Hrgh...Knives appearing out of thin air from anywhere? That is amazingly unfair."

[24points]

"Well, I get paid to succeed, not to be reasonable about it." As far as she was concerned, the fight was over now. "This is going to be quite the hassle to clean up..."

[extraseconds]

He awkwardly reached over with his good arm to turn the switch again, saying "I wouldn't worry about the mess quite yet."

And once more-

14th

[24points]

Oh? Very well then, come at...

...Did something happen just now?

[extraseconds]

No banter this time. It's starting to hurt to breath. Ekko immediately charges, while palming the timewinder to chuck it behind him at the right moment. It's hard fighting someone who can stop time, after all (he figured out what she was doing on the eighth attempt.), because if he reacted before she stopped, she could see he was wise to her and do something other than what she was supposed to. It was an intricate dance, where if he missed a step he got filled with knives

[24points]

So far, the dance continues as planned. At the moment of Ekko's first charge, she appears behind him, almost immediately being greeted with the sight of the thrown timewinder as she throws her knife.

[extraseconds]

Perfect! That should buy him the time he needed to get right in her face by jumping OVER the slow-time field and bringing the bat down on her head. If he made it, that might knock her out (though he'd never managed to get it THAT fast), but if he didn't it wasn't like he didn't know what she was going to do next.

Which was:

[24points]

Which was to draw a pair of longer knives and meet Ekko in melee. In a short-range battle, Sakuya was at a disadvantage (particularly after 13 past bouts she didn't remember), but she only needed to keep his bat at bay long enough for the four knives she threw a split second ago to ricochet around the edges of the hall and fly at Ekko from the sides.