Echo vs En(nautics’ version)
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The day of their battle had finally arrived. The organizers, despite their messy management, had made it a point of not letting contestants know who they were going up against. Done in the name of fair matches, it had caused nothing but headache to Helaina, who hated leaving things up to chance. And it was for that reason that –

“Do you remember what we talked about, Ena?”

“Yes.”

“Your opponent is Kayen, an ex-soldier turned mercenary. He’s large and heavy, built like a bull. He wears magically enhanced heavy armor like he’s still stuck in the medieval era. The weight slows him down, but it also lets him tank even explosives.

“You’ll be fighting in a rolling desert terrain just outside an abandoned mine. I’ve set up magic traps in advance. Your job is to lure him into them and finish him off once he’s been sufficiently weakened. Don’t engage in direct combat if you can avoid it. And when the time comes, don’t show mercy either. One strike, aim to kill.”

“Understood.”

It was a plan they had gone over countless times, fine tweaking it with every new bit of information they obtained.

“I went to great lengths to obtain this information,” she said, remembering the hours and money it cost her to squeeze even the smallest bit of information. “For people holding a death tournament, they sure are rather moral.”

The local warlords hosting the matches had refused to give up any information. Rather, it was their men and even some less loyal members of Nova Ordo who could be bribed to talk. A lot of information was outright lies or contradicted information others had given. To that end, it was hardly reliable.

“I’ll be going on ahead. Someone should be here to pick you up and take you to the mines short after. Be ready.”

En nodded in agreement, her face almost expressionless. Despite that, nerves and anticipation fought one another within her.

“We’ll meet after the fight. See you at the winner’s circle,” said Helaina, jokingly. Despite that, the thought of En losing never crossed her mind. And with those words, she took her leave, being carted off to the arena beforehand.

 

 

En’s ride came shortly after. She got in, ignoring the driver when he greeted her. Mentally, she had entered battle mode. While keenly aware of her surroundings, she was too focused to bother with formalities.

They made their way out of the city, riding deep into the desolate desert. The arid heat suffocated any potential small talk, as the driver was too busy trying not to dehydrate. After what felt like the longest hour, they began to approach a vegetated patch of land. It was an oasis, out in the distance.

En felt confused, as the terrain didn’t match the description Helaina gave. As they approached closer and eventually entered the oasis, her concerns grew considerably. But before she could begin to panic, the ride had come to a stop.

“We’re here.”

“Here?”

“That’s right. That construction site right over there.”

“Are you sure?” she asked worryingly, “I was supposed to be fighting Kayen outside an abandoned mine.”

“You’re that N kid, right?”

“I am.”

“I don’t know nothing about who you’re fighting, but this the place. Least that’s what they told me.”

She got off and entered the construction site reluctantly, her mind in high alert. It was a large tower, still in mid-construction, machinery and construction equipment littered the lot, as scaffolding crawled up the walls of the tower.

En circled around the outside of the building, but after finding no sign of life, shy of a few stray cats, she decided to make her way inside.

She entered through what seemed to be the back. Though at this stage of development, it was hard to tell. She entered into a large, open room with a high ceiling, either a lobby of sorts or just a part of the building that had yet to be sectioned up.

Upon further inspection, a lot of the interior seemed to look like that. The building was still much in a skeletal phase. Despite that, En thought to herself that it wasn’t a bad place to have a fight. A lot of open space to run around in, decent cover and places to hide behind, and multiple, exposed floors for a more fluid fight.

Just as En was taking it all in, a loud bang was heard, its echoes resounding through the building. It was too late by the time she heard the sound.

Her body fell limp.

A pool began to form under her. The cloak she wore to disguise herself began soaking up the liquid, dying itself red.

The building had fallen silent, save for the distant noises of the city. Until a figure began to make their way toward the limp body. They wore a red and grey uniform, styled in a vaguely military fashion. A cocked hat rested on their head and two straps crossed at their chest with bags sitting on either side.

Strapped to their side was a revolver and in their hands they held a rifle, still smelling of burned powder.

Their purple eyes looked down at the body.

“Confirmation – the target has been eliminated.”

As they turned to leave, the sound of someone shifting around was heard. A blade cut at the air. They spun back quickly, blocking the weapon with their rifle. But the polearm slid under the gun, slashing them across the chest.

The polearm knocked the rifle out of their hands as it slashed across them. It fell to the ground as they stumbled backward. Its tip had cut through their clothes, but somehow failed to draw any blood.

“No blood, huh? What exactly are you?”

It was En, back on her feet. Only blood was left to mark where the bullet had pierced through.

In response, they took the revolver from their side and fired at her. The impact knocked En back, but she remained on her feet. The blood around the gash the shot had created began bubbling, as the bullet began to get pushed out from the wound. The skin began to close itself, leaving only a bloody hole through her clothes.

They began firing off their remaining bullets. En dashed off, taking cover behind a concrete column. She had counted off the bullets as they were fired. Five shots, adding the one that hit her. On a standard 6-chamber revolver, she only had a single bullet left before she had to reload. Unless of course, her specific gun had more chambers.

En peaked through her cover, only to be met with a bullet fired her way. The figure had not made an attempt to pick their rifle back up, nor to get to cover.

They must have figured she didn’t have a gun, En thought to herself, so they didn’t care to get to cover. And they knew if they crouched down to pick up the rifle, she would use the opportunity to attack. En was waiting for them to either reload or go for the rifle, so they were right to be wary.

“Six,” she thought to herself, “I guess that revolver holds more bullets than I thought." En gripped her polearm tightly. “I need to find a way to bait the rest of the bullets. But I really would rather not get shot again.”

En ran back into their line of sight. A bullet was fired her way instantly, but it shifted trajectory right before it left the barrel. The hesitation of the shooter causing it to go off course.

In her hand, En held a gun of her own. Noticing this, they stepped back, finding cover behind a pallet of pipes. Using this opportunity, En advanced toward the rifle on the ground, kicking it toward her cover. The gun’s sight never left its target, even as En stepped back into cover.

The gun melted into a metallic goo, before shifting itself back into a polearm. It was nothing more than a bluff. En had shifted the shape of her weapon to resemble a gun, but it wasn’t functional, nor did she have any bullets.

When she laid on the ground, regenerating after first getting shot, she had used the opportunity to boost her defense considerably. It was what allowed her to remain standing after being shot by the revolver.

Before going out of cover, she had further boasted her defense as well as her speed and reaction time. The bluff relied on tricking her opponent into thinking she was armed, but she had taken measures to ensure she could avoid getting shot again. Or, at the very least, minimize the damage she took from the bullets.

By now, her opponent must have reloaded their revolver. She now had their rifle, unfortunately, it needed to be reloaded after every shot. If she couldn’t get more bullets, it was as good as useless. The rest of the bullets were in that bag on their side. If she could just get close enough to snatch it, she thought.   

“It’s time.”

Her eyes began to glow. She felt a slight burn in her chest, followed by her body weakening. She had begun to initialize a spell, even with the buffs she had applied, it would dampen her abilities while it was activating.

With only a single bullet for her rifle, she didn’t exactly feel confident. But with the fight looking as though it would be drawn out, she needed to start now.

“10 minutes.”

She popped out of cover, rifle in hand, only for a bullet to rip straight through her. It made contact with her upper right chest, tearing through her ribs and lung, and exiting through the mid-center of her back. Miraculously, it missed her heart, though that was clearly the bullet’s target.

She fell to the ground in excruciating pain, as the bullet continued past her, ripping through a concrete column as if it were paper. It took everything in her not to break concentration. Everything, not to break the spell.

She heard the distant sound of the revolver spinning. She waved her hand in the general direction, sending a trail of ice its way. It was a weak magic attack, but all she could muster at the time.

Her magic was met with burning flames, hot enough to scorch the ice. The fire continued to burst forward in a chaotic manner, stretching as far as 40 meters. It was like napalm, sticking to the surface it touched and burning intensely.

She knew she had to get out of there or she would die. Gathering her polearm and the rifle, she made for a nearby stair set.

 

 

She hid behind some pallets of construction material, up on the third floor, trying to regain herself. Both her clothes and skin were charred. Blood poured out from her wound, taking longer to heal than usual. It had left behind a red trail her opponent must be following right now.

She thought about the bullet from earlier. The way it ripped straight through her, the way it ripped through the concrete column. That was no normal bullet. And the flames as well…

Magic, she thought to herself, her opponent must be using magic. She had failed to consider they could. That lapse in judgement almost got her killed.

“8 minutes.”

All it would take was one more of those magic bullets ripping through her cover to kill her. The wound had healed, but her stamina was running low. She felt she couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

She could hear them making their way up the stairs. She crawled toward better cover, somewhere where she could have perfect aim at them as they came up the stairs. She laid flat on the ground, finger on the trigger, waiting for the right chance.

The second their head popped up, she pulled the trigger. With incredible reaction speed, they managed to avoid it. She cursed her luck before retreating behind a column, as her shot was met by two from her opponent.

They flew past her, hitting the scaffolding in the distance and causing part of it to collapse. En used the noise to break for it. She made her way toward the other side of the building. There was a makeshift ladder there, built from interconnected two-by-fours. She got halfway there before the noise died down.

They notice her and shot another bullet her way. The bullet cut through all the construction material in its way, not being bent off course as it tore through metal beams. It ripped through the floor next to her, only a few centimeters away. Out of bullets, all En could do was keep moving forward.

Their next shot was a normal bullet, as if they were alternating between normal and magically enhanced bullets. They must have a limited amount of special bullets, she thought, but decided it’d be best to assume all their bullets had the potential to shoot through her cover.

She bear crawled toward the ladder, trying to remain as low as possible. They popped two bullets in her direction, both barely missing. She continued moving forward, focusing on covering the distance as fast as possible.

When she got to the ladder, she realized it was placed over the elevator shaft, diagonally, from one floor to the other. This pattern followed on all the floors, in a zigzag manner, from the basement floors up to the top floor.

Rather than wasting time climbing it, she jumped up, grabbing the ledge of the next floor and hoisting herself up. They ran after her, gun in hand. As they tried to climb the ladder, En sliced at the hinges, causing it to break off. It collapsed, taking her opponent with it. The weight of the ladder caused a domino effect, taking all the ladders under it with it as it collapsed over them, down to the lower floors.

They managed to hang on to the ledge, but the collapsing ladder damaged their body, exposing the metal frame underneath. En’s suspicions were confirmed. Despite their human appearance, they were nothing more than a machine. Merely a tool designed for murder.

Rather than trying to pull themselves up, they grabbed their gun with their damaged hand and shot toward her. Rather than dodging it, she just stood there, tanking the bullet. It tore open her side, but she did not flinch.

Blood began to bubble. Skin began to knot like thread. The wound closed itself back up. As if nothing had ever happened.

She raised a hand up, as a series of icicles began to form over her opponent. As she lowered her hand, the icicles came with it, barring over them. They took them with them.

En waited till she heard a thud, before walking away.

I should make my way to the roof, she thought.

“5 minutes.”

 

 

She was two floors shy of her goal when she smelled it. The smell of flames burning everything in their path. It had quickly begun to engulf the lower floors. And it was creeping up to where she was.

She quickened her pace, realizing exiting from the ground floor was now out of the question. But before she could make it up another floor, a figure appeared from out of the flames.

They shot up toward the stairs she was climbing. It ripped past her, flying all the way up, past the roof. Bits of metal and concrete fell overhead, from the damaged structures. The bullet had just managed to graze her arm and face. It burned, as the skin felt as if it melted to jelly. Her ears rung and her balance wavered, as she stumbled up to the next floor.

Her stamina was low. The buffs she had applied to herself had burned through most of her mana. She decided to remove them, risky as it were. But she was exhausted, as she didn’t have any mana left to spare.

Just a little longer. All she had to do was hold up a little longer.

“3 minutes."

It was impossible to fight from this distance. All she could do was keep moving forward, carrying the dead weight of the rifle, not wanting to leave it behind only for her opponent to get their hands on it. Instead, she made her way to the opposite end of the building, toward another set of stairs.

But this floor was different from the rest. It was almost empty, with very few places to take cover behind. And the ceiling was high, almost twice that of every other floor. Jumping to the next floor, the roof, was impossible. She had no choice but to take the stairs.

She ran as fast as she could, ignoring the exhaustion, her jagged breath, the burning sensation on her legs. Just one more floor, just a few more minutes.

The automaton got to her floor, emerging from the flames. They pointed their revolver at her and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

The revolver spun, but nothing flew out from the barrel. They were out of bullets. They tossed the weapon to the side, instead pulling out two daggers. They were simple in design, yet nonetheless deadly.

“Confirmation – Power Surge Mode activated.”

En turned around, for but just a second –

They were already standing next to her. The daggers dug into her stomach before she even had time to react. They lifted her into the air from the blades.

She reached for their bag, taking a handful of bullets, dropping most of them from her shaking hand. She took the loaded rifle, pushing the barrel against their neck, and shot it at point-blank.

Bits of metal flew up at her.

Even this wasn’t enough to kill the automation. Only enough to get them to toss her off to the side.

The strength she was tossed at was incredible. It was unlike anything En had ever experienced. She was sent flying partway across the building. She spun in air, managing to catch herself and land somewhat gracefully.

She drew the gun back up, but they had already reached her before she could load her next shot. Reacting quickly, she switched to her polearm to block the attack. It was like being hit by a bull, the impact of the strike. Whatever it was they had done to themselves, it had boasted their strength threefold.

En tried desperately to block the attacks, each hitting with more force than the last. It felt like her knees would buckle under the weight of the impact. And eventually, they did.

She was overpowered and pushed to the ground. She tried reaching for the gun, only to have her hand crushed by their foot. She took her other hand and grabbed the polearm. Quickly shifting its shape, she turned it into a double-bladed scythe.

Spinning it, she tore up the armored frame of the automation, revealing their metallic skeleton and the crystal which powered them.

She spun away, doing a kick up to get back on her feet. As her opponent staggered, she shifted the weapon once more into a claymore. If that was their core, she thought, she would destroy it in the next swing. Her crushed hand now healed, she readied the next attack.

As she thrust forward to end the fight, the automaton lifted their right arm. From it spat a fierce ember. A flamethrower powered by a fire crystal. En instantly burst into flames.

It took everything, everything not to scream, everything not to break the spell.

She threw herself on the floor, spinning in hopes of putting out the flames. But they were persistent and continued to burn in spite her efforts. She writhed around in pain, holding back deathly cries, as she tried to freeze the flames away.

“Just one more minute. Just one more minute.”

They approached her. The rifle had been strapped and the daggers put away, as if they had already won the fight.

They stood over her, those purple eyes looming down on her.

“Question – are you dead?”

The slight shift in her eyes was enough of an answer.

“Inquiry – you are going to die, does that make you sad?”

She neither moved nor responded, too weak to do anything but move her eyes. She felt her life leaving her. She couldn’t even hear the questions anymore. All she could hear was a drowned mechanical sound.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Question – why do your eyes glow?”

Nothing. Even her eyes had shut.

“Statement – you have failed to answer my questions. I will now proceed to kill you as ordered.”

“…ordered…” she muttered faintly, “You really were… just following orders… huh…”

“Response – as part of the tournament, I was ordered to kill you by my organization.”

“No will of your own… you’re just a dog for your organization.”

“Correction – I am no dog. I am an automated machine.”

“That’s right, just a tool.”

“Response – I am an automaton. I am a weapon.”

They picked En up from her head, applying enough pressure not to crack it. They lifted her up until their eyes met.

“Inquiry – why do you fight?”

“It was an order from my master.” She chuckled to herself, finding the irony painfully comedic.

“Confirmation – you were ordered by your master.” They looked at her with those lifeless purple eyes. “It seems we are not so different.”

“Not so… different?” Her face shifted. Hatred began to seep in. The mere thought that they were the same. “You’re wrong. I’m nothing like you. You’re just a tool. You have no emotions, no will of your own. You exist for someone else’s will. You’re just a collection of gears and metal. You’re no different than a puppet, no different than any other machine.” Her eyes filled with newfound determination. “You’re just, you’re just… You’re not human.”

“Correction – we are both disposable tools for our masters.”

She did not reply. Nor try to attack. Her face fell stone cold. Expressionless. Her body went limp.

Time.

“Imperfect Image.”

The claymore that had been laying on the floor liquified. From the pool, a great chain shot up into the air. It ripped past the roof, into the sky. En’s body also began to liquify, as it melted into the chain.

The chain began to darken, starting from the base and traveling upward. From its tip emerged a red liquid, as if the chain was bleeding. It flowed like thick water, expanding and shifting. As it solidified, it took on the shape of a great lance. Blood red.

The building shook violently, as the roof began to collapse. It was like a powerful earthquake, shaking everything in its proximity. The scaffolding began to give way. Even the tower crane began groaning, as it leaned back and forth, liable to fall at any moment.

Whether it was the forsaken lance or the building crumbling around them, either was fated to kill the automaton. They made their way to the stairs, hoping to escape. But as the lance barred down, its trajectory followed wherever they went. Like a homing missile, or perhaps something more cursed.

The building began to collapse, as the lance split it in two.

Metal. Concrete. Glass. Wood.

Metal. Gears. Limbs. Synthetic material.

Blood.

In the end, all that was left was a clearing, surrounded by fire and a partially collapsed building. Gears and bits of metal rained down. That was all that was left.

A lone girl stood in the midst of it. Holding a sword, with hands bloody from gripping the blade. A hood concealed their miserable face. The destruction concealed any sound. 

 

Ah, feels good to finally be posting two chapters for the day again.

Well, this was surprisingly emotional and social for a battle between two child soldiers. Don't cha think? Anyways, as you can tell, both authors decided that the battle would only have one conclusion, albeit different means. En would win. 

So rather than asking you all whom shall be victorious, we will instead ask you: how will Echo meet their demise? Will it be through an explosive finale? Or a complete collapse of their inner mechanisms?

 

Which version shall be declared canon?
  • Kraken1's version(En wins)
  • nautics' version(En wins 2: En harder)
Total voters: 1 · This poll was closed on Apr 21, 2022 04:25 PM.
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