The fight between the oni and the skateboarder started when Ori threw the first punch which Thomas was able to barely dodge.

 

“Huh, you’re faster than I thought!” Ori said with a smile as she continued to fight.

 

“Well, a skateboarder needs to have some pretty good reflexes if they don’t want to crash.” Thomas says as he continues to dodge the onslaught of punches.

 

“Okay, I guess that tracks.” Ori says as she takes a step back from the fight to catch her breath. “But if you want to beat me you can’t just dodge forever. You’re going to have to fight back eventually.”

 

Thomas used this short break from the fight to think. He knew she was right and that he had to fight back eventually if he wanted to win, but he also knew that he couldn’t beat someone as strong as Ori in a standard fight.

 

‘I can try to use my powers against her again, but I’m not sure if she’d fall for the same trick again.’ Thomas thought to himself. ‘I need to think of a different way to fight with my powers.’

 

“Hey! Are you just gonna stand there or are we gonna continue our fight?” Ori asks as she stretches her arms before reassuming her combative stance. “I’m getting bored over here!”

 

‘I think that might actually work.’ Thomas thinks to himself as he finally comes up with a way to fight back.

 

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Thomas responds as he approaches his opponent.

 

Ori dashes towards Thomas and tries to throw another punch, but Thomas dodges again with a speed boost arrow under his own feet.

 

The oni girl looks down and notices an entire trail of speed boost arrows on the ground, but she is quickly distracted when Thomas dashes forwards and punches her in the face.

 

Ori slides backwards from the punch, but is able to steady herself. She then notices that the attack gave her a nosebleed.

 

“Oh, I see what you’re doing. Clever boy.” Ori says as she uses her thumb to quickly wipe some of the blood off her face. “But let’s see if your speed can outmatch my strength!”

 

Thomas was using the speed boost arrows to bob and weave like a boxer as they quickly sent him forwards and backwards and left to right faster than Ori could keep up with. He was also placing speed boost arrows in midair in the path of his fists to further increase the speed of his punches.

 

Now Ori was on the backfoot of the fight as Thomas continued to duck, dodge, bob, weave, and punch faster than the oni could keep up with.

 

She was still able to block and dodge some of these attacks, but as the fight dragged on his punches were landing with a higher frequency than before.

 

After Ori blocked another punch she leapt backwards to catch her breath again.

 

“...I don’t understand…You looked so scared before…Where did this power come from?” The demon girl asks as she wiped sweat from her brow.

 

“...Oh…To be completely honest I came up with this strategy on the spot…” Thomas says as he points his hand towards the floor as an entire row of speed boost arrows appear in the path between himself and the oni. “...When you feel like your back is constantly pressed against the wall you need to think on your feet to survive…It’s true that I was afraid of fighting you at first, but that was mainly because I didn’t know what you were capable of yet…Now that I know that you can’t hit what you can’t I’m not afraid of you anymore…”

 

Thomas steps on the first arrow in front of him and quickly dashes towards Ori.

 

“Let’s finish this!” Ori shouts as she lifts her leg into the air and slams her foot back into the ground and winds up her fist.

 

As Thomas reaches Ori the clash of their fists sends a shockwave of energy around them.

 

For a time the power of their punches seemed to be even, but to make sure that he won Thomas summoned more arrows in the same space as his fist.

 

The speed of Thomas’ fist eventually overtook Ori’s strength. As the oni’s fist was sent flying back towards her side the fist of the skateboarder quickly collided with her face and sent her flying back towards the same wall that she flew into earlier. She slammed into the wall with a strong enough force to break through it and send her outside until she collided with a tree which finally knocked her out cold.

 

“...Oh…I won…” Thomas said to himself in disbelief as he stared down at his bruised hand. “...I can’t believe I did that…”

 

Juanita noticed the outcome of this fight as she continued to hold her own against Noir.

 

‘Maybe we can turn this around?’ She thought to herself.

 

Noir broke free from a half dozen more of her copies and slashed them into non-existence.

 

“Never look away from your opponent in a fight!” Noir shouts as he uses a claw to stab through what he thought was the last of Juanita’s active copies. She slides down the claw and spits up a mouthful of blood before despawning.

 

“Unless you have a death wish, which wouldn’t surprise me. Not many heroes fight me and live to tell the tale!” Noir taunts as a psychotic grin appears on his face.

 

“You know what, that’s a good point!” Juanita says with a smirk of her own. “Maybe you should heed your own advice!”

 

“What does that mean?” Noir asks as he cocks his head to the side.

 

Juanita’s final active copy wrapped an arm around Noir’s neck before she stabbed him in the neck with a pen.

 

“Fuck!” The former prisoner shouts as he flips the copy over his shoulder. “I’ll make you pay for that!”

 

Instead of simply slashing this copy like he did with all the others, he decided to destroy her in a way that was far more creative and far more graphic.

 

Using a few tendrils made of blood, he lifts her off the ground and starts using another stream of blood to create a floating sphere of dark red liquid around her head. She flailed and writhed until the blood eventually drowned her. She then despawned just like the rest of the clones as Noir let the blood splatter against the ground.

 

Even though Juanita didn’t receive any direct damage from this it was still hard to watch.

 

“That was sick.” Juanita said as she stared Noir down.

 

“I’m aware!” Noir responded with a laugh. “There’s no fun in killing if you don’t get to enjoy the suffering!”

 

“I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising coming from an edgelord.” Juanita says as she snaps and creates even more copies.

 

“This is so much fun! Thank you for indulging me, Miss hero!” Noir says with as he continues to laugh.

 

Joan flies behind Pat and kicks him in the back. This attack topples him forwards and into the floor.

 

“It seems that you’re only able to defend yourself from the front!” Joan states as she continues to circle above the bearded hero like a vulture looking down at its prey. “You’re making this too easy!”

 

Pat quickly picks himself back up and dusts himself off.

 

“This fight isn’t over yet!” Pat says as he recenters himself. “Stop talking like you already won!”

 

“Sorry mate! You must be having a laugh!” Joan says with a chuckle. “But if you insist I’ll end this quick!”

 

Pat closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as Joan flies down towards him again.

 

She curls up into a ball and spins herself forward to gain momentum, but quickly unfurls and slams down against him with an axe kick.

 

Instead of trying to dodge or block, Pat grabs her leg.

 

“Looks like you spoke too soon!” Pat says with a smirk.

 

“Bloody Hell! Let go of me, you wanker!” Joan shouts as she tries to wriggle out of his grip to no avail.

 

Following Pythia’s plan, Ez grabbed a Chess Company branded combat baton off a nearby weapon rack and also started to hit back the bombs that Piper sent her way.

 

“Even though we aren’t able to use our powers, at least mine isn’t as useless as looking like a raccoon!” Ez banters as she bats another bomb back towards the angry anthropomorphic marsupial.

 

“I’m a possum!” Piper shouts back as she bats away another bomb.

 

“...Alright, I’ll let you go…” Pat says with a sigh.

 

“I knew it! Heroes like you are way too nice!” Joan responds with a snicker. “You’ll never win a fight if you can’t hurt your opponent!”

 

“...You know what…you’re right…” Pat says as he glances up at the bomb that Piper and his partners were playing hot potato with. “...I was trying not to hurt you, but I’ll stop holding back if that’s what you really want…”

 

“Wait, what?” Joan asks as Pat starts to spin around as if he was throwing a discus. When he gains enough momentum he lets her go. She is sent flying into the air and collides with a bomb at the apex of its arc.

 

“...Oh shit…” Joan says to herself as she notices the bomb just finished burning through its fuse.

 

Piper looked up just in time to see her girlfriend collide with the bomb before it exploded.

 

“Joan!” Piper shouts as she runs below the explosion.

 

As her partner falls through the smoke she manages to catch the gargoyle girl in her arms.

 

She falls backwards onto the ground with Joan in her lap as the stone girl unconsciously changes back into her human form.

 

“Fuck! Joan! Are you okay?” Piper asks as tears start to streak down the possums cheeks. She leans down and listens to her chest to make sure she is still breathing.

 

When she detects the slow rise and fall of her chest the possum girl gives a sigh of relief.

 

She looks up towards the three heroes who were responsible for this as she was briefly overtaken by rage, but as she looked down at her unconscious girlfriend the feeling of anger was replaced by one of sadness. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to win a fight against the three of them by herself. She was furious, but she wasn’t stupid enough to join a fight that she knows that she can’t win.

 

“...Fine…You win…” Piper manages to say through her tears as she hugged her girlfriend. “...Just leave us alone…please…”

 

“But she’s the one who started…” Ez began to snap back, but stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

 

She turned to Pythia who briefly shook her head.

 

“...Just take the win…Let’s go…” Pythia said with a soft expression. She briefly locked eyes with Piper before turning towards the door.

 

Pat grabbed Ilma and Fran and threw them over his shoulders as Pythia and Ez opened the doors.

 

Thomas tries his best to run towards the door, but stops in his tracks as a giant cut appears on the ground in front of him as if someone were gliding the scissors while they were cutting paper.

 

“...You may have been able to defeat Ori, but she was the most inexperienced of the lot of us...” Billy Gardner said with a monotone voice as he approached the teen while he slowly spun his two separated scissor blades in his hands. “...Let’s see if you’re really cut out for hero work, kid…”

 

Pythia and Ez look towards Tommy with concern as they open the door for Pat, Fran, and Ilma.

 

“Just go! I’ll find my own way out of here!” Thomas says as he fakes a smile.

 

“...Huh…” Billy says as he leans against one of his scissor blades as he continues to slowly spin the other one. “...I can’t tell if that was brave or stupid…There’s no denying that it was admirable though…anyway, it seems like you’ve made your decision to stay and fight to give your friends time to escape…I wonder how that’ll turn out for you?”

 

Billy runs towards Tommy while holding his scissors in front of himself in an X shape.