VS
Location: Happy Harbour
BRIGHTHEART? Felix couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the wall the Tamaranean had punched a hole through not half an hour ago. Did Black Canary want him dead? Or was this some sort of test to see if he’d learned anything from Green Arrow’s mistake earlier. If that was the case, she was in for a surprise. He took a deep breath and shook out his body. No, he knew better than to think the match would hinge on their respective powers. Aleen’a was still off somewhere so Felix double checked his force field belt and mentally prepared himself.
Aleen’a flew down and joined the team but she was late when Black Canary paired off their teams with one another. She didn’t want to be a bother so she just stayed silent on the sidelines, watching as the battles continued before her. The only chance she got to see people from Earth fight was when the Justice League helped the Tamaraneans fight off the Citadel years ago and she loved how everyone had their own unique and distinct way of fighting. She thought it was an honor to watch her peers battle as well, everyone gave it their all and she was very much inspired by all of them.
During all of that, she kept herself mentally prepared. It was only through this mock battle that she got an idea of everyone’s fighting capabilities. She’s been trained to battle every kind of opponent there was but of course, Earth had its own way of throwing her out of the loop. Everything she thought she knew about Earth just got thrown out of the window.
She looked at her fist, opening and closing it. She could feel power inside her thanks to the bright sun, making her strong enough to punch through a hole on a wall. Will strength ever be enough to face the challenges waiting for her on this planet. Only time could tell. For now, Aleen’a must wait for the last fight to be over so she could finally face her opponent.
Aleen’a was gone longer than he expected and the others had started their sparring… Well, was a magic fight technically sparring? It was as intense as anything he’d seen. Felix had to admit, if he could so deftly summon all the power Zach seemed to have at his disposal, he might be tempted to ignore the martial stuff too. While Black Canary and Ja had their own impressive sparring match, showing off moves Felix ached to try some day, his attention stayed on the magic users. Kass and Zach in all their power were in the middle of their own personal battlefield. It reminded Felix of some of the larger battles between metas he’d had the privilege of witnessing. A shower of fucking rocks. Klizz.
He could almost feel Kass’s satisfaction himself when the Atlantean finally socked Zach in the mouth. He’d be surprised if anyone didn’t. It was short-lived though. Felix hadn’t wanted to see the magician like this. Sure, he was kind of annoying and full of himself. But you just laughed along and teased people like that. At least, that’s how he had learned to handle himself. He watched Zach run off, and took a step towards him. But no. His clone appeared also lunging forward to take off after the boy.
“Wait. No.”The clone stopped in his tracks, likely coming to the same conclusion.
“Shit, we’ll just make him even more mad. Dude doesn’t like me. Besides, I need all the help I can get.” Felix gestured with his head to Aleen’a who had been watching the matches as well from the other side of the sparring grounds. Felix met his clone’s eyes, a hint of a smirk playing across his mouth. No, he couldn’t afford to hold back.
A short time later, Felix approached his opponent.
“Princess! It is my honor to be your sparring partner. I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did.” He bowed slightly, in good humor. Not entirely sincere but by no means mocking the actual royalty standing before him.
“You should know though.” The young man pulled out a small metal box. He opened it, and two small drones shot up and began flitting about, the light glinting off the round lenses in front.
“These are not weapons. Just recording devices to help me review later.”"Zachary…" Aleen'a wanted to follow him but he might take it in the wrong way. She reckoned she must give him some space just like the others did. She sighed, it looked like all of them have their own issues.
She turned to see Felix calling after her and she greeted him with a warm smile as always.
"You are going to be my opponent? How wonderful! I am feeling very much of the excitement towards our battle. Oh and everyone are such excellent fighters! It is an honor to be battling alongside everyone in our future missions, and I am especially honored to be fighting you now as well." Aleen'a said and bowed before him.
She then watched in amazement as Felix opened a box and let out two small flying devices.
"You are taking records of our fight to review it? My, I have never heard of such a process to improve one's fighting prowess. If you may, I also wish to watch our battle in these adorbubble little flying things so I can improve as well." She excitedly said.
"I believe it is now our turn to battle, yes?"Felix nodded. Adorbubble? It had a weirdly nice ring to it.
“Right, let’s go then.” As Aleen’a readied herself, Felix stepped back. He looked down quickly checking that his force field belt was activated and took a deep breath. Two Felixes walked out from behind him as if they had just been hiding there, and where there was once one Felix there were now three. The Felixes took a step back into a fighting stance, and the force fields around them bent the light just slightly, creating the impression of a faint bubble.
“Don’t be goin’ easy on us, Princess,” the three said in unison then charged at her. In a bid to overwhelm her the two on either side split in a pincer move.
Aleen’a jumped back in shock when there were now multiple copies of Felix in front of her. As the Felixes attacked her at once, she yelped and flipped upwards into the air and landed a few feet away from them.
“I have never fought someone with self-duplicating powers before. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, Felix!” She excitedly said as she proceeded to run to the right in a round-about way to make space between the clones. She noticed distorted light surrounding all of them, a force field of some sorts? Either way, she had to determine which of them was the real Felix, it’s really just either one of the three. Stalling and thinking about who the real one among them was was just a waste of time so she decided to attack the middle Felix of the three instead.
“Here I come!” Aleen’a shouted, running at full speed towards that specific Felix.
Gold Rush turned in place to follow Aleen’a’s movements, shuffling back and forth. It wasn’t like them to hold back, preferring to overwhelm their opponent. But she was suited to take them all on so they held back more so than usual. Until she did them the favor of announcing her advance.
It was clear who her target was and the other two Felixes split, while the poor boy at the center of her attention did everything he could to move with the blow. But the princess was quick. Even with warning, he couldn’t dodge or block in time. As her fist connected with his chest, the force field shimmered at the point of contact, cushioning the blow. Felix grunted, still pushed backwards.
“Shit, that hurts…”The other two who had separated came in from the sides and struck with their own punches. “On your left!” the one on her right shouted. They weren’t so coordinated that they could time their attacks perfectly and so the one coming from her right attacked first.
‘They’re too slow.’ Aleen’a thought to herself. The longer she was fighting these clones, the more she realized that they don’t think and act in unison. They took action based on their instincts or probably based on the instincts of the real Felix. She could hear the right one’s footsteps before he even shouted to confuse her. Warrior’s instincts, Aleen’a supposed. She quickly ducked, grabbed the right Felix’s attacking forearm upwards before striking his abdomen with an open palm. She then flipped high backwards again, hitting the middle Felix’s chin with her foot before landing a few feet away from them once more to gain space.
The dumb ploy hadn’t worked, but their real mistake had been to not attack together. Two of the Felixes were quickly punished for it, while the third didn’t even get to act before Aleen’a retreated once more. Felix had taken a kick to the chin and hit the ground, his force field flickered, a sign that Aleen’a’s alien strength was already pushing it to its limits. He quickly got up with another curse. The three whispered among themselves.
“She’s too fast.”
“Or we’re too slow.”
“I might need to tag out soon. Don’t know if I wanna take a hit with no shield.”
“We just need to stop her from moving. Gotta grab her.”
“Much fun as that sounds, not sure if we can pull it off.”One of the Felix’s clicked his tongue a few times. As if counting out a beat.
“We just gotta sync up,” he said in a pause. And the other two picked up the same beat.
---
The "original" Felix sat crouched, watched from the trees. The two drones circling the group of his clones and Aleen’a fed him a video stream as well, but he didn’t need to look too closely to see he was still outmatched. She just kept countering him and jumping away. Of course, this was why two of them had stayed back. They’d stayed back to start firing on her if she tried to fly, but this was the same thing.
“We’re up,” he said to the clone at his side. The two raised both their arms, wrist blasters pointed at the air above Aleen’a. They weren’t close enough to hit her from this distance but the blasts should serve to throw off her jumps if she tried to retreat again.
---
The three Felixes charged at Aleen’a once again. Practiced in keeping rhythm, the three acted in time with the beat they'd agreed on and it showed in their synchronized movements. There would be no effort to strike Aleen’a this time, only to hold her down.
Aleen’a was ready to counter them once again when the three Felixes huddled together and began popping their tongues.
"Is… Is something in your throat? Would you like to drink a warm glass of water?” She called out to them, not wanting to fight someone who was at a disadvantage. She wanted all of her fights to be fair for both parties as much as possible, even though anyone would break the rules in a life-and-death situation anyway.
They continued to do tongue-pops until the three settled on to a rhythm they could play in unison. Aleen’a was very impressed by it but it quickly turned to suspense once all of the Felixes were coming right after her. She still wasn’t used to fighting duplicates of the same people, the whole battle’s making her feel like she’s hallucinating but she tried her best to stay focused. She instinctively flew up to evade them and gain more ground but that was a bad idea. Aleen’a shouted as she felt pain from her back from being shot by the two Felixes hiding in the trees. The pain and shock caused her to lose focus and made her fall back down on the ground. She moaned and squirmed, still trying to think about what happened to her but it was already too late as the three Felixes were already upon her.
As she had done before, Aleen’a tried to retreat once more. The boys had made a more coordinated rush, but even then were not quick enough to reach her before she simply skipped away. That was when the hidden Felixes fired. A blast knocked her back on the ground. The three Felixes dove, acting to keep her pinned. Sure Gold Rush didn’t have a problem with fighting dirty against villains, but this was his team mate. He wasn’t about to hit her when she was down. A submission would do.
Being able to act in time with each other presented some advantages. It also presented some disadvantages. When the two Felixes running ahead both dove at once to tackle Brightheart, aiming to pin her arms down, their own outstretched arms brushed against each other. There was a yellow flash of light that engulfed the two. When the light cleared there was only one Felix to hold the Tamaranean princess. He had his arms wrapped around her legs, attention torn between admiring those legs and figuring out what to do now.
---
Our Felix watched from the trees, stunned that the clone by his side had somehow managed to actually land a shot on Aleen’a. He had only been going for cover fire, so it had to be pure luck that any of their shots had landed. He turned to look at his clone. The Felix shrugged.
“Lucky shot I guess,” he said with a smirk.
There was no time look into it further. He suddenly felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. The telltale yellow flash of light confirmed what he expected. Somebody over there had messed up.
“Chingao, let's go.” He dropped from his tree branch, hitting the ground with a thud and a shimmer of his force field. With the shock absorbed, he was able to hit the ground running. He needed to backup his remaining clone. The footsteps behind him confirmed that this clone was with him as well. Hopefully the other could hold his own for now. Or maybe, however unlikely, they’d already knocked Aleen’a out. He held one arm out just in case, but it was unlikely he would be able to fire again without risking hitting himself.
---
Aleen'a cursed at herself for being stupid. Of course the real Felix will hide in a distance and let his clones fight the enemy. The Warlords would be displeased with her if they could see her right now but there was nothing she could do about it. She felt the pressure from the weight of the three Felixes push her down on the ground. When she was down, she looked back and realized only one Felix was left, arms wrapped around her leg.
"Felix? Where are the other Felixes?" She heard footsteps and she looked to see the two Felixes emerge from the trees, running towards her while aiming their blasters at her.
She growled in defiance. She didn't care if she'll get shot while flying anymore, she needed to get this Felix off of her.
"Sorry about this, Feelix!" Aleen'a said then flipped upside so she's laying on her back on the ground, using her knees to squeeze the clone's head. She pushed herself off the ground using her arms and kept herself steady with her legs squeezing fake Felix's head in, using him as a booster for her to fly up with him still in tow. She got down close to the ground and was now flying full speed towards the two running Felixes, flipping herself mid-air with her now grabbing the Felix's feet and planning on using him to ram the others.
"Here I go… Felix ATTAAAACK!"Felix watched as Brightheart effortlessly just flung his clone’s body around. He was in trouble. If his clone had any sense he’d just dispel himself, but it was clear from one look at his face that the clone held by Aleen’a was in a daze. He called back to the Felix running with him.
“Stay back!” If she managed to force contact between the two clones, that would take away his last remaining allies. Behind him, the footsteps died as his clone fell behind just before the two groups met. Felix watched Aleen’a advancing like a runaway train, his own body held before her. No time to think. He knew what would happen, that he’d be fine. Still, if he gave himself that time to think. he would hesitate and falter. He planted his feet intending to grab and throw Aleen’a. As the clone made contact with his hand, there was another flash of yellow light and the body vanished. He grabbed for Aleen’a’s waist as she kept moving at him, but she was too fast for him. Instead of redirecting her into a throw, Felix got knocked backwards into a tumble. He hit the ground hard, but kept going. His head spun, his body spun, and the shimmers of his force field went off with every new hit. But there were some softer impacts that told him he had somehow managed to keep his hold.
She didn't know how the clones disappeared the first time so it sucked that it took her a second time to realize how that happened. The next thing she knew, she was tumbling all over the ground while holding someone, probably another. Their two bodies flailed and kept rolling over each other for what seemed like an hour before it finally stopped. Her body ached all over and she's covered in dirt and grass. She even spewed some out of her mouth and groaned in pain, not before realizing something warm breathing against her belly.
Aleen'a looked down and saw Felix getting pinned down by her. She could also see his force field barely hanging on.
"Hello? Are you the real Felix?" Aleen'a asked him while tapping on his head, the force field glowing on the spot where her finger made contact with it, all while keeping him still pinned down by her.
They finally came to a stop. Felix could feel a weight on top of him and realized it was Aleen’a.
Oh God. Sure enough, she tapped on his head.
Klizz. Panicking, Felix started flailing about. He couldn’t even see. He couldn’t even
breathe.
Where did he have his face?! He scrambled out from beneath Aleen’a and took a few steps back, panting. He had just wanted to throw her not… this.
“Yeah…” he said, looking at the ground trying to catch his breath.
“I’m the Felix you know. If my clones touch me- uh, or any other clone, they disappear. Just like you saw.” He kept his eyes averted from her.
“I uh… I think you won.”"I… did?" Aleen'a stayed seated on the ground. Even after being told she won, she weirdly didn't feel any better. Ah yes, the whole fight was weird from the very start.
"It was an honor fighting you, Felix. It was quite the unique experience." Aleen'a said as she stood up and bowed before him, giggling sheepishly.
Felix nodded.
"Well... you did come out on top," he joked shakily, his confidence slowly returning.
"I could keep trying but I think I'm just about out of tricks..." Another awkward second passed before he continued.
"And an honor for me to be one of your first fights on Earth," he returned the bow.
"And hopefully not our last." He kept his head low, still avoiding meeting her eyes.
The last remaining clone had watched all of this. Just stepping out of the way when the other two tumbled past him. Were his skin not darkened from time in the sun, the flushing of his skin would have been obvious.
“Aight. I’m out,” were his last words as his form dissipated.
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