All right, well this is -- oh gosh! Um. I mean. Eeek! This is! Eep eep eep yikes! This is an experience! A new experience! That I'm having! A -- meep! -- lone! 

"Would you knock it off with that whip for a second?! I'm [i]trying[/i] to concentrate! I dunno if you knew this, but this is my first sideways vertical building race whip duel, ok? It's hard!"

Goshies. Where was I? Oh right, this is new. I've fought... actually no, 'fought' is the wrong word there. But I've dealt with snakes from time to time so I've had my share of chances to see something that moves like this puppet-robot-cutie's weapons do. All that wiggly power suddenly, WHATCHA! Right in my face and there's not a whole lot I can do about it besides rely on instinct to keep my nose un-nipped. 'Cept with snakes the deal is they're real good at warnin' you off and you can avoid the whole thing just by lettin' 'em know you don't mean harm and backin' off all slow and stuff. I mean, maybe that'd work here too but it's kinda not in the cards, soooooo...

I can feel my lungs getting ready to start a revolution inside me. Sorry girls, just consider it a workout day, ok? I promise I'll give you a big, long day off as soon as I get done with this adventure, ok? You too, legs. And just, look. Yes ok I promise! Nothing but lying still and whining until Hyra feeds me. A whole day! So just hold it together, jerks! 

Not that I can really blame my body for this. Wall running's a pretty underdeveloped skill in my tree, let's be kind and say, and jetpack running's barely just been opened. This is a... hoo. This is a big tower. All of this and I'm not even halfway up it! But I won't give up. I'm having waaaaay too much fun to turn around now! But still, it's all I can do to keep pace and continue running up instead of slipping and falling and tumbling all the way back to the ground, where I assume a bed of robots waits for me. 

It's especially hard because the Whip-Cutie is very free with her Cutie-Whip. Running straight up like this I can't afford to tumble and roll the way I'd like to, so I'm constantly interrupting my flow with big flippy jumps 'cause that's the only thing my brain can think of to dodge the business end of that almost-snake. I really wish I could've practiced this before doing the real thing. But still. But still. I just have to figure out a way. It almost doesn't matter that I can't figure out what to attack because, honestly, I can't attack at all. So much of my time is caught up in dodging, and squeaking, and almost-dodging and then scrambling into a jetpack burst to keep myself from dropping back that there's actually just no chance for me [i]to[/i] hit back. 

Every move I can think to try is useless. Can't throw any of my weapons, they'll get tangled up in the strings or the whip, and it'll be too hard to catch 'em again after that. And besides I can't throw a one of 'em for beans, at least without costing myself so much momentum that I'm guaranteed to lose the race to the top. That's important, y'know. If I'm still fightin' when I reach Kikil's window, I'm a dead girl. Metaphorically. Probably. I mean I'm sure she'd just kidnap me or whatever, she seems nice enough honestly, but in my brain it doesn't work that way. It's win or die. But none of my weapons can reach, and I'm out of bullets. Or out of ways to check my outfit for more. Same difference. If I leap, she leaps back in time, and then I get a whip to the butt for my troubles. Which I don't mind telling you, hurts a lot. 

...Gosh, I'd love to have gotten to meet whoever inspired this outta Kikil. They must be an amazin' person. And maybe if it were here and me on flat ground without a timer, I'd be able to learn a thing or two about how to handle Whip-and-Spear Style. Whoever she is, she is [i]exactly[/i] like Rosie. Tellin' you, some girls cheat just by existing. Love her. 

We dance. It's beautiful and fun, but I can't shake the sense that I'm runnin' out of time. Even well before I'm out've tower, I'm out've time. If I don't find a way past this latest flourish soon, she'll add another one and if I have to race two of her inspirations at once, well I... I mean, there's just only so much I can do. I try to cut the whip with a flash draw technique but it dances past my arc. I try to thrust the spear out've her hand with my rapier but I just can't lunge with any kinda speed while I'm runnin' like this. It's too hard. Goin' up, it's too hard.

Oh, this reminds me of something else, actually. When I was on my way home with Hyra, we stopped and talked about a lotta stuff. Did a lot more than just talkin, too, but that's for her and me to know about and no one else. But anyway she was tellin' me a story about a game she was playin' once, some kind of... video thingy that had this big boss characters you had to fight on a snowboard. And I mean obviously this was just a game, and a story of a game at that, but it feels so much like this I can't help but compare 'em. See, Hyra tried all the attacks the game let her do, and none of 'em helped at all. The boss character was just as fast as she was, and it was ahead of her besides. Attackin' was no good. She didn't win by learnin' a new technique, either. She won by focusin' on boosters. When she got faster than the boss character was goin', suddenly she didn't need any attacks at all to win.

Oh. I get it now! It's not about what target I'm aiming for at all. It's not even about dodging that whip! No, this is just about if I can be faster than she is, just for long enough to make contact. The rest'll take care of itself.

I draw my saber and hold it close to my forehead as I run. I even give the blade a little kiss, for luck. Slash, spin, slash! I let the jetpack burst for a full three seconds to get me good and movin', and strike out with my sword as cleanly as I can manage. Of course it doesn't hit anything, even if I do get a little closer than normal. But that's fine, I'm [i]really[/i] waiting for the whip. All this time, I've been tryin' not to get hit at all, but that's been what slowed me down the whole time. Speed. It's all about speed, y'know. Which means sometimes, you just gotta know when to take your whipping like a good girl. Um. Erm. M-meep!

The lash flicks straight at my face, and I can't help but notice how beautiful it looks in motion. The coils, suddenly bursting straight and strong and free. It almost catches me on the cheek, and I squeak like when I was six and I had to sleep in Sis' bed to make it through a thunderstorm. I can even here the boom, right in my ears. But I drop back half a step at the last second. And that's when I feel the whip wrap around my sword.

Gotcha!

I pull when she does, and burn the jetpack a second time. Suddenly, her strength, her speed, and the rockets she's usin' to fly backward up that tower are my speed too. One of us is movin' much faster than the other. And now's when I've gotta strike. When it comes to this sort've a move you really only get one crack at it, y'know? 

So I don't use any of my swords. I roll forward, through the air, like I've been wantin' to this whole time, and I throw my shoulder into the main body of the robot with what I hope was a battle cry but was probably more've an "oof" or an "eep". That sounds a bit more like me, anyway. The collision sends a big, owie shiver all down my arm and into my back, and it knocks me off balance till I fall back and have to catch myself in the glass on a pair of daggers to keep from droppin' all the way back into the danger zone of death and, uh... danger? 

But it does the trick. She's flyin' backward too, y'know? And I just gave her all've my speed to add to hers, and a single shoulder check is all she needed to go spiralin', shootin' straight back into those puppet strings. And wouldn't y'know it? She rolls up in 'em like she's caught in a trap. It pulls the drones to close to one another, and then? WHATCHA! KRAKOOM! They blow up!

And now it's strings and a beautiful puppet with no hands to hold her up fallin' straight down the tip I can't afford to take. And even though I'm runnin' up, up, up, I feel my heart sink. It's not fair that she should need to fall all that way. This beautiful person doesn't deserve that much, even if she is just a memory. Or a, uh, robot of a memory, or... shut up! I'm runnin' out of time here!

It's hard to swing my sword-board at these speeds, but nothin' else is heavy enough to do the job I need it to. I step into it as best I can, and sell out hard on the swing to smash a window into pieces, just above me. I manage it in the nick of time, and now it's down to luck. The puppet girl tumbles past me. I reach down behind, and catch her by the wrist. One more thrust of the jetpack, which I notice is starting to burn a little weird. I'm gonna have to be more careful from now on. But right now, it's worth it. I twirl us both around, and let her go so that she tumbles safely through the broken window as I pass by it. There. Good and safe. Good and safe and loved.

"You were beautiful!" I shout behind me, even though it's pointless. So I shake my head and shout it up ahead instead, "You're beautiful, y'know that?"

My lungs whine at me some more. What am I thinkin', using them to shout stuff when they're already workin' so hard? But it's important, ok? It's worth every bit of sting and pain. I wanna win, yeah. I wanna feel that feeling that all my friends know but me. But I can't get there without telling my opponent how I feel. I can never win without loving the girl I'm fighting.

I don't want to.