"Hi, me! Hi, me! And hi, me!! Sorry you were last. I'm me, too! And I figure if we're all me, we can get along well enough to WOAH beans!!" Exactly how Kat manages to block a spray of bullets from six (they're dual-wielding just like she is, see) assault rifles is an exercise I leave up to you. She couldn't tell you either, if you asked. The swords just sort of moved on their own, as far as she could tell, and afterwards her arms hurt a bit but otherwise she was a lot finer than a body should be after getting shot at for twenty seconds. She hesitates in the window for a counterattack, and it passes like a sigh. Blame it on the need to catch her breath, if you're feeling generous. Which, she does. She's hurt pretty badly from the the blowback from and the effort of her previous attack. But that's not really the problem. "No no you're right! I'm sorry, that was rude of me! I didn't mean to suggest I wanted to skip past you, uh, me's, I just thought we'd think enough alike that we could have, y'know... a proper Princess Duel! And stuff!" "Oh. 'And stuff.' She says." "How gallant." "How eloquent." "How adorable." "You want to duel?" "With us?" They finish their rejection in a callous spray of bullets, one aimed solely to back Kat up to burn her back and fray her dress on the edges of an acid cloud. Kat cries out in misery that nothing to do with pain or the ruination of her beauty. She pushes forward, and with a mighty slash sweeps away the rest of the burst fire so she can launch herself at her opponents with a choking shout. She aims the purified wooden blade at one of their heads, and the pain in her own arm ebbs, replaced by warmth and lightness and a very gentle sort of joy that can't quite penetrate deep enough to reach her own heart. And maybe that's why when it connects it has no visible effect on the Robo-Katherine. Its mask just pivots slightly to watch and then it swings its leg to kick the original in the stomach. Kat pulls in her knee to catch the blow but it still knocks the spit out of her, and when she squeezes her eyes shut she misses the important lesson that follows. "I don't, I don't understand! Even you? Even [i]me?![/i] How come? Everyone else in the whole wide world gets to fight with their hearts just as much as their blades! Everyone else gets to have a little moment where their fight ends with a sword under their chin and a cutie smirkin' at 'em! I just, I just, I just!! Just one time! This is my adventure so how come it's so... so... so [i]awful?"[/i] "Is that what you wish to know?" "Well hold onto your hat, cowgirl." "Claims of white genocide in South Africa include..." "No, not that." "Though that is highly relevant." "The truth is, you are..." "A bad girl." "A bad girl." "A bad girl." They hound her with the chorus, and though she tries to deny it she just can't get the argument out through her tears. When she lunges, they disperse easily, firing onto her position from three angles so that it's all she can do to block, duck, and zip out of the way (and feel more acid burns for her trouble). When they press, she flinches and miss the obvious openings that Saber's fighting instincts should be pointing out to her. She feels half like a robot, herself. Or maybe more like a puppet, a silly little thing dancing on strings for the amusement of something better and more complete than her. She isn't fast enough. She isn't strong enough. She isn't [i]clever[/i] enough. She's just a housefox, after all. It's too much-- The shot of the rifle rings out, even through the void. Voids are like that sometimes, you understand. They're a lot like the sun, when you get right down to it. Which speaking of has crested in the sky [i]just so[/i] to catch Kat in an aurora made of all its fallen sisters. Bad Girl is a hard thing for a Fluffybiscuits to handle. It's more corrosive to her than poison. More deadly than any sword forged on any world I... well, [i]you[/i] could name. So when that shot got fired, finally aimed not to harass her into torture but straight for her trembling heart? She didn't bother to block it. But it never reached her. There was no moment of searing pain, no release, no nothing. Except for anger. Katherine opens her eyes, and what she sees is the ghost of a sword. The faceless knight holding it turns its visor toward her and offers a clumsy thumbs up. She gasps, and finally she notices. The robot Katherines are quite the worse for wear. Ghostly warriors bind them, turn their weapons aside, and harass them at every turn. It is beyond the power of the ghosts of Avenger's noble phantasm to do real physical harm, but their grudge will always press against whatever dares to try and harm that which they love. And they [i]do[/i] love, believe it or not. They love what their King loves. Which is to say, the one living subject in that Kingdom in the Sky. My little Katherine. Those hails of gunfire have never been aimed anywhere but at her vital organs. It's just that every time their arms have been forced to the side at the last second to push the vector into something Kat could deal with. Every bit of pain she's suffered has been returned in the form of yet more heat in the hideous grudge blade she hasn't been able to swing at these things that look like foxes. That look like her. And that's been the problem. They look like her, sorta. Enough that if you're expecting them to, they can fool you. They sort of kind of sound like her, except that all their words are hollow and calculated by an algorithm to carry the intended sting. There's no heart in any of it. When you look at them, and I mean really look at them... they're kind of pathetic, don't you think? They aren't even copies. They haven't inherited any of the power of [i]Righ Lochlann[/i], because they haven't inherited any of Kat's relationship to Saber. What they have is the backing of an awful, corrupt super monster that makes them dangerous in spades, but compared to the shining heart of a maiden who knows the true face of love? "Well that was silly of me, huh? Thinkin' you guys could give it to me." "Oh, our apologies. "If you amend your query." "We'll be sure to kill you in a more agreeable way." "Ha," barked Kat (who is a fox), "That's the funniest thing I've heard all day." She lifts her red-black sword above her head. The smaller, softer one obligingly covers her heart and keeps her safe as it effortlessly parries a new volley of bullets. "You guys? You couldn't kill a dying fly in a Dying Fly Killing Contest. Even if you cheated!" Her sword burns brighter than a nuclear explosion. She launches herself forward, now heedless of the threat these copies pose, and swings with a heavy blow that howls like the wind and tears like a whirlpool. It's full of bullets too, every single one that she's been obliged to block this entire time. All of her pain, magnified and returned in spades. This is the Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits School of Borrowed Swordsmanship. The Avenging Chapter: Sanguine Phoenix Slash! Kat looks at the destruction she's caused in awe. And then she does a giddy little hop in place, because? Because she'd just won an argument with trolls! Finally! "Hey guys! Guys! I've got it figured out! Hold on and I'll... um. Wh-why are you just standing there?" "We finished our fight around twenty minutes ago." said Actia cooly. "We'd have helped!" said Cyanis (while sipping on a drink in a coconut that she's somehow smuggled into her helmet?), "But you looked like you were having a moment!" "One of those spiritual growth things you Animes get sometimes. It would be cruel to deny you that." "Besides, I'd earned a break! Even when you're single-handedly saving the world you've gotta recognize when you've earned a little 'Me Time', Katherine. Honestly, after all this time you've spent under my wing, can't you even master the simplest principles? Siiiiiiiigh, a big sister's job is never done~" "Y-you?" Stammered Kat. Not impolitely, see! Just with standard, completely reasonable and loving incredulousness, "You beat... all of them?" "Of course!" chirped Cyanis, just before she slurped her drink dry, "It's easy when you're a genius like me!" To her credit, Cy is a magnanimous enough fox to take slack jawed silence as a compliment. She even fluffed up her tails with pride and shot off a little 'thank you' before launching into her explanation. "See, I knew as soon as I saw them that I was doomed. I mean, charming and beautiful heroine[1] though I may be, how could I expect to triumph over THREE (3!) Cyaniseseses? It's impossible!" "But they didn't know how to handle me." said Actia. "Since she has more tails, see? They got all flustered, those sillyheads! Imagine getting worked up over who has more tails than whomst?" "Er, but didn't they collectively have more than." "Kat you silly duck, did you hit your head? Five's a bigger number than Three. By like, a hundred, probably maybe." "B-but then... [i]you[/i] beat the Actias? While being a three-tail?" "Obviously! Only I would be smart enough to know that Actia could beat three of herself if she only applied my secret technique." "Your..." "Secret technique, yes. Keep up, my adoring little simp." Kat blinked. Kat blinked so hard, in fact, that if you looked closely it was possible to see a little ellipsis forming over her head for just a second. But Cyanis was ready for it. She tossed her head back and lifted her arm to her mouth for a proper [i]oujou-sama[/i] laugh. Then she flicked a pair of sunglasses overtop of her sunglasses, so she could lift them up onto her forehead without compromising her sunglassed look. "Oh Kat. Kat Kat Kitty Katty Katherine. You poor, poor sillyhead, whatever am I going to do with you. I know exactly what you're thinking, and [i]of course[/i] I did all the heavy lifting. Do you have any idea how much work it is to make bait look as [i]delicious[/i] as me?????" [1]in this singular instance, pronounced "hero-EEN" with enough force on the back syllable to sink a yacht[2] [2]like an Orca, only with worse elocution