Andie swung her sword with all the might she could muster, a measurement growing less impressive by the second. Once again, her desperate blow was deflected by her monochromatic counterpart. She needed a plan, and a good one too.
“Aw… What’s the matter?” Dark Andie slashed her cobalt blade at normal Andie, successfully wounding her for the first time. Pragmatically speaking, it was only a nick on the shoulder - but it felt like some kind of omen. “Run out of witty remarks to hide your insecurities with?”
“No, just patience.” Another of Andie’s strikes were deflected. This would be a lot easier with two swords, one to push aside her opponent’s katana, and the other to attack with. Unfortunately, she could only summon one copy of her sword at a time. Couldn’t she? Dual wielding was a lot less practical than TV might lead one to believe, so she’d never felt the need to try it before. Now that it was one of those fringe situations where it could come in handy…
Alright. Time to give it a shot. Andie mustered all her willpower and virtue into her empty hand, channeling her powers as she prepared to say the trigger phrase - one of the many trigger phrases that everyone else was embarrassed by, but she half-secretly thought sounded really cool. “Come forth, my Courage!” What took shape wasn’t a second copy of Andie’s sword like she expected, but something just as good - if not better. A longsword made of golden orange light. It was shaped by a bright neon outline, and filled with a paler, glassy glow. “Hard light constructs…” Andie could feel her control over the light. The size and range were both heavily limited, and it was objectively worse than her usual weapon when it came to speed and power, but she could shape it into just about anything she wanted. “I can work with this.”
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“Hey, Andie from Earth 3! Buckle up!” True Andie smirked. “Because you’re about to see the moment the hero makes her big comeback!”
“Oh! You flatterer!” Dark Andie matched her counterpart’s smile with a toothy grin of her own. “No one has ever called me a hero before.” In a split second, true Andie’s left arm was on the ground, and will to Live was leaking out from where it used to be attached. True Andie hadn’t caught exactly what happened, but a spiky speech balloon was stuck into the ground behind her. It looked just like one of her thought-doodles, as if it had been drawn onto reality by a comic book artist - but with one difference. It lacked the comedically earnest charm of the old silver age comics, instead opting for an edgier, more modern style. One that thought it was all that and a side of fries. Curly fries. “Now then, you worthless stain on an otherwise perfect being, time to end this once and for -”
Dark Andie found herself swiftly and violently cut short in the one way nobody was expecting: a wounded Dyllan being flung into her face.