Mira disappeared from where she was and appeared in front of Chenzira punching towards his relatively small body. Chenzira blocked the punch with his palm at just the perfect angle and with the perfect amount of force that not only stopped her momentum but also reflected a part of her own force back to her.
Mira was pushed back some meters as a result but the ground beneath Chenzira wasn’t even cracked. Was this a result of his martial art or did he just float to prevent that, the answer was unknown. Mira stopped herself and waited for Chenzira to land his own hit. The first hits were just a greeting, nothing too serious
Chenzira lunged at Mira and also disappeared and reappeared in front of Mira with a punch directed at her shoulder. Sadly he flew through Mira like she was an illusion and stopped himself midair before looking back at Mira in confusion. He asked “What did you do?”
Mira answered “I shook… really fast. It bends space and causes anything that touches me to pass through like I’m a ghost. How did you block my punch earlier?” Chenzira said “I saw your punch… so I knew how to control the force in it a bit”
Mira thought ‘Weird, I expected Funmi would have such redirection type martial arts as she improved but she’s a completely different ball game. I have to ask her about that’. Mira said “Let’s continue then!”
Mira clawed the air a few times and her palms teleported toward Chenzira who blocked them perfectly or at least as perfectly as he could. The claws caused him internal damage anytime he blocked them with his arm, his body would vibrate and he would sustain internal injuries as the claws passed through him as if they were illusions.
He began to dodge the claws and send punches of his own which Mira found extremely weird since his arms appeared to double with every punch he made. At first one right came for her in a perfect spot that she couldn’t dodge and wasn’t ready to phase, her neck… or at least that was what Chenzira thought. Her neck bent as flexibly as an elephant’s trunk and avoided the fist.
The next time two left hands came for her at different positions and angles that she couldn’t easily avoid with Morphing and that she couldn’t phase at the moment. She allowed the punch hit but wasn’t moved at all by the hit.
The battle devolved into a brawl where Mira kept getting hit without shifting and Chenzira dodging or blocking her hits. Even when his fists had multiplied to 1024 Mira wasn’t moved in the least.
Chenzira distanced himself from Mira by jumping some kilometers back. He took a stance that had his knees bent, his legs and arms spread to the sides, with his right hand, knee, and side way turned face facing Mira.
His skin became red and under the stunned gaze of Mira he morphed into her. The show was not over as 15 copies of him, turned into Mira, appeared beside him as he used his transcendent skill, True Reflection. He stood up straight as he broke his stance, his movements mirrored by the reflections.
He dashed toward Mira and the reflections began moving toward Mira from all sides; left, right, front, back, up and down. Mira blocked the claw of the first reflection that assaulted her from the left with her forearm. The reflection at her back stabbed toward the back of her head with its claws but the arm of the reflection passed through her like an illusion.
This wasn’t because Mira phased or anything but because the reflection was an actual illusion created by one of Chenzira’s skills, Mirage. Mira could see through the illusion because one of her race's abilities was that she could see and recognize genes. Her true reflections had a poor copy of her genes but the Mirages didn’t have any genes since they were just light tricks.
The instant Chenzira noticed that Mira could see through the Mirages they all became True Reflections. Mira noticed this and wearily dodged and blocked all the reflections’ attacks while occasionally retaliating. Mira realized that the reflections would never get hurt no matter how hard she hit them.
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The reflections showed all the abilities she had shown earlier, Morphing, Intent sensing, Phasing and others with the same proficiency as her. This caused her to hold back on using any new tricks. Her main problem was that she had lost sight of Chenzira. Her intent sense, gene sense and sphere of awareness were all unable to find him.
Sadly she couldn’t keep this stalemate anymore since the reflections where getting used to her little tricks that came from her high experience with using her own body. She activated high mind and the situation immediately reversed. The movements that seemed unpredictable and chaotic where completely open to Mira. She saw them and knew that they were all edited copies of her previous movements.
The reflections where suddenly unable to affect Mira with their high numbers, it was as if Mira was a completely different person.
“POOM POOM POOW”
They kept flying all around as they were hit away by Mira but they never got hurt. They just rebounded back but they were unable to change the situation. High Mind removed Mira from any pattern she previously had and allowed her to perfectly respond to any situation they put her in. Chenzira tried to copy this feature but he realized that it was perfectly suited to deal with his broken abilities.
The reflections got a copy of High Mind, as much as Chenzira could understand but it proved to be a cheap copy. The new moves and maneuvers the reflections showed were always instantly countered by new moves from Mira and when they adapted to the new moves more would come.
Facing her copies with High Mind made Mira’s pure martial prowess to grow quickly. The battle continued for a while and the reflections kept getting closer and closer to a perfect copy of Mira as Chenzira constantly updated the reflections’ version of High Mind.
The fight continued for a day and something sparked in Mira. The closeness that the reflections had to Mira’s form completely vanished as Mira became a completely unpredictable fighter. Chenzira became perplexed; the tough nut he was close to cracking revealed that it's shell was only covering a harder nut underneath.
Mira smiled when she reached this state and created spears of Diamond, she heard small tiny voices but ignored them as her focus was on the replicas. The spears shot toward all the reflections and exploded but it didn’t hurt them, it only threw them back. Chenzira was completely shocked as he was already using his Martial Art, only to realize that Mira hadn’t used hers.
The copies created spears of Diamond too but a strange thing happened. The spears didn’t shoot toward Mira as he wanted but they turned toward the reflections and blasted them away. Chenzira’s reflections were so perfect that they could completely copy Diamond after seeing it once, turning his energy into a perfect replica of Diamond. But this proved disadvantageous to him since Mira was the only one the Diamonds obeyed. Once they were created they were outside the reflections' control since they weren't Mira.
Chenzira said “I think we’ve done enough” as the reflections dispersed into shiny sparkles and he appeared from within one of them. Funmi grudgingly said “NO SHIT! YOU’VE BEEN FIGHTING FOR A WHOLE DAY!” Chenzira dryly laughed and said “I’m sorry I got a little too into it”. Mira said “Sorry Funmi”. Chenzira said “I’ll allow you a favor for entertaining my lack of self-control”.
Bella said “I will tell you what we need after the tour”. Bella wanted to see the kind of society Gold Lands was before deciding whether they would be an ally of the APT against the Glass Empire or just another Glass Empire that they couldn’t attack.
The group followed Chenzira’s lead after Mira shrunk back to human size, reduced her temperature and wore new clothes. They soon arrived in a literal golden city after some minutes of running at speeds that surpassed the best modern fighter jets. Unlike Night City which was still under construction this city was completely built like Terrania with tall golden towers at the center and smaller buildings surrounding them. Funmi asked “How is there so much gold?”