"Five minutes have passed!"

Only five? It feels like way more. Damn, I have no clue how to beat this girl. She just won't take the bait. Every time I try to get her to close in on the edge, she either stands there or jumps back. On the upside, this cowardly strategy means I'm safe, so long as I'm always on the edge of the platform. She's just tracing me, about two meters away, and she's put away her chainsaw arms away in favor of yet another weapon.

This time, it's some kind of energy-projecting thing that shoots balls of hot stuff. I think it could also be used for propulsion. I never stood a chance, did I? She's been playing with me this entire time, trying to show off her stuff. Well, I won't let you be the only cool one here. I might not be able to win, but I'll lose on my own terms!

My clones, when made in midair, have no velocity behind them, which means I can kick off them rather easily. Also, her plasma(?) balls don't just melt through the bats instantly, meaning I can potentially protect myself. If I can get over her and back into real arena ground, I won't have to fight uselessly in a corner like some kind of rat.

I only get one chance at this... Here we go.

I get a clone on either side of me to spring me up as high as possible, then create two more below me while kicking back as hard as I can. This gets me just barely past the girl, which she clearly didn't expect as I for the first time am able to see a real expression on her face: surprise. Using my bat to force a distance between us, mostly by just using it like a lever on her head, I land on the other side of her and run towards the center as fast as I can. This manuever provokes loud cheering from the crowd.

The five clones I left behind, taking advantage of the brief moment of hesitation she shows, make a move. One of them lands a beautiful, clean downward swing straight at the top of her head, with a loud clanging noise and a clear reaction. The others don't really do much, being a bit out of position they try to hit her in effective ways but fall short either in distance or in power.

She responds to this assault with a furious blazing spin of firey heat. Did I mention it's hot? Because it's hot. Instantly, the five poor lads are reduced to nothing, and the match is back to a one-on-one.

I'm still facing away from her, but there's no doubt to it: she's mad now. I messed up her little show, she's going to try and get rid of me now that I've dealt even the slightest bit of damage.

I'm a good enough distance from the edge now, I should be fine to turn around and get ready to dodge. I didn't dodge any of her attacks on purpose, hopefully I can trick her by making her believe I'll block.

She's turned around and is just standing there now. Is--is she not going to attack? She's just looking at me.

"What's wrong, Number 8? You not gonna come? Come on, beat me! You won't, you won't!"

She just stands there, though. I can't quite tell, but she seems to just be looking at me, in a perfectly neutral fashion. Her posture is somewhat low, with her open, glowing hands in an offensive position. Is she just a robot? Has her programing malfunctioned?

"Are you alright? Did I confuse you? Seriously, what."

Two more minutes of this happen. She's just standing there, looking at me. When I move, her head tracks me, but the rest of her body just stays there, doing nothing. I can hear the previously cheery crowd starting to boo at the lack of action.

If she won't come to me, I'll come to her. I make five clones and send them to attack. She doesn't move. They start beating her down, nothing. Seriously, what the hell? She's visibly taking damage, it's just a beatdown. Now that she's taken a few dozen hits, I make my clones stand back. The girl is visibly covered in dents and bumps in several areas, lying on the ground, with her eyes open and that same frozen expression.

"Uh, I think she broke. Excuse me, referee man? She's not moving."

The referee, sitting in his fancy high chair, uses binoculars to check her out.

"The match continues!" he calls out.

She's STILL not moving. If it's like this, I'll just throw the junkborg out, I guess. The five lift her surprisingly heavy body and carry her over to the edge. Just as they put her down and are about to kick her off, she suddenly springs back to life, blasting away all the clones and firing a shot that I just barely dodge. With leg-thrusters, shoulder cannons and a few other things coming out of her all at once, she's now got more surface of weapons than anything else.

Hovering up into the air, she points at least six different weapons at me, but instead fires just an energy ball at me. It's way slower, though, and just to prove a point I create a clone and have it slam the superheated projectile right back at her. It's a home run! I missed though.

"Come down here and fight me mano a mano, you coward!"

Her response is to swoop right at me, in a straight line, a literal flying tackle. I duck under it and she springboards off her hands, spins around in midair and fires a net gun, I think it's from her chest? The clone I previously made rushes forth and I throw myself back, just narrowly avoiding being captured by what I now figure was not just a net, but an electrified one instead.

A few more boys come pouring out of me and swarm at her, to which she flies backwards and fires one of her shoulder cannons, revealing their contents: explosive shells. A loud explosion occurs, but they're not that bad. I almost get hit by shrapnel though, and the arena's damaged too. Good thing my clones were a little distance away.

Then she points both her hands at me again, in a familiar fashion. Is she going to use the machine guns?

Light starts gathering in her hands. It's a beam! A big eff-off beam! I run aside as fast as I can, while spamming clones at her in an attempt to stop the charging. Instead, they're greeted with volleys of fire from all the other, turreted weapons she's got, like what seems to be small-caliber guns in her kneecaps, a small drone she deployed at some point with a similar weapon, and her shoulder cannons which, to my horror, seem to be able to turn 360 degrees around.

Immediately I'm facing the very real possibility of a death-beam being fired at me, along with mortars, automatic firearms, this chick's steel-studded personality, and the rest of her arsenal. At least it's not nuclear.

I have to escape the beam, fast. I run to the side as fast as possible, toward the edge of the arena. I don't know if this'll work, but if it does, she most likely won't be able to move for a little while afterwards.

Just as I get to the edge, I can tell her Big Laser is hitting critical charge. As long as you don't touch the ground outside the arena, you're still in bounds, which means I can do this. I hang off the edge, sideways, holding on by a hand and a foot. Then...

With a resounding crash of thunder, her beam fires at the space between my limbs. Just barely missing them, close enough that the heat is still quite panful, like having your hand in the oven for 25 seconds on 500. This goes on for a good five or six seconds, then everything is quiet. I quickly summon a few clones to help me back up over the edge and see what I was hoping to see, the girl, keeled over, gasping for air and out of energy. Her weapons are all retracted and she is in her basic form, just like before the fight started.

Finally, I get to have my way in this fight! I rush forward, trying my hardest to make sure I can take advantage of her weakness.

Then she stops pretending to be exhausted, stands up and grins at me. Before I even realize, a dart embeds itself into my neck. This is so unfair... But, this isn't anime! It'll take a bit before it acts, I'll get some damage in before you knock me out!

I rush forward with reckless abandon, dropping my bat, ready to swing my entire body at her. Of course, until the end, my luck doesn't want me succeeding at anything, but I think I did pretty good myself.

A flurry of punches, elbows, kicks, knees and everything else comes down on the cyborg from me and all the clones I'm dumping right on her. She dodges, blocks and deflects most of them, the few hits she takes being weak and slow. I really did play right into her arms.

As I try to land a hard right, my legs give out and I fall to my knees, then all fours. The drug's really kicking in. Damnit... Let me hit you, damn you... I just wanted to look cool...