The countdown reached zero, and Sidestep took his first sidestep, blinking 10 units horizontally towards the newbie, preparing to take a second sidestep. He was immediately met by a laser blast to the face, dealing 30 damage due to a multiplier as it hit his head.

Assuming it was just a lucky shot, Sidestep prepared his second step forward, but to his surprise he saw a laser shot headed to the exact point he’d planned on stepping towards, arcing in such a way that it would hit him if he teleported in that direction.

Sidestep turned in another direction, but saw the human begin aiming one of his laser pistols at that spot as well. Sidestep shifted his feet once more, planning on stepping in a new direction, but saw the laser pistols fire off both towards this new planned destination, and directly towards him!

Slightly nervous, Sidestep stepped backwards and to the left, away from an oncoming barrage of laser fire. He continued to step backwards and to the side, away from the laser fire that spread further and further apart, trying to gather his thoughts. To anyone else, it would look like Alan was simply firing randomly in a wide spread, hoping to catch Sidestep, but Sidestep knew that each of the lasers hit a point that he was considering moving to.

Sidestep couldn’t even imagine the years of training, the skill involved, to both anticipate an enemy’s movement and fire directly at those predicted targets, even upwards of hundreds of units away, far outside the range of a standard laser pistol! As far as Sidestep could tell, each shot was aimed perfectly to align with his head as well. He hadn’t wanted to reveal any more of his abilities, but 1000 guild points were on the line…

***

Alan watched as Sidestep retreated back, feeling more confident about his and Eve’s abilities, when suddenly Sidestep took a sidestep, but left behind a mirror image! Each Sidestep then took another step, leaving behind another. There were suddenly four enemies! Luckily, those four clones left no additional clones behind, but they were still four different targets, indistinguishable from one another at least as far as Alan could tell. Luckily, three were likely fake, mirror images, rather than actual Sidesteps. Otherwise, that would be too overpowered, right?

The four figures suddenly charged towards Alan, but all used the same left and right sidestep movements, which Eve easily anticipated. Trying to spread out the damage, with the hope it would reveal the real one, Alan managed to hit each Sidestep once as they closed half the distance between them and Alan. Nothing revealed any of the four as being the real Sidestep though. Alan managed to hit each one an additional time in the head right as the four converged on him, leaving the real Sidestep, whichever he was, with 10 energy left on his shields. One more shot and Alan would win the duel.

Alan dived to the right as the four Sidesteps converged on his position, narrowly avoiding a downwards strike as well as a sideways slash with perfect timing, firing twice to hit both duplicates in the stomach. They vanished in a shower of green sparks, revealing a single Sidestep stabbing forwards. Eve anticipated the fourth clone was behind him, and thus Alan fired once behind him and forwards while diving in such a manner that would both dodge the hypothetical attack from behind and the stab from the front.