Perhaps her ability only allowed the clones to exist if she was in a certain proximity of them, but once I saw her jacketless form it was hard to miss her.
With my newfound information I wanted to make a power play. I could blast towards her to try and end the fight now, but what if it wasn't her? Doubt started to seep in as I slowly started to descend. What if was another ploy? A trick in order to put me in a vulnerable position.
'Hmm, a head-on approach won't work. I know what will happen to me first hand if I blindly charge at her.'
With my time in the air slowly dwindling, I needed to think of something to do. This could be my only chance at attacking her real form, but I needed to make sure I was right on this; I only had one shot. If I messed this up, our little game would come to an abrupt end. I needed to find out what her augment was if I wanted any chance at winning this hopeless battle.
Suddenly, an idea came to mind. With all the information she gave to me through her various attacks, a bizarre idea formulated in my mind. It was an idea that hinged on a loose guess at most, but I had no other options. The answer was right in front of me, I just needed to reveal it.
"Hey Angela," I yelled out, causing all of the duplicates to look up at me. "Can I make a guess to what your augment is?"
"What do you think it is, though at this point it could be anything," the crowd of Angela's chanted out loud and confidently. "It could be mass duplication; the ability to clone myself; it could be anything really."
I let out a scoff. "Yes, yes of course you're right. But I think your way of thinking is flawed,"
I then reached into my pocket. "Your ability could really be anything, but your prowess and ability to use the full extent of your augment helps narrow it down for me."
"How so?" she asked.
"Well, if this really were mass duplication or cloning, would all of the clones react like this?"
The moment I finished my sentence, I ripped out the container of pills from my pocket and with all with all the strength I had, threw it at her.
I had no time to wind back, but the container still flew out of my hands at speeds faster than light. A sonic boom rippled out of my hands as the container sped towards the jacketless Angela.
Though the attack was faster than your eyes could track, the jacketless Angela lifted up her hand to block the capsule and right before the container hit her face, it collided into an invisible wall and exploded on impact.
My attack had ultimately failed, but my plan had succeeded.
Across the entire room, every single Angela in the room was now raising their right hand in the air. There was no reason for them to do this if they were simply clones or duplicates with minds of their own, but it seems that with those two augments crossed off the board there was only one ability her augment could be.
"Your augment is Hallucikinesis: the ability to manipulate life-like illusions that cannot be distinguished from a real-life counterpart,"
As the pills fell to the floor with a cascade of plops and clicks, Angela lowered her arm and the rest of her duplicates followed in suit.
"The reason why all of the duplicates attacks were in-sync was because you were controlling all of them with your own movements. " I said firmly as I descended onto the floor.
When my feet touched the floor though, a sharp pain flared up in my ribs. I quickly grabbed my rib and fell to the floor on one knee as the adrenaline coursing through my veins started to fade.
The jacketless Angela made her way to the front of the crowd, a frown embedded on her face.
"It seems that your tutelage under Catherine wasn't in vain, but I am surprised that a student from her was also a good strategist," Angela spoke in one voice. "But you got one thing wrong."
She snapped her fingers and walked towards me, but this time none of the clones moved; in fact, all of them looked lifeless. She crouched down and got up in my face.
"I can have them like this, or..."
She snapped her fingers again, and all of the clones suddenly started walking in sperate directions, all of them doing menial things such was twirling their hair, twiddling their thumbs, or whistling as they walked.
"I can have them do that."
She then crouched down and grabbed me by the collar.
"You are hopelessly out-matched. Surrender and your injuries will end with just those."
I reached down and felt my ribs to assess my injury. Even the slightest touch caused me to wince in pain. The severity of my injury was far greater than I initially thought. Even if I did manage to speed away to safety, how long would I be able to last with these hindering injuries?
"Hah, fine. You win."
She smirked. "That was the correct choice."
She snapped her fingers with her opposite hand and all off the clones dissipated into mist, leaving just me and her in the vast expanse.
"So how did you find out? Just a wild guess or was it something else." she asked.
"Kind of. You kind of debunked my guess from earlier with the fact that you can make all the clones independent from each other but the first attack was something only Halucikinesis was capable of. That fist was too real to be fake."
"I guess the fist was a bit overboard, but there have been stronger fighters who have fallen for it in the past." she said with a small chuckle.
She then let go of my collar, "But, you do know that you didn't even hit me once right?"
I gave her a wry smile, "What would happen if I tried right now?"
"Then you would leave this building today not of your own two legs, but strung along inside a body-bag." she said bluntly.
She then walked away as the void around us started to vanish. I glanced down at her belt and saw that three black spheres dangled from her waistline.
No way that entire space was also one big illusion right?
"So as the unanimous winner of our bout, I should get a reward right?" she asked, placing a finger on her chin.
"Why should you get a reward when you you had to use your Domain Expansion to beat me-"
"Ehem." she cleared her throat.
"I don't have many things to offer up, I live in poverty." I said between labored breaths.
"Haha that's ok, I don't mind," she said as she headed towards the nursing office and opened the door. "You were a fine training dummy after all."
"Training dummy?" I asked as she entered the office. Not even bothering to give me a response, she rummaged around the room for a bit before she came out holding a blanket and a pillow.
"Find a bench and wrap this around you. The blanket secretes a soothing agent that helps quickly mend your injuries. The pillow is there just for comfort." she tossed them both to me.
I caught them both, and as I bobbled the pillow in my hands Angela walked past and leaned close.
"You have four minutes to spare, I'd be a bit quicker than that Mr. Harris." she whispered in my ear.
A ticklish sensation fluttered across my ears as I watched her her disappear into thin air. I wrapped the blanket around my body and pressed it onto my side, feeling a cool sensation envelop the side of my body. Though I had only fought her for maybe seven minutes, I was brutalized. I knew it would be a hopeless fight from the start, but at least the experience as a whole wasn't in vain.
I wouldn't lose to the same thing twice.
"Still, what a terrifying woman." I remarked as I turned to walk towards my classroom.