At the sound of his voice, Squeaky Clean was activated. The soapiness spread across his entire body, causing him to look as if he had just stepped out of the shower. This was one of the innate techniques of Squeaky Clean. Whilst activated, Giorgio can coat himself from head to toe in the body wash-like substance, making him essentially immortal, and all attacks against him futile. And, as this is innate, Giorgio expended little to no spirit whilst it was activated, therefore, allowing him to focus his full attention on offensive manoeuvres.
Studying from afar, Eos made the confident assumption that such armour Giorigo had activated was, in fact, innate, which entailed that his attacks would also be related to soap in some way. She couldn't decipher anything further, but grew weary of the fact that Giorgio was seemingly devising a plan with complete confidence of victory, unaffected by any exertion of spirit. She quickly concluded that he was no ordinary adversary and that going all-out was inevitable.
'Let's finish this quickly, eh, Eos? I can't believe Nero sent you to fight me, instead of doing it himself; maybe he's just scared of my immense power!' He jested with exaggerated motions, his voice in a satirical tone. His obvious yet prying witticisms attacked Eos's heart, and her eyes grew even fiercer with rage. Her nose scrunched into a tiny, clustered ball, whilst she revealed her clenched teeth like a raging animal.
'I mean, seriously, there's no stronger sign of weakness than getting someone else to fight for you, and to think I held that clown in such high regard; good grief.'
'DON'T SAY THAT ABOUT NERO!' Eos replied with furious vigour.
Her voice was terrifying; even Giorgio was surprised at her fiery cadence. Yet, she spoke with passion as her fuel, and Giorgio, for a second, felt sorrow.
Eos leapt towards him quicker than one can blink, leaving behind craters in the shape of her feet. The road cracked in her wake, before completely shattering as she struck Giorgio with a direct hit. In fact, she wielded her axe with such ferocity, such anger and strength, that it went straight through Giorgio, dividing his body into two parallel pieces. His eyes widened whilst he stood in shock at what had happened. The axe was implanted into the ground between his feet, which were now a part of two separate parts of one body.
Eos, too, was surprised. Was it really that easy? Had she won already? She bent slightly to try to observe the innards of the body, which still stood upright. However, what she saw was not normal: his body was not hollow, but instead, the exposed sides were blocked out by a red screen. It looked as though it was trying to imitate blood and organs; convincing from a superficial side angle, but an obvious hoax when looked at up close. As she pondered this peculiar body, a faint sound of bubbling was heard from below. It resembled that of a boiling, overflowing pot, reaching its maximum limit in confinement. By the time she started to look down, the sound had grown much louder and was impossible to go unnoticed or ignored as something irrelevant.
The lower half of Giorgio's body had completely disappeared and transformed into bubbles, which were floating onto Eos's axe and arms without popping upon contact. When she noticed this, she immediately made an attempt to remove her axe from the ground and shake the bubbles off, but she couldn't move her arms. Where the bubbles sat on her skin, a penetrative numbness overwhelmed her nerves, making her limbs feel both heavy and artificial. She became desperate to try to remove her weapon, or at least stimulate her arms, but Giorgio's body continued to dissolve and transform into more and more bubbles, which were seemingly magnetically attracted to Eos.
After ensuring the movements of her legs and arms were completely restricted (and laughing at her frantic articulation), Giorgio emerged from a tiny pool of water at a short distance from where Eos now stood.
'Good grief, Eos, I didn't think you'd actually fall for it,' he laughed in a tone so casual, it enraged Eos to her very being, 'whilst you were busy getting angry at my remarks and jumping around, I substituted myself with a copy made up of my bubbles; then, I dispersed some soapy water onto the ground here and moved into position. A textbook play, yet apparently successful when used on a rookie like you.'
Eos growled in anger and barely managed to twist her contorted body to face Giorgio as he strutted closer; his smug face was found to be exceedingly detestable to her, and she wanted nothing more than to kill him for real.
'Look at you: like a helpless animal. Really, you gotta stop looking at me like that: I almost feel bad keeping you tied down like this,' Giorgio jested, as he invaded the proximity between them and patted her head in the same jovial manner as one who pets their dog. This was the last straw for Eos, and Giorgio, out of sheer arrogance, had seemingly placed himself in a very vulnerable position by being close to her. She diverted all her attention to her eyes and let out two full-powered beams from them. They touched Giorgio with a direct hit, as he was not guarding himself, and sent him flying backwards. Although unharmed, he had felt the calefaction of the beams reach exceeding heights; she was growing more furious with each word he said, and therefore, becoming less calculated.
The power of the bubbles on Eos ceased, and she regained motion within her body. She felt invigorated with anger and promptly slashed both her arms across her chest in one great motion to be completely rid of all the bubbles. However, with each bubble popped, a copy of Giorgio appeared in its place. And, unfortunately for Eos, her impulsive movements led her to completely pop every single bubble before she could register the technique. Within a second, over thirty copies of Giorgio had surrounded Eos. The continuous change between new techniques made it impossible for Eos to fully comprehend the fight, and she was struck motionless in the moment from revelation, allowing all Giorgio copies to each land a blow. Individually, their punches were weak, as they lacked the large quantities of spirit usually found in power-users to help reinforce the strength of the impact. However, this individual weakness was wholly compensated for when all copies attacked unanimously. Eos received the attacks from the illusions, initially stunned and in pain, but then regained a large enough portion of strength to fight back. She hopelessly spun her axe around her like a wave of water, managing to successfully eradicate some of the copies. Those who came into contact with her axe popped and did not return. A downside to using this technique is the fact that, in order to make each clone strong in its own right, Giorgio must transfer part of his own spirit into their being. But, with this many clones active at once, the spirit output is far too high for Giorgio to manage; therefore, he has no choice but to make the clones as weak as possible, and prioritise the quantity of them over the quality. Their weakness, ultimately, equates to their short lifespan; these clones are destroyed upon a single impact and do not convert their spirit back to Giorgio. However, his quick thinking has led him to find a solution to this weakness: by transforming the clones back into bubbles just before they are destroyed, Giorgio regains the lost spirit and instantly converts it back into a clone, ready to be activated when hit. So, in theory, if his attention can be dispersed across all clones, he can continue to convert them from bubbles to beings infinitely without losing any spirit. This is how he would overwhelm Eos and win.