Bureau HQ – Resonance Chamber
The walls pulsed with sound.
Every reflection of Raon on the mirrored panels began moving on its own.
Each clone hummed in perfect rhythm — a living remix of her stance, tone, and power.
Shion's eyes darted over holographic readings.
> "There's at least thirty of them," she said, her voice steady but tense.
"Correction—forty," Raon said as two more flickered into existence. "They multiply faster than pop idols on debut day."
The clones smiled in eerie unison.
> "♪ INITIATING KICK LOOP SEQUENCE ♪"
Every clone raised a leg.
---
Impact.
Forty kicks detonated at once. The shockwaves ricocheted through the chamber, bending light itself.
Raon countered midair, her own strikes canceling the vibrations — but every neutralized frequency reappeared as another copy.
> "Shion, they're syncing faster than I can break them!"
"They're mimicking your timing," Shion said. "You can't beat them by rhythm—you'll have to desync."
Raon smirked.
"Perfect. I'm tone-deaf anyway."
---
The Beat Breaker
She slammed her foot down.
A dull thud echoed — offbeat, raw, ugly.
The clones froze for half a second.
Then Raon switched tempo completely: unpredictable bursts, arrhythmic chaos, no pattern to follow.
Her kicks blurred in jagged intervals — one punchy, one delayed, one absurdly early.
> "♪ ERROR. SYNC LOST. ♪"
The clones glitched, their outlines fracturing like bad video files.
Raon twirled midair, landing the finisher.
"Ever heard of jazz?" she said with a grin.
---
The clones shattered into glowing shards of data.
But instead of fading, the shards reassembled into one enormous figure — a towering digital statue shaped like Raon, voice booming like a subwoofer.
> "ECHO SEED: FINAL FORM — REMIX CORE."
The entire HQ trembled. Manager Kimchi's voice crackled through comms:
> "Raon! Whatever you're doing, stop breaking the servers! They're rebooting into karaoke mode again!"
Raon didn't even look back.
"Too late. I'm already the headliner."
---
Remix Core vs. One Kick Girl
The Core lunged. Each strike came with its own sound — cymbals, bass, distorted laughter.
Raon danced between hits, her movements messy but precise.
Every dodge made the rhythm collapse.
Shion calculated in real time.
> "The entity's power scales with repetition. If you keep the tempo unstable, it can't rebuild energy!"
Raon nodded once — then spun into a ground kick so violent it inverted the waveform.
The feedback loop imploded, sucking in light and sound until—
Silence.
---
The Core staggered, its neon cracks bleeding static.
Raon launched one final hit — a vertical spin kick that split the entity in half like a shattered record.
> "♪ LOOP… BROKEN… ♪"
"Yeah," Raon said, walking away, "try not to skip next time."
The explosion echoed once — then the chamber dimmed back to quiet.
---
Aftermath
Shion exhaled in relief.
> "Containment stable. The Remix Core's gone."
Raon adjusted her hoodie, looking mildly annoyed.
"Good. I hate fighting myself. Too many spoilers."
Manager Kimchi burst in holding a frying pan like a weapon.
> "WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE COMMUNICATIONS FLOOR?! It's playing your victory theme on repeat!"
Raon blinked.
"Wait—I have a victory theme?"
Shion tapped her tablet.
> "Apparently yes. It's called 'Kick My Beat.' Auto-composed by the Echo remnants."
Raon groaned.
"Great. I'm a pop star now."
---
[End of Chapter 24 — "Remix Protocol: Kick, Loop, Repeat"]