Olivia relaxed slightly at the easy banter between Shankari and Ribsy. It was familiar. Olivia knew how to handle banter, how to engage with sarcastic quips and ease up. She rubbed the tension out of the back of her neck, trying to think through Ribsy’s questions through the haze of exhaustion. 

The sparring. Olivia thought to the folders locked away in her footlocker. Darren’s information was incredibly detailed, a leg up in the competition to win the chance to fight. She didn’t understand half the jargon, but Olivia was smart enough to get the gist of it. Sharing the load, balancing the stress across two pilots, melding minds and bodies into harmony. Olivia thought it sounded like a bunch of new-age bullshit, but even she couldn’t deny the simple beauty to the logic.

“I think,” she decided on finally, “That it’s probably more of the same, to be honest. More psych testing, just dressed up in PT to try and catch us off-guard. Everything’s a mind game here. They’d rather break candidates early rather then have them break against a Kaiju.”