Something most people don't understand about puzzles is that they are actually weapons. The ultimate weapons, in fact. The faster you solve them the harder they hit, especially in warfare. Technically speaking this arena-level play fighting wasn't that, but the principle applied in equal measure to kittens testing the sharpness of their precious little teeth on each other's ears as it did to holding back a Zaldarian battle line. Information was power. Data was a sword and a shield. If you understood the nature of your opponent's strike, then...

"Evasive maneuvers, shifting power to left leg rear thrusters. Flip and flop, run and drop, as they say."

The first strike was irrelevant. The second was largely immaterial as well. The Gods-Smiting Whip bent at an impossible angle: one leg dangling in the air as if broken while the other drags the main back down toward the canopy in the direction of the river bed. The blast from the Lonely Star is enormous, more than powerful enough to puncture Mirror's frame clean through if it landed a direct hit. But Valentina's aim was perfect, which is to say incomplete. She led her shot to compensate for humanoid reflexes, humanoid movement capabilities. When Nine-Tails moved like a machine it converted a kill shot into so much superheated air. 

"Excellent! Very well done, Milady!"

That was the proper way to speak to human nobility, right? The Consortium's society was enormously complex and consisted of a frankly nonsensical crisscross of ladders with ascending and descending hierarchy that seemed immune to common sense adjustments for familiarity and physical closeness. They each had social roles (defined as birth traits? Bizzare.) and defaulted to the assumption that everyone they met would automatically treat with them with according levels of respect or disrespect depending on myriad cues they simply refused to signal. It was even possible, though unlikely, that Valentina de Alcard was not qualified 'nobility' at all, in which case Mirror was committing a major taboo just now. But then, to what purpose was the designation if the visitors to a planet weren't afforded the distinction? 

Well, that would be a puzzle for the Kiss and Cry, she supposed. In the meantime she made a spiraling dive for the tree cover, twisting out of the way of a second shot that was only slightly less accurate than it needed to be. Oh, beautiful calibration! She'd figured out the nature of the movement in just one demonstration! Mirror couldn't have asked for a more fun playmate to open her time in the arena with. It was only a shame they were operating on such different layers of the same puzzle together. 

"Target lock acquired. Synchronization levels holding. Stabilizing. Destruction rains from the heavens."

The Gods-Smiting Whip takes the river, landing in a three point stance on its right knee as it plunges the beam trident into the rocky riverbed with a rush of boiling water and the soft shuddering of earth accepting a temporary scar. Just as it crashes, tails one and two unleash a barrage of energy bursts from their original position in the canopy above. 

The first clips the side of the Lonely Star's giant weapon barrel. The second passes a whisker's breath away from its face plate. The next twenty two are total chaos. Rocks split clean in half as gleaming coal-like embers and dirt sprays in every which direction as shock after shock after shock of energy churns it up and spits it in the air like a great beast crawled out from mythology itself. The air turns to muddy steam that's quickly whipped into a whirlwind by the pattern of extreme heating and cooling happening to the poor air all over. But this level of assault is only sustainable for a few brief moments. The tails slink quietly down toward the ground, out of sight. The wind dissipates. 

And the Lonely Star is completely untouched. Not a single shot fired from the entire barrage did more than mar its paint job a teeny little playful bit here and there, like cutting little scraps of clothing from a duelist to show your admiration in a much more ancient sort of ritual. Instead, Mirror has carved patterns into the ground on every side of her opponent. She's painted the Lonely Star into a box and dotted the entire thing with stylized heart symbols. As if that was the entire point of the exercise. 

Nine-Tails rises to its full height, as two more tails float off of its back and seem to lock onto the mech's left forearm. It lifts its trident to the skies.

"I want to commend you for your choice of positioning. You claimed your territory with the precision I would expect from a huntress, I can't pay you any higher compliment than that. All the same, I'm sorry. I need a favor from you, cutie! See, my Nine Drive System is missing a lot of combat data. Data I need to finish it, understand? Of course you understand, good girl! So if you wouldn't mind..."

Mirror smashes her trident against Nine-Tails' forearm with an explosion of multicolored sparks. She settles into a deep stance and braces for impact, raising the arm like a shield in front of her.

"Full power, please. And don't forget to aim~"

[Defy Disaster: [b]5[/b]]