[b]Isabelle[/b]

This is going to be one for the highlight reels. Jacinta 6's feral growl fills up the comms, but you smoothly sidestep like you were dodging a bit of dust or falling rock, and then you've got her. She struggles and twists, but your grip is strong, and you can feel that strength coursing through you in the form of your own empowered gauntlet. It feels like nothing could stop you, like you can mold the world however you want. EMP pulses collide in a crack of white light, smoke, and the smell of ozone, and with that the claws on Jacinta 6's mecha are crushed and worthless for the remainder of the fight. You smile with your victory and you offer her honorable surrender. In this moment, you are the height of nobility, grace, and poise. 

Now, if you were cutting the clip for the highlight reel, this is where [i]you[/i] would stop. Because the thing that you have forgotten in this fight is that the opponent you're holding is an angry cat and she has claws everywhere. With a wordless snarl, she wrenches her own arm in your grip (that had to hurt, good chance it's completely useless now and her own arm inside the mecha probably just went completely numb within her neural mesh). She uses that momentum to kick off the last remaining bits of the tree branch and send a foot to connect with your stomach. There is one more EMP claw in those foot talons, and it cuts right past your shields and makes you feel rather like you just got kicked in the solarplexes. The branch snaps the rest of the way and both of you fall. 

You shouldn't let this take away from your victory though. This is an act of angry, snarling defiance with no regard to true victory. Even as you crash to the ground, your grip never breaks and you've still got a firm hold on her, nor is the kick really threatening you with decisive damage. It's just that what went from a cool, suave, noble victory is now going to be nothing but kicking, snarling, and fighting until she can't move anymore and that's pretty frustrating for how you wanted the match to end. 

How do you finish her off?

[Jacinta 6 inflicts the [b]Angry[/b] condition on you in response]

***

[b]Solarel[/b] 

"Listen here, Traitor. First, you disrespect this contest. Then you disrespect my god, and now you disrespect Zaldarian culture!"

She's trying to figure out how to get around to you, but she's also still recovering from how hard she was being thrown and you're moving in a way that her god hasn't ever dealt with in combat. She probably could have just started attacking the Bezorel in earnest, flames be damned, and ignored you in order to cut off your strategy, but she's not thinking straight. You've thrown her. 

"I will [i]not[/i] let this injustice stand!" A hand tries to grab for you and misses as you use the flame-empowered momentum and your pick to hurl yourself upwards. The Sea Spike flails again and tries to stand up straight and regain its balance as the Bezorel circles it. 

"Your depravity knows no bounds, traitor! I will defeat you for the Empress!" She's trying something different now, bringing her own longspear around in a circular cut that's designed to hit you by cutting all the way up her own leg, the shallow surface damage be damned. 

Every camera drone from the twilit jungle has flown out and they're doing their absolute best to zoom in on you without getting in the way of the match (which is programmed into them as an absolute imperative, nobody wants to invalidate a result or lose expensive camera equipment to a stray explosion). Every Zaldarian watching the live match right now is focused on you, Solarel, as you ascend an impossible mountain. So is Nierka.

You get this one free moment before her own mecha AI points out how dumb she's being and that she could just blow up the Bezorel at close range. Make it count. 

***

[b]Mirror[/b]

You can't hear it, but the audience gasps. A planet away in Keoni's Tower, a fisher cat is proudly being handed money by a collection of huntresses gathered by a screen at the highest table in the tower. "She should have gone for the finish immediately" grunts a tiger with an annoyed pout. "She's gathering [i]data[/i] idiot. You should try it sometime" the elated fishing cat responds as she counts her new stack of coins. 

You're really going to let her take this shot though, huh? You're lucky. She doesn't trust it any more than the audience does, and some part of this seems to offend her honor. She comes over the comms for the first time this match. It crackles once, and you hear her deep baritone voice whisper out "you can't be serious" before it clicks back off. She's been all business, but she wanted you to know how she felt, and perhaps understand a little bit of why she took a fast shot in response and not a fully charged, fully prepared shot. 

The shot itself hits hard. You're lucky you don't control with a neural mesh, this is the kind of hit that can shock someone and throw off their reactions even if it cuts off before they'd experience pain. Instead, you get a frontrow seat to an arc of purple light that snaps out and turns all the colors negative for a moment as it impacts the arm of the God Smiting Whip. An arm that now has a hole in it. The shot cuts clean through it and for just a moment, you consider what could have been if she'd gone for her strongest, slowest hit, imagine it hitting the cockpit and knocking you out completely, blowing through your mecha all the way to the crystal core. It's terrifying.

And then it's done. The heat dissipates, you're still there, and it was all over in a flash. You've got the cooldown of her weapon and an opportunity, but you cut this much closer than you might have realized and you might be playing this bit of data back over for a while. 

[Take the [b]Afraid[/b] condition]

***

[b]Jade and Dolly[/b]

You dance through a storm of fireflies. It would be harrowing if it weren't so beautiful. Both of you together feel the swaying, the heat, the gentle caress as the bullets fly so close. In the light of the flames, each one shines like a little molten spark of gold, and you sway with the wind and the flames as you avoid the assault. The motion is natural, a perfect dancer as a goddess of steel. Crowds would pack a stadium just to watch a dance like this without even the combat contest. 

"No. You. Do. Not!" Angela speeds up her tracking, the first autocannon continuing to make you dance as the second picks up its pace to lead you. But it is here that you begin to spin the spear, bullets flying and deflecting until the throw, when latches itself to her shoulder and cuts off the fire from the second autocannon.

That's what speeds things up for you because with just one cannon to dance around, you can control the pacing, you're only fighting one AI at once, not two, and that makes beating out its prediction algorithm child's play. You know you can get close. Close enough to hug. Close enough to cut. You just need to dodge one more thing, that last moment when Angela will give up the fire and switch to her last-ditch wristblades. Navigate that last hurdle, and the match will be yours.