> hey

A long moment of hesitation as rain beats down on her canopy.

A decision.

> <3

The [i]Bezorel [/i]breaks into a loping run.

She was made for this. Made to be tall. Made to be strong. The world wasn't right at any other scale. Face to face people felt like they should be giants. Mouth to mouth the commandment of Zaldar gagged her. Skin to skin the blatant unreality of expressing love without high velocity railgun slugs took her from the moment. It was life without reach, without speed, without limbs or voice or the gentle kisses of point defense flamethrowers. Even the Bezorel, museum piece though it was, felt vivid and alive in a way that nothing else was.

This was her world. The battlefield of gods.

> would you believe that this thing doesn't even have modern sensors?
> i'm practically blindfolded for you~

She was at full strength. Her shoulders ached with the weight of ammunition. Her throat was thick with fuel. Her feet groaned with additional weight. She was so ready and still she felt like a wounded animal. She could feel the weight of the Gods-Smiting Whip brush against her back, feel the tingle of its long range sensors brush around her. Feel the edge of Mirror's mind like teeth against the back of her neck. Felt the thrill of knowing there was no way Mirror was taking it easy on her. 

She felt the rain of the river splash around her ankles. Adjusted her stride flawlessly to avoid a quicksand sump that would have tripped her. The Bezorel's scanners may have been obsolete, but it was equipped with a state of the art geological surveying kit after spending time as a repurposed mining platform. She could feel the silt and muck of the riverbed between her toes, feel the distant tremor of the Whip's footsteps on her seismic scope, taste the solidity of the rock just by looking at it like it was running through the inside of her mouth. The earth here tasted of wet clay and stone eggs, pebbles carved smooth, trees feasting on the accumulated biomass of previous generations.

> i just want you to know i tried my best
> but there was an empress involved
> and like a hundred bodyguards
> there was this one chick, she was huge
> had this fucking, like, staff that broke apart into a chain
> wild
> i think i figured out her tell!
> but, uh, i'd already lost a lot of blood by that point
> so i lost the Aeteline
> sorry
> this was the best i could do

She reaches the canyon.

A long and narrow valley of blue rock traced through with veins of white marble, only a single approach in and out. After a kilometer it terminated in a tunnel leading into a cave network too small for a mech to move within. A position of suicidal defiance, a wounded wolf retreating into its den with only a single way out. Cornered. She backed up and swung the Bezorel around, walking backwards one step at a time, letting her mechanical head sweep back and forth in a scanning motion. 

> but i want you to know
> i never gave up
> and i never will 

Explosive bolts detonate all along her arms. The glass shell of the Archimedes Array crashes into the water, the glittering electronic lights within illuminating Solarel from below in pink and gold. Two arms unfold in stages, the hiss of hydraulics accompanying each stage of the transformation. From a storage compartment in the back of the Bezorel comes forth a two-handed multi-missile launcher. With a dexterity that does not match the rest of her mech at all she unlimbers it and slings it over her shoulder even as kinetic dampeners extend on pistons from her feet to root her to the spot. Four quad drones launch from her shoulders, raising up over the canyon to extend her vision range through the driving rain.

The Bezorel isn't a modern TC mech. It can't fight like one. But now, for a while, it can shoot like one.

> so 
> how are you? 
> <3

No hesitation this time.

[Call Upon a Toxic Power: 8.]