This is nothing new.

There's always someone. Someone wanting what she has. Someone fighting her for something. Someone [i]in her way[/i].

They try to push, to pull, to run around and run over. Their approaches differ, they attack at all times of the day; morning, noon, the dead of night. It's exhausting.

In every case, they come for her - not because of something she has done to them - but just because they want what she has. In every case, they. will. fail.

Isabelle's world is full of noise - alarms, warnings, falling debris and the after-effects of the explosion all meld into one cacophony of pain that would debilitate most other people.

This pain, too, is nothing new.

Emberlight lands on the ground, feet digging into the rubble and bringing her to a scraping halt. Inside the cockpit, warnings blare and metal groans - she's putting too much strain on Emberlight for this. [i]Her [/i]Emberlight - practically her most precious object - is breaking at her command. But she [i]won't [/i]lose. She [i]can't [/i]lose! Inside her head, she's wracked with fear and guilt at what that means. 

[Isabelle chooses to grin and bear it - marking two futher conditions: Frightened and Guilty.]

But the cameras don't see that. They see only a cloud of dust and, if they're lucky, a subtle shift as Isabelle brings her Crystal-Fire Drive into high gear. Emberlight crouches low as white lightning begins to coruscate up her legs, her arms. At a thought, Emberlight deploys the plasma blades built into each of her fingers, wreathing them in blue. Melting their way loose from the divots in the gravel. Isabelle brings her head up, eyes afire. And time?

Time seems to slow.

It would take the high-speed replays to fully appreciate what happens next. 

The Unseen Goose is faster than it should be, given its size, but Emberlight is [i]built [/i]for speed and even then? When it bursts out of  the cloud of dust, it is moving [i]fast [/i]- faster than most mechs are capable of - faster than most mechs should find [i]possible[/i]. 

[Activating - Legendary Skill, from her destiny to take 1 forward here]

Ada swings, and Isabelle reacts, bending herself around the blade impossibly quickly, making it miss by microns even as it sheers into another of the holo-decoys. In response, her arms strike precisely, first under the outstretched arm, then flowing around the Goose's back and across the shoulders and down one leg.

The cuts aren't deep, but they are fast, they are plenty and they are [i]precise[/i]. Doing the kind of damage only someone who knows about engineering, how the lifeblood of mechs flow, could do - at a speed that hasn't been seen in Akkar before. 

Ada tries to backhand her with the shield, but Isabelle bends under it, so low that Emberlight's head scrapes the ground, before she grasps the wrist and plants a leg in the back of the Goose's knee.

"Terenius isn't yours to take" she spits.

[Roll to fight - 5 + 6 + 1 = [b]12[/b]. Inflict a condition, take a string and a superior position]

"It has to be [i]earned[/i]."