[b]Mirror[/b] You won. You won? You won… When you reach the Hangar, Slate’s already got a team prepared, everyone that’s safe and cleared to work on the Whip, arranged for some to pull an off shift and they’ll all sleep after. A good detail to have seen to in the circumstances. Slate pulls you out herself, already talking. “...can’t figure it, boss. I’d have seen if somebody got in who wasn’t supposed to be here, I should have seen if someone was here. They might have had a Zaldarian agent with nanobot skills, gotten them to reweave the hangar to create a back entrance right to your bay so we wouldn’t see them. That’s my best guess. I mean, or whoever was on duty at the time was blind, I dunno.” “Goddess, if it stopped you for more than a few seconds, I couldn’t tell. Actually, for a sec there, I thought you’d just called the match. You had that big sunspear all ready to go, like you really were a goddess out of the comics, and then you just went dark and I said to myself, ah fuck it, Mira’s called it off, she’s too angry at being pushed to do this by this hunk of junk, she’s just gonna eat the last shot and let us fix it later so nobody gets to see any more.” She’s got a drink she’s pushing into your hands, there’s a straw too. Some kind of tea, sweet with salted cream cutting the astringency. Thick and strong after a match. “That was some serious bullshit though. I haven’t seen somebody take that many shots since the time my cousin went off with an arctic type, you know people say they go harder because they hibernate so they have to make up for lost time. But seriously, like, that’s crazy she was doing that, that was something special for you, nobody would fight like that every time, even that crazy TC queen who won the last match couldn’t afford it. I mean, she could but like, she wouldn’t, it would be wasteful like crazy and none of those types get those top jobs by being like that. Plus I hear she likes to get up close if you know what I mean.” Slate’s prattling right now, meaningless noise but also useful to get you into the moment, catch you up out of your own head after a match like that. She knows you can cut her off whenever you want. The rest of the crew is swarming over the Nine Tails, checking out the damage, pulling up schematics, marking baseline numbers and damaged components so they know what they’ll need. Repairs will be swift, the burnout wasn’t bad, damage didn’t go as deep as Valentina’s one good shot. The check over the interior controls for any other issues will be the longest part. And figuring out how to shield from that in the future. Maybe some kind of cockpit seal. How’s the mental comedown after all that? *** [b]Isabelle[/b] “You’re goddamn right it does!” [Ada Marks insecure] She stops trying to block the blows at all. Ada reverse her momentum, flicks her arm back, and the pommel of the blade strikes you in the head, making your ears ring through the mesh. [Ada responds to the fight by inflicting Isabelle’s fifth condition.] “Fuck, you’re almost so hot! Look at this! At all this! The Unseen Goose hasn’t had it this bad since I got ripped up by Adriana. Congratulations!” She says it with a bit of a sneer though. The Unseen Goose can barely move with the wounds you inflicted. All you need to do is get clear to win the match. That’s it, but her bulk, her strength. Ada made herself collapse towards you. Her hand is around the Emberlight’s shoulder. Her arm still functions, it’s not critical for mecha operations, there wasn’t time to disable every system. It’s so strong, so firm pressing into your back, your breasts. You feel the whole of Ada Smith holding you close, electric energy runs through her breast to yours. “But I heard you out here today. I heard what you didn’t say. You’re a proud engineer, what an amazing system! You’re a good pilot, really fucking good actually. But the only fire you pulled out all match was when it seemed like I was going to take away something you wanted.” You can hear Ada’s pain in her voice coming from the cockpit. She wanted more than she got. She wanted more. She wanted to share passions together, to thrill in this fight. But instead she’s mad and she’s hurt. The energy pulsing from her breast course through you, sending every part of your body into numb tingles. “How the fuck do you think you’ll be a good leader if the only thing that make you feel something is being denied?” She leans in, presses the head of her mecha to yours. It’s a soft touch, gentle, barely a feather compared to the energy from her heart. A hint of what could have been. Then she overloads her core. [Isabelle is Taken Out in the destruction, as is Ada. The match is a loss on a technicality, as both mecha are inoperable after it but Ada remained standing in hers.] [b]Isabelle, part two[/b] You’re in the Hangar. You were towed back to it, Emberlight’s systems are fried and your whole body feels like every muscle in it fell asleep at the same time and now you’re all pins and needles. Asil’s there, along with her whole crew. Madame Toldeo isn’t, she’s off managing some matters on Akar I probably. Luca, Tadeo, and Carmella are all there. Luca looks sad, Tadeo looks mad, Carmella looks disappointed. Asil’s the one who helps you out of the cockpit and onto a raised platform with the family. Your regular team is going over things first, Asil’s engineers hovering over the projectors, pulling in new data. She looks excited, actually. She’s trying to look she’s not sure what, sorry maybe. It’s mostly just a sort of pout and her eyes are shining because all she can think about actually is the absolutely massive amount of data you just generated at scale for her work. She blushes when she pulls you out though, just for a moment. Like she remembers when she touches you that there’s something else that could be occupying her mind. Luca’s right behind her, helping your other arm. Tadeo and Carmella behind. Tadeo makes a fist like he’s going to say something but then thinks better of it. Carmella hovers anxiously. The floor is yours for the moment. What have you got to say? To whom? *** [b]Solarel[/b] There are three salient details of your situation. One, There’s a man wearing a heavy coat pointing a shotgun at you. Two, there is a lioness running through the grass behind the man who is in the process of jumping into a drop kick aimed at both of you. Three, the sky is a gorgeous shade of pastel pink with swirls of yellow. According to your captors, you are on a planet named Roius, in the Aoi system. Its atmosphere has an odd effect with the light from the Cerulean belt resulting in the unusual pink sky. It is, apparently, breathable though, and gravity is 0.8x Zaldar’s, which makes you feel light and springy. You got here somewhat rapidly. The second your shuttle got to Akar I, you were met by some of the Boatmen, who politely escorted you at gunpoint onto their shuttle. You might have thought you were going to Styx, but they went the opposite direction toward’s the Aoi jump point. You were also tailed by a small shuttle (or coincidentally, there was a delivery of cultist catgirls that just happened to land at the same time as you, your guess really). The distortion of the jump means it doesn’t feel like a ton of time has passed to you, maybe a couple hours, although in point of fact two days have passed according to the galactic calendar. Not that you would know this precisely, as you have not had access. You barely even got to the good part. One of the other men, who was obviously less important because he was not pointing a shotgun at you, had just started to say something about just how badly in debt you were when the lioness pulled up and leapt. You are now at the center of what is about to become a small brawl, five Boatmen vs. three cultists (interestingly, two lionesses and one hooded behind them that might well be a Zaldarian), with you in line to kindly body block for the first Boatman who goes flying. What do you do? *** [b]Dolly and Jade[/b] You’ve won the match! It takes a moment for everyone involved to realize it. Ksharta gasps, holds her breath, and lets out a noise that’s somewhere between a squeak and a kettle boiling. Meanwhile, the drones have freed Jade from the net in simple jackal precision. That matters slightly in the sense that you can move if you want, and there’s an established dominance to the position that becomes available. But Ksharta is mostly past noticing. She’s past having any fight in her. She had been ready to shoot you, but she’s been chosen by a goddess, blessed with a stream of the most beautiful, hot, sweaty priestess that she’s ever seen, and declared to be a new adherent. If the position were different, she might bow and begin to worship. All of which is to say the fight has gone out of her at the same moment that she would need some fight to win the match. So it’s just…over. She concedes, you win. She doesn’t let go either. Both mechas being mostly intact, Ksharta in fact insists on holding hands as you make your way back to the hangar, parting only briefly to get the Pulsar Cat properly docked, before reappearing next to Dolly at the shuttle boarding. “Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh! That was incredible! Does she do that all the time? Do you do that all the time?!” Her eyes go wide as she imagines it. “Oh my gosh, is she always with you somehow? What do you when you’re not piloting in full neural mesh though, how do you commune with her or do auguries or um, you know goddess stuff? Oh, will you wear that, um…” she blushes, “um, tonight the dress with the open inner thighs that um, show off your um…” she can’t finish before she goes completely red and throws herself on your shoulder as you board the shuttle. By the by, where are you taking Ksharta? Both Akar planets are open to you. You could even go off-system by one or two jumps if you feel comfortable with the time, Hybrasilian tech is fast enough to get you back before your next match.