[b]Blue![/b] "No," said Blue. "I would have picked the same faction as you. I prefer mirror matchups." Not many people favour mirror matchups. They're the most precise, most demanding engagements. There is no room for deception, no room for game imbalance, no room for mistakes. Strength must leverage against strength, curves against curves, victory only possible with raw skill. To lose in a mirror matchup leaves no room for retreat, to win establishes nothing other than superiority. "My measurements are 83-56-83," she said, eyes locked in challenge. [i]Do it, you coward[/i]. [b]White![/b] Humans were really good at running. She didn't really understand why they didn't do more of it. She's hyperaware of her own mechanics now, things ordinarily glossed into silent routine drawn inexorably to the forefront of her mind. She'd been built for aesthetics first and foremost, and that broadly meant replicating human anatomy... or at least, the appearance of human anatomy. Bundles of nanofiber muscles connected to multiple distributed small batteries. She could feel the heat points in her joints as she ran through her energy. She noticed her heart stop beating and switched instead to a silent and constant whirr as it ran the lubricating coolant through her body without the false starts and stops that imitated a human's heartbeat. She started breathing as a way to vent the waste heat building up in her throat. More human. Less human. Compromises. One feature turns off, another feature turns on. The way 3V moves is different. All the machinery pulls in the same direction. She's made for this. Sweat comes because it is an efficient cooling process. It's an inheritance from the dawn of time. It wasn't removed because her parent didn't find it cute. Her heart pounds louder, doing more. It performs a function, and the performance was romanticised later. November performs a romantic function, a painting of a painting. And in the heat of motion she can feel all her pigments start to run. She can feel the blank canvas underneath. Feel its weave. An ache starts, the dull motion of power redistribution. As her knee and thigh batteries drain faster than the others her body starts automatically shifting the power from the more full batteries on her shoulders and elbows and the reserve in her core. The connection feels hot and painful, an ache running through wire veins. She feels like a stick figure, a two dimensional depthless creature. She is wrapped around slow motion electricity. Is this what she is, really? This network of power is the motive force that animates her mind and body, the rest is just the shell moved by that electricity. Five wires, burning hot. How did this fire compare to humans whose life was in the blood? The signs of fatigue. Safety measures, the urge to slow, the heavy breathing, the pulse and tiredness. She didn't feel good for not having those signs, she felt a vague panicked sense that she should replicate them somehow. There was nothing that was going to signal to her that she was overdoing it and should slow down or stop. She had to worry about improperly administering her internal heat buildup. She didn't have a billion years of dead monkeys teaching her valuable lessons about heatstroke, she needed to make a reasoned decision about how to take care of herself. She wants to stress about it. Needs to stress about it. Visions of comforting spreadsheets flash inside her running mind, trying to slow her down with the promise of easy control. Not yet. Not yet. She can't break before 3V does. If she let 3V win she'd never hear the end of it. No, she's going to run as smooth and graceful and perfect as a machine until she's run her girlfriend down, and figure out the price tag afterwards.