[b]Solarel[/b] It’s very cold. The air here is thin, and above you is thick cloud cover. Before you, the terrain is nearly flat, covered with low green grasses that to the footsteps of the Kathresis might as well be carpet. A black, mournful wind swirls within the mountain bowl. It kicks up loose leaves and dust and carries the hint of snow upon it. You enter the arena from one end of the mountain ring. Across from you at the other end of your arena stands the Barn Owl. It’s unassuming. Angela did not change the color since her previous match, it’s the same utilitarian brown as before, a simple human form mecha. It seems Angela changed very little on the surface in fact. It’s hard to tell at this distance, but the mark that Jade made upon the mecha seems to have been entirely preserved, with only a few repairs made to fix the dents and tears from the combat. Blocky shoulders steady the autocannons, the wrist blades are already drawn, and if she’s got a new trick, she’s not showing it. She might as well have commissioned a neon sign with defiance emblazoned on it over the arena. She defies you to outdo Dolly and Jade, she defies you to force her to reveal something she has not already shown, she defies you to approach her. The comms light up with her voice, thick and almost shouting a challenge. “Zaldarian. Do not think that I will go down as I did in my previous match. Do not dare think your new mecha will mean I am unprepared for you. I have heard your stories and I am unimpressed. Show me something worth remembering this fight!” *** [b]Mirror[/b] The space feels cramped, even compared to the statistics. It’s multi-story, but you’re so used to speed, knowing that any straight flight would slam you into a wall or ceiling in scant seconds must feel confining. The floor is a sandy stone, the stands are white marble. They gleam in the bright lights, and from a bit of sunlight from the small skylight in the center of the ceiling. Too small for a mecha to fit through, unless one blew it open and collapsed the roof. Somewhere a planet away, Matty is sitting with Trosta to observe the match, though she glances slyly over to Slate when she has the chance and perhaps Slate knows that Matty would prefer a lap seat if she had the choice. Tails one, three, and seven are operational. All the others have no energy flow going to them. Energy efficiency in the active tails is high. 99.97%, which is the best you’ve ever seen it be. Trosta, whatever else she might be, appears to be a magician when it comes to wiring and capacitors. Your new internal display shows your current stance, with the active tails highlighted in green. There’s an unfilled rectangular meter in an outline at the top. Heim enters the arena opposite you. There’s no hiding here. The Blast Wall lives up to its name, hefting a massive rectangular shield painted black along its outer surface. It’s taller than the head of Heim’s mecha and protects all but the very edge of his right arm, from which he hefts a short and maneuverable ionic spear. Everything about his mecha feels thick and sturdy. The legs are planted and you can see from the right side past the shield that they have extra armor plating, perhaps also housing a shield generator. The shoulders are thick, and there is a harness just visible on the chest behind the shield holding the missile launching system in place. His decorations upon the metallic Zaldarian shell are teal highlights along the borders of his armor and his helm, contrasting with the painted dark metal of most of it. Teal is part of the banner of his hold, called Heimdall, the best translation of a god who is always vigilant. The base of the helm forms a slight metallic beard, a sign of age and some protection for the neck of the mecha. Despite his sturdy defense, you can see that he stands at ease as he enters, the spear held point up, not immediately in an attack stance. He could set his weight at any moment, he simply hasn’t done it to start things off. “I hear you fought Solarel twice” comes his voice as the cameras circle the two of you, staying carefully distant in the stands. “Even won the second one. You won’t find me like her. Whatever she is now, she was an imperial knight, a servant of the Empress. Me, I’m a raider.” He chuckles. Seems in no rush to do much. You might wonder if this will make for good TV or if he’s just overly confident. “If I win this fight, I’ll capture for my glory what I could never manage to hold in combat. Raiders have to manage on our own, any way we can. I’ve only ever been to Zaldaria once, an honor to hunt for my god there. But before and since it’s been about scraping together what we could from where we could. I’ve wanted to see this place, our gift to peace, to doing things differently. Every nanobot shaper in my hold contributed to it. Sent Marna the last time though and she only got second place. So I said to myself I’d better come on my own this time around!” He laughs, long and hearty, though his eyes never stop tracking you. *** [b]Dolly and Jade[/b] Erys has not deigned to join you in the sky. She’s somewhere in the city below, prowling, lurking. She has one of the better cloaking devices as well, but you can feel her out there, stalking around you, looking for an angle. Sharp eyes in a shadowed jungle. The mark of the true huntress is said to be patience above all else. Prey needs to move, to lower its guard to eat and drink, to sleep, offering the chance to strike for a patient huntress. They had mentioned the goddess of the hunt, or at least the Leopard had, hadn’t they? Perhaps Erys is emulating the style of the goddess for protection. Perhaps she simply doesn’t want to tip her hand yet. With Ksharta, you tried to flush her out with drones. What then this time? Will you go down to her and seek her, knowing her danger? Or will you try to lure her into a foolish strike that you can turn against her? Which of you is the more patient huntress? *** [b]Isabelle[/b] The lightning chaser is a mess of purple and chrome. Parts of it look nearly like exposed wires, waist and elbow joints exposed down to their moving rotators in pure metal, and around them swirls of purple paints criss-crossing the chest, the arms, the legs, as though a river of purple went mad and chose to flow all across the machine. It’s small and thin like Solarel’s mecha, but sporting a massive rifle held in both hands, with smaller shoulder AND wrist guns as well. It seems well designed to put out a hail of bullets of various types, strong and weak. When you watched Quar’s previous matches, you saw that there wasn’t a single route to victory. She lost her first match to Ada Smith, your last opponent, a surprise decisive beating from stealth that she wasn’t prepared for. In her other matches, different weapons proved decision for victory, some fast, some slower. One opponent went down in a hail of fire, the death of a thousand cuts. The other made a foolish mistake and took a main rifle blast straight to the head from above, completely disabling the mecha and knocking the pilot unconscious. Of course, it’s honestly a little hard to focus on any of that with everything swirling in your head. Your mother went ballistic when you were alone. What the hell was wrong with you, Isabelle? You went off alone, you let yourself be taken by surprise, you broadcast a distress signal. Did you think Tadeo’s line so secure that nobody else would know? Did you think your absence would be unremarked, or that of your brother rushing off to save you? Everyone knows you had to limp back. Everyone knows you have no mecha of your own now. Your last loss was a disgrace to the family, and it would be a miracle if Adriana paid you any attention now. She considered striking you in the tirade, but didn’t because explaining the mark would simply be too much effort. She had no hesitation telling you exactly that. Almira went over every second of the previous video with you. Pointing out the movement, calculating the speed and reaction time of the pilot herself. See how Quar fades backwards in her victories, maintaining an ideal field of fire? She’s relying on her opponents desperation, chasing harder and faster so which she responds with equal speed, always maintaining her perfect firing range until she gets an opening or they wear out. See the way people play into her expectations? A Lozano is better than that! Almira freezes the frames on several screens in each fight, where you see the Lightning Chaser shift its movement. She goes frame by frame. See it takes one fifth of a second for it to change direction consistently. You can gain ground on that small change if you can catch her unaware. Don’t follow, break her spacing. Chase, then fade, then chase again, then fade, then chase. Switch three to five times inconsistently to throw off her rhythm, then close decisively. Create a planned pattern in advance, the brain is untrustworthy and can’t be expected to manage actual randomness in a fight, so you plan your randomness. If you don’t win in the first exchange, do only a single fake in the second and then rush her, she will be bracing herself for you to equivocate after the first time and decisive action will take her unaware. If you need a third, go back to faking her out, and then repeat on a fourth she won’t expect you to break the pattern. If you need a fifth exchange, you’re a failure as a daughter. Once, briefly, you hear soft footsteps approach while you’re working with your mother, but they turn and leave and she snaps her fingers by the side of your head for your momentary distraction. You never saw Asil in all the other days. Not in the maintenance crews, not anywhere. Your equipment and technology deliveries are still listed properly, all crew accounted for, she hasn’t fled. But she’s avoiding you and your mother has no interest in giving you the time or space to seek to mend things. It wouldn't’ be shocking if Almira had ordered her to stay away from you, if she caught even the slightest inkling that you cared about her based on how you blew up at the crew earlier. Strong emotion runs both ways and Almira Castra Lozano was not born yesterday. As for the fight, well, she’s already taking aim at you as she comes around the platform, orienting herself to match your most likely dodge angle away from the platform. No words from her either, just cold efficiency to start. So how are you feeling?