There are some mechs which come to life in zero gravity. Up there, where there is no up or down, the best pilots can shed the concepts like a snake’s skin. All directions are one direction, and the only resistance is momentum. Most pilots instead hold onto to thoughts of gravity, clinging to the grid of directions, even if there are more of them in play, even if which direction is up changes from moment to moment.

It takes a miracle to bring the effortless grace of zero-gee into a planetary atmosphere. There’s been talk about a mecha called the God-Smiting Whip that can do it, alien in its movements, unmoored by what the body can do.

What Dolly and Jade are doing is not that. They hang in the air like a stormcloud, and when they walk, it is as if they are on the ground. No part of the mecha lags; gravity has seemingly no hold over them. The combined effect is alien, perhaps even unsettling, and Smokeless Jade Fires thrills in it.

[i]The clouds caress her; the winds dig their fingers through her fur. Whenever she takes a step, she feels unseen hands holding her up. It’s like something out of a story for kittens, every time.

Jade leans her forward, then further, then further. The ground comes no closer as she guides Dolly’s hands neatly under her chin, elbows leaning on nothing.[/i]

The microthrusters in points of articulation whine, and Jade fortifies them with her will. Her consciousness expands in rings, and each of her smiles is contained within another smile. Behold. This is what her pilot, her bride can do. This is her Dolly. Are you watching, o Red Band?

“Do not think you are hidden, Erys Bander,” she purrs, thunderously. “As small as you are.” The roads are not superimposed on the world, but they strain just beneath the surface, drawn up from stygian depths by the weight of her contemplation. She is a magician. She is a goddess. She is the huntress. She knows the prey. This is her assertion.

“Stomping around in that heavy, lumpen thing. Will the mountain come to the sky?” It would be quite the jump, and foolish besides, given the advantage obviously possessed up here. “I think it must. Because—“

There is no space for thought. There is no space to warn Dolly. It is not a calculation. (At least, it is not a calculation that she is aware that she has made. Which is the point.) It is magic. It is the power of a goddess. It is the color of the green road leaching into the world.

Together, they arm and fling a missile, as good a throwing knife as any when goddesses duel. Their supply is very limited, and throwing one by hand is hardly how one is supposed to be launched, but this is a message. This is fire from heaven. This is the lightning bolt. This is power tossed carelessly, but with impossible accuracy, and how can you deal with this, Erys Bander?

[i]It’s a lightning bolt as it leaves her fingers, and it’s also a knife, both in one. The explosion below is enough to make her flinch, but she tries to turn it into one of Jade’s nonchalant shrugs. She can’t let her goddess down. No weakness. Not in front of a big bullying pirate and that insufferable handsy girl.[/I]

“—your silly tricks and cloaks do not work on me, little raider.” Was that a flicker of cloak? Was that a shower of debris bouncing off thin air? Not a clean shot, but surely enough to put the terror of a goddess into the skulking Erys Bander. Surely. Enough to “tilt” her. To make her sloppy. To play her hand early, or make the fatal error of joining battle in the sky, where Dolly is a coiled cloud-serpent, where they have mobility the likes of which Erys Bander and her clan have never seen before.

Her lance lolls in mockery, as if this is not serious enough for her to have it ready and level. [i]Jade specifically has her let the head droop, but holds her fingers tightly around the shaft. It’s a fakeout. And then they’ll, they’ll use the momentum against her? That sounds right.[/i]

“Come out~! Or shall I knock this city down around your ears first?”

A second instinct: a draw, a fling, a roar as masonry crumbles and roots are exposed. The thrill of it! She is beyond you, Erys Bander! You are her toy, her quarry, her threat to scare her bride with and then overcome! How can you hope to defeat a goddess? What a grand and intoxicating innocence!

Go ahead! Call on Dishai, see if she answers you! Let Smokeless Jade Fires show how she can consume earth and stone alike in the flames of her passion! Old hag! It is the youngest goddess who burns brightest!

Smokeless Jade Fires, invincible, inimitable, unstoppable, inexorable, glorious!

[Smokeless Jade Fires rolls a [b]7[/b] to Defy Disaster with Spirit and accurately, impossibly bomb Erys Bander’s cloaked position, offering her position in the sky as collateral (and also her pride). She should be given success at a sacrifice or a hard choice.]