To meet a stranger with drawn blade was to bet your life on the throw of a coin. You might have practiced harder, or they might. You might prove the stronger will but there was no way to test or bet on it. To fight so was to fight at a distance, quick and impersonal; an execution in tactics. As cold as the Kathresis. But now there was an imbalance. Now it was personal. She'd [i]wronged [/i]Angela and accordingly it was no mysterious shadow across from her, no heroine out to launch her new legend. It was a known quantity. A known [i]temperature[/i]. Something she could interact with. The stress of the infinite collapsed down into a point. She no longer had to worry about who she had to be. All her questions were answered and her role was set; now she could just play it out. She opens her hand against the candle, the dripping heat of autocannon fire. She feels her palm sweat and burn. She feels drops of hot wax fall between her finger and scorch her skin. She feels the shock as it cools and hardens. Her spatial orientation changes not based on gravity but on relative power; the enemy is [i]above [/i]her and she stands in the way of scorching gravity. She's earned this. Earned this for three, two, one... The pistol comes up again with her free hand and slices across the sky. Clouds, already low and heavy, slice through with a beam that annihilates energy. It kills the wind, freezes the water, and brings down the blizzard. Flash-frozen snowflakes come down in a rush alongside tennis-ball hail around the beam's epicenter, and further out slashing and torrential rain. Visibility drops to zero in moments and the Kathresis is lost amidst howling snow. She doesn't even evade. The candlewax drip of autocannon fire is cut off as Angela loses track of her location; Solarel stays exactly where she is, letting her opponent's blindness fill every space in the new dark with her presence. Three, two, one... A recharge weapon was the way of the ambush predator; a way to convert time into power. Coldness, darkness, precision. That was how the Kathresis wanted to fight. She thought of Mirror; Mirror's patience, her stillness, her lightning reactions, how power moved between her god's tails. Each fraction of output accounted for, budgeted and spent. Understanding the situation and adapting her allocation perfectly. Not cold at all. Not like this, creating the situation that would allow for perfect allocation. Deep down she burned hot, unlike all the other huntresses of Hybrasil. The pistol chimed full. Solarel burned hot too. She came out of the blizzard in a silent rush, blades in hand, closing the distance. She starts the sequence, a familiar pattern of techniques she'd used to strike down a hundred enemies. A test of speed and strength and adaptability, leading up to the inevitable conclusion that disassembled the enemy mech like she'd done with Isabelle - And then instead halfway through a move she is not holding a blade of gold but a pistol of onyx. The heat of her heart and her battle converts into a ray of terrible cold in an instant - and then she's gone, back into the blizzard snow, waiting for the next recharge. [Fight: 7 - Inflict a condition - Seize a superior position amidst the blizzard]