“What’s the matter, leadbeans? Did you think yourself so terribly clever in your cloak of air?” The thrill runs hot through Smokeless Jade Fires, the constituent parts of her feeding the promise of praise and glory back into herself like a loop of altars, like the sacrifice made to itself. “As if you could hide your [i]stench~![/i]”

The penultimate missile roars to its fated end. The roar of it slams into her like the wind rolling off the wave-breakers. She cackles, and then, for everyone to see—

[i]Jade guides her into the cartwheel. She closes her eyes and ignores the vertigo. If she stopped to think about the calculations that Jade is running to keep her from blacking out, how much strain she is putting on Jade’s body, how many jaws must be dropping at this display of careless power and control, or how Jade pushes her to arch her back, to curl her toes, to make this achingly sensual— well, she’d fall over. So she doesn’t. She breathes deep into Jade and closes her eyes and feels the stretch of her body, the way that Jade’s fingers dig ever-so-carefully into her skin, the reaching for the final missile/thunderbolt/knife while she’s upside down, and she smiles even though nobody can see her. It’s a small, blissful smile, and Jade’s finger traces the shape of the lip over the top of its confinement, because even in this moment, while the goddess is pulling off an incredible stunt, she knows who she’s doing it for, and if a slight waggle of the head forward risks disrupting the delicate balance, well, a curl of the tail is counterbalance enough.[/i]

And Smokeless Jade Fires slams the final missile home so hard that by right it should catch on fire. The metal of the warhead should burst into roaring flame like dry autumn tinder and tear open the shrieking sky. And while it falls like a meteor, Smokeless Jade Fires is already cutting the thrusters, laughing wildly, clinging closer to Dolly so that she will—

[i]—follow Jade’s lead oh Jade oh Jade oh Jade they’re fallllliiiiiinggggggg why do you want her down like thissssssss but she does it anyway because even though she wants to make a (muffled) scream she knows that Jade has a plan, needs her to land—[/i]

—driving the lance into the earth, which splinters and sparks under its tip, and spinning around it, building momentum for the lunge. “I can smell you from here, girlthief, pirate, [river ogre; caiman]!”

The cord wraps around the left wrist of [The unrelenting grip of the stone goddess Dishai], sparking and burning and half-lost amid the feedback of being hit by the thunder of the sky, and low, almost loping, cord dragging from her idol’s wrist, Smokeless Jade Fires cuts around to the right, fast as thought, taking the corners hard, leaping on the last as she pulls it taut, spinning, letting the momentum slam her hip into the pirate’s mech, and impossibly, its own strength used against it, [The unrelenting grip of the stone goddess Dishai] staggers back, pinned against a wall. Its tenfold plating smokes, its shields useless against the missile, its baffling nothing to the wit of a goddess; its arm crushes its own chest, its ionic fist resting against its own cheek. Smokeless Jade Fires grinds her idol against this mountain, holds the cord taut, reaches up and grabs one ear, drags that thick-girdered head to one side. Her arm fits in the hollow of the curve, the neck and the shoulder. She pushes Dolly forward, feels the shiver, grins unseen.

And she [i]sniffs.[/i]

[i]J A D E.[/i]

“There is nothing I cannot catch,” she stage-whispers. Let everyone hear. Let everyone witness. “Your girl’s heart betrays you; it stinks of your pride, your desperation, your…”

[i]Dolly’s mortified whimper, wide-eyed, imagining everyone watching as Jade rubs her crotch up against the big, strong, bossy, rude pirate, is unheard by everyone except the goddess herself. Her grip on the increasingly strained cord trembles.[/i]

“[i]Lusts.[/i]” Her claws dig, slowly, inexorably, into the war-plating. Feel it, Erys Bander. Feel yourself claimed like a weak-kneed, mewling ocelot. “And you thought you could creep about like a mouse? That I needed visuals on you? That you could trick me into your traps?” She clicks her tongue, like a reproving mother.

[i]”Jade! The cord!” That’s not what comes out of her bulging cheeks, but it’s as close as she can get, feeling the strain of keeping the Crushing Grasp in place. Jade won’t let her look away. She’s climbing this pirate, this PIRATE of all things, of all professions, like a tree, and even if it’s not the same, very, flustering, to, think, about, doing, this, to, pirate, it’s still—

a power fantasy. An absolutely impossible, absolutely mind-melting, absolutely mortifying, absolutely hot power fantasy, thinking that she— small, curvy, not-a-trained-pilot she— could. do this. to a woman like that. could be brave enough to hump her mecha in front of cameras, sensual, in control, tamer of wild (musky) pirates just kneeling at her feet and admitting they know they’ve lost to her.

But it’s not her. And she’s not the one in control. And imagine if everyone was watching and could see what Jade sees now. A gagged, decorated, collared slave-bride being pushed onto the mountain-sized pirate, champion of a goddess, prisoner of a goddess, beloved of a goddess, a tool of humiliation because you can’t even beat HER, let alone her goddess.

Her composure is as strained as the cord, and maybe Jade doesn’t need to make her lean in those last few feet.[/i]

“Last chance.” Smokeless Jade Fires brings Dolly’s legs up, tucks them between the two mecha, and as she snaps the cord, she trods on the face of [The unrelenting grip of the stone goddess Dishai], grinding it into the wall, which finally gives way, sends the walking mountain sprawling, even as Dolly lands neatly beside the lance.

By the time that [The unrelenting grip of the stone goddess Dishai] begins rising from the rubble of her humiliation, Smokeless Jade Fires is already rising back into the air like Nephe Fisher at the end of [i]The Fifth Age of Battle[/i]. She stretches, languidly, the lance as much prop as weapon, carefully making sure that her flustered, adorable bride won’t pull anything. She’s doing such a good job, and she’s [i]so[/i] worked up.

“We can still duel. You might be entertaining up here, separated from the dull earth. Or you can keep scampering around like a [i]mouse,[/i] trying to spring your traps, trying to hide anything from [i]me,[/i] thinking yourself many-wreathed. And then I will simply have to treat you like a mouse, won’t I~?” Her voice drips with mockery; this accusation of cowardice is hard for anyone to ignore, especially a proud, brash Bander. “Choose wisely, Erys Bander.”

[Between the boxcars and the prior Wingman, even with [i]Insecure[/i] Smokeless Jade Fires roasts a certified [b]12[/b] on the Entice.]