Fight you? Oh Angela. Do you not see that she loves you too much for that?

[i]Speak not to the outsider[/i]. Do not let them hear the chattering of your teeth. The kiss of cold stealing warmth from your lips. Do not let them taste the desperation in your voice, the pride that wavers on the edge of humiliation. The Kathresis' beam blew out your mech's internal temperature regulator, her swords cracked the upper armour in the clash. The cold is seeping in.

And so Solarel stands back. She floats away into the snow, just outside the line of contact. When Angela advances she retreats. When Angela stops so does she. The Zero-Entropy weapon hums in her palm but she does not fire it. Her swords are vanished into cosmic dust. She is the wolf against the elk, waiting for the cold to finish her quarry. As patient as the cold she waits.

Sometimes autocannon fire comes. Sometimes missiles. She uses her shields, dodges, takes structural damage when she must. She does not advance. Eventually the stores will run dry. Eventually freezing poison will seep in through the tiny cut she left during that fleeting exchange. There need never be another. Because this is her gift for you, her love for you, Angela of humanity. Do you not know that glory against Solarel is measured in minutes? That the greatest huntress of Hybrasil would strive with all their skill to survive for mere hours against her amidst the asteroid rings of Etalaune? Tick, tick, tick. So rises your fame. So slows your heart.

How long until your hands go numb? Until the shivers of your body are visible on your machine? How long until frost starts to form on your face? How long until the fog of your breath drenches every screen in water? Tick tick tick. Glory, glory, glory. How long can a human last against the cold?

An hour passes. 

And then more.

Still she waits. She waits until the cloud she seeded sighs its last. She waits until the wind finally clears the sky and leaves them together again on this mountaintop, eyes opened to each other in the last whispers of this false winter. The Kathresis still stands, distant and predatory and endlessly patient. No need to hunt. No need to risk the wrath of this beautiful, oh-so-prepared girl and all of her hidden techniques and just arguments. She could have hidden beneath the driving snow. She could have drawn this out more.

But her eye is on the clock too. Tick, tick, tick. Every moment she allows to pass brings Angela closer to the record set by the One Day Defender. Her swords are in her hands again. She loves you this much, Angela, but no further. Never further than this. 

She stands, in the open at last, against her frozen foe. She is as unattainable as the stars. No words nor curses nor insults nor pleading could move her, could make her draw her blades. Nothing could cut her. Only this; only love.

It's beautiful, isn't it? Terrifying. To be so close to something so far away. To have someone respect you so much they never give you a chance. She never took a risk, never guessed that you'd make a mistake, even when you were shivering in a blizzard. You were still dangerous then. You are still dangerous now. Even as your lips turn blue she has not forgotten for a second that you are a goddess. She has not forgotten for a second that what she wants more than anything else is to defeat you.

The sun emerges from behind the wasteland she made of the sky. It captures all her sleek alien beauty. Have [i]you [/i]forgotten, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius?

[Entice: 10-1(string): [b]9[/b]]