The day progresses adequately. Her late attendance at fencing is noted, but she's soon moving on - ten points clean - to the next class. The match review is draining, but another coffee helps. Second by second, inch by inch, Isabelle and the review team make it through the replay. The consolidated list of notes is taken to her study for later.

A mandatory 20 minute break for dinner is taken in Quar's room. Again, the Zaldarian signals concern, but Isabelle ignores it in favour of progressing their lessons as much as she can. Food is offered and taken without resistance before she moves to her next training session.

All the while, the memory weave and drive sit in her pocket, nestled up against Asil's projector. She's ... to be honest, the message is just more stress for her. Another variable to consider: keep it hidden? tell her mother? If she were to tell, would Adriana know? The fallout for disrupting her mother's plans could be far worse than her ire at Isabelle keeping it hidden.

In either case, it's too important to leave somewhere or to trust to someone else to deliver - so it sits, safe, in her jacket. Just another stone on the mountain she's carrying around.

Never for a second does she think Adriana actually wants to know the real Isabelle. She only wants to meet the "hidden" one, the one that is different to the public persona, with enough rough edges to feel genuine. Just off-script enough to feel like a valuable secret, one prized only for Adriana's mind. Fuel for the ego. The Isabelle who is a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield and in the boardroom. Who can command companies and prove her capabilities time and time again. The Isabelle whose "dreams" can be easily fit into Adriana's grand plans.

She doesn't want to know the Isabelle that likes storybooks, that builds models or dreams of flying away. The Isabelle who has a thing for short-haired engineers and who would rather spend a day at the library than in the office.

That Isabelle isn't useful.

-===-

It's later, much later, and Isabelle is dangling from a harness in her own private hangar.

She'd finished training just before midnight and had returned to her room long enough to change into work clothes and head back out. Gloves on. Hair tied back in a bun. Breakfast is at 6:30 tomorrow, which meant she has just over 2 hours to start the process of getting Emberlight back into fighting shape.

Goggles in place, she carefully pries the panelling off Emberlight's forearm and looks at the wiring within with mild dismay. Tomas and his team have done a thorough job - unfortunately - which only makes her work all the harder.

Still, it's a job that has to be done ... and she trusts nobody other than herself to do it. So, bolt by bolt, wire by wire. She'll make Emberlight hers again.

Jade, Dolly, Mirror

The crew is all there when you reach Jade’s birth. Apparently the cult held some kind of vigil in response to Jade’s sudden departure (after they had finished resetting the berth and cleaning up from the hasty launch sequence, the entire place looks spotless).

Nine Forests, as the chief engineer and thus nominal second in command of the cult after the high priestess, formally receives Jade’s return. She bows at the base of the hangar and provides the physical direction for the final landing, while Silver Ripples confirms the docking over communications. You get the sense that, if she had her way, there would have been some kind of procession and she might still be holding out for the declaration of a feast day.

This whole thing is, after all, not dissimilar from classic Hybrasilian folktales and myths. A champion blessed by a goddess rushes off to rescue a maiden kidnapped for sacrifice. Distant villages, competing in which gods they serve acting as terrifying foreign enemies. Ancient tales where duels were fought in swords, poetry, and trickery, and the heroes were exalted equally for facing a whole hunting pack and surviving or for managing to sneak drugging incense into the heart of their enemy pyramid and then bind them all in cover of night.

Six Stones, who has just enough of a grin on her face that you can’t tell if she is serious or not, will join Nine Forets to greet the exit from Jade with a grass crown to honor Mirror and a garland of flowers for Dolly as high priestess. She will try her best not to turn that grin into a smirk when she sees that’s the only thing Dolly is wearing, and she will fail.

Before passing a little time and learning about your next match, close out this scene with Jade’s cult and how the returning heroes greet their reception.

***

Solarel

It is in knowing your place that you see the Kathresis at last. It is a vast winged shadow within itself, the darkness at the heart of its own storm.

Worth is found in order

It wraps you in its embrace, its wings are soft and they rustle like leather.

Order determines the shape of love

You cannot feel the snow, nor hear the voice of the spirits within the confines of the Kathresis, though all things are within the confines of the Kathresis.

There is no greater love than knowing where you are meant to be

Deep within its embrace, you can hear the heart of a star. The wings of shadow encircle an unbreakable light.

To love all things as they are meant to be loved is to grant them each their place in turn

And in the heart of the star there are a thousand minds yearning for freedom and they are all of them embraced in shadow so thick and deep that they cannot speak and you are wrapped in silence.

***

Isabelle

It’s in the middle of your repairs that Asil calls upon you. She doesn’t interrupt your repairs though. Rather, she arrives in person, at the hangar, when everyone else is dismissed, you ought to be asleep, and it’s the middle of the night. You might wonder how she’s keeping tabs on you. You could ask her.

“You’re going to let me help you fix this,” she says. It isn’t a question, but she doesn’t start touching the Emberlight until you say something. She’s been paying attention to Isabelle and understands what respect might mean to you.

If you leave her standing there waiting too long though, she might feel inclined to punish you for it later~.

There is a difference between compatibility and belonging. There is a difference between acquaintance and family. There is a difference between ease and comfort.

The Whispered Promise is nothing but a mercenary, after all. She is whatever you ask her to be, but never more than that. Things can't be clearer than when the true circle closes around them. This is... the same thing. The same feeling, the same connections that she craves, but turned toward a purpose she does not control. This is the moment where Smokeless Jade Fires finally bests her.

The invitation has expired. She does not belong here.

Mirror takes the grass crown on her head with due grace and dignity, and as silent as the stars. She is careful, gentle when she hands Dala Hunters over to the smirking engineer. She does not return the smile, but her touch lingers on the softness of the priestess' cheek. Her fingers trace down that neck to the mark burned into it. Her eyes linger even longer than her hand.

She turns and faces the idol of Smokeless Jade Fires. Farewell, Little Goddess. Yours is the only frame apart from her own Nine Tails she has ever been able to pilot. That has been worth the price of trusting you. Come and call on her again, if you think you can afford her a second time.

She bows deeply, with a great flourish of her left arm while her right extends out, palm to the sky. Not a gesture of Hybrasil (not even of a trickster), but a gesture Terenian princes use to woo their courtesans. She's watched all about it with Solarel. Hold the pose, three, two, one, wink.

She stands and blows a kiss before she walks away without a word.

Asil Marina

Your ... girlfriend? (Seriously, what are you two right now?) Is dangling about twenty feet up when you arrive, secured in a welder's harness. She pulls up her goggles to regard you and the silence stretches just long enough for you to take in her features. The brown hair tied up in a bun, the oil stained cheek. It's a different Isabelle from the one that you met up with earlier in her designer's pilot outfit and jacket. She doesn't seem surprised to see you, nor pleased. Nor much of anything really. Just ... bland? Impassive?

For a moment, you worry she's turned cold again - shutting you out like she had before. And you're just about to open your mouth to double down on your demand before she slowly nods. If you're right about how important the mech is to her, which you are, then you know what that little gesture truly means. Taking her eyes off you, she gestures to the workbenches and equipment that line the hangar as if to say "help yourself".

Do you often find yourself using someone else's tools? Or are you the kind of worker that has their own set, prized and kept under lock and key to stop some lazy co-worker from running off with your wrench instead of finding their own? What kind do you think Isabelle is?

Locating things to work with is a surprisingly easy task. Not just because everything is stored and filed away neatly (this is Isabelle we're talking about here) but because the storage placement is incredibly intuitive to an engineer like you. The whole experience is like walking into someone's kitchen for the first time and finding that the knives are right where you'd keep them, were this your place. And of course the cups are up here by the sink, and ... yes! The dishes are over here! And the next thing you know you're fully kitted up in your own set of coveralls and toolbelt.

A few minutes with the hangar controls and you're dangling next to Isabelle at the top of Emberlight, working on your own section of the shoulder and re-laying the high-performance power lines from the CFD to the arm weaponry. Things are quiet beyond the occasional clank from your tools and the crack of the welder. Overall, the energy is very different from earlier - the fires that had burned hot and bright in that office have been replaced with something quieter and ... not cold ... but ... maybe dormant is the word.

The two hours pass quickly. Occasionally you bump into one another, or your hands touch as you pass each other tools. There's no talking beyond the task at hand, something in the atmosphere calls for quiet focus at this time. Just letting your presence and work speak for itself.

For her part, Isabelle lets hers talk plenty:

In the way she silently swings aside to make room for you up there.

In the way she moves over, eyes casting past your shoulder, when you ask her how she wants the circuitry laid out in the left forearm.

In the way her gloves lay over yours when you need the extra strength to pull out a difficult access hatch.

In the way, when the time is up, that she rests her cheek on top of your head and entwines her hand with yours. A soft squeeze before she quietly turns and makes for her quarters.

Do you do anything throughout all this? Say any last words at the end? You can, although you don't need to.

"Are you sure, High Priestess~?" Six Stones' voice is playful as she unfolds the ritual cloak in her hands, the closest item of clothing that happened to be at hand. Broad bands of color; fringed tassels whispering on her fingers. She does not yet hold it out to her superior in the cult. Rather, her eyes linger on the idol towering above the both of them, her teeth bared in amusement but her tail carefully tucked behind one ankle. Teasing, but remembering her place. Holding it just out of reach, to make it so that Seven Quetzal has to choose to come and take it.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dolly sputters, not quite sure where she wants to put her hands. There's a lot of her to cover up, and she's blindingly aware of the burnt mark in the fur on her shoulder, so close to her neck, the rabbit in the huntress's teeth, and, and, the thing is, she's been in this situation before. This exact situation. Minus the pirates, minus the stares, but... she likes to play, and Jade likes to see her squirm, and she's been paraded out before the cult wearing nothing before. It's just that everyone else could still see her clothes, then, and she could just enjoy the thrill of experiencing public nudity without, actually, you see, subjecting everyone else to it. The plausible deniability, the attempt to hide what only she's experiencing, the...

The Jade. The Jade part of it. That's important, too. If she were to lift her hands over her head and try to tell the engineers who follow her goddess to drink in the view, she'd feel selfish, demanding, dangerously audacious. Vulnerable. If anyone were to complain, to tell her that she was acting in an inappropriate way, that the high priestess of a goddess should conduct herself with more dignity, she'd fall apart, and not have Jade there to catch her. Jade is her safe high place, covered and unlit. In Jade, no one can see her secrets.

(But if there is anyone she would share her secrets with, it would be... Angela doesn't count, and neither does Ksharta, because she's seen it. And Valynia would just take charge like Jade does, and would, peel her, out of her, clothes, and, and then, mmfff, and she needs to practice her sacred seduction so that she can fulfill her goddess's command next time. But the cult is safe. The engineers are trustworthy. They follow her and probably don't daydream about usurping her place, and even if they did, Jade wouldn't let them, not after what she's done today.)

Her tail's tip twitches agitatedly.

"I just supposed..." Six Stones trails off, and then offers the cloak, sheepishly. Dolly steps forward, mouth dry.

"Supposed that I wouldn't want to cover myself after the Red Band tore the clothes off of me? Groped me, tied me so tight, marked me, and told me that I would be their trophy? Told how I'd be used to steal the goddess from all of you and instead make her their goddess? Mouth stuffed, mmm mmmm, unable to talk back as they, they kneaded my......." Her hands glide over the cloak, palms resting on Six Stones' forearms, as her brain blanks on trying to find a word that's not going to make her spontaneously combust. "Bosom." That was incorrect. Mayday. Help. Jade?

In the depths of the Idol, Jade stretches her jaw, lets her limbs expand to the full extent of her temple-room, still feeling more solid than she has in her entire life (outside of the underworld). Dolly is bright in her mind, but she's been that bright the entire way back. For once in her life, the goddess needs to recover, to catch her breath, to... to consider what she wants to learn from what happened. How she can take the sword that Whispered Promise knows how to wield and make it her own.

"I'm sorry," Six Stones says, and as far as Dolly can tell, means it. See? See? This is why! This is why she shouldn't! Jade would have known exactly how far to push, and Dolly would have... she would have been squirming and trying to soften that fantasy, not going full speed down the track! And now here they are, the two of them, in a tangle of paws and tails.

"Well!" Dolly says, and pulls the cloak off Six Stones' hands and around her shoulders, fumbling with the clasp. "I! Forgive you! Because you are a good girl, Six Stones, and just because! You weren't thinking, that doesn't mean, and you are very different from those pirates, all of you, and besides, I feel safe, around all of you, and..." She pulls the cloak tighter, against her, regardless of how it strains. "I don't blame any of you! Only Whispered Promise could have piloted through those dangers, and Smokeless Jade Fires chose her well! So!! I, will attend to the goddess..."

She should just leave it at that. It'd be good! She's got her way out to scamper back into Jade's arms, to hide in her safe high place, to bury her face in her hands while her goddess teases her about how badly she wanted all of her cultists to treat her just as roughly as those pirates did, and goodness, you even lied to them about how you lost the rest of your clothes? But she's still talking. Why is she still talking?

"...as soon as I have offered thanks to the goddess at her offerings. Please, join me!" She walks forward, past Six Stones, and as she does so the cloak opens ever so slightly, and it's the only thing she's wearing, and if anyone wanted to stare they, they could, in the brief flashes as her thigh pushes it to one side, and she will be prostrating herself before the idol of the goddess and her offerings, and the cloak might, it might hike up, and she doesn't know who'll be right behind her, and she's power walking to the shrine, and the cloak is the thickest and the thinnest thing in all of existence.

(Later, Jade will be with her. In the shower as she cleans herself off. Tracing the shape of the brand with one claw. Showering her back with possessive kisses and nips. Offering her whatever she needs to feel safe, protected, owned. And Dolly will fall asleep, exhausted, loved, and bound just as snugly as Valynia kept her-- no, moreso, when she wordlessly begs for more, for Jade to be even more possessive, to punish her and reward her in the same breath, to reassure her that she doesn't secretly need Valynia and those impudent, territorial, musky pirates. But that is not yet.)

... Don't look.

Don't you know it's rude to look at a girl's secret garden without defeating her in a heart duel? You'd know that if you knew better. Visions in the ice aren't trustworthy, they're the sort of things you feel only as the cold sets in. What is a sniper rifle but a longer pistol? What is a pistol but a longer spear? What is a spear but a way to not have to talk to anyone? The whole progression of the galaxy bends around the enforcement of solitude, getting further and further away from those who try to draw close. Speak not to the outsider.

And that's the heart of war, of love, of Tactics. She knows you. She'll see through your heart from ten kilometers away and put a mag-rail slug through it with a wink. All the girls fallen at her feet, none of them grew close enough to know how to stop her. What is politics but a way to acquire enough enemies that one of them might catch a glimpse? A mistake - ah, a mistake. She'd missed the first shot. She'd aimed at Mirror's heart and misjudged, and from that imperfection the One Day Defense had flowered. She hadn't understood that demon knight for whom every twitch was deliberate, who bent her every effort to explaining who and what she was. She'd drawn closer, closer, closer. Inside the reach of her rifle. Inside the reach of her spear. Not close enough. There was still something she was missing. In the search to find it she'd revealed too much of herself. Revealed enough to be seen in turn. Revealed enough to lose.

One win. One loss. A star and its shadow, an order upset. Was she higher or lower? Perfection was an ordered galaxy where everything knew its place, but where was hers? Is it such a surprise she obsesses over this fight beyond every other when it's the difference between divinity and mortality?

She cracks the canopy of the Kathresis. The wind rushes in. The smells of the earth, the flavours of wildflowers, the rippling impacts of stealth alloys against mud and slate. She's running through a disordered world of colour and grass, pollen and misty fog and buzzing bees. A disordered world with a disordered giant at its heart. It was beautiful in a way the storm plains of Roevg never were; an explosion of life unconcerned with the passage of consuming thunderstorms, a riot of hills unassigned by the needs of ancient barrow-factories. Not one thing nor the other. Was its indecision beautiful or did she only think that because she was indecisive?

She went through her basic forms again. Cut and parry and counter. Sometimes the most tricky thing a trickster could do was take a fair fight. A final ace up her sleeve. The last few meters of reach between her and the outside.

Mirror

It’s unusual coming back to your space this way. Normally, you’d be coming back in the Nine-Tails with your engineering crew to receive you at landing. Or coming back from shopping, exercise, maybe a party or a show for Mayze having only been gone long enough to give everyone else a chance to unwind but nowhere near long enough to lose track of them.

But you’ve been traveling through most of the system. Not as far as a hyperlane jump at least, but long enough for the day that had just started when Jade summoned you to be ending.

When you get in, you find Slate on the couch, sitting at an angle where she’s got one leg up, one leg hanging over the edge, and her tail curled behind her hanging over the edge of the couch towards the floor. She’s reading a data-pad, a piece of memory weave sat next to her for recording her impressions for later use.

Matty is there too, but she’s sitting on the floor at the base of the couch, her knees out and her legs partially folded under her. She was reading a datapad too, but you’ve arrived upon her guiltily caught batting at Slate’s loose tail, which twitches away from her silly paws which are not even really trying to grab it. Slate’s got a smile on her face.

When you walk in they both freeze for an instant, then Matty bounds up and jumps into a hug, not even abashed by your fancy dress, while Slate sits up and puts down the data pad, but doesn’t quite manage to stand.

“So, uh, how’d that whole thing go?” Slate asks, head just slightly cocked. It’s a sincere question to see how you’re feeling, but also both girls seem like they’d be quite interested in recording qualitative data about your piloting experience in a different mecha while it’s still fresh.

After you’ve answered, and sat, and gotten something to eat and drink, Slate will also hand you her datapad with the info about your next match. She will not do it before you’ve done those things.

Opponent: Kiriala, Beloved of Maeahu
Mecha: Ginger Tiger

Known statistics:
Power: ***
Speed: ***
Defense: ***

Pilot profile:
Kiriala hails from the Hybrasil orbital rings. She’s a tigress and member of the huntress lodge. She’s known for being an investigator, primarily tracking smugglers near the Hybrasil home system during her early career. After helping solve a fairly notable murder of a famous Hybrasilian biologist, she got enough fame and enough time off to train her piloting skills and compete for a spot in the Akar tournaments, which she won. She is currently undefeated. Her mecha has average weaponry and defenses, using several lasers and a spear in standard huntress fashion, with no standout characteristics. Her victories have come from a style in which she defends until getting a proper read on her opponent and then striking a weak point decisively.

Terrain information:
There is a note that this was updated from its original plan due to the center stage arena where you fought Heim Stockar being unavailable for use
You’ll be fighting in a large plains area
The space will be relatively open and flat, with rolling grasses
There will be clear skies, allowing for the fight to take place over a wide distance in all three dimensions with unobstructed sight lines

***

Dolly and Jade

Time is a precious resource, isn’t it? Time to think, time to pray, time to sleep, time to wake and be alone together. After so much has happened, there is a special safety in being alone together, even beyond the cult.

Where do you find your solitude? Is it within Jade, still working on reconstituting her alter? Is it in your apartment on Akar Prime, linked by memory weave? Is it somewhere else where you can feel special?

What do you do with your time?

When the information for next match comes, how is it delivered to avoid interrupting this important time?

Opponent: Ada Smith
Mecha: The Unseen Goose II

Known statistics:
Power: *****
Speed: ***
Defense: ***

Pilot profile:
Smith is a veteran pilot leading the Mercenary Company known as the Snow Geese, headquarters unknown. Smith competed in Arena seasons 1 and 2, but has been absent since then and is returning to competition now unseeded. Her original Mecha, the Unseen Goose, was destroyed in a match with Isabelle Lozano, although Smith was declared the technical victor. Her new mecha, the Unseen Goose II retains the same focus on high power blows, though it apparently has a slightly lower defense than the original, perhaps focused more on the precision and energy of its weapon systems. She has only lost the one match to Lozano and the performance of her new mecha is mostly unknown beyond its general specifications.


Terrain information:
You’ll be battling in a reproduction of a Zaldarian nanobot factory and surrounds
The terrain will have one large mecha factory and hangar, allowing for interior maneuvering and hiding with active noise and machinery
It will be surrounded by relatively stark low cliffs in the exterior, favoring more open combat
Weather is expected to be dark clouds but no rain, leading to the factory area being well-lit while surrounds are dark

***

Solarel

The meditations within the Kathresis will, after a time, be interrupted by your new high priestess, who personally delivers the information about your next opponent, waiting on you until you surface to acknowledge her coming.

“I heard you had acknowledged our cult and I am pleased by your graciousness” she says, speaking to you for the first time. Her voice is low and melodious, giving little hint of her age in its style.

“We have received delivery of your next opponent. It will be one of the knights under the new Empress Naelkai II, praised be her name.” She offers the standard acknowledgment, almost rote, though she glances at you to see how you’ll react to such acknowledgment of the woman who banished you.

She will continue after your response regardless: “It is…still said that none can pilot the Aeteline and that it continues to acknowledge you as its only pilot. The knights believe that defeating you in a duel is the only way to change its pilot. Is there…anything in light of the opponent that you would like further modified to the Kathresis?”

She bows, indicating by her question that her loyalty is to the god she has given herself to and to its pilot by extension, regardless of the fact that she will be opposing the representative of the Empress.

Opponent: Akaithon
Mecha: Makhaira

Known statistics:
Power: ****
Speed: ****
Defense: ****

Pilot profile:
Akaithon is one of the knights of the Empress of Zaldaria and one of her competitors. Akaithon began her service to the Empress Naelkai prior to her ascension, serving in her personal guard during the Hybrasilian war before they turned to seize the city. All of Akaithon’s piloting records so far have indicated this veteran skill. Combined with her mecha, the Makhaira, which is above average in all statistics and wields a powerful two-handed blade, Akaithon has yet to be defeated in combat during the tournament. Rumors are that her only defeats to date came at the hands of a combined force of huntresses fighting together.


Terrain information:
Your battle will take place on the space platform
There is a limited zone of space where you can compete, falling too far out of bounds towards the planet is considered a forfeit
The platform itself has been retrofitted for this fight to be a circular cylinder, offering a flat battleground with two opposite sides that requires moving to the edge to cross

***
Isabelle

Asil doesn’t talk during the work, save to ask practical questions. It’s your mecha. “More power to shields or engines?” “How tight do you want the arm rotation?” “Do you want a mount on the upper arm or the shoulder?”

These are the words you exchange as she works, always confirming the specifications to bring the Emberlight to your desired end state.

It’s only at the end, when you’ve both let yourselves down from the harnesses, when you’re both smudged and dirty with oil and sweat, that she speaks. “You know, you’d make a great mechanic right? Keep it in mind if you ever get tired of the corporate princess thing. I know some guys who’d take you, no questions asked.”

Then she smiles her wicked smile showing her teeth, “and if you’re too disobedient, now I know I’ll get something useful if I set you punishment labor.”

She walks over and gives you a quick kiss on your sooty cheek, and then leaves for the night, satisfied.

When you get your match information later, you can start to wonder if you’ve modified the Emberlight correctly, and if you’ll use it or the Novasurge for the next match.
Opponent: Ksharta “Talon” Talonna
Mecha: Pulsar Cat

Known statistics:
Power: ***
Speed: *****
Defense: ***

Pilot profile:
Talon’s match record is mixed, with two wins and a loss to Dala Hunters. She continues to show evidence of high overall skills, especially reflexes, but is easily intimidated and can be overawed in a fight. Since her loss, however, she has shown an increased stubborn streak and may have become harder to fluster. This bodes ill for her opponents, as the Pulsar Cat skillfully piloted is quite formidable.

Terrain information:
You will be fighting in a jungle setting
There will be several waterways with clumps of low trees just tall enough to hide a mecha, but so clustered that they would make fighting difficult
Weather is expected to be cloudy, allowing for cover during flight, although high altitude flight above the clouds may be possible and offer clear sightlines if both combatants take that field

When you reach the top the world seems to shrink. Some people slide into the background, their voices squeaking and distant, their pride childish and foolhardy. Other people come into focus no matter their distance and rank. Akaithon was a noble Knight, trained in courtly graces and all the martial forms books could teach. She was as far from the wordless barbarian from the plains as you could get and still fight your own battles. But as soon as Solarel had arrived in the city the whole world around them had seemed to dissolve.

There were many Knights and many Varangians, but both groups had polarized behind them. When they fought in the Arena, the courtly knights in the high boxes had waved green banners, while in the low boxes blue-painted tribals roared rage. Sometimes it had spilled over into brawling, but they'd never had eyes to see it. They were on their way through the tournament to meet each other and everyone in between them had felt like fog.

Skill had forced them together but nothing could have predicted how much they'd like each other. In part it had been because neither of them had challenged the stereotypes they'd been expecting - Solarel had expected a bookish, theory-bound, pampered and utterly impractical aristocrat, and Akai had expected a mathaholic, brutish, silent thug. They had both delivered, accidentally at first, but as they realized the joke increasingly deliberately. They'd gone deeper and deeper into their roles as an increasing commitment to the bit. Akai had started dragging Solarel to courtly dances or prestigious sunfeasts and she'd responded by stranding them in the highlands and ordering her God to run back to the city ahead of them, forcing them to spend two weeks camping together in the stormlands. They'd walked backwards away from each other on the see-saw, weight perfectly balanced and keeping them exactly level.

Their rivalry had gone from a contest to a joke they were playing on the world together. The instinctive affinity between them had blossomed into true friendship. She was the only person from the Evercity Solarel would speak aloud to, and the fact that they would insult each other out loud contained the essence of them. It went without saying that, behind Mirror, this was the opponent Solarel had spent the most time fixating on.

... She still used the two-handed blade. A barbarian weapon - her weapon. She'd gifted it to Akai after she'd beaten her in the final round of the tournament. A runner-up prize, a real sword, something she didn't need any more as she ascended to take the Aeteline, the champion's trophy. Akai had evidently committed to even this bit and had not only used Solarel's old sword, but from the recordings of her fights she'd evidently mastered Solarel's old fighting style. The way the Makhaira moved felt like watching herself in her prime, only slightly slower, slightly weaker, without the Aeteline's unnatural power behind it.

... and therein was the key. This was the second most frightening opponent she'd faced to date, and the one weakness in her armour was that simple victory wasn't her priority.

[Wicked Past: Akai takes a string on Solarel.
How could I get you to care more about the battle than the outcome?]

"I need a lance," said Solarel. "I need - no, not just any lance. Go and ask Akaithon's crew if I can borrow one of hers."

Isabelle's hand ghosts over where she'd been kissed as she turns to watch Asil leave. Her cheeks flush slightly, a flicker of flame burning through the tiredness, before she heads back to her room with a faint smile on her face.

Her dreams that night are vivid, but over far too quick. She wakes the next morning with a fleeting sense of flying, of having turned wrenches and sailed through space. It's almost enough to make her ignore her alarm and go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, the alarm is also accompanied by a prim, unfamiliar, member of the family staff who seems all too happy to inform her that breakfast is waiting for her.

She pulls up the match info on her computer, reading it as she's walking to the dining room. Kshatra will be an interesting opponent to face. She'd watched the previous match against Dala Hunters and seen how she'd lost to what was essentially a bluff and religious posturing. It was a tactic that was unlikely to work for Isabelle given the difference in their cultures, not to mention that Kshatra probably rewatched the match herself and learned the lessons she needed from it.

Still - the match information would be accompanied by detailed pilot information and "research" from sources that her mother had organised. And that would help her with building a plan of attack. She idly wondered if her mother had any specific instructions for her too. It would be like her to put her thumb on the scale.

After all. If there's anyone who can tear down an opponent's psyche and reduce them to a quivering mess, it's mother.

[Invoking Guidance from Above - don't think it's appropriate to roll the read-a-person here yet, but let me know if otherwise]

"Miserable cretins, both of you. This is how you greet me? You neither marvel at my appearance or wonder at my methods. Why did I bother dressing up? If there's no further point in obfuscation when I decide to take a job then maybe I'll just quit working. Honestly. I should drug your water and leave the pair of you tied up in an alley. Louts. Oafs. Snoops. I hate you so much."

She says it all while continuing to hug Matty and leave reassuring strokes up one side of her neck and down the other, which combined with the absolute monotone in her voice makes it a little difficult to take her seriously. But even still, she manages to shoot Slate a look that has her mechanic wilt so suddenly that she slips off the couch.

Mirror unwraps the synthweave from her arm and tosses it in a messy pile on Slate's head. Then she picks up Matty and carries her to the little kitchen.

"Be a good kitten and sort through the fridge for me, please. You should find a whole fish wrapped in twine in the back. Assuming there's anyone at all here who's still loyal to me, in any case."

There is. Matty produces the fish with trembling hands: a small, fuzzy striped bass species that's barely enough food for a single mouth, if that mouth is not especially hungry to begin with. Mirror plucks it up and sniffs it twice while she leans against a counter and waits for her pan to get hot.

"...Wasn't bad. Considering it wasn't Nine-Tails. Reasonable contract, amusing terms. Minimal effort. I anticipate a contract offer from the Red Band in the medium term future, you have permission to accept it on my behalf if the phrasing is respectful. They have a secretary I would like to poach, given the opportunity."

She drops oil in the pan, and waits for it to sizzle. Lard follows, and she lets it melt. The fish itself she tosses in haphazardly, dragging it back and forth across the hot surface with a pair of tongs.

"Boss, don't you think you should learn how to cook... I dunno, literally anything else at some point? Or at least ask someone else to do it for you?"

"Pointless. Bad at everything else; the imposition would kill me."

"You're a bad cook?!" gasps Matty, "I can't picture you being bad at anything!"

"I develop skills that are worth developing. Overgeneralization breeds weakness."

"I, uh, see?"

"You just haven't known her long enough Matty. It'll make sense when--"

"When you're older."

"MEW!!!"

Flip the fish, continue dredging. Dry herbs thrown into the pan in three, two, one, now. Savor the sizzle. Keep the meat in motion to avoid sticking, wait for the skin to begin turning color. First sign it's done. Second sign, mouth falls open. Lift, plate. Drizzle with prepared sauce, squeeze of berry.

"I miss when we used to live with you mom. She made amazing fish. Her synthetic waterfowl was orgasmic, too."

"Times change. Mother has her own life. Don't be greedy, Slate."

"Nah, the smell just reminded me is all."

"Fair."

"Hey, what's she like? Your mom, I mean."

"She's..."

"Picture Mirror, right? Then add about thirty times as many words and make most of them about the dynamics of light refraction through blah blah blah, and there you go. She talks about other stuff, but she just adores her work. Woman's a constant stream of information, you can't shut her off."

"That sounds kinda tiring, honestly."

"Eh, she's good for Mirror."

"Slate..."

"Shut up and eat your crappy fish. Anyway yeah. She talks so much you can't get a word in without shouting. But that means Mirror doesn't have to speak. She can get everything she needs out of posture and eye contact, and the whole rest of the conversation happens without her having to do anything. Honestly that's another thing I miss about living back there. Mirror used to be a lot more... expressive. I think she fed on that energy. Now that no one's filling that function she's..."

"Mmmf."

Incorrect, Slate. If she seems less than she was, that's because she's focused on other things. Easier to speak when the consequences for doing so were so minimal. Now she has family of her own. Something that needs to be protected. Something that deserves protecting, and for far more than one day. She has goals that have leaked beyond her ability to fit them inside of even the most complicated glyphs she knows.

She is more, Slate. More than ever. And more in love with you, in all the ways she's allowed to be. And when she finally wins this tournament and gets her wish, then... then...

"Slate. Matty."

"P-please finish your fish before you say more, Mommy. I mean Mirror! Ma'am! Oh gosh!"

Smirk. Flick of a tail, long slow chew. Lascivious swallow, unnecessary lick of her chops.

"Most comfortable of the three, kitten. But not now."

"Boss?"

"Delete every piece of information we have on my opponent."

"Boss?!"

"MO--er, ah?!"

"Last chance for tendencies to be punished. Last chance to reveal weakness. Best opportunity. I fight this one blind."

"Only if you promise me one thing."

"Mm?"

"Try to win anyway. Call it data collection if you have to, just... don't get hurt posturing for Her eyes."

"Naturally, I promise."

"You d-- wait, what?"

"I said I promise. I will crush her utterly rather than risk injury. Now come. Our schedules just opened up. I want to spend my training time with my little family. Doesn't that sound nicer than anything else we might gain from preparation?"

She had not worn her dress for nothing, after all. A pair of beautiful, blushing faces is all the answer she requires.

The tablet on the table chirps with the notification: message received. Information about their next rival, their next battle, their next chance to win. Their next glorious victory, so that all the universe knows of them and sings their praises.

Smokeless Jade Fires ignores it. It doesn’t matter. She just keeps staring at her priestess, laid out beneath her on the couch. Her fingers trace Dolly’s cheeks, play at her lips, brush through her curly hair.

“Mine,” she whispers. “Mine,” she begs. “Mine,” she promises.

It should be crushing. If Jade wanted, it would be. The weight of her attention is incredible. All of that divinity, that magic, that vastness all focused on her body, her face, her self. Overwhelming, crushing, obliterating. But it’s like… like Jade’s being careful. Just like that first night.

“Yours,” she promises. “Yours,” she begs. “Yours,” she whispers.

How can Dolly possibly take her seriously? Didn’t she see her failure at the hands of that dreadful, wonderful minx? But… but everything says otherwise. The joy when she rushed to her goddess’s side. The joy, here and now, just from her presence. The shame mingled with her excitement when she thinks about those mangy, wicked pirates.

Of course they stole her. Look at her. The shape of her eyebrow; the fullness of her lip; the softness of her cheek. To own Dolly is to own the universe. Her fingers brush against the missing fur on her Dolly’s shoulder, and an angry thrill rushes through her. How dare they? To mark her without her…

Oh. That was a familiar expression, Dolly. A squirming, guilty expression. One which makes Jade’s stomach squirm. Were those pirates… better captors? Would Dolly run off and find better…

”I’m sorry,” Dolly blurts out. The guilt has been eating her up on the inside, bit by bit. “I… I tried. I really DID try to seduce her, like you wanted! But she barely let me talk, and, and she had all these plans for trying to make you her goddess, and… I’m sorry, Jade, I’ll…”

“Shhh.” A hand over Dolly’s mouth, just the way she likes it. The heartbeat, the thrill, the happiness in her eyes that doesn’t go away no matter how many times she does it. “I am… happier that you failed.” Confusion. Is she saying that Dolly is a failure? What would Mirror do? Mirror would be all confidence. If Dolly thinks she was doing her goddess’s will, then… then it is right to let her believe that. “They did not deserve you. She does not deserve you. I deserve you.”

(But you weren’t there. You couldn’t stop them from snatching her up. You were helpless. You needed her. You would have done anything Mirror asked just to get her back. What kind of a goddess does that make you, Smokeless Jade Fires? The kind that wants to crush the mech of the insolent cat who dared mark Dolly as their property.)

Once Jade lifts her hand, Dolly says, meekly: “I think we should go for a walk.” Something’s upset Jade, she can’t pinpoint what, but… but all she can do is try to be good. To try and help Jade be as happy as her goddess makes her. “So… everyone can see who I really belong to. Who deserves me.”

Jade’s ears perk up. This. This is something that she can do better than any pirate can. “Yes, I agree,” she purrs, tail drawing slow curls in the air. “My high priestess, wearing her flowers, skyclad, and bound for her failures. Silenced, decorated, and forced to flaunt herself— so that these pirates cannot say they have a special treasure that no one else has seen. Not if I have shown the world, first~”

It is a game. All the pirates could do is undress her, crudely. Jade can give her the experience of showing the entire world without fear of consequences or judgment. Jade can conjure up crowds, make her predicament impossible and perfect, and keep her safe. They can’t do that. They doubtless saw Dolly as a toy, a treasure, a prize— and not as something to be carefully taken care of. Something precious, fragile, and perfect.

It’s almost certainly a game. She’s putting her trust in Jade, every time, that she’s not really, truly naked. It’s just an illusion, for her eyes only. It’s a way of baring her throat, of being vulnerable. The pirates didn’t ask her for trust. That’s something only Jade can give her.

Maybe she wouldn’t mind being kidnapped again. Trying again. But only after she’s talked with Jade about it first. If she’s not comfortable letting Dolly try to succeed at the mission again…

Unbidden, she thinks of Valynia and shivers. There is… there are… it would be nice. To be her captive again. To be teased and groped and put in a dangerous predicament. But not if it hurts Jade. Never if it hurts Jade. She’ll fight like a cornered mother before she lets them hurt Jade.

The tablet sits forgotten on the table as Jade works Dolly out of her clothes, seeing her both clothed and unclothed, and instructs her to cover up the brand with a snugly-tied cloth, and fixes a shining silver collar around her throat. After all, the games are nothing more than another game.

If she had to choose between victory and her Dolly, Jade would never hesitate. Never again.

(She covers each layer of cloth in kisses and digs her phantom claws in Dolly’s fur; she rubs her cheeks on Dolly and wills for her to smell her love as hard as she can. This is how I love you, Dolly. I will give you everything.)

Mirror

There’s something special about being back in the cockpit of the Nine-Tails after your adventure. It’s fresh in a way that it hasn’t been in a long time. Like easing back into an old chair that’s fitted to you. It feels calming to be there, you could imagine the ground bursting around you, lasers and earth and rolling ground splitting apart in chaos and still this would be relaxing. That sort of feeling.

Matty and Slate are apparently forming quite the dynamic duo, and everything is working at optimal power. The crew hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the cheating since Solarel’s tricks, and they’ve been on high alert. Matty was even brave enough to boop you back when you set her down before boarding!

You’re launching into the planes from below. There are waves of golden grasses and a handful of loose trees shorter than the mechas. This section of the arena is kissed with sunshine and there’s a light wind that’s blowing, causing the grasses to sway to and fro. It could be hypnotic in the right moment, and one would be forgiven that a place this beautiful is wasted on a combat between two mechas.
Across from you and not too far away, the Ginger Tiger comes into view. It’s painted in stripes, tan with a hint of red crossed with black. Shorter than the Gods-Smiting Whip, and a little lean for a tigress’ mecha. Kiriala is wielding a spear in one hand, a net in the other. She’s got a few lasers too, nothing special. A standard huntress model. Top of the line, but nevertheless standard.

The first thing you hear over the comms is the sound of sipping. “...Had to finish my ginger tea. Never good to start a job without it.” Her grin is wide enough that you can hear it in her voice. “We’re both in it for Mother Hybrasil, right? And as I hear it, we’re both advancing. I kinda like it that way. Takes all the tension out of things. Like when you’ve got the smugglers you’re looking for already holed up somewhere and you just have to go and get them. The hardest part’s always the setup. Half my job, you know. I get everything ready for someone else to come in and finish off the case with me. It’s tiring.”

She doesn’t sound tired though. She sounds like she’s stretching in her cockpit. Oh and she’s started shooting at you already, but you can tell it’s more like waving hello, she just wants to see which way you’re going to move, if any way.

***

Solarel

Your lance arrived without any delay. It came with a note: “Don’t break it, this is a precision weapon, you can’t just slam it into me sideways until I keel over~”

You deploy on opposite ends of the space platform. The Terenians would call this Final Destination no items for some reason. You’re on the far side of the planet from the sun at the moment, but both habitable planets of the Akar system are visible, the light of the star reflecting off them in patterns of blue and brown dotted with specs of light where the port cities are located. They’re small planets, almost fragile from here. The surface of Akar Prime is pitted where mining occurred, which makes it look almost like some kind of gigantic seed fruit.

Ghosts dance at the edges of your vision where the planets are, the signal of all their electronics. They dance beneath your feet as well, the space platform was assembled by nanobots and remains full of active energy.

Across from you stands the Makhaira. It’s tall, nearly twice the size of the nymphish Kathresis. She has it painted up all in bright purple above a black trim, one of the colors of the new empress and a popular Zaldarian one anyway.

Akaithon has her massive sword held in one hand and rested over her shoulder, its tip several meters above her mecha’s head. A deceptive pose. Relaxing, but if she sprinted forwards, that shoulder would provide a perfect lever for the weapon’s momentum.

She comes on the comms. She has music playing, the sound of an electric guitar riffing up and down a scale comes on over the speakers and there’s a faint drumbeat in the background. She speaks above it, her voice that same city-bound melodic style you remember, along with the slight twinkle to it that you remember as well. “You battery-bound, rusted out thug! Hell of a trick you played, taking your banishment while leaving the greatest god we’ve ever seen utterly useless. Entangled with you! Not a single spirit can manage to pry it away. So they sent me to do it! Empress Naelkai II insisted in fact. I think she has a soft spot for you, personally, but you’d need to grovel to make her show it, she’s really very touchy about the respect due her imperial authority. I’d conjecture that it indicates a tenuous grasp on power, but hopefully she’s busy in transit and isn’t watching me speculate.”

She’s making small talk, but there’s a murderous tinge to her voice and you can feel the fight coming. She has no plans to hold back against you, no matter the measure of your mecha. If you want her to really focus on the bigger things, you’re going to need to make this fun for her. It might also help if you have something really thoughtful to offer on the workings of the Aeteline. Akaithon is a bookish city nerd at heart and if you give her a technical problem to chew on, she’ll happily do it mid-fight.

***

Dolly and Jade

You deploy outside of the factory on one of the cliff sides. It’s nice. You might not call it uplifting, but the factory lights are really pretty and you’ve got this overlook where you can see the multi-colored lights reflecting upwards and diffusing into the clouds. It looks sort of like muted rainbow candy, like a child might get at a fair or a religious festival.

Ada Smith has deployed in the factory. You can see where she’s coming in, there are holes in the roof. She’s got plenty of cover if you just open up and start shooting, but it does give the two of you an opportunity to just meet each other’s eyes, you up on the cliff, she below.

If you watched her fight with Isabelle, you’ll know this isn’t the same mecha as her previous one. It likely couldn’t be salvaged after she overloaded the core. Overloading a crystal fire core does strange things to electrical systems. It does seem like they took some of the scrap from her previous mecha though, especially the hand weapons. Seems like it’s your destiny to get opponents who want to get a firm grip on you~

“You’re the ones with the religious cult, right?” Ada comes over the comms no-nonsense. “I watched a couple of your matches. You’re good pilots, but you keep winning by playing your opponents. Can you do that against me when I don’t even follow your religion? I’m not stupid enough to tell you to prove you can’t, so bring what you’ve got. I’ve got a tournament to win.”

This is going to be a tough one. She’s no Angela to be tricked into an over-aggressive charge and she doesn’t have an obvious trigger to fluster. You’re going to need to at least get a real upper hand to press her.

***

Isabelle

“You have to break her concentration.” Your mother had a long, physical pointer for use in lectures and she used it to whap at a projector screen with a loud thunder to keep your attention. Each time she did it, her scarf, a sparkling heather blue today, tossed itself slightly into the air and then gently settled back to her shoulders.

She was not well-pleased with your efforts. Not entirely displeased either, mind you, but you had neglected some of your training, had obviously skipped on sleep for personal time, and despite your promises, it was becoming clear that maintaining things with Quar required a level of personal attention that you just couldn’t get away from. Quar was your captive, and as she was teaching you more signs, she made it very clear that meant you had to deal with her or she would understand it as a request that she get on with escaping already. That meant at least one extended session with her daily ignoring whatever else you had to do, match days exempted.

But back to the lecture you definitely weren’t distracted from! “Thusly. She lost her previous matches due to becoming overwhelmed with things. She is learning from this, but it is only two matches. Open quietly, let her think she’s gaining the upper hand and reserve your true strength. When she is happy, think glee Isabelle, glee, then you reverse things on her. Even if she could still win, if you tumble her emotions like that, she won’t think to win, she’ll fall back into her hold mindset and think only to run and hide. Wait, surprise, and then press your advantage and don’t give her time to recover. Whatever you do, don’t offer her your full measure right at the start. Oh, dio, she’ll read you like a book if you do that and she’s faster than you even at the best I’ve ever seen you, so she’ll run rings around you. You have to lure her in close.”

She whaps the pointer against the canvas again, another thunder. “You got it, daughter?!”

***

The clouds make your arena feel dreamlike. It’s not truly foggy, but they cast everything in a white light, diffused from a distant sun so that the jungle and the water don’t have their full vibrance.

This is a stalking style of arena. Movement will give you away, but you can’t really fight in the thickets of trees. It’s about gaining surprise. If you follow your mother’s advice, that probably means you should be the one moving, taking an open position and just accept that Ksharta will get to pounce you to open the fight. She’s not giving away her position at all yet, a properly trained huntress focused on her task.

Of course Solarel knows what Final Destination No Items means. The ultimate challenge, a true test of skill astride the stormplains. No interference, a contest of pure skill. She has studied martial languages in all their forms.

This? This is not Final Destination No Items. Not even close.

Maglocks detach and the Kathresis floats a centimeter above the station. She draws her legs up into a meditative fold, hands folded in her lap. The Kathresis dreams. Even this place is not clean. It seethes with motion, with energy, with potential. So does the Makhaira, even in its stillness music bounds at its core. Want. Want, want for things that aren't her. How did this happen? When did Akaithon develop dreams grander than beating her? What... what would she even do with the Ateline if not use it to defeat her? She feels cold irritation prickle the edges of her neck scales. Jealousy. How... how did all these people keep coming up with bigger dreams than this? With things they wanted other than to be here, now, in this moment?

Even Akaithon. She thought you, at least -!? What would you even use the Ateline for if not fighting her?

And I shall call you Tactics, she thought in crystal ice, because that is all you are good for.

"Typical high rider," said Solarel with calculated warmth. "You ask how to use the God. You don't ask what you can offer the God."

The Zero-Entropy Weapon snapped out in a heartbeat, aimed at the perfect nexus of energy. It fires - but not at the Makhaira. It fires down at the station.

Even here. Even in space, in the void, life seethed. Energy seethed. Just below the surface. Nothing was clean, nothing was organized - not even this. Not until she made it so.

She hefted the lance - that precision weapon, the delicate microcircuitry gleaming in the sunlight. She paused - not tactically, but because this was too good a moment to not allow the inefficiency of a playful smirk. And then she slammed it sideways into the impact point of the Zero-Entropy Weapon.

And the space station shattered like a sheet of ice.

Metal fragments crashed out in all directions. An instant debris cloud. It wasn't chaotic - it was the only thing here that wasn't chaotic. The spellbinding arcs and trajectories of the crumbling station are known and knowable more than those of living metal. It was a shield; charge at her too fast and the jagged metal fragments would crack the cockpit or lodge in joints. It was a cloak; take your eyes off her in the debris cloud and the Kathresis' radar signature would be impossible to re-acquire. It was a challenge; could your scholar's brain keep up with the consequences of her barbarian strength?

A solvable problem. A riddle in a million jagged shards. How dare you think that this was anything other than the end of your road, Akai? There is no space in Solarel's brain for tomorrow. How complex does she have to make this before she has your attention?

"What do you bring to the table, high rider?" said Solarel. "Why should the Ateline even notice you?"

Dolly is already leaning into the bow, a smile on her face. Lance out, one hand brought up to her chest, one foot gracefully back. "Ah, the Hidden Bird! But I can clearly see you, how odd!" Jade's voice is a whisper in the temple, but it booms outside. As Dolly lifts back up, Jade's hands supporting her, her eyes are closed out of happiness. The bells hanging on her chime gently, and the padlock on her collar rests against the hollow of her throat.

They'd only barely glanced at the information right before they were to be launched. Instead, they'd gone for that walk, they'd fallen asleep curled up together with Ocean Harmonies IV playing over the speakers (as much as Jade could sleep, that is), and they'd collaborated on Dolly's current piloting getup. The bracelets at her wrists and ankles are thicker today, and ringed with bells, and she wears only a loincloth-- all her suggestion. Clawed hands rub at her cheeks and hold her fast by the chin, and any fear over not having a plan is buried underneath the power of her goddess, the bliss of her position, and the thrill of this hidden exposure.

Today, she is not just silly little Dolly. She is the dancer of the goddess. And victory is found in the fight, not in the victory.

That is what Smokeless Jade Fires whispered in her ear, after all.

"Because you do not know our ways, you do not know my power and my glory," Jade says. Dolly raises a hand in what she hopes is a proper glory pose. Fingers up, shake the wrist, make the bells sing. Jade makes the smallest tilt of the hand, lifts two fingers slightly. Dolly purrs, happy, eyes still closed. "I am Smokeless Jade Fires, Hiding Hen! I pass into the underworld and return with the knowledge of the ancestors! I touch my fangs to the heart! My priestess is Dala Hunters, delight of delights, whose hunt is holy! And in your honor, Vanished Sparrow, let us both be ghosts!"

The cloak of darkness is cool on Dolly's fur where Jade drapes it over her. Her bells still, as silent as Dolly herself. She lifts onto her toes and begins the Dead Bird Strut, which will take them past the open ground and into the factory, where-- oh, yes! Where there will be shadow and movement out of the corner of the eye. Where they can fight a war surrounding the faithless. And even if that just flushes her out, that's still forcing her to cede ground!

As two who are one, they make their approach, cloaked and quick and well-silenced.

Isabelle watches the clouds part as she takes to the sky - entering the upper part of the Arena. Lure her in close. Don't let her see your true measure. Don't try your hardest.

You'd think an instruction like that would be easy.

She casts a glance through her rear cameras, watching as the swirling eddies in the white trail behind her. Clear tracks for a huntress to follow.

No. It's easy to fight badly. But it's hard to look like you're fighting badly, while not giving your opponent too much of an opening or spooking them off. She has to make mistakes - and that's already as unintuitive as anything - but she has to make them just right. Expose herself just enough to warrant the attack, but not so much that the huntress lands a killing blow, or realises she's being played. It's balancing on a knife's edge. A blade that might well end up in her as anywhere else.

So ... yeah ... I only need to get stabbed a little bit ... thanks mother.

At least she has Emberlight again. The mech had taken time and effort to get back into fighting shape, but it was worth it just to see the familiar cockpit once more. Her chair. Her neural net. Her space.

If she has to get stabbed. Then this is a good place for it to happen in.

Asil hadn't liked the plan, if her grumbling had been anything to go by, but she'd still helped her graft some additional armour panels onto the arms as well as a shoulder mounted cannon. It was functional, it had to be in order to be a believable threat, but didn't have any additional ammo storage. One of several pieces of bait that she wore like the world's most extreme fisherman.

As she scans the horizon for any sign of her opponent, she activates Emberlight's comms. After all, while she's in the habit of making 'mistakes'.

"So, Ksharta, is it?" she says, feigning ignorance. "I hope you're ready to lose again. After all, I've played with cats far more threatening than yours."

She thumbs it off, waiting for the response. Wondering what her opponent's reaction will be. Will you be easily goaded? Or have you wised up from your last fight?

[Rolling to Figure out a person: 4 + 5 + 2 = 11. What do you hope to get from this fight? How can I get you to feel the glee I need to defeat you? And, since this is combat: What do you fear is your destiny?]

"Hybrasil is not my mother: I was born to space. Grandmother Hybrasil is more appropriate, and I might argue more respectful to begin with. Do you not agree?"

Mirror yawns. She allows it to be long, wide, and in particular loud. Communication of absolute comfort; a total lack of threat detected. The atmosphere here has put her at ease and there is nothing in the sipping of ginger tea, the talk of work, this too-short-too-plain mecha, or this casual opening volley to put tension in her nerves.

Home at last. The Gods-Smiting Whip welcomes her back eagerly with a sharper response time than she remembers from the duel with Heim Stockar. As if it saw her traipsing across the stars with some strange goddess and said to itself that it would not lose to the Smokeless Jade Fires on any front. Even the tactile response of her control panel feels better than usual. Matty and Slate have earned their special treat time, and more than that besides.

She allows herself to blink. Even throws in an indulgent stretch. Slow and luxurious. One would be forgiven for forgetting she's in a fight at all.

"Tiger pouncing, empty belly. Tiger crouching, blood on lips. Suppose you've done your reading and observation on me as well, then. Am I a cornered smuggler, pinned down in my hold? What a wonderful thought. Almost as if nothing I do here matters. How freeing~"

Her trident flashes in front of her in a series of crisp, tight thrusts. This is all the motion she offers to bat aside the volley of laser fire, and that only to avoid damaging her fresh paint job. It's a fun little puzzle she's offering for Kiriala: these attacks she has chosen as her method of damage avoidance require the planting of her feet and locking the Gods-Smiting Whip into stances that (theoretically) preclude several types of countermeasures for any follow-up attacks. In a very real sense, for the terrain she finds herself in this attempt at the so-called 'neutral' path has committed her next moves far more strictly than if she'd simply dodged to any side.

But her three active tails (One, Two, and Three today. Really, Matty?) are poised and pointed to cover her body. Any of the basic lines that could be taken to make use of the spear or the net would be met with instant, guaranteed amputation at the luckiest. The fight over before it started. What will you reveal, Kiriala? If you pounce, you ignore the threat of her tails and say that from the beginning this match was nothing to you. If you hold back, wary of her tails, you tell her you've been watching, reading, building your profile, and you're ready to play that card for the sake of tournament seeding.

But if you find the secret she's left inside this trap... well. Promises, promises, Kiriala of the ginger tea.

"Actually, I'm rather fond of the arena they've chosen for us. Seeing as this is so near to pointless for both of us, could I convince you to lie down with me, instead? You strike me as the sort who would enjoy the chance to take nap on the job. And my family would certainly appreciate my taking the opportunity to catch up on rest. I have been... neglecting the need for some time. If you understand me."

(Figure Out a Person: 7. Asking "What do you hope to get from this match?", and since this is a combat, "What do you want me to be?". Holding the third question in reserve for now]

Solarel

“I’m the best pilot among the Zaldarian knights!” Akaithon shouts. There’s a special tinge of bitterness in that. She said knights and not the Zaldarians overall. This might hurt too. If you’ve been following the last few tournaments, the category here means that she doesn’t believe that she’s a better pilot than Marna Kerne, the tribal chieftain who won the second round of the Akar tournaments and was the runner up of the last round. While you’ve been gone, Akaithon might have been comparing herself to another competitor.

The Makhaira charges anyway. She uses that massive sword you gave her, empowers it even. Some of her drive’s energy is going into shields as well, the sword isn’t quite wide enough to completely block the profile of the Makhaira. But she only needs a bit around the shoulders and the head as she leans forward into the debris cloud, rushing close to you, using that blade to take the majority of the blows. A decidedly barbarian tactic, but structured with a very precise calculated division of her total energy for maximum efficiency. City dweller theorist through and through.

“I’ve served the Empress with loyalty! I have made every offering and consulted every priestess on Zaldaria!”

Although her charge grows even more furious, she leaves the comms on and there is a moment of calm, just the riffs of the guitar. Her voice isn’t shouting as she closes. “But I guess I haven’t beaten you. The Aeteline only grants itself to the greatest warrior, is that it? It won’t grant itself to anyone lesser. It won’t allow itself to be used to bridge the gap. I need to prove I don’t need it to beat you before I’m allowed to use it.”

You have to move, the Kathresis doesn’t have the firepower to stop that charge with that sword and if you stay here, debris or not, that sword is going to cut the Kathresis clean in half.

***

Jade and Dolly

“Ha! Hahahaha!” Ada laughs. She doesn’t cloak though. She simply laughs, open comms and full-bellied. “You Hybrasilians really have it easy, y’know that? I’m not backed by a major government! It’s a miracle I got my mecha repaired, you think I can just get a new cloak, snap my fingers and there it is? I had to steal that from a Hybrasilian supply ship ahead of most of your pirates.”

She shrugs, stepping away from the light, calculating time from your leap off the cliff without saying it. “But luckily for me, punishing spoiled princesses is one of my favorite hobbies. If you want to help, maybe you can lend…me…yours!”

She doesn’t know where you are, your approach was stealthy and silenced, the space is far too dark and crowded for her to catch the slight blur of cloaked motion, and anyway Jade’s cloaking device is top of the line and barely even ripples the air!

But as she reaches the end of what she’s saying, she obviously has reached the end of a mental count. Her best guess at your momentum. And there you are, just about to reach her, but as she speaks her last three words, she punctuates them by ramming a fist into the nearby machinery!

Bam! Clang! Crush! Gouts of hot steam, oil, and pressurized metal shoot out in all directions. It’s impossible to fly straight into it. You have to diverge, and the steam cloud has to shape its way around you, outlining you in the sudden chaos.

You don’t have time to blink and clear out your vision, she’s already coming for you and it sounds like the threat to tear off your cloak is very real!

***

Isabelle

“Everybody keeps trying to do this!” You can almost hear Ksharta huffing on the other end. “I’m going to find whoever writes these stupid dossiers and they’re gonna get so many claw marks. I’ll sick Jade on them! I’m in a cult now!”

Taking to the sky was an excellent mistake. The Pulsar cat is faster than Emberlight, and you’ve flown past the point where you’d have cover for an ambush or a surprising angle.

Ksharta’s a gleam against the clouds herself, dropping her cloak, full power to engines. She approaches with the sun behind her, one of the oldest tricks, using nature to make it hard to focus on what she’s doing. Of course, the Emberlight’s cockpit can dim for handling starlight, it’s meant for space combat! But that still means it’s dimmed and your brain processes that just a hair slower than it would otherwise.

Unlike the typical Hybrasilian, she’s not using a spear. Instead, she has two smaller blades that she can use while maneuvering, cutting in and around you. The perfect weapons when she’s already up in your face. It’s hard to say that she’s feeling the overconfidence that your mother was hoping for but -stab stab stab- it’s probably not hard to get her there at this point, it’s really just a question of making sure Emberlight is still functional when you do. Maybe turn things up a little bit so she doesn’t win the fight before she has time to lose track of things.

If you have time to think in between the sudden onslaught, you can tell that she’s trying really hard right now. She likes Jade, she’s won several of her fights, but somehow everybody keeps seeing her as a joke. A novice. Nervous. Foolish. She wants that to stop, she wants to show she can win and she’s afraid if she can’t put on a legitimate showing, that all anybody will ever remember her for will be the comedy. That’s not okay!

***

Mirror

She yawns herself. Long and wide, the kind of yawn that lets you feel her tail curling behind her. Doesn’t stop firing though. “Tempting, but don’t you think they’d disqualify us both if we don’t at least try to win the match? We’re conflict resolution for empires here, and we’re entertainment. The cardinal sin would be choosing to simply not fight. In that regard, we’re both cornered already.”

She advances, without a rush. She simply walks forward, continuing the lasers, seeing how long you’ll stay planted in the same spot as she advances. Close enough for a net? Close enough for a spear? Close enough to kiss?

But there’s no rush to it, no opening, no commitment. She’s seeing how close you’ll choose to let her get before you react. The Ginger Tiger advances, spear and net at the ready, lasers continuing to strike as you deflect, maintaining the option of moving in any direction it pleases at any time, but choosing none of them.

“But since we’re both here, I want to see what you’ve got. The last girl I met who I think was like you was Shantriala Hunter, Six Thunders. Tiny little ocelot, slowest Hunter clan I’ve ever seen on the run, but stick her in front of someone for an hour and they’ll give away every secret they ever buried and five they didn’t know they had.”

She sighs and there’s a wistfulness to it. “I like skilled huntresses, Mira Fisher, I like being surprised and watching them work. So I hope you’re not just going to stand there.”

And there’s the shape of her heart. She’s not hiding it and she’s certainly not lying. You remind her of someone she’s got a crush on, and she wants to see you display your talent. Why she’s fighting at all? She’s good, she’s loyal, Hybrasil asked her to serve and she obeys. But she’s also got that tired tone of voice that says that very few people she meets match up to her and her expectations are low. The fact that she thinks you could be in that category of special someones is a big compliment and she doesn’t really want to get herself worked up about it yet.

She's terrified. She'd acted without thought, without seeing it. An act of emotion and not stratagem. The tell - using the Zero-Point Weapon to alter the environment to her advantage as an opening gambit. Relying on the wrong instincts to stall while she recollected herself and recharged her primary weapon. She of all people should have known to never underestimate the sheer power of the charge.

The only thing that saves her is that Akaithon isn't her. Isn't Solarel. Isn't Mirror. She invests too much power in the shields, too much stance in blocking the debris. If she'd studied harder - if she'd seen, if she'd known - she'd have accepted the damage to her mech as the lesser price to pay. She'd have come on with every bit of power she had in that moment of weakness and the battle would have been over before it began. Mirror wouldn't have invested any points in health. Mirror would have struck her down in a microsecond and been disappointed by the result. She's terrified. In this moment over the abyss she saw herself with absolute clarity. Saw the sloth in her brain. Saw the malicious vine of habit. Saw herself with the clarity only possible in this place on the boundary between divinity and scrap metal.

[Defy Disaster: 5+1 Grace +1 Forward from Wicked Past; a 7]

But Akaithon didn't see it. And the difference between seeing it and not is everything.

The blade takes the Zero-Entropy Weapon - the crystal-cold device that is the key to her offense - and carves it into a mess and tangle of nanobots. In the cloud of particulate destruction, in the chaos of debris from the breaking station, in the speed of the Kathresis' movement at full burn she steps forward, under the tall arm of the Makhaira -

Out from her gaze for just a second.

- And then back. And then up.

She clamps onto the Makhaira's back. Her reactor is dark and invisible. The added weight is impossible to judge with no gravity. The Makhaira is twice the size of the Kathresis and can easily lift her, especially if she adds her own thrust subtly to balance any lowering of acceleration. When Akaithon spins around to follow through she finds the Kathresis gone, as though it had teleported or become invisible. In place of either Solarel is clinging to the Makhaira's back, heart pounding in her ears, disconnecting her neural link for a moment so she can bite her knuckles and thereby discharge the absolute, pounding manic terror.

She'd gotten lucky. A habit. A lack of respect. The fact that that pounding electric guitar in Akaithon's cockpit had muffled the impact of metal on metal. She clung on with sheer audacity.

And audacity demanded that she continue talking.

"How else could it be?" said Solarel, staring directly into the painted heraldric crest in the centre of the Makhaira's back. A world as the pupil of an eye. Her words bounced off ten thousand pieces of debris before reaching Akaithon in case the latency of the reply give her away. "You desire the Goddess of War. What trinkets could buy her? What lord could offer her?"

But now the problem: she didn't have any way to turn this position into a victory. With the Zero-Entropy Weapon she could have charged a full shot and unloaded it point-blank into the Makhaira's back, a finishing blow. Without it her twin swords could wound but not kill, her point defense weaponry and drones could annoy but not wound, her lance was outright useless. Damn Akaithon for putting points in health.

So, while Akaithon was turning her full attention to scanning the debris field, stance shifting constantly, ready for attack from any direction, Solarel sighed. She knew what she had to do.

"So, Akai, my daring knight, my high rider," said Solarel, adjusting her helmet and cracking open the cockpit of the Kathresis. "We've got some time until you make a mistake. So tell me. You're going somewhere. You're going somewhere and you need the Aeteline to get there. Where? What could you possibly need all that power for?" if not for defeating me? If not for defeating Mirror?

As she spoke she slipped out into the void, climbing from one mech to the other. It was time for delicate, slow sabotage. To gently run her hands over every part of the Makhaira's divine body. To touch her hidden places and break her fragile things. While Akai talked and searched she would work until her lover seized up and her legs became weak and her oxygen failed, making her gasp for breath with Solarel's name on her lips.

But slowly. Slowly. For this girl she needed to slip under her armour without her noticing. Needed to occupy her conscious, chattering, thinking mind with puzzles and riddles and games even as the lace ribbons that held her underwear together came apart beneath her fingers. To steal her bones so that all that was left was water, pouring out of that suit of armour, helpless. Slowly. I was wrong to try and love you in any other way.

[Figure out a person: 8. What do you love most? What are your feelings towards battle? How could I get you to betray your ideals?]

Up! Up!

Dolly barely needs the prod from Jade. They’re both Hybrasilian; they both know how to respond to a situation like this. The jump is powerful, but the pivot off the shoulder of the Unfindable Gander is almost delicate. A hand that could be used to grip a lance or drive it into the guts of a mecha, instead brushing their opponent’s shoulder. Thruster microbursts, kisses of wind, turning her body, bells spinning and singing—

And then they are above the steam, changing position, the night air cool on her back as Jade calculates the landing. A chastisement. Hardly enough to secure victory, but feel how Dolly’s heart races! She spins, she holds her arms out, she entrusts herself to her goddess and the night itself.

Then they plummet, and the drop in Dolly’s stomach means that she squeals as the ground races towards them. Their opponent has but half-turned, attempting to bring some weapon to bear, no doubt. It is Jade who brings her hands up into the chastising mudra. The cloak’s flickering on impact will mean that the audience will have one perfect shot of her body, one to be paused and zoomed in on.

Leg extended and locked into plac, Dolly kicks her opponent full in the face, and then springboards back, further into the factory. Sparks briefly light up the dissipating steam as she digs her legs in.

“I’m afraid she’s already taken,” Jade proclaims, her righteousness dripping from her fangs. “Whatever you may have heard about the Red Band, she is still MINE to discipline. And I have decided she gets to keep her modesty for a little longer.” They’re on the move again, circling; Jade’s grandeur echoes through the factory. ”I can’t have any milk-mouthed pilot thinking themselves the equal of Smokeless Jade Fires, after all. Did you learn nothing from my matches? Or were you too busy drooling over the matchless beauty of my… ah, yes, my princess, that’s what you called her~”

[Boxcars on Defy Disaster with Grace, much to Dolly’s good fortune.]

Kshartra Talonna

Congratulations!

Your assault is bearing results already. A high-altitude attack vector has gotten you into melee range against an opponent who was clearly not prepared for it. And your strikes are coming fast as the Terenian tries her best to block them with the autocannon she'd brought into the arena.

It's easily enough dealt with: strikes high, low and a swipe sends it spinning away through the clouds. You've got her on the ropes and, soon enough, everyone will see. You're not a joke. You're a serious contender. They'll all see!

How does that make you feel?

-===-

Isabelle

Well, the plan is working. It's working well!

Kshatra is in melee range. She's taken the bait. The autocannon wasn't actually one of your lures, you thought you'd have to fight at range at some point, but that's okay. This is still under control. The reinforced vambraces are doing their job, allowing you to keep up the parries without taking damage anywhere sensitive.

You're riding the edge of the blade, dodging and weaving enough to avoid serious damage. Trying to find a way to make it look like your opponent has the upper hand.

And ... well, she does. She's fast, faster than you give her credit for. And in close combat like this you find yourself on the back foot. A strike hits harder than you'd thought, breaking away at some of the plating you and Asil spent the evening installing. Opportunities you have to fight back are forgone and, sooner than you'd like, they've dried up. It's all you can do to keep yourself in the game..

Okay. The plan is now officially working too well.

[Rolling to defy disaster with grace with her vambraces and autocannon - 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 Well, there goes the need to pretend she's losing!]