[b]Solarel[/b] “I’m the best pilot among the Zaldarian knights!” Akaithon shouts. There’s a special tinge of bitterness in that. She said [i]knights[/i] 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. *** [b]Jade and Dolly[/b] “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! *** [b]Isabelle[/b] “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 -[i]stab stab stab[/i]- 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! *** [b]Mirror[/b] 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.