[h1]The Semifinals[/h1]

[b]Mirror[/b]

The pieces are falling into place. Matty came back with a delighted smile and not one but three signed pieces of paper representing the lion’s share of the Lozano family’s prayer holdings. And a piece of neural mesh that assured you of their intentions: the true Lozano family hope in you enshrined in a little gray slip, capable of being copied a thousand times to ensure it can’t be covered up or denied, but impossible to forge. Nobody has ever managed to perfectly mimic the neural signals of another person. 

Jade’s idol is being repaired with Slate’s help. It will be shining and glorious, fully capable as a dancer and a warrior as the need may be. She will soon stand ready for you to call upon her, or at least insofar as Jade would admit that a goddess can stand ready for anyone to call upon her. Dolly stands ready as well, in her way, as does her cult, many of whom have also befriended your own engineers now that you’re not in competition. 

The Gods-Smiting Whip is repaired, fine-tuned, even the grip strengthened on the sword after your last fight. The crew is well aware of Marcina Villajero’s eye for detail and Slate in particular committed to going over every frame of your last fight and ensuring there was nothing to exploit. At least, nothing to exploit that’s within Slate’s power to change. 

And Marcina herself. Well, what you’ve heard after her fight with Angela is that she decided to retool her support setup. The vulnerability to the rush screened by missiles was too obvious. So while she’s kept the huge sword that represents the core of her power, she’s adjusted the type and placement of her guns and missiles. Several likely hidden. You have some sense from the view as you enter the fight that she’s gone for more physical ammunition: explosives and autocannons with less emphasis on energy defenses. Perhaps she thinks it will be more effective than trying to match the variety of energy generation techniques that the Whip has already demonstrated. 

Speaking of the fight, your final arena seems to have been imagined as though centuries had passed in the arenas of the previous fights. You are in a city like your fight with Dolly, but sunken and overgrown. Standing on the “ground” means standing with your mecha knee-deep in water. Buildings are skewed and slanted, many held in place by vast vines that have tangled with them. Several have holes through them as though hundreds of fights had occurred and powerful explosives had blasted straight through them. The water is not still, but flows from somewhere and to somewhere, so that the city has become a basin in a much larger system. In the distance, the city slopes upward and water runs down low hills and ridges as the buildings move away from the tall buildings of the city center and instead shift to what once were residences now entirely overgrown with lush greens and browns amid the flowing water. 

Marcina is deployed across from you in the city center. No surprise, though many opportunities to hide or shift the fight. 

“I have been thinking” she says, without any formalities. “About when we first met over drinks. You told me that everything you do, you do to the best of your abilities. And yet that you do not owe everyone, or at least not your oppressors the respect of crushing them. From me, you drank the cinnamon drink even though you knew it would harm you. You suffered, I believe, to make a more effective point to me, that would be etched in my memory. I did not deserve this respect from you. I have been foolish again and again in evaluating you, and you have been nothing but correct.”

Then she says something in Hybrasilian. It’s not a traditional saying, but the words make sense in order. “[To know an opponent is to defeat them. To learn their hopes and their dreams, to know precisely how to serve them, this you use to cut them down.] But you…I still do not know you. And so…I want you. I desire you. I will have you.”


***

[b]Solarel[/b]

The return to the Aeteline was at once more and less than your memory could do justice to it. It is more in that your body is strong. Refreshed with food, rest, your mind focused, new routines of information to consider and calculate, the interface with the Aeteline feels sharper and faster. You could move and lift the stars themselves with the right lever. 

And yet, you return with things entirely outside of the Aeteline etched in your heart. The furnace at its heart knows nothing of noodle bowls and cinema lighting. It has not heard of a documentary and it does not have any consideration of the fashion dos and don’t for cape wearing. It does not consider how it might be to deal with a manic director or an easily flushed translator because these things are outside the parameters of its operations and it would not function for a pilot whose mind was not able to synchronize with its automated processes. 

You face now the other Terenian pilot, Isabelle Lozano. The one from that strange Trak’tho planet who you called not worth your time. Yet she has come back. She has won her matches, restored her preferred machine, and added to it in new ways. The dynamic nature of Terenian technology once again at play. Her mechanical body has not remained constant and this is not merely due to making repairs with inferior parts. She has chosen to add new functions, chosen to make modifications, chosen, for no reason but her own preferences, to change how it works. 

You fight amid a city of clouds. A series of orbital platforms, lower than your previous battle on a space platform, and far larger. This must be a recreation of an entire Terenian mining city, replete with small buildings and roads, all built for upper atmosphere mining operations and gas collection. It offers unusual angles, is still subject to gravity (and thus to falls should an engine be disabled or overtaxed), and glows a gentle orange-pink in the sunrise that lights your match. 

***

[b]Isabelle[/b]

Well, here you are. The control device is removed with Asil’s help, and your family have placed their trust in Hybrasilians you just met at their encouragement and a little persuasions from the tiny mechanic. Is it not freeing, in a way? Your girlfriend is the superior mechanic, your fate entrusted to others. The only thing left for you to focus on here is the fight. Oh, and your Zaldarian prisoner, who left the estate a few days ago with a carefully written apology note in Terenian indicating that she appreciated your hospitality but did not feel that she could remain given your opponent. 

So, really all that’s left is to focus on the fight and not the thousand things swirling around it that you could worry about but that you have no control over. Keep trying t remember that. 

You fight amid a city of clouds. A series of orbital platforms, lower than Solarel’s previous battle on a space platform, but much higher than the elevated ruined city or the open plains where you fought earlier matches. This is a recreation of an entire Terenian mining city, replete with small buildings and roads, all built for upper atmosphere mining operations and gas collection. It offers unusual angles, is still subject to gravity (and thus to falls should an engine be disabled or overtaxed), and glows a gentle orange-pink in the sunrise that lights your match.

***

[b]Dolly and Jade[/b]

“So, what are the specs on this thing?” Slate’s head is cocked to one side as she gazes at the idol in the hangar. Not fighting this round. But Mirror still insisted that she be in tip top shape. In fact, she sent her own chief engineer to assist you.

“It’s been a few years since I was home, maybe longer with the travel distances. So did they make any breakthroughs that you just weren’t using right? You kept up with the Whip on a regular chassis, so you’ve gotta have something under the hood there. Though if all they managed for you was a more efficient processor, that would still be plenty I supposed.”

“If you ask me, it looks more like a dancer than a fighter though.”

And that one might cut a little. Because little does Slate know that your poll results included one write in for “start a pole dancing business” (obviously from Six Stones) and one write in for “dance in the sacred ceremonies of the gods” who you’re not sure would have sent that as a write-in. The rest are fairly evenly split between hunting the Red Band and temple complex. Doesn’t seem like there’s any support for the roving justice thing, people either want a clear goal or a clear base. Garden Planet has two votes, tying for the dancing routine if you count the joke vote. 

Also Slate’s staring at you for a response.