"It is not a question of disappointment, it is--"

Warning! Warning! Warning! The missile lock alerts blare too loudly and too numerously for the thought to stay inside her brain. Words become alarms faster than she can think them, and there is only enough space left inside her to control the fight. The rest of her is too occupied with remembering not to vocalize the noise she's hearing as conversation. Mirror grits her teeth and gives up on conversation for the time being.

Assessment: Solarel's Hellzone Grenade. A 360 degree missile barrage designed to surround and crush a flying opponent. Avenues of retreat? None found. Avenues of attack? Impractical. Avenues of Defense? Inadvisable. Impossible. When the Bezorel had done it, Mirror panicked and unveiled the Full Configuration technique of her Third Form: the philosophy of the shield. She had survived, but the Nine Drive System had suffered a capacity reduction of roughly 60% in the process. A second attack of the same technique would have destroyed her Tails entirely. A third? Death.

Assessment, Assessment. Moonlight Immemorial Vanguard deemed unsuitable defense. Additionally, Full Configuration techniques have been locked by the Chains. Second tier response, Moonlight Nightmare Cage, philosophy of the net, likewise sealed. Four out of Five required Tails presently available.

Assessment: Shit. Fuck. No time. No time. No time!

"Philosophy. Of," Mirror groans, "The. Comet."

She continues bombarding the ground, only with wide arcing bursts instead of controlled mortar style attacks. Already her fingers are angling down on joysticks and adjusting dials. Her feet twist on pedals and the Gods-Smiting Whip hurtles downward in the wake of her barrage on an apparent suicide course. As she falls, her Tails cease their assault to the main body of her mecha, along her back where they are safest, except for Tail One, which connects to her left forearm. She holds it up with the briefest flicker of shielding as she dives through the heat of the explosions.

Yes. Correct. Techniques were a trap. Her secrets were of no use here. The entire Nine Drive System was nothing but an elaborate net for her to tangle herself inside of. Unhelpful. Meaningless. How had she become so blind? The One Day Defender had no need of this toy. She bursts through. Her thrusters roar to life, hotter than ever now that her Tails have been suspended. Behind her, missile clusters bend their arcs through the air and give chase. 

She falls. She twists. She holds Tail One against the hip of her armor and shoots tiny bursts of lasers to clear paths through the sky that she cannot dodge through. The alarms still scream at her, Warning, Warning, Warning! Missile Lock confirmed! Detonation immanent. The force of gravity in her cockpit crushes her against her chair at all sorts of horrible angles. Her vision starts to turn black around the corners of her eyes. 

And still, she flies. The Gods-Smiting Whip dead stop hovers over the surface of the water, spraying mist everywhere before she reduces that to steam and hurtles herself back into the sky while another dozen missiles ruin themselves against the arena floor. Great geysers of superheated water join with crumbling blocks of already ruined buildings and chunks of moss and other plant matter to turn the pristine pools into a hellscape of wartime imagery. Mirror does not see it. The results of her repainting the arenas intentions are a mystery to her. 

She is too busy planting the Whip's feet on the body of a missile. She cannot ride it, that is the domain of the Animes alone, but there is enough time to kick its fin in and send it wobbling off course until it detonates and opens another tiny window she can zip through to another moment of safety. Up, up, up, up, toward the arena ceiling where the still dense cluster of missiles will have less room to give chase, target lock or no. She flies as the sun does, on the back of a mighty hunting beast that must cross the whole of Hybrasil in a single day, without ever resting. 

She has a moment only to hover there, twitching in the sky as even now her fingers work the controls unsatisfied with the apm of her absurd acrobatics. Her cockpit is sweltering. Her breath is ragged and there is blood oozing from her right ear. Her arms are twitching from the effort of holding her hands steady. But there is not an input out of place. She drops, with her sword held above her head as though she meant to fight through the remaining ordinance with only this. 

...Predicting the path of predictive guidance systems should be simple. Particularly after being chased by them for over a minute. But it is the farthest thing from true. All flight path adjustments need to be made at the last second, even being the more maneuverable individual combatant, because early shifts offered the cluster an advantage and an opportunity to remove dodging avenues from her repertoire after she would already have had to select them. 

Chunks of arena "sky" rain down upon her as she dives. Her tails spring back to life and vaporize them one by one. The Gods-Smiting Whip crashes into the hissing, murky water and drops to one knee, leaning on its sword to enable a faster rise once its pilot is capable of commanding it to.

But Mirror is slumped forward against her console. Her shimmering blue eye and a tiny bit of her fur are the only things visible on her broadcast to Marcina Villajero. The sound of her wet, overheated breathing takes up comms space for several more seconds before she is able to drag herself into an upright seated position.

"I do... admire. Your. Work. Ethic. But you... are. Frustrated. So I will. Change. My. My question. For a. For a. For a. Moment." Mirror manages a lopsided as she lifts her mecha into a battle ready position again, Tails popping off her back and returning to life, "How? Does it feel? Fighting me?"

[Defy Disaster: 2+4+3 = 9]