There's a beat right before you're finished talking, when you're fully into the flow of things, that the platform beneath your feet glows white hot. 

Solarel hangs on the bottom of the platform, maximally charged energy round pressed against the metal superstructure. She fires clean through the flying metal superstructure, the pinpoint precise strike ripping into the Emberlight from below. The thruster in the left foot is torn to pieces, vulnerable steering components rendered into molten slag.

The damage is limited; a lot of power was lost when shooting through the platform. But this fight was already going to be hard, and now Solarel has taken first blood. And in that surprise attack you see too late the truth, your failure to understand. 

This was not a cold execution, a calculating dispatch - if she wanted to do that she wouldn't have waited this long to hear you out. This was not the act of a master of war out to prove her superiority; if that was the case she wouldn't have attacked you [i]before [/i]you finished talking. That would have been a lot of pride to sacrifice for such a marginal advantage. No, she aimed that shot to maximize her tactical advantage, it was the most power applied at the point of your least preparedness. And you see there your failure to comprehend the alien, the projection of your own standards on someone who does not share your culture, your history, your assumptions. All the way down to your belief that you have the right to speak to the outsider on the field of battle.

Solarel wants to fight.

Not because she doesn't care about her opponents. Not because she doesn't understand that they are more than this. She understands they are more - but she [i]isn't[/i]. This is [b]all [/b]she is. This is [b]all [/b]she has. These moments of battle are everything to her. You are Isabelle Lorenzo, heir to a vast family fortune, player of political games, finder of love, something more than just your mech. You have a life. You have a story. You have a future.

Solarel does not. This moment right here is her final state. Her ultimate form. The peak of her entire life. You tell her that people are worth more than that; she [i]knows[/i]. She can see them in the distance, shining like stars. Even Mirror, weaving beautiful dresses, wrapping herself in such beauty that her clothing becomes as awe inspiring as a God - even Mirror is beyond her. She has no skills, no hobbies, no motivation, no home, no hope, no future. Nothing but this, this, this. To wear the armour. To be a God. To fight using every scrap of skill, understanding, strategy and tactical awareness available to her. Her full self, made manifest at last.

And you disrespect her. You come into [i]her [/i]house, with your life, with your dreams, with your self-righteous reminder that the people she fought had other shit going on - that you're only [i]playing[/i] at this. That your heart and soul is elsewhere. That all this pride shit mattered so much to you that you sacrificed the tactical initiative. Now it's her turn. Now you're in her world. Now she's going to destroy you and let you go crying back into the loving embrace of your girlfriend, your family and your stupendous wealth.

And then she'll go onto her battle with the only other person who takes this as seriously as she does. The only person who has ever given her full, undivided attention. To the Mirror who reflected the love that Solarel put into every shot, every strike, every technique. This battle [i]is [/i]her heart.

[Fight [b]8[/b]
Take a condition.
Solarel takes a superior position]