Phoe

Huntresses of Hybrasil

She arrives dressed for Business. No better way to explain to a group without experience than by making a clear visual impression.

That means wearing her very best suit in the Terenian style: a fitted pants/jacket combo in the deepest blue imaginable, more serene than a lake too wide to see across lit only by the distant twinkle of stars as they wove their stories overhead. The shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, and the middle of the thighs have all been cut out in wide diamond shapes to show off her snowy fur and a selection of her very best and most desirable stripes. The back of the jacket has been trimmed down to a series of thin ribbons that wind across her in a perfect helix. She wears no shirt underneath this jacket, the better to emphasize its absolute perfection, and secures only the top button (of three): a stylized thing of shimmering, textured gold that begs to have a finger run across it to feel the stimulation of the outfit's richness.

She wears the pointed shoes of the TC upper echelons, the ones with the pointed heels that raise her a full head and a half off of the ground. She is unusually tall for her kind already; now she is unquestionably a goddess. She has gathered her long hair up around her neck and the back of her head and tied it into a severe but messy, spiky bun held in place with two black prayer sticks dangling golden bells off of their tips. She wears a necklace, a gaudy thing made not with bones and smooth stones or diving weights and bits of fish bone (like one would if they wanted to be beautiful), but threaded of minuscule golden links looped over top of one another so they cascade down her chest like a tiny waterfall. Across her neck is also a tight choker featuring some manner of jet black stone in its center. On her face she wears a pair of large, oval spectacles with an opalescent frame. Looking through them, her genetically modified eyes are even more striking than usual.

She has painted her lips. She has lined hear ears with piercings and rings. She is perfect. She is divine. It is impossible to look at her and not believe she is an expert in the field she has dressed for.

"As you are aware, the Terenius Consortium contains a variety of religious expressions across its borders. But there is one principle god to whom all of their kind pay a special fealty to above all other manifestations, no matter how misfit they may be otherwise or what walk of life they claim as their own. It is a shapeless, formless god entirely unlike the great beasts of the Zaldarians or our own Goddesses, who shape our lives intangibly but nevertheless have made their bodies and their presence quite clear to us. I speak of course of the great god known as... Finance."

In the years since first contact, many (and especially the important) Hybrasilians have received crash courses in the bizarre world of TC economics. Certainly the far ranging mercenaries needed to get very good at understanding basic bartering very quickly if they wanted to be taken seriously in negotiations. Nowadays even most kittens wouldn't tilt their head at the mention of a 'credit' or the idea that it might be exchanged for something like food or a manufactured good without interacting with the complex series of promises and social expectations that underpinned the system of exchanges in their own empire.

But to all but the most hardcore fangirls of the TC worlds the specifics and especially the deeper mysteries of how these people lived their lives was a total black box. The Hybrasilian language contains zero even equivalent words for things like 'finance', 'corporation', 'CEO', or 'profit' and if anyone wanted to express these concepts they needed to use the TC words for them, full stop. The Hybrasilian, and especially the Fisher accent is very maladapted to the sounds these words are comprised of. To the sharp ears of a Child of Hybrasil, the attempt generally sounds impressive, and it has become popular to insert them into the lyrics of popular songs. To Terenians, however, the deficiencies border on insulting.

This is to say that if the likes of Isabelle or Marcina or Angela were here for this meeting they would likely have killed themselves giggling, and Mirror might not have had the bravery to continue. Luckily, her audience was cats. Cats all the way down.

"The currency you have dealt with in your work or mine is a tool to procure hospitality and aid, true, but its true purpose is a talisman of prayer to Finance. A holy man explained it all to me when he offered to help me create a 'bank account' to house the collected rewards I had been accruing for piloting for Terenian causes and benefits: Finance is a fickle and capricious god but it is pleased by strategic applications of this resource, and with enough successful supplications it will intervene on your behalf to grant boons beyond what an individual could offer for your exchange. Essentially, as your number of prayer slips increases, you or a skilled priest working on your behalf can cause miracles to occur. The creation of a new mecha, for example, or the forging of an alliance against historical clan interests. My personal favorite is the sudden manifestation of festivals outside of marked holy days, but supposedly these powers extend far beyond that to the truly devout."

Mirror nods and pulls out several tablets from a bag she's kept at her feet this entire time. She sets them on the table in front of her, displaying a pie chart, a line graph, and a spreadsheet. Each of these were painstakingly crafted by hand, which is to say they contain absolutely zero numbers or labels or identifying data of any kind, but they are all extremely colorful and evocative in a way that Mirror knows is corroborated by several anime she's seen dealing with the subject. It is not difficult at all to make the leap from these displays to a Hybrasilian priestess, even a bride beseeching her goddess for a good hunt with these offerings to dazzle her into compliance. Nor is it at all difficult to imagine certain goddesses absolutely devouring these offerings and assigning High Meaning to them.

"The greatest concentrations of holy power in Terenian society are found inside the grand temples that Finance feels most at home inside of. You have likely heard of Companies, yes? Perhaps by another name, the concept is so important that Terenians have as many words for this single concept as we have for reeds. Corporation, LLC, Conglomerate, Subsidiary, Co-Op, and Collective Bargaining Agreement all refer to the exact same type of temple. They combine the powers of supplication of a great many individuals under a single structure, where power within the cult is determined via a new type of prayer called 'stock'. It is an ascetic demonstration wherein a devout cultist demonstrates her belief in Finance by refusing to spend her accumulated credits on material comforts and instead spend all of it on the company itself. This creates 'stake' inside the temple, and the god rewards those who can deny themselves immediate gratification by returning it to them later multiplied a hundredfold or more."

Now she switches her teaching tools to something truly indulgent, something so wasteful she actually looks around the room for a moment to see if Finance would manifest for her in appreciation for her superior insight into its machinations. She uses paper. One hundred sheets of the creamiest, most beautiful paper she's ever seen, all of which she has spoiled by drawing the exact same flower blossom on. She sighs.

"Whatever anyone may tell you, these temples contain exactly one hundred instances of this prayer. They may require greater or smaller amounts of 'investment', depending on how powerful the temple is among the Cult of Finance, but what you see is all there is. And whoever performs the ritual best and who can make the most stable alliances gains the right to be called this temple's high priestess, though they mostly use other words for it. These priestesses command enormous powers in their society, including the ability to compel behavior against the wishes of the ones they demand it of or creating oaths of loyalty among whomever they choose. They can even cause entire Skyscrapers, those enormous glass spears Smokeless Jade Fires and I fought among recently, to rise up from the ground where they live. This is the power of the Lozano Matriarch, whom I have declared war on."

She gathers the papers together into two separate lots and divides them with a line of string, then does this three more times on the right side of the division until she's created several smaller lots against the one larger one.

"But these powers are not hereditary or inherent to the priestesses' being. Their god will turn on them if they ever grow lax in their duties or prove themselves an unworthy servant by allowing another cultist to usurp their power. If nobody controls the majority of these sheets in front of us, then the temple must ask for consensus among every cultist who has performed the ritual to have one. With fifty one out of one hundred to a single name, a high priestess' power is absolute. Within her temple she may alter reality as she sees fit and her god will enable her without fail. Conversely, if those fifty one sheets align against an individual, her voice goes completely silent. The god will not heed her even if she washes herself in holy water and slays a [Creature of Ten Thousand Mouths] with the droplets still fresh upon her body. Do you understand?"

Mirror pulls the strings away from the smaller lots and lays them across a single sheet of paper on the larger one, changing the arrangement completely.

"The Lozano Matriarch has her fifty one sheets, but she holds them via alliance. Any sufficiently advanced temple usually requires too much of a demonstration of devotion per sheet for a single person to feasibly hold a majority all by themselves. This is one of the ways their great god fosters competition in their society and keeps its children strong. But this woman has held her position for long years, in part by having her children each hold a small number of the sheets she needs to control the magic Fifty One (this being the holiest number of Fiance, you understand). I have been corresponding as best I could since the party to find people with sufficient devotion or at least connections to other holy men like my 'banker' who could be convinced to help buy up the other fourty-nine from their various owners. If I am successful, which is to say if they are successful, all that we need do to topple Isabelle Lozano Distant Gate's supposedly invincible and monstrous mother is to convince even a single one of her children to bargain for the sheets that they hold and her power will be broken utterly.

She will be the high priestess still, but she will need to bargain with a collective in order to continue enacting her will as she has for these many years. I do not believe she knows how. She will sink deeper trying to cling to her rituals without the backing of her god. Even if she manages to recover without shattering herself on her own temple, she will have been taught fear. And that, I think, will be enough proof of sincerity that I will be able to trust the Distant Gate to help me defeat Solarel, even after she fails her own test of single combat. Do you agree?

Mattara? Selin? My darlings and my hearts? Kiriala, my squire? Can you sweet talk a Lozano child out of their alliance for me? I wish to compensate them fairly according to the traditions of their home, of course, but I do not seek the power it represents for myself. I have already contacted Ada Smith, Unseen Goose about the possibility of heading this new alliance within this particular cult. I have done this because I believe it is the funniest result possible, and therefore the best. And that even if she quickly 'cashes out', as they say, she will walk away from our brief partnership with more resources for her family than she could get for herself in a hundred and one raids. I think it is worthwhile, personally. Will you help me? Can you spare the time for my sake? My plans are balanced on a spear tip right now, it will be difficult to adjust without you. But if it is too much for any reason at all... say so. I will abandon my vendetta and search for another way to give you my dream."

Breathless Dead

This is a labor of days. A full week or more might pass, she has little way to track it. Mosaic does not sleep. She hardly eats or drinks, and when she does she curses like a fiend at the imposition. While she is busy crafting her vision for the future, the ship is continuing on and others are stamping theirs on top of it. Every hour she wastes is another where a possibility might close off forever and a figure or a group will have entrenched themselves so thoroughly that it would take a war of conquest to dislodge them.

But she has no training. The careful consideration of the ramifications of each of her ideas is the only weapon she has, so she wields it with all of her might. It hurts her pride to hear so many problems with all of her ideas. If she does one thing, somebody will ruin it. If she works to counter that, another group will rise up in their place. If she crushes both, she has given up the freedom she was trying to build into her city in the first place.

Power. Power, power, power, power, power. All of it for her. It must all rest on her shoulders, or the baser instincts of those around her will crush her dreams. Everything must be perfect, must be precise, must follow her instructions as she gives them without questioning them or everyone will die in the terrible, yawning maw of space. This ship will return to food for Poseidon, just as she had found it. That's why. That's why, that's why, that's why!!

She hears a voice echo in her mind. A voice she has never heard before, a voice that does not belong to anyone she knows. It is stern and heavy with expectations, but at the same time it is warm and caring. It is iron and it is theatrical and it sets her heart on fire even as it soothes her. Is this what it sounds like to have a mother? Could it be?

For an Emperor to be strong, her citizens must be weak. For her citizens to be strong, the Emperor must be weak. Too much in one direction and the people crumble to dust under the heavy heel of the throne. Too much in the other and everything is swept up in the tide and there is nobody left at the top to defend the masses when crisis comes to threaten them. And so the wise Emperor must dance between the Scylla and Charybdis of tyranny and --

Mosaic yawns, and the voice disappears. A moment of delirious blinking, and she realizes that it was actually her voice all along. She is... tired. Repurposing the lesson of Zeus to justify her ideas. Or to shape them, if she's feeling charitable. She is not. She is not an Emperor, and this is not Empire. She's such an idiot for wishing her projections meant anything at all. Her heart feels hollow. Is this loneliness? Fatigue? But still, the words resonate. And she is so close. She claws the sleep from her eyes and returns to her list.

In the end, the city that Mosaic wants to live in turns out to be a lot like herself. She does not favor the military over the arts, but neither does she shun it. She does not divide duties to split up power groups like the Silver Divers, but she does arrange them to mingle. She dilutes responsibilities down a chain of command until a common worker can handle most of their day without input from anybody, but she establishes a list of lieutenants that she trusts above everyone to be her voice in the sectors they excel in, with instructions that they each select someone else to perform these same duties under them.

It gives her a council of experts from every walk of life and empowers that council to make decisions on its own, even override her own authority if they all agree with each other. And what authority she gives herself to wield is good for very little. Mosaic positions herself as the principle solver of issues that crop up. A single mind that can react quickly when such things come up, a mediator and a protector when these things are necessary, the one who will come running to fix a broken gear in her machine no matter where it turns up.

The whole thing is fragile. If she's not up to the task of handling everything as it breaks, it will all collapse more or less instantly. But it feels fair. The workers most punished by their work will be the most rewarded for it. Tasks are assigned that call for specialization, but the emphasis of the social structure and living arrangements encourage constant intermingling. She leaves room open for innovation, when someone other than herself or Omn present an idea that could improve things for everybody, and she leaves even wider room for the possibility that the idea could come from literally anybody on board.

Her city is a patchwork. A place of art, a place of labor, a place of comfort, and a place of discipline. A patchwork that puts herself at the center, not so that she can benefit from the flow of resources, but so she can best do what she has always tried to and lift everybody up onto her shoulders when their legs are giving out. It's a fussy and meticulous vision that's commanding and servile in the same breath.

It's a place to start at any rate. Fuck, she is starving. How long has it been since she's had a decent meal?

Breathless Dead

Click click click, the sound of one claw tapping echoes through the mostly empty chamber. Mosaic's spine is curled forward as if thoughts were supposed to climb up its slope into her brain. Her ears twitch constantly at each new little shift in Ohm's rotations, trying to steal extra information from the advisor-machine's apparent mood and attitude. Her eyes roam about the room in the hopes that shadows and flecks of dust or speckled bits of light held answers for her if she could only just perceive them from the right angle.

It takes her a long time to do anything else. She scarcely breathes for fear of interrupting the information stream around her. But at long last, she nods. The spell breaks, and her posture relaxes slightly once again.

"I'm gonna have to smack a bunch of Ceronian heads together before this is over, I see. I wonder if the smaller ones are any different about this stuff? Guess it doesn't matter. No, I can't just put them all in leadership positions across the ship, that's the same as putting them above everyone else from the start. I don't really want to break them up either, but I could use their examples for the others. But that doesn't... fuck. This would be so much simpler of Gemini had any interest in being their alpha. But she won't. And I can't ask."

She can feel the rings spinning up to argue with her. Even having only been in the same room as Ohm for a few minutes, she can already hear his voice in her head gently admonishing her and working through the problem again as if leading a child to the end of a school problem until she finally gets it right.

Her tail flicks in preemptive irritation.

"I'll write a list of names. You and I will assign their positions across the ship together, until I am satisfied. But when I gather the ship together to explain everything, I'll ask for volunteers first. This will tell us who's the most interested in helping before they know the rewards for work. Living in Beri, everything was always easier if you could keep the mood up. That's what I'd like to do here. We're building a city here essentially, right? Then the first step is to build one I would want to live in."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

In the safety of the gathering, Mirror lets her eyes squeeze shut. In the comfort of darkness she feels Matty's weight pressing into her body. She feels the vibrations of her kitten's purrs and the flustered nuzzling of that sweet face into her chest. She follows the sensation of Slate's claw as it travels along her arm. It ruffles through her fur and against her skin, only just soft enough to keep from drawing blood.

She allows herself a sigh. Contentment. One moment of bliss in the quiet after victory. When she opens her eyes again they are locked on the writhing, undulating form of Dala Hunters, whose dancing is a gift. Whose beauty is a treasure. Mirror's face creases into the soft frown that means she is at her most thoughtful, and therefore her happiest.

"...I will repeat myself from the other day, Slate. Well... no. First, I will agree: I have almost everyone I want now. But I continue to believe we cannot count on the support of Isabelle Lozano until we have first struck her matriarch, and I likewise believe my plan will fail without someone of her piloting ability and demeanor."

She sighs, neither wistful or frustrated but simply so full of a thought that she must have release. Communication feels so simple, here at the feast. Not once have her eyes left the dance of Dala Hunters. The more of her that is exposed, the more focused Mirror becomes. No possessive or lascivious thoughts occupy her expression: this is an act of much simpler love. She has been allowed into the world of the divine, a place she thought she could never be. Every sway of those beautiful hips and every roll of that soft tummy was a gift intended to honor her. To honor Mirror.

But it is also (in that deeply amusing way of hers) Smokeless Jade Fires attempting to brag. Even so utterly bested, the pride of that goddess has not been broken. The knowledge of that determination sets her heart racing far more than anything the dance itself could manage no matter how long Mirror was invited to watch. Even if she was given the gift of a night with Dolly where she could she pleased, she would do no more than talk through the long hours of the night and properly playing the card game she'd made such a mess of last time. They could do it naked for all she cared; bared bodies meant nothing to her all by themselves.

But the challenge! That sent shivers down her spine. This demand in total defeat, to be treated not as a conquered resource but an ally in full standing, it was almost more than Mirror could bear. She takes her feelings out on Matty's neck, teasing and massaging and touching all down her back and neck until she is a shivering, speechless mess in her lap. This... this... assertion, this decree! 'This is mine, Whispered Promise. The most beautiful thing I own. I share it with you, and dare you to claim I have made the lesser contribution to our partnership!'

That is the true message of this party from Smokeless Jade Fires. It makes Mirror's claws itch with longing. To take a whip and crack it against this impertinent goddess' backside! Ah! The desire to pin her, to make her understand, the thrill of challenge! It is a beautiful gift. All she can do is respect it. She sighs once more, this time in sync with Matty.

"You do not need to worry, Slate. I promised you I would no longer overexert myself during this tournament. In any event I cannot afford to if I am going to defeat Marcina Villajero. Certainly not while continuing to hold back my-- our true strength. I will be counting on you and Ms. Seven Quetzal to deliver the blow in my stead. And I will explain the process to both of you, but let's enjoy this moment. Just a while longer. For her sake. For your sake. For mine."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Gods-Smiting Whip carried Smokeless Jade Fires out of the arena in its arms. Was there any reason to believe its pilot wouldn't extract and hold the priestess in the same way once they were back? This marks the second occasion that Mira Fishers has held a flustered Dala Hunters in her arms, and her wet eyes glimmer with the same light that they did the first time, as they descend toward their respective crews on the (painfully slow) lift back down to ground level.

Her snowy hair is soaked through with sweat, and her synthweave suit is unzipped even lower than usual: all the way down to her hips, just to vent heat. She may also be alluring, or eye catching, or enticing, or ridiculous. She does not know. She does not seem to care. It is hot, her body is hot, her is sweltering and damp, and all of her conversations and negotiations tonight will have to take place over copious amounts of cool drinks or she might very literally die. The cockpit of her mecha is hot. It is unbearably hot; all that equipment produces enormous amounts of energy and Mirror was never willing to compromise on her deception enough to allow it all to be directed toward the outside of the machine. The further she pushes Nine-Tails, the less comfortable it becomes. There are benefits, perhaps, but this is the second secret weakness of the Gods-Smiting Whip.

"I find it intriguing," she says through a glint of mischievous fang, "The way our people always gather around a warrior in a game like this. We were enemies, minutes ago. Now your pack and mine have both come to revel in defeat and victory at the same time. How many will be drunk before we reach the ground? I wonder. It is, perhaps, the most admirable quality of the children of Hybrasil. At least, I think so. [All Who Gather Feast After Hunting]."

Mirror's arms are strong enough to hold Dolly without trembling. She is tall enough not to let her temporary princess' feet dangle near the floor. And for as overheated as she is, she is also composed enough not to balk or retch when she brings Dolly's body close to hers, to let her feel the truth in the messily spotted fur she once called beautiful against its owners own perception. She plants a kiss on Dolly's forehead.

"You were a sublime test, O Bride of the Goddess. But now you are overcome. You are defeated. You are finished with the tournament. And you are in debt. I am a mercenary before I am anything because it allows as disgraced a name as the One Day Defender to provide for my family, and my family is everything to me. Subsequently I did not rescue you for free, Dala Hunters Seven Quetzal. Are you prepared to pay me back, as your goddess promised? Will you honor your debt by working under me? And doing just. What I. Require?"

Mirror does not smile as she steps off the lift and into the revelry. Her eyes watch the cat in her arms intently and intensely as the smell of sweat drifts in waves around them.

Breathless Dead

Mosaic isn't used to getting lucky. In every moment of her life that she could remember bar today, the answer of the gods to each of her prayers was the same, "Work harder." Whenever Beri had a problem, that was her creed. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it did not. But every time the problem cropped up she would shoulder it herself and she would either be strong and clever enough to see it through, or she wouldn't. If she needed help, it was on her to know who to ask and how.

To have been given the ship in the face of the Crystal Knight's oppression already felt like too much miracle for her to hold. Though she had paid for it, she hadn't earned it. And now, stuck on the edge of a new problem she simply hadn't been equipped for... she watches Ohm spin proudly, and her mouth falls open.

"...Yes." she says in a half whisper, voice too full of surprise to maintain the remaining scraps of her composure.

Which god did she owe thanks to for this? Who was watching out for her? She'd have to leave offerings to everyone, just in case.

"Yes," she says again in a firmer tone, "I am the Captain here. I am in charge."

Mosaic clears her throat. Her shoulder slump forward, as though the aftermath of finding the final path out of all this had finally taught her how heavy her body actually was. Now she simply had no more strength to maintain the illusion of power any longer.

"And I have a problem, Ohm. We hauled this ship out of the sea without time to plan or organize what we were going to do with it. I have a handful of soldiers, and another handful of... I don't know what they are, bite-sized Ceronians, they're just a pack of wildcards to me. But mostly everyone here is a villager from around Bitemark. None of them have a clue what they're doing, so they're all just settling in wherever their feet give out."

She manages a weary shrug, and settles into a decrepit chair. She leans forward to rest her head on her hands.

"It's a disaster. I need to organize things before we leave the planet, or I'll never uproot any of them ever again. And there's no telling who'll kill who when they go for the same prize. I can knock their heads together just fine on my own, but I've got no plan to offer them and no clue how to build one when I don't know the first thing about this ship and what it's built for. I need to know more about this place. I need to know how it runs so I can get everyone settled where they'll actually be able to thrive. Otherwise you and I might as well just say our goodbyes now, 'cause we're gonna just explode somewhere out in the middle of nowhere."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Three swift moves, and then the end.

The crash into the step backwards. The step into the dropping of the arm. And finally, the great whirling slash that ends the fight. Blink and it is over. Simple to misconstrue.

Rewind footage. Slow motion, panning shot. The two mecha crash into one another. Smokeless Jade Fire and Dala Hunters' momentum are enough to stagger the Gods-Smiting Whip, though the two mecha are of roughly equal weight. Nine-Tails uses its Crystal Fire Drive for thruster balancing or energy shielding as its solution to blunt force; it is itself quite light and easily pushed around.

Thus the step backwards. The Whip reestablishes its center of gravity and avoids toppling over or needing to fire its thrusters and risk triggering an errant mine that might have tipped the scales back in the other direction. All of its active tails float stubbornly around the fight, twitching but refusing to affect the fight further. The idol reaches forward with its momentum to snatch the Whip's sword hand. With balance stabilized, it is possible to calculate the attack vector. Rather than use the sword in the expected swing the way someone looking to crush the fight might have, Mirror simply lowers the Whip's arm by three meters. What is grabbed instead is her mecha's forearm. The grip on Matty's gifted blade remains.

She would need to shatter her own arm for the follow up. Her free hand twists behind her without regard for the pain it would cause a pilot. Her sword hand releases its grip and the blade drops down to where the agile, curving mecha is pivoting to grab it with the other hand. The two machines remain locked in their grapple, but the weapon transfer is successful with only a minor stumble where the fingers close suboptimally around the grip and need to regrasp as the slash begins. At no point in the clash is the sword in greater danger than in this moment.

But the Gods-Smiting Whip holds firm. Its fingers close around the hilt, and now left thrusters burn for exactly one quarter of a second to reverse its own momentum and wheel around in a circle. The blade flashes across Jade and Dolly's shared body, severing power conduits and clothing in the same strike, even as its other wrist is still clutched tight.

It may seem overwhelming. A perfect counter from an opponent who had read the move correctly and was never in danger. To think this would be to ignore the realities of combat. Smokeless Jade Fires is more than strong enough to threaten Mirror. Her idol body has the weapons to triumph, and she used them appropriately for the outcome she had attempted to bring about. The outcome of a fight is only obvious in retrospect: this exchange was a knife's edge from seeming inevitable in the other direction.

But it is Mira of the Fisher clan who holds her sword under Dala Hunters' chin via the link with her Goddess. Their eyes meet, and each beholds beauty. Their eyes meet, and each beholds kindness. The Gods-Smiting Whip's head tilts up in a cocky pose for the cameras panning all around it. Mira's face broadcasts a smirk of its own. A flash of teeth, and then a dip of her head in a tiny bow.

"It's your bad luck to have fought me today. If I'd had my trident you might have snatched it. I would have needed my tails to finish this, I might even have offered apologies. But my own kitten gave me this sword, with dreams of seeing what a knight will fight for. The difference in our abilities is little more than experience. The difference in our tactics is simply motivation. And the difference in our loves... is that I must still hunt mine down and crush her. She has my heart in her hand. She can speak to it. But she has not been able to touch it. To that end, I am jealous of the pair of you. Hrm."

She twists her wrist free and turns from the melee. Four steps away, sword held in hand with its burning blade pointed at the ground. The Whip turns its head as if speaking to its opponent directly, as if it were alive.

"Is now a good time to discuss payment, Goddess? 'Anything I want, until I am satisfied'. I believe that was the contract price? I confess I have been looking forward to retaining your services from the moment you hired me. I will not have my wish snatched away from me, and you are now a shield that will preserve it. Are you willing? I can always provide... motivation, if not~"

She twirls the blade in a dazzling demonstration of martial prowess, ending with a low sweep of the flat of the blade in a way that calls to mind a spanking.

[Mirror accepts the Comfort roll and clears a Condition that I think I forgot to track on my sheet. Additionally, she opens up to someone she respects, pushing her Feelings track back down to start]

Breathless Dead

Praetor.

It's a word she's never heard in her entire life; she has no idea what it could mean. And yet the sound of it is a needle sliding slowly into her spine. Every syllable drags across her mind like the claws of some hideous beast, and the pain that follows fills her head until nothing else will fit.

Mosaic's legs feel weakness that have nothing to do with fatigue. She squeezes her head, because the pressure feels like relief against the swells of the word inside her. Pain enough to make her stomach churn. She heaves dry air and burning spittle, but nothing more. She stumbles forward, but does not fall. Her eye pinches shut as if trying to shield itself from the orange glow and the motes of light filtering through the coral.

But it clears. As suddenly as it clutched her, the word lets go and all at once Mosaic's world returns to normal. She watches the strange construct in wide eyed wonder and her mouth hanging slack. What kind of machine could this be? Was it even one? It wasn't like anything she'd ever seen come from the Skies. They would not have built something so... fragile.

Or so beautiful. All at once she is seized with the desire to run over and brush her fingers against the rotating rings and feel the perfection of their construction for herself. At the same time she feels the equally potent desire flee the room entirely, lest she breathe wrong or provide some latent spark that would fry this intricate miracle and kill a hundred lifetime's worth of dedication, perseverance, divine blessing, or sheer stupid luck that had kept this bizarre and wondrous eye in working order at the bottom of the sea with no support long after whatever disaster put this decrepit vessel into the drink in the first place.

Well. Almost working order, anyway. Whatever it was, it was clearly broken: not a single thing it said made a shred of sense. Even the gods it invoked were strange and wrong. It had to be broken. Or maybe disoriented? No matter how much she sniffs the air, Mosaic can't find any signs that it's alive; the only fresh scents in the room are metals and a heat that reminds her of the fuels that are beginning to power this ship. But even still, when she looks at it the word that keeps jumping through her thoughts is 'person'. If it wasn't alive, then what was it?"

Her hand lifts up to hold her head again. The pressure is back, and it almost feels like her brain might burst out of her skull if she didn't hold it in herself.

"Lanterns? Kaeri? I don't have the slightest gods damned... nnngh. I really don't have time for another--" she stops, and sighs, "I'm sorry. Can't imagine how long you've been stuck here all alone. But whoever you think I am, I'm not her. Name's Mosaic, not... whatever the fuck you said. Same servitor strain maybe? Can't say I've ever seen another one of... whatever I am, though. So probably not."

Mosaic glances across the room to the overgrown coral reef clinging to the window. She shrugs. The name 'Master of Assassins' makes her blood run cold for some weird reason, but she couldn't be anything other than another relic of this weird construct's dream memories. Nothing that boarded this ship the last time it had a Praetor to advise could still be breathing today.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow, In a Moment of Reflection

That one takes Euna a moment to absorb. More real than real? A human, a dead-soul god, a zombie? It makes her click her tongue against her teeth instead of forming words. She gets halfway to smirking, but then frowns instead. In the moment, her one eye looks cloudy. She shuts it, and sighs.

In the end, she returns to her food. The same process as before, with absolutely zero deviation except that she does it without looking now. Her accuracy is the kind of thing that's only possible for someone with total faith in the power of practice, of muscle memory. She watches the other colors dueling with her hand held over her mouth to hide her chewing. She swallows, and shakes her head.

"I have to eat a lot in a day, you know. Normally someone who's down to just their torso has to be careful with caloric intake, but my augs are pretty unique and my daily requirements are actually pretty nuts. I have difficulty fitting it all in, never mind finding the time. Even then, I... god I'm so stupid. It still takes me this much effort just to eat a plate of sushi. I'm such an idiot, honestly. Nobody should respect me."

She smiles softly, maybe a little bit wistful, and shrugs.

"I'm not sure there was a point to telling you that. I'm full of holes, I just work really hard to make up for it. What's, damn it, what's my point? I guess, to me, you're the one who shines so bright I can't stand it. I don't agree with everything you say but... man. When you tell me how much you want to surpass me?"

Euna flashes the grin of the wickedest villain on all of Aevum (her wife). She pops up off the ground with a fist clenched in front of her as if she'd actually just escaped from an anime. Then she sweeps her hand in front of her and steps back into a grandiose bow with bow her arms out to either side of her. A very specific anime, then. Maybe one where she's some kind of battle princess? Well, that'd just be ridiculous.

"Hahahahahaha! Please. Do it. I intend to teach you everything I know. Not just techniques and fundamentals, but process too. Don't you dare slack off. If I say or show something and you bounce off it, you run and get me a color who won't. If there's no part of you who can manage, I'll rewrite the fucking lesson myself until it works. I have a lot of planning to do. I! Am going! To write notes! And spreadsheets! Aaaaaaaaaaah, this is going to be so much fun!! Surpass me, Nova. That's the dream of every teacher who's worth even half a damn. And when you do, heheheheheeeeeeee~!"

She's bouncing around on the balls of her feet now. She could easily slip in between those clashing blades and take them for herself. She could dodge every laser vector her gym can produce at once. She more than half looks like she's thinking about trying it.

"I haven't had to chase somebody's shadow in a very long time. In fact, the last time it happened I wound up married at the end of it. You sure you want to light this fire? I might turn out to be a superhero, you know."

She giggles, ending in a profoundly undignified snort. Cinders folds spacetime in on itself so that she can cringe harder than anyone in the history of the human race.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"Do you understand why I lured you here to begin our battle?"

Mirror's voice is cool and silken, but her body is becoming more animated by the second. Without even spurring her Nine-Tails into action, the number of buttons she pushes in a second has close to doubled. The motion of her eyes has intensified until trying to watch her watch her equipment is nausea inducing. Her frown of concentration is deep and in constant whisker flickering motion. She is, in a word, excited. The full force of her piloting talents are about to come to the fore.

"It was for this moment."

She reaches the Gods-Smiting Whip's hand forward and snatches the spiraling sword out of the air. As its fingers close around the weapon, chaos breaks loose. Tails One, Five, and Seven all ignite at the same time, forming three hovering plasma blades that sweep the air in front of and behind her in large, sweeping waves as if she were surrounded by the bends of a brook, or else dancing in a whorl of petals made entirely of light. The artistry is nearly a match for the technical prowess of it all, though there is too much of brute force in her motions to be something of true beauty.

The difference between a painter's brushes and a knight's sword. Between a dancer on a pole and a beast unleashed on its prey. Admirable to an extent. Aesthetically interesting, even. But even the flourishes are born out of practicality; the brutality and killing intent at the end of every slashing sweep are too apparent for her dance to earn her praise from a wider audience. No one would ever dare sing a song about her fighting. Not her victories or her defeats. This is one more truth behind the label of the One Day Defender.

"I have watched every one of your matches in preparation for today. You fight as a Huntress. Fight. You do not duel as one, but treat with every opponent as if they were one of the great beasts of Hybrasil. Even now, I am hunted."

Mirror's tail blades stab at the ground in a wave pattern, constantly rising and falling and burning new holes in the ground as she directs them this way and that. The Jackals close in around her, and she strikes. Small arms fire splashes against the frenzied shields of the suddenly active Tails Three and Eight, which lift up without warning at the last possible instant. The footwork of the Gods-Smiting Whip is sublime. And horrible. Like a monster, she stomps into the path of these brave servants of the Goddess Smokeless Jade Fires. She risks their teeth. Risks their distraction. Risks their leading her into more prepared traps.

And where she steps, the piercing rainfall of Tailblades follows. Impaling, rising, falling again and impaling once more. Strike after strike after strike, well beyond the point of overkill once her two new tails switch to offense and join the assault themselves. With five of them at once she has become a storm. Not even a dancer or a beast but a force of nature that reduces everything around it to dust and rubble.

"I used the width of your net against you," even now her voice is smooth and composed, even playful, "I drew the fastest piece to me and clipped its claws before I could be overwhelmed. I turned a sprawling maze's worth of attack vectors into a tiny handful, all of which I control. And I ensured that if I only stand in this single, specific place, my back could not be taken."

Her sword slams into the spine of a Jackal and lifts it bodily into the air. The Whip twirls in the center of a wave of hot death and she launches the machine like a shot from a cannon into another one. Thrusters burn, she rises just barely in time over a lunge from Dolly and Jade. The heat from her takeoff melts the glass of the fallen skyscraper into a molten slag that threatens to catch their feet fast if they are not careful.

But only here do her blades not fall heavy. This the eye of the hurricane, where no malice reaches. Mira and her Nine-Tails land lightly in a place of safety, where her tails start scarring the battlefield anew.

"Nine Drive System, Partial Configuration. The Third Form: The Forest of Fangs. That is a second of my sacred techniques I have exposed for your sake. The same number I gifted Solarel. I commend you for pushing me thus: you are the first to disable one of my Tails. And you shall be the last. You may take this crown and call it glory if you like, though it comes attached to defeat."

Her tails flit about her shoulders, no longer baring their blades but still threatening with the potential of their basic gun barrel configuration. Mira's sword slashes three times at Jade and Dolly's idol, precise and careful cuts that cause no pain as they damage superficial systems. She is slicing open the sacred dancing costume of a Bride, opening it further and turning it into something that she finds thrilling.

She sniffs. Just under the kiss of these teasing strokes is the threat of something far worse, if it is only stepped into.

"Call me a trickster if you must. Act aggrieved or benevolent, if that is what gives you the strength to fight. But I. Am. A. Knight. And I have shown you, for the first time in your lives, what it means to be taken seriously on a battlefield. That is the extent of the gift I can offer the pair who proved to me that I can trust to love in the place that I must reach. A place where skill and technology will only last me a single, paltry day."

(Defy Disaster: 11)