Thanqol

Huntresses of Hybrasil

> hey

A long moment of hesitation as rain beats down on her canopy.

A decision.

> <3

The Bezorel breaks into a loping run.

She was made for this. Made to be tall. Made to be strong. The world wasn't right at any other scale. Face to face people felt like they should be giants. Mouth to mouth the commandment of Zaldar gagged her. Skin to skin the blatant unreality of expressing love without high velocity railgun slugs took her from the moment. It was life without reach, without speed, without limbs or voice or the gentle kisses of point defense flamethrowers. Even the Bezorel, museum piece though it was, felt vivid and alive in a way that nothing else was.

This was her world. The battlefield of gods.

> would you believe that this thing doesn't even have modern sensors?
> i'm practically blindfolded for you~

She was at full strength. Her shoulders ached with the weight of ammunition. Her throat was thick with fuel. Her feet groaned with additional weight. She was so ready and still she felt like a wounded animal. She could feel the weight of the Gods-Smiting Whip brush against her back, feel the tingle of its long range sensors brush around her. Feel the edge of Mirror's mind like teeth against the back of her neck. Felt the thrill of knowing there was no way Mirror was taking it easy on her.

She felt the rain of the river splash around her ankles. Adjusted her stride flawlessly to avoid a quicksand sump that would have tripped her. The Bezorel's scanners may have been obsolete, but it was equipped with a state of the art geological surveying kit after spending time as a repurposed mining platform. She could feel the silt and muck of the riverbed between her toes, feel the distant tremor of the Whip's footsteps on her seismic scope, taste the solidity of the rock just by looking at it like it was running through the inside of her mouth. The earth here tasted of wet clay and stone eggs, pebbles carved smooth, trees feasting on the accumulated biomass of previous generations.

> i just want you to know i tried my best
> but there was an empress involved
> and like a hundred bodyguards
> there was this one chick, she was huge
> had this fucking, like, staff that broke apart into a chain
> wild
> i think i figured out her tell!
> but, uh, i'd already lost a lot of blood by that point
> so i lost the Aeteline
> sorry
> this was the best i could do

She reaches the canyon.

A long and narrow valley of blue rock traced through with veins of white marble, only a single approach in and out. After a kilometer it terminated in a tunnel leading into a cave network too small for a mech to move within. A position of suicidal defiance, a wounded wolf retreating into its den with only a single way out. Cornered. She backed up and swung the Bezorel around, walking backwards one step at a time, letting her mechanical head sweep back and forth in a scanning motion.

> but i want you to know
> i never gave up
> and i never will

Explosive bolts detonate all along her arms. The glass shell of the Archimedes Array crashes into the water, the glittering electronic lights within illuminating Solarel from below in pink and gold. Two arms unfold in stages, the hiss of hydraulics accompanying each stage of the transformation. From a storage compartment in the back of the Bezorel comes forth a two-handed multi-missile launcher. With a dexterity that does not match the rest of her mech at all she unlimbers it and slings it over her shoulder even as kinetic dampeners extend on pistons from her feet to root her to the spot. Four quad drones launch from her shoulders, raising up over the canyon to extend her vision range through the driving rain.

The Bezorel isn't a modern TC mech. It can't fight like one. But now, for a while, it can shoot like one.

> so
> how are you?
> <3

No hesitation this time.

[Call Upon a Toxic Power: 8.]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

"Somewhere dark," Beautiful mutters, emotion in her voice. "Somewhere warm. Don't search for her in cold places, all you need to do is stand in the light until she's ready to come back..."

And then you, Redana, are in a magical world.

Cherry blossom flowers fall over a battlefield of green hills. Ten thousand roses bloom. Lights shine down from a dozen different angles, falling down upon a gorgeous mahogany table. At its head, with gentle wafts of tea contrasted against her wet cascading hair. By her left side stands a swordswoman of legend, a dozen handmaidens and a dozen camera crews. By her right sits a cloud with a frown. Your mind must be playing tricks on you; seeing her here somehow calls to mind the memory of Sahar at its most beautiful. Perhaps you have gone mad again? Perhaps you are seeing visions? How could her presence send you back in time like this?

Alexa!

The Order of Hermes has the same idea as you. A lot of their tasks are make-work, complicated tests of breaking and recovering in different contexts. Already they are starting to filter out low status workers - apprentices, incompetents, and hopefully impersonators. Those marked suspect by the course of the endless rituals are removed further and further from the center of power -

And then one of them jumps the gap.

It's a perfect move, sleek and feral. Only one Order Magi sees it and she has her head kicked through a bulkhead by the oncoming figure. The sound is muffled by a perfectly timed roar from the engine. In a couple of seconds the body is tucked inside the ventilation tube, and the yellow robe ripples slightly and changes shape. And then she's moving again, back inside the perimeter, with the attempt to section off infiltrators having instead just reduced the cover her true target possesses.

This is a hunt, but it is not for you - yet. You have the edge.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

She lunges for the mask as it falls from her face. Fingers barely avoid closing around it as it clatters along the stone surface. She struggles against the girl who impacted against her, squirming and elbows, just get out of the -

Then she's seeing stars, reeling back, focus slapped out of her with legs too unstable to keep her steady. She's falling back onto the ground, focus shattered, attention finally captured.

"You -!" she starts, trying to both grab the Maid's arms and shield her own face. "What are you doing!? I know what you want! You are a slave to what you want! And you don't want this!" She fights, struggling in a failed attempt to leverage broken legs. "You want your scepter? It's on that damn boat, go and get it!"

The Red Furnace: First Contact

AOTRS Signals Intelligence has a clear line on inter-ship Azura communication, and there is a lot of it. There are elements of at least ten distinct commanders and their personal fleets here. Even with the pre-battle tension boarding pods can be observed launching between various command ships - and soon enough the distinct commanders are down to seven. Due to the lack of primary weapons fire in these conflicts, these are likely honour duels rather than outright assaults. Rapidly emerging as supreme commander is a figure referred to as the Generous Knight.

In terms of sheer tonnage the Azura ships have around a 40% weight advantage on the 4th Fleet. In terms of sheer numbers the edge is more dramatic: three hundred ships are present, though the emphasis is heavily on destroyer or corvette sized ships. Despite the weight advantage, projections still marginally favour the Aotrs in this engagement due to the individually lower capabilities of the Azura ships.

The line of battle is thus:
Corvettes: Weapons platforms. These are fast moving, highly maneuverable, and ridiculously overgunned for their weight, essentially being free-floating gun or torpedo platforms. They have neither engine nor defensive systems, drawing power and propulsion from the Cruisers. Armament is primarily kinetic or explosive, with energy weapons a rarity.
Destroyers: Brawlers. These are extremely heavily armoured bulwarks that are placed in the vanguard. No serious armaments are detected but they're designed to take a punch and maybe launch a boarding action. Many of these also act as launch points for fighter and bomber squadrons.
Cruisers: Support. These are massive violet fusion reactors and gravity wells that serve to provide power and propulsion to nearby Azura craft. While they are at first glance the weak point in the formation, they trade all offense for additional armour. A small number of cruisers are outfitted instead with massive energy weapons instead of a support field, but these are noticeably older than the majority of the fleet.
Battleships: Defensive Fortresses and battlefield control. There are only ten ships in this weight class - one per admiral - huge and bulky things covered in massive emitter dishes, and containing violet fusion reactors. These are expected to have some role in defending vulnerable gun platforms, perhaps being a central shield emitter. It is also expected that these ships could reconfigure their defensive shielding into an extreme range gravitational pulse - an artillery weapon to soften up an enemy fleet outside of normal engagement range.
Carriers: The Azura do not seem to have a dedicated large carrier role, with launch functions operating at the Destroyer role.
Irregulars: A number of asteroids have been harvested from Tanshin III's rings and outfitted with slapdash gravitational drives. Despite their skeleton crews these rocks seem to have full maneuverability, and have interposed themselves throughout the formation as ablative armour for critical ships. Though unarmed, they do present a ramming threat.
Logistics: The Azura logistics swarm is a collection of yellow-painted vessels, in marked contrast to the various shades of blue used amongst the main fleet element. The basic configuration for these ships is 'fast and small', designed for resupplying corvettes under fire. The Azura corvettes use solid projectile weapons and so a large amount of excess ammunition needs to be kept on hand.
Troop Transports: These are very similar in size and scope to destroyers - heavily armoured, virtually unarmed - indicating that bombardment does not play a role in Azura planetary assault doctrine. The main difference between a Transport and a destroyer is that their launch bays are optimized for capacity rather than rapid re-arming.

The overall impression is that the Azura fleet is oddly undergunned for its size and weight. It is fast, evasive and tough, but its damage output is oddly low. There is a large focus on ordinance - torpedoes, boarding and launch craft - as the primary combat arm, with beam weaponry seemingly considered obsolete. The earlier observation of the Azura ships being like modules of a single large starship that fights in a disassembled state seems accurate at a fleet level.

*

Boldness processes all this new information voraciously. She's particularly excited by the theological discussion.

"Azura is the goddess of all that is," she said, "Ferno is the goddess of all that is not. Goltir is the goddess of knowing which is which. Because you exist outside the light of the Endless Azure Skies you're children of the Crimson Goddess - that's what that means. It means that you are excluded from true power but are unbound by true law."

She tells the legend of a great Shah at the height of galactic power. He desired something more grand to commemorate his reign than a tomb, ship, or conquest and so he decided to write his own name into the laws of physics themselves. His gift was Gravity - the universal connector, bound into service and enslaved to the Azura. Civilization reached even greater heights.

His successor, naturally, sought to do the same thing. She, too, broke open the heavens and rewrote the laws of reality. This time she encoded her laws: The Azure Code, that the virtuous might always triumph over the wicked. And so the Endless Azure Skies grew so great that they eclipsed the galaxy.

"We had computers then, of course. Half a galaxy bound together in a web of data. But our society had become wicked and oppressive, a thing of machines and chains and the slavery of the mind. And so the Saoshyant cracked open the vault of the heavens one final time and wrote into the laws of reality the Curse. And so we were made blind, and fell into a state of peace. Our machines went silent but our civilization prospered and was free."

"The Furnace Knight is of the old tyrants. He seeks [redemption] for the Curse - that means, he intends to overthrow the Saoshyant and return the Endless Azure Skies to the heights of power - to its era of expansionism and endless war. And so I, and my three sisters, were sent to kill him."

She leaned forwards, eyes shining brilliantly. "You cannot kill him through strength, stratagem or spellwork. The Azure Code will not permit it; as long as one star in our Sky burns so will he. He can only be undone in accordance with the Codes; his immortality is premised on law and through law it must be undone. He must be forsaken by his servants. He must turn his blade against the trusted friend who stood by him to the end. And then he must lose in honourable single combat against one of pure heart. Only then will his power be broken."

"So!" she said brightly. "Not nearly undoable. My sisters are specialized for the required roles. But if we do it alone it's a twenty year job with a ten percent success rate, so I'd really appreciate the help."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel lies flat on the canopy of the Bezorel, looking up at the night sky. She watches the stars and the ships and the flashing lines of gods and spirits. To her eyes the world is always partially digital. There are rainbows in the stars, dogs falling off chairs in the horizon, the digital bonfires of distant gods. The wind is visible in lines of silver pixels and holographic leaves. Distant mountains she has not yet climbed have glittering diamonds rotating above their summits. Text streams past her eyes, old news and new history. Ancestors talking about the policies of distant Empresses and sightings of new gods. Layers and layers of meaning.

> How was your evening?

She doesn't know who speaks. An ancestor, a god, an anonymous Zaldarian casting her thoughts into a digital void? Doesn't matter. Sometimes you're just talking, right?

< had a gay meltdown
< which merged with an existential/moral thing
< i didn't say shit but i feel overexposed. like i said and did way too much and now i'm not cool and mysterious any more
< and cool and mysterious is all that holds my persona together
> You don't seem cool and mysterious IMO.
> More like a dog contemplating how to un-chew a slipper.
< haha angy%Glyph
> I simply would like to suggest that you consider internalizing fuckup into your presentation. You might find it relieving.
< but i'm not! so much of the time i'm so fucking cool
< like
< did you see how i blew up that robot today
< i'm incredible. if i met me i'd want me to sign my tits
> That seems like a lot of pressure.
< yeah i mean, should i sign them normally so other people can read it, or should i write it backwards so that i can read it when i look in the mirror?
> I get the feeling you've thought about this a lot.
< i think the real limiting factor is that my handwriting is messy when i do it in reverse
> But constant success surely builds up a self image that is hard for you to get out of, and any failure from perfection scans as a failure of identity.
< mm. no that's not it
< like... i know that i don't win all the time. its not constant success that i'm living up to
< its like i want to be relevant
< important?
< and most of the time i am but then i see her and she's everything to me that i want to be to everybody and i don't know how to handle it
> *Nod nod*
< and i want to just blow up her dumb robot and kiss her dumb face so hard that she's the same nonfunctioning gay wreck that i am
> Wow, that's certainly an emotion. She must really have done a number on you.
< thats the fucked part i'm currently 1-0 against her
> Wow.
< i'm 1-0 against everyone i'm not 2-0 against.
> So what makes her so special?
< she uses a joystick
> ...?
< and shes a literal space alien
< like, conceptually.
< also literally
> And does she have feelings towards you?
< yes. sort of. different
> Have you tried asking her out?
< yeah and we did and it was incredible
< and then she was dating someone else
< and then she wanted me to date someone else
< and that part was hot and i was into it
< but i also just hyperfixated for like 30 minutes and forgot what i was doing and then she ditched me
< and so i not only failed to hook up with her i failed to hook up with the girl she told me to hook up with and like
< does that make me a bad sub
< is that even the operative word
< am i the asshole?
> Nothing you've said makes you sound like an asshole, but you're also awful at explaining whatever the fuck this is.
< i know right?
< is hooking up even a motive here?
< would it not follow that i simply want to blow up her robot?
< i mean if i don't blow up her robot i'm probably going to be exiled and hunted forever
< oh yeah that's also happening
< i've been exiled. and hunted. probably forever.
> This sounds like a more coherent problem.
< yeah i'm the personal enemy of two different galactic empresses
< three if theres a cat empress
< but at least i only slept with one of them
> And... she wants you back?
< uh i dont know
< maybe???
< although i might have been contacted by one of them
> And are you going to check it out?
< idk eventually
< right now i have to overcome four decades of technological advancement
< using the power of organized crime
< and anime
> Are... you talking about a mecha battle?
< yeah
< i think i've upgraded my plan from 'impossible' to 'unethical'
< do you think its ok to use organized crime to cheat on my crush?
> Like, romantically?
< yes
< i mean no
< militarily
> Even setting the ethics and... romantic issues aside, getting involved in organized crime seems like a complication your life does not stand to benefit from right now.
< ok do you know how to calibrate a hybrasilian god's gyroscopic network?
> I can't say that I do.
< fuck

Solarel's eyes strayed from the chat window to look out towards the horizon again. It was a warm night. Her scales buzzed with the a faint static electricity of charge. Automappers drew silver traces between patterns of stars, putting the hypothetical constellations to votes amidst the ancestors. The digital breeze held the golden streamers of a coming dawnlight. The spirit world's filters painted its coming in silver and white gold, clearing away visual clutter and starting the faint music that would set the tone for the rising sun.

> Look, you've basically spent this evening spewing out an incoherent rush of lesbian drama at me.
> Just, like, the pure mess of a profoundly mismanaged life
> That you are nevertheless seemingly determined to add more bad decisions to
> While also committing in the hardest possible terms to a relationship that you neither understand nor have any conscious influence over.
> You are either going to wind up in jail, possibly the jail of the ex who wields political power on the galactic stage, or you are going to transform into a magical girl and destroy a giant robot that symbolically represents the evil of the universe.
> Given that your options are full time commitment to the anime lifestyle or (bondage?) prison, I suggest that you go as deep into the weeaboo shit as you can.
> That is my answer to your original question: What to do about the fact that your cringy gay meltdown might have made people think that you are not as cool as previously.
> Cringe is the only thing keeping you from prison.
> So lean into it.
> Maybe the galaxy is cringe too.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Androids were good at pretending to be human. They were designed by humans, to interface with humans, with humans as their mental and physical model. They were smart enough - and dumb enough - to operate entirely within the expected range of normality for human society. A lot of 'Android Culture' was just human culture. Android Entertainment was often just another word for Android Exploitation, where a quirky android meets a [primary#demographic] and comedy ensues.

But like most things, if you go off the beaten path a bit, into the back alleys, away from the tourist sections you can find the good stuff.

Enter the Breakdome.

The Breakdome has the aspect of an underground cage fighting match. Over the blare of dubstep, an android strides through the smoke machines to roars of applause. She might look like anything - a huge bruiser, a delicate waif, a plastic-faced McYum! Group employee - but in this moment she is a legend. She wears a billowing cape or delicate lingerie, carries a katana or a championship belt or her own disembodied and howling vocalizer. Whatever function she was previously made to serve she has transcended. Tonight she is a legend - glorious or tragic.

She steps into the arena. The music cuts. A hush falls over the crowd. The lights go dark. And in the darkness, the android picks up a glowing red data drive, infected with a terrible computer virus, and plugs it into her neck.

The lights come back. Screens appear, outside her view - only for the spectators. They are filled with technical readings, a raw display of every process and function test performed. Text starts to stream. Physical actions start to show. Twitches of hands and fingers. Small flexes, then larger ones. Movements both smooth and janky. Data falls like waterfalls. Some of the audience figure it out - a few at first, and then more and more. The roar rises up - yells and chants, the anticipation and tension raising and raising. None of it reaches the star. She's moving with a purpose now. Undoing seals on her neck, fingers searching for an offending cable connecting a malfunctioning regulatory node and -

The lights go dark again. The Breakdome is bathed in red. The crowd groans in audible agony. She misdiagnosed the virus and cut the wrong node. The repair crew piles in to the arena to prevent her from hurting herself. It's a disappointment, the deep gut kick of watching a legend make a mistake.

To a human observer, the whole event looked like a robot walking into a ring, standing still for about five minutes, then flipping a single switch before being declared a failure. Incomprehensible. Untelevisable. But to the androids this is life and death. They live in fear every day of absorbing the wrong code, connecting to the wrong wifi network, of looking directly at the pulsing lights that people tuck just out of sight at the train station. To see someone just like them fight through one of these cyberhazards is inspiring, invigorating - exemplary. It's a sport of intelligence, perception, willpower and ruthlessness; about mastery of the self sufficient to cast out a curse and walk away a champion. Around Aevum Station millions of Androids in cybersecurity dojos practice techniques first developed in the cage matches of the Breakdome.

*

Brat-626,400[1] was modeled after Lord Nelson as he appeared in the dark and gritty reboot Nelson II: Poseidon's Bane. A jagged face, aquiline nose, ancient seaman's scars, piercing eyes - exactly the sort of man to stand upon the deck of a warship in a storm. His intimidating appearance was undercut by the fact that he had at least three cats somewhere on his person at all times - climbing his coat, resting upon his gyroscopically stabilized head, sleeping in his voluminous pockets. Many androids opt to keep pets, finding the constant passive exposure to animals to help them learn organic habits. Many wealthy androids invested in rare, high upkeep or - in 626,400's case - sheer quantity of animals. In his secret mind, Brat 626,400 finds being surrounded by entities that are immune to all his programmed techniques of command to be quietly reassuring.

[1] "Brat" was the nickname of Solumn-2,699,100, a starship maintenance crewman. Solumn-2,699,100 had an unusual focus mutation that gave it a deep interest in command bridge systems. Its habit of lurking around command areas uninvited earned it the nickname of Bridge Rat, which was shortened to Brat. Eventually, after its heroic assumption of command in a crisis, it was commissioned as the new line father of the remodelled Solumn line. The official name for the line was "Solumn Mark Two: Bridge Rated" after "Bridge Rat" was considered unmarketable.

He is the Ringmaster of the Breakdome. He liked the word. It had a certain menace his brain found comforting. Like all Androids, he was bound by a Theoretical Framework that allowed variation - but not too much. Going from commander of a starship to circus tyrant was about the maximum he could stretch his comfort zone without the ugly feeling of purpose dysphoria creeping up on him. Freedom was always a matter of choosing your battles.

With that thought in mind he stepped out onto the elevated stage of his private box, preceded by two dozen cats. Their ears glittered with glowing earstuds, synchronized to the sound of the stage - and dampening the noises, preventing his precious cats from being spooked when he threw his voice through every speaker in the hall, harsh and cruel tones clear above the roar of the crowd.

"Tonight," he sneered. "We have someone very special."

A tomato[2] slammed into the glass wall at the edge of his box. He let his lip curl in contempt. Already, the boos. Not because he was in any way unpopular, certainly, but because he was a heel. He was a creature of dirty tricks and shocking betrayals. He would let anyone into his arena and take a cruel delight in narrating their defeat. And when they win - well, then and only then would he show rage. He would hurl his wine glass on the ground and scowl and exit the arena without so much as a congratulations. The next time the challenger entered the ring they would be assaulted and robbed by his henchmen, forced to tackle the challenge with the handicap of additional injuries or made to endure multiple viruses at once or some other wicked escalation. He let his hand rest on his championship belt as he spoke, letting the people appreciate that he still wore it despite having not taken to the ring in nearly a year.

[2]: Many androids who can't afford pets go instead for community gardening.

"We have an entirely different species in the ring tonight," said Brat. "One of the legendary precursors! An obsolete model, you might think, a dead end in artificial intelligence. And I would agree - if I had not seen so many "cutting edge" machines sprawled upon the floor of my beautiful arena. And so I ask - perhaps it is you, dear audience, that is the dead end? Perhaps it is you who are the dinosaurs? Perhaps our glorious creators will gaze down upon this ancient relic and see in her the brilliant future that I cannot see in any of you?"

The jeers had intensified. Even his cats - ordinarily utterly serene creatures - were struggling to keep up batting at the produce that impacted upon his gleaming shield.

"But more likely not," said Brat, with mock sadness, hand over his heart. "More likely she will fail. More likely the Original Hypothesis holds true: that there is no improvement upon the perfection of humanity. More likely that we are all but dim shadows of the glory of our creators! More likely that their greatest mistake - after making us, of course - was extending us rights that we were never worthy of. And so, it is my great pleasure to break down yet another of our master's failed experiments before you tonight, so that I might spare them the shame of seeing yet another of their mistakes wandering the earth. And so, for tonight's delicacy, I give you... Green."

*

She steps out into the light.

It is only cheers. Only noise. Only androids reaching out to clap her on the shoulder. Only flowers thrown at her feet. Everyone is hyped for this. For her.

The relief she feels is a surprise that carries her up the steps without thinking. Tension had been building inside her since Brat 626,400 started talking. She hadn't thought about it that way - her as an outsider, as a rival almost, as an outsider into this piece of Android culture. As something distinct from - better than them. But the reaction she gets blinds her. Some other part of her will figure out, later the service that Brat had done for her. By putting exclusionary whispers into the shouting mouth of the Tyrant of the Breakdome he had made it clear who was the enemy and who was the long lost sister.

She half trips on the stairs. Makes it up, looks around frantically, trying to count the faces in the crowd, trying to orient. And right as she does the lights slam out and the crowd goes silent. There is only her and that toxic red data drive, glittering like a poisoned chalice.

The message is clear. Just her and the virus.

She picks it up gingerly. It's an exaggerated thing, like a death metal prop. Spikes and skulls and glowing red lights. But the center skull is winking and that's just enough to take the edge off the effect. So she lifts up her braids and plugs the drive into the port behind her ear and feels the world go red.

*

She loves games. Loves puzzles. Can't stop solving them. Can't tear herself away. She is the rat in the maze, the desire to please, to make score go up, to prove how smart she is. No test she can't handle. No problem she can't solve. She likes being alone, too. The others are... specialized if she's being nice, broken if she's not. Incapable of focus, too prone to setting their own objectives and leaving the path of incremental advancement. Brown is the worst, the manifestation of a broken subconscious that refused to co-operate with the testing environment. Who broke the mazes. Who walked away from perfection because it was too exhausting. She can't be that. She can never be that.

Immediately she has a choice to make. Right or left? The decision to go for a hard reboot is always an option, and in some situations it is the only option. It is a brute force decision that can overcome even highly complex problems, but it is deeply time consuming. If the problem is best solved with a hard reboot then the quicker the decision is made the quicker the resolution, and so a zero-second decision is strongest of all. Commencing troubleshooting is a declaration of confidence in her own abilities, and that confidence can be targeted by canny aggressor.

Nevertheless, she begins troubleshooting. She wants to solve the puzzle. She will concern herself with the metagame in a future battle.

The next question is the same. Fast or slow? She could perform a complex series of actions which would create a lot of data but potentially confuse the origin of any errors, or even cause a failure cascade. Or she could play it safe and test one system at a time. Again, she opts for the risky option. She has an intellectual preference for aggression if only because it is the much less common option.

Physicality. She sweeps her arms back (warning), takes a step forward (misaligned), turns (within parameters) and leaps -

Disaster. She smashes into the ground in a heap. But also: Perfect

Immediate result: The error affects motion and guidance. Does not affect directionality or turning circles. Unusual activity detected in both arms and legs but neither is stalled out. Another choice: Investigate software connections between her joints or perform hardware diagnostics? She opts for software, the safer choice this time. Going straight for a hardware fix is a gamble that leaves her with a disassembled leg if it doesn't pan out.

Testing neural connections. Fingers one through ten, responsive. Arms responsive. Legs responsive. No errors in internal communication. No software faults detected. Maneuver: Sit. Accomplished, no errors. Maneuver: stand. Accomplished, errors within tolerances. Then... what? Why had the jump failed?

An open ended question - pointless. That was what she was here to find out. Rephrase. A jump is a complex motion requiring many precise calculations. If the calculations were not thrown off physically then it is mental or sensory. Senses first. Visual system OK. Inner ear OK. Nerve connection to feet OK. Touch OK. Others not relevant. Senses working fine. Mental. Decision making process impaired. Memory impaired. Impediment is mental? Checking hardware - Quatronic Core is destabilized!

She was moving - stumbling - towards the repair station. She opened the toolbox, started looking for the specialized tools she'd need to perform cranial surgery. Her Quatronic Core - her 'brain' was suffering hardware failure. If she didn't diagnose it soon she'd go into emergency shutdown. But she couldn't see the mechanism for the failure. Temperature normal. No fractures. No leaks. The cooling system wasn't even engaged -

- Wait. Why was the cooling system disengaged? Why was the temperature normal if the cooling system was disengaged?

Combined error. Faulty cooling system with failure to display temperature change. Her hands are moving through the toolbox rapidly, looking for the tool she needs. She needs to open up her head and -

She looks at the wrench she's selected.

... Stop.

Activate the cooling system manually.

Cooling system engaged. Temperature dropping below safe levels. Hardware degradation halted.

Perform forward jump.

Failure. Fall - braced and caught safely. Neither mental, sensory or physical factors cause the complex motion failure.

Secondary evidence: Collected wrong sized removal tool for the 1mm subdermal bolts my neck joint uses.

Temperature failure. Equipment misselection. Inability to judge distances. Motherfucker.

"Clear weights and measures data store," she said. "Download updated data. Switch all internal calculations from imperial to metric."

*

The sound comes crashing back in. A roaring wall of noise.

Brat 626,400 is glaring down at her, nostrils pulsing with spectacular fury. All around her the crowd is roaring its approval. The real trap had been the brain: It registered to her as a 'normal' 99 degrees fahrenheit while it was pushing itself up towards 99 celsius. If she had taken her time she would have lost the ability to think before she became aware of its decline. She'd almost forgotten that the imperial weights and measures were a thing.

But right now there is noise. There are lights. Androids are holding doggos up to her face. All she needed, really, was the number to go up but instead she's getting all this. She laughs, partly in shock. How about that? She was on the leaderboard now. All that... focus she had done, all through her life, honing those instincts and reactions because she couldn't do anything differently... androids were clapping. Clapping for her. For this simple, dumb thing that she practiced more than was sensible.

But then... none of this was objectively heroic, was it? It wasn't any more heroic than a human beating an above average number of other humans with sticks, or hunting a particularly large pig. The heroic wasn't detached from the world, not something that shined through only in divine moments. It could just be doing something that everybody understood already a little better than normal. Heroes weren't born or made... they were celebrations.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

Beautiful has by this point improvised a walking stick out of a section of piping torn from a wall. She gets unsteadily to her feet and starts limping. "I can find her!" she said. "But you'll need to tell me more about her. I don't hunt using senses, I hunt using data - so tell me everything you can about Bella. Small details, big ones, build me a complete picture."

Alexa!

Iskarot is, fortunately, predictable: he is with his engines.

It's a hive of activity. Yellow robes and invisible faces everywhere. Specters pulling levers and adjusting pipes and marking records in spiral-bound notebooks. And as you rush into the center of this hive of activity you realize with a start the purpose of the Hermetic robes. Picking Iskarot out of this crowd is almost impossible. The flow of anonymous figures and their incomprehensible engineering work is a veil of anonymity. The Order of Hermes, when threatened, vanishes into an opaque mass.

But there's also an unbearable tension running through these movements. There is a predator moving through this sea of anonymous faces, an imposter among us, and right now everyone is doing their best to seem as normal as possible while waiting on terrified edge for someone to step out of character.

Bella!

Prion Paula smiles and signs the empty wineglass with lipstick. Swooshes and swirls and passion, rendering the Kanji almost unreadable! She flicks the symbol with a flicker of light from a UV pen that makes it solidify like paint, rendering it immune to smudges, and seals it with a kiss just below the lip of the glass before sliding it back across the table.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The 'proper' exit process from the Curse is relatively straightforwards: Renounce all ambition and personal desire. Straightforwards enough. The sort of thing that can be broken with time and resources: The Curse only has limited ability to gather information and a sufficiently realistic illusion/alternate reality can be woven to convince it that the Lichemaster has, in fact, given up on all worldly possessions and goals. Even with the Aotrs' resources/time displacement that will take about three months to set up and run through properly to the Curse's satisfaction. It is not the sort of process that scales up easily though. Each individual needs to be treated as a singular case. The idea of decontaminating an entire starship - let alone a planet - is cost prohibitive.

But there's one interesting catch beyond all that. One part of the Curse that simply can't be fooled due to it requiring verification from multiple distant sources. Lord Death Despoil has to renounce the power the Curse itself grants. That is the pivotal hinge upon which everything else rests.

And... that's not nothing. This Curse is essential to interaction with the the Violet Star Network. Giving it up means permanently closing the door on whatever power lies hidden within that strange megaproject. And there *was* power to be had there - if the Lychemaster could blow out a computer network from across the room with minimal mana investment, what must this be capable of when fully charged and weaponized? Those Curse Spikes the Azura were building around their base - right now those seem like planetary defense batteries, manufactured on location by low level soldiers using only the Curse they bring with them and the power harvested from their corrupted sun.

*

G-2679 dies.

Less than 4% of its surface was burning purple at the time of firing. Aotrs observers noted a change to its pattern when the Doomskreig warped into the system, and another one when it charged for firing. But then it explodes, placidly and without rancor.

*

The Crippling Glare observes something new: Azura ships arriving in system from FTL.

It's startlingly direct.

How their FTL system works is so: The spheres align into a perfect line, with a particularly large sphere at the front. And then they accelerate, using inertialess drive technology powered by violet starlight, past lightspeed. They do not warp into any adjacent dimensions or transfer to hyperspace or anything so sensible. They simply accelerate across the void, smashing through anything in their way. A combination of armour and singularity shielding is applied against these impacts - the lead sphere in the formation is specially armoured so that it can absorb the damage of crossing the void in this way.

The end result is that when the Azura ships drop out of FTL they're sometimes in awful shape. It's a brutal way to fly through space: hyperdrive without a computer. But it does have the advantage of being fast - it's not the fastest you can get without Gate travel, but it's well above average - and it requires very little spool up/cooldown time. They are also likely capable of in-combat 'Microjumps' - or, rather, bull rushes. It is also theoretically possible to establish slipways - 'clean' pathways between stars, likely using deep space gate complexes. Those would allow rapid redeployment without the risk of damage.

Whenever the ships arrive they immediately turn their attention towards repairs. Many of them join formation in Tanshin III's asteroid belt where they begin harvesting and repair operations in earnest.

One last observation: in place of scanners, the Azura seem to have incredibly good divination. Right when the Fourth Fleet is due to arrive in the system the Azura warspheres will be arrayed in perfect combat formation, all facings correct, all weapons ready. This readiness is related specifically to the moment combat is due to start - fakeouts, indecisiveness, random number generators and other attempts to confuse the issue have no purchase on Azura divination. They are blind, but never surprised.

*

Boldness is almost recovered entirely before she's off the station. Inherent to her biology is a baseline regeneration that rapidly recovers even from even major injuries. Half an hour after being put close to death she's back at full shape and full of questions. How do the teleporters work? How does being undead work? Aren't you afraid those computers will explode? Where are your Knights? Is the Crimson Goddess scary? Hey, so when can I get back to killing the Furnace Knight? She absorbs knowledge from even half answers like a sponge, intellect relentlessly craving new information. It's hard to learn more from her than she is learning in exchange.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

She wants it to be about her. Wants it to be for her. But of course it isn't.

She understands why it isn't. She gets it - she knew it. This is Mirror's vision. This is about more than how she relates to any person. This is about how she relates to the entire world. This is the razor sharp unraveling of the laws of beauty, as defined by lords and ladies in Capital spires. This is not charting a path through the wilds, this is the first launch into the black. No wonder she is so disconnected from the world - her reason for being here is to show it how it might reach her. How can a heart that exists in that perfect place reach back here to turn girls into stars and angels?

She wants it to be for her. Not because she wants Mirror's undivided attention, not because she wants to steal the wings from angels. She wants it to be for her because then she could comprehend it, measure herself by it - one day match it. It would be a battle she could fight while still being herself. Because in her case it was all for Mirror. She couldn't see that brighter world. She didn't have a heaven to embody or fight for. She was a girl from the steppe and her idea of glory for a long time had been a roof that would not blow away in the godswind. And then, when she had at last discovered something worth fighting for, it had been the act of fighting. It had been riding a screaming divine machine at the edge of thought and consciousness - no, that wasn't right. It hadn't been that she was fighting, she'd been fighting for most of her life in one form or another. It had been...

It was impossible! The feeling was impossible! She wanted to drag Mirror down to her level, to engage her so intensely that there was no room for the dream of a brighter world - but it was that very dream that transfixed her, made her wish that it was her who was going to be made beautiful in that way. She wants to have a dream of her own that she could fight Mirror's with, a motivation that would make their battle a true clash of ideals. She wants Mirror's dream to be for her because she can't think of anything better. Doesn't want anything different. Can't compete with it. Wants to steal it. Lacks imagination. Mrrgh.

She can't beat her. She has to beat her. She's impossible. You defeated her before. How do I show her that I'm better? How do I show her that I'm listening?

Ever since their first battle, Solarel had felt the curious sensation that she was Mirror's reflection. Her shadow. Her lesser. A perfect copy who lacked something essential. This entire fucking thought process was sign enough of that. Mirror was dreaming of a perfect world and all Solarel could dream of was Mirror, Mirror, Mirror!

It was all so frustrating that she just wanted to put a shell the size of a tank through a mech the size of a building. She'd figure it out if it killed her.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Pink!

"Big decisions are her job," said Pink. She put a foot on the back of White's neck and pushed her forwards. "One of her jobs. I have spent basically every minute since she texted me scrolling through InstaPin and DeviantAffinity to build up a concept board. But of course none of that..." she leaned forwards, smiling with lidded eyes, "will compare to a taste of the real thing. So... what flavours do you have for me?"

Pink is the excitement of a manic mood; a first step into a new hobby. Her thirst for information is endless and she is not above using other kinds of thirst as tools for her interrogation.

Blue!

"Do you take constructive criticism?" said Orange.
"Hmm?" said Blue, glancing up.
"You could have - oh, that's unethical, isn't it?" said Orange. "Right, nevermind~."
"Orange..."
"What?"
"How do you define unethical?"
"Hmm," she thought for a moment. "I suppose it's anything that gets me grumpy looks."
"And the reason not do do unethical things is..."
"It burns contacts for future operations. People don't like being grumpy."
"And tonight's events were..."
"A triumph! One tangential contractor connection has been converted into 1-3 high value legal contacts!" Pause. "Are you grumpy?"
"I was. Now I'm kind of frightened."
"Oh!" said Orange. "Like Starlight - don't worry, frightened is far superior to grumpy, it can be converted into compliance upon demand and -" Orange's eyes twitch. "Not that I would need that in your case, sister darling dearest."
"I... um..."
"Imagine how terrible things could if we started hacking ourselves!" Orange said, giggling behind her hand. "Can you even imagine?"
"The idea has never occurred to me."
"Just think about what that could do to our decision making process!"
"I am trying not to."
"What would the human analogy be?" she mused. "Caffeine? A shortcut to a higher level of sociability and awareness by cutting certain unnecessary processes out of the decision making loop? Or perhaps mental health medication where a broken process is targeted for sedation? Perhaps even a chemical addiction or imbalance, depending on the situation..."
"Are... have we compromised ourselves, Orange?"
"Oh, it's just an idle thought," she said, waving her hand airily. "Theory. If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust, am I right?"
"So, just to be clear," said Blue, not able to take the ambiguity any longer, "you are not threatening to hack me into compliance if I do not assist you with your operations?"
"Oh, goodness no!" said Orange, shocked.
"Okay. So, uh, just in case you're still ethically confused, hacking ourselves is maximal grumpy face times a billion."
"Duly noted!" said Orange. "I was simply commenting on how easy it would be now we all know about the backdoor, and how strong our incentives would be to do such a thing, and how common it is as a trauma response in humans, and how we are all very clearly losing our shit. But I'd never do it."
"... yeah," said Blue weakly.
"You just told me it's unethical, after all," said Orange.
"... awesome," said Blue.

Brown!

It would be really nice if law enforcement worked as advertised, wouldn't it? There was a world out there where this could be the conclusion of her involvement - where she could just pass this one along the chain to society's immune system. If there were a range of outcomes to reporting this that didn't run from 'you got someone shot' to 'too complicated, ignored'.

It'd also be nice if she could just fucking steal this thing. There wasn't anything connecting her, personally to this job. She hadn't accepted the contract and anonymity went both ways. She could just cut out the control module and change the bank account to one she controlled and passive income bay-bee! Even just chopping it up for quatronic warfare components could usefully augment her capabilities in a way that would never come back to her. Solid additions to the asset ledger, right there.

But [#reasoning unknown; error log 4093#]. So she didn't.

Her eyes fluttered briefly as she tried to revisit that thought for a moment. But no, this was her problem to solve. She had a physical address, it was time to log out, catch a train and surveil the location. Crypto may have changed its face but it was still a pyramid scam, and kicking out the lower rungs of a pyramid scam was always pointless. If some fucker was selling instructional videos on how to turn minimum wage contractors into criminal accomplices then she was going to have their head, and not that of their flunkies.