“Why? Why?” The tip of Dolly’s tail curls as she performs for Jade (who sits perched on top of Angela’s pole, smug as can be) — and, in a more immediate extent, for the onlookers crowding around the entrance to the feast hall, curious and intrigued Hybrasilians (and more than a couple of Terenians, and even a Zaldarian). “Because she is our sacred quarry! This is none other than—“

Angela tries to interrupt, furiously, awkwardly glaring up at the crowd. But Dolly can tell that there’s something more there, some of the same excitement she would feel in Angela’s position, and, besides, Jade is right behind her, watching her, purring regally.

“Angela Victoria Miera Antonius herself, who dared to challenge my patron goddess, Smokeless Jade Fires, who rides in the idol of her own self! Angela was very rude, yes she was, ai, ai! She thought herself very clever, coming here to hunt us — but here she is, witness to my goddess’s power, suffering her proper punishment! And that is why you should let us in with her please.”

The door warden (whose fur is dark and lovely) makes an indecisive noise in their throat. “And what does she have to say about all this?”

“Well?” Dolly half-turns and cups Angela’s cheek with her glove. “Am I telling the truth, Angela?” Jade runs several hands up and down Angela’s front, right where she found the Terenian most receptive. “Don’t keep my priestess waiting,” Jade purrs, then tugs at one of Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s ears with her teeth.

And the squirming, mumbling, glareful girl on the pole nods her head, which sees her given a reward scritch on the back of her head from a cooing Dolly, who is herself starting to blush, very aware of the fact that everyone’s watching her as much as they’re watching Angela.

”Good girl,” Jade says, and darts in like a snake to kiss Dolly on the lips. Dolly’s fluster intensifies, but it might take a clever eye to discern how she reacts. A clever eye armed with stories about a goddess who claims to be very immanent in an unusual way, say.

Ah. She can think clearly at last.

The beings of the Spirit Realm wear every shape. Their preferences and trends crackle through the invisible world like lightning; beings with aspects of animals, of geometry, of aliens past and future. It is a world of art and lies, a realm where geists claim to be foreign princes so they might pick a pocket that they only imagine you possess. Challenge is necessary. Challenge is life. Only through the crackling, daring spark of conflict can truth be forced. Who has the ability to back up their words? Who is but a shadow on an infinite canvas?

Truth, then. This creature is violent. It is cruel. It is proud. It is an imposter. This is not a warlike aspect, not a grim military mind, not bound by protocol, not infused with the artistry of battle. It did not follow an escalation process. It did not ignite an alarm. It did not shoot to kill. It did not shoot to incapacitate a Zaldarian. This entity is a child wearing parent's clothes, a creature that demands respect because its original function was not worthy of respect.

Capabilities. The facility lives, reconfiguration is too quick. There can be no cover here, no point of safety if every wall might hold a blade. If it can move the walls then it can seal windows and doors. It can turn an advance into a labyrinth by which it might indulge its cruelty with traps and puzzles until its superiority is demonstrated. She has seen warriors fight buildings and lose before, and those weren't even alive. But Seval Halfmind always did have poor form.

The stone beneath her melts to lava. Electricity runs through her body and turns into heat. Pain, discomfort, muscle spasms, lack of co-ordination. Discharge flare possible - but no. Humans don't regenerate. She feels the energy in her body overflow out of her. Just because a Zaldarian can channel this power does not mean that it does not hurt. Power cores running this hot for this long risk cracking, becoming incapacitating internal injuries that need surgery to repair. She sets timers and numbers, counting hyperaccelerated heartbeats, feeling molten golden saliva drip from her mouth.

Authorization. It thinks in those terms still. No matter what pride it might papered over its broken soul with it is not a power unto itself. It knows it can be enslaved. Judged. Held to account. All its words fear this. It could have granted access but was afraid of the consequences of acting without instructions. It is already out on a limb. Already labours under guilt from previous failures and concessions. It squats on this throne. Does Annika hold its leash? Is one of the geists in her orbit the critical node, or is it a physical possession? Where is the leash? How firm is its grip? Where is it weak? Scrapergeists whisper secrets in her ears, automated hacking protocols in progress as they collect secrets. A tyrant on a borrowed throne will have no end of enemies and she opens herself to their collected spite.

She cannot sign through the electricity. Will not speak. She will make her answer known through motion and when she does she will return every joule of energy she was given.

[Figure out a person: 13
- How could I get you to grant me authorization?
- What are your feelings towards Annika?
Infamous: How could I get you to betray your ideals?]

You want Isabelle to act right now? Are you crazy?!

She's no alien with seemingly nigh-indistructable physiology and the apparent ability to melt the floor when angry. She's not a cat huntress, trained in close combat fighting from birth and given over to natural predatory instincts. Heck, apart from that one time that Cam annoyed her last month, she hasn't even thrown a punch in anger within the last year.

She is relatively fit at least, so she'd be good at running away. In fact, running away sounds like the perfect plan right now and 9 out of 10 internal Isabelles would agree.

So it's a mystery as to why she sees a shoe fly through the air towards the spirit.

Who threw that? She wonders, at the same time as she wonders why her hand is outstretched and her other foot is now cold.

Nine of the Isabelles turn to look at the tenth, who doesn't even seem to realise she's grabbed the main control panel.

Welp. It's been a good life. (No it hasn't!) Maybe the next one won't end so ignominiously.

There is always time to pet a cat. Just a minor bit of indulgence, and really not even that. Her people need bonds like this, the give and the take. The soft touch and the hard carry, is how her mother once described it. Matty's purrs, and the weight of her body on Mirror's lap are deep therapy. They smooth out the pathways of her thoughts, make following ideas and feelings and plans a simpler process on a day like this where her heart wants everything to be an unsolvable knot of tension and confusion. Her claws slide down the length of Matty's spine and play with the spot just below the base of her tail.

When the world was young (the story goes) and cats had only just discovered they had claws, the bloody-fanged Goddesses of the Hunt sprung up from the sea, from the ground, out of fires, and down from the skies. The precise nature of these goddesses is a riddle with many answers, depending who you ask. They might have been great cats formed from the primal elements of the universe, or they might have been machines from some great precursor society. They might even have been a plague that floated in from some other planet to nest in some unlucky few; granting them power and wisdom in exchange for devouring their minds and personalities. There are many theories, but all came later. The ancient cats of Hybrasil only knew that that these were goddesses, and that they were beautiful and dangerous. These goddesses saw that the children of Hybrasil lusted in their hearts for violence and glory, and said that this was good. They taught cats the secrets of the ways of the spear and the net and told them to conquer the world around them.

The fury and vibrancy of the goddesses lifted cats toward supremacy. They fought the stones on the ground, and split them into pieces they could arrange into grand temples rising up out of the mountains or the forests to better catch the goddess' eyes. They fought the great beasts that roamed the planet, killed them and ate their flesh to become mighty. They trapped the rivers to steal their power, and turned it toward the earliest concepts of industry. And the goddesses smiled, for this pleased them greatly, and descended once again to demand the payment they were due.

The Huntresses quavered with fear, but they were devout before a community, and they turned their blessings on each other. The goddesses demanded tribute, and Hybrasilian blood ran down the steps of the temples in reply. But how not to be chosen? Now, this is a legend, and depending on how you count the star charts you might have heard it differently, but here is one telling: the avoid selection, one had to make themselves indispensable. However names were drawn and hearts were crushed, whatever will drove these decisions, it never happened to the best and most prolific Huntresses. Those who hunted the mightiest beasts and came back alive also kept their lives thereafter, always. And what else would this have lit in the hearts of young catkind but competition? Greed, some might say.

It was the tendency thereafter for cats to be solitary creatures by nature. Their tools and skills were up to the task, so why share? Why want company? There was the kill, and by making the kill you saw the next turning of the moons. Jealousy rose in the heart of every cat, and they split farther and farther apart. Temples fell to ruin from lack of interest in the skills needed to maintain them, for even the priestesses were roaming to hunt. The rivers broke free again, and flooded places long since turned to other purposes. Forests fell and species died off in their dozens. Fires burned across the lodges of Hybrasil, and the goddesses saw this and were not pleased at all.

Who, exactly, among them had courage and wisdom enough to demand the first bride is an accounting left to experts. It hardly matters so far as this story is concerned. Because when the goddesses began to seek sacrifices to woo instead of eat, ears around the planet perked up from their hiding places in the reeds and the grasses. Up on the mountains and down by the lakes, cats gathered and dreamed of being brought up to live in the harems the goddesses were building. Their bloody deities one by one washed their mouths and turned to their people and said:

I love your fangs. I love your claws and the way you move when you spot the potential for the kill. I love your muscles and your power and your skill, and these will always please me. But more still, I love the softness of your fur. I love the warmth of your bodies and I love the sweetness of your voices. Harden your spears, but soften your hearts and train forevermore in the arts of the veil and the bath, and in this way you shall have my blessings always. Divine intervention had lit the fires of war and creativity in the Cats of Hybrasil. And now divine intervention had awakened in this same people a deep love of grooming and a desire to hold and be held by their peers. Cities grew again, and cats taught themselves to live in harmony with the world around them, though they never quite lost their taste for power and the finer things it could bring them.

So it was, and so it went, and entire lodges were held together through the sharpest disagreements almost entirely off the back of this single instinct, whether planted in their hearts by a divine will or no. Amusing, to be thinking in these terms now, all of a sudden. To be dreaming of goddesses on the day she was called one for the first time. Funny to even want justification for the desires of her heart. It's not something Mirror normally bothered with or worried about. But this, she supposes, is a day for vulnerability and revelation. Maybe, then, it's normal to worry that she shouldn't want to feel so full from this behavior she has never let herself participate in ever since she grew too large to fit comfortably in her mother's lap. Not as the soft one, or the hard. Neither bride nor goddess. But maybe... but maybe...

Hm. A Sacrifical Bride's gown. Now that would be a fun piece to draw. Oh, she needed to write this down, to hold onto it long enough to find the time to sketch it out. Busy, busy, busy. And from that thought flits another: how to explain to her crew what had happened tonight? She had only left to get information, so far as they knew. And only minutes after giving them that information, she had betrayed them. She'd given away secrets she'd sworn them all to secrecy about. This... could not be a memo. But from her own lips? There were too many ways to tell the story. And besides, to this point, she had nothing to bring back but orders. She was not finished working tonight, not by half. Hm. Hmm.

Slowly, Mirror straightens her legs until they form a ramp. She loosens her grip on Matty, and lets gravity take over. A few more soft touches and, yes, there you go little darling, back on your feet. She's gentle about it. Careful to guide the technician back onto her shaky feet, and hold her there until her brain starts to turn back into a solid.

"And now our time tonight is over," she says through soft purrs and whispers, "I have work to do tonight. And in fact, I believe, so do you. But we're not done with each other, are we?"

"Mmmgh..."

"That's right cutie, no we are not. In fact, I have a special task for you, when your shift here is ended. Go to the hangar at these coordinates, and announce yourself loudly so the crew can hear you coming. Wear a bell, if you have one. You are to find Slate, can you do that? Find Slate and tell her that you are in her care while I am not around. Tell her who you are and what you're there to do. Tell her who you are to me. Tell her anything you like, on that front. And then let her rage. Do not let her chase you away, but stand quietly in the storm. It is her right to be angry. You are to be one part of my apology. So when she calms down again, obey her. I will be back in the night to see if things are well, and you may decide then if this is a life you want or not. Can you manage all that?"

It's difficult for Matty to speak, still. And difficult for her to even nod with her cheeks all squished in Mirror's hands. But she manages a silly smile and pushes her face forward so Mirror's hands can feel her consent. Her reward is a tender kiss on the middle of her forehead.

"Good girl~"

******

Smokeless Jade Fires? Well, it certainly didn't take long at all to find a suitable prey to hunt now did it? The goddess, Smokeless Jade Fires. The first new goddess of Hybrasil to rise in... well. Who could say how long? The goddess that claims to inhabit her own mecha frame. The goddess who claims not to need a pilot. Who, rumors say, can inhabit any space she pleases, cross any boundary that she wants, manifest in any form whatsoever if it pleases her to do so.

Ha! There's a lot that could be said about all of that, now isn't there? Is that her priestess? Her, hmhmhmhm, bride~? Hahahaha! It brings a twisted grin to Mirror's lips. Certainly, this is a being she might be able to consider a peer. Certainly this is something to test her teeth on. And most importantly, Smokeless Jade Fires represents another expert voice to ask about infiltrating places that should not be possible to infiltrate. Even if she's not forthcoming, there are secrets that could be... mmmm, pried out? She licks her lips and slips through the crowd after the procession, into the grand hall.

Her promise to eat dinner falls forgotten from her mind.

"The stars send their greetings, Honored Priestess. Congratulations on your hunt, was this... creature a worthy hunt? Or are you mainlanders as bored out of your skulls as you look?"

Dolly, there's a cat at your table. On your table, actually. A tall, snowy creature in an all-black neural mesh suit that has been... aggressively unzipped down to her belly button. She's apparently trusting to her curves to keep the clingy material on enough to keep her from getting kicked out of these public, mixed-species zones. She squishes Angela's face between her fingers and turns her head from side to side with curiosity openly etched onto the features of her face, even if it doesn't reach all the way to those cold, watery eyes of hers.

A moment later she hops down off the table and dips into a wide, sweeping bow. You would be forgiven for not recognizing her, under the circumstances. She probably doesn't seem quite like the shy, drunk girl who must have been working with Mayze Szerpaws on that wonderful dress. But that's exactly who she is, and that's exactly who is leaning forward to share the full glory of her body for a saucer-eyes Ksharta Talonna right now. Her tail flicks with mischief behind her, and her smile is full of teeth.

"Don't worry, I'm not here to interrupt your, ah, meal. Lucky girl that she is. I simply could not help but overhear you outside. And I was wondering, hnnn, who should I be addressing, exactly? Which one of you little cuties is in charge here? Speak up, if you please, I would like to know the price for a conversation with your goddess? Oh, I am interrupting something, sorry. Go ahead, finish up. Talk amongst yourselves, kittens. Enjoy your night. When you're finished, Mira of the Gods-Smiting Whip will be waiting right over there~"

And with a swish of her hips, Mirror turns in such a way to hit all three of you in the face with her long, bushy tail, and saunters off to find an empty table of her own.

Isabelle

The spirit looks at you with the most incredulous surprise on its face. In this, at least, you have a moment where you feel you’ve done something. It’s a throw to the tempo of the fight, and perhaps also reminded the spirit not to solely focus on Solarel. The ground slopes suddenly and channels cut into it, dropping you away from the lava flow as Solarel finds herself raised up on a small hill where before the cavern floor was flat.

As an engineer, this is quite interesting. It tells you, for example, that the nanobots do NOT have cooling or heating properties capable of stopping lava, and the fact that they did not contain or siphon it to protect you but only carved it alternate channels suggests some of the limits in the spirit’s shaping work here (either about the structural capacity of the nanobots to manage that level of contained heat or the limitations in how much the spirit can shape the room while distracted, hard to say).

Crescent’s at your side once you’ve slipped away from Solarel. She’s not fighting, Annika is further away and Crescent is pulling you to the side. It looked like they might have planned an intervention, but with Solarel charging up her power, they’re focusing on separating you from her instead.

Solarel

The battlefield is conspiring to give you space. You’re suddenly in a raised area, Isabelle is being pulled away from you by both the floor and Crescent after sacrificing her second shoe in your defense (???), and you’re awash with power as the spirit tries to size up the situation.

Once Isabelle had thrown her shoe and you were aglow with heat, it disappeared and reappeared a few feet away, trying to guess what you were doing. It understood enough about Zaldarians to know that it needed to account for this, but not exactly how, it would seem.

Time seems like it’s going in slow motion with all this energy. Isabelle’s tumble is measured in a handful of seconds yet it seems as though she falls away forever, and the spirit’s teleport was extremely quick, but you see it as it crackles and disappears again to come at you closer like it's moving through molasses. It’s trying to bait your attack with new energy and then withdraws as its hands crackle with unused electricity because you don’t rise to the feint. It’s made only three moves, yet you still feel that you understand something more of it now.

The key is really that it wasted a move on Isabelle. That immediately says to you that you’re facing non-lethal action focused on retribution and control of the situation. This is a very intelligent spirit. A quick glance at Annika does indeed show that she’s carrying with her a geist that matches the spirit’s colorations and general energy signature, but she didn’t get authorization because she had the right geist, she got the geist because she had authorization.

From what you know of Annika’s style, she probably responded to the unknown by very politely asking to be a student and the spirit liked that and let her look around, albeit with a limited offer that did not give her permission to bring guests.

So, this leaves you with two routes. You can de-escalate, express remorse for your impetuousness and allow it to punish you proportionately and then it will probably give you the same limited authorization as Annika. Or you can escalate until you reach a level of force that either intimidates or impresses it into giving you authorization.

To emphasize, what you can see in three moves as you hold your strike on a razor’s edge is that this is an intelligent spirit that’s acting like an angry person who thinks themself righteous. It is thus the simplest and most complex thing all at once to push it, impress it, or break it. Drive it to emotion. Bring it to rage, or to thrill, or even to joy. Surprise it, offer it something it did not realize it craved and it will find that its ideals are fleeting, ephemeral things that it needs to re-evaluate.

Now, strike before your heart boils over!

***

Jade, Dolly, and Mirror

Well this is something. The feast hall is set with all sorts of food. It’s low roof has a space opened for smoke and there’s a great firepit in the center where something delicious is being roasted by a pair of Zaldarians who don’t much seem to mind standing near the smoke. A Hybrasilian is mixing some cauldron full of soup next to it, and some TC chefs are chopping and crushing some kind of peppers. Already prepared food is available in front of them, the last round of roasted meats and vegetables, and guests are moving, milling, and serving.

Mirror has to raise her voice to be heard over the general din, and while Angela’s procession turns some heads, the space is too vast and too busy to all turn and gape, leading to your movement through the space being something like a ripple through a crowd until you eventually found a table to set up.

Mirror’s appearance now feels as though Huitla the trickster has returned to grace Akar II. Huitla was not a goddess, in fact rumors said she wasn’t even a particularly notable huntress originally, just a young forest prowler from ancient times. But she became the bride of a goddess of mist and shadow, and it was said that she could appear somewhere and vanish without a trace. She was known to appear to Hybrasilians who were getting ahead of themselves in fact. There was even a script. A Hybrasilian, usually some local community leader, would get the idea into their heads that they ought to be the most important person there was, and then they’d meet a seductive Hybrasilian, always barely dressed, her clothes disheveled and barely remaining on her body, at once vulnerable and confident. She’d lure them from their community, promise them pleasure within the deep jungles, often even deliver if the stories were to be believed, but then she and her prey would vanish into the mist and they would be taken by her goddess and turned into the harem slaves they were always destined to be.

And so now, here is Huitla appearing on the table, her clothes alluring, her confidence doubly so, her mannerisms, those swishing hips, speaking of much and more to come.

Ksharta is awed into silence. Angela squeaks indignantly at being handled by a new stranger. Dolly, you may be the closest, but Jade, you’re the one calling the shots, right?

“Keep looking.” Jade has a hand on Dolly’s hair. So gentle. She needs you to keep looking, Dolly. Keep staring. Your eyes are your goddess’s cameras, her ability to create a 3D model of this little Huitla, to be able to still see her when you looks away. So keep looking.

What was that if not a challenge? She feinted, preened, dragged her claws while feigning to groom, unlaunched— unleashed a deliberate, calculated attack. Even before that flick of the tail across their faces, it was all meant to send a message. And it wasn’t a message for Dolly.

”…well!” Dolly adjusts her hair, still staring after that girl, barely needing the command. She had something! On the tip of her tongue! She’s seen that girl before, somewhere, but then she had a tail in her face and she’s lost it. Mira of the Gods-Smiting Whip. A pilot. Oh, right. She’s wearing the mesh. It’s just that she wasn’t so much looking at the suit as what the suit promised underneath. Streaking stars!

A pilot, wearing the mesh. What a presumptuous title for a mecha. Look at her taking her seat, pretending not to look at them. The challenge isn’t for here. It’s for the arena. This is theater. She thinks she can play the game like Jade can. That’ll be her mistake. Hubris! Proud little thing!

”I think we should probably— I should— don’t you think?” She glances over at Angela, who is huffing and glaring and imperiously tossing her braids, and at Ksharta, who glances over at her and agrees with a nod, because—

Because she’s made it so that ignoring her is impossible. Because trying to call her back gives her the opportunity to refuse to heed. Because disrespect needs to be addressed, or Angela and Ksharta might doubt the will that holds them both by the scruff. Because there’s only room in the nest for one dragon.

But on the off chance that this is some sort of trick, from a trickster, from someone who can make their face dance while their eyes are like melting ice…

”Ksharta, stay here. Jade thinks it might be… it might be a hide-the-shell game. Don’t let anyone take our Angela, okay?” She possessively nuzzles her cheek against Angela and snuffles. Hers. Stars. When their shoulders rubbed together last night. When she got to listen to Angela and heard the deep moans under the theatrical fussing. Hers. Is that wrong to want, Jade?

Well, she’ll let— they’ll let Angela go, after. And hopefully Angela will want revenge. And maybe this won’t be their only chance to play. But right now, she’s Dolly’s, just as much as she’s Jade’s and Ksharta’s. Her trophy. Her— her beloved Terenian. Is that allowed? Her nostrils flare a moment, her teeth peeking out from under her lip, before Jade tugs at her leash.

“Come along, Dolly.” Jade leads her beloved off the bench with a tug, marching her across the room like a victorious lodge mistress. “Chin up. Confident stride. She’s not worth worrying about. You belong to a goddess, one she can’t smite.”

Where was she from? Not university, it’s more recent than that. Not pit crew. Not from dinner. The look on her face was softer…

Dolly manages an excellent strut, as if she’s too important to pay much attention to anything else in the hall. The little trickster is watching them, and she doesn’t blink. She is small. Mortal. Another trophy. She’ll be begging forgiveness soon enough, once her mecha is overthrown, once her confidence is peeled away. She’ll be wishing she was Dolly, collared, leashed.

”You left before you could get an answer, Mira,” Dolly says, unprompted. Jade stands next to her, playing with the leash, running it between her fingers. “Do you often do that?” Oh, what a good girl. “Don’t let her answer. Tell her she’s yet to earn my interest.” ”You haven’t earned her— oh, Szerpaws! That’s where!” “Dolly!” ”Sorry, it’s just, it took me a minute!” “Dolly!!” ”I, just a minute, I just want you to know that you looked just lovely, that presentation was the climax of the night, and— mmf!”

“Dolly.” Jade waits a moment to let it sink in, a moment for Dolly to stand and fidget in front of those disrespectful eyes. “I don’t— it’s nice that she was Mayze Szerpaws?” Shake, shake, “nnmph.” “Was connected with Mayze Szerpaws, then. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.”

In front of the model. She can’t keep eye contact. The embarrassment is flooding into her legs, her toes. Jade’s hand over her mouth, just because she was silly and excited and the model’s watching her, judging her, trying to— would she be clever enough to catch on? Like, like Angela? She seems as smart as Angela. Not as— she’s curvy, cloud-colored, pretty, invitingly soft to look at, but Angela’s, she’s got that, you know, she’s…

The hand lifts, and then as she opens her mouth to keep going, Jade smacks her rear. Punishment and encouragement and, and Jade knows how she’s feeling, how much like Angela, how much like everyone must be staring, even if she knows it’s just her and Mira. “AAII, I, you haven’t earned her attention yet, Mira.” “Of the Gods-Smiting Whip.” ”Of the Gods-Smiting Whip. You think you’re… very clever?” “Yes. Look at her. She thinks she’s so clever.” ”But flouncing— flouncing? Flouncing in here and showing your tail off isn’t impressive. Not like your modeling wasn’t impressive.” Her eyes flicker to Jade for a moment, who doesn’t seem interested in punishing her for squeaking that out. No, she’s focused on Mira.

Do you want to catch her, too, Jade? You’d need more than one Ksharta to help with that. Or is this about your pride? About seeing your Dolly get smacked in the face with a tail?

“…you can offer her homage or you can test the strength of your Whip against her, if you want to talk to her. Though if you’d just asked me in the first place, she probably would have listened. You didn’t really need to do the tail thing if you actually wanted to talk, which means…” “Oh, you figured it out, didn’t you?”

That she’s looking for a fight, if she’s not running some sort of misdirection. And Jade’s ready and eager for either. Just look at her! Angela’s a delight, but this kitten? She needs a firm hand on her mecha’s scruff.

Some Zaldarians could wield lightning. Others prismatic laser beams. Some could shatter the world with blinding light or deafening shockwaves of sound. Some could transform power into art, webs of colour and magic, others into precision speartips of glittering force. Legends told of some who could somehow convert energy into space and/or time.

Solarel couldn't do any of those. She didn't even have a cool trick to make up for it. She just had the most basic possible power vent: heat and flame. Not the mark of a destined champion. Everyone assumed she had some sort of ultimate technique she was saving for the ultimate opponent, but she didn't. If she did she'd have used it on Mirror. Both times.

These flames were all she had. Once again they'd need to be enough.

With Isabelle out of the way she could finally release the pressure. Fire poured from her mouth, ignited the paint on her scales, scorched an imprint into the ground around her. Despite the radiant and fearsome nature of the shockwave, despite the cathartic relief of allowing the power to erupt from her, some part of her can't help but compare it to the weapons of her God. These fires were small and meaningless in comparison.

It's not a thought of pure melancholy - it's a focusing ideal that keeps her from losing herself in the rush of discharge. She doesn't rely on the fire to destroy her opponent - too fast, too strong - she lets it be a distraction alone. Her true target is Annika. She erupts from the whirlwind of fire, extraction geist in her hand, and together they grab the squeaking authorization geist while the sprint only accelerates.

She sees the door and is through it a moment later. She leaves scorching footprints and blazing furniture wherever she passes, and when she sees a crossroads she hurtles a blazing chair down the path untaken as a diversion. When Seval Halfmind fought the house she lost because she fought it like a warrior. What a house truly fears is fire.

Her goal, then, is to pierce as deeply as she can into the facility while the Spirit deals with her flames. There she hopes to find - what? A weapon? A tool? Something more than empty palms and a child's candle.

[Fight: 8
- Seize the authorization geist from Annika
- Inflict a condition]

"Ah. Hm. You know? It is..."

The smile flickers on Mira's face, on off, on off, on off, on. The complexity of the thought wars openly with her amusement at being put in this situation. And it is a complex thought. Has this squeaking priestess already pulled the mask off her persona without ever having even met her? What does the compliment imply? Perhaps her wearing of the dress was more praiseworthy than the dress itself. Perhaps she simply has nothing else to praise.

It's normal for mainlanders not to know who she is. Mira is a relatively common Fisher name, even if her armor should be famous in its own right. Well. It's a blessing and a curse. Easier to keep opponents off kilter when they don't know her history. Her entire arena strategy functions off the assumption of anonymity. And yet. The difference between a pilot and a model. Why was it that so many compliments people paid her were coded as insults? It's a worthy mystery. Perhaps she needs more training. Perhaps she needs a better, less dysfunctional mind.

"Rare, to be paid a compliment as a model. Unexpected. After all, I'm not the mind behind the dress. You are a sweet little sunspot to skip complimenting the dress just to make the butt that filled it feel a little better, aren't you? Ms. Szerpaws designed it specifically to highlight my... deformities, did you notice? And not just my spots, the structure of my ribs, as well. And can you see with this stupid suit on? My breasts are misaligned. Misshapen as well. Ah, you do see. What do you think? I'm much less attractive on person than I was on the runway, aren't I? I see it in your eyes, you want to go back to your Terenian. That's all right, I'm not insulted. Thank you. For... letting me feel attractive for a moment. Sincerely."

Her smile is not mixed this time. It is glinting with hard edges, while her eyes stare holes straight through the priestess. So this is the game they were playing? She can feel the youth permeating the aura of Smokeless Jade Fires. They really thought they were being subtle, didn't they? The pair of them. They're as ridiculous as they are clever, and their limitations only serve to make their power more apparent. Is that really how she does it? Total sensory perception without full contact. A hidden fantasy that's meant to be invisible to anyone without the password.

Well. It is at least invisible to anyone who isn't looking. But to have this darling, inexperienced thing march straight over here in direct contrast to the invitation, and to her own spoken intent and explanation, and then to become so distracted? Smokeless Jade Fires must really think that Mira is an idiot. Or... no, that's not quite it.

She's dealt with vanishingly few pilots before. This goddess, she won't be used to anticipating the observational patterns of someone both used to rapid, minute, detailed observations who is not already directly under her thumb. Or, perhaps more accurately, bound by her collar. She would have a cult, of course. There were enough Hybrasilians with ties to the old religions to take the advent of a new goddess seriously enough to worship her. Even if her manifestation was unorthodox. An expanded Pattern, perhaps? Could also have been a Crystal Fire manifestation or... no. Irrelevant to the present topic. Regardless. She had worshippers, and she clearly had her priestess and even the other little huntress presently cooing over the trussed up sacrifice on the table over yonder. These people, Smokeless Jade Fires barely needed to stretch herself to wrap them up completely.

And yet. The total need for control. The immediate response to a threat above and beyond the terms that threat had stated. The inability to let her priestess control the conversation. Presentation, according to aesthetic. Aesthetic, still identifying itself. Concerned chiefly about erasure. Confidence projected as a defense mechanism. Insecurity, defined by inexperience. Pressure, amplified by duty. Familiar.

She would learn the art of a softer touch, in time. Sooner rather than later if she had a proper teacher. Was it presumptuous to think a goddess needed a Mirror? Perhaps. But it's more fun to think about how much she could snatch from this goddess while posing as her reflection. Treasure, opportunity, respect, power. Information, more valuable by half than all the rest put together.

Mira shrugs.

"It's a shame about your goddess, though. If only I had been enough to catch her eye I'm sure I could have avoided this... misinterpretation. Alas, this is the fate of unworthy, ugly creatures such as myself. When you commune with her next, tell her. Mmm. No, you had best not. But I will tell you, as a secret between us girls: I will not fight your goddess as I am. It would not end well."

She smiles with a supreme confidence that reaches the depths of the waterfalls inside her eyes. In this tiny instant, she is a being of power. Real and terrifying power, the kind that would name her mecha something like the Gods-Smiting Whip even before she thought to test herself against the Gods of Zaldar when they came for her home. Confidence like a creature who would swallow a star the second its back was turned. And not because she thought she could, but because she had once before, already.

"But~! I am in the process of forging chains to bind my Nine-Tails. And while my armor is sufficiently bound and all of its primary weapon systems are functionally offline? I think that would be enough of a handicap that I wouldn't mind testing myself against Smokeless Jade Fires. But I-- oh, sorry. I'm keeping you from dinner. That's the one thing I explicitly did not want to do. That's why I was waiting for, no no, go on. Thank you again for the wonderful compliment. If I see Ms. Szerpaws again I will tell her what you said. I think she'll take it as an even greater praise than me. Your heart is like a treasure bright enough to be the inviting glimmer at the bottom of a lake. Goodbye. I hope we meet again, and if we do I hope this time I'll earn your name."

Mira rises from her seat and takes the priestess by her hands before there's time for any replies. She places a long, soft, lingering kiss straight on that glove she's wearing, before releasing her to her own devices.

“Wait!”

Dolly catches the model/pilot’s wrist. Those wet blue eyes stare down at her fingers, then back at her, and she doesn’t say a word.

“I just wanted to say. What you said isn’t true. About being less attractive in person.” Jade doesn’t move. She can’t move. That wanton little minx! Did she know about the glove? The fleeting moment of connection— is that enough? No, fading already. Give her another! “I actually, I touch my spots up with this, here,” she fumbles with her gloved hand in one inner pouch of her top, comes out with a tube of her furstick. “But you are so much more than your spots, miss. You have panache, glamour, when you jumped up on that table, wow! I thought Jade would— I mean, you are, pretty is as much about what’s in your soul as it is your girls.” She gives her own a little bounce and gives the warmest, most helpful smile that she can. “So, please, I hope you don’t think of yourself as ugly, and if that helps, keep it, the brand’s a bit expensive but you can’t beat it for glossiness!”

Jade blinks. Why did she decide her eyes should be…? A mystery. But clearly something she decided, if only subconsciously. It must be because people tear up when they see someone they love being… themselves. So very, very themselves. That’s why she couldn’t move. Not any of this upstart’s machinations, but…

But because her Dolly is the most beautiful person in the entirety of the universe, and she must have known to wait, to let herself see this.

“And it’s Seven Quetzal. You don’t have to earn it, silly. Besides, I’m registered as a pilot, just like you are. It’s not that hard to find out!”

Dolly lets go, puts her hand awkwardly by her side, ears flattening as she realizes she’s been forward. “A-anyway. I should. I’ve got dinner to get back to. Can’t risk that wily Angela tricking Ksharta or something. But I’ll ask Smokeless Jade Fires if she wants to fight a flower battle with you sometime.”

Jade grabs her from behind and squeezes. Dolly’s tail flicks between her ankles in submission, but… she’s just burying her face in Dolly’s shoulder and imagining her smell as hard as she can. And if it reminds Dolly that she’s owned and loved, all the better.

“So I’ll see you later, okay?” And Dolly, stroking an invisible hand wrapped around her, lets Mira Fisher go, hopefully a little happier than she was when she came in, because even if she likes playing around with words and is very foreign, not alien but just very Fisher, even then, Dolly could tell that she wasn’t just being self-deprecating about that. And that’s just awful, isn’t it? She’s been there before, a little bit, and she wasn’t lying about touching up her spots— like, of course she’s not, she had it on her, after all!

But more people should feel good about themselves, and should be encouraged to think of themselves as better.

“Did I do okay?” She whispers, out of earshot, confused and hopeful for a little bit of praise.

”I made the right choice,” Jade whispers back, and clings tighter, and ignores Dolly’s flustered whisper about that wasn’t what she asked, Jade!

[If that touched Mira at all, it’s a 13 on Entice.]

Isabelle lets herself be pulled along. Well, 'lets' is a bit generous as she is more than happy to get away from the source of ohmygodshe'sonfirenow.

Stumbling away with Crescent, she can't help but notice the nanobot's activity and its implications. These caverns aren't just carved by the nanobots - for that kind of remodeling, at that kind of speed - not complete saturation then, but likely local - perhaps tied to the location of the spirit?

Expected limitations for them though, difficulty dealing with high temperature - cooling always an issue at that scale - likely susceptibility to electrical and EMP impacts as well.

Now, if only any of that helped us at all.

What she really needed was a way to get away from her captors, or even into the systems or infrastructure of this place. Right now, she had only her wits, which were more than frazzled, to rely on to get out of this situation. None of the other resources that Akkanis or Lozano corp would provide, nobody to call on for help or to give her the tools she'd need to make something or do something.

You're also out of shoes to throw.

Thanks. Helpful.

She needed to escape from these kidnappers. Glancing at Crescent she tried to determine if they were distracted enough to make this her time to strike.

[Roll to read a person. 1 + 4 + 0 = 5. Failbelle strikes again]

Solarel

You and your extraction geist snatch the authorization geist with an outstretched hand. The heat of your passing shimmers the air as you draw past Isabelle, Crescent, and Annika. The spirit shrieks “stop” after you, and you feel the floor slope down away from your direction of movement, but you’re too hot and the changing slope melts beneath your feet, giving you a firm foothold as you race through the door and onward.

The next rooms are a blur. You race across flat metal flooring as scattered square containers fly out of their neat stacks half-melted, unable to withstand your speed and momentum, not worth dodging around. Another door slides open, the floor and walls are natural rock in this room, moss growing up near the ceilings, wet and damp from some natural source of water. Little drops of it sizzle to steam as they touch you. It feels good, even though you can’t afford the time to wait. The room is filled with workstations of nanobot gray with tables, chairs, and small computers set into natural alcoves, haphazard around the room in their facing. Some sort of odd device is connected to wires leading up one of the walls, but there’s no time to go that way. You cut right following the cavern’s natural wall, there’s another door right there, a small connecting room of some kind, but your heat won’t let you stop to think about it. The physical lock on the other side’s door melts off as your arm slams into it and the door bursts open to some kind of laboratory or testing room. Both together, perhaps.

It is here that you are forced into a halt. You race across the open walkway of the room, but the door on the far side refuses your access geist and it is too thick to melt, especially as the heat has already begun to dissipate from its most molten. The room is large, nearly twenty meters across and almost as wide. There’s a door where you entered, and another on the far end that has stopped you. An open middle walkway that you’ve just run past. One side wall is set with multiple reinforced metal plates, most of them heavily burned and scoured, along with testing stations and monitoring devices every meter or so. Some kind of weapons testing location most likely. The other wall is covered with storage lockers (perhaps full of weapons) and the space is lined with several two tier workstations: long tables at chest height and then storage shelves at head height. They’re fully stocked with various tools, microscopes, beakers, burners of various sorts, all types of meters and readers for gathering data.

Before you have much of a chance to scour the room, though, the ceiling above the weapons testing area, perhaps less reinforced than the walls, parts open. It was made of all nanobot materials, this is a more developed rather than natural room, but it’s still surprising to see it open that way.

From that ceiling lowers a god. It’s not a particularly large god in Zaldarian standards, perhaps three to four times your height all told. It’s built with subtle bird-like features on the face and body shape, and metallic feathers lining its arms. It has no weapon to speak of, at least not visible, simply its feathered arms, long legs for its height, and a bulky crest atop its head that looks rather suited to headbutts.

Perched on its shoulders in an ethereal form is the spirit from before, its eyes glowing balefully. “You are ruining my facility. Mine! The Trak’tho left it to me! I will bind you here and make you beg me to fix every burn and break you’ve caused. And if she comes back while it is in such disrepair, I will make you prostrate yourself over every inch of burned and twisted metal so that she doesn’t have to trod upon this…this desecration!”

[The spirit is marking Guilty]

***

Isabelle

First there is chaos.

The heat of Solarel as she seizes the geist from Annika is palpable. You can feel it slam into you in the form of gathered air from her run. But then she is past, snaking her way deeper into the facility. The floor slopes, and while Solarel pushes past it melting holes into the metal, you three find yourselves sliding to the center of the room. But then Solarel is through and the odd guardian spirit disappears, leaving you at the bottom of a slope pressed against Annika’s soft black robes while Crescent sits hunched on all fours, tail flicking as she looks around trying to make sense of the predicament.

Then there is calm.

Nobody says anything for a moment while you and Annika untangle and try to sit up. The slope isn’t all that steep to reach the door if you go at an angle, though it’s slick apart from Solarel’s melted spots. You’ll quite literally need to follow in her footsteps getting there.

Finally, Annika grins. “She hasn’t changed a bit, the crazy bitch. No wonder the Empress cut her loose.” She shakes her head but the grin doesn’t leave her face. She looks rather like an owl fluffing its feathers as she glances about. Then she starts climbing up. “Well, come on Crescent, we’re going to miss the show if we’re not quick. We’ll need to get the door open the old-fashioned way, hopefully the Traktharan spirit is too distracted to notice us tinkering with the door controls absent my entry geist. You, Terenian, I don’t suppose you’re any good at hotwiring?”

Oh~

What would it be like to be that slender, that graceful? That quick, that subtle? How would it feel to have feathers? Running back along her arms in bladed shapes, inflexible and sensitive, roots running deep into her skin? Would it be sharp and brittle like the wind? How would it feel to be fragile?

The thought intoxicates her, twists in her head perversely. She knows what it is to be strong, to be direct. She learned what it was to be cunning, to be stubborn. But this? This would force her to remake herself. So much knowledge she'd have to abandon! So many instincts she'd have to give up! Her mind races, her mouth waters, her scales are hot from a feeling other than electricity and electricity yet runs up her spine. She'd have to submerge herself. She'd have to become someone else entirely. She'd have to obliterate herself and all her sins, reborn in orange and fire. It couldn't be emphasized enough how intense she found that thought, how erotic it seemed to her. To take this into her. To put herself into it. Neither of them would survive.

"Ah, my goddess," she breathed. "Let me worship you."

The storage locker tore open like a bodice, overflowing with treasures. Thermal pistols scattered into her hands like candles rich with the promise of dripping wax. Her hands cupped grenades, smooth and round, magnetic locks sticking to her hands and shoulders like trails of jagged kisses. A long energy rifle of unknown make and purpose tried to force her to her knees with its weight and she could feel its promise as she set it against her jaw. She breathed deep the musk of gunpowder and felt the vibrations of full energy cells. She tore her eyes away from her arsenal to breathlessly focus again on the slender lines of legs and arms, the unspoken promises and threats that came with going to war unarmed. To stand naked in metallic glory and still have so many secrets...

But she was playing too. Her exhilarated caress of all of these weapons, the bashful staring, her brand new arsenal - jewelry, makeup, teasing looks. Her two swords stayed digital by her side, still and sheathed as though she would ever fight a battle without them. Her shyness was both true and feigned; she blushed like a virgin but she'd done this before and her mind was already rushing ahead to the most intimate parts of the coming dance.

"I will call you Kathresis," she said as the hammering of her pulse threw off her aim. "And though I am nothing before you, I will walk your sacred storm."

[Solarel is Smitten with the Kathresis]

There is. A lot. That could. Be said.

There is. A lot. That should. Not. Be said.

No change of expression registers on her face as Mira accepts the furstick. She does offer a deep, sweeping bow that very nearly causes her to spill out of her suit. Is that an unfortunate coincidence attached to a gesture of thanks? Is it meant to be teasing? Flaunting? If so, for which pair of eyes? Or, is she simply testing Seven Quetzal's sincerity? When she lifts out of her pose, her movement is as graceful and fluid as her eyes. There's a frown fighting with a smirk on her lips. And she turns away.

She tosses the furstick up into the air above her, not bother to watch it twirling through the air. It could land anywhere. She could let it fall or hand it back. But she catches it with a deft swipe of her hand as she walks away. She lifts that same hand to wave over her shoulder as she goes, twirling the stick between her fingers.

"Whispered Promise," she calls out without turning her head. Her voice is high and clear to be heard over the din of mealtime, "You have a right to that much, Seven Quetzal."

Because, indeed, she was right. This is not difficult information to acquire. And yet, it is better to be handed the information than to be forced to take it for yourself. A trade of star names, between cultures. And maybe, just maybe, this second name would shake some memory of a news article loose in that sweet little brain. Maybe it would draw a real reaction out of Smokeless Jade Fires, when the goddess had done such an admirable job to this point of keeping her presence... ah, "hidden". Maintaining the veil of propriety, at any rate. But if it manages anything, it is not immediate. And Mira does not wait around to see.

There is. A lot. That could. Be said.
There is. A lot. That should. Not. Be said.

Touch up her spots. Of all the things she could have suggested. She picked the one that. Well. She picked. The element. She'd assumed they'd have in common. After all, it is not as if this girl kept beauty products on hand in the off chance she met another cat who needed them. Unreasonable assumption. Too rare a brand. Too... nngh. But still. But still. As if it wasn't the first thing she tried. As if she hadn't practiced with 'touching up her spots' every day until she had become a professional in the art. As if that hadn't been the thing that had pushed her into fashion in the first place. And as if. As if any brand or style or degree of expertise had been enough to cover her disfiguration.

The mistake, in fact, had been trying to cover it up at all. The better she got at hiding it the more the stares and muttered comments followed her, and the nastier they became. One thing to be ugly. Another thing entirely to dare to fix it. She'd had her eyes treated as a response to that feedback. That, of course, made her even more controversial. Not universally despised. Merely a magnet for strong opinions. Far worse. Unignorable. An enigma. Mysterious. Controversial. Poison.

And if beauty. If beauty. Were measured. By the heart, then... yes. Inevitable conclusion. For an insatiable heart. Like hers. That demands so much. And gives so little. That forms such tangled nets. Such knotted nests. And wanders away. Expecting things to stay in stasis. Until she is no longer bored. She is. If anything. Isn't she? The things she does. Make her. Far uglier on the inside.

She could be insulted. Should be insulted. Or at least hurt. There are. Many things. That could. Be said. And yet. She does not say them. Thoughts swirl inside her mind and do not find the necessary purchase to complete. She casts them off into the void, these imperfect creatures.

Because. Her heart is swelling. Because. As she walks away. She is on the verge of real tears. Because. This Seven Quetzal. Mainlander though she is. Responded to her testing and her teasing. By opening herself up and reaching out for Mirror. To blindly touch this thorny heart. Her smile was something. Truly incredible. Beauty enough to spark no lust. No curiosity, in fact. And yet. To make her feel the attempt. Instead of the impossibility of her success. Language. The spark of someone who might speak to her. Who did speak to her.

The numbers flit through her head. Lock in place. It was good she stuck around that extra moment. Good that the silly girl lifted her breasts. Ha. In solidarity. It was good that she turned in place. The way she had. All of it was good. Because Mirror had her measurements. Enough to compare them against official biometrics. Video data.

In fact. In actual fact. Mayze Szerpaws had four dresses on commission. Time would tell where inspiration went.

A handicap.

Soon she will know everything about this Whispered Promise. She has ordered her engineer-cult to begin gathering information. That is what cultists are for, after all: doing the hard work of gathering and interpretation for her. An offering of time and effort for her glory. And it means she doesn’t have to stop clinging to Dolly, who is sandwiched between her and Angela Victoria Miera Antonius just like Angela Victoria Miera Antonius is sandwiched between Dolly and Ksharta Talonna.

A handicap. Of all the arrogant bluster. Who did she think she was? Doubtless she would not hold a candle to Dolly, let alone Jade herself. Though, perhaps, the specific skills that a mecha pilot would learn over the course of their career might make it possible to surprise Jade once. Only once. The hunt-goddesses are not omnipotent, after all, and neither are they omniscient. It is simply that they, that she is sacred. Set apart. Of a different class of being. So even if this Whispered Promise, this cunning little trickster who slunk out of one of Dolly’s stories (and nearly right out of that ridiculously unzipped suit), were to overcome her once, well, it wouldn’t really be an existential threat. Not really.

It would just be fucking infuriating. Imagine how Dolly would feel, seeing her goddess humbled! Would she ever look at Jade the same way? Jade has never had to worry about this before; the thought of losing was always so far away as to make it impossible to consider. But that arrogant, preening, dappled minx! She was hiding some trick up her sleeve, and why couldn’t Dolly see that?

(Because she’s Dolly. Because she’s sweet. Because she’ll forgive you even if you lose. Probably. She won’t abandon you for a real girl like Whispered Promise or Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. Not after everything you’ve offered her. Not after you’ve danced with her and let her ride in your heart. She can’t. You won’t let her. You won’t let her? The thought is uncomfortable. Therefore the thought is bad. Let it be chewed between your teeth; you make nothingness of it. Let it be sufficient that Dolly will not abandon you and there is no need to consider the potential response. You are the beast that devours that which displeases you in your self. You make of yourself perfection through shedding. You are perfect. You are radiant.)

“You’re welcome,” Jade says, her hand wandering underneath Dolly’s top. “I knew that you would look even more beautiful like this.” ”Lkk— like what?” “Sitting next to Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. Play with her hair a little for me?” Dolly leans against Angela more, reaches up and begins twining curls around one finger, purring. “Hee~” “Good girl. My girl. Pretty girl.” Jade kneads like a needy kitten, uncaring of the noises she’s squeezing out of Dolly in Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s ear. “You have been very good. You may ask of me one boon before we leave Akar, and it is yours.”

Dolly’s head spins. Not literally, but… her immediate thoughts are not appropriate at dinner, or in front of Angela. Maybe even Ksharta. But what else could she ask of Jade? What was appropriate to ask a goddess? What was—

“Actually,” she stage-whispers, resting her forehead against Jade’s, as Angela huffs and doesn’t pull her hair out of Dolly’s playful fingers, “can you… get me a present from Mayze Szerpaws?”

“Not just for you. For the harem.” Jade nips possessively at the softest part of Dolly’s neck; her purr ratchets up appropriately. “You deserve for everyone to see you as you are.”

It will, of course, be no easy thing to commission Mayze Szerpaws in the first place. She will need to sort through the art pieces she wishes to send as inspiration, before giving them in a portfolio and demanding “something like these.” She will need to convince Szerpaws that it is a religious offering and that payment may be in unusual forms. And she will need to prepare backups, up to and including kidnapping Szerpaws to make her work. But her Dolly made a request.

And her Dolly gets whatever, whatever she wants.

"Hotwiring??" replies Isabelle incredulously, gesturing at the doorway with both hands. "You two know who I am, do you think I have time to go around picking open doors?"

Hey, should we really be speaking that way to our kidnappers?

"I mean, not that hotwiring isn't a noble and lovely pasttime, but this isn't the alarm on my bedroom wind- I mean a standard piece of Consortium technology, this is Zaldarian nanotech. You can't just manipulate the hardware without taking into account the software too. There's probably passive monitoring and repair protocols built into the lock."

She thinks, wondering about the puzzle in front of her.

"I had a couple of data spikes on me earlier, give them to me." she says, holding out her hand without taking her eyes off the locking mechanism.

Uh, we are a prisoner here remem-

Shhhh! chorus the others

Once she feels something land in her palm, she jabs it into the door's electronics without thinking. As it would turn out, this would be a fatal mistake.

-- Files detected --

Wait, files? The data spikes were all blan-ohshit.

Isabelle tries to remove the spike, to prevent the disaster, but it's too late. The spike has already begun the process of locking into the electronics. Unless it's securely ejected ...

-- An active program is preventing shutdown.--

No, no no no no NO!

-- Accessing files. Text Detected. Commencing audio playback. --

Ksshttt -- "Iralina carressed the side of the mech's housing, her breath warm enough to frost the glass on the cockpit. 'Oh Amber, I have placed my life in your mechanical hands more times than I could count ... but .. but tonight, I trust you with something far more valuable

... my heart."

"Oh Iralina, I have stood against plasma for you." came the mechanical voice, as a ghostly arm carressed her face in return. "I have held back flames. I would soar the stars themselves to find you one for your own ...

"Uhh IGNoRe ThaT!" stammers Isabelle, whose face is rapidly turning a colour to match the prose. "It's ... uh, a security deflection program! The nanobots now have to focus runtime on playing it see? And now the hardware is more accessible! That's all it is!"

She tried her best to figure out what wire to pull as more and more gushy sappy romance about a woman and her mech spilled forth from the traitorous apparatus.

Solarel

“What are you?” the spirit asks. Fury still burns in its voice, but there is a sense of wonder, of curiosity in it as well. It doesn’t wait for an answer though. It points and power arcs from the back of the Kathresis. Engines that you could not see flare to life, the white fire of its drive so near the surface that behind it the metal blast plates seem to twist and warp like a heat mirage.

In a single heartbeat, the Kathresis dashes across the room towards you.

It’s beautifully fast. Its crystal fire drive system, set in such a small frame and absent any weaponry that needs to be actively ready, is going entirely towards speed. It's nearly upon you before you even have a chance to test your newly acquired weapons stock.

However, the spirit tries to direct it to avoid the sensitive scientific instruments, giving you a moment as it diverts around those tables towards the lockers. It banks left of you, passes through a gap in the space and comes for you at a partial angle as it runs along the wall, its right hand outstretched to grab you, the spirit perched on the right shoulder staring you in the face, one arm still upraised.

“You threaten my domain, and now you dare to claim a titan as your own. Even this small one will show you the truth of your weakness.” The spirit shakes its head. “But be assured, you have intrigued me. When I have crushed you properly, I will keep you here for interrogation and study.”

It's over if locks you in its grip. What do you do?

***

Isabelle

Crescent laughs, but Annika nods in a way that tells you that you are not the first and will be far from the last to imagine making love to an AI in a sturdy robotic frame.

It’s odd though. What you said about the security actually seems to be right. It wasn’t right before you said that. You were quite sure you were bullshitting on that point, at best a data spike inserted into the control panel should have offered you a new interface if you could bypass the security, but it shouldn’t affect the security itself, at least not without some kind of virus loaded into it. The beautiful advantage of direct hardware access is that at the end of the day you can put anything you want onto it if you know enough detail about where to put it. But what’s happening now is that the controls seem to be offering you an interface that’s got nothing to do with what was on the data spike directly. Instead, it’s responsive to how you made up the way it should function while the recording continues to play.

“No Amber” Iralina called. “I want no stars for my own, and I would not see you go so far. I want only you, your strength, your touch. Please, stay here with me.”

“Of course my dulcet heart, If it would please you, I shall never leave your side again.”
There’s an insight here, lurking just under the surface in how all this works. You might blush at the thought that Asil would probably already have it figured out. But you’ve done a lot of work on mecha plans, AI reactions, all the things that one could justify to themselves they ought to know as a pilot if they really enjoyed the engineering aspect of the work to a debatably obsessive degree. So, try something and see if you can grab at it.

***

Dolly (and Jade)

It takes a moment to bring your head back to reality. You sit down, sure, but even when Jade lets off enough of her tantalizing to let you eat a bit, your head is still spinning with thoughts of Mirror and Mayze, of dress designs and Jade’s combats and mysterious thoughts of girls whose spots didn’t form the right pattern and what that ought to mean.

The food’s half done before you even realize what you’re eating. Ksharta got you some of the meat in the soup broth. It’s good, very salty with a hint of Hybasilian herbs that give you just the slightest hint of euphoria to go with the meat and salt. Ksharta’s been scurrying off and back. She wasn’t sure what to get for Angela, initially brought her the spicy food because it was being made by Terenians but she hadn’t liked that one bit and Ksharta had raced off for water and settled on just bringing her the roasted meat, which she had busied herself cutting into small pieces to feed to Angela. The latter was bearing it with dignity.

Ksharta notices that you’re noticing her for the first time in a few minutes. “So, uh, is this how your evenings u-usually go?” She’s trying to sound cute and light, but she hitches a bit on it. You know enough to know she’s really saying this was a lot, right, it’s not just me? It’s a processing kind of question, but she’s already grinning and trying to move past the awkwardness of it. “I mean, not that you’d need to answer that or anything. I mean, I’m not sure if I’m even asking Dolly or Jade or um, should I be posing it formally to Jade’s high priestess maybe? But I mean, well, I guess it doesn’t matter because it’s a dumb question. And I mean, this was fun, is fun, we could do more! But um, also what do we do with our um…prisoner after dinner?”

So many questions for you Dolly! Some of them maybe even good ones!

***

Mirror

It seemed right to leave the planet after that whole exchange. Eventually you need to question your hangar crew, go back over anything they heard, even sounds that might have seemed innocuous. And you’ll need to get Slate up to speed on all the information you just shared and your new…acquisition. That will be fun, probably.

But going back to the Hangar is work and you have time before that. Even so, it somehow seemed right that you leave the planet. So you find yourself on Akar Prime, not at the jungle but at the Saloon by the spaceport.

It’s an interesting place and steeped in Terenian aesthetics. Well, if you could call them that. The spaceport and the saloon were part of the mining colony and that meant cheap, functional, and quick to build. So you get a lot of exposed pipes, open radiators, and square shapes with hard corners. Even the bar itself, built as a sort of central hub into the space, is square with four distinct counters and staff only entrance/exit sections on two of the four sides.

They did try to decorate to counter this somewhat. The tables are small and round in contrast to the surrounding walls. This makes them look almost a little sad, like they didn’t get the square memo and showed up dressed in the wrong style to the decor. The bar is doing a bit better. It’s lined with five tiers of shelves in its center, with hundreds of differently shaped and colored bottles with all sorts of interesting drinks in them. Some of them are tall and lithe, others squat and wide with big stoppers set into them. Some seem to have a bit of their own animating energy from within the bottle, and a few even glitter and shimmer in the dim light that shines translucent through them.

The attraction, aside from the scenery, is that Marcina Villajero is staying here for the present. Her actual quarters are upstairs, somewhere in the third to fifth floor of the building, probably higher up and in a fancy room. She is the champion of the last arena season, after all. Yet despite whatever fame or fortune her victory and previous wish may have brought, here she is fighting again. She won’t actually be competing in the round robin you’ve been in, of course. She’s seeded into the elimination matches as the current champion. Which, perhaps, explains why she has time to enjoy a drink and entertain some hangers-on.

She’s established in a table near the bar, a tall bottle at her table with something bright red about one third already emptied out. People are packed around it, a few sitting, most standing or squatting nearby. And the champion herself…well the rumors are true. She’s absolutely tiny. You’re actually taller than she is, she barely crests five feet and if she weighs more than a hundred pounds, it would be shocking. The short hair in a pixie cut really makes you think of ancient Hybrasilian myths of small forest-dwelling spirits who would waylay the unwary, and the bust-revealing short black dress she’s wearing does not dissuade. She looks like she’s enjoying her drink though. She’s conversing with a man who’s kneeling next to her chair about something.

The party seems to have been here for some time and some of these folks might be security for her. If not, people are being damn respectful all on their own. Nobody is going up and trying to demand her attention, they’ve simply gathered around her and have now started mostly conversing among themselves in a general din of noise.

Despite her distraction, she sees you when you come past the bar, pauses with the man, and calls out to you. “Hey, you, Hybrasilian. You’re Mira Fisher, right? Pilot of the Nine-Tail God-Smiting Whip? Come have a drink, my treat! Whatever this is, it tastes like cinnamon and fire.” And she grins and holds up her glass to you.

Jade isn’t the one who puts Dolly’s hand on Ksharta’s. The comforting squeeze? All our girl. The smile? The kind that melted Jade’s heart when the goddess was breaking out of her egg.

“Not really,” she says, bashful but owning it. “Not before I met Jade, and not, well, like this. Not after, I mean. Angela’s my first real nemesis, the cute kind who will end up defeated and joining us eventually, shh, yes you will, and you are…”

New. Like me. Cute. Proof that Jade isn’t just trying to turn me on when she talks about— talks about? Oh, she did more than just talking. Memories of last night flood Dolly, whose toes curl under the table. Very, very definitely more than just talking, teasing, making her squeal. No, she. She did it. She did the thing. Until all three of them were sweaty and mewling and leaning against each other, and Jade chuckled and ran her talons through their hair and called them cute, sweet, precious, and oh-so-fuckable.

”Aren’t you going to finish that thought? She’s hanging on your every word, high priestess~”

“…you’re our first, um. The first girl we. We do have a cult but they don’t.” She’s telegraphing embarrassment furiously. “You and Angela, really, we. It was the first time she. Shared me. And you. The thing is.”

She stops and takes a drink of water and tries very hard to ignore the smug chuckle from Angela. As if you’re any better! You’re just doing that because you think it’ll, it’ll! And it’s working! She is so very super aware that you intend to turn the tables, and Jade thinks it’s cute how you think you can try, but you’re… you’re interesting, too, Angela, it’s not just Jade who sees something in you.

“Welcome to the harem,” Dolly says, finally, and shines a smile so earnest that it should be illegal. “As the goddess’s high priestess, it’s my honor to invite you to submit to her glory. And as just, you know, me… I want to fight both of you again. Jade knows we’ll win, but I think you’ll make us work for it. And when we win… if you ask nicely… you can join me in submitting to her will~”

Her voice gets huskier than even she’s really aware. Nobody is looking at Jade’s face, which is good, because it’s hard to maintain an air of effortless dignity when you’re shivering happily. And if Ksharta and Angela see Dolly, for a moment, as someone who’s not just Jade’s mouthpiece but someone who’s so into Jade that it loops around and becomes hot, especially when she’s inviting you to join in with what she’s got, well, who could blame them?

"Marcina Villajero? Arena champion. Pilot of..."

Intentional delay of five point seven six seconds. Implied struggle of recall, affected look of concentration. Tap finger on air as though across surface of a desk: accepted gesture of consideration among certain small circles of Fisher culture, limited in popular use to a handful of frontier research stations. Easily misconstrued among outsiders as taunting. One, two, one two three, one two. Feels almost like piloting. Single nod, smile as practiced. Lip curling toward the left side of the face, good, good.

"The Jormungar. To call out a nobody like me, on sight, in the middle of a crowded bar? That's so surprising it's almost suspicious! I wonder, could you be my mysterious saboteur?"

Pause, again. Allow the accusation to linger in the air. Gauge reactions, smile. Longer. Tap tap, tap. Long enough to make it awkward. Three. Two. One. And: laughter.

"Only kidding, of course. It's an honor, thanks for the drink."

It's natural that she would be prepared for this meeting. Any combatant with intentions to win the tournament would be an idiot not to consider interactions between key competitors, and the reigning champion stands as the most obvious of all. At the barest minimum one would hope to see profiles built detailing combat capabilities and off-field tendencies to be sufficiently prepared for what amounts to increasingly inevitable confrontations. And Mirror is vastly more disadvantaged than most. And vastly more serious than most. So her preparations are comparatively more thorough.

This is not about that, though. This is a battle, but the opponent is not Marcina Villajero. Impossible to defeat an opponent of this caliber in a bar before the main show, in any event. But she represents an opportunity. The world. The galaxy. That is an enemy she can defeat. Let the crowd watch. Let word spread. Let the strengths and weaknesses of Mira Fisher be known, so she can observe who attempts to take advantage of them.

Always. Always one layer of defense. Never more or less. She sits at the table with an awkward slouch, pours her own drink from the offered bottle, and stares at it instead of drinking. Swirl. Watch the liquid. Entrancing. Terrifying. Dip little finger enough to break surface tension, but no more. Shake until nearly dry. Trepidatious lick. Immediate gag.

"Cinnamon," she spits, "Vile stuff. Poison. Did you know? The revolutionary warrior Delinata Seven Rhea would send gifts of cinnamon to enemy camps before battle? They say she liberated the Grasslands with only a single stroke of her spear. And you... like this? What kind of steel-blooded queen are you?"

That is a true story, by the way. Cinnamon is used for warding off evil spirits and, more practically, for marking unsafe zones in construction zones or experiment sites, say. The smell is repugnant. The flavor, somehow worse. In high enough concentrations it might even be useful as a non-lethal incapacitation device. As a spray it would... not bear thinking about. Brr. But the nasty trick of it all is that Hybrasil culture is universal and unrelenting in its insistence that a gift is not to be denied. In the ancient days it was punishable by death, and the modernization of the culture has mellowed that threat only a little. That was the true shape of Delinata Seven Rhea's blade. Perhaps it was Marcina Villajero's, also.

Deep breath. One. Two. In. Out. Grip the glass, tight. Clench. Wince, before even lifting. Drain the glass in three large gulps. Wretch. Swallow. Swallow. Swallow! Dizzy. Place hand on table, stabilize. Deep breath. Regret. Head on table.

"...Thank fuck for the fire. I might be dead without it."

Slump forward, head turn. Grin. Excellent adaptation. Mira Fisher is weak. Mira Fisher is reckless. Mira Fisher is bold enough to accuse the champion of crimes but too polite to turn down a gift she plainly despises. Mira Fisher is a melodramatic creature with an overly sensitive, easily overwhelmed body. Mira Fisher is a rookie. Has a lot to prove. Is Fierce. Risky. Willing to expose herself, in more ways than one.

Let them speak. Let them speak beyond the limits of her own imagination. Let. Them. Speak.

"You know. You are a person many accuse of overcompensating. Small stature, large machine. A... chip on the shoulder? Is that how you say it? But. I do not think so. You know my name. You know my face. Well. Do you know what that says to me? Your talent is not natural. It is the result of drive. Practice. More than all the rest. There is an opening when you fire your main weapon, but you are not exposed. You have trained the release timing. I suspect you even have a counter prepared if someone defeats your straight thrust. It is a tragedy that nobody has forced you to show that yet. You are... an exceptional woman, Marcina Villajero."

She pauses to let out a weak, shaky little breath. It's Solarel she's really thinking of. Solarel, who will be at this exact moment sharpening herself for the next confrontation. Solarel who is preparing to slingshot far enough ahead that Mirror will never catch up again. And then... they will never be together again. Their relationship was built atop the dance, after all. That's why Mirror is fighting against the world. Anything less will result in too blunt of fangs. It will cost her the woman she loves, that fills more of her holes than anyone else.

Someone almost enough. Well. That was another reason to fight the world, wasn't it? Mirror waves a shaky hand at the bar, calling for a different drink. Something sweet, something herbacious, something the farthest thing away from fucking cinnamon, if you please. Anything, now. No, it does not matter how strong it is. No, she can't be more specific. No, she doesn't care. Just give it.

"Too exceptional, in fact, for Mira of the Fisher Clan, Whose Star Name is Whispered Promise. So I must ask you three questions. One, what is your interest in me, Marcina Villajero? Two, how many matches must I lose to earn you as my opponent? And three..."

She smiles, and her watery eyes are dreamlike. Cunning. Dangerous.

"Would this please you, if I did you that disservice? If I fight you, I will eat you. Is that the secret wish of your heart, that the Arena could not grant you the first time?"

It's frustrating. Annoying. Maddening, really.

Isabelle should be able to work this out. She's studied AI, she's studied engineering. Heck, she's even studied Zaldarian Nanotech - albeit as much as is available within the Consortium's scientific literature.

So why is it so hard?

The sound of the embarrassing audio fades into meaningless static.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Maybe someone smarter than her could get it. Someone who has their shit together. Someone like As- No.

Not going there. Focus on the problem. Try to Focus. Ignore the image the flashes into your mind. The hurt. The stare. Those eyes.

No blushing anymore. Grip the console hard. Just a dull weight inside. The numbness of a wound not yet healed.

Focus, instead, on the problem in front of you. Manipulate the interface. But why is there water on your hands? Your cheeks? Why is it getting hard to breathe?

Honestly, Isabelle, this isn't the time. You're trying to learn about a vast and mysterious security system that might be sentient here. Panic attacks can wait.

She punches the console, hard enough to cut her hand.

[Roll to read a person. 1 + 3 + 0 = 4 Womp Womp.]

Thus spoke Zaldar: The world is locks. Hearts are doors. Violence is the key.

She did not run. Instead, she was violent. She was not tranquil. Instead, she took the first spin of her frenzied dance. She was not alone. Instead, the cutting beams of the thermal pistols slashed through the floor in a circle below her. It dislodged and she fell straight down to the next level down right beneath the oncoming storm. The god's hand followed her down through the hole she'd cut and she had to fall to her face as she landed to avoid it catching her, rolling away and backing towards the wall.

Verticality. It was everything when dealing with gods on foot. The challenge of climbing to the empty throne. The peril of drawing that thone's gaze. To win you had to climb. To survive you had to fall. The same as falling in love. The same as making love.

She slipped out through the door, moving through the corridors. She listened. She listened for if the Kathresis would tear a hole through the floor or if it would be gentle. She listened for the crystal chime of its reactor, memorizing what it sounded like as it ascended and fell. She listened for the threats of the Spirit. She could not answer them. She was the weaker here and until she proved otherwise it was her role to be humble. To be mysterious. She felt the ghostly touch of fur against scale and recalled again the encrypted smile that could make softness dangerous.

Her sword-geists flashed out ahead of her. Together they hunted cameras; spiritual eyes who would betray her. She had to walk unknown and invisible, had to hunt Mirror's way. If her foe was anything like her she'd burn brighter and brighter trying to bring her out of the darkness, giving away all of her secrets in a bid to learn even one of hers. The challenge in this moment was silence.