[b]Isabelle[/b] You can tell that Kiriala is surprised by your combat form. She knew that TC had mechas to match Hybrasilian models and maybe even outperform them in some ways, but it’s still a shock to her to see someone just keep up with her directly. It’s different than Mirror’s match where Mirror demonstrated an unmatched ability to simply do the impossible. This isn’t unexpected, you’re performing a parry and riposte that could have been a textbook illustration (and might well be for the coming generation). You’re just doing it with a grace and speed that Kiriala hasn’t yet seen in this tournament. [If you haven’t already, mark your Legendary Skill] She continues the exchange of blows, feet planted and plowing large furrows in the grasses as the sun glints off both your weapons. You can tell she revels in the flow of it all, spear turning and spinning, speed and precision actually increasing as she maneuvers against you, both ends of it being used to keep you on the defensive as she steps, thrusts, and constantly adjusts. But your last question, too, takes her aback. “I…oh…I guess, I mean um, Mirror didn’t mention and I haven’t said anything. I um…” She’s obviously blushing, and apparently has her own version of an Asil in one form or another. “Well, I um…I mean my main work is investigating smugglers so it’s kind of like detective work. And a few times I got to partner with Shantriala Hunter, Six Thunders. She’s um…she’s like sort of famous for solving crimes on the Hybrasil capital system. Just figures people out just like that, but she’s pretty small and not that fast, her descent is one of the smaller phenotypes for Hybrasilians, so she needs a partner sometimes. She also really likes her coffee.” You can tell this is getting her mind off of things. She almost misses a block, takes a grazing blow from your sword on the arm, shoves it away, tries to recenter herself and resumes the assault. But she’s daydreaming about Shantriala and really that’s the answer to all your questions. *** [b]Solarel[/b] Days ago, a minor official helping to manage the logistics of the Akar tournament decided, after watching the footage of the Aeteline departing the Crystal Gala, that its next match would be most exciting in a contained arena to prevent it from withdrawing to extreme range. As a matter of both fairness and doubling down on excitement, this official ensured that the newly formed arena would also match the aesthetics of several species and provide a central, open area for combat with no places to hide and no possibility of being entirely out of weapons range for any participant. When your small arms fire damaged the cloak of the Kathresis, this further meant that it would be a dark-colored target against light-colored stone, its features and appearance easily spotted relative to its background. When you cut off your own leg, it ensured that you had no blindspots for a maneuvering appointment to add statistical uncertainty into the calculations. As the burning heart of the Aeteline races in tune with your own, you briefly understand that these factors transformed a shot that might have been impossible into one with at least one successful firing vector in all possibility spaces. The shot streaks through the air, into the chest of the Kathresis, force blasting it past Akaithon’s cheek like a kiss, drawing a blushing line where it passes. The bullet impacts at the base of the mind impulse cable. “Oh” says Akaithon before the sudden surge of her own body rushing into itself knocks her unconscious and the sound of her slumping onto the floor can be heard over the open comms line. In this, the Kathresis is powerless to change things. The AI takes over for an incapacitated pilot, and the machine readies another lance charge. But without the pilot’s reflexes and link for the AI to support, overall functionality is slower, more sluggish, less flexible. Nor can it speak at all. The Kathresis, now, can only be understood as it tries, desperately, to move through the bindings that enveloped it. *** [b]Jolly[/b] “Good!” Jactina shouts over the comms, another low roar rumbling within her beneath her shout. You can feel it reverberate through the air itself. “You’ve very right, if you’d have accepted, you’d have become my slave just like that. But that does mean, goddess, that you’ve made the prize for taming you even greater!” She smiles, and she shouts, and she rushes you and the jackal both. Above the water, there’s now only a mild spray as the steam jets are settling and the sun shines down on you as you clash above the roiling lake. Jactina is all fists, all ferocity and power and cruelty. But underneath it all, there’s a precision to her movements, a calculation that applies the most power to every blow, that constantly makes you feel like the box is tightening around you and you have less and less room to maneuver even though you’re in an even fistfight in midair. There’s no more avoiding this confrontation. [Roll to fight Jacinta] *** [b]Angela[/b] “Good” says Ada over the comms and she means it sincerely. She sees you as a peer in that moment, you can hear it in her tone. You stand for something. Not the same as what she does, but it’s something real, something worthy, something of value. You have your own pride, your own expectations, your own heart to prove. Blows shower down on you and the critical moment where you stand on the brink of victory and defeat and straddle them thin as a thread comes swiftly. What happens? *** [b]Mirror[/b] Maelia flicks her tail in excitement. She had, for a moment, flicked off her mic to look at you with concern, but had thought better of it, said nothing, flicked it back on, and then you had relaxed and she had relaxed and as far as she was concerned, that was good. At least until after the match. “[The spined beast whose quills are merely to sow fear]” she is referring to a prey animal on Hybrasil. It’s known for having extremely sharp quills that it can flick its tail to throw at attackers. They’re quite painful, but the animal itself doesn’t value them. They’re there as a ward and if it’s actually attacked, it throws them all right away and switches to a different strategy reliant on its claws and rabid ferocity. She looks at you with a smile as the combatants close and the fighting begins in earnest. “Ah, this really feels poetic doesn’t it? Jackals circling a lioness. This is the stuff of new mythology even before the goddess involved herself. Still, Jacinta is fighting with measured ferocity, isn’t she? Utterly in control of herself. I’ve never seen a pilot that confident even after being struck several times.”