[b]Jolly[/b]

Jacinta is a fierce fighter. Stripped of her weapons, she focuses her full power on strength and speed. Each block makes your arms shudder. Each dodge of the claw can be felt as the air against your metallic skin breathes in tension. Her blows are fierce, unrelenting, and precise. 

But even so…even so it’s clear you have the better of her. One opponent with a mere two arms cannot fully defend herself against two well-coordinated combatants no matter how puissant. The small arms fire distracts her, scoring her armor. The dance is a step ahead of her, her claws never connecting cleanly against you. You can feel the elation, the strength. You can feel, even, in the tone of her roars and howls (for Jacinta Niares is many things, but silent is not one of them) a growing respect, a shift from fury to frustration to begrudging admiration. You’re impressive, you’re beautiful, you’re hot, and she wants you. 

It is only then, as you see her growing desire within her, as she finally allows the jackal to close from behind and land a clean, unblocked blow, that you understand her insecurity. Jacinta, no matter how furious, calculates every angle. She understands her people, her power, her resources. And she must acknowledge now that she cannot handle every angle, that she cannot match you. 

[Jacinta Niares takes Insecure]
And it is only now that she focuses her whole attention upon you, Jade. You and you alone, no other angles matter, the jackal doesn’t matter, the whole world is a pinpoint and it’s on your heart. “I know the prize I want. I know it, and I will take it. I’ll have you, goddess. You and everything that comes with you.”

You don’t understand what has happened. Her claw does not touch you, but there is a sudden roar. Not the roar of Jacinta. No, a roar a thousand times louder, a roar of warping steel and rushing air, as though reality itself has been rent in twain. And perhaps…perhaps it has. For upon your heart Jade, near enough to Dolly that it sounds like the entirety of the bottomless ocean is about to fall upon her, there is a crushing pressure pulling at your chest. Her claw has not touched you, but you have been struck all the same. Had you not dodged this blow, you feel as though the metal core within you might have instantly been crushed. But at least you have this moment of intense pressure to react. The jackal is entirely ignored. She does not move from this blow. Her hand is steady, held before your heart, and everything is the sound of roaring. 

[Take the frightened condition]

***

[b]Mirror[/b]

It looks like the air at Jade’s chest is boiling. That’s the best word to describe it. It roils and it swirls. Automatic hearing protection kicks in for the feed, reducing the volume, but the battlefield is consumed in the roaring of winds like a hurricane or a tide. 

Maelia’s eyes next to you are fixed on the screen and they are so, so wide. “Goddesses, that’s a vacuum. She’s created a sustained, localized vacuum. But there’s no pump, and it’s perfectly spherical, no direction of displacement. The only way to do that is localized compression, which could come from…intense…mass. [Hunger’s gouging claw!]" She sucks in a breath, the phrase a curse that refers to the terrible pain that even the most modern and pampered cat understands when hunger spears at her from within. 

***

[b]Solarel[/b]

It is frustratingly slow. The Kathresis is driven by a directive that looks only to your destruction. As it takes structural damage, it tries a variety of tactics. 

A desperate rush, easily dodged but that must be dodged lest it take an opportunity for a self-sacrificing blow. 

It detects the pattern of avoiding Akaithon and attempts to disrupt your attacks by putting her in harm’s way. Though this is easily anticipated and led, it nevertheless requires stuttering fire, further slowing the process.

It feigns a more severe injury in the hopes of luring you to a quick finish that it might try for a surprise attack. A feint easily detected with the most basic of scanners, though a powerful trap for the lazy who might prefer to be less methodical. 

In the end, it ceases to move and you pour fire into it until you are certain that it cannot move, that no functionality remains. The small arena is left in ruins, parts of it shattered, others frozen, some melted from the heat of your drive, the air left to shimmer from the dancing heat of the weapons discharge. Having completed your victory, the match is declared in your favor. 

Akaithon begins to stir as recovery equipment begins the process of moving the wreck of the Kathresis out of the arena and into the Hangar for repairs. “Solarel? Solarel! When did? The match is over already! Call me. After, call me! I need to tell you what I saw. What I was seeing!”

***

[b]Isabelle[/b]

“We’ve kissed” she says, and she’s proud of it. She’s still fighting, still strong, kind of in a flow state, but it’s a relaxed one, not as intense as the fighting was when her flow was concentrated on beating you.

“It’s like, the problem isn’t always confessing your feelings, you know? Sometimes it’s about how strong those feelings are, about loyalty and duty. Even more so if you both care about other things, other people, about causes and trying to do good and be strong and be reliable. It’s one thing to think that it’s good to kiss someone, even have them agree. Another to figure out how to be together all the time when mother Hybrasil has so many calls. We share a case and then we’re apart. There’s always work, always missions, always needs. I’m the pilot, Shantri’s too slow, and she doesn’t have the knack anyway. So Hybrasil called me for this fight, but not her. She’s got other work. There’s always a murder, always a new organization, a new problem somewhere. She’ll have a different bodyguard or maybe she won’t need one for what they have her doing.”

She swipes, pulls her spear into a backhand, a tricky but predictable pattern, a tier 1 feint, the kind you’d learn in school.

“I mean, you’re right though. I do need to think about how I can get to her. I guess that’s why I joined up with Mirror. She’s so much like her, I figured I’d learn something. I dunno what.”

If you want to win, you’ll need to take advantage of this opening. It will snap her out of her reverie, so make sure it counts. 

***

[b]Angela[/b]

The fight is over. You can hardly believe it. Ada seems to have a penchant for this kind of fight, win or loss, based on her match footage. It reminds you of both her fight with Dolly and of the one you saw with the Terenian, Isabelle. There she is standing over you. The Barn Owl is half crumpled in, the arms feel like they’re going to fall off and you can barely support your own weight with how imbalanced the core structure is. You half wonder if your own spine is going to snap off. 

But there she is, standing right in front of you, raging impotently because your shot hit dead center. The core crystal fire drive was overloaded and shut down as a safety measure. Systems are fried and the core circuits will need to be completely replaced. Ada Smith, for all her fury, is stuck inside a statue. And since you’re still standing and you can move, however barely, you’ve won.

Her voice crackles over a lower power emergency comms system. “Well struck, Antonius. I underestimated you, and you got the win out of it. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. And be sure to contact me if you have work for the Snow Geese. We’ll gladly take mercenary work and you won’t find us lacking.”

You can hear her smile in that crackling voice. She lost, but she doesn’t feel so bad about this one. Breath a sigh of relief and try not to topple over until they can get someone out there to pull both of you out of the arena.