[b]Jade and Dolly[/b] Jacinta’s power presses in on you. She advances steadily, carefully. When you twist, the black hole does not follow your heart, but shifts to rend your arm, your shoulder, the ribs of your chest. [Take Hopeless] “That’s it?” Jacinta’s voice rings out even above the roar of air, above the rending sound of crushing metal, reflecting and rebounding as she broadcasts it past her own attack. “That’s all you have to offer? A few jackals, a good thruster, and a spear managed to win you all but one match? You laid low the Fist of Dishai with this?!” She laughs, incredulous, disbelieving, the sharp report of clipped laughter. Careful laughter. Her shoulders ought to be heaving and her body rising up and down, but her arms are still, precise, the attack unrelenting even as she mocks. Following you as you fall until she’s sure that she’s won, not letting the center move away from your body. “I guess you never learned to take a proper punch, goddess. Not even from the stone fist of Dishai herself.” She snarls out a growl. “This match is over then. Pathetic.” [Take an XP if either Jade or Dolly rises to this taunting despite everything.] *** [b]Mirror[/b] “She is. I actually attended school with her, and she’s a better mathematician than I’ll ever be.” There’s a blush on Maelia’s cheeks. It’s quite a thing to admit on-air that one of the finest scientific minds of Hybrasil doesn’t think she can compare to a pirate queen when it comes to math. “I consider that a triumph for our people, even given her..defection. This match footage will be closely studied for certain, and I suspect we can match the technique. Improve on it even. Dolly and Jade will be a hero to Hybrasil for forcing this move and giving us the benefit of Jactina’s stolen skills.” She smiles, but it’s wistful. You can tell by how she’s narrating it that Maelia has already given up on the match. She’s filling the time while Jacinta completes her finish so that it doesn't get too boring. A weapon like this is many kinds of powerful and beautiful, but watching someone just keep pressing in until the match ends is not exciting sport. She doesn’t think that Jade and Dolly will find a way out of their predicament and so she’s honoring them as she thinks appropriate. Do you think she’s right? *** [b]Solarel[/b] Behind you the air shimmers and breaks as you take off. The pure energy of its crystal drive warps the arena, leaving it less than it was. Though you may not know it, the nanobots can’t fix this damage. Instead, Akaithon slowly works her way out of the slag and wreckage of the dead Kathresis. She’s healthy, but still dazed. Still processing. She saw things she had never before realized when she boarded the Kathresis, and more when you defeated it. But defeat it you did. The core of the Kathresis was cold. You know how cold it was intimately within your heart. Yet the Aeteline felt nothing. The cold could not touch it. It revels too much in its own power, in the raw heat of its drive. Or perhaps you do? The Aeteline itself has no interfering AI personality, after all. But it does monitor sensation, control it, limit it, engage protocols to avoid the forces at play in its motion and actions harming the pilot. What now, then? Your ship, for all its power, is missing a leg and will at a minimum need new materials for itself. Who can you visit to fix the Aetline? Where do you go? *** [b]Isabelle[/b] She takes it. Not consciously, of course. But you’ve pulled Kiriala into a lot of contemplation and memory, into thinking about her life, into thinking about Mirror and Shantri, and what it means to serve Mother Hybrasil. You’ve been there, in fact your sympathy for her plight is what made this as easy as it was. So many different mental Isabelle’s running around trying to decide what to do all at once, it’s a lot. Brings you back to plenty of stressful moments and you have to work on your own focus lest you blush too much thinking of the way Asil can pull YOUR focus just as much as Shantri got Kiriala’s. Even with distraction, this match will go down incredibly. It’s not a simple thing to finish off someone who’s got their talent drilled into them with this tier of muscle memory and precision. Kiriala’s been on a hundred hunts and spent thousands of hours in the workout room and the training simulations. So you have to work her to an opening. Your blade pressing into a series of strikes, blocks, her arms tiring just a hair, her stance shifting in response to your movements so that you can change them, and then change the way you change in order to stumble her and finally create a break in the guard. To an external observer, it’s a thirty-three move sword duel that nearly goes faster than the eye can follow and then you land the decisive blow and cleave the upper quarter of her mech clean off. You have to stop yourself from an unnecessary follow up blow so deep are you both into it, and she almost lurches forward anyway as she realizes the damage is done and finally stops. “Holy shit!” she says, finally focused on you again. “That was hot!”