Memories bleed through, or dreams, or phantoms. Shapes that Dolly never dreamed up. Faces that are half-familiar from cartoons and cultural landmarks. The terror of Night and Hunger looming over the ball court. Other kittens might be thrown into distraction and doubt by the images that Smokeless Jade Fires imposes on the enemy, on the dizzying weight of myth-as-memory.

Here's a truth: Dolly has almost always known that her older sister was working on a pattern for drones, and that was the seed that became Jade. Here's another: Dolly believes.

She believes that her goddess is more than what she was. She believes that there is holiness in her, and that the part of her that is real and true descended into the pattern to be born. She believes that she is in the hands of something that is inexplicable and wonderful. It is startling, sometimes, to be reminded that Jade is still young, that she is still flawed, but the Hybrasilians have never expected perfection from their gods. They have simply expected them to be beyond the ordinary world, to be attuned with the universe, to demand sacrifice and adulation and adoration from a position of power. And in return, Jade gives her everything.

She gives Dolly this: the experience of fighting with a pirate. Of being the heroine, despite the transformation of her jumpsuit into something befitting the slave-bride of a goddess. Of being guided through a dangerous dance, the margin for error still incredibly tight. The kind of thrill that an ordinary Gardens would never have tasted. Of kissing Jacinta with her claws over and over, still untouched, still inviolate, helpless and not helpless, exposed and hidden, silenced and heard, fighting for herself and for her goddess, flickering between augmented reality and remembered myth--

And then Jade guides her into the jump, the push of magic at her back as the thrusters flare, and a thrill runs through her at how Jacinta can't see the way her skirt hikes up and how there's nothing underneath, even as she brings her leg in and delivers a punishing kick to the side of Jacinta's head, even as the jackal strikes from behind, a second Dolly (is that really how Jade sees her, that pretty?) raking her claws down Jacinta's back with small arms fire.

"Disappointing! At least Valynia knew the real prize! Twice now your band has failed to steal the heart of a bride more beautiful than Caloa! I am invincible, insatiable, irresistible, and-- I admit it-- my service would be nothing if you did not have the love of Seven Quetzal alongside me! But it is mine, she is mine, and I will see you and your little space dogs groveling at her perfect feet to adore them and beg her forgiveness for your lewd and disgraceful courting!"

And Jade manages to turn the hands flying up to her face into a stroke along her skull, chest out, hips cocked, allowing the camera to stare at her pose in the middle of a battle and imagine the priestess within, and once that is imagined, it's only another step to imagining her peeling out of her jumpsuit, is it not? A prize, dangled before entire worlds. Her wife's heart, racing as she imagines everyone's eyes on her, exposed and helpless and still above a pack of pirates kissing her feet, and Jade can't help but give her a kiss.

[10 - inflict a Condition, take a String, open an opportunity for the jackal.]

---

Stubbornness has always been her virtue. A refusal to admit when she's been beaten, to admit that anyone could beat her down hard enough that she won't bring it back around. What good is an adversary who throws in the towel and gives up? What's the good of a whetstone that cracks in half?

The noise that comes out of her mouth when she sees the opening is inhuman. It's half-Hybrasilian, a wild yowl of gambling it all on one shot, of a body that's throbbing with feedback, fingers so stiff that she almost can't pull the trigger. (An old, vestigial gesture, but one that has remained, one tied to the intent to fire.)

But she does. The roar, the splashback, is almost overwhelming, and the Barn Owl barely stands against the firing of its own weapon. But she digs her heels in and lets her howl out and, for a moment, she is almost like the brat of a goddess chasing a battle almost impossible for her to win.

"...Really? Have you not? That is. Interesting."

A long, silent glance at Maelia. The flicker of a frown, the swish of a tail. An uncovered yawn, and a tiny shrug. Not worth the comment, in the end. Mirror released her thumb from her fist and looks down at her claw. The blood is seeped into everything now. She sighs and leaves her seat, swishing over to a table filled with bottled drinks so she can start pouring water over her wound and her fur.

"I have been thinking," she calls across the room, "About the nature of Jacinta Niares' secret spear."

Half a bottle of water has been spilled out onto the floor, but at least her fur is clean again. She puts her thumb in front of her mouth again and sniffs it tentatively before dragging her tongue across it one more time. She does not taste blood. She sighs and drinks the rest, returning to her seat.

"Before this broadcast started, you indulged in speculation with me about the possibility of the Roar containing thus far unseen technology. At this point in the fight I am forced to conclude that is, in fact, the case. [The Dawn Rises, And I Shall Feast]. Consider Jacinta Niares and her previous fights. She enlisted, I believe, a full dozen of her crew in this tournament under her name, each favoring different techniques to confuse the tournament as to her own capabilities. But the matches that bore out to be hers, truly, all featured a single hallmark: overwhelming long range firepower.

This should have been her key to victory. Smokeless Jade Fires is an inferior combatant at distance. Dala Hunters Seven Quetzal specifically employed Jackals as a counter strategy to hide this weak point. Jacinta Niares should have burned several opportunities by now to reattain a zone from which she could control the fight. But she did not. She did not panic when Smokeless Jade Fires took her distance from her. She did not wince when she was made to feel pain. On the contrary, she jettisoned her weaponry and engaged at melee spaces."

Mira shares a long look with Maelia that sees neither of them speak. Their eyes are enigmas to one another, but their faces scream out about the depths of their thoughts. Two minds occupied by a single puzzle.

"Smokeless Jade Fires is a goddess who prefers to cast herself as an underdog. She tries to win through the power of her aura, her mythos, rather than the raw might an older deity would most likely favor. But today, she and Dala Hunters have been fearless. Flawless. Beautiful dancers, we may not see their like anywhere else in this entire tournament. And the Roar has remained poised the entire time."

Mirror looks at her empty water bottle and throws it at the table still covered in full ones. Her lips part in a brief smirk when it lands upside down on top of a row of other bottles.

"Unrivaled poise. She has abandoned her advantage, been unrattled by a goddess' sudden skill at arms or the synchronicity of her new aggression. Again and again, she allows a goddess to close within point blank ranges of her. Again and again, she sheds power hungry systems in the aftermath of the clash. Thrusters, weapons, shielding, armor. And a lack of regard for control of her zones. A weapon, therefore, that is difficult to control at range. One with enormous power requirements: enough to shed an entire mecha's worth of dead weight just to maximize the output of her Crystal Fire Drive. The metaphysical certainty of a kill shot.

Maelia Dala, whose star name is Three Quetzal. I ask of you: what is the true shape of Jacinta Niares' blade? What fulfills all of these conditions that must nevertheless be an absolute surprise. In other words, what danger have we not made a weapon of until now?"

She clicks her tongue against her teeth, and waits. And watches. Be careful, Smokeless Jade Fires. You will not keep your Bride safe just by the magic of staying untouched. Not today. Can you shoulder the pain it will require to keep that soft, gentle heart gleaming?

Wasn't it...

With razor precision she'd cut out her enemy's heart. She had taken the light and life from the machine, the genius that made it shine. Now it was metal and data. She'd forgotten how graceless the gods could be when they were not united with a loving heart.

But wasn't it...

She flares her thrusters into full reverse. The Kathresis was agile but in terms of brute speed the Aeteline was its match. they arc around the arena, circling on pillars of light and flame, endless chase. Hers is the more powerful machine, on the straight like this she could pull ahead. Instead she sets the burn so the Kathresis gently gains. It can't read even this simple deception.

Wasn't combat supposed to be beautiful?

As they circle she unfolds her machine guns again. Rotates them to a rear position and fires - short, stuttering, controlled bursts. Checking her fire after each salvo. Grinding down the Kathresis' edge like sandpaper.

She had loved fighting Akaithon. She had loved the intensity of their duel, their silent conflict made manifest in sword and spear. This time she had scalpeled her out of the fight entirely and now was set to the grim task of disassembling her machine in a safe and controlled way. Akaithon... she had become this in order to emulate a shadow of Solarel's power. In order to come closer to her she had put her life on the line. And she had denied that escalation with a single shot. There was no beauty in a desperate mismatch like this. There was nothing sadder than a failed tactic. If it worked, as it had when she had done it, it made the tactician look like a genius. When it failed they looked like a fool. And for that to be her rematch with Akai...

For the first time she did not even have anyone to not speak to. She only had metal, grinding down lesser metal.

"Oh, so that's how it is!" replies Isabelle, grinning as she parries another swing of the spear. It's impossible to keep the teasing lilt out of her voice as she processes this new information.

"So, what stage are we talking about here - checking her out every time you two work together? Long-distance pining? Or have you two kissed yet?"

She pays attention to the Ginger Tiger's movements here, seeing for which guess is the one that causes it to slip up. Not because she cares about the fight ... she just really wants to know.

"Seriously though, I'm glad to hear you've got someone like that. In your life." she continues, blade sparking from another strike. Parry. Lunge. "I mean - I know just how lonely it can get ... in a tournament like this, it takes you away from other things. Your life ends up in this ... cycle of preparation, recovery and the next match. Over and over."

"Finding someone you can just be with. Who you can share a coffee with on a hard case or a difficult project. Who supports you, gives you an outlet. Listens. Whose presence is just ... comfortable. Or maybe comforting is the better word? I don't know."

"That's pretty special. So, if she's still out there, think about how you can get to her."

Isabelle twists out of range of a slash.

"You should really ask her out, if you haven't already."

Her manoeuvring jets blast white fire as the Emberlight sidesteps and leaps forward.

"The response might surprise you - in all the good ways."

Jolly

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]

***

Mirror

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.

***

Solarel

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!”

***

Isabelle

“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.

***

Angela

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.

The Aeteline leans down over Akaithon. Isn't it beautiful?

Look at it.

No hint of the organic textures or plates that mark Zaldarian mechs; this is a thing of sharp angles and Imperial ambition. The bladed angles of it are sculpted, three overlapping triangular patterns for chest and shoulders. A head like a razor beak, lit from within by a pale violet glow. It is painted with a hexagonal pattern of dark blue and black on its raised armour plating, giving it the impression of computerized scales even across its smooth and unbroken flat surfaces. The underchassis shines in green-tinted silver, the body underneath that armour even brighter and more beautiful than the patterns on its plate. Its arms have the curved, fine arcs of fishbones; its remaining leg rests on a dainty foot without the complication of claws or talons. It's such a simple design, almost basic - no tricks or gimmicks, no concessions to the inhuman or the alien, nothing that would cause friction between it and the mind-impulse unity of its pilot. It makes everything else feel monstrous in comparison.

It looks down at Akaithon. No, not at Akaithon.

It reaches down into the wreck of the Kathresis, armoured fingers grasping, passing right past the shouting girl. It reaches into the Kathresis and finds it's computer core. And it crushes it into pieces with a single remorseless flex even as the recovery engines race towards them.

Then the Aeteline stands, takes up its severed limb, ignites its thrusters, and leaves Akaithon behind.

"Hm." Mirror squeezes one hand with her other to keep both of them away from her teeth, "Black hole generation. I see. Net and Spear in the same hand; I see why she had so much faith in her Roar."

Her eyes dart around the room, only sneaking sidelong glances at the screen now. Her entire body is twitching and shaking like mad. Fingers writhe like serpents caught in each others' vice, neck pivots, shoulders roll, hips swing in her chair. It is not a question of trying not to fight the battle she is watching: she is already fighting it. The problem is that she must do battle from both positions at once. The problem is that she is not in her Gods-Smiting Whip. The problem is that she must not be. Even if she could. Not in front of a witness.

Her chest squeezes as tight as if Jacinta Niares had caught it in her claws. She rests her head in her hand, and watches the match with one eye through the space between her fingers.

"Stable technique," she notes, and her voice is utterly detached and clinical in contrast to the wild stresses of her body, "Indefinite pressure. Most would consider this impossible. The calculations required to manifest this weapon... Whatever else she may be. Jacinta Niares is a mathematical prodigy."

Kiriala

A Tier 1 feint? Definitely not what you should have used had you wanted to win the fight. But when you're only in the tournament because your nation has called you up - because someone else has decided that you need to be here right now - then it's not really something you've ever been that invested in winning, isn't it?

I mean, sure - you'll try to win out of some basic desire to show your ability, to prove your loyalty and worth to Hybrasil. But whether its for Mother Hybrasil, or just Mother, they don't really love their children in the same way as real mothers are meant to. They won't make time for you. They won't put your needs above theirs. And they won't let you think that you deserve it.

And that's the thing, Kiriala, that Isabelle is trying to help you understand.

You really do deserve it.

It's in the way that she delicately dismantles your defences. In the way she keeps talking, even as her sword flashes out, speaking of the similarities you two share - bonded by duty and a sense of obligation that just isn't healthy sometimes. In the way she gently peels apart your technique, showing that she really has been paying attention to you - that you are deserving of that attention - and that anyone who doesn't give it to you, who doesn't see how much you want to really be somewhere else, doesn't deserve your attention in return.

Softly, insistently, almost lovingly, she breaks your guard.

And rests the point of her sword against your chest, feather light.

You can still fight back from this position if you really want. She's not taking that choice from you. The decision is yours to make. Knock the blade to the side, take a hit for Mother Hybrasil and keep the battle going. Endure the pain - in both senses - just to keep yourself away from Shantriala that bit longer.

But do you really want to? Or would you rather recognise the opportunity Isabelle is giving you?

Just go to her. Now.

You can do it.

[Roll to Entice: 5 + 6 + 3 = 14. Taking a string and offering her the out.]

Jade is screaming. The bindings are pulled taut. She is suddenly stiff, frantic. Her models of the universes are collapsing, leaving behind only hunger and the darkness of the underworld. There is no path to victory. The roads are gone. The roads are gone. How could they have thought they could win this? With, what, with a hunting lodge's worth of weaponry, with a few clever tricks, with a girl who barely understands piloting? Now, competitive gardening, if they'd done that, haha, if they'd...

Jade wraps her arms around Dolly and yanks. They tumble to one side, helpless, her claws in Dolly's fur, holding her tight. Unwilling to let go. The world is ending and if she cannot stop the apocalypse she will bury herself in Dolly until the world stops existing.

The void swings down, and Dolly and Jade both jerk, roll, pathetic little meowmeows, trying to buy themselves another second together. Just another. Dolly buries her face in Jade's hand, flails with the other, undignified, defeated, undone. Desperate not to be ripped out of the idol's heart and paraded before Valynia, who'd tease her, who'd punish her, who'd make her regret turning her down. Or, worse, kept as Jacinta's trophy, an even worse end (because at least she'd guiltily enjoy Valynia's attention and hot-mouthed affections, but Jacinta is overwhelming).

"Dolly, I promise, I love--"

[Dolly and Jade burn another level of Harmony to attempt to Defy Disaster with Daring. 2.]

Jade and Dolly

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.]

***

Mirror

“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?

***

Solarel

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?

***

Isabelle

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!”

"...No."

She has not moved. Does not move. Barely breathes. Mirror continues to watch through one eye, half hunched in her chair, face crushed into her palm. She squeezes. Her eye shudders under the pressure she's putting on her own skull.

Do not. Do not. Do not. Do. Not. Join. The. Fight.

"We do not bury what may yet burn, Maelia Dala. It is not our way. This fight. This fight is..."

She fights for a breath, for a long draw against her palm that makes too much noise for her microphone. It's even louder coming back out of her nose. Her grip releases. Her fingers tug at the sheets of snowy hair atop her head, instead. She winces, but holds her eyes open. Always watching the space just to the right of the singularity.

"Are you? Familiar? With the Terenian word, 'technology'? It is my favorite word. In their language. One of few I find. As dense as our own. Smokeless Jade Fires has... Revealed to us the technology of Jacinta Niares. Now she will. Show us her own. Not something built into her frame but. An idea.

What good is deciphering this weapon if we do not observe how it can be defeated? This is not finished. There is. One more move left to make. If she sees it. If Dala Hunters trusts her own strength. It will cost her. Tremendous damage. Cockpit risk. But..."

She can't help it any longer. Something has to release. She crunches down on a second claw. Winces. Spits fiercely.

"[The Fortress Built in the Serpent's Jaw]. Show me. Smokeless Jade Fires. Show me. Dala Hunters. Show me the power of love."

they took her apart

falling star

love her so much please don't leave me

the scorpions flood the banks she may not pass

set her skull on the apple-tree

Dolly shrieks, thrashes, as her torso simulates crumpling underneath the merciless, relentless hand of Jacinta Niares. Nothing she has done with her goddess has been this painful. And as plating ruptures and systems give way, her connection to Jade frays and what comes through her burning hand is fragments of divinity, the experiences of her goddess unfolding in her skull, the impossible things that have happened on the other side of existence where all the ancestors go, her fangs vibrating, reduced down to a skeleton that the bandit-and-pirate gods hang on a tree, drowning in the rivers that challenge even the gods when they go down into the deepest mystery of Hybrasil, cognitovenom blossoming over her skin.

And then the pressure lifts, though she can't see through the tears. Her throat is raw and her mouth is empty and her chains lie slack. Jade is screaming, howling, in mourning as the jackal crumples away beneath the weight of a dark star, firing blindly until its guns crunch and crumble away. But for a moment, there is relief from the agony. For a moment, she can feel her goddess's hand still on her arm, which is burning pitch and she will be a skeleton, too, down there in the underworld they will be sign and signified. And in the underworld the spirit of the jackal, which is something like a real jackal, because even machines can dream if they are loved, will burn as a sacrifice to Smokeless Jade Fires.

And Jade hurts to see her jackal-drone destroyed on her behalf, so much that it is like broken glass in her lungs, and that is why Seven Quetzal raises her burning hand in greeting and defiance. Everything that Jade has left pours into that hand, the final generators about to pop, and something more, something that both of them know is divine.

For the first time, a choked, tearful, tiny voice rasps out of the speakers of the idol.

"nehuantil, you bitch."

[Both together,] the goddess and the high priestess drive a lance of starlight (ion) through (into) the terrible hand and the arm which carries it and the cockpit where Jacinta Niares sits.

The arm flops down onto her chest, the fires slowly banking. Dolly sags inside of her cockpit, the overlay of the temple gone.

"I'll be here," she promises, unsure whether she's still broadcasting. "You can find your way back out because I'm here, Jade. Out of the dark, and, and the dead, and over the rivers, and..." Her eyes are closed. They hurt too much to stay open. "...you'll come back for me. I know you will. I. I love you, too."

She wants to flop over and cry until Nine Forests lifts her out of the cockpit. But instead she forces herself to her feet, onto a pelvis which feels like it's going to give way any moment, bunches her hand into a fist, and, with a raw howl that surprises herself coming out of her throat, punches the ion-lockedThe Roar in the face as hard as she can. tlacpac, nehuintlani; in the black forests of the underworld, with a love-choked howl, the Bride-Blessed Star punches Mu Ysha in the face as hard as she can.

[Last Harmony, -String, 10 flat on Fight.]

She sets down upon the Stormlands of Roevg.

Once she had to crawl against the howling wind. Now, with the Aeteline, she stands tall. She never experienced such might before. She never -

... She did. She must have. She Walked the Mountain. With... with nothing more than her mortal strength she fought a God. She climbed its legs, arm over arm, muscles burning, heart pounding, head dizzy with adrenaline. It had felt like everything. When it had turned and almost threw her she'd seen death and when her grip held strong despite that she'd laughed like the devil. When she'd stalled out of charge halfway up and needed to press herself against a heat sink to recover she'd nestled against it like an infant. It had been beautiful. She'd chosen it from amongst all the Gods because she'd thought it had been the most beautiful of them -

An irrelevant memory. A precursor to the Aeteline, a means to become her true self and nothing more. What was some godbeast of the natural world compared to she as she was now? Already she could sense the wild machines all about her, cowering away like wolves from a flaming torch. She was the greatest hunter, the hunter of huntresses, and these mindless machines would give her their strength -

... The Sunhorn. That was what it had been called. Her first god. She had welcomed her in. She had left her to struggle against her. She was like a deer, a vast, mechanical deer with antlers that could channel the power of the sun. She had morphed to a bipedal shape so that she could swing with her sword but the true speed, the true adaptability was in that animal form. The Sunhorn had asked so much of her. It had asked her to explore it. Asked her to understand it. Asked her to learn its secrets that she might get the most out of it -

A wretched way to fight. To pursue a stag without knowing if there was purpose. Why fight using an unconventional blade? It cost so much more time and capped out lower than perfection with the standard. Time spent exploring a blind alley could have been spent perfecting her true self. That was the truth below all of the dance of mechanized combat: just fight normally. Every step from the standard was a step away from power.

But I almost lost to -

Almost! Almost! Irrelevant! Why fixate for years on an almost! If you had been with me all that time we would have eclipsed everything!

Aren't we the same?

...

We are the same.

...

Target identified. Hunt commencing.

There's times, where the motions are so precise, yet sequenced. When they flow together just as they are meant to. Where you and your opponent move in tandem through the steps. And when the beat of your heart guides the tempo.

Where limbs and hands swing in time to the unheard music and there are only the two of you. In motion. Forward and back. Pull apart then come together.

Like ... dancing ... yes, that's how it is.

Isabelle loses herself in the rhythm for just a while. The hum of the electronics, the bass of the engines, the treble timbre of swords on steel. The pace picks up - Allegro. And, it's with the faintest of resistance that Isabelle completes her turn. The Emberlight coming to a rest with a flourish of a non-existent skirt.

Silence reigns briefly as Isabelle's mind emerges from the flow-state that had been the battle. Taking into account Kiriala's words. The state of her mech and the battlefield all around them.

Eventually, she remembers she's meant to reply. Probably something humble, or demurring from the compl-.

"... Damn right it was!"

Huh, I guess the adrenaline is still kicking in. Oh yeah, there is goes. Hands shaking a little.

"Now come on." she says, taking a steadying breath and moving to keep the Ginger Tiger from toppling over.

"Let's get you back to the hangar. You've got repairs to do and a shuttle to catch."

Solarel

The gods cower, and the swift ones flee. The slowest one is a half-crab, its transformation into an evolutionarily perfect form not yet complete. It walks on four legs, evenly spread, and it is heavy and lumbering, needing at least three on the ground to maintain its weight and balance at all times. You must take care in approaching it directly given its weight, but there are a hundred thousand options for an effective approach against such a creature situated as you are in the Aetline.

You can understand how a design like this might come to be though. The creature clambers and metal clanks as it moves over rocky terrain and you can see how the additional legs add support to a heavier chassis in uneven terrain. A typical design, especially absent particularly strong thrusters, might struggle on the rocks and with the wind, but this is relatively immune to the contours of its environment. A few more decades and it would turn its weight into pincers and begin to prey on its own lessers.

If you take it, of course, it will not have the time. Unless you’d rather leave it for speedier game?

***

Dolly

It is more than Nine Forests who greets you. More than Silver Ripples, and Six Stones, though the latter for once wears a face that has not trace of laughter. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius is the one who lifts you from the cockpit once the idol straggles into the Hangar with help. She is holding a glass of something fizzy and sweet that she places in your hands. It is strong and fortifying and makes your head spin at the same time when you take a sip.

The hangar break room dedicated to your cult is already decorated: the bright fabrics from the pirates’ offering have, in the intervening time, been cut into blankets and draped about the space and there are streamers and party decorations that the crew has been gathering to celebrate. Ksharta is just finishing laying out some plates of lightly seared meat, a small blowtorch in her hand to do the finish right there at the table.

Angela lifts “To dual victories for the goddess!” she cries, a grin on her face, and around her the collective room bursts into a cheer.

Jade

You escort the jackal to the intersection of the great tree, and there it meets Kachtenkirya who gives it her special wine to lap up and Mu Ysha who hangs it about with garlands. She bows with all six of her weapons stowed. Yet you are left with the thought that she never yielded. She met defeat but not surrender and rage was her companion. What freedom do you see in roaring so proudly that you refuse reality?

***

Mirror

Maelia takes a deep breath. Lets it out. She couldn’t talk during the last move. She had screamed “fire fire, get her get her get her” over and over, deeply into the moment, tail wagging beside you with full abandon.

Then she blinks and yawns. “That was…wow, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. That match was intense.” She grins and shakes her head, trying to shake off the stress. Looks like she might fall asleep if she sits still too long. “You seemed really into it, but maybe too…nervous.” She glances, nervous herself, at the claws you’ve bitten, at the blood you wiped off. “You don’t have to cast any more matches, this is just something of a tradition for the first round because of the seeded slots I guess. I’m not sure, this is only the second time I’ve done it, I was in [goddess chakram made of suns] nebula before that.”

She gives an awkward shrug. “Well, it’s not my place to judge how you do on commentating a match anyway. I just…well you knew I was staring so I thought I should say something instead of just pretending I wasn’t thinking anything at all. I’d do it again with you, for what it’s worth. You matched the type of commentary I like to do really well. I think people learned a lot from this back home. Well…anyway, the goddess’s crew let it be known that they were planning a victory party for this round if she won, something about a capstone for all the pirates. We’re invited if you want to go.”

***

Isabelle

“Shantri will keep, especially after she sees this match.” There’s a grin in Kiriala’s voice.

“Besides, I already made a promise for the moment to join Mirror’s crew and she’s counting on all of us, you included to help finish out this tournament. Though you’ve got to fight the champion Zaldarian first, right? She won the tournament a couple back so don’t take her lightly.”

There’s an invitation there, if you want it. To go celebrate with Kiriala, to go find Mirror and celebrate with the Hybrasilians more generally. It’s on offer if you want it, or you may want to go back to the hangar and your own more private celebration. Or perhaps you’d like to check in with your mother. She has been oddly distant and while that has given you space to breathe, it’s also pretty worrisome in its own way, right?

Mirror sighs, and sighs, and keeps sighing. The sound she makes is not something a cat should be able to produce, unless she was filled with air that was just now leaking out of her through a puncture hole. As she sighs, her body grows limper and more slack, further accentuating the accuracy of the metaphor until, forced to breathe in again at last, she simply stares up at the ceiling with her spine bent at an impossible and painful angle around her variously stained and soaked chair.

"Impossible," she mutters, "This is impossible."

But the look on her face says Contentment. Relaxation. Peace. With the fight over there is no more struggle inherent to just existing. Her fingers don't twitch or tense, but just smoothly massage her cheeks. Her arms do not strain, but contentedly roll in circles as she goes. Her spine is bent at this unnatural angle, yes, but she makes no signs of moving nor does she show any signs of discomfort. Her body has simply transmuted into liquid in the absence of any tension that had compressed her into a living being. Her tail drips across the floor behind her.

With one last hiss of effort she kicks herself back up onto her feet. She marches straight to the commentator's snack bar and raids several bottles from the cooler before she starts moving toward the door. Water and juice and fizzy drinks, she seems to have grabbed them all at random. She fumbles with a cap while trying to hold the rest in her arms, and sips with gleeful abandon.

"It is just..." she falters, physically looking around the room for the word she wants, "Difficult. More than anticipated. To watch a fight I was not part of. I cannot tolerate it. The mistakes they both made. How they were different from my mistakes. Finding words for it all. Without your voice for a beacon I would not have been able to speak. In that sense I agree we are a compatible team. Here."

Mirror nudges a bottle of cream and fruit nectar out from under her elbow toward Maelia. She is unbothered if the other cat does not accept it, and less bothered than that if she instead picks something else from inside the bundle she is carrying away from the room now. She glides down the hallway with the practiced ease of someone who's crossed through it a hundred times already, even turning backwards to face her co-commentator with a smile.

"Curious that Dala Hunters would throw a party. More curious that she would invite us. It is intriguing. I am going to follow this mystery and see where it leads. I have words I would like to trade with her in any case. You are likely not aware, but I have piloted her mecha. Her Goddess. Prior to today. Briefly. At any rate. So I do feel a sense of connection. I hope my bias was not apparent?"

An abject lesson. This creature was weak because of its distance from perfection. It only took a glance to see where it was going; it took only a little pattern recognition to see where its path would end. The logic of each choice inevitably pushed it into the next one. The chain of decisions lead inevitably back towards the crab. Every hour it spent as its own creature was an hour wasted and when it fought its competitor crabs they would kill it with experience. That is -

- Tragic?

Inevitable.

There was no progress on Roevg, in Zaldar. All of science had existed in the palm of some great hand, and then it had been turned loose upon itself. The Consortium looked forwards to next year's designs, next year's products, but on Roevg the gods would arise when lightning struck the mountains and civilization cowered in their shadows. It had been a world stuck in time forever, a broken mechanical species as doomed as the protocrab to never escape its evolutionary niche. It had triumphed over the dynamism of Hybrasil because while they formed their contradictory, exploratory clans, their clash of different visions, the Zaldarians had fought using tactics honed for centuries -

- And the Aeteline.

...

Which was new. Manufactured in the Imperial Forge, a crowning glory of the Evercity. A brand new creation that -

- An ancient curse. When the creators of the Zaldarians went to war they did not do so with a circus of half-tamed godbeasts, they made reflections of themselves on macro scale. They were their own gods. It was a return to ancient tradition that granted true strength, the warfare of the creators -

- Did they win their war?

...

- Did they predate the sage Zaldar?

Request tactical assessment of situation.

The Aeteline would be best served by a medium chassis replacement matching the functions for which it is optimized. Such a limb is not guaranteed to exist in this environment; matching weight classes are likely to be digitgrade or other incompatable structural arrangements. Advise harvesting the protocrab due to convenience, using excess time to allow automated systems to partially integrate the limb, then leverage that into harvesting a more appropriate limb from our next round opponent.

Commencing takedown.

The invitation catches Isabelle by surprise. After all, what would Kiriala really have to celebrate given her defeat and exit from the tournament? And, moreover, why invite the person who defeated her? It didn't make sense.

Isabelle probably should have declined and, as recently as a few weeks ago she would have. Now though, she thought she recognised her mother's voice in those questions and it gave her pause.

Stop. Reset. Take a fresh look.

What had her interactions with Kiriala and Mirror's crew been like to date? Supportive? Cordial? Not antagonistic. Not ... well, Mirror had wanted something from her, but hadn't hidden that behind other requests or maneuvers. She hadn't come at her sideways, she'd asked.

Even though she hadn't told her everything about what the broadcast was meant to include or do - she had stated her objectives pretty plainly. They were things Isabelle could empathise with, and see right to support.

That said, she found it hard to think of anything that actually supported trusting Mirror - not yet. Maybe if she came through on her promise it'd be different. On the other hand, she had no specific reason to avoid her either.

Data inconclusive. Other perspectives?

Ultimately, their interactions had been interesting. Which was a damn slight better than most other interactions within her regular circles. They promised things. Things Isabelle had hoped for, but at a layer so deep she hadn't known until they'd spoken the words out loud for her to recognise.

Still, it would be wrong to leave her own crew - her real crew - Asil, Tomas, Rosalinda - in the lurch.

Maybe some way to achieve both objectives?

"I'd love to come, although I think my own team will likely want to do something together too after today. Would it be alright if I brought them?" she asks. "Completely understand if you don't know or can't fit us all in."

The party starts by lighting candles. Dolly insists. Frazzled, fortified, her hair a mess, she steals the blowtorch and turns it to the careful task of lighting candles before the altar. Little bits of magic and mystery in a universe that is full of them. The closest thing to having little stars brought down to earth. Candles and a little whispered prayer of thanks.

Then someone gets the footage of the fight up and running, and she's bouyed up by her friends and her goddess's cult and the drink in her hand, which fizzes, which is a lovely pale green, sort of like this lichen that she knows, it's a mountain lichen, it grows on tree roots and there's a sort of symbiotic relationship, Angela, it protects pine tree roots from the wind and the merciless sunlight and in return the lichen drinks up a little bit of life through the roots like through a straw, Angela, like this, sssssllllppp, and one day she's going to take you back to Hybrasil and show you, up on the mountains, the lichen that this drink is like, and Jade will be with us, too, she's coming right back, Angela, I lit candles and that's magic. She'll see the candles and she'll guide by them and she'll be right back with us, you'll see.

(This party feels like something that is happening to someone who happens to be Dolly. She veers between awareness of her body as the drink starts going to her head and feeling like she's watching herself from the eyes of the battered, broken idol, which needs a name, Jade jumped into this whole thing without ever giving it a name because it was just an extension of her own body, but it's, like, both their bodies, and a secret third thing, and it needs a name. She'll think of a name later. Or she'll ask Jade, once she's back. Look at this sillyhead, nuzzling into Angela's arms and melting with the relief that she's still not alone even when Jade's... walking. That there's light, and friends, and people all around her, and they won, they won, they beat the Red Band, she hides her face in one hand and starts madly giggling, tail lashing, so close to the crash, but Ksharta's there with a plate of, ooooh, shrimp, and she starts stuffing her face with the shrimp, sucking them right out of the crispy shell, gesturing with them as she tries to explain to Nine Forests how she wants constellations painted on the, the, the Confambulation, no, that's not the right name, but constellations and rivers on her legs, the underworld rivers, the scorpions and the crystalthinks and the dark water, to show that they're wading through, and wasn't that the kind of fight where new paint's needed, anyway? Where it's gone from one thing to another. Where it's a new being. Where they're new and weak-legged and shining.)

---

It is the freedom of gods. It is the freedom of self. It is the freedom of the howl of I Am. The rites cool the anger of the foam-mad goddess, and when she is given wine, she finally accepts. She speaks blessings over the spirit of the jackal and runs with it, through the black trees and the soft earth, in the deep womb of Hybrasil, and she knows that the freedom of defiance is a wonderful and a terrible freedom.

And it is one of the roads that unfolds before her in potential: the blue road. The road of piracy and terrible star-flashing freedom. There are other roads, too: the road of service to Hybrasil and a temple built with deep foundations upon her surface, or the road of kingdom-founding, roving until she finds a new garden-world to gift to her bride as a jewel in her crown, and another sister to Hybrasil herself. But she does not have to choose a road yet.

Not when there are candles shining on her red road, and the sound of revels, and her Dolly's laughter. Not when she has yet to prove herself the mightiest of all gods, or at least the most determined. Not when she still has to brush Dolly's hair and reassure her that she did well, and not when she still has to think about the perils of the contest.

Not when she still has to test herself against a God-Taming Hero.

Solarel

The Aeteline, a manufactured machine, does not know the thrill of the hunt. But you do. Even here. Even against a crab not fully evolved. Even though it is slow. Even though it is vulnerable. No matter what, part of you knows that this is still a god. Part of you knows that if you stood upon the ground with your own two feet, you would struggle to stand against the shuddering of the rocks as it stomped past. Part of you remembers that ascending it would take the better part of a day without assistance, and even that only if you could have managed not to take a lethal tumble should the beast have gyrated the wrong way on uneven terrain.

In the Aeteline, it is a matter of moments. The proto-crab is heavy enough you can’t simply walk in and take the leg, but you can circle it easily, identify several structural weak points, disable its motion, and then walk in and take what you want. And even still, you have completed the hunt.

The attachment structures are fundamentally the same between crab and Aeteline. In this, you can thank the quirks of mechanical standardization, no matter the ages of drift. Nanobot attachments are a thing that can be optimized. There is a right answer, multiple independent sources concluded on it thousands of years prior, and that was that. Mechanical evolution does not follow the same processes as biological evolution and mechanical experimentation does not involve trying out thirty mutations of the simplest possible connecting structure only to throw out twenty nine in the way biology might.

The integrated leg feels unavoidably like a prosthetic though. Its own internal joints are not the bipedal joints of the Aeteline. They easily support your weight, but they don’t bend the way that you bend and so it feels less like moving your own leg and instead like a separate contraption that has its own set of movements that can be observed and correlated with the movements of your leg.

Some amount of practice may be in order.

***

Dolly, Mirror, Isabelle, and assorted guests

It’s not a raucous party like the fashion show turned into by the end of the night, nor an elegant affair like the Crystal Gala. Instead, the celebration for the Goddess Smokeless Jade Fires sees her high priestess sprawled languidly on the couch, fizzy drink in hand, staring fixedly at a series of candles on the table.

There are candles everywhere now, lit by the crew and by each guest as part of their entry, and the lounge glows in ancient firelight. Someone had the good sense to turn the lights off, giving it that strong goddess cult vibe.

But it’s a goddess cult with a couple of big comfortable couches that can seat ten if they get snug and a fridge with a light that keeps coming on as people get out more drinks that reminds everyone that it’s still a Hangar lounge. The Hybrasilians around Dolly are giddy. There’s a TV in one corner (far from Dolly) where some of the girls are freeze-framing the match for highlights. And in the rest of the room, the cult and believers (and Angela) are chattering in small groups, sipping drinks and eating snacks and relaxing. Ksharta is the only person who seems high energy at the moment, and that because she’s zipping back and forth from the little kitchen constantly bringing out new snacks and checking multiple pots that she’s got running.

It’s a chance to relax and pass an evening that was full of all sorts of stress. Tell us how you pass the time at the party, what you enjoy, what you discuss and with whom.

Jade

When do you join the party, and how?