[i]Overwhelming force. Expected result. Dual purpose of expending overload of energy and shaping the battlefield in her favour. Emberlight isn't fast enough to outrun her, not for long.[/i]

[i]Good thing I don't need to outrun her for long. Her mistake was relying on melee, when that has always been her preferred tactic. Inflexible. Predictable.[/i]

Riding a wave through the battlefield was, admittedly, pretty cool. But Marna was still sticking to the traditional Zaldarian playbook. Take the strike, internalise the energy, send it back at your opponent. Repeat when the opponent does the same. Or deflects it and attacks with their own reserves. The winner determined through the art of energy management and discipline over their own physiology.

As someone looking in from the outside, she couldn't help but notice just how much that unique physiology shaped so many of their social and mental mores.

Nonetheless - it was something she intended to exploit. Not all of the munitions she'd scattered around the debris field were meant to explode. Not all of them were meant to be so easily destroyed.

Some, several, in fact, were little more than electronics wrapped in smart cable - burrs, hidden in the foliage of metal and destroyed wrecks. The kind that might snag on when a mech passed by or - more specifically - smashed through the debris on which it was attached. The kind that sticks. The kind that [i]drains.[/i]

[i]Eat well. Eat fast. Pull more from her than she's planning to give, until her muscles and mind start feeling sluggish ...

... Time for Phase Two.[/i]

Several drones split off, each group arcing away from Isabelle - each one projecting a likeness of the Emberlight across visible and thermal bands. With each battle and week that passed, the technology she'd first debuted at the gala was becoming more refined. More complex. More real. Hopefully, they were now up to the task of properly distracting Marna - taking the heat off the Emberlight.

And giving her the opening she needs.

[Rolling to fight: 4 + 1 + 2 = [b]7[/b]. Taking away the energy from Marna's attack. Inflicting another condition.]