> Fucking finally
> What is it with you people?
> Do you think I fought my way across the galaxy and through every round of this tournament so that I could fight you while you were holding back?
> Your huntresses have created a toxic off meta of people fighting wrong on purpose and then getting outraged when someone does it right.
> As though I know what a traditional match means for you. As though it was written into the tournament rules. As though training your students to pretend that area denial wasn't a real strategy helped them. As though heat management concerns were not core to both Zaldarian biology and divine combat.
> And now that I've finally crossed enough lines for you to start fighting me for real, now that I've finally killed enough Krillins for you to go Super Saiyan, what's your ultimate move?
> An attritional slugfest where you engage in a rangeband of my choosing, with weapons of my choosing, under visual conditions of my choosing, expending orders of magnitude more energy than me just to survive.
> You've got no idea what respect is.
> Respect is moving like your opponent is going to fight perfectly.

[Who's The Monster? 10, taking a string, imposing a condition]

"I. Wh-what?"

Audible confusion. Request for video communication, cockpit to cockpit. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Spam request additional twenty six times.

The Gods-Smiting Whip is still. Its sword arm lowers, while four of its ever present tails hover and flit about its shoulders. One in particular keeps darting lower, circling the mecha's waist. They are the only parts of the machine that move. This is not a neutral stance, no clever battle trick from which a thousand hidden techniques might spring. She is simply...

Standing. Off balance, at that.

"Do you not? You. No. You must. Mustn't you? You... surely you. You do know this tournament offers a prize, right? What, are you one of those 'All For the Motherland' types? Or do you mean to tell me that. You really. You came all this way. You fought through a black hole for... for fun?"

Silence, followed by choking. Reluctance, the sound pulled from her unwillingly. A cough, a groan, and then laughter. Not hollow laughter: strained chuckles that war with dignity and self seriousness and then cry out with ever increasing waves of mirth when it triumphs. Mildly condescending. Deeply amused.

"You came here believing a Fisher cat would come here to, to play games! Wearing the colors of Hybrasil, of all things! I, hahahahahahaha, I do not! I cannot! Ahaha! Is that impudence or innocence? No matter, let me take you to school, Little Goddess and her Dolly. The winner of this tournament is granted a wish. That is to say, the greatest pilot is granted any one thing they desire that is within the combined powers of the [Three Great Mothers] to give. My price is so high that nominal control of the galaxy might not even seem worth it to the ones who will pay it. Yours... mm. High Command must have struggled to speak through all of their purring when you turned up."

A sigh. No signs of movement from Ninetails. Request for video linkup withdrawn. Withdrawn. Withdrawn. Repeat.

"That is enough. I have no more words for kittens playing their first game of pounce. If you wish to speak as adults, then first become one."

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.

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.

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 drains.

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.

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 = 7. Taking away the energy from Marna's attack. Inflicting another condition.]

"Kittens?"

The sudden flash of the spear pierces one of the tails through its engine. Even furious, Smokeless Jade Fires knows better than to try and go for the kill; the punishment would be immediate. Even here, seeking to dismantle the tails one by one, to peel back the defenses of the Fisher, Dolly's footwork is frantic.

"How dare you mock my recent birth?! Impudent, disgraceful little thing!" A low swing, an attempt to throw Mira off-balance long enough to harpoon another tail, or best of all to trick her into firing on herself. "You are infuriating! So smug, so teasing, thinking that you are better than me because you have nothing to prove!"

"What is your wish?" Video linkup accepted. The headband of her ornate headdress is over her eyes, cloth draped around the hollow of her neck, lines of vibrant cobalt the net that she is hopelessly caught in. False but more real than real, a look offered at the bride of the goddess and how she fights, or rather, does not fight. In her hands, the lance is a long dancer's pole garlanded in sashes. She is bare-chested, adorned in gold, unable to reveal fluster without the use of her ears or tail. "All we need is... all I want is for everyone to see her for who she is."

"And everyone will see Dolly wreathed in my glory when we overcome you, and the Zaldarian, and everyone will have to admit that the goddess born from stone is more than an accident of weave-programming!" For a moment, she is visible behind Dolly, teeth and eyes and claws in multitude, a sudden shock of blue jade fire. She vaults, kicks one tail into another's flight path.

"We do owe you, Whispered Promise," Dolly says, her skirt settling as she lands, braids wild about her shoulders, already moving into the position demanded by the pull of her goddess's strings. "If you apologize, we can, I can... we do still owe you. I don't want to crush your dreams."

"For your rudeness! For distressing my wife! For treating the hunt and the contest like a puzzle to be solved and passed through untouched! All of it, [God-Wrestling Trickster]!"

Dolly leaps, and twists in midair, and her feet fly at the screen as their idol kicks the Gods-Smiting Whip in the chest- and does this force the One-Day Defender to stumble back into a hidden mine, or is this exactly where Mira wanted them?

[8 to Fight. Take a String, seize a superior position, if you please.]

Solarel

“I…”

There’s a real hesitation from Maelia. She’s really thinking about that. About what it means to fight and win, what it means to respect someone, what it means to respect an alien. Maelia Dala, of all Hybrasilians save perhaps Mirror herself, has thought about this question intensely. Working at the forefront of unexplored space, as she has, she’s thought about all sorts of life-forms. In her mind’s eye have danced great space vampires that might feed off the heat of ships. Vast energy beings whose consciousness, unmoored by a stable physical point, might barely be recognizable to the bipeds of the galaxy in their metal shells. Has she forgotten what it means to see someone similar to you, but fundamentally different?

[Maelia adds insecure to her guilty.]

“...no. Fuck you.”

Then the moment passes. Or no, it’s not passed, it’s turning into fire for her. She tweaks some settings and turns up her power, forward shields eating your latest shot as she sends out rapid fire shotgun attacks from above you, too frequent and wide to entirely avoid. It doesn’t matter if she has to take hits to get there, she’s pushing double the energy that you are somehow. The air around the Supernova shimmers with its own pulsating energy. It reminds you of the feeling of being hooked with the Aeteline’s drive if you can imagine that being external to you.

“So high and mighty. But you don’t get to tell me what respect is and you do not get to tell me who’s got the superior technology. You think the state of the art stands still? You think I just sit on what I had, that the same things that won you the war will last you forever? You may be a demon, but I took my time to prepare my god in response!”

She’s attacking with overwhelming force, without regard to any damage she takes short of being knocked out. It’s a strain even to the Aeteline: if you stay in this position, she will overwhelm your defenses and disable your mecha before you exhaust hers.

***

Isabelle

You can blunt but not entirely stop an attack of this size. It’s an extraordinary move to do even that much. What should have swallowed you whole instead gives you space to swim, and by the time Marna herself reaches you, she has overstretched, forcing her to withdraw into the cover and focus on purifying her own mecha. This was, after all, an attack where merely weathering it put you at an advantage.

[Marna adds hopeless to angry]

“Listen carefully, Terenian.” Her voice is tired over the intercom. You know that’s an opportunity and she’s tipping her hand by speaking in this state, but that’s not the point for her. “You’ve shown you have the skill to plan a fight. That’s Solarel, that’s a piece of her. She thinks she’s different from the schemers of the Capital, but she’s never understood the border raiders either.”

She laughs, coughs slightly. “None of that made any sense to you, huh? Just listen. There’s a lot of ways to win these fights. But none of them are foolproof. You plan a good fight? You’ll eventually get a battlefield where you can’t prep. Just imagine how this would have gone if our entry locations had been right next to each other instead of across this huge debris field. No, what’s important is that you’ve got a way to stay in the game even when things are down. Doesn’t matter if it’s doing what you’re good at even better or finding an alternative, but these big fights, you gotta plan for the fleet that shows up at your back.”

And that is when the slow split missiles that she had embedded in the quiet wake of the debris wave, the ones that avoid scanning without strong heat or special momentum, finally reach you and proximity detonate, shaking the Emberlight and setting your teeth rattling with the impacts.

[Take Frightened]

***

Mirror and Dolly

Glass shatters and metallic dust billows aside as you meet. Camera drones are circling, and the crowds are gasping as you close and meet at high speed.

***

Angela (epilogue)

“I’m going to have to completely readjust my loadout for the next fight now. Thanks for that.”

Marcina carries the entire Barn Owl slung over a shoulder back to the Hangar entryway. You imagine that this is how Dolly felt when you were holding her like this. The proportions are very similar and you can feel the pressure on your stomach through the neural mesh where she’s positioned you to take the weight off your ribs.

She doesn’t sound sarcastic when she speaks either. It’s a sarcastic statement, she’s obviously trying to joke. But you know sarcasm and there’s no weird alien physiology things happening to get in the way of reading her either. She sounds genuinely appreciative.

“This is good. I didn’t think I needed to make changes from my setup last tournament, I had my focus on understanding my opponents and how I could beat them with the setup I had. Comfort and overall strength. But you exposed an obvious flaw with very little firepower. If you’d added a feint planned into that maneuver…hmm, well, no actually looking over the g-forces involved, if you’d gone any less than all out, I’d have been able to get clear without losing my sword. You needed something like a point-blank grenade I think, an immediate follow-up that would have blown us back apart with further damage despite the force we were both closing at. Then you’d have had the advantage at range against me with many more points of attack open to you. Well…doesn’t matter, anyone with half a brain’s going to pick that up after this fight, so I’ll need to make adjustments. Maybe a smaller blade with a holster so I can swap it with a rifle at will.”

Her attention was obviously drifting there, but she turns it back to you. “Great work, great match. Thank you!”

"Confirmation of impact, Tail 2 marked inoperable. Rerouting. Rerouting. Nine Drive System... fully operational."

The camera only captures her face. Even still there are clues for someone with eyes to see them. Her face is lit up at angles that would be nonsensical in a standard cockpit, and there are no signs of a simulated environment like the ones that Jade creates for Dolly. Her body does not react in time with her mecha; her barely visible shoulders seem to indicate constant, very small motions that have no possible way of corresponding with the Gods-Smiting Whip. Her inscrutable eyes flick up and down at many somethings beneath her field of vision as often or more as she bothers attempting to watch through her own cameras.

She flashes the tiniest of one-fanged smirks at the follow up attack. She steps forward into the low sweeping spear so that she is able to catch it with her knee before it interrupts her pathing or the basic routing choices available to her. As she lifts, Tail 7 floats into position above her and fires a full power blast down through the space currently occupied by her own neck.

Her mecha twists in a direction that would sever her own spine if she attempted the motion physically. Nine-Tails slides away from its own gambit and merely scorches the paint job on its own shoulder en route to incinerating the tip of the spear. Even as that is happening, Tail 1 flies down into the blast zone and projects a shield that catches the main impact of the blast. The resulting light screen obligates the separation of the fighters.

Whispered Promise watches Dolly respectfully. The state of her dress is noted but deemed unworthy of commentary or reaction. Only the fight has her focus. Only the sequence unfolding in front of her finds purchase in her mind. She returns to a neutral stance, and waits once more for the next assault. When the Idol of Smokeless Jade Fires catches her with a kick across the chest, she staggers but turns the motion into a sideways step that returns the momentum to her opponent. Her free hand rises and catches Dolly by the ankle.

"I am amused."

Another spine shattering pivot. The Gods-Smiting Whip reverses momentum and steps into the direction of Dolly's kick, now moving in a circle and using the force of her thrusters to whip the pair of them about in a cyclone. Her release point is aimed at the base of the skyscraper she destroyed to mark her position in the first place. Another full burn in place catches a mine behind her: two tails zip to her back and form a shield that sees her ride the momentum forward.

"At your audacity."

She hurls her broadsword as if it were a javelin, directly at the Idol's head. It is not a killing blow, but it still necessitates being turned aside by the Dancing Pole. The motion will necessarily reduce the possibility space of that weapon to a manageable number of scenarios, one that can be readily predicted and responded to at the near-reflex level. All that she requires is the ability to make an educated guess ahead of time. The Gods-Smiting Whip is already shooting forward into melee range to take advantage of the opening.

"You, who have never fought in a war."

She stops dead in her tracks before she even comes into range. The ridiculousness of the g-forces she must have just exerted on her body stagger belief. But the Whip is poised and in perfect battle position. The damaged Tail 2 sits on its shoulder, while Tails 1 and 7 flit about her body as they have since the start of the fight.

The blade is parried. Tail 5 reveals itself in the shadow of the attack, now directly in front of Jade and Dolly. One, two, three, four, the shots travel up the left knee, into the hip, the accompanying wrist, and then the elbow. The tail darts under the counterattack and spins around on a needle, returning to its original position and firing a fifth blast to knock the sword up off the ground and send it spiraling into the air.

This is not the behavior of a drone. This degree of manipulation is not possible if Mirror is reliant on some kind of Pattern to calculate vectors or control any of these pieces for her. She is maneuvering her tails like limbs that were attached to her at the same time as she puts her real body through torturous positions and under extreme duress. But she is already stepping into position for a new attack, and her face frowns in the delight of a puzzle as her eyes dart ever more rapidly to take in everything that she needs to continue this absurd assault.

"Mock my technique, mock my philosophy, demand apology in recompense for services already owed. And you say that I'm the rude one? Mmmm. Nine Drive System, Single Tail. The First Form: Moonlight Shadow. I have changed my mind, little kittens. You are naughtier than I have words for, and I will have to give you your spankings."

She cracks her neck in one direction, then the other. The Whip does not mirror her at all. This, then, is the source of her boasts. There are many Hybrasillians who model their mecha after goddesses, who worship a patron and turn their iconography into a source of strength. There is only one in all the galaxy who pits herself against all those goddesses at once. When the Zaldarian smith Trosta called her her own god she did not flinch from the label.

And that cat's eyes are shimmering with unlooked-for glee. Her purr is quiet, but contented.

(the responding Fight: 12. Taking her own string, establishing a different superior position, and creating an opportunity for her Tails)

She still struggled with the concept of 'technology'.

There was no direct translation in any Zaldarian language, the closest it came out to was 'god-blessing' but the way Hybrasilians used the word was loaded with so much more context and meaning. It was, in their world, possible to make things... better than they were before? Like, the same, but more. It felt like a nonsense concept from a primitive civilization. The Crystal Fire Drive was the core of divine strength. Presuming it wasn't damaged it would produce a set output. Any more output was impossible. All artifice was simply redistributing that mighty, but limited strength in different and cunning ways.

Even the wild gods of the Stormlands were not inferior to the Aeteline, they were specialized for different things. Even the blocky titans of the Consortium were her peers. Even the humble Bezorel. They all had the same drive and the same divine strength. Where the difference lay was that their connection to the spirit world was so weak that they had to labour with their hands rather than petition the divine for certain weapon configurations. She dimly understood the concept that they might sometimes stumble onto a new obscure ability through their grindingly slow engineering processes, but that was more a triumph of tactical imagination rather than new knowledge.

The Aeteline was the superior warrior because it best fit the shape of warfare itself. All the Gods of Zaldar had once worn its shape during their great time of war. Only in the peace did they deviate. That was all.

So when the Supernova starts to burn beyond its limits it's as though the Wind Devil herself had come down from her arctic throne. The Aeteline panics and hard burns a retreat through the burning forest, deploying smokescreens to cover her sprinting escape. The only thing she can think in that moment is that this must be a core overload, that in a matter of seconds the Supernova will explode and be gone. Nothing else makes sense.

[Defy Disaster: 3]

What!? This is impossible! How are you doing this?! I am invincible! Curses! Curse you and curse your entire clan! I will have my revenge!!

To her credit, Smokeless Jade Fires says none of these things. She is young enough, enough of a kitten, to be able to accept when something is impossible, and then to see how it is done anyway. Her divinity is not calcified, and she can see the shape of Mirror's movements in her cognition.

"No," Dolly says, and her voice is small. "We never had to fight in the war. This is as close as we can come, and I hope-- I hope we never do. I tasted what it's like to fight for real, in that last match, and it's awful. This shouldn't be a war. And even having a wish at the end... no, I suppose that's why everyone else showed up. It would be awful if we took it from you or your opponents, wouldn't it? Even if we gave it away to second place, Jade..."

Then she hisses, because Jade can only do so much to shelter her from the feedback of an explosion rocking her hip, her breastbone, her ankle twisting. She nearly crumples under the precise fire of the tail, which is tracking her every movement before she makes it, because Whispered Promise knows what she's going to do before she does it.

"Even if I would let you lose, dearest one," Jade says, fierce pride for the both of them burning in her voice, as she whistles for the jackals to race down the alleyways, their one hope shattering the iron focus in those watery and pale eyes, "do you think I can lose to the likes of this trickster, my bride? This god-defying warrior? Who denies my offers, who lords her age over us, who... no! Push your buttons, pull your levers, but know that I will not submit so easily!"

For the sake of her goddess, Seven Quetzal throws herself into the punishment of tails without any complaint that manages to escape her well-trained lips, and for the sake of her bride, Smokeless Jade Fires desperately tries to find another impossible victory, another miracle that she can use to prove that she deserves Dolly's love.

Isabelle readies her strike, arm drawn back, preparing to end this. She's shown she has what it takes to win, to fight a Zaldarian and meet their attacks head on. But there is still so much she's yet to learn about Marna, about Zaldarian culture - even all the sessions with Quar have only begun to scrape the surface. Quar knows the Evercity, but the Evercity is not what she needs to know to beat Solarel.

What ... what if ... there is something in Marna's experience that might prove the key? What if the answers she seeks are just here?

Is it the fear of that knowledge being missed which stills her hand? Or something deeper that resists the finisher, even though that's everything she's been trained to do?

Or is it simple curiosity?

It's a risk stopping to talk, but she has to know. What if she misses out?

"Planning takes Tactics. Solarel lives tactics. But she also reacts. She reacts with the knowledge she's built, the experiences she has. Those are her great strength, but they are also limited." replies Isabelle.

"You've told me alot about Zaldarians, well let me tell you something about us Terenians. We're adaptable. We can change. We can learn and we learn fast." she continues. "Tell me, what Solarel doesn't know. Tell me about the border raiders."

"Help me have the chance to beat her in a way neither of us could alone."

[Roll to entice 3 + 3 + 2: 8 - Give me your wisdom, and by extension, your blessing]

Isabelle

“You know you might be throwing the match this way, right? Yeah, good. It would be stupid if you did it without knowing. But doing it while knowing…that’s good.”

She sends a signal for videoscreen, so you can see her directly. The image comes on, a very tall Zaldarian woman with drab grayish coloring that wouldn’t stand out in contrast to her personality. She’s smiling, and her head is tilted just a little.

“This is the kind of move that changes matches, and it’s not a dumb one. Sometimes you press your advantage and it’s exactly what your opponent expects and they’ve got an ion cannon lying in wait for it all along.”

“That’s how Solarel thinks because she fought in war, she was deployed to carry out the Empress’s will, win at all costs. There’s no trick or trap that’s beyond her and no reason to hold back from using them. Raiders are different.”

She flexes her shoulders up and rolls her neck, a motion lightly reflected in her mecha as it withdraws to a safe distance while she talks. This particular match has been a match of terrain and closing, and promises to remain as such as she recuperates.

“You have to think of us as playing a bigger game. We had holds with non-combatants at fixed locations, constantly being skirmished over in the border space. If I showed up and raised an entire colony to the ground because it made a good distraction to intercept a shipment I cared about, you Terenians would have escalated wildly in response to that. Every mecha for three jumps would have converged on me, maybe blown up my entire hold in response. So even if I got away personally, what would I get away to? It changes what’s possible when you’ve got something you’re protecting.”

She chuckles. “I’m pretty sure this translates, but tactics serve strategy. You know that sort of expression, right? You Terenians teach the same thing in your military schools that we Zaldarians teach from our graying elders in the wilderness. Our goal as raiders was to grow our holds: get enough resources for everyone, enough willing artisans and crafters and even farmers and builders to support the pilots, who protected them. Expand territory, eventually build up enough good people to go found a new hold in new territory. It’s how we leapt so quickly from Zaldaria to your borders, and the cats borders all at once. That’s not how the empress herself fights though, nor her great knights. And especially not a knight like Solarel, deployed so far ahead of everyone, all by herself in a newly manufactured machine of war. No constraints, no limits, no repercussions for her. Well…no repercussions until she lost the favor of the new empress and the old empress alike. Call it long-term repercussions. I wonder if she planned for that, planned for how her reputation would affect her life. I kind of doubt it, doesn’t seem like her style.”

“Do you know what she’s seeking now, though? I can tell you that. She wants Mirror, the Hybrasilian pilot. Wants to beat her, wants to capture her I think. You could tell from her big match with Mirror already, the one she lost. She hasn’t put anything near the resources she did for that match into anything else since. And there are stories about them among the Zaldarians, though they’re just rumors since she got banished and nobody ever got a proper account.”

She offers you a shrug. “I guess I didn’t really tell you how to beat her. But that’s what you have to consider. She’s not aiming at you or at me. She’s looking for the fastest, most efficient, tactically best way to get past us and get at her real target. If you want to beat her, use that against her.”

***

Solarel

She goes full burn chasing you, crashing through the smoke screens and doing her best to keep you in range, or just full burst after you. You race ahead of the fire, and stray lasers scorch the Aeteline, sending energy shuddering up your limbs.

[Take frightened]

Seconds pass as the chase continues, roaring past the edges of the fire and through the forest, laser blasts withering sections of trees and baking the earth. She does not explode in a massive core overload, but something is happening.

The Aeteline is shielding you, but whatever Maelia is doing, as she lowers her flight to chase you, it’s harming the arena. This was all built by nanobots, and where the supernova flies, it seems like they are breaking down in surprising ways. Parts of the terrain waver and shimmer. Animating geists within the system are being melted away and the laws of physics aren’t behaving properly, solids acting like liquids under forces that shouldn’t exist. There aren’t a lot of details because you’re both moving too fast, but she’s leaving a wake behind her and it’s tearing things up.

This is a little bit beyond you. The Zaldarians are much less known for their technological experimentation than the Hybrasilians or Terenians. But you understand that this is an effect of the drive. Of multiple drives. This, something like this, is the reason that multiple drives are not combined. It’s the reason that no manufacturing center, no god of any template is supposed to come out with multiple drives. The Aeteline was, as far as you were aware, the closest one could get, with as strong and direct an energy drive as could safely exist (and that arguable as to the safety).

By all rights, this ought to be happening to Maelia herself: she’s at the center of this energy, after all. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case, as she and the Supernova are maintaining the chase. She’s found some way to offload or counteract this problem, creating a zone of safety for herself. While that does mean that she is not experiencing core overload, there’s no way to know if this is simply a permanent state of her mecha, whether it has a time limit, or whether there’s some ongoing randomness to what she’s doing that could eventually catch up with her.

This does present a host of new tactical options. But even the sniper of the Kathresis who missed Akaithon’s head in the heat of battle by scant inches may want to have some care with this. If you manage to breach whatever protections she’s set for herself without stopping the drives, there’s a very real chance that Maelia could be killed.

***

Mirror, Jade, and Dolly

Your match is one of two getting major viewership at the moment, though you have no way of knowing this. Marcina has already won, and Isabelle has disengaged while the combatants speak. Solarel and Maelia are in a chaotic battlefield, and the two of you have engaged at close quarters, offering the most exciting moment to moment fight action. Everything is at high speeds and split seconds as you continue to press in melee and with point blank explosives.

Jackals are careening forward, ready to close the gap and assist their master as fast as they are able. Mines surround the position, and the whip, for all its power, is relatively locked in place, its range of safe movement limited to only a handful of vectors. There’s an opening to try and counter its assault with the jackals in play.

But those jackals are not as fast as the whip’s tails. Tail 2 is inoperable, but tails 1, 5, and 7 are active. And with this frenzied assault, tails 3 and 8 are ready to come online.

Ah. Well then. Chalk that emotional reaction up to piloting error. The solution was straightforwards. All she needed to do was breach the containment and -

Now that was a headache. Ouch. What was wrong with that? The enemy had committed to a gimmick strategy. A meme build. Something that looked impressive and unexpected but was in truth a simple tactical dead end as soon as it was understood. Simple weight of fire would be sufficient to breach the shield and cause an implosion. She had no obligation to defend the pilot from her own stupid -

This is a degenerate tactic. It is gamey. It is the same ritualization that made the Knights of the Evercity so weak, the Huntresses of Hybrasil so weak. When battles are to first blood then everyone forgets how to take a punch. This is a way to steal power while putting the onus on their opponent to not enable their suicide. There is no reason to play along -

I could destroy the tournament authorities in seconds if they dared -

I can win under this limitation. There is no doubt.

The Aeteline turned. It ignited its blade.

And it went for the throat.

Solarel and the Aeteline have long built a reputation for tactical precision and operational deception. They have deliberately concealed the fact that they can also, if required, fight a conventional battle to the same extremely high level as anyone else. It's her ultimate maneuver, to approach an opponent who is primed to see tricks behind every shadow and use the hesitation of that to execute a devastating conventional takedown. She had gone out of her way to avoid showing this throughout the tournament - it was the secret she was masking behind layer after layer of adaptive strategy and highly engineered takedowns. Here it was unleashed in a sudden blinding clash.

She supposed she did not need the secret any more. Mirror knew the full extent of her capabilities.

If battle was conversation, this was a monologue. There was no meaning in these strikes, no communication. Not externally. Everything she was saying with this she was saying only to herself.

[Fight: 10-2 from frightened. Inflicting a condition, taking a superior position]

"Do you understand why I lured you here to begin our battle?"

Mirror's voice is cool and silken, but her body is becoming more animated by the second. Without even spurring her Nine-Tails into action, the number of buttons she pushes in a second has close to doubled. The motion of her eyes has intensified until trying to watch her watch her equipment is nausea inducing. Her frown of concentration is deep and in constant whisker flickering motion. She is, in a word, excited. The full force of her piloting talents are about to come to the fore.

"It was for this moment."

She reaches the Gods-Smiting Whip's hand forward and snatches the spiraling sword out of the air. As its fingers close around the weapon, chaos breaks loose. Tails One, Five, and Seven all ignite at the same time, forming three hovering plasma blades that sweep the air in front of and behind her in large, sweeping waves as if she were surrounded by the bends of a brook, or else dancing in a whorl of petals made entirely of light. The artistry is nearly a match for the technical prowess of it all, though there is too much of brute force in her motions to be something of true beauty.

The difference between a painter's brushes and a knight's sword. Between a dancer on a pole and a beast unleashed on its prey. Admirable to an extent. Aesthetically interesting, even. But even the flourishes are born out of practicality; the brutality and killing intent at the end of every slashing sweep are too apparent for her dance to earn her praise from a wider audience. No one would ever dare sing a song about her fighting. Not her victories or her defeats. This is one more truth behind the label of the One Day Defender.

"I have watched every one of your matches in preparation for today. You fight as a Huntress. Fight. You do not duel as one, but treat with every opponent as if they were one of the great beasts of Hybrasil. Even now, I am hunted."

Mirror's tail blades stab at the ground in a wave pattern, constantly rising and falling and burning new holes in the ground as she directs them this way and that. The Jackals close in around her, and she strikes. Small arms fire splashes against the frenzied shields of the suddenly active Tails Three and Eight, which lift up without warning at the last possible instant. The footwork of the Gods-Smiting Whip is sublime. And horrible. Like a monster, she stomps into the path of these brave servants of the Goddess Smokeless Jade Fires. She risks their teeth. Risks their distraction. Risks their leading her into more prepared traps.

And where she steps, the piercing rainfall of Tailblades follows. Impaling, rising, falling again and impaling once more. Strike after strike after strike, well beyond the point of overkill once her two new tails switch to offense and join the assault themselves. With five of them at once she has become a storm. Not even a dancer or a beast but a force of nature that reduces everything around it to dust and rubble.

"I used the width of your net against you," even now her voice is smooth and composed, even playful, "I drew the fastest piece to me and clipped its claws before I could be overwhelmed. I turned a sprawling maze's worth of attack vectors into a tiny handful, all of which I control. And I ensured that if I only stand in this single, specific place, my back could not be taken."

Her sword slams into the spine of a Jackal and lifts it bodily into the air. The Whip twirls in the center of a wave of hot death and she launches the machine like a shot from a cannon into another one. Thrusters burn, she rises just barely in time over a lunge from Dolly and Jade. The heat from her takeoff melts the glass of the fallen skyscraper into a molten slag that threatens to catch their feet fast if they are not careful.

But only here do her blades not fall heavy. This the eye of the hurricane, where no malice reaches. Mira and her Nine-Tails land lightly in a place of safety, where her tails start scarring the battlefield anew.

"Nine Drive System, Partial Configuration. The Third Form: The Forest of Fangs. That is a second of my sacred techniques I have exposed for your sake. The same number I gifted Solarel. I commend you for pushing me thus: you are the first to disable one of my Tails. And you shall be the last. You may take this crown and call it glory if you like, though it comes attached to defeat."

Her tails flit about her shoulders, no longer baring their blades but still threatening with the potential of their basic gun barrel configuration. Mira's sword slashes three times at Jade and Dolly's idol, precise and careful cuts that cause no pain as they damage superficial systems. She is slicing open the sacred dancing costume of a Bride, opening it further and turning it into something that she finds thrilling.

She sniffs. Just under the kiss of these teasing strokes is the threat of something far worse, if it is only stepped into.

"Call me a trickster if you must. Act aggrieved or benevolent, if that is what gives you the strength to fight. But I. Am. A. Knight. And I have shown you, for the first time in your lives, what it means to be taken seriously on a battlefield. That is the extent of the gift I can offer the pair who proved to me that I can trust to love in the place that I must reach. A place where skill and technology will only last me a single, paltry day."

(Defy Disaster: 11)

Jade’s laughter is a hop and a skip away from being frenzied. Like a real person’s recorded voice, it strains against the limitations of the medium. There is spittle in that laughter, but also relief.

She was never offered this among the gods. And Dolly is stiffening under her hands because doesn’t really know what a knight is. (Armor, service, dedication, savior, dragonslayer, wins the princess, round table, all connections flashing through Jade as she reaches for them.)

“Then defeat me, Sir Promise! Only by overcoming the gods can you win the right to face the Dragon!” And this is what she can do. This is her magic. Transforming the world through her words and will. Making it right and good and soft for her Dolly, and judging the wishes of those who pray to her.

She has already won what she wanted to pry out of Whispered Promise from the very first moment they met. She has won the respect of that slinking, impudent, unreadable trickster. And when she becomes the Road to the Kingdom, she will be—

She will make everyone happy. Oh, Dolly will have to learn what a knight is, but they’ll have plenty of time together as honorable runners-up. Plenty of time. Together.

But that doesn’t mean she’s going to make it easy. A knight has to be challenged, don’t they? Yes. They do. She has decided this, and so it is law. A fair fight. And how Dolly squeals when the swords nip at her! Shh, Dolly dearest, and you, o watching knight, behold the gift of the goddess drawn across that squeaking mouth, and the shiver as the blindfold is raised and her eyes meet the intense gaze of the knight who fights her goddess with respect.

Now all that is left is to punish that impudent hand before they are done. (She is a hunt-goddess. She cannot help it. She must have her trophy, after all.) So she lunges— or, rather, she lunges Dolly. Their body-mecha crash together as Jade reaches for the hand that desecrated her altar. Give it to her, Whispered Promise! Let her know that you were properly chastened, and your jibes about spanking kittens shall be magnanimously forgiven!

"Thankyou." says Isabelle, backing the Emberlight up as well while they speak.

"So yes, let's talk strategy. Solarel's has never been the most thought through, you're right, but she's laser-focused on getting to her prize. I wouldn't be surprised if she utilises all her remaining resources and skills to advance at this point - just to make it to that last match."

"So, in light of that - what is your strategy?" she asks, voice hardening. "I've been training, watching, preparing specifically for this ever since the match with Ada. Working to get better. I'll admit that I got into this competition for the wrong reasons. Duty. Obligation. Because I was told I had to be here ... But I've stayed for one reason and one only: Because I. Will. Beat. Her." "

"I need to do this. To show that I can be good enough. For my own reasons and not anybody else's!" she continues. "I've seen this mountain, fallen off it already, I know what I'm facing in her and ... and I need to prove that I can get back up there and climb it. And I think, no ... I know that I have the means to reach the top now."

"You've seen my drones, but you still don't know all they can do. You've seen my skill, too, but there are secrets I haven't yet deployed. Skills I have that no other Terenian, Hybrasillian or Zaldarian has at their disposal. Those are what set me apart - my strategic reserve, that's the point I won't hold back any longer, all pointed towards that one goal."

Does she remember how I saw her geist? She'll have a hint from that.

"What then, do you bring to the fight that Solarel won't already have faced, Marna Kerne?" she asks. "Zaldarian to Zaldarian. What do you have that she hasn't seen before?"

At this, Isabelle raises a hand, and a dozen bright lights flicker on from the debris field around them. Red target designators from her drones, aiming at the Lightning Rail from vantage points all around.

"Is your strategy enough to beat the fleet that shows up at your back?"

[Roll to fight, 5 + 2: 7 - inflicting a condition with words and seizing a superior position again.]

Isabelle

“It’s not” Marna says as she attempts a dodge while still recovering, taking half the shots as they slice holes into her mecha, her breathing labored as she discharges yet another round of entry.

[Marna takes insecure in addition to already being hopeless and angry]

“You still don’t understand me, Isabelle. I don’t think I would beat Solarel. Besides her, I’m the best that Zaldaria has to offer. I’ve beaten pilots from Hybrasil and your Consortium. In war, and in the arena. And I still don’t think I would beat her. But I could try. I’ve got enough power, enough speed, enough defense that if I read her strategy correctly, I’d have a chance at winning. It’s possible, that’s what you need to understand. If you couldn’t beat me, it wouldn’t be possible for you to win that fight. But you have. If we keep going, you’ll either tear me apart slowly or you’ll close in and finish things with that laser dagger. So, I yield.”

She relaxes, but makes no move toward the Hangar entrance just yet. “You’re an incredible pilot, Isabelle. Winning or losing against Solarel won’t change that. You don’t need to beat her to prove you’re good. And you won’t stop being good if you don’t beat her. Especially, her! She makes winning about…about understanding, not skill. If you fight with her in an empty field with only blades, I’m sure you’d win. If you got to decide on everything in the battlefield, you’d win. But you don’t get that! You get an unknown.”

She pauses to breathe, then continues. “You’ve already beaten a champion. Don’t you dare forget it. If…if you need to win to prove you’re good enough, you still haven’t found the right reason to fight. Keep looking.”

[Take insecure as the final response to the fight.]

***

Solarel

The fight is over in less than a second.

You kick. The crab leg cracks the ground, pushing with intense force, balanced with the other leg through the intensity of your practice. Thrusters fire at maximum force, combining with the jump to carry you to Maelia faster than any crystal fire drive can move a mecha.

An ionic blade was precisely the right choice for this move. The intensity of its energy cuts through the shell created by the twin crystal fire drives. The strike is precise, perfectly targeted to account for the Supernova’s motion as it finishes the last round of firing. You pierce above the cockpit and cut off the control from the pilot to the power source. Emergency systems kick in immediately and the shield shuts down. The entire mecha shuts down in an emergency stop. You’re familiar enough with Hyabrsialian technology to know that from Maelia’s perspective most lights have gone out and she’s in free motion, bracing for impact, taking advantage of Hybrasilian eyes and instincts once disconnected from controlling her machine.

The Supernova drops like a rock, landing more or less on its legs and then falling backwards into the foliage.

Though your blade is unharmed, the interference from the strange energy has caused a slight decay on the front of the Aeteline’s upper chest where you got closest, and as far as both geist and nanobot are concerned, that small area of the body simply ceased to exist.

[Fight response: creating an opportunity for Isabelle]

Once it stops and settles, the hatch pops open and Maelia pulls herself out. She’s looking up at you and speaking unassisted, but with the Aeteline’s perceptions, you can easily understand her. “Thank you!” She’s saying. “I way overtested in space combat, this was incredible data for combat on planetary surfaces or on-station situations.” And you can tell she’s grinning.

***

Mirror

The jackals are defeated and lie around you. The combat space is narrowed and potential mine locations revealed. What is left last of all is merely the speed of the dancer who feels the nip of your blade and jumps into its embrace to score just one more hit.

How does the final exchange go?

"Thank you." Isabelle whispers, as she lowers her sword.

She looks around the arena as the Emberlight's drive drops to a low burn. Watching the random drift of debris or the silver flitting of her drones as they navigate their way back.

"And I don't mean just for yielding. I mean, for both the advice and the help." she takes a deep breath, stilling her shaking hand once again.

"You're right that these fights are about understanding. I feel like they all teach us about ourselves, in ways we could never anticipate. I ... hope I managed to return the favour a little. And I'm sorry I didn't get to understand you better ... perhaps next time. Or maybe outside the arena, if our paths cross again."

With that, she sheathes her sword and bows formally. It's possibly something that might be laughable if it weren't so sincere.

"Thank you ... I mean it.

And with that, she guides the Emberlight back towards the hangars. She has plenty to think about ... again. Before the next battle.

And the one after that - which will come whether she wins or loses.

Something about that makes her itchy. She hasn't proven her point. Defiance is ongoing. It was time to capitalize on her victory. Take this cat in her hand and show her the meaning of defeat. Gag her smiling mouth, strip her pride, drive any trace of those arrogant thoughts out of her silly little head. There were consequences to failure. That had to be enforced, that was why...

It was irrelevant. Victory was an inaccurate word, a word with too many meanings, a Hybrasilian word in any language. Victory. It was an imperfect reflection of a better word: strength. The power of being strong was not a fleeting and reliant thing like victory. You could not play word games with strength, it could not be snatched away, it could not be stolen. It was a single constant, an unending fire in the body, the deep reverberation of tonnes of brass cycling through your autocannons, feeling the contained fire of missiles, the distance and destruction of one's foes. Strength could be eternal. Strength didn't need anything. Strength didn't need anyone. Strength did not need to risk lessening itself simply to prove it existed.

What was strength if you did not get to use -



In a rush of fire and smoke, the Aeteline is gone. It takes nothing with it.

Three swift moves, and then the end.

The crash into the step backwards. The step into the dropping of the arm. And finally, the great whirling slash that ends the fight. Blink and it is over. Simple to misconstrue.

Rewind footage. Slow motion, panning shot. The two mecha crash into one another. Smokeless Jade Fire and Dala Hunters' momentum are enough to stagger the Gods-Smiting Whip, though the two mecha are of roughly equal weight. Nine-Tails uses its Crystal Fire Drive for thruster balancing or energy shielding as its solution to blunt force; it is itself quite light and easily pushed around.

Thus the step backwards. The Whip reestablishes its center of gravity and avoids toppling over or needing to fire its thrusters and risk triggering an errant mine that might have tipped the scales back in the other direction. All of its active tails float stubbornly around the fight, twitching but refusing to affect the fight further. The idol reaches forward with its momentum to snatch the Whip's sword hand. With balance stabilized, it is possible to calculate the attack vector. Rather than use the sword in the expected swing the way someone looking to crush the fight might have, Mirror simply lowers the Whip's arm by three meters. What is grabbed instead is her mecha's forearm. The grip on Matty's gifted blade remains.

She would need to shatter her own arm for the follow up. Her free hand twists behind her without regard for the pain it would cause a pilot. Her sword hand releases its grip and the blade drops down to where the agile, curving mecha is pivoting to grab it with the other hand. The two machines remain locked in their grapple, but the weapon transfer is successful with only a minor stumble where the fingers close suboptimally around the grip and need to regrasp as the slash begins. At no point in the clash is the sword in greater danger than in this moment.

But the Gods-Smiting Whip holds firm. Its fingers close around the hilt, and now left thrusters burn for exactly one quarter of a second to reverse its own momentum and wheel around in a circle. The blade flashes across Jade and Dolly's shared body, severing power conduits and clothing in the same strike, even as its other wrist is still clutched tight.

It may seem overwhelming. A perfect counter from an opponent who had read the move correctly and was never in danger. To think this would be to ignore the realities of combat. Smokeless Jade Fires is more than strong enough to threaten Mirror. Her idol body has the weapons to triumph, and she used them appropriately for the outcome she had attempted to bring about. The outcome of a fight is only obvious in retrospect: this exchange was a knife's edge from seeming inevitable in the other direction.

But it is Mira of the Fisher clan who holds her sword under Dala Hunters' chin via the link with her Goddess. Their eyes meet, and each beholds beauty. Their eyes meet, and each beholds kindness. The Gods-Smiting Whip's head tilts up in a cocky pose for the cameras panning all around it. Mira's face broadcasts a smirk of its own. A flash of teeth, and then a dip of her head in a tiny bow.

"It's your bad luck to have fought me today. If I'd had my trident you might have snatched it. I would have needed my tails to finish this, I might even have offered apologies. But my own kitten gave me this sword, with dreams of seeing what a knight will fight for. The difference in our abilities is little more than experience. The difference in our tactics is simply motivation. And the difference in our loves... is that I must still hunt mine down and crush her. She has my heart in her hand. She can speak to it. But she has not been able to touch it. To that end, I am jealous of the pair of you. Hrm."

She twists her wrist free and turns from the melee. Four steps away, sword held in hand with its burning blade pointed at the ground. The Whip turns its head as if speaking to its opponent directly, as if it were alive.

"Is now a good time to discuss payment, Goddess? 'Anything I want, until I am satisfied'. I believe that was the contract price? I confess I have been looking forward to retaining your services from the moment you hired me. I will not have my wish snatched away from me, and you are now a shield that will preserve it. Are you willing? I can always provide... motivation, if not~"

She twirls the blade in a dazzling demonstration of martial prowess, ending with a low sweep of the flat of the blade in a way that calls to mind a spanking.

[Mirror accepts the Comfort roll and clears a Condition that I think I forgot to track on my sheet. Additionally, she opens up to someone she respects, pushing her Feelings track back down to start]

The soft mumble of Dolly's voice is only for her goddess and the knight. It is a shared bounty spread out between the two, and Smokeless Jade Fires is generous in this moment. But of course she is; Dolly's beauty is a token of esteem, and one that the two of them particularly enjoy flaunting to the elect. One stray curl bounces down between her eyes as she holds as still as she can, her dress sliding off her shoulder with aching slowness. She is, perhaps, even happier than if she had carried her goddess to victory.

"As I deem fit, Whispered Promise," Smokeless Jade Fires says, with a sway of the hip that almost produces an audible squeak from her priestess. Despite the fact that Whispered Promise has seen her nude, this is much more embarrassing, and thus much hotter. Her hands twitch with the urge to fly up to her face, to hide her expression and her plight. "If you desire negotiation, then you may ask permission from my high priestess to discuss matters further in our shrine. I may not have humbled you today, but she is still the one who speaks on my behalf, and the one who chooses who gets to speak." Even through her delirious, giddy mortification, Dolly still recognizes that her goddess does not sound petulant or sulky; she is treating with the Fisher as if bantering with an equal.

"But I have a feeling," she concludes, with an exhale that carries both mild regret and an irrepressible enjoyment of the fight, with the knowledge that she fights like a hunter, every time, "that Dolly will be more than happy to hear you out, if you can find the words..."

Isabelle

The Emberlight came through your match pretty well. A lot (really a lot) of nicks and scratches from all the space debris, but you avoided any of the sort of exchanges that would have ripped it open or thrown key components out of place. You can run a finger along the exterior and feel the rough texture of the metal, cold and strong, reinforced in so many ways, capable of withstanding the force of movement when you direct it.

So, compared to your last couple matches, repairs are a breeze. The crew checks it over and tells you everything is looking A-okay, and you go and enjoy a drink and relax with Asil.

It’s only two days later, when you and Asil are cleaning up the paint job, that Asil insists on running a complete internal scan. Because sure it’s not needed after the fight, but thoroughness is important. No reason not to run it and make sure that everything is in perfect shape.

And that’s when she calls you over with a “hey!” that you can’t refuse and you find the internal override for the AI assistant. It’s a small round device attached near the computing core just outside the cockpit, barely larger than your first. But it’s not supposed to be there, and it’s capable of intervening between the piloting controls and the mecha’s actions, changing or simply removing your control. Who knows when it got there. It obviously hasn’t been necessary for whoever was planning to use it. Nobody caused you to throw either of your last two matches. Or took over during any of your maneuvers.

This could be sabotage from Solarel, it’s certainly in keeping with her previous matches. You might have even heard about how she supposedly broke into the Hangar and did something to Mirror’s mecha that caused the power to cut out during their match. The mystery of how still hadn’t been solved on that one. Though, the latest reporting is that nobody has heard hide nor hair of Solarel between her matches since the final tournament bracket started. Not even her own maintenance crews or the former owners of the Aeteline.

Asil, on the other hand, is giving you a look that says she thinks the cause is closer to home and the Lozano hangar might not be a safe place to speculate. What do you do?

***

Mirror and Dolly

The return trip is surprisingly easy for all the mess you’ve made of the field. Mines disarmed, the route to the Hangar is illuminated. There’s a need for support of Jade’s idol, which cannot properly walk after the severing swordblow. Though the cut is so clean that this might as well have been an opportunity to redo the central wiring to the legs.

There’s ample opportunity to discuss payment immediately. Perhaps with Dolly firmly held in the arms of a powerful opponent because Jade’s cult is more than happy to allow Mirror to be the one to pull Dolly from the cockpit once the idol is secured.

And then there is time to relax. In private. Or with loved ones. Matty is ready to rave about how Mirror used her sword the second you prompt her that it’s okay (but she’ll be a very good girl and not say anything without permission until then), and many of the crew are ready with refreshments and relaxation on both ends. Nine Forests has a full report on Jade’s repairs and proposed design updates whenever Dolly wants to hear that too. This isn’t the party of the opening fights or celebration of getting into the finals, but every match matters now and they’re all big and important in their own way. Besides, from here on out, it’s a champion and then it’s…well, would it even be worth the run if it isn’t Solarel at the end?

***

Solarel

There is nothing and no one to stop your departure. But in the void between planets, it is not your mind but your body that gives out first.

Absorbing energy directly from the Aeteline can only go so long. It starts with a sort of itchiness under your skin. Then a feeling of stiffness, joints that want to settle and not move. You know this sensation, though it has been some time since you’ve really felt it with all the work you’ve done in Akar to stay constantly hooked into new plans, new work, new efforts. But your body is tired, it has cycled and released its energy so many times and even you, of all beings, cannot simply sit in a mecha cockpit forever. You need food and rest, a new source of energy, a chance to stretch and to properly sleep.

Will the Walker of the Mountain brave civilization in Akar? Or seek succor elsewhere?