Always. Always one layer of defense.

Never more than one.

Once again she is outmatched. The Third Form functions largely through combining Tail outputs to create defenses (or occasionally traps). That is to say it wins via superior numbers. Bringing the same number of independent weapons platforms truly was a masterstroke. There is simply no way for her to overload the field without resorting to the Immemorial Vanguard.

It had been a difficult decision, to maintain the chains Trosta and Matty forged for her Nine Drive System in this battle. In the end it had been exactly the Third Form pinnacle technique that had swayed her: specifically, removing the temptation to ever use it by removing her capability until her scheme had achieved fruition. And now that decision looked an awful lot like death.

One. Two. Three. Four. Fifth close to unlock but remains unachieved. Picky little system, honestly. If she were grading herself Mira would have awarded the Silver Kiss-Lover's Nip combo at least five full Tails on its own. Just because she hadn't been able to chain it into-- nngh. Distraction. Cutting thought, resuming.

> i did say it was fine not to answer.
> but that is disappointing.
> under this assessment it follows that refusal to engage on my terms will result in automatic and crushing victory.
> yes?
> i acknowledge that my skill is lesser than yours.
> that's going to make what happens next feel extra humiliating.
> <3.

Her active Tails scatter to draw their shadow counterparts further afield. They rotate constantly, seeking wider and wider spirals that are constantly marked by beams of indiscriminate destruction. They do not connect with any of the Aeteline's weapons platforms, only some of the ammunition being dumped toward them. The damage to the forest is immeasurable. Trees fall into the river and build haphazard dams that create whitewater rapids where there had only been quiet, fast currents before. Sprays of mud fly every which way and waves of leaves and vines roll across the battlefield.

All is chaos. All is flash and showmanship with no tactical benefit. It is distraction and it is is evasion and it is a weakness because it is pulling her vaunted weapons further and further away from her main body, as if the summation of her response amounted to nothing more than testing and hoping that Solarel's Aeteline was less skilled at this style of combat than Mira's Gods-Smiting Whip. If just this one time she could beat somebody with experience.

...Tail 5 confirmed greenlit. Tail 6 gauge building. She does not launch yet. Instead, Mira plants her feet and grips the remains of her sword that she's burned down half a forest to find again. The Gods-Smiting Whip's left foot plants itself in the mud even as the rest of the machine maintains its stubborn hover and the weapon swings from ground to sky in a massive vertical arc. Even so there is nothing to be done about the Aeteline's high speed charge, that has tracked her down even at her maximum maneuverability settings.

She is outmatched. The only reason she will survive that is the fact that she has a lot of practice fighting under that condition. All the same the best she can hope for is a damage trade before she slips away into the camouflage she hopes she's creating all around her.

Always one layer of defense. Never more than one. But if you count her philosophy as valid, it's important to ask yourself: what's that layer for?

The ultimate strategy was just being better than your opponent.

It sounded oxymoronic but it was true. When your raw stats were superior new options became available. There were entire tactical sequences that hinged off relentless exploitation of a single advantage. If you move fast enough you can cut corners that others would find necessary, which lets you move faster still, compounding a tactical advantage into a strategic rhythm with the continuous buildup of combat momentum. Be inside the guard while it is being raised. Be past the smokescreen before it breaks contact. Kill your opponent before they kill you. This was the ultimate lesson of Anime. The strongest warrior was not the most creative or clever, they were gimmick bosses who would soon leave the story. The strongest warrior was the samurai who won even as their opponent's blade descended.

She makes contact and the blow comes like a hurricane. Gold into silver into gold into both, katana and wakizashi. One layer of defense. A fight ends in a single blow. Every other strike is just the sequence that leads inevitably to the severing strike where the lovers at last embrace, bound at the hilt, whispering their intimate goodbyes into each others' ears.

Was that what Mirror meant? Was that what she wanted? To speak freely in that moment when her blade was inside her rival and she was no longer an outsider? Was that the only way? Her focus was absolute. She could not question.

This was how to win. This was how to win. Nothing but the fight. Nothing but the win. Every time she'd come close to defeat was because her opponents had fought like this. No room for thought. No room for anything but skill. No room for anything but her best, absolute, maximal expression, everything she was in the tip of the blade. This was who she was. This was how she wanted to fight. This was her heart. Each blow was her love, screamed into the air and carved into the bones of the earth. Just like she'd promised.

She's slow.

The Aeteline filters the Pilot's intentions, maintaining its own situational awareness at the cost of the total onslaught. It does not trust the pilot, her total collapse into the flow of violence, the blindness of her passion. Mirror had caused this state in the Pilot, this mad joy - she must have counted on it, courted it, built her trap around it. But the Aeteline was wiser than that. It would accept the loss of speed if that meant seeing the hidden blade when it came. It only needed to see the trick to stop it, and once beaten then the fight would be an execution.

There was no place for individual expression. Perfection meant making no mistakes. A strength was also a weakness. The Aeteline had neither.

The network is a labyrinth of stone slabs shifting, grinding, calling out to each other, the carvings writhing, the noise cacophonous. It extends into four dimensions, dizzying, hectic, and impossibly complex.

Smokeless Jade Fires has pistons and cords.

She falls through the labyrinth, never touching a surface. The pistons are driven through eyes to pin them into place, into mouths to silence them, and the shifting of the walls tangles the cords into constant new structures, and in her mind she rotates the shapes of the cords. Pluck here and a security system updates. Shiver there and a password falls neatly into place. Her gravity pivots and she is falling always, trailing cords, flinging them out with divine precision.

It is a shame that Dolly isn't here to see the catsuit, or the mask that leaves only her clever eyes shining. Perhaps Jade will have to model for her bride later. As a reward. As a victory lap. But right now, she slides through shifting corridors, cutting through air, weaving her victory.

---

The zipper. is. the zipper is. well. see. it is. definitely. it sure is.

stuck.

"I, uh, I'm getting, over the, set, earset, that it's stabilizing but let me just see about getting this, I mean, haha, I can't very well go out there and, like this, right?" Panic flutters inside her, but she can't let it win, or else the plan will spin out of control, and besides...

Jade's depending on her. To keep it together. To fulfill their debt to Mirror. To be a gosh darned high priestess. Would Velvet Tread fall apart like this, Dolly? Would Six Dappled Ferns? No!

"Like, the second worst thing that could happen would be me walking out there and running into the ~Red Band~ with my damn zipper down to here--" She tugs harder on it, and manages to not bounce out of the jumpsuit, but the engineer's definitely noticed the not bouncing out. "And the worst thing would be running into my manager, haha ha! Do you think you could...?"

The look she gives is innocently devastating. She has to brush a lock of hair up out of her face, and her nervousness comes off more as shyness, demureness; anyone who knew who she actually was, in this moment, might suddenly understand why Jade is so possessive of her.

Isabelle glances over at the stand, worrying slightly about what might've made Asil groan so loudly.

Her girlfriend is not looking in her direction (in fact, she's very much not looking in her direction) so whatever it is clearly doesn't have anything to do with her chat with Vicky.

"Where I'm from?" Isabelle repeats, not understanding why such information might be sensitive.

"Well, I was born on Terenius Prime." she replies, leading to another groan from the bake stand.

"But I tend to travel alot for, uh, business ..." another groan.

"Horizon, Azure, Aoi ... Akkar. Have you done - uh excuse me a second." she pauses, before calling out to Asil to see if she needs help. After all, something must be bothering her alot to get those sounds out of her. But when her girlfriend says no (through strangely gritted teeth) Isabelle just shrugs and turns back to Vicky.

"Have you done much travelling yourself?"

Isabelle

Here’s the thing. You’ve done an extremely good job at lying poorly.

Vicky adjusts her glasses again, shifts her stance, stands up straighter. You can see she’s giving you a slightly wider personal space. And, well, all that training from your mother wasn’t entirely wasted. This is a sign of respect. You’re important now.

And suddenly you know exactly where you stand. All that travel information, obviously true, you lied too poorly to have made it up. And so she knows that you’re someone with wealth, someone who would travel like that. Regular people don’t do that unless they’re ship crew on a freighter run, and even then, most freighters are going to run one route back and forth forever. Maybe a route with two stops, max. It’s boring, sure, but it’s also a safe and very simple profitable trade. You go to one planet, buy whatever’s cheapest and best at a value per weight and value per volume that works with your ship, and then you go to a second planet where you offload your goods, buy what the first planet needs to refill the hold and just go back and forth. Medical goods from Alcard sold on Terenius Prime then load up on luxuries from Terenius Prime and sell them on Alcard.

Well, that was a tangent on interspatial shipping, but it’s all to say that when you told her that you’ve been doing business on at least four different, separated star systems, you told her that you were rich. And so now, whatever you’re doing, she’s not going to press about who you really are. Because pressing the rich in a weird dalliance like this is dangerous. You’re dangerous.

“Well…that all make sense then” she eventually manages. “I can’t say that I have, of course. Intra-system, to be sure. The uh…sunsets on Akar II are lovely during its fall. But um…I should be on my way, I’m sure I’ve wasted enough of your time and your partner is obviously recently at having to do all the work giving away free baked goods while I bother you.”

So, that’s a problem solved, right? Maybe?

***

Dolly

The smaller Terenian continues to sputter, blushing furiously as she tries to inspect your jumpsuit only to turn her head away.

The taller one, now, clears her throat though. “Listen, if you want her, her name’s Sam, and she’s a pushover.” This is followed by an indignant squeak from Sam, but not coherent words. The tall one continues. “Like, I tease her normally about her favorite pilots anyway, and you’re the spitting image of that Hybrasilian priestess that pilots the mecha that think it’s a goddess, so, like, congrats on that, I bet you get a lot of attention at parties.”

She chuckles, brushes her hair. “But, it’s going to have to wait until after the show’s over. This is only the most important broadcast of the season and you’ve basically disabled one of the two techs overseeing the master controls. So how about I give you her number and you scram? If that jumpsuit’s actually stuck, I’ll fix it for you.” Sam gives another indignant squeak that says that she’s perfectly capable of fixing the zipper herself and how dare her co-worker intervene like this. It’s a very communicative squeak.

What do you do?

***

Jade

It’s twisting itself like a maze. This isn’t the absolute cutting edge of network security. You’ve actually seen that, back on Hybrasil, where the maze would be like trying to navigate the swirls and rings of a vast and ancient tree that would trap you within its sap. They know there how to keep out even a goddess. But this isn’t that good. It’s the cutting edge of ten years ago from a civilization that’s somewhat less good at computer programming than yours.

That said, it’s still secure. This is an important broadcast and they certainly don’t want anyone getting into it as a prank, so it’s at least fortified against script kiddies. And so it twists like a maze. Stone slabs angle and shoot out, risking a fall that would crush you if you don’t twist out of the way. The angle requires that you work with the gravity of the space and the shape of the walls to direct yourself, shifting your momentum. Carvings speak of chains and cages and the walls close, narrowing the space.

You’re getting a transmission from Matty, who’s getting a signal routed from your idol. “Be careful, Jade. None of the staff know there’s a network intrusion yet, but there’s some kind of automated program. If you hit anything too hard, it will trip and alert people that someone is trying to access it and they’ll start locking it down. You should have some freedom to manipulate it yourself though, since you’re in the actual console and they expect the attacks to be coming from outside. It’s kind of like being on the backside of a gun emplacement, so as long as you don’t hit it so hard it starts firing anyway, you can disable it.”

***

Matty

This is frantic, you wish you had a break. You’re worried about Dolly, and about Isabelle, but they’re…well…they did their jobs technically and they’re kind of on their own. Since now you need to be watching Jade’s hacking attempt and monitoring her networking equipment until she’s properly in control and ready to act. And you need to be watching the fight with Mirror and Solarel so that you know when to act and can actually make sure that Mirror’s plan goes off. Especially since she doesn’t seem like she has a lot of spare room to pay attention to anything else right now.

In fact, you take your eyes off Jade after your last transmission because you’re transfixed by the fight. The series of gold and silver blows is beautiful, and you squirm uncomfortably as you watch each one get closer and closer to cutting into the main body of the Whip. It will all be for nothing if Mirror loses here. If she…but she’s not. Why isn’t the blow landing? What are they both waiting for?!

The damage she takes is far from superficial. Coolant lines, sensors, armor plating, power conduits, all of these sustain significant damage. Another combo like that and she will not only lose, it might actually kill her. There is no actual defense against the Aeteline's twin swapping swords, so Mira simply doesn't. She protects her core systems by predicting the optimal angles of the blade coming toward her and shifting her thrusters to push herself just barely off target.

The temperature in her cockpit soars. The lights around her dim. A variable input delay between 8 and 120 milliseconds is introduced, which requires numerous adjustments on her part to not slip out of the acceptable range of reaction times. Predictive power spikes in importance as a result. But she can fight. In the moment this is all that matters.

Her counterattack finally comes: the space creating bottom-to-top vertical swing from her sword, and then a rapid pivot horizontal slash that takes advantage of the stored momentum and the super-large nature of the weapon to deliver maximum kinetic force to the Aeteline's head. The crack is audible over every camera. Mira's lips lift into their first true smile before they settle into their first true frown as she watches her opponent bounce across the river like a skipping stone toward an urban section of the environment. She rockets after Solarel a tongue click later.

Her sword has taken by far the worst damage in the exchange. Massive sections of the hastily assembled, ultra heavy blade crumble off the sides and the tip as she flies, and the ones that don't shatter simply drop off when the pieces holding them on do. What's left is... beautiful. A glittering, unblemished fullerene tube the size of a spear growing out of her sword hilt. Mira hefts it onto the Gods-Smiting Whip's shoulder and follows up with a hard knee, instead. Evidently she does not intend to use it as a weapon.

But this is. Well. Perhaps calling it 'expensive' is a bit of a non-sequitur to a duo like Solarel and the Aeteline. But this tube was grown in a Hybrasil mineral system. It is a complicated structure, extremely difficult to produce and agonizingly slow to complete. For a culture like hers that places so much emphasis on individual (allegedly) irreplaceable constructs, the resources required for this shimmering rainbow tube are far beyond what she should be capable of.

That is correct. Mira of the Fisher Clan did not fashion this 'weapon'. Neither did Selin of the Makers clan, though both had their paws in its design. No, this required outside agents. A top engineering clan on a planet in full standing in the empire of Hybrasil. The sheer number of chain favors she must owe to fashion this is staggering; the cost of keeping it this secret even moreso. Someone with Mira's resources could only make this happen through the deliberate grinding of mercenary contracts, pressing her skills into use across the galaxy. Services delivered exactly as requested, payments taken exactly as demanded. Until she had this.

"Nine Drive System, Partial Configuration. The Third Form: Threads of Fate!"

She refuses to use her glittering superweapon. Two new Tails join the free-flying ones from earlier in the fight, and together they spiral around the Aeteline. The Third Form: another binding technique. Connective barriers of force similar to her earlier nunchuck technique extend between pairs of Tails and spiral around the Aeteline. They are vulnerable to the anti-tails like this, but for the moment the main body of her opponent is paralyzed at the shoulders, elbows, and knees.

The Gods-Smiting Whip does not close for a melee strike. It flies away and knocks over a building instead, hiding in the smoke that plumes up all across the streets.

> i do not intend for this to be the stage of your defeat.
> i am simply buying time.
> have you guessed my trick yet?
> if not, keep watching~

- slow!

The Aeteline releases its grip in a moment of panic. Solarel snaps forwards - knees immobile, elbows immobile, shoulders immobile, actualize ankles and neck. She lurches forwards into the anticipated strike, a headbutt - or a kiss - enough to turn a blow into a trade.

It doesn't come. She crashes to the ground and comes up into a roll as the lock dissipates. Her blades whirl into a guarding posture. She's lost visual contact. Now she is the hunted. The Aeteline hates that.

[>] I've seen enough to have a theory

She can typesign more freely now. There's less interference, her mind is clearer. She's not fighting from a position of advantage in this moment, and so Tactics are called for.

[>] Your trick is going to be a work of art
[>] And it's going to be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
[>] I'd guess some multi-spectrum energy weapon attack, focusing the power of the tails into your new spear
[>] You always did love the beam finishers.

The Aeteline sets an evasion protocol and begins moving in a spiral pattern. The cypher of speed and stillness, of dashes and pirouettes, expanding ever outwards as her sensors burn to re-establish contact. She wonders if she should have packed a directed air weapon - the weight wasn't significant and it would have been a huge advantage in a smoke environment like this - but her battleplan did not involve her losing the initiative like this. The combo had been broken and she was vulnerable until she re-established it.

[>] The intention is to shock. Paralyze. Blind with awe.
[>] But I don't think it will work
[>] Not because I won't appreciate it
[>] But because you have already struck me blind
[>] And that's priced in to my battleplan

Solved? No, not solved. Worse! She's leaving? Why?

"No! It's not a bother!" she continues. "It's nice to actually speak to someone rather than ... y'know ... have to stand behind a counter all day.

Did she say something wrong? She'd just been trying to make conversation. But ... did she insult her? Maybe travel was something she never really got to enjoy ... she hadn't considered how inaccessible planetary travel might have been if intrasystem was the extent of .. stars and moons she was clearly not good with this.

"I ... are you sure you won't stay for a bit longer?"

[Trying to entice her to stay. 1 + 3 + 0 = 4]

“She’s just about got it,” Dolly lies, encouragingly. Her smile shifts from a facade to genuine as the technician does her fumbling best to fix it. Then, because only the very best of girls would be able to resist, she turns her attention back to Sam. “And really, you think I look like D— Seven Quetzal? Is she your favorite~?”

Hmmm. No, this can work. All she has to do is get behind the guns. She drops like a cenote stone, into the narrowing spaces. All she has to do is do a light/shadow attack— something that any reasonable program would have defenses against, but not this, not with the holes in its conception.

“Because if she wasn’t up against Mirror, of all pilots, maybe it’d be her down there against that terrifying Zaldarian, right?” The shiver is, to her surprise, not feigned. She’s getting pieces of the fight over the tall one’s shoulder, and the raw fury, the way that the hulking mountain of a mech moves…

What you do is you make a poison out of your tooth, and when the time comes, you bite the defenses. Light is shadow, shadow is light, the sudden blindness of high hot summer. Legitimate attempts to interact with the system are locked out, treated as the enemy, and the viper at the heart has everything fall at her feet.

Pins prickle underneath her fur as she watches for a moment, tail brushing against Sam’s ankle. They never could have won this. Not against this demon. Mirror should be losing instantly, crushed under the weight of Hunger and Night. But she’s not. She’s not. She slips through those claws like she slipped through Jade’s defenses. She is something outside of the game of gods and demons, and that’s why—

But that’s a last resort, even as the venom throbs in her jaw. Better to weave all things from here, constantly plummeting in and out of the dark as conceptual gravity warps around her.

“We couldn’t have won,” Dolly murmurs, with the flustered Sam close enough to hear.

Jade

“Hurry, hurry we need to be ready. It could be anytime now, the way the fight is going. You need to take it over and pass on the control. Hurry Jade!”

Matty’s voice cracks and you can hear the strain in her heart, the poor girl. It’s not really from you, you’re a goddess and it really can’t be from you. But she’s worried about Mirror, she’s worried about the fight, she’s worried about every fraction of a second of hesitation and the need to be able to move exactly when her big sister needs her to move.

For you, the beat is steady. The rhythm of stone, you’ve played this game before, haven’t you? Twice now in fact. Stone has been your foil, the strength against which you’ve broken. But then, too, there’s a comfort in stone. Stone doesn’t change quickly, stone doesn’t surprise you. Even its tricks and its traps, its sudden twistings and carved runes, these are things you can understand, can wrap yourself around. Pillars rise and twist, but the beat is steady and you can feel it as it’s coming. The heart of the system glows with its own rhythm, the beating clock that is the heart of every digital being. It’s close, so close. Steady, so steady. You just need to pick your moment within the flow.

Take it.

Dolly

“Huuuuuuu” the breath is drawn into Sam’s mouth, breathing in like she’d breathe in forever. She was almost done with the zipper, but her hand stopped moving. You’d think she was petrified except that her heart’s beating in her chest so loudly that it makes your ears twitch with it.

The other tech, the tall one has turned back to the board. The fight is moving in unusual patterns, spiral-shaped evasions that require adjustments to the camera, angles, the drone controls, the audio feeds to get the best view.

But Sam’s frozen. She reminds you of Mu’Ysha on the lily pad, so still and silent is she as her blood thunders.

When she has taken all the air that she can, she holds her breath. And then there is a whisper. “You’re her, aren’t you?” and in her voice is awe. More awe than anyone in your cult has ever shown you. Perhaps this is what it’s like to be Jade. Because for her, it’s like one of the performers stepped off the stage mid-show and started chatting with the lighting hand.

***

Isabel

“No that’s okay I…” Vicky tries to move past you quickly and suddenly. Too suddenly. Thud!

You lose your vision for a moment, and then you’re seeing stars and you don’t quite remember when you fell over.

First thing back to your head, the table’s at the wrong angle. You’re on the ground, the table top shouldn’t look normal to you. Oh it fell over. Asil’s standing next to you, she must have jumped over. She’s waving a wet cloth over you that smells faintly of coffee. Not bad, though it’s not the best you’ve had and the coffee smells a tad burnt. Slightly acrid, makes you want to move your face away from it.
Several of the workers have cleared out space and most of the ones at the fringes are starting to drift away. That’s probably okay?

Matty crackles in your ear. “Isabelle? What happened, I was…I heard an impact but I wasn’t watching. It sounded like someone hit you.”

No, that’s not quite right. Vicky was just a bit cornered and then she moved too fast, and she has a very strong build and thick bones and you probably just ate a rib or something in an awkward collision. She’s standing near the ring of onlookers, not too far away, looking extremely worried.

You’re fine, probably? Well, you’re going to have the most hilarious bruise across your face by the end of the day. But probably fine.

The situation’s a mess though, and everyone’s paying very close attention to you. What do you do now?

***

Matty

You turn your attention back to the fight, and somehow even though the Whip should have been torn apart, it’s got the Aetline bound. She could go for the kill shot.

“Let’s fucking goooo!” you shout and then clamp a hand over your mouth with a sudden flush and rush to the door. You pop it open and bless every goddess you can think of when there’s a snore out the other side. The soundproofing was good enough, you didn’t wake Slate! You’d die if you woke Slate now because there’s no way she would go back to sleep and she needs her rest. Otherwise they’ll all be a mess after the match.

You turn back to the match and there’s still taunts going back and forth, and you can see the evasion patterns, attempting to break contact and reestablish distance and engagement. Solarel is running. But she’s also running and Mirror had better hurry it up!

No breaks for you, you’ve got to keep focused on the match. Jade’s nearly done, and well, you can worry about helping Isabelle and Dolly with information once Jade’s done and your job is done. So much to do, this is such a big responsibility!

"Nnnnnnnnngh, hfffffffffft! You. You! You absolute!!"

Mira is trembling. Her painted lips are quivering and her eyes are so shrunken that her irises are vibrating like they're being bounced around in a snow globe. Her fur bristles and darkens as the flesh under it flushes with pure embarrassment. Her hand lifts several times to smash a hole in her console only to stop abruptly and fly toward her face instead. It doesn't make it there either; she has absolutely no idea what to do with herself in this unexpected moment of being Seen before she's ready for it.

But then she laughs. Strained at first but then rising higher and higher, trills of mirth so absolute it borders on insanity. Her fingers find her face after all, and she squeezes her skull like one of those evil (read: stylish and cool) Animes to keep from toppling over out of her chair as her Goddess braids bounce and tumble over her shoulders and her face. It builds so high that laughing starts to take the place of breathing and desperate gasps for oxygen start to steal her voice from her.

While that happens, several skyscrapers topple over into rubble. Concrete, steel, and glass fall in avalanches and make a lethal mess of the battlefield. The ruin of nations, set to giddy, girlish laughter. Bright bursts of light flare up in the smoke, and then another building screams and falls on its sword, as though it had sinned and only crushing Solarel with its dying body could absolve it and buy it a place in the Skyscraper Afterlife.

"Priced into your battle plans! Aha! Ahahaha! Priced into!! Gffffawhahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa! You idiot! I've missed you so much. My heart aches! Aha! Ahaha! Hahaha, ahahahahahahaha! How! How is that the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me?! I can't accept this! I do not! I won't! Lose! Like! This!"

She can't stop her laughter. But she can force it into dark chuckling. And as the tone shifts, so too does the battlefield. No longer does the Gods-Smiting Whip hide in the chaos and the ruin. Now it hunts. Now flickers of motion inside the smoke turn out to be rogue Tails that fire off like shotguns and then zip back into the darkness. Sometimes it's half a rooftop instead, launched upwards by who-even-knows what mechanism. The sounds of her thrusters and the feet of the Gods-Smiting Whip crushing the debris it creates echo around the battlefield.

Everything is a weapon. Her field is spread wide, impossibly wide and enormous in the manner of the stars, until even the Aeteline must stop and feel small in response. Sometimes she lunges from the smoke and dust herself, claw blade shining on her forearm as she slashes wildly before she disappears in a sudden explosion and a shower of blinding sparks she creates by striking her spear. The First Form: The Claws that Steal the Sky given new power by this mysterious weapon in her hands. Not that she is uncatchable in these moments. In fact these exchanges turn into increasingly severe damage trades the more she attempts them, and it gets harder and harder for her to disappear the more the tactic grows stale. But she does it anyway, because in this moment the aesthetic of the hunter is more important than absolute victory.

Or because One Layer of Defense means that getting her leg blown off is a small price to pay if it proves her genius. If it contributes to her sense of inevitability.

> if it's that easy then prove it.
> prove you are worthy of my blade.
> come and kiss me before the end.
> let me feel your touch.
> your God is worthless trash.
> i only want to feel you.
> so i will only permit you to join me in the sky.

"Nine Drive System, Partial Configuration."

The Gods-Smiting Whip roars to life, lifting out of the dense cloud of dust that used to be a cityscape and up into the sky. Up, and up, and up, and up, on wings of fire. Her Tails are nowhere to be seen; all eight of her free floating ones are hidden somewhere away from the obvious target of her physical body.

"The Second Form."

Wait. The what? Think through the tournament for a moment. The First Form: claws and fangs and weapons worthy of a knight. The Third Form: shields and chains and traps worthy of a trickster. The Second Form... the second? Has she ever used anything like that? Have her tactics even implied she was holding it in reserve?

From eight different angles, light and heat burst from the scarred earth. The shots are not precise, but there are so many of them that they create danmaku fans of sparkling death arcing around herself as the center of the universe she is creating. They spiral and pulse to music that nobody can hear.

"The Rain of Starlight."

The curtain of lasers streaks through the skies in distinct waves. But the promise of a bullet hell isn't an impossible to dodge super attack: it's a puzzle that's meant to be solved. Raw skill checks aren't enough to clear the space to the pocket of freedom where she waits with only her fullerene spear and the Control Tail to protect her. Though those are important, it takes a sharp and above all playful mind to see the shape of the openings in the curtains that are meant to be dodged through.

The ones that can only be slipped through imperfectly, so that light will kiss the mecha with every wave successfully dodged. Painting a brief flash of heat and a nip of teeth across the inside of a thigh. On the stomach. Against one breast, and then the other. A shoulder. A hip. The neck.

Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, and excitement rising higher into the infinite skies, where gravity is nothing but a suggestion and the sharpest of claws are mere foreplay. A place where perfection is impossible, actually, and messy emotions are the only guides worth following.

But while she waits for this almost-final embrace, her audio feed cuts out entirely. She smiles in total silence, and reaches for a headset to make an outgoing call in her bubble of secrecy.

"Hello?" she chirps into a special line gifted to her for her audacity, "Have I reached Adriana Teresio, Queen of the Consortium? Delightful. I wish to inform you of a theft. I am, as you say, about to steal your show. Would you mind terribly dispatching such skilled pilots as you trust to your broadcast station? I'm afraid you have a limited window to deploy before I and my accomplices enjoy a dreadfully boring escape.

And we musn't have that, don't you agree~?"

She has never felt less in control.

This was what it was to fight someone strong. She was audience and centerpiece all at once. She made no decisions. She expressed nothing of herself. She had no chance to answer. She wouldn't have anything to say if she did. Every trick, every customization, every strength had been stripped from the Aeteline. It was powerless. She was powerless.

This was what it was to fight someone weak. She followed the pattern, exploited the cracks, exactly as Mirror had arranged it. She was guided, softly and inevitably, towards her victory. Every act of power created a shadow, every revealed gap in the armour determined where she would place her hands. She had taken no position and so she could be anywhere; she had no ability to take a position so she had to go where Mirror placed her. Her hands were bound by ribbons of light. Her feet moved to music she was not permitted to hear.

She knew the words Speak Not but here she realized there was a difference between being silent and being unable to speak. Her previous fights she had been enthroned in power. She had spoken - frustrated, exasperated, isolated battles, conflicts that did not last long enough for the rage in her to pass. She had never been held like this and been forced to listen before.

Mirror was strong. Mirror was weak. Solarel was nothing. Perfect nothing. She moved like water in between the gaps in Mirror's light and she'd have her nothing victory. It would prove nothing, express nothing, teach nothing. When people asked how to be successful in war the Ancestors would tell them: just fight like Solarel. Tactics were for villains. Beauty was for gimmick bosses. Strategy was a two-episode inconvenience at best. The path to victory was to be this: an empty cypher, a generic protagonist, a blank canvas upon which the opponent paints their illustration of perfection.

She is held. She is caressed. She is kissed. She cannot hold. She cannot caress. She cannot kiss. She is at the mercy of her victory, whatever Mirror decides that looks like. Inevitably she makes her way towards the centre, following the dance steps marked out for her, displaying herself in silence. She cannot even say that she understands now. It's too late for her to speak.

Her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, she plucks a string, and she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, she plucks a string, and the reverberation pulls every block into place where she wants it, and she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, and the name is Smokeless Jade Fires, she plucks a string, and the reverberation pulls every block into place where she wants it, and she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

---

Her heart is racing. Her prey instincts, honed by evolution to keep her save from behemoths and hungry birds, yells at her to go and hide under a desk. She's been seen, she's been made, she's been spotted, she's been striped. It's all going to fall apart, and she'll have failed to keep Jade...

To keep her safe, in turn. To protect her as she protects her priestess.

It's like it's somebody else who moves her hand, who presses one finger against Sam's lips. But it's her that manages to wink. A plea from a place of weakness, but presented from a stance of strength. Those alien lips (like Angela's) are soft, warm. Breath mists against her fingerpad.

Won't you be a good girl and keep quiet for me, Sam? It's an actual question the way that Dolly's body asks it; a request. Not a declaration the way that Smokeless Jade Fires would make the question. And some Terenians like a soulful gaze from a voluptuous, soft Hybrasilian. (Actually, according to network searches, that number is much higher than you'd expect. Not that Dolly knows. But Jade does.)

[11 on either an Entice or a Defy Disaster, dealer's choice.]

Sky. That was nice to look at. But it was in the way ...

No, scratch that. Sky was where it should be, but it was too bright ...

Someone really needed to turn it off. Maybe she could go up in Emberlight and shoot it down.

Dazed, Isabelle can only lie there for a moment, as Asil anxiously fans her with a ... cloth? Why the heck was she using a cloth? Maybe it was all she could find to hand - after all, she'd gotten there fairly quickly. That was sweet of her.

Isabelle stirs, smiling slightly, which only brings a more concerned frown from her girlfriend. She raises her arms and gently grabs the other woman's lapels, before dragging her down into a full-mouth kiss.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she logged the need to respond to Matty.

Then again, the sounds they were making now might be enough.

Jade

The control center beats in time with your heart, which rises and falls as smokeless fires. Here, you are a goddess, and with this new hacking array, you can reach out everywhere. The feeds of thousands of camera drones comes through here. Each one a tiny little pebble in the grandest of castles. Your castle, that pulses with your flame. You could change the view to any of them, thousands of feeds and you could pull the attention of the whole world, decide the location of each and every window and door.

Or, as Matty is now beaming to you, you could blind them all, and replace them with something else of your choosing. A new tower, a new turret, a blazing flame in whose heart shines a mirror that cannot melt. That refuses to melt. The adamant of will can outlast any fire.

Matty has you close on the line, she's counting down, her signal will come in seconds, be ready.

***

Dolly

"I...o-of course" she mouths without sound, her lips mumbling around your paw so quietly it's hard to tell the words apart from her breathing. The flutter of it just taps the edges of your fur and caresses it. [Take a string on Sam the audio tech]

She blushes, but moves back to her station. Turns to the taller woman. "Maybe she should just stay till the show's over. In case there's any more problems?" She gives the taller woman big puppy-dog eyes, which earns her a mildly disgusted sigh, as both of them turn back to the desk.

And really, that would be that. You've got things set up, Sam would totally cover for you when Jade takes over, probably even give you another opportunity to get down there first. You're the absolute best and greatest priestess who ever lived in all of Hybrasilian history probably. Or, well, at any rate you did a good job today and you're all set.

That's when the sudden loud clang hits and you hear the metallic noise and thruster roar followed by the whole tower shuddering as two mechas land directly outside your broadcast area. The huge cool blue of the Jormungar, newly repaired since Mirror's last fight. And the bright red of the Stellar Rose, the mecha of Adriana Teresio herself.

It seems she took Mirror's call seriously. They'll be inside in moments, better think of a plan.

***

Isabelle

Asil makes a startled noise, but she doesn't fight too hard. You can almost feel her full body shrug as you hold her close in fact. But hey, the plan worked well enough. Vicky lets out a nervous giggle, Asil a pleasured grunt, and the onlookers are in fact paying you lots and lots (and lots) of attention and not going back to their posts. It's not like weird steamy injury romance scenes happen all that often in real life. This scene reads as though right out of a Terenian telenovella.

And maybe that would have been that. After all, you and Asil could have had a moment, gotten a few polite onlookers to help you up, gallantly apologized to Vicky even though she knocked into you in order to demonstrate your nobility and generosity of spirit. However, it is at this moment that the whole tower shakes as two mechas land directly next to it. You don't have an exterior view from here, and so from your perspective it could be anyone, or even an injury earthquake as you cling to Asil. At least until Adriana Teresio herself kicks in the door, dressed in a rose-colored suit with lace sleeves, her gold-hilted saber drawn. And with Marcina Villajero behind her with a small pistol looking quite sheepish.

She lasers in on you the moment she sees you on the ground. "Isabelle Lozano" (shocked gasps from Vicky and several audience members. "What are you doing here, and where are your accomplices?"

***

Mirror

"Launched personally the second you called. Call it woman's intuition. I'm bringing Marcina too, we'll give you a good show at the station, don't worry. Thanks for the call in the middle of your match!"

***

Matty

Okay, she's got the tube out, deconstructed the sword. The bullet hell is mesmerizing, you barely notice your own anxious squirming in your chair as you watch it.

And Jade's in too, you need to focus on her, you've got her on comms and you're counting down and...Meep! The sound of the thruster landing coming through the audio along with the building shaking almost makes you jump onto the ceiling! You slump back into your chair, check the surrounding travel info. Special launch from Adriana Teresio, keep all airspace clear! What? Was that, did Mirror do something? How did they know? Did someone rat on Isabelle???

No, no, you have to focus, Mirror is going to give the signal any second now, you can't pay attention to anything else!

"It's nice to be noticed. Even if it's only now, before the end."

Mira lifts her eyes away from the rapidly encroaching Solarel for just long enough to make eye contact with a side camera in her cockpit. For these two seconds, all of her attention is on Matty, watching her. She lifts a hand up and makes a fist, back two fingers pulled out to be held level with the ground: the Hybrasillian gesture for 'ok'. The countdown has begun.

There is a secret to Mira's Rain of Starlight technique, of course. Why wouldn't there be? It's not a thing anyone should feel bad about not thinking about, there's been plenty enough to deal with just dodging the increasingly tight rings of lasers in their beautiful curtains. But now that it's come to it, what way did she have to get those rings so tight at the end?

Tail One slips into the circle, unscathed, and locks into position at the tip of the spear. Tail Two attaches just behind it, then Tail Three to the other side. In the end, this was the sum total of her scheming. Nothing more and nothing less than exactly what Solarel predicted. An idiot will always be an idiot. She can be as convoluted as she likes but at the cutting moment her creativity is just a really big gun.

Four, Five, Six, click click click. One thing she'll give herself credit for, even in this moment, is that she has bought herself one hell of a shot. She literally cannot miss. The Aeteline is rushing straight on through the final curtain and already the blinding polychromatic beam is charging at the tip of what is increasingly obviously an oversized sniper rifle. Seven, eight. The arrangement is clockwork precise.

Tail Nine reaches up and plugs into the butt of the rifle. Mira opens her mouth to say something before the end, and --

*************

"Oh. I'm sorry. Were you watching that~?"

Pounding drumbeats in the dark, tinny synthwaves with the treble turned up way too godsdamn high and hardly any bass to speak of, the insistent hum of a very artificial trumpet? That's! That's Mayze Szerpaws' music!!

One, two, three, spotlights click on in the studio from center left and right. Click click click the echo of her high heels on the marble floor. The pinstripes on her pants are visible first. She has chosen an exceedingly plain (though well tailored) Terenian style "power" business suit with no alterations whatsoever. The same pattern on the pants, vest, and blazer: midnight blue with powdery white vertical stripes. A black button up shirt, a blood red pocket square, and the heavy black and white mask she always wears over her face.

Of course. Mayze never puts herself in her own creations, nor anyone else's. Fashion is for others' sake, she wears cheap off the rack ensembles to save on mental energy. That's what the lore says about her anyway. Today she stands alone in her lights, no models or mannequins or even canvas on an easel. Just one woman standing in the confluence of three lights, contrasted against the darkness.

"I do apologize," she says in the middle of an amused tail flick, "But after observing your behavior post the Akar fashion show..."

There is a subtle arch to her back. Her gloved hands visibly strain at the fingertips from pressing claws. Her left ear flutters without control, and she chirps several times through pursed lips. The language of frustration, screamed into absolute silence.

"Flower dresses. Order after order after order, and nearly all I see is flower dresses. Was that the point I was making? Was that what you were told? I spoke words at that show you lackwits! You saw none of the beauty. You saw nothing of my soul. You saw that I could grow flashy dresses out of plants, and you skipped past my star charts and transformations and bid me turn myself into a horticulturist. After the three hundred and twelfth order, I knew. Knew I could not trust you impoverished dreamers with the finale of your little, nnnnnn, 'tournament'."

Mayze sniffs the air with as much raw contempt as that kind of gesture can allow. She takes a moment to compose herself, smoothing out the layers of her suit and adjusting the links of a simple chain necklace so that it drapes perfectly centered down her chest.

"You would have misunderstood. You would have watched and seen the weapon. You would have wanted more flower dresses, and missed the message behind it. I do not know whether it would be worse to see you panic and destroy that work in your fear, or to watch your eyes grow wide with hunger and demand this work for yourselves. It is of no consequence now. I will leave the truth of this battle for those who have proven to me they have ears. The rest of you get the kittens' version."

"You are. Wondering. No doubt you are wondering why a fashion designer should care so much about the outcome of our lovely little empires' beloved proxy war. Do I have some new line to unveil? Do I want you all to see it so much I do not mind going to prison to do it? Hardly. Mayze Szerpaws will never make another dress again. Her time has come. Her time has gone, in fact. Though she, that is I, has had more of a hand in this tournament than your realize."

Normally the moment of a Big Mazye Reveal would be accompanied by a dramatic change of lighting and a fresh surge of somehow even more tasteless music than her introduction. Today there is nothing. She isn't bothering, because she's arranged it already that she'll be the only thing that anyone even can watch. What point in showmanship when it's not possible to lose your audience?

She simply smirks in the dark, barely visible through the facial opening in her heavy, absurd mask.

"I designed the Nine Drive System used by the finalist mecha, the Gods-Smiting Whip. Designed. I did not, of course, build it, nor can I claim credit for it working so well. For that I leaned heavily on my accomplice, but nevertheless Nine Drive is my child. And in order to facilitate its birth, I created a persona that would attempt to excite the world of fashion and draw the interest of the rich and powerful to her. I learned to create dresses, spread rumors, and lied my way onto the publication la Plataforma to give myself opportunities to steal numerous resources until an outcast nutjob like myself could build a technological edge I could win a war with. I poisoned diplomats and politicians, accrued fame and favors, and continued apace with my work both alongside and against some of the most notorious pirate groups in the galaxy."

"Have you guessed my secret yet? Must I explain it, even at this final juncture? You idiots. There never was a Mayze Szerpaws. I made her up! I have only ever been..."

Without fanfare, Mayze grabs her mask and pulls it away. She tosses it across the floor from her with a loud clatter, and looks into the camera with her flowing, liquid eyes. Her whiskers twitch, anticipating a kill.

"Mira of the Fisher Clan, whose star name is Whispered Promise. Or Mirror, in the modern alphabet. I am a finalist here in this tournament and I am the pilot of the most unique mecha anywhere in the galaxy. Much has been speculated about the nature of my 'impossible' movement so far. I will explain now. This is the moment I wish to be seen for who I am. I was born with a neurological disease that makes feedback from the standard synthweave input system potentially lethal to me. I was cursed with a brain that saw mechas and dresses were the same thing, and dreamed of wearing both anyway."

"I pilot with a system of levers, pedals, joysticks, and buttons that control each of the individual servos and thrusters in the Gods-Smiting Whip. This implementation is the brilliant work of my partner, Selin of the Makers Clan, whose star name is Laughing Stone. She requests that you refer to her as 'Slate' for the remainder of our conversation. Testing of this system had only just been completed when contact between the Zaldarian and Hybrasilian empires resulted in war. It was the shock of seeing someone who did not, who could not pilot the way a mecha should move that enabled me to become the One-Day Defender."

Mirror's eyes flicker over the camera, never staying still long enough to meet even an imagined gaze. Her hands clench into fists now. Her neck tilts up with pride. She stares the camera down at last, so intensely and for so long that the recording device itself must be blushing.

"It is important for you to understand. That is why I tell you. I am not to be emulated. I am. In every way. A fraud. My reaction times are slower than the most novice pilot's you could name. My tactics are absurd and it is an insult to your honor that they have worked this well. My movements are inefficient. I lie. I deceive. Constantly. If I do not I am crushed outright. What I have is a crutch that allows me to pretend that I have wings. If I ever design another outfit, it will only be to give myself the same feeling when I am not sitting in the seat of that absurd machine."

"Nevertheless. I am a schemer. And if you can hear my voice, then all of my strategies have paid out to this moment. From here my victory in the tournament is inevitable. I have left no evidence. No proof. Of how I have settled things with Solarel. I will allow you to witness the result only. Thus, my final trick. My ultimate. Distraction. I will tell you why. I have dedicated so many years. Of. My life. To winning a war I do not approve of for a civilization that does not like me."

Mirror's expression softens, and her posture relaxes. She is smiling now. Her eyes squeeze shut as she imagines the payoff of relentless, exhausting effort.

"The winner of this tournament is granted one wish, to be paid out by no less than all three governing authorities of this galaxy. Well. My wish is for the creation of a planet. It is to be built on what is currently the frontier of the known galaxy. It will not be part of any current government, and its sovereignty is to be guaranteed by an alliance of the [Three Great Mothers]. I will build this planet as I wish, as sanctuary for every outcast who can't find somewhere else to go. There we will create. And there we will fight. And there we will love. I will prove to you the pointlessness of your childish shadow wars. True. Coexistence. Of all three peoples. You will bear witness, and you will hang your heads in shame."

"I do not whisper this promise. I scream it to the stars. You. Will. See. Me. And you. Will. Understand. Solarel. I. Love. You. We will. See each other. Soon."

Feed end. Gray screen. Static. Returning control in Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven...

"Solarel! Ever since we parted. I have thought of only one thing. All my projects bend here. To this. Every glance I stole toward the horizon! Was only to defeat you! This is my love! This is my anger! And it is my sorrow! Nine Drive System, Final Configuration! The Second Form: The Kiss of the Comet!"

And then she ejects. And then she falls, swords in her hands and a staff on her back.

Above her the Gods-Smiting Whip executes the very first macro she'd ever programmed into the controls. Nine cores of nine Crystal Fire Drives burn at maximum intensity, guided by the Control Tail. A finger pulls a trigger. And then everything is silence. Mira, Mirror. You ridiculous creature. With a blast that huge you could never have missed in the first place.

The beam is not a simple rainbow. Seven colors are not enough to express this much pure, reality warping energy. It is more accurate to say that the beam is every color. Every expressible shade and concept all packed together in a spiraling kaleidoscope of glittering, silent power. Speak Not.

The air itself is erased. Buildings vanish into nothing. The arena shudders in primal terror. Trees, rivers, grass, a mirror-sheen lake, ruins and temples and shining glass towers all twist into a single spire at the tip of a spear, and more besides. It's an attack beyond description. It's an attack that cannot be parried or out thought. It's an attack that will forever alter the destinies of everything it hits. The Gods-Smiting Whip is no exception. Its head tilts down to watch Mira as she falls, armor plates shearing off of its body from all angles from the sheer force of the reaction standing behind the beam. She did not program any such reaction.

No wind whips her hair or her constantly shifting battle dress as she plummets toward the uncertain ground. Mira simply falls as if through a vacuum tube, with her eyes turned directly toward the multi-spectral destruction she's unleashed above her. There, Solarel. Was that obvious enough. Was it worth all the hints? Was it worth giving the game away to get you to follow? The nature of the Second Form is that it leaves exactly one way out of everything it does. In this case...

Mira hooks her sword behind her and grabs at the center of it with the deepest part of the blade's curve. She twists her hips, as her dress shifts from glittering diamond fullplate to a long trailing wedding dress made entirely of intricate and interweaving lace patterns that resemble ripples around flower blossoms sitting in the water. Her fangs peek out from underneath her lips as she watches the staff fly up and away from her, across the path of the most likely trajectory a second pilot would have to take to keep herself safe.

The staff separates as it flies, connected in three parts by lengths of sturdy black chain. Mirror's eyes flash with delight, and she slashes the non-air a dozen times in a circle of scything blade work that serves no purpose other than intense, delighted laughter. At last, at last, at last! Let the Gods above sing their song of change together!

Above, the streaming weapon starts to dissipate. Clouds form concentric circles above the arena, though they glitter like diamonds and dance like a flock of birds. The shape of two mecha is lost to haze and mists and the underworld. Cameras flicker back to life over the waste and the beauty and the mysteries that Mira is no longer bothering to pay attention to. Whatever audience there is will see two women falling toward each other and the ground so very, very far away. There is nothing else to see. Nothing but

You and I! You and I, Solarel! Speak Not! And yet! Speak Always! Speak loudest and together, speak with me forever! Share with me your secrets and your heart and take mine into the empty space you leave behind with everything that you are! Come and see the true shape of your power! And let me finally, finally, finally, finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally FINALLY feel it with my own body!

Come to me, my nemesis! My rival! My one and only heart!

The loser got to decide the shape of its victory.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter. Defeat was defeat, by an inch or by a mile. Destruction was destruction, be it by her blade or her enemy's suicidal detonation. The Aeteline scorches directly towards the prismatic, reality warping explosion in the sky. Did you not learn? The sacrifice of the pilot is a small price to pay for victory. Did you not learn? Did you not think I would use that maneuver again? Did you not learn what perfection lo ook s li --jtke ---

Amidst the centre of the prismatic distortion is a rupture where colour itself burns away, all refraction stripped from the Aeteline's shadowed plating. Rainbow energy penetrates its cheeks, cuts its neck, pierces its shoulder, cuts away the armour and exposes the shrieking turbine heart of the Aeteline. Its hands reach up, to shield itself or pull the detonating sun from the sky. The Aeteline does not scream in pain or in triumph as it watches its opponent die before it does. Victory is registered as merely the the smooth confirmation of a variable before its entire upper quadrant was vaporized.

*

She can't breathe.

This... isn't a new thing. She's not sure she ever learned how. Nose to the ground as she clawed her way through the hurricanes of the Stormlands. Silent and alone in a city of lies. Lungs filled with suspension fluid, held in the inertialess core of her God. She's never needed to breathe to survive.

Her eyes open dimly, looking up at the wreckage of the heavens.

She's hungry. She's tired. She's not ready for this. Her swords are in her hands, following her even through the end of divinity, but her arms are too weak to wield them. She did not think that this would be her battlefield. She... doesn't know what to do. As she races the sonic boom to the ground her mind is empty of the vast superstructure of knowledge and prediction that weighed on her so heavily. Five minutes ago she had known the future. Now she...

She saw the diamonds. She saw the lace. She saw the most beautiful girl in the galaxy coming towards her. She couldn't breathe. She was unprepared, unadorned, heartless, having thrown everything away for victory on the wrong battlefield. Her hands relaxed, swords starting to drift away from her, sparkling into trails of nanobots, surrounding her in dust like teardrops. She saw...

For the first time in her life she took a breath in. She needed it if she was going to laugh. She needed to laugh because she'd just seen the section staff in Mirror's hands. It escaped from lips silenced by wind and wave and fear like a long buried prisoner's first glimpse of sunlight.

Her hands tightened around her swords. She took a battle stance, back towards the approaching earth. Her limbs were stiff and her scales were dull and she did not have any sort of mental framework or theory of victory. She was at every disadvantage. She was the weaker. She was the lesser. There was only one technique that could answer all of this. Only one way to turn this back into something like a battle of equals.

"I love you." It took work to say it through the suspension fluid that still caught in her throat, twisted her stomach, made her veins crackle hypersensitive to electrical impulses. Side effects she'd never suffered before.

She had thought about how to defeat a section staff. She just had to get close...

"I've always loved you." It took work to say it above the howling wind. Speech wasn't enough. She needed to shout. Needed to cry out to be heard, needed to cry out so it would be heard by everyone.

... She just had to slip inside her opponent's guard...

"And I'll love you forever." It took work to say it against a lifetime of silence. But in this moment, Solarel could only see the lifetime ahead of her.

Transform a duel into a grapple. Transform a fall into a dive. Transform silence into speech, and speech into a kiss. Come to me, my nemesis - and let me steal your victory one more time.

One thing more. One little twist. She's allowed this, isn't she? You knew who you were working with, Whispered Promise. You knew what laughing, petulant deity you were working with. To call upon the powers of the underworld is to recognize that power.

When the transmission cuts off, it cuts to the burning skull of a goddess, made of the leaping, giddy flames, the color of unclouded jade. The burning jaw contorts into a gleeful nip, a way to show the entire universe that this, the coup of Whispered Promise that will be remembered for generations, that will turn entire worlds on their fulcrum...

It could not have been done without the intervention of a goddess.

Then she turns her eye away from Whispered Promise's plummet (because she knows best of all not to intrude on a moment that is sacred in such a way), and she sets her labyrinth awhirl, drawing the strings of wild speculation being yowled out into the universe and sending them scattering where she will. Ten Things You Need To Know About Mayze Szerpaws. Szerpaws Revealed (Live Reaction). What Does This Mean For The Consortium? Nothing- absolutely nothing- will be allowed to pass through here that does not pertain to the Revelation of the Trickster.

Well. One thing. One string, tugged. One screen, flicked on.

"Come and fetch our Dolly, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius."

---

Dolly sets her jaw, insofar as she knows how to do it.

"...fuck," she says, and there's an adorable lilt to it, even now. "Goddess damn it all. I thought... fuck!"

Then she begins trying to move one of the server racks in front of the door, puffing, trying her best to buy time. What's the worst that they could do to her, anyway? Nothing they can accuse her of is anywhere as bad as letting Mirror's dream be shattered in this moment. Nobody gets to see Solarel and Mirror, not now, not until it's all over.

That's the promise she made to Mirror, after all.

"We are about to have company, so give me a hand here! We can't let them interrupt her! Please!"

[Dolly immediately pulls on that String.]

...

"Uh ... kissing my girlfriend? And she's uh ... here?" she replies, still coming out of the effects of a blow to the head.

"I think she's asking the broader sense of what you're doing, babe." whispers Asil, as she helps Isabelle back to her feet.

"Oh, right."

Isabelle eyes the pistol and sword that are being pointed in their vague direction, feeling the familiar stirrings of fear. Those were weapons. They could hurt people. It wasn't like when she was piloting. Real life didn't have inertial dampers, reinforced pilot cages or emergency core shielding. This was the pirate kidnapping all over again.

"I don't suppose you'd accept that we're just handing out coffee and muffins? No? Well, it was worth a shot." she shrugs, glancing at her watch. "Truth be told, I don't know where they are, and it's too late to do anything about it now anyway. About two minutes too late, in fact."

Good. Safe play. Logic to delay her. Maybe deflect. Don't give away too much.

"So why don't we all just go on our way now." she says, before adjusting her stance and letting her coat fall to reveal the hilt of her own sword. The shard of Bellerophon catching the light enough to glint. "There's no need for swords, pistols, or anyone to be hurt for what's going on."

Wait. What?

"After all, damage done." she continues, her voice amazingly level. "So can I interest you in a takeaway cup? It'd be a shame to let this all go to waste."

Take the bluff take the bluff take the bluff oh please take the bluff. I don't want to fiiiight.

After all. Does Adriana know about how adverse Isabelle is to fighting outside the cockpit? Or will she just see the girl who was a good enough fencer to sink her sword into the Aeteline, and think that maybe, just maybe, this is not a fight worth having?