Anarion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

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!”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel

She raises her arms, wrist shield flashing to life just in time for the shot, but even with that, there’s a sound of crunching metal as the impact presses her back, and for an instant, the combination of heat and pure kinetic force throws the entire Supernova off balance. In a situation like this, you’d typically estimate that the battle would be over. The target vulnerable, unable to respond to its own pilot, ought to be a death knell in a situation like this. You have an easy follow up for subsequent shots.

But…there’s a high-pitched humming and crackling noise and suddenly the Supernova is surrounded by coruscating white energy, animating its limbs and letting it move with a suddenness that throws off the follow up shot. It shouldn’t be possible to start moving again that fast. Her shoulder laser, previously fired in a shot-gun style burst, shifts position at the same time and sends a focused, long-range shot back at you, followed by several others.

“Not every Hybrasilian wanted to be in those fights, you know. Not all of them wanted to face a demon. You didn’t give them the courtesy of retreat though, did you? Didn’t ask if they wanted to be there, or why they were there. You struck most of them before they even knew you were coming. And now you tried to do the same to me. I didn’t think you needed to do this in the Aeteline. It’s one thing to employ traps and cunning when you know you’re piloting a vastly inferior machine. It’s another to decide you’re not willing to abide by any expectations of how pilots match skill. I wanted this to be a traditional fight! I wanted to see what kind of pilot you were! And you’ve shown me. And now I see that I don’t owe you any respect or reservation, Solarel.”

She maintains her altitude as well: the firing angle is better and makes it more difficult if you decide to dodge. It’s not that she’s overwhelming you, you’re still in an advantageous position to trade shots with her, it’s just that she’s fully embraced the style of fight you’ve offered, entirely dropping the standard Hybrasilian close-ranged approach that you’d expect to be more typical. And at least for a moment, this extra energy she’s somehow wielding is giving her a different edge, offering her a speed and unpredictability of airborne movement that can thwart even the Aeteline’s tracking and firepower as you trade blows.

[Maelia takes the guilty condition, and also seizes a (different) superior position.]

***

Mirror

Mirror, that effort with the sword lights up tail five. Only five, all by itself, adding it to one, two, and seven. The display bar cut itself short, reset. Maybe this is a modification of the program, or maybe it was always set up to have this sort of option? But either way, it feels like tail five wants a turn with the new weapon, and is jumping at the chance to do something.

Dolly, and Jade

Jade, or Dolly. Mirror’s made herself visible intentionally. That much is obvious enough. Whichever of you chooses to take physical control, you have this chance where you know her precise location and she does not know yours. She’s practically begging you to throw her your best shot.

***

Isabelle

“Oh that was a good one!” comes the shout. There’s an enthusiasm, but also a gravel to it suddenly. You’ve shown your position, after all, and filled her with energy. And she was already moving to boot. Marna grabs the largest piece of debris she can reach and flings it at your deflector that bounced the laser into her at maximum speed, crushing it completely.

But there are more deflectors, of course. Many more, full of tactics. But she’s already grabbing another metal boulder as she rushes. Flinging that one around as she banks. In this debris field, with the force she’s outputting, the throws not only strike your equipment as she finds it, but deflect and rebound and send other debris bouncing.

The Emberlight is many things, but it’s not the heaviest mecha out there. And what you’ve suddenly facing is the entire battlefield turning into an undulating, chaotic wave shifting towards you. Always towards you. Because Marna, for all her chaos, has your location clocked and she’s tracking you now as you try to move and reposition. Her throws are always with you in mind, building up momentum in the field to make the whole thing a chaotic mess. One block of jagged slag races just past the head of the Emberlight, and you’re forced to burn a shot on another that’s headed straight for you in order to break it up.

And as for Marna herself, though she’s rushing about madly, now changing direction, now burning hard and straight, she’s also working her way towards you, riding the wave she created, bearing down on you for an assault, changing to track as you try to flee and ready to intercept if you try to break out from the cover that the debris offers you even as it attacks you.

Tactics are all well and good, but you’ll need to do something to counter the overwhelming force being directed at you now.

[Marna takes Angry and wrecks the field in new and interesting ways to seize a superior position.]

***

Angela

Your plan was amazing. The Jormungar, for all its armor and shielding, does indeed need to do something about missiles. Missiles are dangerous and powerful and even Marcina can’t just eat the whole thing. She has to put energy into defense, has to subtly shift her movement to space out the impacts a little bit, and that gives you a chance. The autocannon fire focuses on the wrist joint, and the combination of the explosive heat and the sustained focus as you close breaks the shields, which can’t be concentrated that narrowly, cutting through the hand and the blade with it. The powerful laser blade blows clear of the tumble as the two of you close.

Oh yes, this one will go in the piloting handbooks. Absolute best possible use of resources available concentrated in a narrow time window, perfectly optimized. Nobody could find fault with the efficiency with which you accomplished your goal, and future students will view this maneuver as the archetype on which to base high-technical skill missile combat.

No, the problem is that the goal you wanted to accomplish is not what you needed to win. Marcina fires one additional thruster and suddenly the Jormungar is rotating at the same time as it’s charging. The kick hits you so hard and so unexpectedly that the neural mesh doesn’t have time to do the full reduction of energy transfer and you feel a sharp pain that probably means you just cracked a rib. Warning sensors blare, indicating that the pilot’s compartment has been compromised and is exposed to external fire. The blast from her own shoulder missile, fired point-blank, perhaps in a sort of salute to the superiority of your tactics, hits hard enough to send the Owl tumbling head over heels, and the compromised cockpit causes you to feel the heat before you’re pushed away, lightly singeing your hair and eyebrows.

Nor does she wait for you to recover and stabilize the fight. The follow up strike from her punch sends you careening into the ground, and then she lands with a foot against your back, pinning you in place (though mercifully, she did not further crush the mecha or cause you any bodily injury. She probably knows her hit could do that and held off just a hair once she had the superior position).

This fight is effectively over, though you’ve lost with queenly dignity.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror and Dolly

It’s a simple enough matter to leave mines in an ally, though they’re on the heavier end of ordinance and the idol can only fit so many. Not enough for every back alley and city street, not even with the extra weight that jackals can bring. You’ll have to pick carefully and make some predictions about how Mirror might move.

On the other side, the presence of the jackals does create its own pattern. Spread out jackals can be slowly detected as one gets near them, and a picture of where multiple jackals are starts to paint a picture of where Jade has passed. If she doesn’t spring her trap quickly enough, Mirror may find herself the predator.

***

Solarel

“Goddess” she crackles over the comms, an intake of breath, a moment when the scale of what she’s facing has struck her and her voice has reacted ahead of her mind or her reactions.

The spear glances, deflected by your loose blade and her own reaction to the intense heat. Few indeed are the pilots that could see an inferno bloom below them and press into it with no hesitation. Even among the Zaldarians, most would find it too daunting to plow in headfirst that way, regardless of whether they could use the heat.

There’s a three move exchange. Stab, step, thrust to see if she can push through your diffuse sword. But the heat is intense and you can hear Maelia panting on the other end of the line. She’s kept the line open even though she knows you won’t speak directly, knows that she might be giving you an advantage.

When she can’t land something decisive, she fires a spread burst from her shoulder as cover and takes off, trying to rise above the flames and give herself some space to reconsider her attack. She has laser weaponry for short to medium range, and is prepared to continue firing if you immediately follow.

“Damn. Damn, you’ve barely been in the arena a moment. You must have had this plan ready immediately, before even knowing where I’d be? I guess you really have fought a lot of us. But damn, the scale of it. Solarel the destroyer. You’ve put a whole forest alight just for the opening move. I didn’t think big enough, didn’t think I could be immediately enveloped like that. Only one direction left, and I bet that’s your plan too. Well, let’s see if you’ve got the ability to execute on it!”

Do you press despite the risk of her advanced weaponry, or do you have another tactic in mind?

***

Isabelle

“I haven’t, but I plan to!” Marna laughs. “Heim would have you believe that the frontiers and the capital of Zaldaria are like different worlds, but they’re more like neighbors. We have our own holds, and as such our own rules, each of us the head of the family and thus the decider as to what that family is, what it covers. But we still follow the same rules, fight for the glory of the empress, follow the teachings of Zaldar. Most anyway. You Terenians never bother to pay attention until you’re hip deep in it. Zaldarian infighting isn’t the same as yours. We raid each other for sport and pleasure and it’s a privilege to be part of it: captor or prisoner. It took us a while to realize when we met you and the cats that it wasn’t that way for you too!”

“Quit stalling though. Here, let me make it easier for you. Or harder maybe. You’re going to earn this win if you get it at all. Anybody that touches the Aeteline has to prove they’ll do a better job against it than I would and you’re the first!”

She lights up suddenly. Obvious on even the simplest scanner, no need for nanobots. Maximum thrusters all power to them, and she sprints off with a blue flame trailing behind her. Not at you, no, she has no clue where you are. But she’s painted a target on herself, only she’s made it a moving target, one that’s hard to hit ducking and weaving and smashing through the debris with spikes and fists leading the way. It’s an interesting tactic. It’s not like her drive will fail and she’s got a fair shot of bumping close enough to you to find you if you just hide somewhere for too long without attacking. But that’s not what she’s expecting. She’s practically inviting you to start the fight with a red carpet here.

***

Angela

You underestimated her. You were already estimating that she’d crush you, but you still somehow underestimated her. The control that she’s displaying with a mech that size is ungodly. She leaps the crater, using the missile guidance that had brought them over her to send them back into the crater rim, and then she charges you. You fire your autocannons, but she effortlessly shifts energy into the shields for the volley and then back to thrusters as though she’s reading you like a book. With that level of control, she can make it go far faster than it should while defending, and as your second round of missiles signals that it’s finished reloading, she’s transitioning into a sweeping strike of her sword to force you back and throw you off balance. You have to nearly fall backwards to avoid the match ending in one hit, and she’s still advancing.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Many days later

Angela Victoria Miera Antonius

You should not have gotten so drunk at the party. It’s not that there wasn’t time to recover. You had many days to get repairs made to the Barn Owl. But these things have a way of flowing into each other. You woke up late and hungover, feeling Jade’s return with the gift she granted you, but also a little distant in a sense. Her thought patterns are Hybrasilian and though you can make sense of their gods and goddesses and the idea of heavenly realms, the way that Jade pictures them is not quite the way your brain would in her place and so it feels distant to you. Like a fairy realm.

That, in turn, set you into a lazy day the next day. Repairs were being made, and you slept in. But you felt groggy, didn’t eat as well as you should have. Two days turned into a week where you got less done than you’d have liked. Time that you regretted later when you just didn’t have all the time you wanted to review Marcina’s match footage, to compare it against the repaired Barn Owl. To test.

Maybe Ada would have done better? Though she’d have had different resources entirely, and her mecha was probably in even worse shape than yours against the Jormungar. That thing was a monster and Marcina’s piloting had always been absolute precision at close range. You weren’t going to get an ion shot off, but at least you had some ranged weaponry. Ada was all in on melee strength and she wasn’t up to the level the Jormungar was offering.

You run a hand through your hair and down your neck, feeling the stretch in your muscles as they adjust to the neural link fabric. The Barn Owl doesn’t fully move with you, but it’s warming up, syncing together. The feeling of your hand against your skin with the mesh is cool and it makes your hair stand on end. The fiber around your biceps flexes and curls. That all helps too. Every bit of responsiveness is going to be something you need today.

How can you beat her? One of the questions you wish you could answer is whether you even have enough ammo for an effective strategy. If you keep your distance, you think you could avoid most of her attacks. She’s not known for her blazing speed like most of the Hybrasilians, that isn’t what won her prior tournaments. No, the problem is that against the Jormungar, you might well empty the entirety of your autocannon ammunition and find yourself facing only a cosmetically damaged and angry blade. You’d need to hit vulnerable systems and do it far afar, and that’s assuming she even has any and doesn’t manage to block and adjust to your angles.

You have a feeling this match is going to be like trying to bare-handed box a bear. But you’ll have to give it your all. So you step out into the yellowish light of the desert crater where you’re fighting and scan for your opponent. There, on the other side of the crater, beyond the lip. She’s not hiding, just blocking your line of sight without forcing you airborne.

You sigh and begin the fight.

***

Dolly, Jade, and Mirror

Is this what it feels like to stand in the heart of Calipso, the largest urban center of Terenius Prime? You may have seen pictures from the Hybrasilian ambassadors sent home as a sensation. Vaulting skyscrapers that make even a crystal fire drive strain to crest. No plants, no great trees intertwined with the buildings, but all glass and steel. They are like the great stone spires that stand atop the mountains of Ksheytrel, but no natural formations could be this straight, this square.

And that these would be constructed in the arena, built over the past days by nanobots set to make for you a unique battlefield for your match. Perhaps the planners thought that a space so foreign to any Hybrasilians would make things fair? Perhaps they simply thought the winding terrain, frequent cover, and ability to destroy the environment would make for exciting visuals.

Such a vast and empty place feels like the realm of ghosts. Every camera drone could be an ancient spirit or a loyal pet. It offers you calm to begin your match. The sounds that come to you are your own sounds. The hum of the engines, the groan of moving metal as your mechas enter the arena, bounced and reflected in a thousand directions down blind roads and alleys.

You’ve actually been deployed fairly near each other, but in different dead ends so that it’s difficult to scan without bouncing off surfaces. You can talk immediately though, you’re well within range for broad communications signals that will pass right through the glass in all directions.

***

Isabelle

“I’ve fought a lot of Terenians, you know.” There’s the sound of metal creaking through the comms, as though Marna Kerne just flexed her neck so hard that it made some kind of joint pop on her body. Quar hasn’t walked you through Zaldarian biology in that much detail, but it seems reasonably possible.

You’re picking up a lot of data. One of the most powerful uses of your nanobots combined with the Emberlight is the detail and rapid analysis of scan. You’re in space, and the area is full of debris, an orbital ring of satellites and detritus, all through here by the busily working nanobots of the Arena. It’s meant to represent a battleground, various broken weapons and pieces of mechas (or at least good facsimile thereof) fill the space, making it crowded and normally difficult to find your opponent. No crystal fire drives though, nanobots can’t imitate that, it would be creating energy from nothing, only the rare crystals crafted and refined specifically to make a SCIC drive can do that. Because of that, you can see Marna, clear as day. She’s within the debris field, still looking for you. If you go on a hard burst as fast as you can, she’ll pick up the heat, but you might be able to sneak up on her for an opening salvo. Then again, she’s not trying that hard to hide.

“Kinda liked it before we did the arena thing, myself. Fights were exciting. Risky, yeah.” She chuckles. “But that was part of the fun. Did you know my Hold has about a hundred Terenians now? We rescued a few stranded pilots after our raids, brought them back. A few ships crews too, where we took the whole thing, people and all. They’ve been there half a decade now, some had kids, it’s really something. They’re not prisoners anymore either, they joined us in earnest. It’s why I’m talking to you, in fact. I decided that anyone who takes one of these things into space isn’t an outsider. Not to me. We all share this bond, the bond of seeing the stars from a new angle.”

The Lightning Rail is a brawler, and a fast one. It’s all spikes and power, not just its knuckles either, and it uses nets. You’ve had your share of brawlers so far, though maybe none quite this speedy. But between Ada and Kiriala you’ve got some lessons in both power and speed.

How do you approach the fight?

***

Solarel

You are back at the Arena. Where you have to be. The only place you can go to eventually face Mirror. Nothing else could keep you from your return, not storms nor any of the vastness of Roevg.

But it is not Mirror who stands before you, though it might be the closest other pilot that the Hybrasilians could offer. Maelia Dala pilots the Supernova, not the Gods-Smiting Whip. But it’s had a lot of modification done to it. She’s got her own custom laser weaponry mounted on the shoulders, customized shield generators at the wrists, and her patented spear. She placed in the semifinals in the previous tournament on behalf of Hybrasil, which is why they pulled her back here yet again despite her research being halfway across the galaxy.

Of course, all that information is what could be found about her from before, her previous matches in a previous tournament. She hasn’t yet fought in this one, which is always the danger of being seeded. And you also can’t see her, as she, like nearly all Hybrasilians, has begun the match in stealth. The pounce is, after all, both their oldest and most beloved trick.

You find yourself in one of the idyllic forests that have been dotting the arena as the nanobots have worked for both beauty and useful combat. It is a forest of young trees and lush vines, but not so young that you eclipse them. The forest is about the same height as the Aeteline and the Supernova. A few stories, the roof lightly eclipsed with broad leaves. Enough to cast shadows, but not to blot out the sun properly. Above is open sky and ease of movement, in exchange for vulnerability.

“Did you know that you’re a demon?” Maelia asks over the comms. She doesn’t wait for an answer, not from you. “I think it’s kind of exciting! When Hybrasilian pilots first started meeting you, we actually thought you were a new life-form found within the ringed nebula. What if we had intruded on its territory? Or offended it somehow with our equipment and experimentation? Maybe we just needed to placate it. It took until your day-long match with Whispered Promise for us to get good enough data to link you with the Zaldarian attackers. A one-mecha war, that was you.”

She smiles. You know that she smiles because you have spent so much time around Mirror and when Hybrasilians talk like that, in that tone, it is with a smile that is at once friendly and indicates that they’d like to eat you if they could.

Her spear is already coming for your back, her first pounce. How do you respond?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jade

The road to the realm of the living is precisely the length it needs to be, as your grandmothers would be quick to remind you. A goddess is given precisely the trials that she needs to establish her mythology. This does not mean that her victory is ordained. You know full well how many a wild and unruly goddess has been bound and gagged, how many overthrown, how many were let loose only to achieve wild wreckage and then were cast down in their turn. Peace is not the end state of the gods, but harmony, perhaps would be the right description, Smokeless Jade Fires. Balance must be in all things, and for each of them a time and a place. This, Mu Ysha rages against, with her six blades, but you laid her low. This too, you have raged against, and soon will face the goddess who bound you once. Your road returns you precisely in time to consider that as you reach your Priestess once more.

***

Dolly, Mirror

Six Stones throws down her cards in disgust at being named the Bride after being forced to discard the Goddess again and Nines made a good run of it, but Mirror nailed her with a Jackal after she played the Pilot. This leaves just the two of you, with most of the upper half of the deck emptied out already. And all the space in the world to talk as the night winds down.

***

Isabelle

Kiriala swept you away the second she saw you. Over first to some of her friends, to give you an herbal Hybrasilian drink that hit a lot harder than its taste would have had you guessing. “You came you came!” she said with excitement, and then there were stories of Shantriala and the time she solved the murder of Hybrasil’s most famous geneticist and on and on. Other Hybrasilians drifted by, and you met some of the retinue of Smokeless Jade Fires for the first time, and they insisted on a drink to celebrate hooking another Terenian (with some allusions to a cross-bow binding of some kind that you consider that you ought to avoid if you want to be able to train for your next match instead of dragged off as a cult offering). But they insist on a drink too. And then there’s Angela who drifted over seeing another set of Terenians, and she insists on giving you a backslap and a congratulatory drink as well.

So as the night wears on, you’re tipsy and light-headed, and surrounded by celebrators. It all went by in a blur, but tell us what the highlight was, and then drag yourself to bed to get ready for the next match.

***

Solarel

While there is no particular logical theory as to how size relates to time, it is nevertheless true that at a vast size time seems to move differently. How long does it take to step a single earth-shattering stride among those empty planes? To review data, calibrate the balance, calculate forces? And then to correct and stride again. And again.

Is it not perfection to swing a hundred blades and test the weight of each? To measure the kickback of your sniper rifle with a new leg angled in every possible firing position?

It will be time for the next match by the time that you have fully learned all the specifications and functions of the new leg. Why is it that, when you reach that point, knowing all the myriad ways that it can be used, all its advantages and disadvantages, you still believe it inferior?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel

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

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

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

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

Some amount of practice may be in order.

***

Dolly, Mirror, Isabelle, and assorted guests

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

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

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

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

Jade

When do you join the party, and how?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel

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

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

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

***

Dolly

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

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

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

Jade

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

***

Mirror

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

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

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

***

Isabelle

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

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

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

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jade and Dolly

Jacinta’s power presses in on you. She advances steadily, carefully. When you twist, the black hole does not follow your heart, but shifts to rend your arm, your shoulder, the ribs of your chest.

[Take Hopeless]

“That’s it?” Jacinta’s voice rings out even above the roar of air, above the rending sound of crushing metal, reflecting and rebounding as she broadcasts it past her own attack. “That’s all you have to offer? A few jackals, a good thruster, and a spear managed to win you all but one match? You laid low the Fist of Dishai with this?!”

She laughs, incredulous, disbelieving, the sharp report of clipped laughter. Careful laughter. Her shoulders ought to be heaving and her body rising up and down, but her arms are still, precise, the attack unrelenting even as she mocks. Following you as you fall until she’s sure that she’s won, not letting the center move away from your body.

“I guess you never learned to take a proper punch, goddess. Not even from the stone fist of Dishai herself.” She snarls out a growl. “This match is over then. Pathetic.”

[Take an XP if either Jade or Dolly rises to this taunting despite everything.]

***

Mirror

“She is. I actually attended school with her, and she’s a better mathematician than I’ll ever be.” There’s a blush on Maelia’s cheeks. It’s quite a thing to admit on-air that one of the finest scientific minds of Hybrasil doesn’t think she can compare to a pirate queen when it comes to math.

“I consider that a triumph for our people, even given her..defection. This match footage will be closely studied for certain, and I suspect we can match the technique. Improve on it even. Dolly and Jade will be a hero to Hybrasil for forcing this move and giving us the benefit of Jactina’s stolen skills.”

She smiles, but it’s wistful. You can tell by how she’s narrating it that Maelia has already given up on the match. She’s filling the time while Jacinta completes her finish so that it doesn't get too boring. A weapon like this is many kinds of powerful and beautiful, but watching someone just keep pressing in until the match ends is not exciting sport. She doesn’t think that Jade and Dolly will find a way out of their predicament and so she’s honoring them as she thinks appropriate.

Do you think she’s right?

***

Solarel

Behind you the air shimmers and breaks as you take off. The pure energy of its crystal drive warps the arena, leaving it less than it was. Though you may not know it, the nanobots can’t fix this damage. Instead, Akaithon slowly works her way out of the slag and wreckage of the dead Kathresis. She’s healthy, but still dazed. Still processing. She saw things she had never before realized when she boarded the Kathresis, and more when you defeated it.

But defeat it you did. The core of the Kathresis was cold. You know how cold it was intimately within your heart. Yet the Aeteline felt nothing. The cold could not touch it. It revels too much in its own power, in the raw heat of its drive. Or perhaps you do? The Aeteline itself has no interfering AI personality, after all. But it does monitor sensation, control it, limit it, engage protocols to avoid the forces at play in its motion and actions harming the pilot.

What now, then? Your ship, for all its power, is missing a leg and will at a minimum need new materials for itself. Who can you visit to fix the Aetline? Where do you go?

***

Isabelle

She takes it. Not consciously, of course. But you’ve pulled Kiriala into a lot of contemplation and memory, into thinking about her life, into thinking about Mirror and Shantri, and what it means to serve Mother Hybrasil.

You’ve been there, in fact your sympathy for her plight is what made this as easy as it was. So many different mental Isabelle’s running around trying to decide what to do all at once, it’s a lot. Brings you back to plenty of stressful moments and you have to work on your own focus lest you blush too much thinking of the way Asil can pull YOUR focus just as much as Shantri got Kiriala’s.

Even with distraction, this match will go down incredibly. It’s not a simple thing to finish off someone who’s got their talent drilled into them with this tier of muscle memory and precision. Kiriala’s been on a hundred hunts and spent thousands of hours in the workout room and the training simulations.

So you have to work her to an opening. Your blade pressing into a series of strikes, blocks, her arms tiring just a hair, her stance shifting in response to your movements so that you can change them, and then change the way you change in order to stumble her and finally create a break in the guard.

To an external observer, it’s a thirty-three move sword duel that nearly goes faster than the eye can follow and then you land the decisive blow and cleave the upper quarter of her mech clean off. You have to stop yourself from an unnecessary follow up blow so deep are you both into it, and she almost lurches forward anyway as she realizes the damage is done and finally stops.

“Holy shit!” she says, finally focused on you again. “That was hot!”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jolly

Jacinta is a fierce fighter. Stripped of her weapons, she focuses her full power on strength and speed. Each block makes your arms shudder. Each dodge of the claw can be felt as the air against your metallic skin breathes in tension. Her blows are fierce, unrelenting, and precise.

But even so…even so it’s clear you have the better of her. One opponent with a mere two arms cannot fully defend herself against two well-coordinated combatants no matter how puissant. The small arms fire distracts her, scoring her armor. The dance is a step ahead of her, her claws never connecting cleanly against you. You can feel the elation, the strength. You can feel, even, in the tone of her roars and howls (for Jacinta Niares is many things, but silent is not one of them) a growing respect, a shift from fury to frustration to begrudging admiration. You’re impressive, you’re beautiful, you’re hot, and she wants you.

It is only then, as you see her growing desire within her, as she finally allows the jackal to close from behind and land a clean, unblocked blow, that you understand her insecurity. Jacinta, no matter how furious, calculates every angle. She understands her people, her power, her resources. And she must acknowledge now that she cannot handle every angle, that she cannot match you.

[Jacinta Niares takes Insecure]
And it is only now that she focuses her whole attention upon you, Jade. You and you alone, no other angles matter, the jackal doesn’t matter, the whole world is a pinpoint and it’s on your heart. “I know the prize I want. I know it, and I will take it. I’ll have you, goddess. You and everything that comes with you.”

You don’t understand what has happened. Her claw does not touch you, but there is a sudden roar. Not the roar of Jacinta. No, a roar a thousand times louder, a roar of warping steel and rushing air, as though reality itself has been rent in twain. And perhaps…perhaps it has. For upon your heart Jade, near enough to Dolly that it sounds like the entirety of the bottomless ocean is about to fall upon her, there is a crushing pressure pulling at your chest. Her claw has not touched you, but you have been struck all the same. Had you not dodged this blow, you feel as though the metal core within you might have instantly been crushed. But at least you have this moment of intense pressure to react. The jackal is entirely ignored. She does not move from this blow. Her hand is steady, held before your heart, and everything is the sound of roaring.

[Take the frightened condition]

***

Mirror

It looks like the air at Jade’s chest is boiling. That’s the best word to describe it. It roils and it swirls. Automatic hearing protection kicks in for the feed, reducing the volume, but the battlefield is consumed in the roaring of winds like a hurricane or a tide.

Maelia’s eyes next to you are fixed on the screen and they are so, so wide. “Goddesses, that’s a vacuum. She’s created a sustained, localized vacuum. But there’s no pump, and it’s perfectly spherical, no direction of displacement. The only way to do that is localized compression, which could come from…intense…mass. [Hunger’s gouging claw!]" She sucks in a breath, the phrase a curse that refers to the terrible pain that even the most modern and pampered cat understands when hunger spears at her from within.

***

Solarel

It is frustratingly slow. The Kathresis is driven by a directive that looks only to your destruction. As it takes structural damage, it tries a variety of tactics.

A desperate rush, easily dodged but that must be dodged lest it take an opportunity for a self-sacrificing blow.

It detects the pattern of avoiding Akaithon and attempts to disrupt your attacks by putting her in harm’s way. Though this is easily anticipated and led, it nevertheless requires stuttering fire, further slowing the process.

It feigns a more severe injury in the hopes of luring you to a quick finish that it might try for a surprise attack. A feint easily detected with the most basic of scanners, though a powerful trap for the lazy who might prefer to be less methodical.

In the end, it ceases to move and you pour fire into it until you are certain that it cannot move, that no functionality remains. The small arena is left in ruins, parts of it shattered, others frozen, some melted from the heat of your drive, the air left to shimmer from the dancing heat of the weapons discharge. Having completed your victory, the match is declared in your favor.

Akaithon begins to stir as recovery equipment begins the process of moving the wreck of the Kathresis out of the arena and into the Hangar for repairs. “Solarel? Solarel! When did? The match is over already! Call me. After, call me! I need to tell you what I saw. What I was seeing!”

***

Isabelle

“We’ve kissed” she says, and she’s proud of it. She’s still fighting, still strong, kind of in a flow state, but it’s a relaxed one, not as intense as the fighting was when her flow was concentrated on beating you.

“It’s like, the problem isn’t always confessing your feelings, you know? Sometimes it’s about how strong those feelings are, about loyalty and duty. Even more so if you both care about other things, other people, about causes and trying to do good and be strong and be reliable. It’s one thing to think that it’s good to kiss someone, even have them agree. Another to figure out how to be together all the time when mother Hybrasil has so many calls. We share a case and then we’re apart. There’s always work, always missions, always needs. I’m the pilot, Shantri’s too slow, and she doesn’t have the knack anyway. So Hybrasil called me for this fight, but not her. She’s got other work. There’s always a murder, always a new organization, a new problem somewhere. She’ll have a different bodyguard or maybe she won’t need one for what they have her doing.”

She swipes, pulls her spear into a backhand, a tricky but predictable pattern, a tier 1 feint, the kind you’d learn in school.

“I mean, you’re right though. I do need to think about how I can get to her. I guess that’s why I joined up with Mirror. She’s so much like her, I figured I’d learn something. I dunno what.”

If you want to win, you’ll need to take advantage of this opening. It will snap her out of her reverie, so make sure it counts.

***

Angela

The fight is over. You can hardly believe it. Ada seems to have a penchant for this kind of fight, win or loss, based on her match footage. It reminds you of both her fight with Dolly and of the one you saw with the Terenian, Isabelle. There she is standing over you. The Barn Owl is half crumpled in, the arms feel like they’re going to fall off and you can barely support your own weight with how imbalanced the core structure is. You half wonder if your own spine is going to snap off.

But there she is, standing right in front of you, raging impotently because your shot hit dead center. The core crystal fire drive was overloaded and shut down as a safety measure. Systems are fried and the core circuits will need to be completely replaced. Ada Smith, for all her fury, is stuck inside a statue. And since you’re still standing and you can move, however barely, you’ve won.

Her voice crackles over a lower power emergency comms system. “Well struck, Antonius. I underestimated you, and you got the win out of it. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. And be sure to contact me if you have work for the Snow Geese. We’ll gladly take mercenary work and you won’t find us lacking.”

You can hear her smile in that crackling voice. She lost, but she doesn’t feel so bad about this one. Breath a sigh of relief and try not to topple over until they can get someone out there to pull both of you out of the arena.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Isabelle

You can tell that Kiriala is surprised by your combat form. She knew that TC had mechas to match Hybrasilian models and maybe even outperform them in some ways, but it’s still a shock to her to see someone just keep up with her directly. It’s different than Mirror’s match where Mirror demonstrated an unmatched ability to simply do the impossible. This isn’t unexpected, you’re performing a parry and riposte that could have been a textbook illustration (and might well be for the coming generation). You’re just doing it with a grace and speed that Kiriala hasn’t yet seen in this tournament.

[If you haven’t already, mark your Legendary Skill]

She continues the exchange of blows, feet planted and plowing large furrows in the grasses as the sun glints off both your weapons. You can tell she revels in the flow of it all, spear turning and spinning, speed and precision actually increasing as she maneuvers against you, both ends of it being used to keep you on the defensive as she steps, thrusts, and constantly adjusts. But your last question, too, takes her aback.

“I…oh…I guess, I mean um, Mirror didn’t mention and I haven’t said anything. I um…” She’s obviously blushing, and apparently has her own version of an Asil in one form or another. “Well, I um…I mean my main work is investigating smugglers so it’s kind of like detective work. And a few times I got to partner with Shantriala Hunter, Six Thunders. She’s um…she’s like sort of famous for solving crimes on the Hybrasil capital system. Just figures people out just like that, but she’s pretty small and not that fast, her descent is one of the smaller phenotypes for Hybrasilians, so she needs a partner sometimes. She also really likes her coffee.”

You can tell this is getting her mind off of things. She almost misses a block, takes a grazing blow from your sword on the arm, shoves it away, tries to recenter herself and resumes the assault. But she’s daydreaming about Shantriala and really that’s the answer to all your questions.

***

Solarel

Days ago, a minor official helping to manage the logistics of the Akar tournament decided, after watching the footage of the Aeteline departing the Crystal Gala, that its next match would be most exciting in a contained arena to prevent it from withdrawing to extreme range. As a matter of both fairness and doubling down on excitement, this official ensured that the newly formed arena would also match the aesthetics of several species and provide a central, open area for combat with no places to hide and no possibility of being entirely out of weapons range for any participant.

When your small arms fire damaged the cloak of the Kathresis, this further meant that it would be a dark-colored target against light-colored stone, its features and appearance easily spotted relative to its background. When you cut off your own leg, it ensured that you had no blindspots for a maneuvering appointment to add statistical uncertainty into the calculations.

As the burning heart of the Aeteline races in tune with your own, you briefly understand that these factors transformed a shot that might have been impossible into one with at least one successful firing vector in all possibility spaces.

The shot streaks through the air, into the chest of the Kathresis, force blasting it past Akaithon’s cheek like a kiss, drawing a blushing line where it passes. The bullet impacts at the base of the mind impulse cable.

“Oh” says Akaithon before the sudden surge of her own body rushing into itself knocks her unconscious and the sound of her slumping onto the floor can be heard over the open comms line.

In this, the Kathresis is powerless to change things. The AI takes over for an incapacitated pilot, and the machine readies another lance charge. But without the pilot’s reflexes and link for the AI to support, overall functionality is slower, more sluggish, less flexible. Nor can it speak at all. The Kathresis, now, can only be understood as it tries, desperately, to move through the bindings that enveloped it.

***

Jolly

“Good!” Jactina shouts over the comms, another low roar rumbling within her beneath her shout. You can feel it reverberate through the air itself. “You’ve very right, if you’d have accepted, you’d have become my slave just like that. But that does mean, goddess, that you’ve made the prize for taming you even greater!”

She smiles, and she shouts, and she rushes you and the jackal both. Above the water, there’s now only a mild spray as the steam jets are settling and the sun shines down on you as you clash above the roiling lake. Jactina is all fists, all ferocity and power and cruelty. But underneath it all, there’s a precision to her movements, a calculation that applies the most power to every blow, that constantly makes you feel like the box is tightening around you and you have less and less room to maneuver even though you’re in an even fistfight in midair. There’s no more avoiding this confrontation.

[Roll to fight Jacinta]

***

Angela

“Good” says Ada over the comms and she means it sincerely. She sees you as a peer in that moment, you can hear it in her tone. You stand for something. Not the same as what she does, but it’s something real, something worthy, something of value. You have your own pride, your own expectations, your own heart to prove.

Blows shower down on you and the critical moment where you stand on the brink of victory and defeat and straddle them thin as a thread comes swiftly.

What happens?

***

Mirror

Maelia flicks her tail in excitement. She had, for a moment, flicked off her mic to look at you with concern, but had thought better of it, said nothing, flicked it back on, and then you had relaxed and she had relaxed and as far as she was concerned, that was good. At least until after the match.

“[The spined beast whose quills are merely to sow fear]” she is referring to a prey animal on Hybrasil. It’s known for having extremely sharp quills that it can flick its tail to throw at attackers. They’re quite painful, but the animal itself doesn’t value them. They’re there as a ward and if it’s actually attacked, it throws them all right away and switches to a different strategy reliant on its claws and rabid ferocity.

She looks at you with a smile as the combatants close and the fighting begins in earnest. “Ah, this really feels poetic doesn’t it? Jackals circling a lioness. This is the stuff of new mythology even before the goddess involved herself. Still, Jacinta is fighting with measured ferocity, isn’t she? Utterly in control of herself. I’ve never seen a pilot that confident even after being struck several times.”