Anarion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror and Solarel

The only sound is the quiet sizzle of the loose earth as it vaporizes in the air against each of your blades. It’s soft, almost more like water than earth as it passes through its phase changes so rapidly that it has no time to properly lose its shape. A gentle breeze channels in through the marble columns as the dust settles.

The galaxy waits with bated breath for the first moves.

***

Isabelle

“Okay, what the hell?” says a middle-aged Terenian woman with a ponytail, wide-rim dark glasses and a prim white business shirt covering an even wider chest. “I’ve been working on this broadcast for thirty years. Since we started as the weather channel on a forsaken mining outpost in the middle of nowhere. And never, not once, has station management splurged for free coffee, the goddamn cheapskates.”

She’s holding up the line and people in back are starting to get antsy. Always a risk with a plan that requires a line. If it gets too long, some people are going to decide that “waiting around for thirty minutes” is too high a price for free food and what will probably be burnt coffee by the time they get there.

Dolly’s already into the control room, but if more and more people start wondering around, inevitably the actual station techs will make their way in there and potentially point out that there has not, in fact, been any technical work ordered for the main broadcast control room.

She’s not moving though. She’s expecting an actual answer, this isn’t a rant, she wants you to, *gasp* talk to her.

***

Dolly

The long-haired Terenian woman who you knocked over spits hair out of her mouth. She had worn it loose, probably figuring that as a sound tech, she could be comfortable and didn’t have to worry about what she looked like. So now she spits loose strands of her out that ended up in her mouth when you pushed her over. She’s blushing, and she looks extremely embarrassed. So much so that it crosses over from her wanting to sink into a hole to instead wanting to be extremely helpful to make it for what she perceives as her mistake.
“Oh, no, no, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. I’m always so clumsy, I’m only good with sound equipment, I never know what to put my hands with other people. I mean…not that I would put my hands on…I oh gosh, oh no. Here let me help, I can help you out. Oh, and um, your zipper is coming loose! No, don’t get up, you’ll just make it worse, here let me come under there, I can help, I can, I can help!”

[Whatever you do with her next, please roll to entice her.]

***

Matty

You blush furiously over the comms. You can’t see what Dolly is doing, but you can hear it and now you’re imagining a strange Terenian leaning over you pulling at your jumpsuit zipper, which has mysteriously gotten stuck. You do your absolute best to be sure that the high-pitched squeak emanating from your lips is not audible over anybody’s earpieces while they’re dealing with their problems!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Finals

Dolly

The broadcast control center for the finals is based on Akar prime, in the heart of the spaceport, on level three (3) of the traffic control tower. Easiest way to staff it from both planets, high tech equipment, perfect broadcast location for the whole system.

Matty comes on over the comms you’ve got nestled at the base of your ear, blended into your fur so nobody can see it right off the bat. “O-okay, so you’re going to need to get Jade’s mesh into the broadcast center and i-inside the control console, along with the data uplink controller, um, t-that’s the little stick with the gold light on it. It will turn green when you hook it to the console. There’s um…two s-staff in there, both Terenians, one that’s um g-got long hair and she’s short and another one that’s um k-kinda darker and has short hair. Isabelle’s going to distract everyone else so that you’ll have a clear approach, but you’ll have to talk your way into the control room and close enough to do the thing and not have them notice. Or um…agree to it I guess?”

You’ve been tasked with giving Jade control over the broadcast equipment for Mirror’s final match. It is apparently deeply important that the broadcast be controlled to her directions and Jade has been given the instructions for that part, you’ve just got to be the physical link that gets her in. Who’s with you, did you bring Ksharta and Angela to help, or go by yourself to be less noticeable?

Jade

You’re the hacker. Slate’s finished her modifications and your idol body feels lighter and stronger than ever before. But, one of those modifications, mixed in with all the high tech new sensor equipment, is a hacking module. One that’s capable of taking over a wide array of communications equipment all at one time. One that you’ve been asked, very politely and formally, to use to control the finals broadcast at key moments as directed by Matty. You’re linked with Dolly of course. She’s got to get into the room and get you hooked into the equipment before you can start your work properly. Got any encouragement for her?

***

Isabelle

The spaceport is crowded and well-staffed. The broadcast for the Arena finals is one of the most popular programs across the entire galaxy. Staff are coming and going, there’s catering, there’s tech staff, there’s actual security, and then all the assorted randoms: the bureaucrats and supervisors, and even some interns all filling the space.

Your job is to get everyone out of the way so that Dolly can safely approach and work her way into the master control room in the spaceport on the third level of the tower. You’ve got all the engineering power of Hybrasil and the Terenius Consortium that Slate and Asil could offer you, Zaldarian nanotech, and anything else you can muster from your friends, allies, and contacts. Matty is on the communicator line for any coordination you need.

Dolly’s already on the move. How are you managing all this, and what’s going through your head as you do it?

***

Matty

You cannot believe they left you to do this alone. Alone! You can’t leave your post for anything. Well, you could, but Slate has been working nonstop for days and you don’t have the heart in you to wake her to take over your spot. Not for anything, not unless the building is burning down, and even then you’d try to carry her out without waking her. No, she gets to snore away in the next room after her hard-earned reward arranging an entire network wide communications takeover linked to the entire redo of Jade’s idol body. Which she apparently also completed in record time and did not skimp on any of the requested features in the process.

But, you’ve set Dolly up, and you’re waiting for any signals from Isabelle, and meanwhile Kiriala is in a nearby building disabling their security so that everybody else won’t be recorded doing any of this. But she hasn’t contacted you in thirty minutes and you’re too afraid to distract her yet since she’s still on schedule, so you’re just sitting on your office chair in the hangar and fidgeting your legs which do not reach the floor in this desk setup and hoping that everything goes great for Mirror’s broadcast takeover. Yeah, this plan totally isn’t crazy!

***
***
***

Mirror and Solarel

For the finals, your arena is…the planet. The entire planet.

You are starting in an arena proper. Not the one where Mirror fought Heim, which is apparently still entirely closed off and has been moved underground using the nanobots surrounding the area to do earth moving for unspecified repairs. But nevermind that, they’ve created an entirely new arena at a mecha scale. You and Solarel deploy to a vast field, surrounded by glorious marble spires ten stories tall, holding up two rows of white marble walls. The top is open, creating a vast colosseum surrounding you for the beginning of your fight.

But you are not limited. There are no boundaries and no other competitors. The nano-bot constructed planet is laid out to cover its range of terrain used over the tournament. Sections of it are arranged as Terenian cities, some in new shape, others ruined and overgrown. Vast rivers and forests cover some areas, others are mountainous and open. Above you, several space platforms and satellites float in the upper atmosphere. And the skies are clear and cloudless on this side of the mountains, the sun shining down and lighting up the arena. You could burn clear across the planet for hours and keep fighting wherever you please. Or you could stay exactly where you started and clash in close quarters.

Camera drones are deployed above you, and many, many more are secreted about the space, prepared to follow you or activate as you move about in order to get the best shots at the best angle, all broadcast back to the system for the live viewings, and then to the neural mesh recordings for mash production and dissemination across the solar systems.

The entire world is your battlefield, do with it what you will.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

“Very well, you’ve won. You have me, and I will do as I’m told.”

Marcina takes your hand. Without hesitation or reluctance. This is not to say that there is no fear in her face. No, from what you know of Terenians, and the feeling of her pulse as you touch, she is quite nervous. Her heart beats swiftly and her brow is furrowed. Even still, she cannot read you, even still she sees the leaf that might blow her any which way. But if before she sought to cow the wind, now she has surrendered herself to it. Not without trepidation, but she has overruled it and surrendered. Utterly, completely. Take her as you please, show her what you will, in this moment she is yours.

***

Dolly

Slate cocks her own head. “I meant questions about my work, but that’s not what I said. She’d pin me for that. That’s what you ought to know about her, Dala Hunters. She is powerful and she is strict. With herself more than anyone else in the world. She has given her heart and soul to her dreams. Dreams that shouldn’t be possible. Dreams that she clings to without ever being satisfied with everything and everyone else who comes to her. But who she needs nevertheless. She needs the biggest family in the world and you’re part of it now.”

She grins again, and you get the impression that you’ve already been hunted down and devoured. And then, well, maybe you have.

***

Isabelle

Even here, help is not long away. Rescue drones fly up from below to help you down and to gather the remains of the Emberlight. Little enough remains of it. The sniper round incinerated most of the core systems. But the drive is still in its protective casing surrounded by melted slag, and the lower third exists more or less intact. So there is salvage to recover and something that can be made from this yet. Eventually. Though let’s be honest, even with nanobots assisting you, creating a new Emberlight (if that’s even what you want now) would be the work of the better part of a year.

There’s also the matter of your own numbness. The sudden daze of feeling sensation cut from your lower body, and then the shot, so fast that it felt like you were stabbed in the chest before the feed cut out entirely. No warning lights blare because there’s nothing left of the automated systems to blare them. There is instead quiet. The gentle rush of the wind through turbulent clouds alone with you as help comes to get you.

You’ve seen into the heart of Solarel, but before you could get there, you were blocked by something dark and terrible. Reflect on what you have found.

***

Solarel

Where are you?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

She knows that she’s lost this fight. You can read it in her body language as you lift off, in the slightest hint of lethargy of the responding shield drones before they’re blown apart by your tails.

It’s one of the easier calculations to make. She’s used a vast amount of resources. Nor is this a Solarel style battlefield, she has not snuck into the space and filled it with hidden mines or had the opportunity to seed the field with heretofore unseen drones. Marcina Villajero is not the sort of woman to partake in such tricks, but prides herself on being able to foil or endure them. You, though, you have outlasted her in every way that counts. Perhaps in another minute she would rally and understand how to fight you with simply her sword. Perhaps she could make that realization. But in this moment, she has used up or lost nearly all of her payload, attacked you in your most vulnerable and limited position with the most speed she can muster, and the blow was not decisive. It did not even slow you nor disable your next attack. And now you have freedom of motion.

“If I am like walking the mountain, then I see that you have mounted me” she says, with a voice that sings bittersweet. “Come then, take what you have earned.”

She does not concede, but charges you again. Knowing that she cannot avoid the shot, knowing that she will not make it to you. She watched the Heim Stockar fight as well, and understands the power you can put out. But what is she to do? Dodge? Dodge and dodge and dodge in a machine that will exhaust her to do so and hope for an opening? No, she is the bulky one, the one in armor and with the sword that can end the fight in one blow all her own. She will fight and give herself completely to your hands.

Do with her what you will.

[She takes a string on you in offering her submission and will spend it immediately to offer an XP for you to show her everything you’ve got.]

***

Isabel and Solarel

The long slow dance is coming to a close. You’ve already mapped the terrain. Pieces of the cityscape were blown apart at random and no new threats have since emerged. The clouds were ionized, released, and ionized again and no new threats have emerged. The remaining structures, such as they are, present a known set of visuals. Surprising how quickly you can start to get a feel for what’s going to be at your back without needing to stop and look. A new map only challenges its players briefly and then they solve it for its particular quirks and eccentricities.

What remains to you is simply to avoid the distraction of the beautiful sunset, casting the sky in a vivid mixture of oranges and pinks.

Bring the duel to its conclusion.

***

Dolly and Jade

“Alright that will do for today. See you again same time tomorrow?” Slate’s smile is all teeth. She had fun, and she knows she had fun. She knows about your connection, and well, some things can be inferred even if they aren’t directly stated. Though surely this was a coincidence, a lucky moment that she chose to capitalize on, perhaps didn’t even realize until it was already happening and she was coming out of her technical reverie.

“I think we have all the details we need. The larger parts will come either tomorrow or the day after. We’ll need a little time to get them switched out, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, and then there will need to be some rounds of testing and tuning. I admit that I am curious how that works with Smokeless Jade Fires. Normally the AI provides raw data and then the pilot compares their impressions. A tenth of a second faster turning isn’t useful if it makes the pilot feel sick, that sort of thing. But in this case I imagine the goddess has the final say in most of these things, at least as long as the high priestess can handle it. Any questions for me?”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

“Fighting you is like…like trying to fight a leaf in a storm!” There’s a mixture of respect and frustration in that language, and a tone that says that the image popped vividly into her head of its own accord.

“Always moving unexpectedly. Floating only to catch a new current of air and move suddenly, differently, impossibly.”

Three waves of missiles you’ve avoided. The cockpit is even hotter than before, a combination of your own exertions and the heat of nearby explosions defusing throughout the Gods-Smiting Whip in order to avoid structural vulnerability. Your tail system is delighted. Every tail except tail 9 has lit up for potential use after that sequence of dodges. Almost eager to get back out there after all being recalled to the main body save tail 1 on the arm for shielding.

“But now, the wind has died down and the leaf has settled gently onto the ground. Now is the best chance I’m going to get in this fight, isn’t it?”

There is a critical difference between Solarel’s version of this technique and Marcina’s. And not just that Marcina came with multiple waves. The Bezorel was, fundamentally, a piece of junk. Slow, weak, outfitted with an older drive that offered less efficient energy and thus incapable of multiple actions at once without sacrificing so much defense that it would end up one-shot.

But the Jormungar is a far cry from that machine. It’s the best that the Terenius Consortium can produce, constantly upgraded. The tip of the spear of all the power of a galactic civilization that valued aggressive expansion for resources. It runs the latest drive, the best materials, the most efficient defenses. With so much of its equipment load dedicated to missiles that it has now fired, the huge machine is also much lighter. Light enough that a charge with that massive sword is now possible without a fight-losing commitment.

This is the difference. Solarel fired the hellzone grenade for its own sake, a technique that would pressure its opponent with overwhelming firepower in a single moment. Marcina Villajero fired it three times because she hoped that it would limit your tactical flexibility for the follow up strike.

You are on the ground, knee buried in water and flowing rubble, your sword your only purchase for a fast change of position. All your tails are on the body of the Whip, preventing unexpected angles. And Marcina is coming at you with her massive sword faster than she’s ever moved before. This was the cost of surviving the hellzone grenade.

What will you do to turn this around?

***

Isabelle and Solarel

A huge piece of the cloud platform blows apart. While the immediate effect is a surprise attack, it also shifts the structure of the city. The primary platform, which was supporting multiple buildings and communications spires, has lost a section of its base and as a result it begins to list towards the explosion, metal groaning and buckling as it shifts through wisps of cloud. It won’t hold together long, and you’ll both find yourselves needing to react to crumbling metal and concrete or to take the fight vertical, into the rapidly churning cloud cover, sparking with lightning after Solarel’s earlier display and the rapid introduction of several energized metallic elements into the mix.

***

Dolly and Jade

“Alright, I won’t ask you twice.” Slate grins, and then she’s suddenly a whirlwind of motion. You may not have ever seen one of Mirror’s engineers properly at work before, and it’s somewhat different than Jade’s regular cult. There is no oblation before the goddess from Slate, nor any sort of ritual movement. She’s punching orders into a wrist communicator, and then scrambling past you and several startled cult members to pull open panels and check component types, wiring, and data links.

Jade, this may feel rather akin to being suddenly tickled, given that you were not expecting work to be done.

“Okay, we’ll need lighter legs, more power for the ambush when you have terrain options, including space stations and asteroids, please remember those. We’ll want to upgrade the stealth generator, which will go further down into the chassis to prevent it from being disrupted by jamming technology. All the rumors are that the pirates ended up with the best jammers somehow, you should bring one back for me, I’ll build you the countermeasure for free. Okay right, and then stronger arms, lighter chest, obviously keep the the center of the chest wide to give the pilot lots of protection, but bring in the stomach, she’s going to be thin at the center, yeah that one, get that shipped here right away, it should already be in the Hangar somewhere, yes I’m authorized, no it’s not my normal docking bay number, yes add it to the Hybrasil account, thank you.”

It’s rather like a whirlwind has descended on Jade’s idol, poking and prodding for details, information, technical compatibility, jumping around the platform past the startled crew. How do you all react?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Isabel

The clouds part, and you see that you have indeed gained Solarel’s attention. Perhaps more even than she realized. Though she could resume the system again, and there is much danger to you from an approach, the motion of the wind, the cloud, and the swirls and eddies through the city means that one of your drones could reach close range without it being possible for it to be separated out from the fog until it’s close.

Answer two questions. First, what are you most ashamed of? Second, what are your feelings towards Solarel? Answer both truthfully. Answer one through words, and one through action.

Solarel

You stand as a goddess questioning the toy that has been held up to you in offering. Remember, however, the myths of Hybrasil that you learned from Mirror. A goddess who is too proud and unwary can still be bound, though her wrath will be fierce indeed.

The initiative is to Isabelle for the next move.

***

Mirror

“I fear I will yet fall short of your demands, Mira Fisher, whose star name is Whispered Promise, whose mercenary call sign is Mirror, whose title is the One Day Defender. These are the things I could research about you, the records of your deeds that were left from your work among my people and the tellings of your people that my staff were able to contact in the time that I realized you were entirely honest with me in the bar.”

There is a sadness in her voice at this, a feeling of fear that she doesn’t believe that simply reciting the names and titles of your people and your work will answer the question you’re really asking. But nevertheless, a sign of respect. Showing her work, offering to you the time and effort she has spent.”

At the same time, missile lock warnings start to sound. She hasn’t moved out of the mist, not yet, but she’s activating a substantial part of her payload, using her targeting software for the lock without needing to exit the water. Tricky to do, superheated water and steam would stop most wavelengths of energy. She’s probably scanning for you via high-radiation sensors of some kind, maybe specifically tuned to a Crystal Fire energy source distinct from the weapons fire.

“As for your secret. I suppose I must disappoint you there as well. It lies in my hands and yet I cannot grasp it. You are not piloting with a neural mesh interface. I know you are not. I’ve watched every one of your fights in detail. Certain actions you have taken were not merely unlikely but impossible with such an interface. Your last fight guaranteed this to me, when you defeated Smokeless Jade Fires. You’ve strained past all known physiology of a Hybrasilian body, and if you were numbing feedback to the level that would be possible without knocking you unconscious, you would not have been able to act in the reaction times required to make that fight look flawless. It crossed from something that could, perhaps, be explained with the most cutting edge technology to the realm beyond the possible. But what are you doing instead? How am I to get my hands around that?”

At last, there is the hint of a smile in her voice. “Well, I thought perhaps you’d give me more data in this fight. In my opinion, though the fight with Jade Fires was most informative, it was not the one where you were most pressed.”

The missiles have taken to the air, but as they approach you, they do not remain as one missile. Rather, each one splits into a burst of cluster missiles, some going directly at you in a cloud, others diverting to fly above or below you and then home in on you together. The exact strategy that Solarel used when she was piloting the Bezorel, but deployed much faster. While it was ssable only once on such a small mech as the Bezorel, it’s possible depending on how much space the Jormungar has dedicated to this that she could manage two or perhaps even three waves of this burst missile attack.

***

Dolly and Jade

Slate smiles. She does not speak as she watches Dolly’s head tilt and her cheeks blush. She does not speak as Jade caresses her, but she tilts her head and she watches without blinking. And she does smile.

When Dolly stops, when Jade releases her to focus, then Slate speaks.

“Are you saying that you want these things more than you already have them? That you wish to further optimize an already light chassis for stealth, speed, and ambush tactics?”

She laughs then, not hard, not long. A quick spit of a laugh that makes her turn her head and arch her neck before it comes out like a bullet. Then she turns back to you. “Which of you does this request come from, I wonder? It’s a request that requires either the highest confidence or the desire to someday lose. Do you know what the tradeoffs are for a chassis like the one you describe? Let me tell you. Acceleration is a factor of energy output and mass. Particularly in space. In an atmosphere there are also matters of aerodynamics, wind, and vectors to consider, but in space, acceleration is strictly energy output and weight. Now…”

She pauses, and gives you a serious look that suggests you ought to know this already, but she’s giving the lecture anyway. The kind of lecture she’d give a novice pilot who was first deciding on their practice specifications. “Your energy output is a fixed number, we’re not getting you a better drive than you got from Hybrasil. So we need to entirely focus on weight for your desired results. That makes the question one of trading offense and defense. If you want communications jamming software, disabling weaponry, stealth generators, and enough overall power to actually win a fight on the ambush, you’re going to be maxing out your weight on offense. So, let me spell that out for you as clearly as I can. If you run a chassis like that and you’re ever taken unawares, YOU will be the one instantly knocked out. The Red Band, as I understand their methods, usually follows that up by trussing up their prize and dragging it bound and gagged back to their headquarters. In fact, if memory serves, you’ve already experienced that once? So, let me confirm. That’s the kind of body that the Goddess Smokeless Jade Fires and her High Priestess desire?”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

Marcina’s combat style is often characterized as one with the minimum of wasted effort. A machine as massive as the Jormungar has a lot of momentum. If she tried to dive aside from every attack, she would find herself outpaced and outmatched. While novices might assume that a massive, heavy platform is simple to operate, it’s actually the opposite: in an era of high-speed mechas with deadly weaponry, piloting a heavy machine is an act of supreme skill.

The parry is a shift of one foot a few meters and an adjustment of the angle of her primary sword by approximately 13 degrees. She doesn’t so much stop your blade as she adjusts it, using the force of your momentum against you as though she were a matador at what you’ve seen in the holovids as a bullfight.

But then, that’s not quite good enough, is it? Of course, she had already fired a visible autocannon at you as you charged, if nothing else to ensure that you maintained the shield and punish a feint. But once you got close and that option was no longer available, she understood as well as you did that your tails represented as much threat as the sword. She calculated immediately that she couldn’t leave them unaccounted for, couldn’t accept an unknown variable.

The drones deploy immediately, accounting for the fact that your breakneck speed requires a response without hesitation. In Hybrasil, you would call these jackals, but they are not operating on the sort of jackal logic that produced Jade. Nor are they like the complex drones that Isabelle Lozano seems to enjoy for weaving illusions. Both of those coordinate as a group for a singular aim (typically simple, occasionally dazzlingly complex as in Isabelle’s case). These, rather, are each independent, directed by Marcina’s will. There are two on each side and they don’t stray far from the Jormungar. Two of them form an energy shield, pressing the energy blade of the tails off their trajectory. The other begin to rain fire on you from a slight vertical angle, allowing for the safety of the Jormungar itself even at close range.

The autocannon fire is annoying, but it should be emphasized, not overly dangerous unless you just sit in it for a prolonged period. It’s most effective for throwing off your balance, rather than doing anything like serious damage to the Whip. But, they now place the onus on you to respond before she uses the opening for a much more powerful attack.

As you each draw a breath, she answers. “You ask for a name and a secret as though they were singular. Liar. If I have learned anything, it is that. What does it mean to be the One Day Defender? To be known among your people as Whispered Promise? A whispered promise can be both heard and unheard. A secret kept even from the girl it’s about, or a secret shared from the start. And then, there are times that a whisper is louder than a thousand shouts and just as well heard, are there not?”

***

Isabel and Solarel

What you’re seeing isn’t entirely inexplicable. Ionized electrical energy is a hallmark of crystal fire-powered weaponry, and applied to a stormcloud that already had electrical charge, it wouldn’t even take a particularly large amount of electricity properly directed to create the effect that you’re seeing.

That said, the fact that it has an explanation hardly makes it less impressive or creative. She’s channeling enough energy into that cloud that anything running in there is going to get massively electrocuted. Think constant lightning strikes, so if your machine or your nanobots aren’t built to handle constant lightning strikes don’t go in there. Energy shielding can certainly handle that, of course, that amount of energy is nothing compared to a hyperjump. But it’s committing you to a particular course of action and a particular distribution of energy usage if you go in there to get her. And that means she’ll know more about what you’re doing than you might like.

Then again, perhaps a strategy that forces you to limit the strategies you choose is, in truth, a sign of respect?

It is Isabelle’s move as to how to respond to it.

***

Dolly

“96, huh? Let’s see, that’s three steps since I last checked. Usually one number means they advanced something meaningful, but they were getting sloppy about it before I left. Back in the 70 series, if they went up a full number, it meant a comprehensive improvement in energy efficiency and processing capability together. Now…mmm, I’d guess with three that’s still true, but it might be more like one number used to be.”
Slate’s grinning while she thinks, her eyes never going off you, Dolly. She doesn’t see like Mirror, but she sees with her own eyes all the same. “She passed you that info, I take it. The way you spouted it off, cadence was all wrong. Knew I’d know that too, didn’t she?”

She blinks, once, twice. “Well, if the goddess wanted to talk to me directly, I’m sure she’s got plenty of ways to do it, so I’ll go through her priestess. Her dancing priestess.” She grins again, just a little bit feral behind it, showing you her teeth.

“More questions. Well, not about the specs unless there’s something specific the goddess wants me to know, in which case feel free to just cut in with that when she relays it. I think my questions are about the why. I’m an engineer, a very good engineer, I’ll have you know. I deliver on the technical goals that someone wants. With Mirror, that means a machine that wins her fights. But with you, with a goddess who teaches her priestess to pilot by dancing. Who, as you said, eschewed a more firepower heavy loadout because of goals unrelated to maximizing combat performance, I need something different. I need to know what you want to be able to accomplish, and how you want to accomplish it. Tell me what you want to actually be able to do.”

You might think she’d be frustrated over this ambiguity, but her tail lashes with excitement.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Semifinals

Mirror

The pieces are falling into place. Matty came back with a delighted smile and not one but three signed pieces of paper representing the lion’s share of the Lozano family’s prayer holdings. And a piece of neural mesh that assured you of their intentions: the true Lozano family hope in you enshrined in a little gray slip, capable of being copied a thousand times to ensure it can’t be covered up or denied, but impossible to forge. Nobody has ever managed to perfectly mimic the neural signals of another person.

Jade’s idol is being repaired with Slate’s help. It will be shining and glorious, fully capable as a dancer and a warrior as the need may be. She will soon stand ready for you to call upon her, or at least insofar as Jade would admit that a goddess can stand ready for anyone to call upon her. Dolly stands ready as well, in her way, as does her cult, many of whom have also befriended your own engineers now that you’re not in competition.

The Gods-Smiting Whip is repaired, fine-tuned, even the grip strengthened on the sword after your last fight. The crew is well aware of Marcina Villajero’s eye for detail and Slate in particular committed to going over every frame of your last fight and ensuring there was nothing to exploit. At least, nothing to exploit that’s within Slate’s power to change.

And Marcina herself. Well, what you’ve heard after her fight with Angela is that she decided to retool her support setup. The vulnerability to the rush screened by missiles was too obvious. So while she’s kept the huge sword that represents the core of her power, she’s adjusted the type and placement of her guns and missiles. Several likely hidden. You have some sense from the view as you enter the fight that she’s gone for more physical ammunition: explosives and autocannons with less emphasis on energy defenses. Perhaps she thinks it will be more effective than trying to match the variety of energy generation techniques that the Whip has already demonstrated.

Speaking of the fight, your final arena seems to have been imagined as though centuries had passed in the arenas of the previous fights. You are in a city like your fight with Dolly, but sunken and overgrown. Standing on the “ground” means standing with your mecha knee-deep in water. Buildings are skewed and slanted, many held in place by vast vines that have tangled with them. Several have holes through them as though hundreds of fights had occurred and powerful explosives had blasted straight through them. The water is not still, but flows from somewhere and to somewhere, so that the city has become a basin in a much larger system. In the distance, the city slopes upward and water runs down low hills and ridges as the buildings move away from the tall buildings of the city center and instead shift to what once were residences now entirely overgrown with lush greens and browns amid the flowing water.

Marcina is deployed across from you in the city center. No surprise, though many opportunities to hide or shift the fight.

“I have been thinking” she says, without any formalities. “About when we first met over drinks. You told me that everything you do, you do to the best of your abilities. And yet that you do not owe everyone, or at least not your oppressors the respect of crushing them. From me, you drank the cinnamon drink even though you knew it would harm you. You suffered, I believe, to make a more effective point to me, that would be etched in my memory. I did not deserve this respect from you. I have been foolish again and again in evaluating you, and you have been nothing but correct.”

Then she says something in Hybrasilian. It’s not a traditional saying, but the words make sense in order. “[To know an opponent is to defeat them. To learn their hopes and their dreams, to know precisely how to serve them, this you use to cut them down.] But you…I still do not know you. And so…I want you. I desire you. I will have you.”

***

Solarel

The return to the Aeteline was at once more and less than your memory could do justice to it. It is more in that your body is strong. Refreshed with food, rest, your mind focused, new routines of information to consider and calculate, the interface with the Aeteline feels sharper and faster. You could move and lift the stars themselves with the right lever.

And yet, you return with things entirely outside of the Aeteline etched in your heart. The furnace at its heart knows nothing of noodle bowls and cinema lighting. It has not heard of a documentary and it does not have any consideration of the fashion dos and don’t for cape wearing. It does not consider how it might be to deal with a manic director or an easily flushed translator because these things are outside the parameters of its operations and it would not function for a pilot whose mind was not able to synchronize with its automated processes.

You face now the other Terenian pilot, Isabelle Lozano. The one from that strange Trak’tho planet who you called not worth your time. Yet she has come back. She has won her matches, restored her preferred machine, and added to it in new ways. The dynamic nature of Terenian technology once again at play. Her mechanical body has not remained constant and this is not merely due to making repairs with inferior parts. She has chosen to add new functions, chosen to make modifications, chosen, for no reason but her own preferences, to change how it works.

You fight amid a city of clouds. A series of orbital platforms, lower than your previous battle on a space platform, and far larger. This must be a recreation of an entire Terenian mining city, replete with small buildings and roads, all built for upper atmosphere mining operations and gas collection. It offers unusual angles, is still subject to gravity (and thus to falls should an engine be disabled or overtaxed), and glows a gentle orange-pink in the sunrise that lights your match.

***

Isabelle

Well, here you are. The control device is removed with Asil’s help, and your family have placed their trust in Hybrasilians you just met at their encouragement and a little persuasions from the tiny mechanic. Is it not freeing, in a way? Your girlfriend is the superior mechanic, your fate entrusted to others. The only thing left for you to focus on here is the fight. Oh, and your Zaldarian prisoner, who left the estate a few days ago with a carefully written apology note in Terenian indicating that she appreciated your hospitality but did not feel that she could remain given your opponent.

So, really all that’s left is to focus on the fight and not the thousand things swirling around it that you could worry about but that you have no control over. Keep trying t remember that.

You fight amid a city of clouds. A series of orbital platforms, lower than Solarel’s previous battle on a space platform, but much higher than the elevated ruined city or the open plains where you fought earlier matches. This is a recreation of an entire Terenian mining city, replete with small buildings and roads, all built for upper atmosphere mining operations and gas collection. It offers unusual angles, is still subject to gravity (and thus to falls should an engine be disabled or overtaxed), and glows a gentle orange-pink in the sunrise that lights your match.

***

Dolly and Jade

“So, what are the specs on this thing?” Slate’s head is cocked to one side as she gazes at the idol in the hangar. Not fighting this round. But Mirror still insisted that she be in tip top shape. In fact, she sent her own chief engineer to assist you.

“It’s been a few years since I was home, maybe longer with the travel distances. So did they make any breakthroughs that you just weren’t using right? You kept up with the Whip on a regular chassis, so you’ve gotta have something under the hood there. Though if all they managed for you was a more efficient processor, that would still be plenty I supposed.”

“If you ask me, it looks more like a dancer than a fighter though.”

And that one might cut a little. Because little does Slate know that your poll results included one write in for “start a pole dancing business” (obviously from Six Stones) and one write in for “dance in the sacred ceremonies of the gods” who you’re not sure would have sent that as a write-in. The rest are fairly evenly split between hunting the Red Band and temple complex. Doesn’t seem like there’s any support for the roving justice thing, people either want a clear goal or a clear base. Garden Planet has two votes, tying for the dancing routine if you count the joke vote.

Also Slate’s staring at you for a response.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

Slate turns her head a hair, a sleepy quizzical expression. “Of course. I’m terrified, Mira. Terrified of winning, terrified of losing. We’re doing this instead of war.” She lets her gaze linger, looking up at your face, her neck craned backwards to make the angle.

“[Sunlight withers grass, prey begins the pilgrimage] yes, exactly. But who’s the prey and where are they going? That’s what we don’t know. And that’s terrifying.”

She smiles and breathes, long slow breaths that evince a serenity that doesn’t match her words. “But then, none of that will make us quit, will it? It doesn’t matter who we’re pawns for, won’t matter when it’s over. We get something unique, something you can’t buy, and you of all people are one to stretch the limits of what’s possible even among all the people of the vast stars. [The shadow of the smallest kitten can devour the stars.]

***

Lozano siblings and Matty

The interior of Trosta’s isn’t empty. That would be too weird, and anyway Matty finds the sound of metal being worked comforting. It’s a place that’s easy to relax in, to get lost in the sound and forget that you’re there. To be confident that nobody else knows you’re there or can hear anything you’re saying.

To the gathered siblings, she speaks. “You’re probably a little confused why I called you here. I um, didn’t thinkI was getting all three of you either, just one would be enough. But since you’re all here, your sister needs help. She needs help about your mother. And because we’re…um…well…we live in a strange time and everyone is together here where our peoples are not normally together. So…because of that, I am helping, and my…friend is helping, and all her crew are helping. We just need a little bit of help. Each of you has a piece, a little portion of the Lozano family, the stocks that you hold. I am not the expert in Terenian prayers or um…f-finance…and that’s not why they sent me to talk to you. I’m here because…w-well because we Hybrasilians have a plan, and we can help all of you live better lives. Lives with less fear and doubt and worry in them. We need a little bit of your help to do that, and we’re asking for your trust that we can make it work. And I want you to know that we mean it, that we’re really here to help. I hope that meeting me here, in this unusual way, s-somewhat off the path that you normally tread, will help you understand. I’ve felt so much of that fear in my own life, and the people who I’m with now, they help me feel better, feel safer. I really think we can do that for you too. So, we’re asking for you to trust us and believe in us. That we’ll take the little pieces of Terenian things you have, and put them together, and help bring all of you, and Isabelle especially, to a world where you can all feel less afraid.”

She stops and she waits. There is a moment of tension, of baited breath. Who knows what might have been running through the minds of the Lozano siblings in this moment. Plans and calculations, fear of tricks and traps, of informants and spies and all the myriad tactics of the Lozano family over the years, perhaps.

But at last, Luca steps forward, cloak and dagger and all. But he does not hand Matty a ceremonial dagger, or make some grand gesture. Rather, he pulls out a pen. “You’re right. When I think to myself ‘why do I hesitate to do this’ it is all from fear. Fear that I do not know you, that my sister has asked me here to take a foolish risk. Fear that whatever plan you may have will fail. That each thing that happens is under the control of my mother. These are the reasons I can think of not to act. But I am already living this way. Isabelle is living this way, we are all living this way. What then, do I lose from acting? Nothing, I say to all of you. If our sister believes this was worth hearing out, then you will have my support.”

He allows Matty to show him what to do, where to sign, provides some of his own guidance on the particulars of such a document. And so too do Tadeo and Carmella, each in their turn.

And when it is done, Matty holds a set of papers and a specially coded mesh with their intentions, easily copied but impossible to forge. A sign of power, but more importantly, of trust.

***

Solarel

As you sign, there is a screen for the Terenian that slowly brings the words on a screen. It’s something like a translation geist, but with Pia as intermediary: it’s reflecting her mind, her understanding, rather than a mechanical spirit doing so. In a sense this is much simpler: the geist, if you can even say there is one, is merely a scribe for her rather than engaging in a direct interpretive effort. But no words are spoken in any part, save by Anna as she peppers each question in turn.

“Oh my gosh, you’re an arena pilot! And you came here because you’re hungry. And, Pia, you’re the student, is all that stuff about the ancestors and spirits and everything new? Did anyone have that on file?” Pia’s shaking her head, eyes sparkling.

“This is incredible, what a system, my god. And you just stalked gods in your tribe? Like in anime?! I didn’t think anyone really did that!”

She looks incredibly smug at the other two. “See, and you said that all I’d ever get picking up subjects in the spaceport restaurants was a punch in the face. Like that would even hurt. Okay, wrap up this footage, let’s package it up, do a voiceover of some kind, but like, respectfully, Pia will look at it and we’ll make sure it’s respectful and doesn’t violate any customs. We can do commentary or something if we have to. Pietro, stop looking at me like that, you know perfectly well that if I wanted to cause a diplomatic incident I’d do it on purpose, nobody half-asses a diplomatic incident, that’s just incredibly boring.”

When all is done, the last thing they ask is this: “so…uh, when it’s done we’ll send you a free copy of course. Our expense paid, even if we have to get it shipped by courier across the galaxy. So…where should we send it?”

***

Dolly

“You are a beautiful soul. Too beautiful for shooting people in the face, I might think.” Angela adds that almost sadly as you complete the shopping trip. “But then, no, perhaps there is nothing in the whole galaxy that would make you so happy as where you are now, hm?” She accentuates this by flexing the arm that’s holding you, pinching you tightly between the various parts of her arm wrapped around you.

“Still, ask yourself if you wish to fight. There are many ways for you and your goddess to greet the world, are there not? If this is not the only way to achieve your wishes, I would be loathe to call it the best way.”

And with that, she hefts you and the order slip, passing it to the store to have all the parts delivered to the hangar faster than you can even get back. After all, it is the duty of the high priestess to deliver everything timely, is it not?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Isabelle

“Illegal? No no no, just the opposite. Exactly the opposite!” Matty floofs up her fur and runs a hand through her hair as she’s speaking, doing her best to look up at you so that she can try to understand if you understand. “We need their help so that we can help you without doing anything illegal. You have your um, your stock prayers, each of you, and we need at least 51 of them. You don’t have enough, but Mirror believes that if even one of your siblings chooses to help then it will be enough. So we just need to talk to them. I’ll explain, we’re not asking you to put yourself in any danger, just to invite them to meet with me.”
She looks up at you with her big wide saucer eyes. “We’ll take care of things, we just need you to um…” she says something in Hybrasilian, “ah, what’s the translation, to um kick a single pebble to collapse a mountain.”

***

Solarel

<Okay…okay> she signs it a few times. Probably a Terenian speech tick that she’s using directly in foesign, since typically that would be confirmation but she hasn’t actually said what she’s doing yet so it’s unclear what’s being confirmed.

<I’ll go ahead with the writing. It will be extra work for me, but they’re…providing me food and lodging for all the time I spend> she looks chagrined at this, though you have no way of knowing that she struggled with coming up with a word for “paying” in foesign.

<And…you are cute…I didn’t mean to imply that you I wasn’t…> she starts blushing, stops signing, shakes her head. <wait just a moment.>

“Okay, Anna, Pietro, get me an auto-tablet with a neural mesh. If you have to buy it, it’s part of my expenses, but she needs us to write her answers instead of speaking, so I need something to do the transcribing.”

“Oh, I have one!” Anna shouts and instantly leaps out of the room, coming back with a small screen and a sleeve for Pia to wear on one wrist. She slips it on, blushes yet again and discreetly closes the romantic fiction about the two cape-wearing space explorers furiously making out while trying to get the treaty of Murzon signed, then gives her attention back to you.

<okay, we’re all going to sit in front of those machines where the lights are pointing, and then Anna’s going to ask some questions out loud. I’m going to sign them to you and then you’ll sign the answers back.>

She moves you all to the chairs. There’s extra ambient heat from the lights, but they insist that all of them are turned on because apparently it’s important for the machine that Pietro is pointing your way, which has started making a low clicking sound to indicate that it’s running.

“You set it to retro again, Anna?”
“I like knowing it’s running, makes it easy to time the takes, it’s comforting!”
“Sure, okay okay”

Anna turns to you and says “okay let’s get started. Formalities first, who are you, where are you from, what brings you to Horizon? Then, what kind of ship do you pilot or are you part of a crew? What’s it like for a Zaldarian visiting TC space? Do you like it? What’s the most fun thing here? The weirdest? Can you tell us about where you grew up? How do Zaldarians usually live? Do you get date? Get married?”

Pia furiously begins signing questions to you, doing the best she can. So…how do you respond?

***

Mirror

Some time later, you are both breathless, pressed together, Slate resting her head half on a pillow and half against your neck.

She signs, her eyes closed. “Why do you think Hybrasil wants all this” she whispers, unable to muster an energy to raise a hand in a gesture that would encompass the whole of the galaxy with a finger. “I know why a person would. Why [every kitten wants to pounce a thousand things a thousand times.] But Hybrasil? [Hunger never sleeps through the night], yes, but [one who tries to swallow a waterfall in one drink is only drenched] you know?

She breathes out. It warms your neck before the breath in chills the tips of the fur, so close is she to you. “Feels like [Mu Ysha using six arms all to hone blades and polish spears] but then she always ends up using all of them in every story. [A claw cannot pierce the storm, but that does not mean a storm cannot be hunted.] Is that what we are?”

Her breath is on you with every word, but her words are the words of parsecs. The words of everything, the breath of nothing, and the world never stays still for long.

***

Dolly

“You did not watch my fight against Smith then? Not surprising, you had already beaten her by then, it would only have mattered if I didn’t win. But she too said ‘family family family’ and I shouted at her that I had done things alone. Valor is not my family, and the Antonius family does not truly love me, I think.”

She sighs, giving you a shift to make you squeak, Dolly, and then grins. “But family is not the only thing one loves. Is that not so? I can have a people, can I not? I can stand for a place, for its conditions, for its pride, even if there are not so many people who I share my time with from there anymore. It matters to me. Valor is full of wide land. Farms for the great silks of much of the Terenius Consortium. They grow best on a planet and it is one stop from Shiki where they use many of them. Easier for them to build up for population, us to build for fields. And then for that, there is manufacturing, work mechas. The drives we do not make, those come from the capital, but we make the shells, the pistons, the hydraulics. Machines to work the planet, machines to haul the things, great space elevators to reach the floating transports that are too large and ungainly to ever land in atmosphere. Like giant hippos. You know what a hippo is? It is a great fat water beast with a huge backside and a large mouth that swims in great rivers and eats the plants and the unwary both.

I do not make it sound hospitable, ia, no I do not. But it is beautiful in its way. A planet full of growing things and the machines to work them. Covering flatlands and rolling hills, while those who wish rest go to the mountains and look upon it all. It is a stark beauty, the beauty of something that feels large, that your eyes can take in but that yet exceeds you vastly in a way that gazing upon the stars does not feel vast no matter how much greater the expanse it represents.

What then of your home little cat? You hail from the greatest of your planets, why should I think it a match for Terenius Prime?”