The armored woman sighed. It had been a grueling interlude, a multi-continental trek separated by the occasional slip past a border, minor scuffle, or break when she convinced herself that she could take such a luxury. The latter never seemed to last too long. When resting, she found it was even more difficult to ignore her own thoughts than usual. Especially now that the issue of her family seemed to be so close to resurfacing…
She shook her head, turned her focus to the corpses of automatons that seemed to litter the area. Some of them bore similarity to what made up pieces of her armor, but she saw nothing worth scavenging. Seshat had worried that, even after having repainted and rebranded it, maybe making her armor out of these fighting machines was not the best decision for missions like this one, but at least the bright white and blue colors blended in well in this snowier climate. Or at least, as well as they could on such a suit of armor, glowing and bursting as it did when she shot weapons or flared boosters. She was likely to be mistaken for one of them and caught in the crossfire once she was noticed, but with money already placed on her head, she decided it made no difference.
Seshat had already determined it was best to simply pass around the town, to simply find the source of their robot problem and destroy it before slipping away and continuing her mission, but she was quickly discouraged, staring up in awe at the giant metal facsimile of dragons of legend flying overhead. She felt some fleeting sense of nostalgia as it ignored a rocket detonating against it, fondly recalling memories of being able to fly through the skies unmatched and unchallenged before such memories soured her mood as quickly as it had lightened.
“A vile serpent,” The golem muttered to herself. “Like Apep, sailing across the sky and bringing chaos upon the land.” Seshat thrust an open hand forwards and opened her missile pods before reconsidering. If the rocket didn’t harm it, she doubted her own similar magical assault would do much better even if there were dozens more of them. Perhaps a little more punch would be necessary. The missile pods closed as six cannons flipped forwards over her shoulders. They crackled with both electricity and magical energies, glowing blue before launching six brilliant beams of light at the dragon. It left the armor plating it impacted against glowing from the heat, and Seshat was rewarded with a burst of flame sent her way for her trouble.
Seshat raised the shield on her left arm, and the flames passed harmlessly around the blue field it created before the dragon continued its rampage against the city. Seshat frowned. Sitting back like this wasn’t going to help. Panels on the back of her armor began to open, revealing the armor’s boosters and just barely showing the boosters attached to her own body. She corrected her stance and held on tight to her rifle as blue and green energy swirled around her back. Seshat frowned…
And activated her Overboost, leaving a trail of intense light and noise behind her as she sailed towards the dragon.
Like any tournament, most of the noise beyond the fight was simply formless cheering, booing, and miscellaneous chatter. Unlike many tournaments, there was one voice in the crowd that seemed to stand out over the rest.
”COME ON! REPRESENT, DAMMIT!" Jill Breicen cried as the sentai fighter was knocked out of his pose. She was dressed in her own similar outfit, sans helmet, and had the railing in a vice grip as she leaned up against it, watching the fight intensely.
“
YEAH, SLAM ‘EM!” She cheered as the fight went along. “
NO, DON’T POSE WHEN YOU’RE OPEN! YEAH, LIKE THAT! Come on! Come on! … Aww...” Jill sighed sadly as the adrenaline faded and the fighter sailed out of bounds. She looked at her bike (which she had somehow managed to take with her) and decided that his loss meant that she needed to up the ante. The small rectangular drone attached to it beeped reassuringly. If her sister wasn’t busy working she’d probably be here with her, telling her to calm down. She’d already laid out to her why this whole tournament was important in the first place. Getting an invitation to the Xue Li tournament meant a possibility for good connections and good publicity for Jill, which meant good connections and good publicity for SHINING. Which meant that Jill would need to get some good experience so she would know what the hell she was doing in a tournament-style fight.
Which was where the Annual Japanese Championship came in. SHINING could throw its influence around enough to get Jill in one way or another, and while fighting in it would get some much needed publicity, getting the practice of moving a high-power, ultra-speed monster of a vehicle like Nine Breaker around an arena against a single opponent down pat was the real prize here.
The heroine grabbed her phone from the drone and began checking for any important updates before putting it back. She paused for a moment when she saw rain fall against the scenery around her. She shrugged absentmindedly, but the drone beeped persistently.
“Yeah,” Jill responded. “And I’m tellin’ you that meteorology isn’t the most precise science out there at the moment. It’s nothing to worry about.” The robot hummed dejectedly in response. “Whatever, Pit Stop.” Jill said, letting the issue drop. The rain might make the ground a bit slicker, and it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, but it still might be something worth looking into. She turned to the woman next to her, who she could have sworn was that Vanburen girl from the Brazilian Fighting Cup and the ensuing shitshow a couple weeks ago (even if she didn’t know whether it would be a good idea to bring that up), and cleared her throat.
“I’m a bit new to this whole tournament thing,” she admitted sheepishly. “You don’t think they’d cancel this over a silly little thing like the rain, would they?”
Member
Riddles
Majoraa
Buteo
Mixtape Ghost N
Cleveraptor
Noctis
Drag
Kaithe Dame
Senhara
