Phoe

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Nova!

"I still don't... the moon, huh? Could you do me a fa-- hm. Actually you know what? Just study hard. If you're the one I'll be teaching my own style to, I have to act the part of a master. If you master the form to my satisfaction, I'll have a sword made for you. A match for mine, done by the same person. If you're gonna be dueling for the fate of the world... I'm not saying I'm picking sides here, but I don't want it coming down to the fact that you chose a breakable sword. There are no perfect weapons, right? And when it matters the most, the thing you're optimizing for won't count for much but a liability. So just, yeah. That's a promise. From me to you."

Euna smiles, though it's a little strained. Part of that is the difficulty of trying to get a message across to someone who literally can't process and return it, at least not in the moment, but mostly she's just tired and hungry. Tired, hungry, and jealous. Whatever life you're living, whatever it is that makes you come to her that you're not telling her about, you're obviously making the kinds of efforts she yearns to be doing herself.

It's a little bit crass to complain about owning property, right? She'll never say it out loud, even if someone brought it up. But this life? As passionate as she is about it, it's not her dream. Her dream fizzled out when she learned that you can't be the good guy and punch people in the face at the same time. And when she looks at you, she has to wonder: did you figure it out anyway? Are you going where she can't? It's hard to be the one who teaches. And it's a lot harder when you're tired and hungry. Human psychology is stupid that way.

She shrugs.

"Anyway, nunchaku. The problem with that is that I don't know anything about using them. I'd have to learn first. Or, well, I could install software I guess, but those sorts of programs leave a lot to be desired. Besides which I really prefer to leave the space for help with, like, housework and stuff. Having brains free, guaranteed even knife cuts for your vegetable stir fry is a superpower I'll have you know.

"But would a weapon really, like, help? I've always gotten the impression you're only half bought in on the whole fighting training physicality thing to begin with. Like, if you weren't also so determined to prove me wrong you'd be one of the colors refusing to turn up at all. Not that I mind! You're a lot of fun to work with and whatever Yels has to say about you're making fine progress so far as I'm concerned. If she can't think of a use for deathblows that's her problem. Still though, if we're approaching it from the perspective of trying to fix something... eh, why not? A sword is a mindset, really. Go ahead and tell everyone to pick whatever sings to them. We'll make it work."

She flashes a smile brighter than any of the lasers that have been tearing up her gym tonight. Ok fine. Maybe this is the dream and maybe it isn't. But this is sincerely fun as hell. Meeting you has been a turning point in her life, and all for the better. That's another thing she doesn't really know how to talk about, but maybe that's not necessary.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

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

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

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

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

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

"I am amused."

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

"At your audacity."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breathless Dead

Mosaic stands straight when she reaches the loading dock. This is her latest miracle. Her ears are lifted up and her eye is unclouded, her legs are steady and her tail is relaxed. Even still her shoulders sag and the muscles in her arms twitch when she crosses them over her chest. Her hair is limp and lusterless; the intricate braids have come loose and now what crowns her head is a loose tangle of dark spirals.

Her clothing is torn and battered to the point of indecency, showing the contours of her body in intricate detail and the exact places where her fur gives way to human-seeming flesh and vice versa. That fur is singed, and the skin is flayed and burned. Her entire body is smouldering, in fact.

She is beautiful. She is proud. She is exhausted and she is broken. Even in quiet and relative comfort she sniffs the air with a desperation that makes little sense unless she is confused by some tangle of scents and is cursed to not be able to breathe until she deciphers it. Her nose wrinkles, her brow furrows. Fangs flash in the dim light as she curls her lip. Finally, she coughs and something heavy seems to clear from inside of her.

Her face relaxes. Her eyes shimmer in their differing colors, and pass across the blue-flecked Azura woman in front of her as if only just now noticing her there instead of whatever indistinct shadows she was haunted by a moment ago. Mosaic's smile is dazzling as she uncrosses her arms to offer a hand in welcome.

"Even if you are here to put me in your own chains," she begins, "I should thank you. You were my wishing star, and without your light I could not have kept any of my promises. My name's Mosaic. Until recently, I was called the Hero of Beri."

She laughs and gestures with her head to indicate the beach outside.

"You've already had the grand tour, Visitor. Did you enjoy it?"

[Mosaic damages Blood, Sense, and Iron]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Euna's Fitness Corner!

She points her finger at Yellow.

"It's... complicated."

She points her finger at Green.

"It's complicated."

The finger points up, and her head tilts toward the ceiling to follow it. The smile hasn't faded off her face completely, but the complexity of the questions has her stuck in a decision she doesn't seem to know how to talk her way through. Her mouth opens, and at that exact moment Cinders pops her head out of the office.

"Hey Eunie? All I can find are those super disgusting soy peanut bars, do you want me to maybe go pick something up?"

"Eugh. Ah, no this is fine. Faster calories is better than more edible ones."

"Kay. Well. I'm gonna do a sushi run anyway. I'm hungry, and I'm not gonna eat this crap. Eel's still your favorite, right?"

"Cinders. I swear to god if you burn all your money on this I'm going to break you."

"As if you even could right now, Ms. Low Battery. Just let me do this. Whatever you might be thinking, tonight's lesson kicked eleven kinds of ass and you deserve something for it. Besides, I know a place. Very reasonable, only light Yakuza connections. Maybe."

"Fine. Just... ok. Fine. See you."

And then there were two. Sort of. Close enough. Sorry Nova, you're just... difficult to think about.

"Sorry, right. You asked a question. Two questions I guess, but they're kind of the same. Yes, I teach Fencing. I try not to, though. And yes, that's basically what happened to my eye. But it's... ok. I've avoided talking about this, but when I was... in an accident. It's why I went cyborg, at least initially. It damaged my eyes as well, but for the most part it wasn't so bad that I couldn't push past it. I saw things fine. I thought. I've made a lot of excuses over the years but even now I'm... ok, do you know a lot about cybernetic eyes? The affordable ones are pretty damn gross. They scrape your vision to sell you ad data and like, I swear to god if I'm ever looking at my wife and I get a commercial overlayed on her lingerie I would rip the fucking things out right then and there."

An angry huff. Her fists close weakly in her lap.

"Sorry. But yeah, I've done my best with what I had left. Figured I'd bite the bullet when I felt myself losing a step. Only, one eye got a lot worse faster than the other one. But it still happened slow enough that I adjusted for it without noticing. My depth perception took a dive off a cliff and I just... missed it. Until I got into a fight the other week and I got a knife pulled on me. Went to millimeter dodge it for the superior counter angle, and then blood. Blood everywhere. So that's... mm. I'm about to say a lot of stuff at once, ok? And I'm going to snap back and forth so much it's going to sound like I said nothing at all. Feel free to ask questions if this bounces off you but, let me finish first ok?"

She tears the wrapper off of her emergency snack. When she bites into the bar, it stretches to almost half again its original length instead of biting clean through. She makes a face at it, and just picks at it with her hands instead.

"I have not made any secret about combat being essentially an unsolvable puzzle. There are variables stacked on top of variables and even if you can somehow account for all of them you won't arrive at a single correct solution. Owing to skill set, mentality, opponent, and location there can be an infinite variety of responses which are exactly as efficient as one another. And even then... mm. So. When you get into a fight, the thing you're really trying to do is be allowed to walk away from it again. If you run away, that's fighting. If you cow them, that's fighting. If you knock them out, same thing. And the truth is that unless you're the one initiating all of these, the vast majority of combat you wind up involved in is gonna see your opponent armed with a weapon.

"Knives are easy to carry, but they're messy. Likely to kill, and confer no range advantage so they're countered by high skill empty-hand styles. Even so, they're easily concealable and confer a lot of misdirection ability and add threat potential for minimal investment, which makes them popular. A one handed sword (which is what I practice with) is an ideal balance of increased threat range and speed but... they're obvious as hell. You also can't carry them everywhere, and unlike other weapons it's difficult to find an improvised version wherever you wind up. You might think a length of pole or a bat are good enough, but they aren't. Especially as you improve: you learn the length and the weight balance of the weapon you practice with and that develops tendencies you can't afford.

"A staff or spear wielder is usually a little better off because it's not hard at all to find things that are long and stick-like that do ninety nine percent of the job, but environment is their killer. It's too easy to wind up in a location where a sword would swing fine where a longer weapon would become a liability. But a sword rewards that highly specific proficiency with techniques you literally could not do with a different weapon. Two-handed swords are even worse. You become overspecialized, basically without being able to do anything about it. Bats, clubs, tonfa, any bludgeoning weapons run into the same set of issues with regard to social convention, the law, and their overall breakability. A gun doesn't even bear mentioning."

She sighs and winces her way through more of her emergency food. Cinders was not lying about the taste, but a rapid infusion of calories still has her sitting up a lot straighter now that she's gotten going.

"It is not possible to become a master of every single weapon style at once, even taking advantage of the, erm, unique structure of your brain. Reaching a journeyman level on a wide variety of weapons is also dangerous because you risk jumbling your threat assessment and reach for the wrong one in the moment or crossing up your techniques. The single most adaptable weapon you will find anywhere on this station is your own body, and that's true of anyone you meet. But nevertheless, an unarmed fighter can lose her life to a vastly less practiced opponent if they happen to have the right sort of weapon to hand. And remember what I told you earlier: it's much more likely to wind up in combat in somebody else's territory, where they have prepared specifically and you only in vague guesswork.

"Around and around and around. But I guess that's enough. My answer is this: if you're interested in learning fencing for its own sake, I'll teach you. But when it comes to what you should fold into your combat style... I guess I'd rather hear you weren't planning on getting into any fights at all."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"I. Wh-what?"

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

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

Standing. Off balance, at that.

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

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

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

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

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

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Future Movie Club Society!

"I... you... really mean that? You actually want to hear me talk about film?"

Euna Kim blinks with the acuity of a woman who has apparently forgotten how. Her smile is equal parts giddy and incredulous. This is a topic she's tried to broach with a hundred different people to only middling degrees of success. The people who take her classes and the people who like the sorts of movies that get her blood pumping may as well not even exist.

She slumps down into a chair Cinders has swooped out of nowhere to get for her. She's run her own gauntlet multiple times tonight trying to calibrate it for public use. She ran multiple weight training classes and a pair of self defense sessions with some of her (other) best students before you got here. Most of her diet today has been liquid nutrient solutions out of pure time necessity, something that only works because the main power source of her cybernetics is actually her own biochemistry feeding into a system of batteries that amplify the output to enable the crazy stuff she gets up to. The demands on her metabolism are immense, but it means calories are power for her in a way that most people, including less enhanced cyborgs, can't really claim.

But still, the intake to output ratio has been absurdly skewed in favor of expenditure today, and that was before she got too into Yellow's sparring session. This at the end of all of it? Too much for her. She had a spike of adrenaline and then all of a sudden she entered low power mode without warning. Cinders has already disappeared up into Euna's office looking for the emergency food supplies, Euna herself is just sitting there with that same smile on her face like she couldn't care less about her body's sudden betrayal.

"A movie night is essential, I think. For your training, obviously. I have a lot of files that aren't that widely disseminated anymore after the official platforms pulled them for tax purposes. You know I used to -- actually, never mind. Just give me a bit of time and I'll figure out an appropriate screen to make this happen. But in the meantime you're gonna want to check out the Duelist trilogy."

She pauses, frowns a little bit in thought, and then nods to herself.

"Yeah. That's a good launching point if you want to make a lot of interesting opponents for yourself. It's a high fantasy swords and sorcery adventure series starring the Eternal Maiden Elvia. She's this part vampire, part dryad swordswoman who's all doom and gloom and serious dour brooding from some shadowy corner or a tree top about the bloody nature of battles and her life and how because she's so dangerous she needs to be alone. But then her sword, Lillyblossom? Is enchanted and can talk, and it's hilariously optimistic and always pushes her to get back out there and keep... ahem. Not the relevant part. Like I said it's three full length movies, all in this incredibly unique, almost melty dream style animation. Duelist in the Mirror Castle follows her quest to save a noble lady from a witch whose body is made out of a bunch of animated shards of glass - it's got the best one-on-many fight choreography in the series and it does the best job of demonstrating a melee only skill set against someone with proficiency in ranged combat and ambush tactics.

"After that, Duelist in the Rose Garden pits her against the mystic arms dealer, Lady Rapier. She and Elvia have I think the only proper no nonsense duel in the whole film set, meaning there aren't any interruptions and it's a pure one on one with two people who use very similar styles and philosophies about combat even though outwardly they are polar opposites to one another. You can get a good handle on the dynamics of large weapon/small weapon and power stances' natural advantage over movement redirection, which is something that most stories get completely backwards because they want to make normal sized actors seem like badasses and it's just... it just isn't true, ok? Being huge and swinging something really hard is just fundamentally the kind of thing where you have to be almost flawless to overcome it. Rose Garden really understands that, you can tell the director spent time as a stuntman in physical cinema before jumping to animation.

"And then there's A Duel Must End at Dawn which is... hrm. It's a much slower film, mostly dealing with Elvia's blood curse and how lonely she feels when she can't leave her home-slash-prison to be with the girl she saved in the first movie. Like, she fights some forest monsters and then she rides a giant wolf like it's a motorcyle and that's rad as heck but it's, like... a lot of people call it a skip because it's trying to put the brooding and introspection ahead of the action and it doesn't introduce a new major villain on the level of either of the previous stories. It's still a good case study in how technique falls apart due to poor motivations and how to navigate a life or death situation in the middle of being stuck at emotional low tide and an energy sapping curse, but to be honest with you it's mostly the excuse to finally lay the lesbian shipping on super thick after teasing fans with it for four and a half hours of prior story. The company actually tried to walk back the ending after the fact which is hilarious given how blatant they were but... ahem. It is still worth a watch from the amateur combat enthusiast's perspective too."

Breathless Dead

The ground beneath her glitters. The ground above her shines. Shimmering geodes reflect the crashing light of the sky above them from their resting places dotting the foundations of Beri. Every burst of lightning sends arcs of multi-spectral energy bouncing from gemstone to gemstone: the ground repeats the sentiment of the sky. Where particularly strong surges of energy cascade against the treasures of Bitemark, the air about them shimmers with faint images of impossible things, distant things, or maybe just things that nobody had thought to look for yet. Spires that twist upward and outward and then back in upon themselves. Floating crystalline structures that do not need the blessing of the ground beneath them. Across it all, the shadow of a wolf's head.

Mosaic has eyes for none of these miracles. She may not have eyes at all. Her vision is blurry and tinted red with swimming black spots. She cannot see a path in front of her, not even the motes of guiding lights she has relied on all her life to lead her where she needs to be. There is a vague sense of a downward slope, and dancing shadows that cross in front of her and around her with a posture (if they are even real) that push the word 'friend' into her mind. At the very least, they do not impede her progress.

She cannot smell anything familiar, either. When she sniffs the air to find her path forward, she gets nothing but nonsense data. The pungent aroma of the color red, the stinging wind of green. Another whiff and it all changes: the scent of a sharp edge, of worn leather, of sand between her toes. Every breath is blinding. Every sensation upends her world.

But she holds on. The weight of the mountain crushing into her neck and shoulders is beyond her comprehension. It crushes thoughts from her head. It squeezes her until there is no distinction in her mind between her muscles, her ribs, and her lungs. Her knees do not buckle underneath her: they have lost the ability to move like that at all. And still it shifts, and she shifts with it. Beri is held aloft. Mosaic screams, though she does not hear it herself. She splits the sky like a peal of thunder, this tortured and labored cry of an animal that is also a song of glory and a flash of fangs at last turned against the hand that deigned to feed her. There are no words. There do not need to be.

Mosaic moves. And she does not move at all. In her perception it is less that she takes a step forward, or another one after that. Not a trembling shuffle or a headlong rush or the desperate crawl of a turtle seeking the safety of the sea for the first time in its life. Instead, she shatters. Her body sheers off at the joints and her entire world explodes in fire hot enough to melt steel. She disintegrates inside of it. There is nothing of her but infinite white, and then infinite black. When these too melt away, a thousand years may well have passed. She does not know. She cannot know. She simply becomes aware of her body when her straining muscles force some instinctive part of her brain to comprehend the shape of herself. She comes into being once again, and she is further along the slope.

Only one sight is clear. The only thing she can rely on the guide her is the baleful gaze of the Slitted. Even decimated as it is, even tilting uselessly and doomed by the judgment of Zeus and whatever brave dumbasses rode it down here, the Crystal Knights war sphere is a threat to every living thing beneath it. There is power yet in those cannons. There is malevolence yet in its lifeblood, whether its brain or its heart have fled it for the beaches below or not.

Seething. Huffing. Hissing. Destroying herself with every step, Mosaic wills herself remade. The mountain climbs down the path, and its shadow blots the battlefield. Before her, shadows leap and cavort with battle-glee. In her ears, the faintest ringing of laughter and taunting. In her nose, the softest petal of a rose. At her feet, the crackling dimensional path of geodes more valuable than the planet they were buried in.

She wields a town. Wields a mountain as a shield. Her largest boast and final promise, and a place for all those who have chosen to believe in her to stand their ground and buy time for the last payment of her thanks she will offer on Bitemark. The Slitted is blind. Whatever death and vengeance it rains, it will not reach. There will be a fair fight in the shadow of Mosaic.

Growling. Snarling. Choking. Guttural slurping and the halting laughter of a woman who has realized her body has more strength in it still. Through her, the lightning finds its path from sky to ground. Her hips twist in preparation for her final lunge. Her arms wind backwards even though they must be snapping in half.

And when she steps into this throw, the mountain will know flight. And the Slitted will know Beri, as only someone who has loved it with everything she is could manage.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The sound of a toungue clicking against teeth: frustration. A pause. Follow up - fingers tap tap tapping against a panel of some sort. One two, three four five, one two three four, five, onetwothreefourfive, one.

"On the contrary, Smokeless Jade Fires, you are the one who arrived too late. However true your claim might have been on another day, it is utterly unacceptable now. The wish that I will claim by winning this stupid tournament is so far beyond your ability to compensate me for that the weight of it would crush you to death. Beyond even that I have made a promise to Marcina Villajero, and beyond even that Solarel lies waiting. No, Goddess. To lose a single match with her soul still in danger would be the pinnacle of shame. I must not. Can not. Will not."

The Gods-Smiting Whip stands still, taking in its own reflection in the mirrored glass. Inefficient in the extreme to hunt out the idol of Smokeless Jade Fires in this dense Terenian temple structure. The height of these pillars made her "standard" opening play in this tournament non-viable. Possible that this environmental selection was meant as a penalty for her specifically, then, rather than its apparent status as an equ... ali... zing.

Force. Ah. Well. A new mystery to occupy space inside her mind. How... unideal.

Simplicity, then. Protest. She might spend hours stalking Smokeless Jade Fires and Dala Hunters. Or she could test the sharpness of this new blade. Left foot forward, plant, fourty five degree. Arm straight, draw back. Flick joystick, first form sequence basic macro initiate. She meets more resistance than she expects and almost bounces off the building like a scolded child, but with a flare of thruster fire she achieves the necessary force for edge to defeat engineering.

But is a shallow cut in the end. Matty had not gifted her a blade large enough to slay these titanic spires. Which was, of course, Mirror's fault in the first place. Her tails flare up above and to either side of her in a simple triangle formation. The rain of laser fire does what simple technique could not. The building topples with a hideous screech of rending glass and shearing girders that crashes so loud and so obviously that pilots three arenas over will have her coordinates pinpointed.

If the sight of the skyline suddenly altering didn't manage it, the giant plume of dust certainly would. She stands still once more. Sword held at the ready, and three tails floating lazily behind her.

"In the interest of disclosure, your offer of a game is likewise rejected. There are no prizes I would claim from you beyond the services you already owe me as payment for our previous dance. I take no pleasure from needing to fight you, and you are the wrong sort of food to prepare my Nine-Tails for conflict with the Aetiline. I would ask you not insult me by engaging me in the manner of your lovesick conquests. I am not a mountain you may climb to prove your divinity, and I do not fit inside your domain."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Nova 1/3!

"I sense a story here," says Euna with a curious look at Green, "But I also sense that I'm not in it. I mean, I get it. I too have a dark past I hope never to reveal to you."

She winces, and turns her back on the group. Slow steps away, reaching for her face. A sweat soaked eyepatch comes off and she carefully folds it before throwing it in the trash by her office. She retrieves a fresh one and fits it carefully in place, saying nothing at all the entire time.

But when she turns around, she's nothing but smiles.

"Sorry, sorry. You asked a question. That's a really interesting one! I'm guessing the obvious 'call it training to defeat me' is a no go? It's better not to rely on that anyway; that's only an effective motivator for as long as I'm interesting. Well to be honest, I'm of two minds on the topic. Close combat is inherently dangerous no matter how well trained you are. In that sense, being less than maximally interested in it can be something of a virtue. That being said..."

She frowns in thought. Then she frowns much harder at Cinders, who has decided to reward herself for the events of the day by swimming in the foam. Euna rolls her eye and turns around, so she can pretend she lives in a different, better universe. One where all her dreams came true and she has a highly professional sidekick instead of an uppity assistant. Ah well.

"With that being said," she repeats, "If somebody's coming at you with intent to hurt, avoidance or deescalation tactics don't always work out. However unique your... what's the word I want here? Not biology, obviously. Physiology? Well whatever, your resilience isn't a thing you want to be testing in a serious fight. Hm. Necessary combat, but no engaging opponents. Preservation instinct isn't really a thing either. Well, I've noticed she responds well to music, so I'd start there. It's surprisingly useful to be able to set the rhythm of a street fight to begin with, so find some favorite tracks and keep a way to play them publicly if you feel in danger.

"You can also try crafting backstories for anyone you fight. Basically fight charisma is a question of narrative. The other option is to alter the fight itself and how you've got Yels approaching it, but I hate that option and will not sign off on it. If you abandon fundamentals to keep from being bored, you will be dead and I'm not going to have your metaphorical blood on my hands. Don't make me stalk you to make sure you stay safe; I can barely leave this place unattended anymore without putting it at risk as it is. Anyway yeah, ideally you want those histories to be based on observable tendencies in their fighting styles, but I understand that's the kind of focus and observation you won't always have access to, depending on how much of you is around. You need to be quick about it too, probably keep a cheat sheet handy so you don't have to brainstorm the whole thing. You'd want to be fast, so it's a cinematic event and not just a war with some faceless goon."

She shrugs, and steps away for another moment to retrieve a couple bottles of electrolyte solution. She hurls one with unnecessary force at Cinders, and drains the other over a series of protesting squeaks.

"Those are my first thoughts, anyway. Any help at all? Or am I doing that thing again where I overapply my life to yours?"

Breathless Dead

Her bones rattle in her legs every time her feet impact the ground. Her muscles quiver, compress, coil, and then stretch out into an explosion of flame and movement on a loop. Her tail slices the air behind her each time her spine curves with the effort of the next step, and the next one, and the next after that. Her arms brush the fabric of her torn sleeves against her vest every time she pumps them, and the slick song of rustling fabric joins the heavy percussive clomping of rapid footfalls crushing the ground beneath her. Her hair lifts and slaps like wet rope against her skin. Mouth hangs open, lungs howl even as they stretch themselves to bursting to hold enough to power the effort forward.

Mosaic runs. Away from the ship. Away from the battlefield, away from flash and explosion and panicked shouting. But toward destiny. She has asked for a miracle and received it. Her eyes have beheld the impossible, and a battlefield once held in an inescapable grip has shifted before she could even add her mark to it.

The smells of the beach, of salt and rusting metals and iron-soaked sand and rotting kelp stay wrapped around her even as the drier scents of tree bark and sap, of stone kissed by the passing of five hundred different hearts rise up and try to push it out. The stench of her own effort and the heat of her body coats her tongue in a film like the end of a feast. She drags it across her teeth but it persists even through the tang of fresh blood. She spits pink. Her eyes flash with silver and the dazzling glitter of crystal pathways.

There is nothing for her to do but run. The weight of an impossible debt crushes down on her shoulders. It constricts her ribs as surely as if she'd been caught and defeated by the Crystal Knight. Her heart strains into the immense pressure, not against it. When fools or the greedy are given blessings by the gods, they trust to those miracles and lose themselves watching the ripples across the pond of their lives to not miss the beauty of the gift. But to gawk was to spit in Zeus' face. A miracle must be repaid in miracles. Sacrifice must be proportionate to the gift received. Mosaic could not let this day pass with anyone saying she had put forward the lesser effort.

Thank you Zeus, King of the Gods. Thank you red star, sword of the heavens. Thank you Taurus and the Silver Divers, once enemies who even this very moment fight and wheel to buy her the last precious moments she requires to build her tribute. Thank you Crystal Knight, for snatching at last the veil from over her eyes. Now watch her. All of you, eyes on her.

Beri rises in front of her with its twisting streets and rolling hills dotted by plain, strong houses and the large craft halls that surround the square. No song floats out to greet her today. The rooftops watch her like soldiers in formation, waiting for their scout to make her report. Waiting for their commander to order them forward. Grim and still desolately quiet, this place that welcomed her into the world. The home that was given to she who had nothing but a tiny and broken family to call her own. The town that laughed with her smile and lifted her up as its own private miracle. She came here a patchwork. It was Beri that called her a demigod and shaped her into something divine.

Her heels burn as the dig into the ground. Her claws slam into the earth to halt her momentum at the gateway she has crossed through nearly every day for her entire life since she stepped out of the water and the haze of dreams she had been built inside of. She lifts her eyes to these streets one last time, and nods.

Her shoulders roll behind her one at a time, and she rears back prepared to strike. Her fingers curl with the promise of death as her vision fills with wispy silver lines slashed across the ground all around her feet. She tears gouges out of the earth in wide, digging strokes. It rends as easily as crab flesh: her fingers grow grimy with soil, stone, detritus, and chunks of root as she burrows. The glitter of the air fades for the intense darkness and muffled quiet of //her precious dagger that tore its way across the stars the tunnels beneath Bitemark.

She digs without stopping, down and then forward, until she stands beneath the center of Beri. One breath to steady herself. One breath to prepare. Palms strike the ground above her. Shoulders push up and hips push down; the softness of the earth gives way to unyielding, slicing stone and the weight of the planet pushes back against her. Muscles tremble until they begin almost to snap in half. Her blood is magma, her body screams. She screams with it. Her face twists with pain, her teeth bare themselves to the dark when she roars.

"COME, BERI! WE! GO! TO! WAR!"

Mosaic's knees cease to buckle. Her legs straighten. With a final cry of aggression, she begins to rise. Cool air seeps into the earth and kisses her shoulders. It wraps her body in a cloak of heavy vapors. She rises higher. And the town rises with her.