What Is She Doing?

[Boss! The princess, SH_T, I mean Jace just slaughtered the brood's leaders! It was seconds!! What do you want us to do?]

Subrath glanced at his prompts and saw a note from one of the techs to the director. His soul ran cold and then hot, first with fear and then with excitement. He was the star of the show, but during a broad cast his director had to make these sorts of calls. Still he know what the director would do. It was obvious.

[Subrath, wrap that conversation, let's go with a replay of the event. Got it?]

The director's coordination reflected his own desire to see what happened. Subtly he looked up at the director in her sound box and nodded.

"I have breaking news. Jace just broke free from the quicksand and slaughtered the Falnali elites! Let's go to a replay of the incident."

Straight forwardly this time, Subrath directly inserted himself into Emily and Gen XXII's technical conversation about strategies for killing pylons.

The video played for about fifteen seconds and then the focus went back to Subrath's commentators.

"Ha! See, she did externalize her lightning acceleration! I was right!!"

Of course Gen XXII immediately took the opportunity to talk himself up. 

"Hmm, it remains to be seen. Did she really externalize her pylon gift? Pylon's that can externalize their gift are rare, one in a hundred. And this makes her just that much more dangerous. Can we get a confirmation from our faction?"

Emily was much more loath to admit defeat calling for an official statement from her faction.

"The Female Life Association has been contacted. They need time to review the claim."

Subrath reassured Emily.

"Just face facts! How many seconds did it actually take to kill all those Falnali? How long was the clip? The first half of that clip was just her forming the tornado and rising from the sand, so what 7 seconds? 8 seconds max."

Confidently the AI tried to make Jace look even cooler.

"Hard to tell when to start the count, the tornado was technically doing damage before it really kicked in. The question is what did she do to make it so much more destructive?"

But Emily was not having any of it.

"I am receiving a report from our analysts... It is her armor! Her armor increased the strength of the tornado."

The host answered Emily's question in real time.

"Her armor? That doesn't make sense."

On the screen again the same video was shown, but this time it was sped up to a point right after Jace rises up from the trap. Just barely seen through the darkness within the heart of the wind it vaguely looked like Jace's armor csme off and then disappearrf into the maelstrom. After that the tornado began to rip through anything in its way.

"From this footage at this level of clarity all we can say is that she put something into the tornado. I don't think we can say that it was her armor, yet."

Again Emily made a comment, trying to parse what exactly happened.

"No, it makes total sense. Her royal armor was designed to contain and suppress her accelerating power. It would be so much easier for a new pylon to externalize her power into something that was literally designed to be a vessel for it. It makes perfect sense. It is the armor!"

Gen XXII sounded like he was thinking out loud.

Shaking her head, Alice didn't say anything preferring to wait for the experts to give their opinion. She wasn't prepared to go out on a limb in front of a live audience like Gen XXII was.

"We have a confirmation. Jace just returned to her troops. The tornado has dissipated and it is true! Jace is standing in her chain mail. The full set of armor seems to be broken into pieces and rotating in a contained whirlwind next to her."

Subrath went into narration mode even as the video showed up for everyone to see.

"Yes!!"

The expected response came from Gen XXII

"No, wait now she is putting the armor back on. Will that armor even fit? It looks pretty banged up."

More narrating from the host.

"Yes, as long as it still retains its functions as a magic tool it will conform to the designated user's form."

Quickly Emily shot out a reply.

And even as they watched the armor changed shape and remolded itself back to Jace's body. The armor's coverage was decrease by more than half. Only the most vital points of her body were thickly armored. The rest were covered by just a thin flange or not covered at all. Currently her arms and legs were completely bare only gloves and boots gave her some greater efficiencies in combat.

"That armor will also slowly repair itself. It won't matter how much it is damaged, the form fitting and repair functions are both enchanted into the metal itself. To repair the armor just needs a suitable alloy."

Continuing Emily explained even more about the armor. She hoped that her clear technical superiority and reasoned approach would still endear her to her listeners even if she wasn't as flashy at the AI.

Despite Emily's helpful explanations Gen XXII stole the show again,

"I think she is doing it. She is going to confront the queen of the edge of the solar system. Yep! Look they are moving towards the space field. Ha!!"

Emily looked at Gen XXII like he was an idiot, but couldn't deny the numbers he was pulling in. Comments were scrolling so fast that only an AI like Gen could keep track. Under the comment section Emily saw the stats. General information about the tone and focus of the comments were displayed. But there was also a 'like' stat. It was clear that the audience liked it when XXII made these wild predictions. 

Disgusted Emily rolled her eyes when she saw that the most discussed topic right at this moment was Jace's measurements.

"It is nothing to get excited about. She could be fleeing from the system. We don't know yet what her destination will be. And the only possible reason she would go to the queen is if she was going to commit suicide. The queen is an esper. She will succumb to mental manipulation plain and simple there will be no grand fight. She will just die. If she can't remember, her captains certainly do. They are probably helping her pass from this life gracefully."

"Suicide? Pylons don't commit suicide. The very idea shows that you don't know much about them. Pylons revel in power and are completely addicted to their own glory. This is not about suicide, she told the people of this planet that she would save them. The only way to do so is to slay the hive mother. This is all about pride, not some vainglorious attempt to save us!"

"An impassioned speech, XXII, but if she really has externalized her power, then it is highly likely that she has regained some portion of her sanity again. Suicide really could be her goal."

The screen attracted their attention again when Jace suddenly and mercilessly killed two of her own captains in what looked like a fit of rage.

It happened so fast that no one was prepared. The two bodies fell down at her and her other captain's feet. They had stopped for some reason just now.

After a moment Jace chopped in the air towards the space port. It was a clear command to move forward.

There had been five commanders, now there were three. Seen from above the bots filmed the pitiful scene.

"Get us sound on the scene!"

Gen XXII called for more information.

"Sorry, everyone, due to the fact that this is an ongoing war zone we don't have ears in the area."

Subrath had to admit the problem and explain himself.

"It is not hard to predict what happened. They are all accelerants, I bet that those two captains entered the pylon state during the battle. The whole legion has to be perilously close to the final decision and accelerating themselves. You can't fight as many battles as Jace's legion has fought and not come out of it powerful. ... All the weak ones already died."

Alice said monotoned. She knew in her gut this time. There was no need for faction confirmation or expert opinion. What had happened was obvious. Even though these women were from a different legion and an active legion at that she still felt a connection with them.

Suddenly Gen XXII said something kind, very unexpectedly,

"I am sorry Alice. My thoughts are with you and your fellow FLA associates. A lot of good women have died and will die today."

Lowering his head Gen XXII showed deference to his counterpart.

It was some consolidation after being shown up by all his predictions. Emily shook her head ashamed to be thinking about how the interview would turn out while one of her faction's legions was dying on the field.