"You're right. If you'd quit at the start, I wouldn't have had all this trouble! Ling!"
Alicia snapped her spread arms shut; the sword planted in the ground leapt to her hand like iron to a lodestone.
A chill surged up Lian's spine, a stormline on open water; she bolted, but the moment she lifted off, her frame locked as if frozen in black ice. Then one sword after another speared toward her like hawks stooping from a gray sky.
—Damn it, what's going on?!
Lian looked at Alicia. Alicia's hands were weaving like a dancer in rain, her fingers flicking fastest, fireflies at dusk. A cold flash lit on her fingertip, a star caught on spider silk. Lian saw it in a blink: a hair-thin filament. Realization broke like dawn, and she let out a wry smile.
"Ha—so that's it. No wonder I couldn't move. These weird threads, huh? You seeded them when you sent those flying swords. I thought you were just grinding my mind down to spring a sneak attack. Turns out you flipped the board on me."
Alicia nodded once, a ripple over still water.
"You're not wrong. I just thought of it. At first these threads were flagged indestructible, so I figured they were meant to bind. Who knew they'd be perfect for this."
"Honestly, Big Sis Alicia, your IQ surprised me," Lian said, her laugh like the edge of a blade. "Seems the legend's true—crisis sharpens the mind. But... did you really think I'm out of moves?"
In Alicia's widening eyes, a great shell unfurled from Lian's back like a beetle spreading wings. The threads coiling her stretched taut like harp strings. The prisoner won a sliver of space, a breath of wind between bars.
"Hahahahaha! Useless! Useless! Useless! Useless!"
Lian laughed on the brink of frenzy, a wildfire crackling. Alicia only frowned, puzzled; that sliver of space looked like a puddle in drought. What could it change?
Lian's next move burned the doubt away. She leveled her gun at a sword on the ground like a hunter sighting birds. Bang, bang, bang, bang—four shots like thunderclaps. The sword kicked skyward, and the trailing bullets struck it midair, drumbeats in a storm. She repeated, relentless as rain. Each time the muzzle spat fire, a blade leapt to answer. The flying swords wheeled like a school of fish, switching masters and obeying Lian as if they were her own fingers. Knotted threads loosened one by one, reeds combed by a stream.
Seeing that, Alicia grasped the idea at once, smoke rising in a clear sky. She slashed her hand to scramble the dance, trying to scatter the flock. The instant her hand fell, a bullet cracked against her wrist and knocked it wide, a pebble pinging off a bell. Her arm wouldn't drop.
Alicia fixed on Lian weaving through silk like a spider at the center of its web, eyes cold as night water. This version of "Ling" felt foreign, a mask over a moon. The real Ling would never perform such impossible calculations; yet this "Ling" did it with a god's calm. A mind like this wasn't human. This puppet-master "Ling" wasn't Ling. She had to find a chance to learn who she really was.
Lian, thoughts blazing like a kiln, didn't notice Alicia's suspicion. She kept undoing the knots that pinned her, patient as an ant.
Bang. The last shot rang out, clean as a winter branch snapping. The final sword spun away. The last filament around her snapped free and flew off like a shed hair.
Lian let out a breath like mist and looked at Alicia.
"Big Sis Alicia, you're out of tricks, right? Honestly, that last move was pretty slick."
Alicia only nodded, a leaf dropping in still air. She gave no reply.
Lian found the silence strange, but took it for a shaken heart, a drum gone mute. She raised her gun, ready to give the final stroke.
"Then... goodbye for real, Big Sis Alicia."
Bang—the bullet leapt like a comet. In the same heartbeat, Alicia lifted her head, eyes firm as stone, and slammed the far-left red button in her mech's cockpit. Whoosh—her seat ejected, flinging her like a bolt; she’d set the vector to fly straight into the bullet’s path.
Lian’s stellar reflexes caught that death-ward move at once, vision slicing time like a blade. But this was a game; she believed Alicia wouldn’t be hurt, so her heart stayed still as a lake...
...
Huh?! What is this!
Shock rippled through Lian as her body moved on its own, a puppet tugged by hidden strings. Something else steered her limbs, cold as a ghost hand.
What is this? Is it that guy?!
Ling cranked the ejection force to max and slammed the release, an arrow loosed from a taut bow. She skimmed past the bullet’s edge and shot toward Alicia.
Thud—the two collided midair, a knot in a whirlwind. Alicia felt no pain; joy burst in her chest like spring light. The person who hit her breathed one line—"It's okay now, sis..."
It came in the voice Alicia heard every day, warm as tea. Alicia knew in her bones: this was Ling. This was the Ling she loved.
Tears slid from Alicia’s eyes like rain off eaves. "Ling..."
No matter how moving, the bullet still reached their sky. Built for mechs, it was a boulder to human flesh. It speared through Ling and Alicia both, a cold moon through thin cloud. No blood flew; the two locked in their embrace shattered like glass and drifted upward, a thousand sparkles in the air...
Back in reality, Lian took off her visor, plastic light as a dragonfly. She recalled that feeling—the body not her own, a boat seized by a sudden current. She knew whose willful act had caused it.
But that willful one hid again, slipping behind a screen and leaving her the weight alone.
"Ling, let's go." Alicia’s voice brushed her ear like wind, but without its old warmth. Lian gave a crooked, self-mocking smile, bitter as burnt tea. So I’m exposed after all...
