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Flame's commander graduates. The next guy, promoted in from Salamander, doesn't get along with Brighteyes and trades him away for a girl, making Flame the only army with more than one girl in it. Everyone seems to expect Aegis to have some particular interest in befriending this girl, but she's not even in the same toon or particularly interesting. Aegis's new toon leader (a promoted second from another toon, not her) doesn't know what to do with her, but he's bright enough to know that he doesn't know what to do with her. She retains her nominal toon second position, which means that she takes over if he gets frozen - not often; he prefers defensive maneuvers - and otherwise she dances around alone, achieving higher level Flame goals as a one-girl formation-wrecker. She's good enough at this to sometimes lead opposing armies to decline to use formations at all when they're battling Flame, and then she's a sharpshooter, hiding herself behind human shields and holding her beam on everyone who gets in her sights.
Eventually command changes again. The new guy makes a lot of trades, but keeps Aegis, and makes her a toon leader at last when she's nine and a half. It takes this long for Brighteyes to make good on his promise to try to trade for Aegis, but the new commander knows what she's worth and won't part with her for any price he offers.
Aegis watches Sue in the rosters. He gets an army when he's just barely eleven: Phoenix. He makes a lot of trades too, but not for her. That's okay. She's got a toon, and she teaches them to throw her where she needs to go, to make formations that will stand up to all kinds of busting moves like the ones she knows, to freeze their elbows if they can't hold their arms steady like she can to shoot straight.
Everyone's rapidly terrified at Phoenix's hivemindy mutie kuso.
autokinetic
With good reason.
When he starts out, he only links his toon leaders and seconds, and a few key soldiers from the rest of the army. (Anyone who refuses to link, he trades.) He wins one and loses the other. But that's his first two battles. For the next, he puts half his army under the command of his best toon leader and links the other half, and his half-army of perfectly synchronized soldiers takes the enemy formation apart while he hides among the unlinked command. In the battle after that, he divides his army into ten groups of four, with two linked and two unlinked soldiers each, and with him as their communications hub they conduct a vicious guerrilla campain through the densely packed field of stars.
In his fifth battle as commander, someone gets in a lucky shot that freezes him five minutes in. Rabbit fights his unlinked army to a draw, with both commanders frozen and four damaged-but-not-disabled soldiers remaining to each side.
The hivemindy mutie kuso isn't the only thing they've got going for them.
When he starts out, he only links his toon leaders and seconds, and a few key soldiers from the rest of the army. (Anyone who refuses to link, he trades.) He wins one and loses the other. But that's his first two battles. For the next, he puts half his army under the command of his best toon leader and links the other half, and his half-army of perfectly synchronized soldiers takes the enemy formation apart while he hides among the unlinked command. In the battle after that, he divides his army into ten groups of four, with two linked and two unlinked soldiers each, and with him as their communications hub they conduct a vicious guerrilla campain through the densely packed field of stars.
In his fifth battle as commander, someone gets in a lucky shot that freezes him five minutes in. Rabbit fights his unlinked army to a draw, with both commanders frozen and four damaged-but-not-disabled soldiers remaining to each side.
The hivemindy mutie kuso isn't the only thing they've got going for them.
autokinetic
Regardless, when Flame's commander gets notice of a battle with Phoenix, putting a stop to the hivemindy mutie kuso is his first priority. He fuses Aegis's toon with another one and has them practice strategies to penetrate all sorts of protections Phoenix's commander might set up around himself; mostly this involves the other toon playing a defensive formation with Nickel pretending to be Sue, and Aegis's toon covering her while she busts it. Sue does have to be physically in the room during a battle, somewhere, and she's the best at recognizing him, even from far away - they all know his face now, but she knows him and how he moves in the battleroom.
Flame's commander knows about Sue being in Aegis's fantasy game environment. "Pull some psychological shit if you can," he tells her.
"Sue barely have psychology," she snorts. "He crazy. Fun crazy but not psychological-shit-works kinda crazy."
"Well, then figure out what his plan is, Aegis, I'm not going to have you friends with an enemy commander playing birds together every day and not try to use it."
Heh. Sue might just tell her if she asked.
"If I can, sir."
She signs on to see if he's there.
Flame's commander knows about Sue being in Aegis's fantasy game environment. "Pull some psychological shit if you can," he tells her.
"Sue barely have psychology," she snorts. "He crazy. Fun crazy but not psychological-shit-works kinda crazy."
"Well, then figure out what his plan is, Aegis, I'm not going to have you friends with an enemy commander playing birds together every day and not try to use it."
Heh. Sue might just tell her if she asked.
"If I can, sir."
She signs on to see if he's there.
He's still working on her castle, far downriver on a small island in the ocean. It's taking him a while, because he insists on doing detail work despite the fact that his avatar isn't really built for it. Rejected stones are forming a pile underwater that will probably be a land bridge to the island by the time he's done.
autokinetic
Aegis directs her avatar into a reasonable facsimile of the Phoenix army crest; she's not an outright bird, but she can tuck her hands into the feathers of her wings. Then she giggles.
autokinetic
There are a lot of rocks around. Aegis starts collecting pebbles: forty small ones and one big one. She scatters them on a clear spot on the ground and then picks up her magic-rock crown and waves it around and points at the pebbles: you make your army like this, attached but not contiguous.
autokinetic
She puts her crown back on and starts moving pebbles around idly. Not asking. But if he feels like telling, he can.
He watches her for a little while.
Then he shoos her away with a wave of his wing and sweeps sixteen of the forty-one pebbles into his best approximation of a neat little square.
Then he shoos her away with a wave of his wing and sweeps sixteen of the forty-one pebbles into his best approximation of a neat little square.
With quick movements of his talons, he gets the other pebbles moving in patterns that more or less track with what he does in the battlefield: coherent shapes made of synchronized individuals, splitting and coaelscing as necessary. His own pebble occupies no special place in all this. The sixteen formed-up soldiers remain where they are.
autokinetic
She forms her hand into the universal this is a pretend gun gesture and shoots at one of the not-squared pebbles, then retrieves one from the square and adds it to the swarm, tilting her head again.
He nods, then flicks several more pebbles out of the swarm and replaces them from the formation until it's down to three. Those ones he covers with his talon and presses into the dirt.
autokinetic
She picks up one of those three when he moves his foot off of them, and taps it against her temple questioningly.
He nods, then touches another of the three and touches his own head and shakes it. No, these soldiers cannot or will not link up.
autokinetic
Interesting. She grabs another handful of pebbles and puts them set aside and starts trading them in for those three: why are they still in his army if they won't or can't?
autokinetic
She stands over by the set aside pebble pile, picks up one of the recalcitrant soldiers, and emotes a disgusted face at it and throws it at him, then tilts her head again: nobody else wants 'em?
autokinetic
She nods. That's all she can think of how to invite him to tell her.
I AM A SPY :P she writes in the dirt. (Better to tell him now than to fess up later.)
I AM A SPY :P she writes in the dirt. (Better to tell him now than to fess up later.)