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The war began nine days ago and it has, really, been decided.
(The two women are dueling in the streets, blades clashing, fire raining down from the battlefield.)
There were a few assassinations that might have made it go differently, if they'd succeeded, a few bombs that might have gone off better, a few hirelings who might have said yes.
(The ordinary soldiers fight with anti-tank rifles and poison gas grenades and the deadly dreams of madmen.)
But that didn't happen.
(Few of the soldiers are ordinary. One side favors the Steelstorm Industries Mk. VI Levy and Livia's Legion. The other puts its faith in knights and monsters.)
The odds were always against it.
(Lightning whips across the battlefield, hissing through the soldiers whose symbols aren't blue and silver before striking the blue-and-silver armor of a woman who does not expect to ever be mistaken for anyone else.)
There's just not enough, on the pretender's side; not enough knights, not enough brains, not enough money.
(The red-and-purple armor is a bloody bruise and would be too stained to be recognizable if the speed at which the stains grew did not distinguish it all on its own.)
Maybe if she'd managed to bring down the shield, maybe someone would have come to help.
(The shield is a dome that cleaves sky and sea to shroud Novapest in an impenetrable bubble, misty grey to allow just a little light in, but not enough to burn.)
The numbers are now almost ten to three, and smart generals don't fight at ten to three.
(Artillery shells strike every clump of men, and the men are unclumped, fighting in the streets behind cover and in the houses.)
Some would say that if she'd been more sensible she never would have taken the risk.
(The frozen woman does not fight often. She fights now for the student she has chosen, for men and metal both shatter where she walks, should she will it.)
Others that she shouldn't have taken them at any odds.
(Here and there the sky will blacken and a pillar of flame will strike, as the eye of the gods opens and the sun's wrath smites the ground.)
Some fights you just can't win.
(The knights of Ilderia die in the streets, and the armies of the rest of Novapest advance.)
Most fights, when you're up against the Titanium Tyrant.
