Private Silence the Machine

[Mia Monroe]

Not far outside Keldabe City where the river widened and the current slowed Mia stood waiting. She’d chosen this spot for a number of reasons, the first was there was no audience. No matter how loud the spar got they wouldn’t disturb a soul.

Secondly, the ground was compact and hard. She wanted this lesson to land quickly. Soft mats and air conditioned rooms were for green recruits, not seasoned warriors.

Thirdly, this place was important to her. It had been where her father had taught her the harder lessons, it was also where she used to come for a modicum of peace and quiet when the day to day pressure of wrangling testosterone driven idiots that wanted to go to war with every blade of grass became too much.

Even Isley Verd had had his moments.

She smiled, watching the river drift lazily past, the breeze catching the grass on the opposite bank. Mia hadn’t given Aselia Verd much to go by in her inviatation, just coordinates and an instruction to come prepared for a fight. She was intrigued to see what the woman would bring.

 

[Aselia Verd]

Aselia approached on foot, armor quiet against the breeze, her pace steady and unhurried. There was no display in her arrival, no attempt to make an impression. She had left her transport well beyond the treeline and chosen to walk the final stretch out of respect for the place and for the woman waiting.

She stopped several meters short, removed her buy'ce without ceremony, and inclined her head slightly.

There was no swagger in her stance. Her shoulders were relaxed, her weight centered but not coiled. She was prepared, yes, but she was not here to posture. The compact ground under her boots was noted and accepted. The river. The wind. The absence of witnesses.

"My father used to favor ground like this. Better analogue to battlefield conditions"

Her gaze settled on Mia fully now, respectful and attentive.

"You asked me to come prepared for a fight" she said. "Here I am."

The beskad at her back remained sheathed. She made no move to draw it. There was anticipation in her, but it was disciplined. This was about testing against someone who had already earned her place in Mandalorian memory.

TAG: Mia Monroe
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[Mia Monroe]

Mia let out a small hum at Aselia's mention of her father, her head bowing briefly, memories of another life flicking briefly behind her eyes before she straightened and turned to regard the young woman. She held herself with discipline, relaxed, but ready for whatever came her way, Mia acknowledged the quiet confidence with a nod, moving away from the rivers edge.

“I read the reports from the battle at Yaga.” she said, moving to stand opposite her. “Bold move to take on that many alone, something I can appreciate.” Mia’s sapphire gaze held Aselia’s, steady and watchful of any shift in her. “You adapt to your terrain, your strategy is faultless even against insurmountable odds.”

Mia paused, allowing the compliment to settle before she continued. “But your reliance on technology is your downfall. You are the weapon, Aselia, not your armour.”

She tilted her head, eyes shifting to sweep over her armour once before coming to rest back on her face. “So let’s fix that.”

Aselia Verd

 

[Aselia Verd]

Aselia listened without interruption.

The mention of Yaga Minor did not make her preen. It did not make her bristle. She absorbed the words the way she absorbed impact measured, controlled. When Mia spoke of boldness and terrain and adaptation, there was no false modesty in her posture. Only acknowledgment.

"Reports tend to make things sound cleaner than they are, Aselia replied evenly. "It wasn't alone. Not really." Her blue eyes held Mia's steadily when the older woman shifted the focus.

But your reliance on technology is your downfall.

There it was.

Aselia did not flinch at the critique. She did not rush to defend herself either. She let the statement breathe between them as the river moved quietly at their backs.

"You think I hide behind it" she said at last, tone thoughtful rather than defensive. Her gaze dipped briefly to her gauntlets, then back up.

"I grew up around beskar and blasterfire. Around jetpacks and targeting systems. You don't separate from that easily. It becomes instinct."

A faint edge entered her voice.

"And instinct keeps you alive."

But she did not push back harder than that. She respected the woman standing opposite her too much for empty pride.

"You're not wrong" Aselia admitted after a moment. "When the systems go dark, when the packs fail, when the cannon overheats…. What do you do then."

There was quiet steel in that.

"But I don't train without it often enough either."

She stepped forward a fraction, closing the distance between them to something more appropriate for a spar rather than a conversation.

"So what does 'fixing it' look like?" she asked, not sarcastic, not skeptical. Curios and ready.

Her shoulders rolled once, loosening, as if shedding an invisible weight.

"You want me without the armor?" she added. "Without the tools?"

A faint, almost dangerous smile touched the corner of her mouth.

"Fine."

Her stance shifted, subtle but deliberate, grounding into the compact earth beneath her boots.

"Teach me."

TAG: Mia Monroe
​

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia didn’t interrupt, even when the edge crept into Aselia’s voice, earning little more than a twitch at the corner of her mouth, her hands folding neatly in the small of her back. Aselia had fire, that much was certain, but she was wise enough at least for now to control it.

When she stepped in Mia didn’t move, her hands stayed where they were.

“No.” she said once, firmly her eyes raking over her stance once in assessment. “You will come at me with everything you have. Tech and all.”

Mia needed to see all of it first hand, because Aselia was right, reports made things look clean and polished and to fully understand the extent of her reliance she needed to feel and see it first hand.

She also needed to break her reliance on it while she was using it.

Mia moved her hands from behind her back, lifting the buy’ce from her hip and slotting it neatly over her head, before her hands came to rest at her sides, relaxed and clearly unphased.

“When you are ready, ad’ika.”


Aselia Verd

 

[Aselia Verd]

The river moved slowly behind them, the current whispering against the banks while the wind bent the grass along the opposite shore. Aselia stood where Mia had left her, the distance between them deliberate and clean. She had expected the correction, though not quite in that form.

When Mia said no, she didn't argue.

Her blue eyes flicked briefly across Mia's stance as the older warrior studied her in return. The buy'ce came up and locked into place with the quiet, final click of beskar sealing against beskar. The moment it settled, the tone of the exercise shifted. This wasn't a lecture anymore.

Aselia exhaled slowly and rolled her shoulders once, letting the last edge of irritation bleed away. If Mia wanted everything, she would get it. There was no point holding back when the entire purpose of this was to see the weaknesses plainly.

Her gauntlets came alive first.

The soft glow of the interface flickered across her vambraces as targeting systems and movement predictors slid quietly online. A faint shift passed through her posture as the suit's systems synchronized with her HUD, the familiar rhythm of the armor settling around her like a second nervous system.

She flexed her fingers once, grounding herself.

"Here I come," she said calmly. Then she moved.

The first step was explosive, boots biting into the compact ground as she closed the distance with sudden speed. She didn't charge blindly; her approach angled slightly to Mia's left, forcing the Liberator to turn while the subtle whine of her jetpack thrusters flickered for half a second to alter her momentum.

A small burst from her wrist launcher cracked through the air, nonlethal training charges meant more to distract than injure, timed precisely to arrive just before she did. The goal wasn't to damage. It was pressure.

Aselia followed through behind it, body low and balanced as she drove forward into striking range.

Even as she moved, another system hummed to life along her shoulder mount, the micro-targeting suite beginning to map the terrain around Mia. The missiles haven't fired yet. They simply waited, calculating angles and micro-fractures in the riverbank stones and hard ground around them.

If Mia wanted everything, then everything would come.

But the core of it was still the warrior moving beneath the armor.

Aselia's gaze never left her opponent as she closed the final meters, momentum gathering through her legs and hips for the opening strike. The tech supported her, enhanced her reach and awareness, but the attack itself came from muscle memory and instinct.

TAG: Mia Monroe
​

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia watched the roll of her shoulders, heard the soft hum of electric as systems came to life around Aselia, beneath her buy’ce Mia smiled as the clearing seemed to take a breath, silence stretching before Aselia spoke.

She burst forward with controlled speed and Mia shifted one foot sliding back as she moved into the defensive, turning as the jetpack whined to life. Her gaze flicked down to her wrist a split second before the charges launched, the fist resting at Mia’s side clenched, the force closing on the charges detonating them early, the static cracking in the air between them.

The energy shifted in Aselia’s suit, tracking along a shoulder mount, not visible to the eye but Mia could feel it. Machines may not have been present in the force but the static hum they gave off was easy enough to follow if you knew what you were looking for.

Mia’s docs shifted to the woman beneath the armour closing the distance between them. Only when she was a breath away did Mia move, catching the incoming strike and twisting, her foot sliding on the dirt as she pivoted sharply to let it and the weight behind it pass in front of her before releasing it, the sudden shift in weight aimed to imbalance Aselia.

And if that wasn’t enough?

Mia’s other hand cracked with energy, sending a surge of lightning through the shoulder mount.

Aselia Verd