Lucia Lovatt - “Lucky” to her friends - felt decidedly unlucky as she strode through the darkened hallways of the prison camp. She’d not yet gotten a name of the place, but she hadn’t seen Fall-From-Grace or Hook Echo in the mech bay when she got a chance to peek in earlier.

So either this wasn’t SR-21, or it was and Eyes hadn’t happened yet. Or maybe wouldn’t happen? Jesus. Those two and their convoluted lore. Not like Lucky particularly minded all the lore. She was just pissed she wouldn’t get to see the rest of those stories play out. To say nothing of she’d not gotten a chance to subscribe to Kallie’s Patreon so she didn’t know what the fuck was going on with Kione Monax in RESCUE HOUND . Would never know what happened.

“Handler-General Kestrel,” a guard nodded to her as she approached a checkpoint.

That’s right. To everyone else, Lucky wasn’t Lucia Lovatt anymore. She was Handler-General Olympia Echium Kestrel. To most, though, she was known simply as Omicron. Because she’d died saving that girl. Died at the ripe old age of 23. And then she woke up as the head monster in charge of breaking pilots for The Empire. Not the Sonnelan Empire from Situation Normal , or The Union from ends//means. She hadn’t read MYRMIDON , but it didn’t feel like everything was too immutable of a crapsack world meant to break the reader just as much as the pilots…at least, from what she’d gathered talking to friends. Not The Regime, then.

“Got a live one for you. Just captured.” The guard handed her a small tablet. She took it, brows furrowing.

She studied the dossier that was open on the tablet. Ace pilot - of course she was - from the insurgency . Huh. Yeah. That did make sense. No self-respecting authoritarian government would ever recognize that there was a valid reason anyone would want to not be authoritated at. Authorized at? Lucky had to bite the side of her cheek she remembered that video of some annoying fashboy influencer repeatedly reading “authoritarian” as “authorization”. Not the right time for her to be thinking about her old life.

Instead she returned her focus on the woman. This pilot she was gonna have to break. She had wild, flowing tresses of dark hair with jewel tone highlights in purple, pink, and blue.

Name: Fortunata Higgs
Armour: WORKS Model IX-45A (Modified)
Callsign: Clover

“Lucky her,” she said in a low voice.

The guard laughed. A harsh, mechanical squeal broke her from her puzzling things out as the door to the interrogation room ground open. Fuck. Her heart quickened as she stepped inside. She’d thought about this part a lot. It was one of the hottest parts to her. Yeah, sure, lesbians in mecha making really bad decisions towards and about each other was also real good, but she didn’t get into mechsploitation for the combat.

She got into it for the no-holds-barred, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, “#Fucked up petplay #like really fucked up petplay” of it all. Except as she rounded the table and looked down at Ace Pilot Fortunata Higgs, she was…furious. Because it was all so wrong to her.

She was the one who was supposed to be strapped to the brainwashing machine.

“Who are you?” Lucky blinked. Fortunata Higgs had asked the question - the most Alpha of Handler Alpha questions - of her! There was a glint of something in Fortunata’s eyes. It wasn’t just defiance, it was something else. Like this woman was waiting for whatever Lucky was going to say so that she could defend against it. Parry it back.

Lucky racked her brain. Fuck. What was something quotable? What would a Handler, any Handler say in this situation?

“I-I am your Handler,” Lucky said, voice a bit too shrill. Nice. Great fucking start. She swallowed before continuing. “I am here to make your will my own.”

Fortunata didn’t seem fazed. “Look, just…do whatever you’re gonna do,” Fortunata said. “I’m presuming you’ll get the Starlight flowing here in a second and then it’s curtains for my will, anyway, so…”

“What?”

“Who’re you, Ricky fucking Tobit? Stop being annoying and do whatever you’re gonna do!”

God if that wasn’t a deep cut. Who named checked Ricky fucking Tobit?! Nobody. No except…

“…nobody knows who Ricky Tobit is.”

“Yeah, well…apparently he sucks and…“

Fortunata trailed off. She met Lucky’s gaze, eyes wide with shock.

“…all my homies hate Ricky Tobit.” They said it in unison.

...

“YOU’RE A MECHANISMS FAN?!”

“YOU READ MECHSPLOITATION?!”

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