life is plastic (it's fantastic)
Mechon have always been different, somehow. They've been machines, but not tools. Robots, but not quite anthropomorphic. They read as the titan's unappealing autonomous defense system, and not that ordered and sundered of a people group living thereupon. And really, it's funny that they should only get one, while the Bionis has two, three, and all the intermingling thereof. Anti-Air Batteries are just machines. No anthropomorphization about it.
So, the Machina. So elegant. So efficient. So ethereal. So unlike the bulky, brute-force Faces, from the mass-produced to Metal Face.
It's a clever little naming convention, isn't it? From the simple, sour Metal to the meaty, malleable Bronze to the rigid, refined Jade to the elusive, enigmatic Nemesis. And Yaldabaoth, of course, king of them all. Golden. Glorious. Take your pick - which model, which colorway, which attractive, fetching little accoutrement?
Streamlined, they are. Digestible, in their enormity, perhaps. The Machina are modular, inorganic. Is it really any wonder how ill the Homs that once were now fit to their new occupation?
Oh, Mumkhar raves about his new body, the power. Gadolt was always a soldier. Xord swings his hammer just the same.
But then there's Fiora. The star model: Fiora.
She's playful, Fiora is. Roguish. Cheeky. She's not serious enough to house Meyneth, is she? Who could be? But when the goddess takes over control, she's perfectly grave. Even Vanea, steady Vanea, is more easily swayed. To emotion. To regret. To confusion, perhaps rebellion. Not that Vanea is anything but devout.
Meyneth can pilot Fiora, handily and without apprehension, like the extension of the Mechonis's will that she is. Merely a vessel. And Meyneth is not so disrespectful, so callus, so cavalier, no, but Fiora will let her be, won't she? She must!
Playing with Fiora is so easy. Like a hot knife through butter, but now her flesh is firm and impervious. No one's trying to cut her apart, now. No one has to.
Ball joints swivel, squeak. The design is a thorough one, all neurons connected to the proper scervos. Imagine such a well-fitted prosthesis. Fiora articulates just as well as a Homs does. Better, in fact. Ever better. Who could want anything different? Who could ask for anything more?
This is the picture of Fiora. Resort Armor, pink and buttoned like a present, like a treasure, like a prize. Showing everything off, for what else is there?
A short haircut suits her; the better to see all her bones and lines. All her beautiful ball joints, socket and stud, all her static single-layer skin that doesn't sweat.
Stretched so thin, to carry a god and deliver a titan.
Oh, and her legs are so long. So, so long - miles and miles, far beyond the strict shortness of meters, dysplasiated hips so much weaker than those of the Machina that were built that way from the start. She could drop at any moment. She always wants to. She never does. O' course not! No sweat. None.
There's no pause button, no off switch. And there's nothing to want for it - who could complain about being permitted to press on and on and on, forever?
Some slogan. Fiora's classic. It says everything that need be said about her, after all, and so compactly. The Homs girl is slaughtered; Fiora continues. The emperor is eliminated; Fiora continues. Homs soldiers suffer ether injury at the hands of the Havres' targets. Fiora continues. Face Nemesis falls to the beach and implodes. Fiora continues. The world beats down; Fiora continues.
Vessel for a goddess? Sure! A girl like Fiora can do anything. All women can do anything, be anything. Vanea can build a vessel for a goddess out of a corpse and a cacophany of cadmium, chains and chips and circuits and cinew. The pilots are only models, only iterations. Fiora's eyes turn red in her porcelain head and she can remember her family, or she can forget them, or she can start anew, the universe's plaything, flickering betwixt moments of undue sentience.
(And don't let's get started on Fiora's Ken, who is far, so far, from beach-hankering hunk and social butterfly. His hair, too, is platinum with death and post-animate posterity, but he is the one with the complex emotions; with the anger. Oh, the righteous anger! Not commercial enough, is it? Her brother doll has a disabled arm, a prominent face. No, the burden of prim perfection is all upon Fiora. And she bears it well, well, well.)
Fiora's gotten a second wind. If she's lucky, she'll get a third. A new chance, roleplay in reciprocity. Oh, tosh, we'd all hate to see such a pretty thing, so indelicate, die in such an ignominious fashion as she once did. As dolls are made to be played with, broken, loved and left for dead in a lost and found bin, it only stands to reason that Fiora will come around again, eventually, no matter where or when or how she dies this time.
What wind, anyway? She's dead, isn't she? A veritable corpse! But that's the magic of Fiora - the gift that keeps on giving, for millennia of more and more play.