"Cut! Hold the lights. Z, that was gorgeous, but you look like you're cutting a cake. I need you to look like you might actually die."
Zeraya rolled her wrist, the fiery, molten edge of her corporate-issued blade powering down with a soft hiss. The air around her smelled of sulfur and ozone—the lingering residue of three consecutive void-steps—but her breathing was perfectly even.
She stood in the center of a wild, System-generated subterranean cavern. It should have been a terrifying abyss, but P.A.C.I.F.I.C. had dragged in humming industrial generators, laying down thick power cables and flooding the stalactites with blinding, artificial stadium lights. A half-dozen repulsor-drones hovered in the air, their lenses locked on her gleaming, flawless golden armor.
It was a nightmare treated like a soundstage.
