Twenty minutes later.
The clone was getting bored.
He'd been sitting on the hull for twenty minutes watching other people fight. Twenty minutes felt like an eternity when you operated at near light-speed perception and had already finished your own part in seven seconds.
Celestia had her eyes closed, not sleeping but conserving energy. Her head tilted back slightly, silver hair drifting in the zero-gravity environment. She looked peaceful. Bored, but peaceful.
"Marcus just hit five hundred thousand," she said without opening her eyes.
The clone checked the leaderboard. "Khan's at four-twenty. Lyra's at six hundred."
"Lyra's smart. Going for high-value targets only."
"Efficient."
They sat in silence for another thirty seconds. In the distance, a candidate deployed a massive fire technique that turned three hundred pirates into ash. Flashy. Effective. Slow.
"This is taking forever," the clone said.
"They're fighting at normal speeds."
"I know. It's painful to watch."
