PLEASE ENTER NAME : LEVEL 10
DAY 153 : A-DAY, FOURTHWEEK, EOS, YEAR 1
ARENA 2 : ROUND 2 : HOMING
[ 3 ]
[ 2 ]
[ 1 ]
[ 0 ]
“FFFIIIGHT!!!”
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]
[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 1 ]
[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: GALE FORCE ]
Once more bursting into the air above the rest of my team going their separate ways, I quickly get to orbiting the instantiated arena. I have to fly all hundred of me around for a bit longer than last week, but I do eventually spot someone.
[ HERO TARGETED: VORBO ]
I can see an outline… But why can’t I-oh right, I turned it off yesterday.
[ COMMON TOGGLE ON: TARGETED HEARING ]
Unfortunately, Vorbo is running alone across the massive-mushroom-infested hills of Mushroom Hill Zone.
[ TEAM / PLEASE ENTER NAME: ENEMY GROUP SPOTTED ]
There’s another within Sonar range of Vorbo, but they’re nowhere near my actual target. So what about…
[ HERO TARGETED: CROWDPIERCER ]
As I feared, there are no others nearby but Vorbo. Except… Yes, there are.
A green outline is making its way towards Crowdpiercer. Still not the least bit comfortable discerning between something so visually-focused as a silhouette, I suspect from its particularly large frame that it must be Tyrone.
But once he enters Sonar range of Crowdpiercer, I can hear perfectly well that it’s actually Joe. Thanks to my more recent Sonar Skill Levels, I can differentiate between Joe himself, and the thick ethereal body covering his own from head to toe. The way armor does for practically everyone but me. I could give him air support… But no. We agreed by way of Simon saying so, that given the choice, I’d stick to targets not being actively engaged by any teammates.
[ HERO TARGETED: VORBO ]
Let’s start with half of me. At that thought, I blow 50 of my airborn armors into a loose queue and activate the lot of them.
[ POWER BLESSING: GALE BALL ]
Not wanting to waste any time, I launch them one after the other.
[ TEAM / PLEASE ENTER NAME: COMMENCING BARRAGE ]
I don’t get an answer. Except then I do.
[ TEAMMATE ELIMINATED: SIMON ]
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The first hits Vorbo and sends him ragdolling nearly to the next Mushroom hill.
“WHAT THE FU-”
Or it would if not for the second Gale Ball Armor that hits him mid-flight.
“-BLAAA-”
Same for the next.
On the next one, a green orb erupts from his hand to block the incoming armor. It works to block the brunt of the blast. But its range is still wide enough to blow him across the hill like a house in a tornado.
The next Armor is just as effective.
By the one after that, I’ve pushed him into a patch of particularly large mushrooms nestled in the intersection of their four surrounding hills. That’s when the damage really starts.
It’s also where it stops.
Just before the tenth impact and third bounce of Vorbo between and through different massive mushrooms, ten of my other, still-airborne armors explode.
[ HP: 861/960 ]
What just happened?
But even as I ask myself that, ten small rockets come flying into my Sonar range, and straight towards one more armor. They’re too fast for me to do anything before-
[ HP: 762/960 ]
I try to target whoever’s standing in that direction. But it doesn’t work.
And then ten more rockets fly in from that exact point in the bubble of my Sonar’s max range, all going right for ten more floating Armors.
I’m ready this time though. With all the practice Simon made me do over the past months, I raise my Gale Force’s focal point to make those armors dodge upwards. It raises the rest of me as well, but the force is focused on the targeted Armors.
Not that it matters. At no point, active jet stream or no, do any of the rockets head anywhere but exactly where I didn’t want them to.
[ HP: 663/960 ]
Not rockets… Missiles. And not just fast for artillery, but with exceptional homing. Which likely means they sacrifice damage for accuracy and number of rockets. I believe Simon called this a ‘direct counter’.
Off in the distance Joe comes within Sonar range of Vorbo.
Finally seeming to spot him at only a scant dozen-ish meters away, Crowdpiercer comes to a standstill before erupting in an enclosing clockwise spiral around Joe.
At the same moment, a newly upright Vorbo starts sprinting in the same direction, leaving a trail of yellow lightning in his wake. Wind isn’t very effective against lightning. So that explains why he still seems pretty far from death’s door after ten Gale Balls.
Ten more rockets come in. But this time, they curve up and over the armors I already had on the ground after their shots hit Vorbo.
[ HP: 564/960 ]
[ TEAMMATE ELIMINATED: ZACK ]
Making a split second decision, I activate 34 armors at once to fill in the ranks.
[ POWER BLESSING: GALE BALL ]
The newly-made cluster of myself gets halfway there before another volley of missiles cuts off a chunk. But that was never avoidable. If it was, I’d be doing something else.
[ HP: 465/960 ]
Joe pulls his ethereal arm back with open palm facing perpendicular to Crowdpiercer, even as the latter circles in search of an opening.
The first of me lands right next to Vorbo.
But he dodges out of the way at the same time that nearly a quarter of my armors disappear.
[ HP: 366/960 ]
At the same time as the missiles hit, a different, rather larger explosion shakes the instantiated battlefield from the opposite direction.
[ TEAMMATE ELIMINATED: DAVID ]
Nothing for it. I send all of me down at once.
At the same time, Joe’s middle and pointer finger extend to dozens of times their original length, following Crowdpiercer more rigidly than the missiles are following me.
[ HP: 267/960 ]
Every single one of my remaining armors slam into both Vorbo, and each other, unleashing all the rest of my own payload over the course of about a second.
So the next round of missiles are only another second too late to stop them.
[ HP: 168/960 ]
My head takes damage from the same missile that explodes the body it was on. No time…
[ COMMON ACTION: RECALL HEAD ]
With one of my scant remaining bodies, I throw my head just like I practiced at Vorbo’s once-more sprawled-out form.
And just like I practiced, it flies wide of the target. I’m still not great at throwing.
[ HP: 69/960 ]
Very nice. Because with my finisher’s range, it’s close enough. And best of all, it doesn't deal Gale Damage.
[ UNCOMMON ACTION: HEADSPLOSION ]
[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: VORBO ]
Rolling across the hill, I have just enough time to hear Joe’s ethereal mouth wide open, doing some kind of bird call as he pummels Crowdpiercer with randomly-angled rapidfire punches from close range.
“-ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA-”
[ YOU DIED — XP DEBT: TOURNAMENT EXCEPTION — RESPAWN DELAY: 8 HOURS ]
[ 8:00:00 ]
My nonexistent heart lightens at the realization that I still made a difference after getting hard-countered.
[ 7:63:63 ]
Still though, I believe I have spotted a weakness in the Orbital Bombardment strategy…