Chapter 177: The Righteous Breaker: Dead Weight
[Author’s opening note: Before I knew it, the overall rating passed fifty thousand. Thanks to all your ratings and comments, the author’s brain is still cheerfully churning out lore today. I hope you’ll keep supporting this humble work.]
Sparks scatter as the sword carves into the asphalt, slashing upward from below. But Metius is already gone. An unnatural weight settles on the sword hand. I look up—Metius has jumped off the propeller blade, and his heel is already driving down toward my face.
No Face: "Nguoh!?"
Sylvia: "Tch—!"
I throw my body backward with everything I've got. The heel scrapes down my chest plate with a harsh screech. One of us lands. The other recovers from the dodge. We both move again at the exact same moment.
I hold my ground in the middle of the main street, intercepting and then chasing Metius as Metius bounces around lightly. The gauge is filled down to the pixel, ready for my super. But where do I use it? Cursed Prison's super is a little different from everyone else's. It's not a "push button, win fight" kind of move. I have to pick my moment carefully... Oh, there—DIE! Shit, she dodged it.
No Face: "Quit darting around...!"
Sylvia: "No rush, no rush. Let's take our time and enjoy this."
Smug bastard. I'm gonna kill you. Both our HP bars are down to about thirty percent—a slight gap, but if I push all at once, I might shave it clean. But one slip and she'll shave me right back. She knows it too. Or maybe she's playing with it. Either way, we're stuck in this brawl, both of us sitting on our gauge.
Sylvia: "You can use your super too, can’t you? Come on."
No Face: "Right back at you."
Metius's super, Metia Strike, homes in. Normally you land it by making your opponent flinch first, but once it's fired, you're basically not dodging it. Unless you're playing a character that can move faster than the strike travels and outrun the tracking. Or you can use a teleport to make it whiff... but none of that matters right now.
Do I fire first? Or wait and counter? Both have their ups and downs. I want to make a move, but my HP is just a little too thin...
If this were a one-pixel cliffhanger, I'd just yolo in and gamble it all. But having thirty percent left is exactly what's making me cautious.
Sylvia: "Found an opening."
No Face: "Shi—!"
Crap. My focus slipped. By the time I realize it, it's too late. A heavy impact slams into my chest, and my body locks up in hitstun.
Sylvia: "That was fun. Really, truly fun, Cursed Prison... The hero wins."
Metius leaps. Blue particles gather around Metius’s leg, blazing with brilliant light. Is this checkmate? No. Not yet. This is the short hitstun—the small one. I can just barely squeeze out my super before that flying kick connects...! If I do, I can dodge it. Probably.
A super usually does about forty percent on hit. A clean hit takes fifty, sixty. Metia Strike creates a wide-range explosion the moment it lands. Even if I dodge the kick itself, the blast will still catch me. I probably can't avoid all of it. But I should be able to survive.
No Face: "Don't... you dare underestimate me!!"
Super, acti—
???: "Mommy... where are you...?"
My senses, sharpened to their absolute limit by total concentration, finish processing the information before my conscious mind can even recognize it.
A voice. Child. Girl. Familiar. Chestnut paste. Behind me. Blast radius. Chestnut paste. Pencilgon. Chestnut paste. Weapon. Chestnut paste. Metius's character lore...
My body moves on its own. No—that's wrong. This is absolutely my own will. Why. How. What's behind me. My brain skips all of it and sends a single four-word order to my entire body: "Don't run."
Metia Strike pours energy into whatever it hits and detonates it from the inside. Which means the definition of a direct hit from that super... is contact. The blast can't be dodged. Running from this spot is not an option. A shield. Make a shield. Form a line. Stack them. Overlap them. Forward. Push out. Bash.
Thought catches up afterward. Understanding follows action. I throw the two swords in my hands so they cross in an X, then grab the two at my hips and layer them on top. Four walls. My head hurts. My vision swims. The kick is closing in. Brace. Guard. Push in. Push out.
Time it.
No Face: "Now."
Leaning into the four blades as they begin to fall, I brace in a football-tackle stance. In the next instant, the impact tears through my body through the four propeller swords. To an outside observer, it looks like a direct hit. But what took the attack wasn't Cursed Prison—it was the helicopter blades.
My accelerated thoughts hit their limit. Beyond the propeller blades being chewed apart from within by blue light, past the sword shield... I catch a glimpse of the hero's face. Behind those star-shaped goggles, the hero’s eyes are wide with shock. The mouth twists into a crescent of such fierce joy it looks ready to split—
Explosion.
No Face: "Not dead yet, not dead yet... whew."
I avoided a direct hit, but a point-blank explosion isn't something Cursed Prison's weight can just shrug off. My body was sent flying like nothing. Still, I force myself upright and plant my feet. The helicopter armor across my entire body is crumpled, barely functional as defense anymore. But Cursed Prison hasn't fallen. A sliver of HP left. You could call this near-death. And yet I'm still standing.
Sylvia: "Metia Strike injects Metius’s star power into the opponent and blows them up from inside. Sure, blocking with those propellers can stop a clean hit. But I don't get it."
No Face: "...You’re wondering why I didn’t run and took it head-on, right?"
It's nothing special. Just a small apology to those two NPCs my scumbag teammate put through hell. If I dodged and the blast hurt them... I'd sleep like shit tonight. And for the record, this is not about "please don't lump me in with that monster"—I'm not trying to farm goodwill points here.
No Face: "Oi. Chestnut-paste brat. You're in the way. Get out of here. Your mom's looking for you."
Girl NPC: "O-okay..."
Behind me, sheltered by the absurdly huge frame of Cursed Prison, a little girl NPC sits slumped on the ground. I know it's not directly connected. The Chaos City where Clockfire ran rampant and the Chaos City I'm standing in now are separate instances. I know that. But still—a villain dodges, and the NPC behind him gets hurt by the hero. In this moment, I can't do something that'll kill my own vibe. So I'm borrowing a classic logic passed down through the ages: "Delinquent picks up a puppy in the rain, suddenly looks like a good guy." Now bow down before your Cursed Prison!
No Face: "Good girl. Don't look back. Run straight."
Girl NPC: "Th-thank you, mister..."
No Face: "Mister...? Whatever."
Looks aren't what make a man. It's the youth in your heart. In the distance, the chestnut-paste mother is hurrying this way. The woman and child who got turned into human landmines in a different Chaos City embrace and flee. I turn back to Metius.
No Face: "What's wrong, hero? Not helping someone in trouble? You're acting like some random civilian mob."
Sylvia: "Ahaha, you've got a mouth on you... Though I'm pretty sure Cursed Prison isn't the type to help people."
No Face: "This isn't a comic. It's a game."
I say it again. How long ago was it? Probably not even an hour in real time, but it feels like forever ago. I think this is what American comics call a parallel universe.
No Face: "Different universe! Don’t complain about what I—no, what I, the great Cursed Prison, choose to do."
My HP is overwhelmingly behind. The helicopter armor is trashed. The propeller swords are gone. But which of us has the advantage right now—that much is certain.
No Face: "You used your super, hero."
Sylvia: "...Bring it. If you're going to beat 'Cursed Prison,' I have to beat that!"
No Face: "My turn."
Cursed Prison's super is a different breed from everyone else's. Its nature is tied tightly to the character's own backstory. Cursed Prison is a villain from the comic Metius. He has history with Galaxeus—the deus ex machina of the Galaxia label, the one who's pretty much the cause of everything.
In the ancient primordial era of Earth, this being was born as an irregularity—something even the all-powerful Galaxeus could not foresee. It wielded unimaginable power purely for its own desires. But when it threatened even the life of the star itself, Galaxeus forced a cursed suit of armor onto it. A being that could walk freely, yet remained a prisoner trapped in a cage. That is the Cursed Prison. And the young man granted power that mimics the mighty being who once rampaged across this planet—that's the protagonist, Metius. Cursed Prison attacks Metius to shed the armor that binds him.
No Face: "Prison Break!!"
Thus, Cursed Prison is the original model for Metius. The super move—activated by filling your gauge and offering up the chance to claim the cube—is "Prison Break," which releases his true power for a limited time!
The helicopter armor explodes off my body. Cracks run through the jet-black armor beneath it. In the comics, this is supposed to unleash by absorbing Galaxeus's power, but this is a game—don't sweat the details. Just like the propeller blades earlier, light spills from within my entire body. A crimson blaze—the polar opposite of Metius's blue. The armor, unable to contain the glow, bursts apart, and what emerges is a slim man wreathed head to toe in crimson light.
Cursed Prison is an utterly unique character. Absorbing inorganic matter changes his properties. Using his super changes the character himself.
Sylvia: "I’ve never been this excited to see that form before... Prison Breaker!"
Thirty seconds of freedom. Nothing compared to the round timer. But the power, the speed, the specs... are a complete upgrade over Metius in every way.
No Face: "This is the climax. I'm ending it."
Sylvia: "The hero... always wins!!"
The azure shooting star and the crimson calamity collide.