[Can I... make it back alive from the Guild War...?]
Chapter 501: The Winds of Power Creep Always Blow Fast
Speed is of the essence in war, and I need speed right now. So here I am, tearing through the spreading panic of Chaos City on a bizarre contraption that's basically a board just big enough for both my feet, with two wheels bolted on. In other words, a self-balancing scooter.
...Look, what else am I supposed to do? Twinkle Pixie is too small to ride a motorcycle. There aren't exactly any kindhearted people willing to hand over their bikes—not that I recognize any, anyway. And since this thing is apparently designed for players, it's actually faster than running unless you're one of the characters with Meteorias-level mobility.
Twinkle Pixie: "Shit... Change of plans. I've gotta hit them with a surprise attack, fast."
Things have gotten troublesome. The odds were fifty-fifty, and I'd optimistically assumed things might go my way, but the Goddess of RNG is still some kind of evil deity.
Twinkle Pixie: "I'm not giving you time to change clothes again...!"
Since GH:C launched, enough time has passed for most characters to develop established approaches. Cursed Prison players, in particular, fall broadly into two groups.
First are the 'one-outfit' players. Cursed Prison can transform into all sorts of forms, but there's no requirement to master them all. Bike form, car form, helicopter form... These players put on their strongest form as fast as possible and fight with it. The more common that form's components are around the city, the better the early burst and staying power, making the style surprisingly effective. It's primarily a Prison Break-centered approach, so those forms serve as a bridge while the gauge charges.
The strangest version I've met in random ranked play was a counter-hacking form that mainly absorbed PCs, built specifically to fight Display.
Twinkle Pixie: "Not letting that monster take another wardrobe break..."
The other type is the 'wardrobe' player: someone who understands what absorbing each object provides and can use almost anything, anywhere, at any time. This is the specialist approach that makes maximum use of Cursed Prison's normally disadvantageous cursed armor.
The problem with this type isn't just the sheer variety of fighting styles. Changing equipment changes fighting style and restores the equipment's durability.
And this opponent is Amelia Sullivan. Expecting America's second-ranked player to have come unprepared would be ridiculous.
That's why the Twinkle Quarter Combat—TQC—I'm using this time will be the super-fast-attack style.
TQC follows in the footsteps of Fairy Divine Fist, a style said to have arisen naturally as players researched Twinkle Pixie. The name, of course, is shamelessly ripped off from Close Quarters Combat—CQC.
But its foundation is 'get close, pump them full of powder, and knock them flying,' taken to the absolute extreme. In that sense, you could arguably call it a kind of CQC.
The ultra-fast-attack style is the fastest form of TQC, and it has another name...
Twinkle Pixie: "Drop dead, Tinky☆!"
Prison Breaker: "So you're here! Round two!!"
Twinkle Pixie: "Drop dead, Tinky☆!"
Prison Breaker: "Tch! Quit making that stupid noise—"
Twinkle Pixie: "Drop dead, Tinky☆!"
...The brain-dead style.
The eight-legged Cursed Prison is trying to resupply by defeating some low-level Mechanitan Machine Swarm enemies. I smash through a window and strike from above, scattering Twinkle Powder before the enemy can move to intercept me.
Twinkle Pixie: "Let's go, High Torque!"
TQC High Torque is incredibly simple! Throw out the theory! Simplify your thoughts! Just punch, punch, PUNCH!!
People tend to assume Twinkle Pixie depends on the Twinkle☆Wand for attacks, but her bare-handed power is actually quite high. To be precise, her punches hit harder than Dust's. Her jumping strength and speed aren't quite Meteorias-level, but she can double-jump in midair and hover for several seconds.
The pinnacle of fairy combat is therefore ultra-three-dimensional movement at a range of one meter or less!!
Twinkle Pixie: "Tinky Diet! Burn off your own flesh, fatty☆!"
Prison Breaker: "Stop darting around! What are you, a rat?!"
Twinkle Pixie: "Here's your prescription of powder—medicine, I mean."
Even a pro gamer can't do a thing about this. No way a huge body like that can shake off Twinkle Pixie.
Punch, air jump, plant a foot on one of those pointlessly complicated arms, step off a shoulder, twist in midair, and drive a knee into the enemy's neck!
Twinkle Pixie: "TQC, alternate-form Twinkle light magic...!"
Prison Breaker: "That's obviously martial arts!"
It's the Shining Wizard!!
I land, close in again before the stun ends, and smash my wand into the annoying cannon barrel with a full swing. It doesn't break—but my brain is switched off, so I just keep hitting it.
Prison Breaker: "Fucking hell!"
One of the Machine Swarm guns Cursed Prison absorbed breaks. But the stun wears off here, and the counterattack comes.
I'm a Cursed Prison player myself, after all. I know exactly what annoys Cursed Prison users, and I also know what they're supposed to do in response.
When fighting a tiny character like Twinkle Pixie that slips inside your reach, you need to force the fight back to your own effective range.
Twinkle Pixie: "What...?!"
But the answer my opponent chooses isn't what I expected. Only in a fighting-game story would you look at a small character entering a huge character's reach and think strictly in terms of advantages and disadvantages. In ordinary terms, the bigger one has just caught the smaller one.
Not combat... This is grappling! The bastard's going to grab me and kill my mobility. Fine! I'll push my brain so hard with this Joint-boosted TQC that there won't be a spare instant to think!
◇
Eight: "Things are changing too fast for the commentary techniques Mr. Asama from Colt Bison taught me..."
Kei: "You mean his advice to comment on the situation rather than every individual action, right? I use that too. Anyway, what's happening right now is... No Face opened with an all-or-nothing attack."
Eight: "All or nothing? Right from the start...?"
Kei: "More precisely, No Face has cut out unnecessary thinking and focused entirely on attacking. Every response to the opponent is as fast as possible. If the opponent gets swept up in that momentum, the match could end right there. Maybe spending an Ult earlier was part of that strategy too...?"
Bullets scatter and a fairy dances. Sparks spray whenever a small wand slams into mechanical armor, while the monstrous pincers pursuing the fairy gouge chunks out of the asphalt.
Twinkle Pixie is flying around so close to Cursed Prison that it almost looks as though the armored fighter is dancing alone. At first glance the fairy seems to have the cursed armor cornered; in truth, neither side has gained the advantage.
Eight: "Is No Face prioritizing Cursed Prison's extra weapons? Its actual HP doesn't seem to be dropping much."
Kei: "Probably. Those leg-mounted guns can launch surprise ranged attacks even though Cursed Prison looks power-focused, and that makes them a natural enemy of Twinkle Pixie. It looks as if Pixie has the advantage, but staying glued to Cursed Prison is at least half an evasive maneuver."
Silver: "The moment Pixie stops, Pixie gets grabbed. So whether attacking or not, those escaping feet can never stop moving."
That's right. Look at it from another angle and the fairy toying with a giant monster is also a tiny insect desperately fleeing the danger of being crushed to death.
Twinkle Pixie's design revolves around using a little body to outmaneuver opponents, but being small can be a disadvantage as readily as an advantage.
Kei: "And there's another weakness to the Powder's stun. It stops actions initiated by the player, but it doesn't stop the weapons themselves from acting."
Eight: "So even if Cursed Prison itself is immobilized, its guns can still fire?"
Kei: "Exactly. That's why No Face keeps trying to destroy the guns, and why Hannya is defending with that in mind."
Kei is about to add something else—but the silver screen steals the floor.
Silver: "They've both spent too long at this. Or was that what they both wanted? Either way, both Ult gauges are full now."
Not everyone is watching the same thing. But fairy and cursed armor have both met their requirements at last.
And now, in the appropriately named Chaos City, the situation begins to change.