Chapter 152: Realizing the Limit of the Scorching Light in but a Single Instant

"Ah—sorry~ I don't really speak 'loser's howling,' you know? I have absolutely no idea what you're saying!!"

"Demon! Devil! Heretic!"

She just pulled off a stunt that easily killed off NPCs in the thousands! Well, I'm one to talk since I scrapped about three dozen cars—mostly luxury ones—but this girl is evil on a completely different level...

"What did you do?"

"Played Jenga with the buildings."

"Are you a demon...?"

Pencilgon laughing maniacally with progressively collapsing buildings in the background, right when a massive crowd of NPCs was clinging to her crying "Save us, Hero!"... Her methods are just way too nasty, it's insane. Maybe I should've just gone for a simpler beatdown.

"I'll ask Meg too, but what are your impressions after trying out this game?"

My first impressions of this game, huh? Let's see...

"Anti-Civilian Simulation Game (With Battle Elements)."

"Sandbox Tower Offense, Villain-exclusive."

"It requires positioning with a broad perspective taking advantage of its outstanding degree of freedom... wait, do I have to give a twisted impression too?"

"Meg, you're fine just the way you are. Those two just have un-deletable bugs permanently glued to their neurons."

"R-Right... The way I am now is fine..."

"Hey, Sunraku-san, how exactly are we supposed to respond to this?"

"Why don't you just give 'em the middle finger with a smile?"

(What's with this scene that looks like the mid-game of a dating sim after clearing a few events? Is that bastard Katzo showing off? Is he flaunting his rizz?! Though he himself doesn't seem to realize it at all... so that's how it is, huh? Patooey!!)

"I have no idea why I'm silently being cursed out to the absolute limit right now, but... anyway, setting aside serious counter-strategies for tomorrow... Hey Sunraku, wanna go for a match?"

"Hmm? Sure, I don't mind."

"But I have one request on my end... I want you to use the character 'Meteos'."

"...Should I go watch a gameplay video of that Sylvia-something-san first?"

"No, it's fine. The player known as Sylvia Goldberg is the type to have evolved past whatever she did last time anyway."

——But, come at me seriously.

That was Katzo's order.
In the guise of the hero "Meteos"—whose outfit looked like he could bust out into a disco fever at any second depending on how you look at it—I look down from the rooftop of a building at a Chaos City whose cityscape has completely changed from before.

"Now then, how long has it been since I fought him in a fighting game completely free of bugs...?"

(I have the advantage in terms of it being a blind-playthrough game, but considering it's part of the ShanFro lineage and Katzo heavily grinded the previous installment, the matchup diagram is probably around 6:4 with me at a disadvantage, huh...?)

"Well whatever, what I need to do hasn't changed."

If I were to describe the character Meteos in a single phrase, it would be "A highly mobile attacker that fully covers the X, Y, and Z axes." His mid-air jumps, wall-running, and high-speed dash capabilities are absolutely insane, and while he struggles with tight steps and right-angle turns, in terms of running around this massive stage, he boasts peak mobility among the currently selectable roster.
However, his base DPS is slightly low, making him a character that fundamentally requires landing a higher volume of hits.

"If I recall correctly, the character Katzo is using was 'Armed Lava'..."

A hero character whose arms are made of literal magma, a close-range fighter who melts concrete and steel rebar to fire them off as makeshift bullets. The molten iron bullets are generally slow, so unless it's a sneak attack or you're caught in an unavoidable state, dodging them is easy, but forcing movements that guarantee those hits is exactly the kind of player Katzo—Kei Uomi—is.

"Fortunately, there aren't even five characters in the roster who can beat Meteos in raw mobility, so I can seize the initiative... no, wait, is that his goal?"

(Making me use the same character with the same playstyle—even a monkey could tell this is a sparring session aimed squarely at countering that Sylvia-whatever. If that's the case, it's safe to assume he's already formulated a counter-strategy against Meteos's superior mobility.)
(Since this is a Hero vs Hero match, completely ignoring Katzo and focusing on rescue operations and hunting NPC Villains is a perfectly valid strat. As long as it's set in the rules, doing so isn't considered playing dirty or a cheese strat by any means.)

"That being said, though."

(Personally speaking, leaving my latest battle record against Katzo... no, against OiKatzo, as a loss just doesn't sit right with me.)
While leaping across several buildings and scanning the area, I spot a scorching brilliance—completely different from the glow of streetlights—right in the center of a park surrounded by a chaotic cluster of skyscrapers.

"The gong has already rung... I'm slamming him with a preemptive strike!"

I leap from the building, executing a mid-air jump. Thanks to the effect of Meteos's special skill, 『Star Road』, I sprint through the empty air for five seconds. Normally, this is where I'd burn a gauge skill to launch a surprise attack, but unfortunately my gauge is completely empty, so I initiate my preemptive strike from above with a standard flying kick reminiscent of a Tokusatsu hero. Ah man, I wonder if I can import this tech into ShanFro.

"All that woosh-woosh sparkling is way too loud, you're completely exposed!"

"I'm well aware... of that!!"

(To be fair, this character Meteos is constantly cloaked in an effect that looks like particles of light, and on top of that, his feet aren't touching the ground... meaning in a situation like this, sound effects just trigger on their own. He's shockingly ill-suited for stealth, but what I want right now isn't the satisfying feedback of a critical hit, but the actual hitbox registry of having initiated an attack.)

(If you fall from a certain height in this game, there's no actual fall damage, but you are forced into a hard landing animation instead. However, if you're in an attack animation, those recovery frames are drastically reduced.)
Katzo—Armed Lava's response to my flying kick is a guard using his arms. Sizzle, along with the sound of heat melting matter, both of our HP bars tick down. A dropkick from the top of a skyscraper obviously isn't something that can be completely negated by guarding, so the impact that pierced his defense shaves off a slight bit of Armed Lava's health, and Meteos also takes damage in return.
(If I recall, Armed Lava's biggest feature is his "Magma Armor"—limited entirely to his arms, it deals damage to anyone who touches them. Acting almost like a Thorn Armor specifically for his arms, it applies bonus damage to both attacks and blocks using them.)

"Managing to accurately land an attack on me from that height, you've got some serious nerve...!"

"You've got a very easy-to-spot beacon painted right on you!!"

(Sticking to close-quarters combat against Armed Lava puts Meteos at a massive disadvantage; if my attacks get blocked I take DoT in return, and voluntarily crushing my own mobility advantage is just a terrible idea.)
(In that case, the optimal solution is hit-and-run... float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, as they say.)

I backstep to create distance and watch for an opening. Crap, I forgot to test if Armed Lava's visual model changes depending on whether his molten iron bullets are off cooldown or not. Not knowing whether he has a projectile loaded or not is pretty bad... but worrying about it is just going to lead to a stalemate; I'll just assume his ranged attack is up and charge straight in.

Taking a running start, I push forward as Armed Lava aims his right arm—which had turned into a lump of scorching heat—straight at me like he was aiming a cannon turret. So he did have the molten bullets ready after all, I thought, raising my caution level while refusing to issue any command to slow down my sprinting legs.
After five steps, Meteos enters a high-speed dash state, outputting a speed that sits head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.
(The distance between us drops below five meters; no bullets are flying. A bluff? Or is he planning to use it point-blank instead of as a projectile?)
(Three meters, he pulls his right arm back... It was a bluff! He lowered his magma right arm into a stance ready to intercept my attack, is he going for a parry?)
(Two meters, we are already inside each other's effective range. Though, that strictly means only a few specific attacks in our kits can actually connect, and it won't yield anything more than a simple poke.)
(One meter... we are both within striking distance.)
(Lore-wise, Meteos is a master of Jeet Kune Do, capable of unleashing a raging torrent of attacks from light footwork... despite being a corporate salaryman. Therefore, the vast majority of his moves are tailored for close-quarters combat, so if I want to slam my fastest attack into him, I need to dive into his guard and land a hit—Wait, NO!!)

"Ghk, nn, ooh...!!"

(Right hand, fake, body, shadow, left hand, left hand, it's coming! It's coming!!)

It isn't even a conscious thought anymore; before I can even process the fragmented pieces of information being sent from my visual cortex, I twist my body with everything I have and leap, slipping past the right side of Armed Lava's body.
The very next instant, having hidden his left hand behind his own body by standing with his right side forward, a chunk of molten iron is fired out like a shotgun blast, scattering magma everywhere.
The searing light source, carrying damage that scorches the skin, grazes my right flank as I dodge and flies off behind me. I managed to avoid a direct hit, but my momentum has been completely crushed right out of the gate... did you really think I'd say that?!

"You reacted from that position...?!"

"If it's intentional, it's called dodging...!!"

(Even if it was an unexpected emergency evasion, I am still gripping the reins of my body's initiative. The difference in movement between getting blown away by a direct hit and throwing yourself into a roll on your own terms is like heaven and earth.)
(Whether he aimed it specifically or not is uncertain, but Armed Lava's molten bullet was fired dead center at my chest. To dodge it, I had also twisted my body into a leftward spin like a bullet myself.)
(Without stopping my momentum, nor letting it decay, I force even more power into the motion, completely inverting the heaven and earth in my vision. Having executed a leftward barrel roll using my front-to-back axis, the moment my inverted vision returns to normal, I land with a solid kick against the ground, shaking my head once to regain my equilibrium while instantly crouching down with zero frames of delay.)
(*And then, this time using my right foot as the center of a circle, I unleash a leg sweep with my left leg mimicking the trajectory of a clock's hands, aiming to completely break his posture. The target is the back of his knee—eat my Toe-Kick style Knee-Buckle[1]...!!)

"Don't underestimate me!"

"Shut up and fall!"

(This kick-based knee-buckle is superior to a standard knee-buckle—where you sneak behind someone and push the back of their knee with your own knee—purely because the speed from startup frames to direct hit is blindingly fast, and the kick itself actually deals damage.)
(However, since it's performed in a posture similar to a roundhouse kick, being a "bi-pedal" creature means that if you use one leg as a support pillar, the only weapon you have left is the other.)
(Because of that, I can only strike the back of one knee, but since this was a counterattack launched from an inherently awful posture, I wasn't expecting a critical hit to begin with.)

(Armed Lava is forced into a one-legged stance, but unlike the lean and muscular Meteos, Armed Lava—who sports the physique of a heavyweight boxer—manages to maintain his balance even while supporting his entire body on a single leg... The player inside definitely plays a huge part in that, but as expected, the base stability of the character "Armed Lava" is incredibly reliable.)
(Now then, how do I crack this open? I swept his leg, sure, but I don't have the luxury to follow up with a combo. Meteos's "combos" fundamentally require launching the opponent into the air, meaning linking into a combo from this posture is extremely difficult. In that case, I should pull back once and focus mainly on low-to-high attacks to scramble his guard...)

"Ah, sorry. Let's pause the match."

"Hah?"

A car can't just stop on a dime. My body was already moving towards its next action, and even if he suddenly declared a no-contest like that, I couldn't just magically halt my momentum. When those words flew out of the mouth of Armed Lava—Katzo—who had been brimming with fighting spirit just seconds prior, before I could even process the confusion or shock, I, having already launched into a jump with my kicking leg roaring through the air, decided to just finish throwing my move before thinking about the meaning behind his words. Namely...

"Bwuh?!"

"It was an unavoidable accident, just laugh and forgive me."

I offer my most sincere and heartfelt apologies to Katzo as he goes flying from a high kick connecting squarely with his jaw.

"...And? What's the big idea declaring a sudden no-contest like that? You're the one who asked for this match in the first place."

"I said I'm sorry, okay? No, how do I put it... Fighting against Meteos as a simulated Sylvia really just confirmed it for me... I probably can't win using Armed Lava."

"Really? I had a feeling I was going to struggle pretty hard, though."

(He's a character practically equipped with spiked shields on both arms at all times. If he just keeps boxing, he can chip away at the opponent's HP while remaining entirely on the defensive, and given the nature of Meteos who absolutely has to get in close to land hits, I feel like Armed Lava would have a pretty solid advantage.)
When I relay these impressions to him—laced with a bit of BM—Mr. Pro Gamer gives me an incredibly pleasant smile and proceeds to explain the pure and simple "Reason why his current self is no good." Listen here, Katzo, fists do not have the ability to hold a conversation... if you understand that, put those fists down, okay?

"Well, to put it bluntly... That monster known as Sylvia Goldberg is faster than you are right now."

"Seriously?"

(*Someone faster than me? At that point, isn't that basically on the level of an Official TAS[2]?)

Author's Afterword
I want to go back to writing ShanFro scenes... but I want to write these scenes too... but more than anything, I want to think about the lore!! Like the monsters!!! —Is what I've been thinking lately.

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Knee-Buckle: "Hiza-kakkun." A classic Japanese prank where you strike the back of someone's knees to make their legs give out.

• *[2] Official TAS: The base text uses "Wethermon" (The Tombguard), but the Ruby text reading is "Official TAS" (Tool-Assisted Speedrun/Superplay). Sunraku is comparing Sylvia's inhuman speed to the absurd, frame-perfect boss mechanics of the Tombguard Wethermon.