Chapter 172: Arrogant and Insolent Challenger: Ignition

Author's Preface
A shiny Metang appeared! It had a Rash nature!
Dammit! You ruined (my daily upload schedule)! You always do this.
This shiny Metang with 3 Perfect IVs in SpA, SpD, and Speed—a completely incomprehensible stat spread no one asked for—is the very embodiment of your life. You're always making mistakes.
You dabble in so many things, but you never follow through on a single one.
No one loves you.

I am so, so sorry...

『Now then, moving on to the exhibition match! With Sylvia finally taking the stage, hasn't the Nitro Squad been put in quite a tough spot?』

『Indeed. Since the true skill level of the player No Face is currently an unknown variable, the only one who can actually put up a fight against Sylvia would be Uomi...』

"Attention! Our medic just got shot on the battlefield inside his stomach, so he's gonna be struggling for a bit!"

How the hell does she accurately grasp the gastrointestinal status of someone who isn't even here? But that question easily takes a backseat to the fact that Sylvia Goldberg's match is about to start.

『O-Oh, is that so... Well, anyway, we're finally going to see the true strength of the other mysterious masked player.』

『Alright, character selection time! And for Sylvia, naturally—or perhaps inevitably—she locks in Metius!』

『As we saw in the previous match, Metius is a Hero character with mobility that completely breaks the mold. While that comes at the cost of rather fragile durability, when combined with Sylvia's mechanical skill to perfectly execute the "It doesn't matter if you don't get hit" philosophy, she holds an absolute monopoly on the title of the strongest.』

『In the pro fighting game scene, there's even a saying: "You're only a full-fledged pro once you manage to land a single hit on Sylvi-Metius."』

Exactly. Ever since her stunning debut, Sylvia Goldberg's undefeated streak has continued to be etched into history, and counter-strategies against her are actively being researched to this day.
To the point where people sometimes drop onto anonymous message boards with info only a pro could possibly know, the players aiming to dethrone Sylvia are desperately gathering every scrap of data they can get their hands on.

And the conclusion they eventually reached was: "Counter-attacks."
Catching Metius is impossible. Since walls, the ground, and the ceiling are all just "roads" for that meteor to sprint across, chasing her down is out of the question. Therefore, the only option is to intercept her attacks as they come to you.
The phrase "landing a single hit on Sylvi-Metius makes you a pro" effectively translates to "being able to react to and counter an attack flying at you at hyperspeed from an unpredictable trajectory makes you a pro."

Getting back on track, the character widely considered to have the best matchup against Metius is "Armed Lava."
That's because Armed Lava is the character used by the two players who previously pushed Sylvia Goldberg to the absolute brink.
Against characters who fight at close range—strictly speaking, bare-handed brawlers—Armed Lava can force an advantageous matchup through high defensive capabilities and DoT chip damage.

To flip that logic around, any character that is "weak at close range" and "can't keep up with Metius's speed" is already forced into a massive disadvantage the exact moment the matchup screen loads against Sylvia Goldberg's Metius.

And yet, No Face slowly, but without a single ounce of hesitation, locked in his character. For the reasons stated above, despite technically being Metius's nemesis in the lore, it was a Villain with such an incredibly pathetic matchup that the tier list gave it a 3-7 disadvantage against Metius.

『Alright, No Face's character selection is... Wait, no way! Cursed Prison?!』

Slamming a glove into the ground, sending a letter of challenge, explicitly declaring where the opponent's head will be displayed... Across all ages and cultures, regardless of whether you are the weak or the strong, there are times when you demand an all-out battle. And right now, to the absolute champion, an unidentified challenger has just slammed down the ultimate gauntlet.

『Cursed Prison! It's Cursed Prison! The arch-nemesis of the Hero "Metius", Cursed Prison!!』

It's not like there haven't been Cursed Prison mains among the players who challenged Sylvia Goldberg in the past.
But every single one of those challengers was absolutely annihilated by an overwhelming display of full-throttle power. Eventually, picking Cursed Prison against Sylvia Goldberg became a sort of unspoken taboo. And to deliberately lock in Cursed Prison despite knowing that...

It translates to: "Come at me with everything you've got, you piece of shit."

If you want to stall for time, shouldn't you specifically avoid picking Cursed Prison? That's what Pencilgon asked me, but I didn't actually have a choice.
To be completely honest, if there's any chance of me putting up a fight against Sylvia Goldberg, it can't be with some easy-to-use character, and it can't be a Metius mirror match either. It absolutely has to be Cursed Prison.

Stalling for time is, in some ways, far harder than just winning. Because no matter how many buffs or debuffs you stack, no matter how much you hone your player skill, no matter how much RNG favors you... you can't do a damn thing about the timer.
Even if you had the raw specs to pump out millions or billions of damage, you can't force the clock's hands to move faster. All you can do is shut up and stall.

But just because you're giving up on winning doesn't mean you can stall with an unwinnable loadout. The answer to that is a hard no. Stalling for time ultimately means you can only hit your quota in a situation where "you can win, but you actively choose not to."
The Old Samurai, the Fairy, the Cyborg... There were a few characters I found easy to handle, but the only one that made me think "I might actually have a shot against the Zen-Ichi" was Cursed Prison, who had a 3-7 matchup ratio in the previous game.
Despite Cursed Prison being at an overwhelming disadvantage against Metius, rumor has it that across the entire Galaxia Heroes franchise, that specific matchup ratio has never actually flipped. Aren't you embarrassed to call yourself her nemesis...? Well, setting that aside, the point is that in every single iteration of the game, Cursed Prison has always managed to stubbornly hold onto that 30% win rate.

"And that 30% is the key...!!"

I see, calling her a bouncing Wethermon is the exact perfect evaluation. Seeing it face-to-face, this bizarre, human-TAS level of mobility makes you seriously doubt whether you're fighting a human being or not.
While Cursed Prison's default gatling gun screams as it sprays a barrage of bullets, the meteor swims right through the curtain of lead. Just like in her match against Pencilgon, she utilizes complex 3D maneuvers to launch a surprise assault straight at me. But unfortunately for you—

"He's the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings!"

When you think of games where a character's mobility relies entirely on wheels, racing games usually come to mind first. But when those wheels are slapped onto a bipedal human frame, the thing you should be referencing isn't a race car; it's a tank.
I personally think the biggest advantage of non-human wheel-legs is the ability to rotate your body a full 180 degrees without ever moving your waist.
By spinning the wheels on the right and left legs in opposite directions, you can execute a perfect neutral steering pivot right on the spot. Swinging the gatling gun as if to bludgeon the empty air itself, I unleash a hail of bullets to shoot down the meteor.

Oh, I know. Trust me, I know. This is only enough to force a dodge; it's not actually going to hit her. That's why...

"Fall out of the sky, you Blue LED!!"

"Whoa?!"

Since she kicked off the wall to launch an attack at me, her only option to dodge in mid-air is to burn her aerial jump. And the exact millisecond she steps on empty space to jump is her moment of vulnerability. Because her animation frames haven't finished playing yet!
Shot down in mid-air by the scattershot, Metius nonetheless flips her body like it was barely an inconvenience and lands cleanly.
The star-shaped goggles reflect the light, making it hard to see her eyes, but it seems she's genuinely surprised that I'm more capable than she expected.

"You're actually pretty good."

"Thanks for that...!"

I'm honored by the praise, but this self-imposed handicap isn't something I can be satisfied with just yet. She's probably already figured out that my ammo is running dry. Katzo's the same way, but hardcore fighting game nerds have a seriously disgusting level of accuracy when it comes to reading their opponent's resource states.

"Still, standing before me with that character... it means you want my full power, right?"

"I just really hate when people pull their punches against me."

"Alright then. I'll buy that fight, and throw in a tip too."

Taking the 1st round might be pretty rough.
As a ferocious smile flashed across her face and a kick came flying in to completely block out my vision, I couldn't help but think exactly that.

...He's still not here.

Author's Afterword
For the reasons mentioned above, updates might be a bit... I gotta go save Alola real quick... Uh, well, yes, ah, yes, I'll write it properly, yes, yes.