Chapter 501: The Winds of Powercreep Are Always Fast

Author's Preface
Can I return... alive from the ancient battlefield...?

In war, speed is prized above all, and right now, I also need speed. That's why I was speeding through the panic-stricken Chaos City riding a bizarre vehicle consisting of nothing more than a board barely big enough for both feet with two tires attached to it... a so-called balance scooter.

...I mean, it can't be helped, okay? Twinkle Pixie's physique is too small to ride a motorcycle, and I haven't found any kind souls willing to part with their bike (in my perception)... Honestly, maybe it was designed with the assumption that players would ride it, because unless you have Meteos-class mobility, this thing is actually faster than running.

"Damn it... change of plans. I have to launch a surprise attack immediately."

But things have gotten complicated. The odds were fifty-fifty, so I had conveniently assumed things might go my way, but it seems the Goddess of RNG is just another evil deity after all.

"Like hell I'll let you change clothes any further...!"

Some time has passed since GH:C's release, and standard tactics—or rather, a meta—has developed for almost every character. Among them, Cursed Prison is broadly divided into two main types.
The first is the "Best Sunday Suit Type". While Cursed Prison is capable of a wide variety of form changes, there's no need to cover all of them. Motorcycle forms, car forms, helicopter forms... It's a playstyle that focuses on equipping the form you excel at in the shortest amount of time and fighting with it. The more common the object is within the city, the higher the early-game burst speed and sustainability, so it's not to be underestimated. To begin with, since this style focuses primarily on "Prison Break", this form mostly serves as a stopgap to build up the gauge.
By the way, the rarest one I encountered in random ranked matches was a Counter-Hack form that prioritized equipping PCs to combat Display.

"I can't give her the time to change..."

And the second type is the "Dress-Up Type". This involves grasping the capabilities provided by the absorbed targets and mastering them, equipping whatever tools are available at any time and in any place. It's a specialized Cursed Prison playstyle that maximizes the use of the cursed armor, which is originally supposed to be a disadvantage.

The troublesome part about this type is that their battle styles are incredibly varied, and... by changing clothes, they not only switch their battle style but also restore their equipment's durability.

And that type is Amelia Sullivan. Expecting the US #2 player to be under-prepared is just plain stupid.
Therefore, the Twinkle Quarter Combat—TQC for short—that I'll be employing this time will be the High Torque style.

TQC. This battle style, which draws from the lineage of the Fairy Divine Fist—naturally born during the early days of Twinkle Pixie research—is a blatant rip-off of the name Close Quarter Combat... so-called CQC.
However, its foundation is based on taking "Get close, drug 'em up with powder, and blast them away" to the absolute extreme, so in a sense, you could say it is a CQC style.

Among those, the High Torque style is the fastest within TQC, and at the same time, it is known as...

"Drop dead, Twinkie☆"

"Here we go, Round Two!!"

"Drop dead, Twinkie☆"

"Tch, stop making those ridiculous noises—"

"Drop dead, Twinkie☆"

...The Brain-Dead Style.

As the eight-legged Cursed Prison tried to take down trash mobs from the "Mechanitan" to resupply, I smashed through a glass window, launching a surprise attack from above, scattering Twinkle Powder before she could move her body to intercept me.

"Let's go, High Torque!"

TQC High Torque! The execution is incredibly simple! Throw away all logic, simplify your thoughts, and for now, just punch, punch, punch!!

It's a common misconception that Twinkle Pixie's main method of attack relies on the Twinkle☆Wand, but her basic bare-handed firepower is actually quite high. Specifically, her punches are heavier than Dust's. Furthermore, while her jumping power and speed aren't quite on Meteos's level, she possesses a mid-air jump and the ability to levitate for a few seconds.
The fairy combat derived from this setup shows its true worth in hyper-three-dimensional maneuvering limited to a range of under one meter!!

"Twinkle Diet! Shave off that fat, fatty☆"

"Scurrying around...! Are you a rat?!"

"Here, time for your medicine~"

Even for a pro gamer, there's nothing she can do about this. There's no way a body that huge can shake off a Twinkle Pixie.
I punch, air jump, hook my foot on her needlessly cluttered arm, step on her shoulder, twist my body in mid-air, and slam a knee strike into her neck!

"TQC, Irregular Style Twinkle Light Magic...!"

"No matter how you look at it, that's a martial art!"

Shining Wizard...!!

I land, close the distance again before she can break out of the stun, and slam the wand into an annoying gun turret with a full swing. It doesn't break, but my brain is currently turned off, so I keep hitting it regardless.

"Damn it!"

I destroy one of the "Mechanitan" guns absorbed by Cursed Prison's power, but the stun wears off here, and a counterattack comes flying.
For the record, I'm a Cursed Prison main too. I know what Cursed Prison hates having done to them, and I understand how to deal with it.
When dealing with an enemy like a small character such as Twinkle Pixie who invades your inner range, it's crucial to create the optimal distance at all costs.

"What...!"

However, the choice she made differed from the answer I had anticipated. A small character entering the guard of a large character—weighing the advantages and disadvantages of this is something that only happens in battle shounen. In the real world, this situation would simply be taken as "the bigger one caught the smaller one."

It's not Combat... this is... a Grapple!!
This bastard... she's planning to kill my mobility with a grab... Bring it on. I'll rev up this Joint (Multi-Stage Boosted) TQC and spin my brain so fast there won't even be time to think.

◇ 

"The situation is shifting so fast that the live commentary techniques I learned from Asama-san of Colt Bison aren't even working..."

"You mean the one where you commentate on the situation rather than the actions, right? I use that as a reference too. Anyway, what's happening right now... is that No Face went with a suicide-attack strategy for his opening move."

"Eh, a suicide attack from the very start...?"

"Strictly speaking, it's more like he's min-maxing his offense without overthinking things. Since he responds to the opponent's reactions at max speed, if you lose to that momentum, there's a chance you'll just get pushed back completely. If that's the case, then popping his Ult must have been part of the plan too...?"

Bullets were scattered, and the fairy danced wildly. Sparks flew every time the short wand smashed into the mechanical armor, and the monstrous scissors chased the fairy, gouging out the asphalt in a bid to catch it.
Because the Twinkle Pixie was flying around at point-blank range, it looked as if Cursed Prison was dancing alone. The scene made it look like the fairy was cornering the cursed armor, but in reality, they were forming a state of equilibrium.

"Is No Face-san prioritizing the destruction of Cursed Prison's additional armaments? Cursed Prison's main body health doesn't look like it's decreased much."

"Most likely. While Cursed Prison looks specialized in power, the guns on her legs function as surprise projectiles and serve as natural enemies for Twinkle Pixie. From what we can see, it looks like Twinkle Pixie has the advantage, but clinging to Cursed Prison is about fifty percent for evasion purposes."

"If he stops, he gets grabbed. So regardless of whether he attacks or not, he can't stop his escape legs."

Exactly. The sight of a fairy trifling with a giant monster, from a different perspective, also carried the meaning of an insect desperately fleeing from the lethal danger of being squashed.
Twinkle Pixie was designed as a character who uses her small stature to toy with opponents, but the fact remained that the advantage of being small could just as easily become a disadvantage.

"Besides, the powder's stun has a weakness too. It might seal the actions from the player's side, but it can't stop the actions of the armaments themselves."

"In other words, even if Cursed Prison's main body is stopped, the guns can still fire?"

"Exactly. That's why No Face is prioritizing destroying the guns, and Hannya is enduring the attacks with that in mind."

"However," Kei started to open his mouth... but his right to speak was snatched away by the Silver Mask.

"They've both taken far too much time, or perhaps that was the aim for both of them? Both of their Ult gauges are already fully charged, you see."

Not everyone would be looking at the same spot, but sure enough, the fairy and the cursed armor had both fulfilled the conditions.
And so, true to its name, the situation in Chaos City, a swirling maelstrom of chaos, was set in motion.

Author's Afterword
The reason the Fairy Divine Fist research has progressed so much is because, since the previous game, an absurd amount of effort was put strictly into Twinkle Pixie's character modeling.

As a side note, the "person who put an absurd amount of passion into making Twinkle Pixie" and the "person who passionately talked about R.I.P.'s transformation process" are the same person. They were headhunted due to various circumstances, but it was thanks to this connection that the GH:C project was approved (which means Nephilim Hollow 2 as well...).