HSS: Hyoudou: The Greatest Battle Ever.

HSS: Hyoudou: The Greatest Battle Ever.

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Commissioned by: Ihaxlikenoob

Wordcount: 2560

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“So, uhh, how long has Albion been training for this?”

“Oh? Do you think Ddraig’s that strong, Hyoudou-san?”

Gah. Even trying to talk to Creighton is annoying. It always has to be serious! There’s nothing silly or small with her. Everything has to be perfect and have hidden meanings. Really, I can’t imagine why Li likes her so much.

Aaannddd… she’s smiling because I just fell straight into a trap she’d laid out.

“Tch.”

“As much as you hate learning how to socialize, you should consider it anyway, Hyoudou-san. There’s more to talking that being earnest and punching your way through problems.” I was sure that she was implying that I was as smart as a caveman. Creighton was always like that. Words behind words behind more words… then, a heap of plausible deniability on top of it all. Gah. Talking to her makes my stomach ache.  Annoying. Valerie Creighton was definitely annoying. “Oh? Is there something you want to say?”

There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but at least I knew that I shouldn’t try to attack when I’m just going to be beaten into a pulp through all the openings I leave behind.

And… she wins if I stay quiet, too!

GAH!

Fuck it!

“Ddraig is going to kick Albion’s ass!” I said it. I hate it, but I said it. It’s the same as admitting that I think Ddraig’s more talented than me at competitive games. Sure, I can make the claim that he has more time to play games than I do, but I’ve been playing most of my life while he had only a few weeks. And, in those few weeks, he managed to get on the Professional Scene. I was good. Good enough to be professional… but who wasn’t these days if they had the time!? But, I don’t care anymore! I’m putting my faith in Ddraig. He’s going to beat Albion! “It doesn’t matter how long your partner’s been training, or how hard, Ddraig’s trained more than him and has experience too! Your normie Dragon’s going to get shit on, Creighton!”

I don’t care if they’re eternal rivals or whatever. Albion was stuck with Creighton, and even if they were closer to one another due to time, Creighton was as proper as girls came. She knew about video games, but she didn’t understand them. I saw her logged hours on her profile. She barely played at all… and Albion’s profile was just as bad as hers! Sure, Albion started getting some training done online and putting hours in after he heard Ddraig was trashing whole servers, but that’s exactly the point! While Ddraig was trashing servers around, Albion just started playing and training!

The gap was too wide.

This was a noob going against a professional!

A rookie professional… but a professional nonetheless!

“My dragon’s better than your dragon (at video games), Creighton!”

Creighton smiled at my words, then I immediately knew Ddraig and I had been had.

If I wasn’t Plugged In, I was sure that I’d feel a cold sweat forming on my back, especially as Creighton’s smile went too-wide for a normal avatar. Then, I noticed the idle animations around her! Lens flare! Lightning! She was becoming monolithic, looming shadow over me in public space! People were clapping for her and noticing!

Her avatar… was professionally customized and she was perfectly acclimated to it!

“How adorable, Hyoudou-san. Did you seriously think we’d share our REAL profiles with you and Ddraig?”

…

“Eh, what the heck are you doing here?” Ddraig didn’t bother with any fancy Avatars. He just used the basic, male frame colored in red. How he managed to get a cool title like “Crimson” with that Avatar, I didn’t know… but that wasn’t important! “You know the pre-game’s important! Don’t mess with me here, Issei!”

“They’re liars! They’ve been playing games all along! They just showed us their public profiles to catch us off guard!” It made sense. Games were popular among kids, but there were still loads of old folks in power who didn’t understand it. Old folks tended to be in power for whatever reason. Thus, people like Creighton had to have public identities that showed them off as normies! But, they weren’t normies! Everything I knew was a lie! “Ddraig you have to call this off—

“Huh? What? You didn’t know? Seriously?”

Eh?

“What? That’s hilarious!” Oh, now Ddraig was laughing at me. He didn’t even bother using his avatar. He was just laughing over in our private channel. Wait… he was laughing at me in the private channel AND in my actual head! “You seriously didn’t know that was a lie? It was so obvious that I didn’t think you needed to know!”

What? Why? How?

“Albion’s host is probably just fucking with you. That busybody isn’t a gamer.” Knowing that Creighton was just fucking with me made me feel slightly better… not. Dammit. She got one over me again! Gah! I hate spies and tricks! Seriously, just talking to people is complicated enough as it is! Why add things like lies and deception on top of it all!? “But no Dragon would turn down the chance to prove their worth and defeat others in martial combat if they can… and only a tyrant would stop one of us from getting whatever meagre happiness we can while embedded in these Sacred Gears..”

I focused.

“So, you know that Albion’s probably a professional, too?”

“A professional? Don’t be stupid. He’s THE professional.”

There was only one being in the world any gamer would recognize as THE professional gamer. Then, I connected the name.

Albion.

“He’s White Cliff!?”  The professional gamer amongst gamers! The undisputed champion of Utter Annihilation 1, 2, and 4. Not 3, of course, because that game was RNG-filled trash. Every worldwide tournament he came in and blitzed through every competition… and giving the prize money to second place every time! He took only the fame and the glory, while deeming the one closest to him as the only competitor worth being rewarded! I…I… “YOU DIDN’T TELL ME, SO I COULD’VE GOTTEN HIS AUTOGRAPH!?”

“Idiot, the only autograph anyone needs is mine!”

I was glad that Ddraig wasn’t going into this blind… but White Cliff?

“Hey, do you think I can be the first to post your defeat on the forums? I can get a lot of reputation if I do that.”

“I’m not going to lose, you ass!”

“…What if I credit you passing it onto me and link your profile?”

“Are you even listening to me, whelp!?”

Hmmm, what if I ask Albion politely instead?

“You bastard!”

Ah, I said that aloud.

…

Once upon a time, the progenitors of RTS games were basic things. There were only a handful of units, the environment only mattered in terms of available resources and chokepoints, and humans had to balance systems as time passed, leading to units being weaker or stronger than they should be. The more variables there were, the more systems struggled, thus a massive number of games were severely limited and the number of factors to consider were limited.

The very best Utter Annihilation’s professionals were asked by governments to test AI that were going to command armies of drones against Chimera. There were others gates and systems to check, of course, but the game was designed to be as close as to real life as possible, with players commanding companies of virtual armies composed of the hardware and software that were going to be sent into the frontlines. Then, everything within the environment would be simulated as completely as possible, to the detriment of both players, so that they would have to fight not only themselves, but the worst environment possible.

4’s environment was overkill and everyone hated it.

Freaking laser-guided lightning strikes wrecking artillery walkers at every opportunity... no matter how “realistic” it is…a game’s not worth playing if it’s not fun to play!

The game was simple in the end. One military base against another military base, both with the same assets as one another, and fighting to take the other Arcology out. Players could take direct control of their Drones, but human assets were given orders and worked with advanced algorithms. Resources came at a steady rate for both players, unless they located, fortified, and controlled locations on the map, while ensuring clear lines of supply.

Clever time dilation, along with a speed-up function that applied to both players, allowed days of battle to be compressed into mere minutes. Technically, everything that happened would be over the span of days, but to the players and audience it was going to feel like minutes.

For most people, it would be the closest to war they’ll ever going to get.

And, well it was kinda unrealistic since the most powerful units you can get are atmospheric battleships and carriers. From my personal experience, it’s actually more realistic for really strong, really strange people to show up and blow everything up without a care in the world. If humanity really ended up fighting against itself, Song would probably ask a few questions and make sure that the argument is ended before it comes to blows… or Miyakuro would do something that ends the war as fast as possible

Ah, but that’s not the point.

The point was Albion and Ddraig were going to be fighting one another with the modern military and I was going to watch.

It was a private match, with only Creighton and I looking on, but to be honest… the two of us were rooting enough for entire stadiums for our respective teams.

Though, I still wanted White Cliff’s signature…

…

The opening of the fight was pretty standard. Both Ddraig and Albion sent out mapping probes and ordered satellites to oversee their battle. Ddraig went for one with kinetic impactors, while Albion ordered for one with an advanced sensor suite. So, though they both revealed and took in all of the terrain, Albion was going to find the fog of war less of a hassle, though Ddraig was going to have some early artillery, before he could secure extra resources either by conquest or requisition and pump them out from his base.

What surprised me was that Ddraig wasted his satellite and resources by throwing away his impactors on Albion’s base. Bases were well-defended, entrenched, and a satellite was better off picking off an early squad of human soldiers than being wasted on a base that was going to absorb the damage and repair. Like most military bases on Earth, it was largely lacking in a human staff or garrison. When you can replace hallways with ablative armor, and lodge anything important deep underground, even scary, big guns from space aren’t going to do much.

“It’s not a matter of strategic or tactical value, Hyoudou-san. It’s a matter of pride. Ddraig scored first blood, while Albion just took it.” Creighton’s sudden words startled me. For a second, I thought Ddraig was wrong and she’d actually played plenty of the game, but when I looked at her it felt more like she knew how both Ddraig and Albion were thinking. “Albion will respond, even though it would be unwise.”

Yeah… she was right.

A pro against a pro would just have the attacked player wave it off a cheeky, wasteful play, especially since early-game satellites can be picked out of orbit if they’re too close to a base’s mass drivers. By all means, Albion should just pluck the satellite out of the sky and continue ramping up production, acquiring more assets, and securing resources.

Instead, White Cliff, the legendary gamer… decommissioned his advanced sensor satellite right on Ddraig’s base and had it fall on him to do the same amount superficial damage that Ddraig did to him.

It was less like a battle between two seasoned, veteran professional players and more like two kids squaring off and trading blows without a care in the world.

It was the absolute coolest thing I’d ever seen happen in Utter Annihilation, ever.

“I thought I was going to see two Dragons using tactics against one another, but they’re just going to be idiots.” You say that, Valerie Creighton, but you’re leaning forward in excitement too! Seeing them make these mistakes just to spite one another, not fighting their absolute best so that the can spit in each other’s faces whenever the opportunity arises, is the absolute best. “Well, I suppose it’s entertaining at least.”

That… that was putting it lightly!

There was no constant clash and micromanagement of units. No stupid T1 unit staying alive for a ludicrous amount of time due to “skill” for “cost efficiency. Drones that didn’t have ammo didn’t go back, but threw themselves at their opponents and blew up. Salvaging Drones, spindly machines meant to lug materials and who usually sent after battles to gather parts, were used for melee en masse. The whole map was filled with trash, with single grenades or shells killing droves and forming gaps, before robotic fists and limbs rushed in to meet each other once again.

Instead of going for the usual supports, they just called in more and more airstrikes and units. They didn’t bother with things like upgraded factories, but spent their time and effort on things that were “useless.” Big, giant tanks that shot shells the size of small cars. Battleships and carriers that filled the sky with dogfights and pulsing energy beams, before crashing and creating new terrain features. They upgraded their bases defensive and offensive abilities, until they were sporting Arcology shields and siege cannons that let them fire at each other from across the map with utter ease.

I… I’d forgotten the romance of videogames until this moment.

When had my life gone wrong? When did I decide that the meta was more important than having fun? How could I ever think that making some scout with explosives live for five minutes through micro is better than sending a rush scavengers at the enemy to see them beat each other to death? How could I ever think to save for aces-in-the-hole, instead of just spamming as many units as possible to get the most spectacle and annoy the hell out of my opponent?

When… when did I become such a no-fun freak!?

There was only one way I could possibly thank Ddraig for showing me the error of my ways.

“Creighton, fight me right now! We’re wasting time watching these two fight when we could be fighting ourselves!” Screw her being better than me at everything else! I didn’t like her guts! She might be pretty, but she has a massive stick up her ass, and I don’t get why Song finds her attractive! Girls… girls shouldn’t be cold bastards who tick you off! “If I win, you’re going to admit to everyone I beat you in Utter Annihilation!”

I saw her about to refuse, but I knew just the way to get her to agree, especially after she so easily explained why Ddraig and Albion were acting the way they did.

“Unless.. you’re afraid of losing!”

The two of us were in a match a moment later.

And, I was proud to find that even after months and months of painfully pursuing multiplayer strategy after strategy… I could still have fun.

And, of course, beating Creighton silly was fun too.