Chapter 296: Synopse Pt.2

As the match ended, Aegis’ vision blurred into a bright light, then dimmed to the darkened atmosphere of the waiting room as he and his party re-appeared inside of it.

“We’re back here?” Darkshot asked curiously as he had been teleported along with the rest of Aegis’ party members.

“There’s a five minute break between matches starting at the Semi finals.” Rakkan explained, to which Darkshot gave him a knowing nod.

“Great job!” Serenity cheered at them.

“That was… definitive.” Kenji smirked.

“How’d you know the spell reflect would work?” Pyri eyed Aegis curiously.

“Hunch.” Aegis shrugged.

“You mean, that coulda not worked?” Darkshot raised his eyebrows at him.

“Yep. 50-50.” Aegis replied nonchalantly, which got a giggle out of Lina and a sigh of disbelief out of Darkshot. 

“So what's the plan now? No way he tries to use that spell on us again, right?” Rakkan asked.

“Right.” Aegis nodded as he motioned the group in closer. “We’re going to do something crazy. It’s going to be something no one has ever seen us do before. Are you guys ready?” Aegis looked at them all with serious expressions.

“Shouldn’t you mute the stream first?” Darkshot asked him anxiously.

“No, even if they see it coming, they won’t be able to handle it.” 

“It’s that crazy, huh?” Pyri looked at him with intrigue.

“Borderline insane. Okay. Listen.” Aegis paused for dramatic effect, then took a deep breath. “We are going to execute… our ultimate… unbeatable… first time ever on livestream… standard formation.” Aegis finished off with a smirk.

“What?” Darkshot glared at him while Lina, Serenity and Kenji giggled.

“What do you mean?” Rakkan looked confused.

“You know, our standard attack formation. The one we kept practicing before the tournament.” Aegis replied with another shrug.

“How is that a secret weapon?” Rakkan replied.

“It might as well be, seeing as how we’ve gotten to the Semifinals without having a chance to use it once.” Aegis replied.

“He’s got a point.” Pyri nodded as she put her fingers on her chin and pondered it for a moment. “We didn’t need to use it in prelims because our opponents were all weird, save for the last one which pissed me off.”

“Yeah… then we got Mikael to give us a pass in the first round.” Darkshot added.

“Skar did that weird effigy shield so we had to play around him…” Lina continued.

“Right. But now that Synopse knows his big attack won’t work, he’ll likely limit how he uses the staff, so ....” Aegis waved his hands outwards to his party.

“Standard formation. Got it.” Rakkan nodded.

“Is that going to be enough to beat Synopse?” Darkshot asked.

“I mean. Probably. I’ve studied their playstyle so I’ll make call outs anytime they give us an opening, and we’ll adjust based on that.” Aegis replied. “And remember, no one has actually seen what our standard formation looks like.”

“That’s true. You guys don’t have a typical party composition. I’m actually pretty excited to see how you guys fight with your group of classes.” Kenji added from the side of the waiting room.

“See?” Aegis motioned to him with a proud smile.

“Let’s do it!” Lina cheered with excitement.

A few minutes more of discussion later, and Aegis and his companions found themselves marching back out into the arena. The crowd had a mix of chants, half the audience was cheering ‘SYN-OPS!, SYN-OPSE!’ and the other half cheering ‘AE-GIS! AE-GIS!’.

Both the VGN casters and Hae-won were shouting praise for their favored team, though they politely stopped talking over each other and even seemed to be responding to each other's comments in a respectable manner in spite of their clear and obvious biases.

Aegis’ party had their eyes locked on Synopse, and vice versa, but it wasn’t until both teams had arrived right up against the transparent blue wall that anyone spoke.

“How’d you like that?” Aegis grinned mischievously. To his surprise, though, Synopse responded with laughter.

“That really caught us off guard. Taught me a lesson in humility, that’s for sure. Won’t be trying that again anytime soon.” Synopse continued. “He’s scary, you know..” He looked to Pyri. “It’s like a mix of Makaroth’s methodical planning, and your raw skill. Quite dangerous.”

“Eh.” Pyri shrugged and smiled back at him. “He’s just a cute lil baby to me.” She added by playfully ruffling Aegis’ hair, which knocked him out of his devilish grin to look at his mom with a side-eye. 

“Don’t think it’ll be so easy the second time around.” Synopse took a fighting stance and looked back at Aegis with excitement.

“I hope not, otherwise this’d be a really boring Semifinal.” Aegis replied.

“Damn you’re pretty good at this trash talk stuff. Not too mean, just mean enough.” Darkshot whispered to Aegis as he positioned beside him and readied his bow.

“Can you guys stop patronizing me?” Aegis sighed at Darkshot, causing all but Rakkan to chuckle at him. 

Match begins in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Match Start.

The blue wall came down and Aegis’ party all charged forward towards Synopse. Synopse waved his staff in the air and quickly began casting an astral spell that completed before Aegis’ group could get halfway across the arena, while Synopse’ party took a defensive formation in front of him. 

“Sea of Stars!” Synopse called out as the spell finished. Like before, the arena around them faded away until it turned into a void with distant stars visible in all directions - seemingly teleporting the match into space.

“Illumination.” Ujak casted a blindingly bright white light that surrounded his party. Lina began shadow stepping away from Aegis and the others to get closer to Synopse, and attempted to throw a smoke bomb into the light of Ujak, but the light immediately dispelled the smoke.

“Hard to move in space.” Rakkan sighed as he lost all momentum and began floating alongside the others.

“No problem.” Aegis nodded back. “Rakkan, move in close. Once he’s in melee range, you join the fray Lina. Pyri, defend me. Darkshot, cause chaos and wait for an opening to ranger mark. Don’t worry about your own health, the three of you - I’ll keep you alive and safe.” Aegis instructed them, and following this he began projecting his shield at Rakkan’s feet. 

Rakkan knew what to do immediately and started launching himself off of the projections to get forward momentum through the space once more, while Synopse group held their formations and got their weapons ready.

“They’re not being impeded by the Sea of Stars much.” Gunther commented.

“That’s fine. Stay in the light and use long range attacks on them. Focus damage on the ones that enter our light. We’ll collapse the moment we see an opening on any of them.” Synopse replied calmly.

From these words, all eyes fell on Rakkan as they watched him launch himself repeatedly closer to their group. Once close enough, Huck wound up a spear and chucked it like a missile at Rakkan, but Aegis reacted quickly and blocked the strike.

“Bless. Aura of Healing. Aura of Beauty.” Aegis called out as the groups engaged, erupting in several light auras that encapsulated the arena.

“Aura of Beauty.” Ujak responded in kind for his party. “Blessing of Vulcan.” He cast, causing a blazing red flame to erupt from every single one of his companions weapons, including all of Gunther’s battlemaster weapons.

From there, Rakkan created his armed echoes and threw them into the dome of light, enlarging their weapons alternatively to throw disarray into the formation of Synopse’s party who began to struggle against the movement through space.

Aegis’ group, on the other hand, had no difficulty moving around thanks to Aegis’ constant shield projections that seemed to always be exactly where Rakkan needed them to either dodge or reposition. In addition, Lina began throwing daggers of shadow into the light and using grappling shots with the throws to pull herself into the light itself, and started slashing out at them randomly.

Darkshot began firing multishots into the dome and kept redirecting the arrows to come from random directions.

Princessly and Ujak used their shields and healing to protect the group, absorbing the majority of the damage, while Synopse released several glowing yellow stars from his staff and started shooting them around like Pyri’s cinderbolts, dealing damage to Aegis’ companions.

Gunther engaged his weapons with Rakkan’s echoes, and Pyri motioned her cinderbolts forward to start intercepting Synopse’s stars, redirecting and blocking them.

As instructed, Darkshot wasn’t aiming for any member of Synopse’s group in particular - his arrows were just flying willynilly and hitting random targets, dealing minor damage to them that was easily being healed up by Ujak.

The chaos brought about by the random attacks from Rakkan, Lina, Darkshot, and even Pyri as she split her bolts up to burn everyone, seemed so insignificant compared to Ujak’s healing capablities, that as Synopse engaged with them, he felt himself confused by what Aegis was trying to achieve with this attack formation. 

Further, he saw that his party was landing some serious attacks on Aegis’ party members, and they continued on as if nothing was happening.

It went on like this for a solid, chaotic 2 minutes. 

Hae-won’s mouth was running a mile a minute to try and keep up with all of the attacks going out from both sides, allowing the audience to keep up with the battle taking place in space.

Finally, though, Aegis spoke as he stood in the back alongside a busy Darkshot and Pyri.

“This formation, and that staff. It was all suggested and given to you by VGN, right?” Aegis asked. Synopse took a moment to look at Aegis in the eyes, but didn’t reply as he was focused on controlling his stars.

“My mom said she used to play with you, and that you were really good at games. So, that's the only explanation I can think of for why you’re using such a bad strategy.” Aegis added with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

“We’re going to run you out of mana first. You’re taking a lot more damage than we are. This formation is defensively superior to whatever it is you guys are trying to pull.” Ujak retorted with a confident smile, still healing up the damage his party was dealing. Synopse wasn’t so foolish to ignore Aegis’ taunt, though, and he started to carefully analyze the movements of his opponents.

It only took him a second to realize what was happening. The biggest attacks going out by Synopse’s party were connecting indeed, but not with Aegis’ party members. Aegis was cleverly using shield projections to absorb the biggest attacks to himself.

“Shit, we need to-” Synopse started to give the order as he’d figured it out, but it was too late.

“Vinerope shot!” Darkshot shouted as he had an arrow pierce into Princessly’s shield. It shot out a dozen vines and entangled all of Synopse’s party members.

“Disp-” Synopse began casting.

“Rune: Guardian.” Rakkan launched one of his echoes into Synopse and interrupted the spell cast, as Aegis had already cast his Avatar of Eirene spell and was propelling himself forward with his wings. Rakkan maneuvered his echoes to block the strikes of Synopse’s group that were attempting to cut the vines of Darkshot’s attack, as was Pyri’s cinderbolts redirecting the axes of Gunther. 

In a short few seconds, Aegis arrived at the center of Synopse’s bound party.

“Virabhadra.” Aegis casted calmly, erupting in a bright dome of light that captured all 5 members of Synopse’s team. In the moment it hit them, Synopse saw as Rakkan got rid of his echoes so that none of the damage from the spell was split into them, and Lina had already backed off out of the light. 

The resulting damage dealt, split among all five of Synopse’s party, was just exactly enough damage to kill all five of them in a single blow.

Combatant Synopse has been defeated.

Combatant Huck has been defeated.

Combatant Princessly has been defeated.

Combatant Ujak has been defeated.

Combatant Gunther has been defeated.

Aegis’ team has won the round.

A few moments later, all members of both teams were teleported back into their waiting areas.

“I don’t get it, why is this so one sided? Synopse’s staff is an artifact, and their party is all high level, well equipped, very skilled players. They were dominant in all of their matches leading up to this point, whilst Aegis’ group just barely made it through the last round.” The VGN shouted in frustration, leaving Hae-won to respond.

“It’s simple, really.” Hae-won smirked as all eyes fell on her. “If you want to beat Aegis, don’t ever, under any circumstances, give him a chance to study you first.” 

—

Makaroth stomped into the waiting room of Synopse as his party while his stream was on a commercial break. Synopse’s group were, looking exhausted and were huddled together and discussing how to move forward.

“What the hell are you doing out there? He’s making a fool out of you guys.” Makaroth shouted angrily, and caused Synopse’ group to break out of their discussion to look at him. To his surprise, they didn’t seem angry or sad, but rather excited. “Why’re you all smiling like that? You’re getting stomped into the ground! It’s embarrassing!” Makaroth added after seeing their faces.

“Because the match is challenging.” Gunther replied with a shrug.

“Yeah, the tournament has been pretty one-sided for us up until this point, thanks to that artifact staff.” Huck shrugged.

“So? This match should be one-sided too.” Makaroth replied.

“Nah. Kid’s got the staff figured out, it’s useless. So is the formation the VGN analysts told us was unbeatable.” Princessly answered him.

“So you can’t win?” Makaroth asked.

“Not with this thing, no.” Synopse motioned to the staff with a hint of disgust.

“Alright…” Makaroth started pacing around the room as he pondered for a moment. “Then forfeit. Give up the last match. Say you’ll entrust the defeat of Seraxus to Aegis. It’s the only way to save face.” Makaroth replied.

“What?” Ujak asked.

“You gotta be kidding, right?” Gunther added.

“We’re not forfeiting the match. We’re going to go out there and try our best.” Synopse replied.

“Your best isn’t good enough,  we already saw that.” Makaroth responded.

“No, VGN’s best isn’t good enough. We haven’t tried fighting our way yet.” Synopse replied.

“How is your way going to be any better?” Makaroth snapped at him, to which Synopse let out an elongated sigh. “Just forfeit and leave it to Seraxus to take him out.”

“Heh?” Synopse suddenly changed his tone to angry, surprising everyone present. “Leave it to Seraxus?” He paused to glare at Makaroth. “Just what exactly is more important to you here? Beating your son to prove a point, or stopping an evil player from destroying this island?” He shouted in a commanding tone that left Makaroth looking at him with wide eyes of shock. 

“Forget this staff. And forget VGN. I’m not partaking in this anymore. You’re too far gone.” Synopse shouted while throwing the Astral staff at Makaroth, which he caught. “I don’t know if it’s the network, or the fame, but you aren’t the same guy I agreed to play this game with 8 months ago. Your ego has turned you into a monster.”

“He has to lose. I have to prove that I was right, I have to-”

“But you weren’t right.” Synopse replied coldly. “You never were. It was a mistake to sign that contract, and you know it. All of this,” Synopse motioned to the stadium in general, rather than just the waiting room they were standing in. “It was all a mistake, and you know it.” He added by violently poking his index finger into Makaroth’s chest.

“The sooner you can admit that, the sooner you can stop making fools of all of us, and forcing VGN to cover it up. Hiring pirates? Booking out the qualifying matches? Come on. Seriously? That’s your son and ex-wife. What he FUCK is wrong with you?” He added with another loud shout of anger, leaving everyone else in silence.