Chapter 292: Skar Pt.5

Several Weeks Earlier…

Darkshot stood in front of an NPC garbed in dark tanned leather, covered in leaves and grass clippings and branches, as if they were glued to or otherwise stuck to his armor on purpose. In addition to this, he had paint over his elvish skin to blend it into the colors of his clothing, which made him match the colors of their surroundings.

They stood outside of a log cabin in the middle of a forest in the middle of the afternoon, the sound of birds chirping and a calm breeze brustling the leaves in the canopy. 

Darkshot wasn’t alone - Quinn was standing behind him a few feet watching his reaction as he’d just turned in a quest to this NPC.

“Congratulations! You’re now advanced!” Quinn cheered as she saw Darkshot conclude his interaction with the NPC. “How’s it feel to be a Sharpshooter, and no longer a Ranger?”

“That was surprisingly easy…” Darkshot shrugged as he began looking through his newly acquired skills. 

“That’s what happens when you have someone who has already completed the quest to guide you through it. We kinda speedrun it.” Quinn shrugged. “I’m kinda curious about that, though. All your party members seemed adamant on figuring out the quest on their own…”

“Heh… yeah. I just didn’t want to be left behind.”

“You think you wouldn’t have figured it out by yourself?” Quinn asked curiously as she watched Darkshot continue to scan through his interface, waving his fingers in front of his eyes as the NPC lost interest and headed inside the cabin. 

“No, it’s not that. It’s just, I wanted more time to practice with my new skills.” Darkshot replied.

“Ah…” Quinn nodded.

  “Nothing really seems particularly impressive, though.” He sighed after he finished looking through them. “Like this, the main skill we’ve unlocked. Sharpshot - my arrows don’t lose their momentum no matter how far they travel? How is that going to compare to something awesome like an echo rune, or an Avatar of Eirene skill? Or Pyri’s APM?” He grumbled as he waved the interface away and looked at Quinn with a serious expression. “Did I make a mistake? Does this class suck?”

“Eh…” Quinn shrugged. “It’s true, Ranger’s and their advanced archetypes are pretty generic. They’re fulfilling the fantasy of an archer from all those fantastical films and stories of the past. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be impressive. Sometimes, all you really need is the basics, as long as you use them properly. Just gotta shore up our weakness of melee combat, and-”

“And I’ll get crushed by some wizard like Simon or Pyri?” Darkshot grumbled back. 

“Hey hey…” Quinn saw his dejected expression and wiggled her finger at him. “You didn’t read that Sharpshot skill properly, did you?” 

“I read it…” Darkshot replied.

“Then, think about it a bit more. Just like any other class, it’s more about how you use your skills. Some of the top rangers in the world surmise that if you use the skills properly we might just be the highest skill cap class in the game?”

“How?” Darkshot raised his eyebrows at her.

“Dunno, I don’t really consider myself one of them.” Quinn chuckled. “But, combine your familiar skills, the endless momentum, your redirects… I’m sure if you’re creative enough, you’ll figure it out.” She smiled at him.

----------------------------

Present…

“This match is basically over - Darkshot’s running out the clock by dodging Alicia’s shadowsteps, but in the end he’s just a Ranger.” The VGN shoutcaster announced, his voice faintly making its way through the blue wall around the arena and reaching Darkshot’s ears.

“In the end, he’s the least impressive member of Aegis’ party. A typical Ranger just doesn’t bring enough to the table, hence why you rarely see that class showing up in tournaments like this.” The other VGN caster replied, the two talking into their voice amplification staff as they stood atop the raised platform.

“It’s clear that he’s been relying on his teammates to get this far, but Aegis made a mistake bringing his friend in this tournament.”

“And an even bigger mistake by leaving him as the last party member standing - in a match against his Hardcounter nonetheless.

“OI!” Hae-won shouted angrily, her voice carrying over the arena. “Don’t listen to those assholes, Darkshot. I’ve been watching you just as much as I’ve watched Aegis. You deserve to be here just like anyone else!” Hae-won spoke towards the arena where Darkshot was fighting rather than to the audience. “You don’t want to prove them right, do you?”

“Of course not!” Darkshot shouted angrily back at her, barely audible to Hae-won and causing a sarcastic cackle to rise from Alicia’s mouth.

“Then kick that lil dancer’s ASS!” Hae-won pounded angrily on the blue wall, causing a ripple of energy to flow out from the impact point of her fist.

“All you’re doing is dodging, and not very well.” Alicia hissed as she shadowstepped around him and threw several more smoke bombs. Darkshot had Darkwing still on his shoulder, who was completely silent and nervously glancing around at the smoke on all sides. He was relying on his hearing to try and predict where Alicia would attack from, and as she shadowstepped behind him she sent shadow daggers out at him from the smoke in the opposite direction.

Darkwing activated his Fae protection to absorb the damage from the shadow daggers while Darkshot jumped to the side and avoided the slashing daggers of Alicia, but after missing she jumped back before Darkshot could retaliate with his bow and shadowstepped to a different location within the smoke all around him. Despite the encouragement from Hae-won, he truly felt hopeless as he looked around and saw nothing but Darkness. His memory of his conversation with Quinn had his mind racing, trying to think of a possible solution to defeat this player.

“10 Minutes have passed since combat has begun. All sources of healing received by players will now be reduced by 100%.”

“It’s only a matter of time now. The healing enchantments on Darkshot’s equipment won’t work, so the slow damage that he’s been taking from his missteps will start to add up.”

“Thank goodness for that, this has been incredibly one sided.” The VGN caster’s continued. 

Darkshot shut out their voices and closed his eyes. A brief few seconds of reprieve was given to him by Alicia as she stopped attacking in order to recover her stamina for her final barrage of attacks.

As Quinn’s words rang in his ears, he began to draw on all of his experiences thus far. He’d watched Iouen, the famous uncatchable Ranger and how he’d kited armies in several clips that Darkshot studied. He remembered how Quiver utilized his mimic familiar against him during their duel. Then, finally, he remembered watching Aegis hold his own against Swiftstar and Keldan during his first PvP match, despite being outnumbered and extremely underleveled. Then, he recalled watching Aegis’ fight with Emerill in the graveyard through his livestream, and remembered his words which he’d kept firmly on his mind since that day. 

“You come to our island. Threaten all of my friends, and all the work I put into the game thus far. And you make a joke out of it, all for some money… If you think I’m going to do anything less than everything I can to shut you assholes down, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“He’s counting on me now. Everything I can.” Darkshot mumbled to himself, and took a deep breath.

“What’re you talking about? This is over.” Alicia rolled her eyes within the smoke surrounding Darkshot on all sides.

“Darkwing.” 

“Coo.” Darkwing replied as if knowing what Darkshot wanted, and flew straight up into the air. Darkshot then closed his eyes once more as Alicia finished her stamina recovery and started shadow stepping around him. But this time, Darkshot didn’t stay still and instead ran forward into the smoke.

“Giving up?” Alicia asked curiously.

“Multishot!” Darkshot shouted from within the smoke. Alicia could see his movements using the same method that Lina used to see in the darkness - she could see where she wasn’t allowed to shadowstep and that told her where the arrows went. But, after seeing the safe path to Darkshot through the smoke, she saw several other objects start to fly off of him in all directions. Startling her for a moment until she could figure out what these objects were based on their silhouettes.

“Did you just strip off your armor and throw it around?” Alicia asked in disbelief as Darkshot jumped back out of the smoke, but Alicia took this as an insult and dashed outwards after him with daggers ready. “And you ditched the pigeon? You’re completely defenseless now, you realize that, right?” She added as she saw Darkshot completely naked, as did the rest of the world. Several shocked gasps came out from the crowd, others laughing.

“He really isn’t taking this seriously. That’s why many people consider him the comic relief of Aegis’ party.” The VGN casters mocked.

Alicia lunged at him from the front as his feet touched the ground, bow pointed downward with no arrow nocked. She waved her hands to send several shadow daggers out at him from the smoke that was all around Darkshot. 

Through this, though, Darkshot kept his eyes closed and calmly sidestepped the shadow daggers, threw his bow over his shoulder, then raised his fists and used his martial arts training to redirect Alicia’s arms away from his body, so that her dagger strikes went wide. Due to him not directly parrying the blades of her daggers and instead going for her wrists and forearms, he took no parry damage from the strikes.

Frustration fell on Alicia’s face as she watched him dodge these attacks with his eyes closed, briefly confused about how he’d done it, but she pieced it together quickly as she looked up at Darkwing soaring directly above them.

“Eyes of the familiar.” She sighed to herself in frustration, then prepared to strike out at him again until she saw something else - he was wiggling his fingers and silently casting redirect on his multishot that he’d fired, redirecting them through the smoke back towards her and tracking them through the eyes of Darkwing high above.

“Seriously? You think playing this VR MMORPG in third person is going to save you here? I can still see all of your arrows moving through the smoke!” Alicia shouted at him condescendingly, waving her hands and casting several shadow daggers within the smoke and causing them to crash into his multishot arrows. One or two got through the smoke, but she was able to jump out of their path easily by using shadowsteps and cut them down with her daggers herself. After she’d counted the destruction of every multishot arrow, she went back on the offensive and dashed out at Darkshot once more, anticipating his martial arts movements - but instead she saw him wiggle one more finger.

“Is that an arrow in my pants, or am I just happy to see you?” Darkshot smirked as a final shot, hidden within the leg of his leather armor, slid across the ground as it kept its momentum due to his Sharpshot skill, and like a snake pierced into Alicia’s heel. “PINNING SHOT! It was an arrow - I’m not happy to see you!” Darkshot shouted as he opened his eyes and watched as the vines shot out from the impact point on her heel, digging into the ground and binding her in place. A look of confused disbelief fell on her as Darkshot hit her with a ranger mark, then pulled his bow off of his back. She started to rapidly cut at the vines with her daggers as Darkshot nocked an arrow and aimed it nearly pointblank.

“RAIN OF ARROWS!” Darkshot shouted, draining his mana a second time and causing nearly a thousand arrows to form in the space between himself and Alicia.

In this time, though, Alicia had used her rapid dagger slashes to cut herself free of the vines, and a moment before the arrows pierced into her body, she jumped backwards into the smoke and shadowstepped away.

“What don’t you understand about HARD COUNTER!?” Alicia shouted angrily at him as the arrows pursued her despite her teleporting around. “Even your strongest skills don’t work against my class! These arrows will never catch me!” She shouted defiantly. Darkshot watched from the eyes of Darkwing as Alicia began to shadowstep wide around the arena with the long trail of arrows following behind her, swerving the arrows around the pillars and causing many of the arrows to crash into it, then shadow stepping to the next pillar to repeat the process. 

Darkshot used this time to grab the armor he’d thrown on the ground and quickly re-equip it, then moved himself back into the smoke clearing and carefully watched Alicia’s movements from above, using Darkwing’s vision rather than his own so that he could more clearly see where and how she was moving despite the arena being flooded with smoke bombs. 

With his armor re-equipped, the options that helped his mana recovery were kicking in and he started having enough to start redirecting the arrows pursuing her, branching them off from the pursuit and swerving them in alternate directions as she continued to use shadowstep to stay ahead of the swarm.

Around the next pillar, a few more arrows were lost as the tips pierced the stone of it, but Alicia was confidently so far ahead of the arrow swarm that she took to shadow stepping through the center of the arena to try a strike on Darkshot.

This time, Darkshot could tell she was angry and went extremely aggressive in her attempts to strike him by throwing smoke directly on top of him as the opener. With even Darkwing from above being blinded from her hits, he knew he’d be in trouble and quickly shot a grappling shot towards the top of one of the pillars, grabbed the rope on the end of the shot and yanked himself upwards into the air above the smoke. This is what Alicia wanted, though, as she was still trailing his arrows behind herself and they were now flying directly at Darkshot as she was suspended in the air, unable to dodge. Alicia shadowstepped along the ground underneath Darkshot to make sure the arrows would directly go where Darkshot had grapple-shot himself towards, but Darkshot quickly spun around and faced his arrows head on.

“Redirect, Redirect!” Darkshot frantically shouted as he used his voice, and finger movements from all 10 of his digits to redirect his own arrows from hitting him, bending them and warping their trajectory to avoid hitting him.

“Every time you redirect them, they stop pursuing the Ranger mark and just fly off into the wall, idiot.” Alicia shouted mockingly up at him from below, and took this time to send two shadow daggers at him from the nearby pillar’s shadow. He was too focused on moving his arrows to bother dodging, and took both hits to his back. 

Seeing this, she grinned and prepared to attack him again but quickly reminded herself that the arrows were chasing her too, and some were flying too low to the ground to intersect with Darkshot and would hit her instead, forcing her to shadowstep away once more.

“Next time I come around, it’s over!” Alicia cheered as she led the remaining arrows away once more, just as Darkshot dropped back down to the ground and was able to take a moment to relax. He didn’t take this moment to relax, though, and instead continued repeatedly casting redirects on all of the arrows swarming through the arena - about half of them were still pursuing Alicia but the other half had been seemingly redirected in other random directions.

Darkshot was simply focused on the ones flying randomly, and used every ounce of his mana to make sure they kept curving and swerving around the arena to avoid hitting pillars and walls.

“What the heck is he trying to do? It looks like absolute chaos in that arena, there are arrows flying all over the place!” One VGN caster shouted.

“Regardless, it looks like Alicia still has complete control of the situation, she’s already landed several attacks on Darkshot.”

“No…” Hae-won’s eyes went wide as she figured it out at the same time that Alicia did. “She’s running out of room… It doesn’t matter how many shadows or smoke bombs exist in the arena, if they’re all filled with arrows, she’ll have nowhere to Shadowstep. Darkshot is making use of his Sharpshooter skill that causes his arrows to never lose momentum, and his carefully redirecting all of his arrows that he fired with Rain of Arrows to keep them all in the air, turning the entire arena into an arrow deathtrap. It’s a risky move, because with that many arrows in motion, they’re not just a threat to Alicia, but himself as well - but he’s had his eyes closed the entire time!” Hae-won shouted excitedly.

“He’s using his familiar birds-eye view of the arena to play the match out in third person, a technique used against him by Quiver which he has cleverly adapted to use in his own way. The problem is simply the chaos of it! He now has to worry about both dodging his own arrows, and Alicia’s aggression.” Hae-won continued to explain, getting the audience and all livestream viewers caught up in her words as she displayed far more knowledge about what was happening than the VGN casters. 

“Plenty of his arrows are still hitting pillars and walls, he’s not doing a very good job, if that’s actually his plan!” One of the casters replied to Hae-won’s casting.

“He’s trying to micromanage hundreds of arrows, of course he’s going to miss a few. Even the highest APM players in the world couldn’t keep all of them from hitting something - he just needs to keep enough in the air to overwhelm Alicia’s movements. She can no longer shadowstep or shadow dance around the arena carelessly, and limiting your opponent's movements is the number one objective of anyone trying to kite them.” Hae-won continued.

“You’re not going to overwhelm me before I overwhelm you!” Alicia shouted in response to Hae-won’s explanation, having finished another round around the pillars of the arena and now having a greater distance between herself and the arrows still in pursuit of her. “Two can play this game!” She screamed as she arrived near him, several meters away. He was keeping track of her movements in the smoke by watching how it was displaced by her movements through Darkwing’s eyes, but noticed she didn’t get closer but instead started shadow stepping all around him. 

Soon, the arrows in pursuit of her began to converge alongside the arrows that were swarming all over the arena.

“LET’S DANCE WITH THE SHADOW DANCER, SHALL WE?” Alicia shouted before throwing a smoke bomb up into the sky towards Darkwing, to block Darkshot’s vision. Darkwing cooed in frustration at this and quickly began flying to the side to regain a clear view of Darkshot and Alicia, but it would take a deadly few moments to do this and Darkshot knew he couldn’t just wait for it.

He threw his bow over his back and casted several more redirections as Alicia lunged at him with daggers at the ready.

“Grappling shot, grappling shot, grappling shot-'' He repeated five times, targeting separate arrows that were converging on him as he redirected them. One was sent to each pillar, and one was sent upwards towards the sky. He grabbed one and yanked it to pull himself up out of the smoke and away from Alicia’s strike. Alicia eyed the pillar he was pulling himself towards and shadowstepped to the shaded side of it, climbed atop it, then jumped down at him from above as the arrows came at Darkshot from the opposite direction in pursuit of Alicia.

He reacted by grabbing at another grapple shot soaring past him, flying in another direction and pulling himself out of her path. She jumped wide to the edge of the arena’s shadows in order to redirect the rain of arrows to wherever Darkshot was flying, leaving him only one last option of escape - upwards. He redirected an arrow towards the roof of the arena and cast a grappling shot on it so that a trail of rope soared out from its rear, and he grabbed it. 

The endless momentum of the arrow allowed him to ride it upwards where Alicia seemingly could not pursue, but she fixed this problem by whipping a smoke bomb with all of her might up towards the sky where Darkshot was at the last moment before the rain of arrows caught up to her, and she shadowstepped into the bomb high in the sky above Darkshot, once again flying at him from above.

She fell down out of her smoke bomb with a big grin on her face, seeing Darkshot’s grappling arrows soar past her with the rope on the end of it trailing behind, and Darkshot holding it with one hand. Daggers ready, she prepared to cut him down.

Darkshot let go of the rope instead, losing his upward momentum to instead begin falling back down to the ground as the remaining rain of arrows was flying up from below towards them.

“Suicide?” Alicia asked as she watched Darkshot falling down onto his swarm of arrows.

“I.” Darkshot shouted angrily as he waved his fingers rapidly, looking down at the swarm as he fell towards it and redirecting the shots out of his path. “SHOOT!” he added as he narrowly avoided the arrows, causing some to fly around his legs, between his arms and chest, and some cutting through his hair and cloak. “FROM!” he gasped as his mana went empty, but he’d passed the swarm. “THE DARKNESS!” He finished as he’d bypassed them all. “PIERCING SHOT!” He added a final shout, redirecting the grappling shot that flew past Alicia back downward and causing it to grow in size. Alicia turned to see it, then turned to see the swarm of pursuing arrows flying up at her from below. She quickly began scanning smoke to shadowstep too, but the path that darkshot had redirected all the arrows to was that of all the nearby smoke bombs - and the piercing shot he’d redirected was not aimed at Alicia but rather the smoke bomb that she’d fired to the highest point of the arena.

Suddenly, an impending sense of inevitability overwhelmed alicia. She saw nothing but swarming arrows in all directions, in and out of her smoke bombs, and a look of horror befell her as she watched Darkshot slam onto the ground below, landing with his face upward and taking a small amount of bludgeoning damage from the fall.

“Fuck.” Alicia shouted as she saw no escape, tried shadow stepping into a nearby smoke bomb closer to the ground and was quickly hit by several swarming arrows instantly.

Combatant Alicia has been defeated.

Aegis’ team wins the round.