After three straight tag team battles today, Takumu Mayuzumi was - there's no other word for it - drained. He had dealt and taken punishment, covered for Silver Crow when he got into a predicament, and on top of that, still had to worry about his low reserve of Burst Points. If they felt like it, his old legionnaires could pay him a visit in Suginami, and it could very well be their last.
So on the pretext of training Haruyuki to fight together with him, Takumu really was just trying to make sure he could survive.
"I want to challenge this pair next," Haruyuki declares resolutely. "Gorse Theory and Volkan Sniper."
"Are you sure?" Takumu enquired with a worried voice. "Gorse Theory can be pretty annoying to fight, because his ability is being able to predict an attack just before you strike. And Volkan Sniper is a long-ranged fighter, he's pretty good at hitting opponents from afar..."
"I'll take them down, Taku," Haruyuki declares with steel in his voice. "We'll get them!"
Takumu heaves a sigh. "Well then, as you say..."
"Burst Link!"
...
Open your eyes.
You're in the middle of a jungle. That's right, you soon realise, this is the jungle. Bushes, creepers, and trees so gnarled they grow anywhere and everywhere, all fighting for light and prime land in the same small area. The air is thick with rotting vegetation, spores, and God-knows-what else. You very nearly choke on your own rising bile as you lift your foot out of what could have been a dead animal, a carnivorous plant, or something worse.
"Ain't this just the place to play..."
In a matter-of-factly voice, your tag partner summarises the area with that casual comment. Despite the sudden urge to shout at him, you keep your mouth shut for three reasons: firstly, you need to keep your lunch of curry rice and potatoes down. Secondly, the sound of you heaving would certainly attract the enemy's attention. Thirdly, you do NOT want to mess with this guy, or you'd risk having the length of the sniper rifle on his back driven right down your oesophagus.
Glancing at the corner of your vision, two names float in a HUD-like manner: GORSE THEORY, the name of your own Duel Avatar, placed right above your Tag Team partner, VOLKAN SNIPER. His feet, clad in dark red armour, treads on a rotting trunk with all the grace and silence of a ghost, and Sniper lifts himself with seemingly no effort onto a low-hanging branch.
"There they are, look!"
You don't need to look at his outstretched finger to know where 'they' are: with just a quick glance at the cyan Guide Cursor at the bottom of your vision, you can observe two things immediately. Just below the cyan arrow, a faint, navy blue arrow glows in exactly the same direction, so both of your opponents are together. One arrow is slightly larger than the other, indicating that one opponent is slightly farther from the other. You check the corner of your vision to confirm your opponents: CYAN PILE and SILVER CROW. The former is a well-known name among the Burst Linkers of Suginami Ward, especially for his unnerving proficiency in using all three of his known Special Moves in battle. The latter is Accel World's most famous newbie, the only avatar gifted with the power of High Speed Aviation!
"Are you sure we can do this, Sniper?" You murmur in anxiety, "I still don't know anything about Crow at all..."
"Just stick to the plan, bro," Volkan unslings his rifle. "I know you're concerned about Crow. So I'll take 'im while he's still on the ground and can't pull off any tricks you don't know about, okay? Just keep leading Pile along by the nose."
Volkan's uncoated implication leaves your mouth very, very dry. "Okay..." comes the timid squeak in reply.
"Hush," Volkan snaps his wrist out, producing a full magazine from thin air, "Just like we planned. Now, go!"
With considerable difficulty, you turn to your right, scrambling over fallen trees, dodging hanging vines, and jumping over ditches, while making as much noise as you can possibly make along the way. Rustling sounds echo oddly in the jungle, and as you snap a couple more vines, tread on a branch here and there, they snap and crumble to bits, filling your Special Gauge bit by bit.
"One of them is moving! Should I go get him?" A young boy's voice sounds shrilly.
"Quiet, Har- Crow!"
You immediately remember the owner of the second voice: the brash, battle-loving berserker known as Cyan Pile, who offed you in the last battle with his signature move Lightning Cyan Spike. But you know it was necessary. It was all to lay the framework for this battle, and the one thing all blue avatars hate the most: the counterattack. Being able to strike back means you're alive. Being alive means their first attack failed. And for many of the sword-toting, snobbish, lofty idealists blue players, failing is akin to spitting on their personal ego.
Just the very kind of giant that Volkan Sniper intended to poke with a twig today. Which is why, that the moment the two Guide Cursors had separated a considerable distance, splitting the two opponents up with a sleight of hand even a child can see, Volkan Sniper had already taken away the most precious thing a close-range attacker can use to defend himself from a long-range attacker; their attention.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
Sniper opens fire without hesitation! In the aftermath, your ears stop ringing just in time to hear the tinkly of shattering armour and body parts; the damage of even one bullet from Sniper is enough to bring heavy avatars to their knees, but Volkan just put three into some part of Crow's body!
"CROW!" Pile screams in brotherly anguish, as though he had been shot in Crow's place-
"Guh...I'm fine!" Silver Crow grunts. "Flyyy!"
With the considerable damage done from losing a body part comes a corresponding massive increase in his Special Gauge. As Crow takes to the skies you can clearly see that he's missing his right leg from the knee down; Volkan, it seems, had been aiming to dismember Crow from the very beginning, but somehow he had either missed or his opponent had evaded the rest of the shots; truly, Crow was lucky to still be alive right now-
BANG!
One bullet. That's all it takes to put a gaping hole into those shining silver wings, borne from the hope and dreams of a young boy. Now in the name of battle, Sniper put them to rest permanently. Unless the wings are actually an Enhanced Armament, damaged body parts won't recover until the end of the duel, and like a stone, Crow falls from the skies, his damaged wings useless. Admit it, you do feel sorry for Silver Crow being shot down like that. The timer hasn't even gone below 1600 and already he's crippled by a sneak attack he could not have prepared for.
"UWOOH! YOU SHOT HIS WINGS!"
But nope, you have to push aside your feelings again and help Sniper out. Waving his pile bunker in rage, Cyan Pile shrieks verbal abuse at the offending Sniper- then turns to Sniper's general direction and buries the tip of the metal stake into the ground directly behind him. In the blink of an eye, English words scroll across the center of your vision in a font not unlike old-fashioned computer code:
Attack Prediction: Enhanced Armament ability / Long-range + Piercing / Unknown Type / Possible Degree of Threat / Mid
Before you can give yourself extra time to even think about it, you suck in a huge breath and holler, "SNIPER! TO YOUR RIGHT!"
Then Cyan Pile fires his pile bunker, driving himself forwards into a fast-moving blue blur! You clench your jaw and while Pile's heavy bulk crashes through tree after tree, hope Sniper doesn't question your command to get the hell out of the way-
"Wow! That's some new trick there, eh!"
Emerging from the hollow of a huge decomposed redwood, Sniper confidently emerges, albeit short of breath. Slapping a catch on the side of his rifle, he drops the empty magazine and loads a fresh one into his weapon with practiced ease. "Steady, Theory, steady! We can beat this guy!"
Among the darkness cast by the towering foliage above, a speck of blue catches your vision, hovering beneath the shade of a mutant-sized mushroom cap. One glint of steel is all it takes to trigger the next line of your ability:
Attack Prediction: Enhanced Armament ability / Long-range + Piercing / Unknown Type / Possible Degree of Threat / Mid
And along with it comes a red-tinted space extending from under the mushroom to a point right in the middle of Sniper's chest!
"Sniper! Backstep now!"
Barely a second after your warning leaves your lips and Sniper begins to move his feet- SHING! Cyan Pile thrusts his arm forward from under his cover, firing his pile driver as he does so! The stake charges forward at frightening speed, closing in on Sniper's exposed chest-
But he remains cool as a cucumber, and without even shouldering his rifle, squeezes the trigger slightly. A thin blue line emerges from the muzzle of his weapon to intersect with the very tip of the oncoming stake.
Attack Prediction: Enhanced Armament ability / Long-range + Ballistic / Projectile Type / Possible Degree of Threat / High
Sniper pulls the trigger back all the way!
CLANG!
Beautiful no-scope shot, you think numbly. With that single shot, the ultra-high velocity of the bullet, despite its small mass, deflects the needle-like steel stake of the pile driver just enough to the side to turn the near-fatal hit into a grazing miss! Nevertheless, Sniper loses his left shoulder pauldron completely, and his Health Gauge drops by a tiny fraction. The stake retracts with a distinctive mechanical hiss...
...And Cyan Pile emerges from his cover. The towering blue-green giant of an avatar stands a full head taller than Sniper; the latter tenses up ever so slightly.
"Very impressive shooting, Sniper," His voice, though light and friendly, is loaded with tension with a tinge of anger, "Going after Crow's wings right off the bat."
"One shot, one kill, Pile," Sniper smoothly replies, "Though I made an exception...four times over."
Cyan Pile brings up his pile driver to waist level in one smooth motion. "No hard feelings, man!" A thick red streak passes from the tip of the steel stake right through Sniper's body, and you open your mouth to scream a warning-
WHAM.
The kick impacts in the small of your back, sending you flying forwards towards them; Cyan Pile triggers his pile driver at the same instant Sniper turns around only to be greeted with your flying body, and the result is-
"ARGHH!"
You come to realise that you're not the only one screaming, Sniper shrieks as he clutches at the steel stake impaled through his abdomen, his rifle falen and forgotten. Skewering the two of you in a single stroke, Cyan Pile has made a kebab out of you and Sniper, the steel stake piercing all the way through your bodies! Your health gauge takes a massive hit, plunging all the way into the red zone; a warning tone triggers and your stomach turns over, preparing to regurgitate its contents onto Sniper's back-
"Nice one, Crow!" Pile casually comments, "Even though you're silver in colour, you could still pull off a sneak attack like that!"
"Eh heh heh...you were doing all the work, Pile! All I really had to do was push him..."
Your blood boils in desperation and resentment for failing to watch your back. "I'll...I'll get you, Silver Crow!" you shake a fist covered in your blood. "Next time, watch out!"
The skinny silver guy just shrugs and chuckles again. "I'll be waiting, Theory! This was a good fight!"
"Why, you..." Sniper growls.
Whatever Sniper wanted to hurl in his embarrassment at such a humiliating defeat is quickly replaced by a sudden fear, as Cyan Pile grins evilly. Moving his left foot backwards to brace against a tree stump, anchors suddenly drop from his calves. His Special Gauge empties out completely and a new prediction appears in your vision:
Attack Prediction: Enhanced Armament Special Move / Long-range + Heat / Particle Stream Type / Possible Degree of Threat / High
"Oh great..." you whisper.
"Lightning..." Pile utters the first word of his Special's name. A slide under the pile driver pulls back to prime it for firing-
"-Cyan SPIKE!"
The green forest turns white...
YOU LOSE!
...
"That finisher was awesome, Taku!"
Clapping his hands like a little kid, Haruyuki grins from ear to ear. Takumu simply nods humbly and waves it off.
"Finishing like that looks nice, yes, but they don't come very often, especially in a serious fight. This was just a casual duel, mind you."
The next question is as expected of a new player. "Can't we challenge them again?"
"We can't, Haru," Takumu shakes his head from side to side, "Even for tag team matches, we can only challenge them once per day."
"Oh." His face falls almost comically.
Reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder, Takumu shakes Haruyuki in assurance. "But there's always other players out there, y'know. Do you still want to train more today?"
Haruyuki's reply is immediate and his eyes light up with enthusiasm. "Sure! Of course! I mean..."
Faltering a little, he turns slightly away from Takumu: "...I want to become stronger..."
Who doesn't want to become stronger?
Keeping his thoughts to himself, Takumu only nods in understanding. "Alright then. This next tag team appears quite often in our Area: Amber Penguin and Powder Bear. Nothing too hard about them this time..."
Even while Takumu continues to fight alongside Haruyuki, he can't help not let go of that nagging feeling, that gut instinct that someday, somehow, Cyan Pile and Silver Crow will face each other again. Someday, somehow, when Silver Crow becomes the strongest player of Brain Burst...
"Let's go!" Haruyuki holds out his fist. Takumu stares blankly at it for a second, then brings up his own to bump Haruyuki's lightly.
"Let's go."
fin.
.
Review, Favourite, whatever! I sure had my own fun writing this anyway!