Several Weeks Earlier…
Darkshot stood in front of an NPC garbed in dark tanned leather, covered in leaves, grass clippings, and branches, stuck to his armor on purpose. In addition, he had painted over his elvish skin to blend it with the colors of his clothing, making him blend into his 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 rustling 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 looked over his newly acquired skills.
She gave him a proud pat on the back. “That’s what happens when you have someone who has already completed the quest to guide you through it. I’m kinda curious about that, though. All your party members seemed adamant on figuring out the quest on their own…”
“Heh… yeah. I didn’t want to be left behind.”
Quinn raised her eyebrows at him. “You think you wouldn’t have figured it out by yourself?” Darkshot continued 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. I wanted more time to practice with my new skills. Nothing 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 and waved the interface away to looked at Quinn with a serious expression. “Did I make a mistake? Does this class suck?”
Quinn hesitated in answering. “It’s true, Rangers 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 are 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?”
“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.
“Think about it a bit more. 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 be the highest skill cap class in the game.”
“How?” He threw her a look of skepticism.
“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.”
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 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 hard counter, 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 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 roared back, 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. She shadowstepped around him and threw several more smoke bombs. Darkshot had Darkwing still on his shoulder, who was utterly silent and nervously glancing around at the smoke on all sides. He was relying on his hearing to try to 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. At the same time, Darkshot jumped to the side and avoided the slashing daggers of Alicia. Still, after missing, she bounced 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 as he tried to find 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 casters continued.
Darkshot shut out their voices and closed his eyes. A brief few seconds of reprieve were given to him by Alicia as she stopped attacking 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, he remembered watching Aegis hold his own against Swiftstar and Keldan during his first PvP match, despite being outnumbered and extremely underleveled. Finally, 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.
“Darkwing.”
“Coo,” Darkwing replied as if knowing what Darkshot wanted, and flew straight up into the air. Darkshot 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. He ran forward into the smoke.
“Giving up?” Alicia asked curiously.
“Multishot!” Darkshot cast 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 outward 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 gasps of shock came from the crowd, and others laughed.
“He really isn’t taking this seriously. That’s why many people consider him the comic relief of Aegis’ party,” The VGN casters mocked.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
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. Still, 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.
“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 into the smoke, 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. She 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, pulled his bow off his back. She rapidly cut at the vines with her daggers as Darkshot nocked an arrow and aimed it nearly point-blank.
“RAIN OF ARROWS!” Darkshot cast, draining his mana a second time and causing nearly a thousand arrows to form in the space between himself and Alicia.
At this time, though, Alicia had 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 barked with fury at him. 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 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 became extremely aggressive in her attempts to strike him, throwing smoke directly on 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 he 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.
Darkshot quickly spun around and faced his arrows head-on. “Redirect, Redirect!” Darkshot frantically cast as he used his voice and finger movements from all 10 of his digits to redirect his own arrows from hitting him, 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 mocked 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. She led the remaining arrows away once more. Darkshot dropped back to the ground. He 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 redirected in seemingly random directions.
Darkshot was 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, arrows are 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, which causes his arrows never to lose momentum, and he is carefully redirecting all of the arrows 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...” Hae-won gasped as she pieced more of it together.
“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.
“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 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 yelled 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. She arrived near him, several feet away. He was keeping track of her movements in the smoke by watching how her movements displaced it through Darkwing’s eyes. She shadow-stepped 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 threw a smoke bomb up into the sky towards Darkwing to block his vision. Darkwing cooed in frustration at this and flew to the side to regain a clear view of Darkshot and Alicia, but it would take a deadly few moments to do this.
He threw his bow over his back and cast 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 grappling 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 to angle 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 could not immediately pursue. 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 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 begin falling back down to the ground as the remaining rain of arrows was flying up from below towards him.
“Suicide?” Alicia asked as she watched Darkshot falling onto his swarm of arrows.
“I,” 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 narrowly avoided the arrows, causing some to fly around his legs, between his armpits, 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 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 scanned the smoke and shadows around the arena, looking for somewhere to shadowstep. 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 crushing damage from the fall.
“Fuck,” Alicia muttered. There was no escape. She tried shadow stepping into a nearby smoke bomb closer to the ground and was immediately hit by several swarming arrows.
Combatant Alicia has been defeated.
Aegis’ team wins the round. The score is now 2-1.