Pincer the Defender

[Seriously, girl, I don't have time to play with you.] William stepped out of Beat's attack range once again. [This long rally of shots is pointless. I have to overpower her so I can get to the Colossus. If only I had more Attack Speed…]

Alas, as a Droid, it was inefficient to build much Attack Speed, therefore William didn't. But, it's not like he didn't build any Attack Speed at all.

Some of the best power/crit items also offered a little bit of Attack Speed as well. As such, William's Attack Speed was definitely higher than the Bomber's, if only slightly.

The only reason Willaim has been playing along with Beat's pace until now was that Beat had the initial momentum on her side. On top of that, William wasn't quite sure of Beat's real intentions at the time, so he didn't want to overcommit.

But, that had to come to an end.

[It's time to shift the momentum in my favor. I can't let her drag me into her pace.]

William backstepped against Beat's incoming shot, then immediately fired back. ZAP! This time, William's shot was on point.

No, that wasn't quite right. His previous shots were on point as well, but Beat read their timings ahead of time and easily sidestepped them. But, not this time.

While Beat was busy closing the gap between them, she didn't have as much luxury to predict incoming shots. Most likely, she thought her momentum will continue forever in this fight, so she wasn't too concerned with defense.

But, William broke her serve. Now, he was the one leading the duel.

[Too bad for you, but I know a thing or two about how momentum works in matches.] William continued maintaining ideal distance from Beat, staying just barely out of her Attack Range as he reeled her in.

As the one who had superior range and speed, it was only natural for William to be the one who dictated the flow of this fight. Beat had no right to control anything here.

ZAP! William fired once more at the approaching enemy.

This time, Beat reacted better and made an actual effort to sidestep. Nonetheless, she was one heartbeat too late. The red beam pierced right through her side.

It was easy enough to predict that she'll sidestep to the right, so William titled his shot slightly in that direction as he shot. And, turned out he was right on the money.

[As I thought, she's trying to zone me away from both Matt and the Colossus.] William concluded. [A decent tactic, but it also makes your movements more predictable. With that said...]

He hit Beat twice so far, but only his main laser beam hit the target. Meanwhile, his Assault Drones missed the mark twice in a row due to their delayed reactions.

[At this rate, it'll take too long. The drones don't have an infinite lifetime.] William frowned.

At Lv. 7, the Assault Drones had a lifetime of 60 seconds. It was practically infinity as far as a single duel was concerned, but William didn't come here to "duel" with anybody. His one and only priority was to destroy the Colossus.

He booted all five of his drones back when they started pushing the Golem a while ago. That endeavor already took over 15 seconds.

After that, they started pushing the Colossus but the enemy arrived about 5 seconds later. Ever since, the enemy has been buying time with their aggressive defense.

And so, 10 more seconds passed in a blink of an eye. At this point, William's drones had less than 30 seconds remaining.

[It'll be over for us if my drones disappear.] Willaim frowned. [I doubt Matthew can wrap this up by himself. I have to get to the Colossus, too.]

And to do that, it was first necessary to eliminate this annoying obstacle in this path. Yes, in just under 30 seconds, William will have to remove Beat from the scene and break past her.

[In terms of combat skills, I'm definitely stronger.] William analyzed as he fired another laser beam. [But...]

The beam missed its target. Beat sidestepped earlier than expected as if predicting exactly when the shot was about to be released.

[Yes, I'm stronger than her, but she's good at dodging.] William thought. [After just two examples, she has already adjusted to this new timing and angle. Hmph, not bad. I'm convinced she's at least a runner-up among the region's strongest players.]

Beat didn't have enough opportunities to shine in the previous scrimmage, so it was difficult to analyze her true skill. Her performance was very unstable throughout the majority of the Taurus scrimmage, which pegged her as a very inadequate player at first.

Nonetheless, the girl definitely had potential and Willaim was one of the few to recognize it immediately. After all, Beat's playstyle wasn't all too different from William's.

They were both players who sought to gain an advantage through acute spacing and accurate prediction. Each of them had their own ways of achieving these results, but the core of their game plans was almost identical.

[I feel like her execution isn't at its peak this game, but she's definitely a lot more stable than she was against Taurus. It's quite bothersome.]

When two experts of spacing duked it out, the battle was bound to be dragged out for quite some time. Perhaps under other circumstances, William would have enjoyed this intellectual duel. Alas, he was pressed for time here.

[I can't solve this alone.] William finally had to admit that when his next shot missed its target. At this rate, the duel was going to take way too long.

As a former tennis player, the idea of relying on somebody else for a 1v1 always felt a bit unnatural. Even after three years of playing Classmancers, he still had the habit of relying on his own strength in duels.

Ideally, William would have wanted to resolve this situation with his own two hands. However, Classmancers wasn't that kind of game.

Unlike Tennis, Classmancers was a team sport where it was necessary to rely on teammates every now and then. In fact, William should have done so from the start, as soon as Beat started getting in the way.

[I wasted precious time here.] William shook his head and glanced in Matthew's direction.

As everybody else was preoccupied with their own battles, only Matthew was free to lend a hand here. And, it seemed the guy was aware that things will come down to this.

Their eyes met inside the game, making it clear Matthew had been closely monitoring the situation this entire time.

"My Jet Stream and Squall are almost out of cooldown," Matthew informed Willaim through private communication to not distract the others. He did it the moment their avatars faced each other as if he had been waiting for this moment the entire time.

[Hmph, it seems like he read a few steps ahead of me, even though this was supposed to be my problem...] William made a face. [Seriously, I can never get a read on this guy, not even after playing with him for all these years.]

Matthew was a player of few words. Normally, he was a lazy bum who sought the easy way out of every situation.

And yet, his intuition and precision were abnormally sharp. After playing alongside this enigma for so long and watching him perform well time and again, it became easy to take the guy's analytical skill for granted, even without fully understanding it.

As such, it was a no-brainer to trust Matthew's support in this situation. The guy will most likely do his job well, as always.

"Alright," William responded. "Do you need anything from me?"

"It'd be nice if you could make her come a little closer to me, I guess. That way, I'll be able to place the stream right in front of her face."

"Got it," William nodded. That was easy enough to arrange, as Beat was already hellbent on cutting off the path between Willaim and Matthew.

[If I move left here, then you'll move even more to the right, correct?] William fired a laser beam as he sidestepped to the left.

As expected, Beat sidestepped the attack to the right, placing herself yet again between William and Matthew. She believed she was getting in their way, but she unknowingly placed herself in a dangerous pincer.

"Here goes," Matthew informed in his usual low tone as if the gravity of the situation was nothing to him.

He fired Squall and immediately followed up with a Jet Stream, placing it right in front of Beat's nose. That was as far as he could reach from this safe backline position.

At the same exact time, William fired his next laser beam. He did so from far away, with Beat standing outside his attack range.

Normally, from this distance, his laser beam would evaporate before reaching the target. However, he trusted the Jet Stream to appear there in time, right in the spot he needed it.

The sudden development clearly caught Beat off-guard.

"Huh?" Kai frowned as a laser headed her way. For some reason, Winner decided it was a smart idea to fire a shot before Kai even stepped into his range. [Did he panic and shoot too early? Huh, amateur. Lucky for me, then.]

She canceled her plans of stepping in and stayed out of the attack's reach. Like, if her enemy wanted to whiff shots for free, then he was more than welcome. It was easy life for her-

WHISH! A burst of wind slammed into her back, deleting 20% of her HP!

"Wha-?! Damn!" Kai grimaced. [Was I in that bastard's attack range!? Shit! I was sure I was staying at a safe distance! Damn, it'll be bad if they gang up on me-]

Before she finished that thought, a stream of wind formed in front of her. This changed everything about the situation.

[Fuuuu! His shot is going to hit now!]

It turned out that the supposed "free whiff" that Winner was giving her was no whiff at all! It was going to hit home!

The laser beam, which originally shouldn't have reached Kai at all, passed through Merlin's Jet Stream. As a result, it accelerated in Kai's direction and pierced through her!

But, that wasn't even the worst part. A single hit like that wasn't going to shake Kai. She still had over 60% HP left.

The true danger came right after the Droid's laser beam. It was the drones' follow-up attacks!

These shots were usually easy enough to sidestep, but Kai's legs were like lead. Her Movement Speed took a hard hit because of Merlin's Squall.

[Shit, I'm moving less than a millimeter an hour!] Kai grit her teeth.

That Squall sure did a number on her. She felt like a brick stuck in mud.

[I gotta roll!] Kai booted her Dodge Roll in the nick of time. [I can't let all these shots hit me!]

Two of the laser beams pierced through her, but at least Kai managed to roll the other three. The worst-case scenario was averted, but just barely.

[This isn't good.] Kai felt sweat forming on her forehead. Her HP dropped below 45% HP. This was getting into dangerous territory.

[Hah, I probably gonna die at this rate.] Kai tried to force a smile and alleviate the tension, but it didn't quite work out.

There was nothing to smile about in this situation. And yet, she had no choice but to keep fighting until somebody else joins the fray.

[Seriously, what's taking them so long!?] Kai glanced past Winner, searching for her two teammates.

Yuel and Lars were supposed to come here and help her out, but they were taking their sweet time.

Lars was stuck fending off Challenger, who insisted to block the path to Winner. Meanwhile, Yuel was on the defensive against Rook's relentless attacks.

Seriously, these bastards were protecting Winner as fiercely as a doting mother. They blocked off the area from all sides, forbidding everybody from coming close to their precious Carry.

[Tch, it's like they're covering each other's backs.] Kai clicked her tongue.

From this position, it was impossible for anybody but Kai to keep Winner occupied. But, for how long will she be able to keep doing this?

As Merlin now joined forces with Winner, Kai's future was looking beyond bleak...