Unorthodox Player

What?

Hearth chewed her inner cheek. She barely was able to understand what had just happened in these few moments. First, somehow her Water Lotus was predicted and Critical Shot dropped a grenade before being entrapped by the water. Second, upon the explosion Critical Shot fired a shot towards her despite tumbling in the air. Finally, despite her being able to guess his intentions from the audible gunshot her recovery and snap dodge was completely negated by an abnormally slow bullet speed. 

Two points she garnered from this. One, Critical Shot had a really strange method of switching weapons. She had never seen a Gunner swap weapons this quickly! Two, this fight was really throwing her off! Everything was unusual! Despite her constant studying of the various classes, their weapon options, and her vast experience dueling skilled players she didn't understand what was going on!

Why was he able to make such split second decisions so quickly? What made him so confident that it'd work out? It was perplexing to think about, and even more so to experience first hand!

Regardless she noticed the low damage of the rifle. Despite the critical hit her health depleted less than that of a normal sniper rifle hit. If anything it dealt more damage to her mental focus than to her character.

Throwing three shurikens out she watched as Critical Shot's rifle switched to two handguns and shot one down. Recovering before he hit the ground Critical Shot leapt back and fired several rounds. Bullets rained forward as Hearth's Shinobi rolled through the majority of them. Nimin noticed the sudden aggression and smiled.

As expected of Pro's in training! Despite his quickness with swapping guns Hearth was keeping track of his ammo usage! Currently he was growing closer to needing to reload. His assault rifle was falling closer to empty, and one of his handguns was already out! The glitched squares appeared in one of Critical Shot's hands and Hearth threw a shuriken forward.

"What incredible timing."

This shuriken had a lot of prediction behind it. Hearth was gambling on Critical Shot removing a handgun to increase the reloading speed. The spacing and timing made it to where if the shuriken hit it would cancel the reload and put the Skill on cooldown! 

Reload was in fact a Skill! To prevent a Gunner from endlessly raining bullets onto the enemy the developers added a catch to the Class. If they were hit during reloading they were unable to reload for a short time! In a close combat scenario this was deadly!

However!

In his hand Critical Shot revealed a double barrel shotgun. Snap dodging the shuriken Critical Shot rolled forward and performed {Sweep Kick}! Hearth's fingers moved at a blinding speed as she performed a snap jump, her Shinobi's legs raising over the sweep kick. 

She could barely contain her shock as the sweep kick turned into a {Knee!} and sent her Shinobi upwards. The timing was too tight to perform such a move normally. Meaning her snap jump was predicted and the sweep kick was canceled early to turn into a knee! 

A grenade rose with her as Critical Shot's other hand threw it upwards. His third Grenade! Why would he use his resources so recklessly?! The double barrel shotgun rose upwards and fired, some of the pellets hitting her Shinobi while the others hit the grenade!

Boom-!

Her Shinobi shot towards the ground. The speed was incredible for a ragdoll but despite it Hearth performed a recovery! Stellar timing! 

"I swear you guys make it to easy. Stop recovering immediately!"

The heel of Critical Shot hit Hearth's Shinobi and pinned them to the ground. The double barrel pointed to her face as two shells unloaded. Walking backwards Critical Shot reloaded his double barrel, returning the situation to neutral!

Hearth bit her cheek for a moment before dashing forward. Usually a Shinobi should wander around for an opportunity, but she was against a Gunner! The king of range! Anyone who claims they can outmatch a Gunner in a ranged battle is either a Gunner themselves or never went against a good Gunner!

The only way to stop a Gunner is to put them in a position they're at a disadvantage. That was close range! Her tanto flickered forward to only hit air. Utilizing a last second snap dodge Critical Shot dodged the attack easily. A handgun appearing in his palm he swung it forward using {Pistol Whip}! Stepping back to dodge the swing Hearth's Shinobi unfurled a scroll and a flurry of bubbles shot forward.

{Water Bubbles}!

Critical Shot rolled backward while switching to his assault rifle. Placing the gun to his hip he released {Hipfire} into the bubbles. The flurry of bullets popped the barrage of bubbles but never pierced through. In Fractured Worlds projectiles, unless otherwise stated, will disappear once hitting something. This means that certain Skills can be used to shield against a flurry of bullets if used well. {Water Bubbles} was a good example of this, for very few bullets managed to pass through the several Bubbles.

Upon noticing the secondary water themed scroll Nimin now understood Hearth's build. Shinobi Masteries were designed around elements. Water Lotus didn't count due to its significant usage, and was more of a staple move all Shinobi's kept in their arsenal. Water Bubbles was the exact opposite. The damaging move had limited uses without a Mastery. Considering Hearth had it equipped meant that she was a Water Shinobi!

A shame that he asked for the match to be limited. Without her Mastery passive a lot of her equipped Skills would be lackluster. Although if she did have her Mastery the fight would have been incredibly one-sided.

She was incredibly persistent though, and it was beginning to weigh in. Nimin's constant aggressive playstyle did have one glaring weakness, and that was his ammo consumption! With very little time to reload due to Hearth's persistence he was rapidly running out of weapons to utilize.

Additionally during his death in the Red Zone he had lost one of his double barrel shotguns, and currently was only carrying one. He didn't obtain another since he was under the belief that today was simply dungeon grinding day. If he knew he was going against a top ranked player he would have definitely brought some spare weapons!

A shuriken flew forward and Critical Shot side stepped it. A shotgun appearing in his hands he fired both rounds without care. With such a spread Hearth's Shinobi was incapable of dodging it at the current range so she instead ate the damage to close the distance. The very slight stun from the bullets barely stopped her advance. Nimin's face turned into an exaggerated sad face as he controlled Critical Shot to roll forward.

That was the last of his ammo. The only remaining ones was from the Godwit. Which was entirely useless at this range. Even with a critical hit the damage would be negligible. His only option was to close the distance and put pressure on Hearth. Gambling his win on her making a mistake.

Yet she was unwavering! The tanto flickered forward and slashed Critical Shot's face, a splash of blood reducing his vision. A scroll lifted in the air and Hearth's Shinobi slashed through it, a jet stream of water coating the blade and following behind it in a trail.

{Water Splitting Slash}!

Five shurikens followed the slash and implanted themselves in a line up Critical Shot. One of the shurikens had a {Firework Charm} attached to it. Exploding made Critical Shot step back and increased his stun just long enough for Hearth to perform another slash.

This was the end of the combo however! A lot of Hearth's resources were on cooldown so she couldn't continue. Regardless she needed to keep the pressure going! The moment Critical Shot's weapons were reloaded was the moment she was going to be pushed back!

Her tanto swung forward and hit air. Coming from below was Critical Shot's beretta, and a {Pistol Whip} to boot! Hitting the Shinobi's chin the Skill dealt a small bit of stun but was just enough to follow up with another Skill! His hands glitched and the Godwit appeared. Grabbing the barrel he swung it like a bat!

{Stock Swing}!

This follow up Skill provided just enough stun for another Skill to go off cooldown! Leaping forward Critical Shot implanted his knee into the Shinobi and sent it tumbling backwards! 

Hearth grit her teeth, she was too hasty! By the time she recovered she saw Critical Shot reloading a weapon. The timing wasn't there and now Critical Shot had his bullets back! This fight was. . . over!

Despite her unwavering resolve to win, Nimin kept her in check with unorthodox methods to slowly reduce her health. This steady loss in health lead to her defeat. The moment the words appeared on her screen she sat and stared at them.

Yet the crowd loved it! Someone had finally beat Hearth! Nimin stretched his fingers and left the computer. Moving to Hearth's side he reached out a hand, "Excellent match."

She shook the hand with a perplexed expression, "What did I just go against?"

"You like the build? It's still in progress, but it's quite disorienting to go against right?", Nimin happily spoke about it.

Just as he was about to free his hand Hearth's grip turned tighter, "I want another match."

Her eyes held a determination. Nimin looked at them and smiled. She would make an excellent pro if she kept such determination. So his lips opened and he replied.

"Not happening."