#route 1 bird... kujou sara!

[xxs1lverw0lfxx]

Will you teach me how to play Impact Honkai 4th?

The game has a tutorial for a reason, y'know. And you'll become very familiar with it when you inevitably start rerolling accounts.

[xxs1lverw0lfxx]

The instant flesh is severed, Silver Wolf’s eyes have locked on. She traces the arc of the falling tail for every second that it’s in the air, eyes daring not to as much as blink lest it roll away or despawn or something. That’s not just a tail, but perfectly usable material. It’s loot, and loot is the fuel for every gamer’s furnace. As she sprints closer, her hands get to work tapping away at her gauntlet until another few holo-screens bring up some programs. As she skids to a stop, she makes a selection at a menu, and from the tips of her fingers she flings something malicious at the cut appendage. A special kind of Aether hack that can manifest into reality thanks to her cartridge, it would be their ticket to extracting something valuable out of this carve. It attaches to biological material and undoes any connective tissue holding scales together with meat, meat together with bone. Essentially, it’ll act as a carving knife to separate every workable bit and then collect them for Silver Wolf to take. It’ll take time, though, so for now she turns her attention back to her comrades.

“Pure strength is a powerful thing, isn’t it?” she nudges Kafka, grinning a little since she’d be rattling her aim, “People will listen to power, apparently. She’s running this whole area like it’s a real-time strategy game.” Silver Wolf is, of course, referring to Kujou Sara and the commanding shout she’s just delivered to the battlefield. This is a hunt for the two of them, but to her, it might as well be war. That kind of outlook isn’t entirely a bad thing, though. At the very least, it’s interesting to the Hacker. So she shrugs and reequips herself, brushing past Kafka as a means of goodbye. 

“Don’t have to tell me twice! Time to crash the system.” 

Silver Wolf 9/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Head (4/20HP) [Roll 1d20 = 11, Hit! -2HP. ??? - Head (2/20HP)] Passive: Might makes Right, +1 DMG Silver Wolf 9/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Talons (77/80HP) [Roll 1d20 = 16, Hit! -1HP. ??? - Talons (76/80HP)]  Silver Wolf 9/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Talons (76/80HP) [Roll 1d20 = 13, Hit! -1HP. ??? - Talons (75/80HP)]  Silver Wolf 9/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Talons (75/80HP) [Roll 1d20 = 18, Hit! -1HP. ??? - Talons (74/80HP)]  Silver Wolf 9/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Talons (74/80HP) [Roll 1d20 = 11, Hit! -1HP. ??? - Talons (73/80HP)]  Silver Wolf 9/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Talons (73/80HP) [Roll 1d20 = 5, Hit! -1HP. ??? - Talons (72/80HP)]  ???: -7HP (26/80HP) Passive: Monster Physiology

Silver Wolf leaps into action. Her first strike comes off of her leap–a payload delivered full-frontal–but what follows is a series of slashes too numerous to be counted. Her blades are light. Lithe. They take nearly no toil on her as she swings them, freeing her to send out attack after attack. But she isn’t just slashing wildly. She’s delivering calculated cuts, treating the monster like a program she’s trying to crack into. If a certain angle won’t work, she tries another. If she can get the blade beneath scale, she does–and she slices wherever she can find softer flesh. She uses a thousand lines of code to send a single message. It’s the kind of attack that would overwhelm a server with the sheer magnitude of its numbers, just hit after hit after hit. She’s stringing combos off of combos, racking up a score so high it breaks the integer limit. And it’s all thanks to that decisive strike from Kujou Sara. With the wyvern’s firewall down, she’s free to wreak as much havoc as her callous little heart could ever want. This is the kind of work she likes. The kind of work she wishes Destiny would give her. 

The monster rumbles. It was flailing about moments prior, but now has the stamina to regain its footing. The Hunter knows her hour approaches, so she puts a little more oomph into one last hit. With both arms tensed, two blades become one. They swipe together, combining forces rather than spreading them. And the result is skin peeling, gnashing, glowing red with blood where she struck. A wound has formed on its underside: one which a keen eye might be able to take advantage of. But that won’t be hers. She can see the incessant twitch of the beast’s eye and takes it as her cue to waltz on out. 

In the moments where it struggles, she wracks her brain for a fitting video game to quote. “No mercy for the merciless~” is what she lands on. It carries an air of pride with it, like she was impressed by the beatdown she just served. 

But she quickly gets serious again, smile inching back down with every struggle and gasp of their hunt. “Be quick with your big hits. These things like to enrage when they get close to death. Y’know, the whole clinging onto life thing. Its last stand or whatever.” Indeed, at the end of the day, they can’t fight nature. Wind blows, rain falls, and the strong prey upon the weak. On a scale this large, a few tricks up their sleeves are hardly going to save them. What will be the difference-maker of today’s battle is whether they are, well and truly, stronger than the King. If they can take his crown for themselves and bear the weight of his scepter. Only then will his judgement elude them. Only then will they earn the right to live and rule in his domain.

Their surroundings begin to change, too. The fires raging across the open field are slowly being quelled by Inazuman villagers. The presence of their general has evidently reassured them that the threat will be handled, and that their goal ought to be keeping damage to a minimum. Suppression forces are hard at work, with water cannons and Hydro visions being a means to the end that is their safety. Silver Wolf’s hack has also finished. Small, cartoon characters bring every bit and piece of the hacked-apart tail to the Hunter, who sees fit to split it into three separate stacks and store it all on her person, for now. The skies darken, as well. And not just from soot rising into the atmosphere. A heavy storm looks ready to blow in at any moment. It’s sure to change the tide of battle once it hits. Nature is readying for their final showdown.

“Just be prepared for when it hits back. The last thing I need is the two of you wiping and letting the hunt get away.” 

//AUTHORIZED TO HUNT: @immovablewill !

ᯓ★ don't forget to carve the tail!

[xxs1lverw0lfxx]

//starter for @immovablewill

Silver Wolf makes a habit of poking her nose around when she’s bored. Ordinarily this would entail scrolling through forums or digging around Genius Society databanks, but with the recent phenomenon spreading chaos over the galaxy, piloting six different holograms on six different monitors has become her default state. This puts them on the more passive side, not speaking much or interacting with the world–acting merely as surveillance drones to give her a reason to embark on an interstellar journey. And one stationed in Inazuma finds just that. It shakes with the rumbling of the earth, its vision tearing and artifacting at the sound of a deep shriek.

The other five dematerialize in an instant, as she makes plans to stride out. 

She arrives with light-speed travel, beaming down to a world lit ablaze. Smoke blots out the sun from the sky, replacing it instead with the beating of wings so hard they stir up their own wind. It’s difficult for someone of her stature to stand her ground, especially when it circles around her. “Ugh,” she groans, grabbing hold of the first arm in sight–unknowing and uncaring that it belongs to one of the nation’s generals, “it’s this thing. It has a knack for popping up where it doesn’t belong…” She sighs, flipping on her visor even if she knows she doesn’t need to. After it powers on, she gets a clearer reading of the beast through the smoke: red scales and black spines, winged webbing and a powerful set of poisonous talons. “...And causing trouble. This one’s a master-rank too…” 

Three glowing stars on her visor confirm as much. 

She steps back and eyes up the woman in front of her next. Not much is said about her besides species and general power level, which is quite high. On a scale of one to ten, it’d be about a seven. Problem is, Silver Wolf would come up as a twelve on this same scale. 

“Feel like joining the hunt?” The piece on her arm lights up with the activation of her Aether Cartridge. Ripples and scratches in the spinning disc that is reality manifest as tiny cubes of light. The digital world and the physical one bind in such a way as to produce matter: a catalogue of weapons for her to browse through. “I could get one of the Wubcats to help me, buuuut this might be more fun for you.” 

She selects a pair of shortswords. One materializes from her gauntlet, and another simply out of the back of her hand. 

“What do you feel like using? I’ve got insect glaives, bowguns, greatswords…” 

The list goes on, scrolling with the wave of her hand. Whatever this stranger chooses, Silver Wolf hopes it’ll be quick. The screaming of their ‘hunt’ isn’t getting any farther.  

ᯓ★ don't forget to carve the tail!

[xxs1lverw0lfxx]

Silver Wolf’s struggle is short lived. If Kujou Sara is a beating drum streaking across the battlefield, then the tone she plays for the Hacker is hope. Resonance echoes throughout her bones now that they’re free from the wyvern’s iron grip, explodes into life–life enough to get her moving–when she hears the clang of chitin against a composite shield. That’s her cue to leave, the parting of the melody that only her swift footfalls can fill. “Thanks,” she spits, like a last-minute item thrown to the Tengu before she headed out of the house. Then, it’s time to find cover.

Rifling through menus, she’s able to play spectator a moment. Kafka’s aristeia comes next: a dazzling fusion of action shots and screenplay. The way she fumbles with the controls of her bowgun creates suspense–will she be able to fire in time? Has she got the mechanism figured out?–and the payoff comes with a hail of bullets like the heavy rain of a noir film. She might as well strap a drum magazine to the barrel of her gun, hitch the stock on a pair of suspenders, and shoot through her own haze of cigarette smoke. As she finds her antidote, the rising action builds. When she swallows, her fellow Hunter has already changed mags–changed scenes–and is ready for the dramatic climax. Silver Wolf slides in at the sound of the shot. 

She doesn’t need the explosion to know that the tone is about to change. 

Hopping off her back foot, Silver Wolf draws her swords to engage. “This’ll be light work,” she chides, “just a bit of deepee-essing now that you guys have set me up.” And it really should be that easy. With their monster distracted by Kujou Sara’s guard and pinned by Kafka’s suppressive fire, Silver Wolf is the knife that comes in for the cut. They’re surgeons. They’re chefs. They’re hunters. Each plays a vital role in holding something steady so that it can be severed, and right now, Silver Wolf shines bright as the star of the show. She slashes once–evasively–and finds her footing behind the beast. The edges of her Aether blades glow. They, too, are hungry–have now tasted the meat beneath all that scale and skin. 

They slash twice, together, for every pair of blades acts best as one. And the wear and tear is getting to the monster. It screams, lashes out–stomps around. Nothing manages to scratch the swordswoman though–not this time. After weaving out, she threads herself back in. Life is no more than a game. And when she plays, it’s always to get a high score: 

Silver Wolf 10/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Tail (2/20HP) [Roll 1d20 = 1, Miss! -0HP. ??? - Tail (2/20HP)]

Dink! 

Strange. Her weapon bounces right off. On her visor, big, blocky text reading NO DAMAGE! surrounds the monster. Determined to try again, she flexes her arms and swings, this time at a more exposed piece of tail–

Silver Wolf 10/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Tail (2/20HP) [Roll 1d20 = 2, Miss! -0HP. ??? - Tail (2/20HP)]

Dink! 

Again, nothing.  

Silver Wolf 10/10HP uses Normal Attack: Circle Slash on ??? - Tail (2/20HP) [Roll 1d20 = 4, Miss! -0HP. ??? - Tail (2/20HP)]

Dink! 

And again. And aga–dink!–again, and again. Not once do her swords sing with the slicing of skin, not once do they bathe in blood brought about by breaking bone. She had it in front of her, practically plated and its bill already paid. All she had to do was reach forward and take it. But she failed.

As the sharpness of her Aether pales in comparison to the wyvern’s tough hide, her error dawns upon her. A whole hailstorm of attacks descends upon the cutting point, but it’s like the crystals aren’t sharp enough. Not sharp enough. Of course. 

This moment’s hesitation gives it time to peel itself off the general and go swinging for the smallest of the party. Silver Wolf sheathes and sprints for the foliage line, ducking beneath a fireball and narrowly avoiding those venom-soaked talons again. “Cruddy equipment,” she murmurs, which she checks up on as soon as cover would allow her. 

And instantly she sees her problem: she forgot her decorations. Suddenly she remembers how the blades were newly forged, and a preset hadn’t been made for them. 

Shrugging it off, she materializes an Aether whetstone in her hand. After giving both edges of both blades a sharpen, they resume humming their lethal song. But this condition won’t last, especially if recent history is any good a teacher. So she spends a few more moments with her finger on her chin, resocketing her equipment until it’s up to scratch. Now the edges shouldn’t dull, so long as she’s sure to hit the softer parts of the monster. 

She rejoins the fray. The ground is notably burning hotter, the sky more feverish with the King’s burning wrath. Embers have leapt to a nearby patch of weeds and slowly eat into her last hiding spot. Cover won’t be an option going forward. 

“Looks like we’ll have to really lock in now.”

//POINT THE SPEAR: @immovablewill !

ᯓ★ don't forget to carve the tail!

[xxs1lverw0lfxx]

“Y’know, normally you’re supposed to buff up before-” 

Before she can get another word out, crimson stains her visor. System warnings pop up left and right, little exclamation points above its head indicating it as a sign of danger. There’s only one force in the galaxy deserving of such a flagging down. And it’s not because of any innate talent of hers. It’s the way Silver Wolf has her rig set up, the equivalent of changing someone’s contact name to ‘DO NOT TEXT BACK.’ 

“-Kafka.” 

She makes a face at her friend’s introduction. Barely here for a breath, and already she’s trying to ensnare them in her web. It’s a shame she doesn’t quite care for Kujou Sara. If she did, she’d have told her to ignore everything Kafka has to say. Instead, she’ll let her deal with the consequences of listening on her own.

“A three-person hunt? Guess we won’t be getting any Wubcats…” 

Which is all well and fine. Their AI isn’t the greatest–certainly not as useful as a third set of hands with endgame gear to pull the trigger on. Silver Wolf marvels at Kafka’s choice, coming to another tacit understanding of how to tackle a mission. Without words, they exchange that Silver Wolf will handle all the up-close-and-personal slicing of scales, while Kafka turns that wing membrane into swiss cheese and their third draws enemy attention. The third in question doesn’t share the joint experience, though. Better fill her in. 

“That’s a gunlance you’ve got,” she explains, her menu now closed and another, smaller one open for her to scroll through, “you can raise its shield to keep us safe, and stick charges in our monstie which’ll explode later. Don’t forget to move after blocking a hit, otherwise you’ll get flanked from your sides.” 

With the pleasantries out of the way, she gets right to buffing. One Primordial Potion slides down her throat in capsule form, then a Wrath Pill and a Modest Pill, washed down with Devildrug and Shieldskin potions, respectively. And to top off her round of enhancements, some sprinkles of Devil Powder and Shield Powder, with one final gulp of Sprint Juice to keep her energy up.

By now their monster has flown off to a different position in the sky, but that’s no trouble. She taps on her gauntlet as she runs in, sheathing the blades a moment to load something into its cannon. Their foe–the King of the Skies–perches itself in a land above. Each flap of its wings carries a regal sort of dignity, each swipe of its tail a downward stroke like stomping on something beneath it. For as long as it stays in the air, its crown will be fixed on its head. It will be untouchable, and our heroes mere peasants grasping at its scepter only to be spat on with fire. 

Thus, Silver Wolf has their kingslayer–the rock in her sling aimed between the goliath’s eyes. 

Flashbang.

It fires from her wrist unceremoniously, traveling through the burning air as mere embers over an open pit. But no king can resist the allure of gold. The monster looks, and the heat from its own breath ignites the charge. Flash! It’s down in an instant, struggling and wailing–stripped from its throne and forced to walk the earth among mortals. This is her opportunity. “Now!” directs the Gamer, as she draws her swords and gets to work slashing the tail a thousand times a second. The flurry of blows is akin to a gathering storm, clouds swirling and lightning dancing between droplets of rail. She hacks at chitin, chipping scale and scratching through tough flesh beneath. 

But for all her effort, the tail stays intact. The beast rises once again, and before she can react, has Silver Wolf pinned to the ground. It sinks its talons deep, so deep that it isn’t blood seeping from her wounds, but poison. 

“This is bad. Get this thing off me, I need an antidote!” 

//PROOF OF A HERO: @immovablewill !

ᯓ★ don't forget to carve the tail!