I dashed away from the enemy as they pressed forward, and slid into a slide back to the tower. Before the enemy, Engineer, could even get close, my Detective charged forward and shoulder slammed her into a wall. A heavy melee quickly followed, dealing a sizable chunk to her health bar while I fired in shots.
Tails, as expected of a fox, shot fox fire. It was a relatively slow projectile, but each hit gave my character a tail to enhance the alt-fire into a heavy hitting sniper shot depending on the number of tails. For every shot I just hit, I was now up to three tails once more. It was the maximum I could have until I upgraded Spirit Tails to level three where I could have nine.
“Okay, Tails, I’m going to charge Engineer back into us the next time she pushes up. I want you to hit her with your Charm right after I heavy melee, then blast her with your sniper.” The Detective positioned himself in a baiting position halfway up the lane to their tower. “Got it?”
”Got it.” I wasn’t sure what fire got lit under him, but he’d been playing exceptionally well ever since that first death.
Charm was my first ability, and it, well, charmed. It forced the enemy to move to me and acted as a one second stun. In that time, any damage they took would wake them from the stun and they’d take a little bit of spirit damage. The real kicker for the ability, though, was that they took double damage from all sources.
Detective pushed forward and took a bunch of damage from the minion wave. He was a tank, though, so it didn’t actually threaten him much. What it did do was aggro the enemy Engineer into pushing forward. She tossed a turret at us—which I immediately killed—and stepped forward to interrupt Detective before he could finish off the minion wave.
The moment Engineer stepped forward and overextended even the tiniest bit, Detective struck. He activated his Charge, grabbing Engineer and dragging her back toward me. The two slammed into a wall, and Engineer was stunned by Charge. It gave enough time for a full heavy melee to hit, chunking her health.
The moment his melee hit, I fired off my charm. A pink heart shot forward and enveloped Engineer before she could get away. The enemy did a one-eighty, and turned toward me mindlessly. My instincts flared, and I held my shot instead of immediately firing.
I delayed my alt-fire as Detective charged up a heavy melee so I wouldn’t interrupt my Charm and give the Engineer a chance to parry. The millisecond before he slammed forward, I clicked on my mouse. All three tails surged up through Tails body into a megashot that hit Engineer precisely in the head.
With the enhanced damage of Spirit Tails, I was already doing a ton of damage. Add in the double damage multiplier of my Charm and the headshot multiplier of 1.65, and Engineer’s health bar vanished into a tiny sliver. That sliver was instantly cleared as Detective’s heavy melee slammed into her, snuffing out the player's life.
”Tails, take what is yours!” The announcer whispered across my monitor.
”We did it!” I shouted into my mic, the Listener-San. The instant the shout slipped through, I winced and my tails lowered. “S-sorry.”
”It’s fine, babe. You can shout at me anytime.” Fencer immediately said.
”Quit being a creep, dude.” Detective pushed forward to deal with the next wave. “Professor isn’t here… must be doing a box run. Hmm… buffs up in a sec. Tails, help me push this wave then go get the buff.”
”Got it!” I eyed my map, and carefully watched the enemy. Everyone else seemed to focused on their lanes. We hard pushed the wave, and I instantly activate my second ability, Spirit Fox.
On my screen, Tails shrunk into an adorable black-furred fox with nine tails hanging around behind her. In this form, using abilities would send me back to normal. I had nine special shots that could heal my allies, though, and moved much quicker.
Using that speed boost, I headed to wear the buff spawned in the middle of the left and center lanes. I hit a vent, and was catapulted up to my location just in time for the purple spirit buff to spawn in. Tails jumped at it as I threw a heavy melee, and I claimed the buff. It gave me a bunch of spirit power to make me do more damage, cooldown reduction, and even a small amount of spirit resistance.
The moment after I grabbed the buff, a golden shockwave rippled across the ground. Detective shouted, “watch out! Professor’s on you!”
“I see that!” I tossed out my Charm, controlling the enemy player. My hands flew across the keyboard. I bounced off the wall and catapulted back to my lane. Mid-flight, I flicked for a 180 that precisely slammed into Professor's head just before my charm ran out. A third of his health disappeared just like that.
Professor chased after me as a green healing field erupted out of his rotund body. I hit another wall bounce, and got off two shots onto him before I even hit the ground. He chased me the entire way, sliding across the ground to catch up.
”Got him!” Detective met me half way and charge forward. Just before his Charge could connect, Professor used a dodge ability to get away.
My Charm flashed forward, accurately predicting where he’d come out just as his character returned from the dodge. He was instantly stunned and pulled to me, taking another fully charged alt-fire. Another third of his health disappeared.
In what must’ve been a panic, the player threw a heavy melee at me. Time felt like it slowed down as I heard the obvious sound cue, and threw up a parry. Professor’s fist slammed into my, stunning him. Not a moment too soon either as Detective slammed a brutal haymaker into his head, killing him.
”Nice job, Tails!” Detective immediately heaped praise onto me. “I thought you said you were new to this game.”
“I am?” This game was just kinda easy… it’d take me some time to get used to the shop and parkour, but that was fine.
“Haha, sure.” He didn’t seem like he believed me. “Fine, fine. You should have a lot of money now. Go buy Express Shot. It’s really freaking strong on Tails if you can get it to proc on your charged snipe. It makes it shoot twice, with the second shot doing more damage.”
”Right.” I activated my Spirit Fox form, and dashed back to the shop to buy the item. While I was at it, I also pinned a build to my front page so I could reference what I should buy. I’d have to figure out the shop system at some point, but it was one thing at a time for now.
With the lead granted to us through our kills and me having the buff. We easily wiped the enemy and destroyed their tower. By the time I unlocked my fourth ability, my ult, the lane phase was basically over.
“Gambler, come take left from us. Tails, we’ll go roam through middle and clean up.” Detective started to explain as we moved for the middle lane. “You’re a spirit assassin, so your best bet is to strike hard and fast in the middle game. Gambler, on the other hand, is a late-game power house that needs to grind out money. It’s best for her to sideline. “”Makes sense.” My tails flopped into my lap to keep me warm while I watched the map. It was surprisingly chilly in my apartment.
Instead of following Detective all the way to middle, though, I turned back about halfway to invade their side of the map. It was only for the briefest of moments, but I spotted their Engineer at half-health in their jungle.
With Spirit Fox activated, the enemy didn’t see me on their map, allowing me to sneak up close and personal. That was exactly what I did as I slunk up to the camp Engineer was taking. Her health was dropping quickly from the jungle monsters. I waited until she was just about to clear the last one before making my move.
I charged a heavy melee while she wasn’t prepared, and took her by surprise with it. A chunk of her health disappeared. Before she could react, I hit her with Charm and unloaded my alt-fire I charged up in lane earlier on her. It proved to be too much, and she instantly died before she could react.
”Oh, nice!” Fencer called across our comms. “Man, if only all my teammates were like you, Tails.”
”Thanks.” A warm blush filled my cheeks as I grabbed the money bag that Engineer dropped when she died.
Unlike money earned from lane, jungle camps gave money that could be dropped after the farmer died. In this case, I got an extra three hundred on top of the solo kill bounty. It totally inflated the amount of money I had on me.
Just as I was celebrating my success, a new character charged into my back and knocked me up. It wasn’t the fun kind of knock up either. Before I could do anything, Goat slammed me over the head with a bat slam.
All my abilities were still on cooldown, so I activated my trump card—my ult. The two of us were pulled into a subspace that enforced a 1v1. I’d already put two points into it back in lane, so it refreshed my ability cooldowns on use, too.
A full charges alt-fire slammed into Goat’s head with pinpoint precision. I dodged backward into a slight to avoid the next attack, and wall-bounced back toward our side of the map. Unfortunately, none of my teammates were gathered to help me.
”Keep them busy, Tails. We’ll grab the rift,” Fencer told me. A life for an important Objective was an easy call, and it seemed everyone else agreed. Not that I could blame them. I’d make the same decision.
Stalling… right, I could do that. For a few seconds, I just kept dodging his attacks while weaving in shots of my own. My ult finally faded, and we were spat back out of my sub-dimension. I really need to get something to extend that duration.
The moment we were free, I shot forward a Charm. Instead of sticking around to fight, though, I used the window to activate Spirit Fox and flee. With the enhanced speed granted by my fox form, I sprinted away safely back to our side of the map. And not a moment too soon either as three of Goat’s teammates showed up to catch me. I was already long gone, though.
A few moments later, we claimed the rift as well. Super minions were summoned on the right side to rush down their second tower, and our entire team got a sizable boost in money.
The game played out steadily from there. With our massive lead in money, we only snowballed further and further. Gambler, who’d been left alone most of the game, single-handedly took down the biggest objective while we fought to take down the middle's second tower. Her takedown of the midboss gave our entire team 3 resurrections between the six of us, which allowed us to press our advantage even further.
With 3 resurrections and a massive snowball, it was all too easy to siege their main base and take it down. We didn’t have to back out of the base since the enemy kept feeding themselves into us one at a time. In just twenty three minutes, the game ended.
I leaned back in my chair as one of my tails arched forward to take over my control of the mouse. My hands dropped down to gently stroke at two of my other tails keeping me warm.
Detective got MVP. I commended him, and scrolled over to check my stats. Even though it was my first game, I had the third most damage and quite a bit of healing thanks to Spirit Fox’s healing shots. Not too bad for my first game.
I checked my stream to find that I still had no viewers, but that was fine. I was more than willing to play the long game. I just needed to be patient. With that thought in mind, I queued up for a new match.