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Silver Wolf has had enough.
Her usual gaming sessions with her fellow Stellaron Hunters were the highlight of her week, but she hasn’t been having a lot of fun recently. It’s not because she kept taking Ls (that she was fine with, and if she really wanted to win she would have just cheated anyway), and it’s not because she got bored of the games themselves either.
No, the problem was two specific people.
Her gaming buddies, in fact, were the source of her troubles! Sure, it wasn’t like Firefly’s favorite pastime were video games to begin with, but Stelle at the very least was enthusiastic about it! That was good enough, and things had been fine.
However—just recently, things had changed! She didn’t know what happened, exactly, but the air at their usual gaming couch has been really awkward recently! Stelle and Firefly keep dancing around each other, all their usual banter falls flat, and Silver Wolf has lost count of how many times she caught the two staring at each other as if she wasn’t sitting right there in the same room!
Okay, Silver Wolf isn’tstupid. She has played enough visual novels to know what all of this was about. Actually, it really didn’t take a (future) Emanator of Elation to connect the dots—anyone paying even a tiny attention to how those two interact on a daily basis could have figured it out.
The problem was that Stelle is as dense as said visual novel’s protagonist, and Firefly is too shy to ever cross that line! Even on the rare occasions where she gathered the nerve to be direct, it flew so cleanly over Stelle’s head that Silver Wolf swore she could see the arc!! It was more frustrating than losing the 50/50 at high pity, and she genuinely believed nothing would ever surpassthat feeling!
But worst of all, all of this would occasionally bleed into their gameplay!
She remembered just the other day…
Stelle shifted on the couch with a groan, tilting her neck to one side with an audible crack. “My neck’s killing me. Can I borrow your shoulder, Firefly?”
“Huh?” Firefly squeaked, sitting up and straightening her posture so fast Silver Wolf had never seen anything like it. “Y-Yeah, sure!”
Stelle hummed, already resting her head against the other girl's shoulder, gaze never leaving the screen as her fingers relentlessly tapped away at her controller still. Whatever. Not Silver Wolf’s business.
See, this part wouldn’t have been a problem for Silver Wolf if not for one fact—Firefly had gone three shades of red, clearly too flustered to pay attention to the game! Silver Wolf could see her character standing still on the screen, doing absolutely nothing! Dammit, she had made Firefly play the tank especially because of those superhuman reflexes of hers, but if Stelle rizzed her into becoming deadweight, then this was all pointless!
Her fears were confirmed when the boss swept a massive claw across the screen and wiped them clean.
Silver Wolf exhaled very slowly through her nose.
Oh, and just the other day…
Silver Wolf watched from the sidelines as Firefly and Stelle ran the hunting game she’d picked for the night, having died midway through the fight because something distracted her (and absolutely not because of skill issue). And thus, she was simply waiting for them to finish.
“The boss is almost dead,” Stelle said. “You should land the final hit so you get the bonus drop, Firefly.”
“Hm? No, you can have it.”
“No, it’s fine. I insist.”
“Really, Stelle, it’s okay.”
“It would be really good for your build, though.”
“Mhm,” Firefly’s character gracefully dodged an attack mid-sentence, the girl not missing a beat. “But I think you like this game more than I do, so you should have it. I’m content just with your satisfied smile.”
“Aw, really? Don’t mind if I do, then.”
Silver Wolf sighed. “Can you two please just hurry up and kill it already!”
…And just the other, OTHER day…
“Huh?” Stelle frowned at the controller in her hand, mashing the right trigger repeatedly only for nothing to show up on screen.
“What’s up?” Firefly turned her head, attention piqued by the confused noise Stelle made.
“I think this controller’s busted,” Stelle answered,
Without a word, Firefly scooted closer and offered half her controller, extending it toward Stelle’s hand. “How about we play together?”
“I’m… not sure I can match your pace…” Stelle said hesitantly, a faint flush creeping up her face at the sudden proximity, but she reached out and took the other half of the controller anyway.
“Don’t worry, I’ll match yours,” Firefly said softly. “Tell me if I’m going too fast, okay?”
Silver Wolf almost had the urge to throw her own controller flat against the wall watching the spectacle. “You don’t have to do that! I can literally get you a replacement!”
—
And so, that brought Silver Wolf to the present moment…
Today would be different! Today would be the day everything changed! Today would be the day Silver Wolf took matters into her own hands and fast-tracked her two friends’ Social Links, because at this rate, they would never get past that final stage without anyone intervening!
“We’re playing with different rules today,” Silver Wolf announced as she turned on the console. “Losers have to do whatever the winner tells them.”
“Wow, okay. You just want to dump your share of this month’s chores on us, don’t you?” Stelle narrowed her eyes, sitting on the couch next to Firefly. “What are we playing, anyway?”
Silver Wolf didn’t dignify that with a response, though the offer was genuinely tempting. “We’re playing Street Fighter -Strive-: Third Central Fiction LXVII. New fighting game that just came out.”
“Why is the title so long?” Firefly tilted her head. “Also, why are we fighting streets? Are the streets evil?”
“No,” Stelle snickered. “I think we’re making the streets fight each other.”
“It’s because the characters fight on a street,” Silver Wolf cut in, ending this bit before it went out of control and distracted them.
“Oh, I suppose that makes sense,” Firefly nodded.
Silver Wolf sighed, booting up the game.
This was a calculated bet on Silver Wolf’s part, of course. Stelle was just someone who was naturally good at games, so if it was just the two of them, it would probably be a roughly even match.
The problem was… Firefly. Unlike Stelle and Silver Wolf, she was absolutely clueless at these things. The concepts of block strings and juggling and combo cancelling would fly over her head… but just give her a few rounds, along with some basic explanations, and she would absolutely kick both of their asses even if she didn’t have an understanding of the advanced mechanics of the game.
Glamoth supersoldier genes are straight up cheat codes, but Silver Wolf guessed that was only natural when you were born to pilot a mech suit.
Still, that meant there was only one viable strategy, which is to get an early headstart before Firefly could get her bearings together!
Silver Wolf confidently picked her character, her main from previous entries from the game, a zoner she knew inside and out. Yes, this was simple. All she needed to do was play defensively into her character’s strengths and not get tilted, and she should be able to secure an early victory.
Silver Wolf got tilted and did not, in fact, secure an early victory.
“That was some bull,” she complained through her teeth, trying her best not to show her inner gamer rage after the projectile from Firefly’s character grazed hers by one pixel and opened her up to a Touch of Death combo the Iron Cavalry soldier figured out within 10 minutes of letting her play around in the Training Mode (at Stelle’s request).
“Skill issue,” Stelle jokingly mocked, to which Silver Wolf only glared.
Their score was about even now. Silver Wolf had gained the upper hand on Stelle, but Firefly caught up to her. If Firefly won this next round, then Silver Wolf’s plan would be all for naught.
Silver Wolf hadn’t planned on it coming to this, but she was out of options, clearly.
Sorry, Elio. She would have to go all out just this once.
Silver Wolf quickly stood from the couch, turning around to face her two friends who only stared at her with confused looks. Said confusion turned to one of surprise as she whipped out her Cartridge with a smug grin.
“Wolfie!” Stelle was already moving, lunging off the couch to stop her. Silver Wolf sidestepped the taller girl with minimal effort and Stelle hit the floor with a thud. while the hacker manifested her signature glove on her right hand and slid the Cartridge into the dedicated slot.
Time and space rippled just a little as future possibilities coalesced into one moment. Silver Wolf felt the power of Elation surge within her as purple-blue flares of light shone forth from the visor on her head, the world in her perception sharpening as she finished her transformation.
Firefly, on the couch, had gone very still. “If you use that, you’ll—”
“Relax, jeez!” Silver Wolf cut her off, trying to alleviate their worries. “I’m not maxing out my level, alright? This is just Silver Wolf Lv. 81.”
…Why 81, some might ask? Well, the game’s current level cap is 80, and these two technically haven’t started their playthrough yet by this time—not that they need to know that, of course. Matters beyond the fourth wall weren’t anyone’s business but whose who walked the path of Elation.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay…?” Firefly asked. “I mean, I didn’t realize it would be this serious…”
“Oh, stop worrying about me already. I know my own limits,” Silver Wolf shrugged her off. “Now, this next round will be real gaming!”
Still, playing against someone whose reaction time was a fraction of a milisecond is not as easy as it sounded.
The moment the announcer finished the super long gibberish of an intro, Firefly’s character dashed across the screen as expected of a typical rushdown character. Her character's reach at close-range was absurd, and she used every inch of it, throwing out massive normals and working the throw game until Silver Wolf's health bar took its first real dent.
Silver Wolf's gameplan didn't break, though. Her zoner character thrived at mid-range, and she used the knockback from Firefly's throw to reset the spacing, settling into mid-range combos that chipped away at her opponent's health steadily and reliably. One projectile that she whiffed on purpose was all it took—Firefly predictably rushed in to attempt to punish, but Silver Wolf caught her with a barrage of beams before she could get close enough to matter.
Firefly purged her guard bar, letting her character recover instantly and rush towards Silver Wolf. She led with an aerial that Silver Wolf initially parried—but her character’s lackluster close-range normals were always going to lose this exchange eventually, so Silver Wolf had no choice but to purge her own guard bar and break out of the string.
Both health bars were low, just a good few hits away from deciding everything. With Silver Wolf’s lower HP pool, however, Firefly had the edge just by a sliver. At this point, the ideal strategy for Firefly would be to stall and wait the timer out, as the game rewards the win to the player with the most remaining health.
However, Silver Wolf knows that Firefly was a little bit of a showoff at heart. There was a reason she fought like that as SAM, and especially with Stelle watching, she would want to end this in a cool way. In other words, she would want to end this with a flashy super.
Silver Wolf fired two projectiles across the screen, both easily parried by Firefly. The parry filled Firefly's super bar to full, though—just as Silver Wolf planned.
The timer continued to run low. Firefly inched closer and closer, the two characters occasionally trading light normals as Firefly tried to disguise what she was building toward. Silver Wolf, though, had already made her play,walking back and forth in perfect time with Firefly, keeping the exact spacing to counter the incoming attack.
"Let's go, Firefly!" Stelle cheered from her spot on the floor.
The screen flashed red as Firefly committed to the super, but Silver Wolf was ready. She tapped into the Elation once again and let Aha take the wheel—er, controller.
Firefly’s character jumped forward and launched into a sequence of kicks. Silver Wolf read the incoming attack, and simply flicked her stick forward. Parried. Then again. And again, and again, seven kicks in a row, a pause, another seven, and then one final high kick to cap the sequence—Silver Wolf parried them all, a pattern she’d only memorized in theory and never actually pulled off until now.
And because Silver Wolf was, frankly, also a bit of a showoff, she caught that last hit in the air—a ridiculously and unnecessarily difficult aerial parry that she then chained into her own Super, emptying the rest of Firefly’s health bar in a single sweep.
“K.O.!”
The narrator announced the end of the match, the room filled with silence for a moment.
“Holy shit,” Stelle was the first to break it. “I think we should stop cashing in our bounties and just enter you in FGC tournaments across the cosmos.”
“Wow!” Firefly clapped, in awe at what just happened as well. “That was really intense, Wolfie. You played well. Even if you cheated.”
“It’s not cheating! I’m just using what I have at my disposal, thank you very much,” the winner looked at her two friends, taking off her glove and undoing her transformation as she worked to catch her breath. “Well, GGs. But now that I won, as agreed, you will all have to obey one request of mine.”
Stelle gulped. “It’s okay, I’ve made my peace. I’m ready to do taxes with Blade for the rest of my life…”
“What? Tempting, but no,” Silver Wolf clarified, finding her words. She was suddenly very aware of how embarrassing this sentence was going to sound out loud, but she’d come too far to back out now. “As the winner, I order you two to… For the love of all Aeons, just talk and sort out your feelings for each other already!”
The absolutely cringeworthy silence that followed almost killed Silver Wolf, but the blush that crept up her friends’ faces afterwards prevented her untimely game over.
“H-huh? What do you mean—”
“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
Silver Wolf closed her eyes, sighing. Aeons, they’re such shoujo manga heroines. Would it kill either of them to move the story a long a little? As the person seated front row to this particular romantic comedy on a near-daily basis, she felt the burn was, factually speaking, too slow. Maybe she needed to take matters into her own hands and unlock their event CGs for them herself.
“Come with me.”
Silver Wolf grabbed them by the wrists, ignoring their protests and hauling the two taller girls away from the living room until they stopped in front of Stelle’s bedroom, into which she shoved them both inside before sealing the door’s lock shut with a quick Aether Edit.
That would do.
The next day, Silver Wolf was making coffee when Firefly suddenly walked in with a smile. She certainly looked more rested than usual, like she had stopped holding something in and her face was almost radiant with a fireful flyshine in her expression.
“What?” Silver Wolf asked. “Did something good happen?”
“Mhm,” Firefly leaned in the doorway, still smiling. “I should thank you for it, actually. Last night, Stelle and I—”
“Actually, on second thought—good for you two, but I don’t wanna hear about it!”