Created Opportunity

Strange Smile tapped away at his keyboard. Several messages appearing in a chatting platform.

Strange Smile: Anyone found anything?

Simon: There isn't anything about Critical Shot anywhere. Granted he did say it was an old account.

Strange Smile: It's still weird. I don't recall knowing a Pro Gunner who played like that.

Lemon: Could he be a foreign expert? Would explain why he only typed.

Strange Smile: Combing through foreign websites sounds painful. I don't speak any other languages.

Rue Fool: Why not upload a video of him? Surely someone would recognize that player?

Lemon: I didn't record the encounter.

Strange Smile: Neither did I.

Simon: Same.

Rue Fool: . . . I did?

A thud could be heard. Strange Smile smacked his desk in frustration before rapidly typing.

Strange Smile: And you didn't mention it?!

Rue Fool: The camerawork is poor. I had to keep looking towards you guys unless you died.

Strange Smile: Send it!!

Rue Fool: Okay sheesh.

A video was uploaded to the chat and Strange Smile didn't hesitate to watch it. Growing frustrated at the constant camera movement he almost typed a comment. Towards the last few seconds however, he was able to see just how brilliant the play was.

Critical Shot seemed to move so calmly through the mannequins. Spinning about those two handguns fired constantly. Occasionally a strange visual glitch would appear in their hands as they reloaded. Rapidly editing the video Strange Smile reuploaded it to the chat.

Strange Smile: We should post this.

Simon: I'll upload it to my sites.

Lemon: Same.

Rue Fool: As you know I don't deal with social medias.

Strange Smile: I'll upload it on your behalf then.

Soon enough the video was posted on sites. Catching the eye of a few some traction was gained on it. Slowly this snowballed, but it wouldn't gain much attention until hours later. In the meantime he returned to the chat.

Strange Smile: Right, so we doing some dungeons?

Rue Fool: Are we still looking for a fifth?

Strange Smile: Moon isn't on. . .

Rue Fool: Hasn't been for a bit.

Strange Smile: It's fine!

Moving applications Strange Smile launched Fractured Worlds. Upon loading in he checked his friends list, and to his surprise Critical Shot was on! It had been a couple of days since they played and Strange Smile had given up on doing so again. Rapidly messaging Critical Shot he sent an invite to do some dungeons. However the response he received was intriguing.

Critical Shot: Trouble

No punctuation? The last time this happened Critical Shot rapidly turned around the dungeon. . . Strange Smile rapidly sent another response.

Strange Smile: Coords? If you need help.

To his surprise a set of coordinates appeared in his inbox. Informing the rest of the party he rapidly summoned his mount to move. His mind turned upon thinking of what Critical Shot could possibly be doing.

Just earlier. . .

Nimin sat down and breathed a sigh of relief, "It's done!"

He had moved into his new apartment. He had organized the inside and put together his new gaming setup. It had taken several hours for everything to be as he liked, and now it was finished. Now that this issue had been resolved Nimin decided to hop onto the game and begin organizing his future plans.

What was the most important was figuring the materials for editing his weapons. It was too risky trying to obtain the currently best weapons, since their drop rate was too low. If he had remained in the older servers that wouldn't have been too large of an issue. However the eyes on older servers was too few, and it would be harder to gain the eye of a professional team there.

Thus he would upgrade his current weapons! The attributes certain materials have were already available for the majority to view. Certain materials were better used for armor, others for weapon parts. Currently he needed to figure out what build he needed to work towards. If he took Quick Swap into consideration, he had a significant amount of work ahead of him.

Logging in he tested a few things on his new PC to make sure it was working properly. Upon verifying this he opened Critical Shot's status and began to make a document. Nimin wrote down the weapon stats and various different weapons he could obtain. Additionally he took note of different ideas from what he knew, and their potential changes. Organizing his future Skill set he then heard something occur in the game.

When he logged out of the dungeon it had put him at the entrance. The entrances to dungeons were not safe zones, and PvP could occur there. However that was often an unspoken rule. If broken, it would have you targeted. Relying on this rule Nimin let Critical Shot remain still at the entrance while he adjusted the document.

To his surprise, a group of players were attacking the gathering. Level 50 wasn't the most common level, thus the gathering wasn't large. It seemed a team of level 55 players were assaulting the group. Rapidly fights began to spread out as other players jumped on the assaulters, however these players were not coordinated. Rapidly it turned into a brawl.

Controlling Critical Shot Nimin intended to just slip out of the commotion. Yet just as he was about to exit some player attacked him from behind. His fingers flew across his new keyboard as he made a response.

Critical Shot: I'm just trying to leave!

His eyes narrowed suddenly, the username above the assaulting player was one of the instigators. Further reinforced by the level 55 next to it. Seems he wasn't able to slip away after all. As he saw the instigator swinging again Nimin decided to act. Critical Shot seemed to snap to the side and dodged a swinging sword. Rapidly following Critical Shot crouched towards the ground and performed a sweep kick. By the time it landed the instigator was still processing what happened, "Eh? Snap Dodge?"

Snap Dodge! A special movement technique that required some practice, but was relatively easy to perform. There was two different methods to dodge in Fractured Worlds. First was a standard dodge, and the other was rolling. Upon dodging the controlled character would step towards the direction desired very quickly. This was often used to surround the enemy. The other was rolling, when performing a dodge you could use the dodge button again to roll, allowing you to move away faster. After some practice the playerbase found a hidden tech the game was capable of regarding the dodge.

Most moves a player can do can be canceled with another input. If you canceled a dodge almost immediately, the character would move half the distance of a normal dodge instantly. This was deemed a bug and was fixed, but after outrage it was reversed. In exchange the stamina consumption of using the Snap Dodge was doubled. Thus making its usage difficult to spam and abuse. To the average playerbase, it was a way to dodge bullets. To Pro players, it was a way to create an opening!

The instigator was falling to the ground, Critical Shot seemed to leap upwards and delivered a powerful knee to their stomach, sending them flying into a group of players. A standard Gunner combo! The Skill {Sweep Kick} and {Knee!} were low leveled Skills designed for moments like these. Their goal was to create distance, {Sweep Kick} would knock them off their feet, and {Knee!} did heavy knockback. Just as Nimin was about to continue retreating, another one of the instigators came to avenge their comrade.

"Is this necessary??", Nimin couldn't help but complain.

Bang-!

The instigator was a Manifest class attempting to swing at Nimin. Using a bullet to cancel the basic swing attack Nimin then controlled Critical Shot to roll through an approaching group. Putting distance between him and the instigators he continued his retreat. Managing to maneuver through the chaos while taking only minor damage he reached outside of it. Several other players were running away as well, unwilling to take part.

Pressing various inputs Critical Shot pulled out the cylinder for the street bike. The animation was much slower due to being in combat, a feature meant to prevent people from running. Crouching down to place it on the ground a gunshot rang and hit the side of Critical Shot, blood bursting forth.

A voice spoke through the chaos, "I want those items! Never seen them before."

"Damn, opportunists."

Some players would intentionally cause chaos like this to pick up dropped equipment. It seems Nimin had manage to catch their watchful eye for rare items. It was understandable, currently powerful low level items were worth quite a bit. Especially to rich tycoons who wanted the strongest gear to level up faster.

An enemy Gunner, the one who had shot him, pulled out a grenade. Critical Shot's hands had a visual glitch as they grabbed onto a pair of handguns. Raising the gun he shot the grenade right as it left the Gunner's hands, causing it to explode in their face. Grenades couldn't hurt teammates, but it could hurt the Gunner who threw it.

A thin stream of smoke rose from the barrel of Critical Shot's beretta m9s. He had done this all in a dazzling speed, showcasing his skill and accuracy. Remembering the personality he designed for this character he rapidly typed a message.

Critical Shot: Still want to continue?