Chapter 1: The Game with the Most Players
"Yo... everyone! Today marks the 8th anniversary of Chaos Dash! For eight whole years, we've been accompanied by the game that keeps winning the title of Best Competitive Game. And to celebrate this year's anniversary, two legendary players will go head-to-head in a friendly match—with a total prize pool of fifty thousand dollars!"
Chaos Dash has a few core mechanics you need to remember.
First, signature skills, often called sigs, have a 5-second cooldown. Their damage scales depending on your character's stats.
Second, there's the stock system—each character has three stocks per match. A stock is lost if you're knocked out or fall off the arena.
Third, knockouts depend on your HP bar color. If your bar is green, light attacks won't knock you out. But if it turns red, even a single hit can end your life.
Fourth, each character carries two weapons, and each weapon comes with its own unique set of skills.
That's it! Keep your spirit up, and as always welcome to Chaos Dash!
A sixteen-year-old girl with messy black hair and her shirt collar left casually unbuttoned walked lazily through the narrow alleys. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets, her expression unreadable—like she couldn't care less—but a faint smirk on her lips said otherwise. She was clearly excited, just not the type to show it.
In front of her stood an old internet café with dim lighting. A faded sign above the door read: "Cheap Net Café, Satisfaction Guaranteed."
"Yo... Jesi, night package again?" shouted the café attendant while fiddling with a dusty, wheezing CPU.
"Yup. I'm using computer number 8," Jesi replied casually, without hesitation.
She didn't wait for a response. She headed straight to her favorite machine, like it had always been her personal throne.
Jesi powered on the old PC, fingers tapping quickly on the keyboard as the login screen came to life.
Just as she was about to enter her credentials, her phone rang. The name on the screen made her eyes twitch—"Mom." She answered with a sigh.
"Jesi, where are you? Don't tell me you're at that trashy internet café again. How many times do I have to tell you—you're smart, don't waste what you've got. Come home now or I'm locking you out. You come back from school and just disappear to that—" The line cut off.
Jesi stared at the screen, eyebrows furrowed, her irritation barely contained.
"…Tch."
She shrugged it off and logged in, navigating swiftly to the game everyone had been buzzing about lately: Chaos Dash.
A message popped up almost instantly.
"Tia: Yo! You said you'd log into Chaos Dash. Don't forget our bet at school!"
She grinned, fingers dancing over the keys.
"Jesi: Relax. I'm cracked at this game. Just stock up on my instant noodles for a year. My ID's kurisu."
Launching into training mode, Jesi picked Naeve, the tutorial character known for wielding twin bots and a conductor's staff. She practiced a few basic combos—jump, side light—getting a feel for the fluidity and timing.
Once she was warmed up, she sent Tia a room invite.
The match began. Draft pick loaded. Jesi locked in Naeve, while Tia selected Khaine, a blindingly fast character specializing in dual blades.
The countdown ticked down on-screen. 3… 2… 1… Attack.
Even before the announcer's voice faded, both girls slammed D + Space, vaulting into the air to contest the spawn weapon.
Tia reached it first.
Without hesitation, she closed the distance and unleashed a brutal combo:
Right Slash, Side Light, Down Light.
The flurry of blades carved into Naeve, Jesi's HP bar flaring yellow with damage.
"Damn it, she got the weapon first—her combo locked me out. I couldn't even dash out of it."
Before Jesi could recover, Tia activated Khaine's signature ability, Frozen Eclipse, summoning a massive glacier from beneath her feet. Encasing her blades in frost, she leapt forward like a comet, the glacier following behind like a crashing meteor.
The ice struck Naeve cleanly.
A flash of blue, a shatter of light—and Jesi's first stock vanished from the screen.