A Real Man's Charge
If that ever happened—if Marianne ever came running to me someday, all hwaaaah and teary-eyed—then every player in the game would paint a target on my back. That much was certain.
A portion of the Pirate Empress's fleet is currently passing through this area!
And right on cue, a message popped up saying part of Marianne's fleet was swinging through the neighborhood.
Even knowing my fleets would get ground into scrap for it, I decided this was the moment. I'd throw them at a chunk of Marianne's armada, burn through ships like kindling, and earn myself a free pass for later—so that even if the truth came out someday, I'd have an alibi ready. Time to put in some serious effooort.
This man right here—our commander.
And so, while Icarus busied himself turning his own fleets into fireworks material, slamming through preparations and closing the gallery window for a moment of focus, the gallery itself was…
[PPT image featuring a blue sea otter]
*Note: this is only the main force the Empress personally leads around
Battlecruiser: 1 (flagship, heavily modified)
Heavy Cruisers: 305
Cruisers: 705
Destroyers: 690
Frigates: 58
Corvettes: 12
As you can see, players have gotten shredded so hard that she's got more cruisers than small ships now.
At least one veteran clan nearly reset the main force's strength not long ago, and the clan coalition led by Arcadia ran a raid that cut her small-ship numbers way down.
But even so, she could still solo-wipe a decent-sized clan. Yeah.
The gallery was deep in discussion about the doomstack that had piled up and up under the Empress's main force.
Of course, nobody was actually flying out to scout it themselves—get anywhere near her and the aggro would lock on and you'd get obliterated. But since the whole thing was part of the Pirate Empress Raid event, the devs had slapped a debuff on her for being absurdly overtuned: her fleet's real-time position and status were broadcast for everyone to see.
Thanks to that, the gallery front page—and the broadcast feed linked to the global chat—was packed every single day. Analysts breaking down the Empress's main force and posting power estimates. Players who took those analysis posts and actually tried to theorycraft a clear. Serious raid-attempt types. Spectators munching popcorn while watching solo players and clans get hit-and-run into forced base-wide warps. And every other flavor of gawker in between. The whole scene was a noisy, bustling circus.
And today, as always, the broadcast was tracking the Pirate Empress's main force along its advance route…
When a tiny speck of a base appeared far off in the feed, the chat lit up.
The players watching the live feed offered their condolences to yet another nameless soul about to get hit-and-run into oblivion.
But only for a moment. Because fleets started launching from the base they'd just eulogized.
Blindsided by this sudden real-man energy, the spectators cracked open their popcorn and started munching in earnest.
Sure, anyone could see how this fight ended—an outsider might wonder why anyone would bother with popcorn for something this one-sided. But the Pirate Empress's combat style rarely produced flashy fleet battles, and even the veterans who could actually trade with her usually fought in the most boring, damage-minimizing ways imaginable. For an audience that had spent ages watching nothing worth the snack, the sight of some player charging in head-on, ready to burn everything, was genuinely impressive.
And one of those spectators suddenly had an idea: open a betting pool on how long this guy's fleet could actually hold out against the Empress.
The broadcast chat's response:
Genuine interest all around. But of course, the overwhelming majority bet that the player wouldn't last five minutes.
If a handful of oddballs and longshot disciples hadn't put money on the completely absurd outcome of a player victory, the chat betting system itself might have broken under the sheer one-sidedness of the odds.
For the record, most of the people calling it a longshot weren't actually thinking victory was possible—they were just goofing around. But among them, one person had bet on a win out of pure, baseless faith.
"I believe in him. Whatever it takes, he'll pull it off."
That fact was something no one currently in the chat would ever learn in their lifetime.
Anyway, with the bets locked in, the live audience settled in to watch what they expected to be a short, spectacular fleet battle, popcorn working overtime.
But as if determined to betray every expectation, the two fleets just kept closing. Closing. Closing some more.