In a forest of an unknown world, a cyan-haired cat girl within turquoise costume is sitting on a branch of a tree for quite some time now.
Her eyes are preying upon a group of wolves, swarming around a field as if they are guarding something with their wild eyes.
Or maybe that's how this wolves acted naturally.
Either way, the girl seems to have confirmed something and turns toward a group of people, nodding at them and signalling them of something.
The group quickly jumps out of there, pulling out blades and go for the kill onto the pack.
The girl also jumps out of her hiding, pulling out a bow out of nowhere and starts pulling the string without any arrow on it. She instead shoots out energy arrows that goes straight onto the enemies' temples, not missing even one shot.
Each of the wolves are being defeated and each of them are being destroyed into… shattered data? No corpse around?
Not to mention, those people have coloured bars with names on top of them.
Wait… this is… this place is…
Ah, it must be one of those place. A world of virtual gaming.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Thank you, Sinon-san!"
The group waves at the cyan-haired girl, waving her goodbye as he waves back at them before walking away from there.
Alone, she walks into a tavern and found herself sitting close to a blonde girl in green.
The girl notices of her, quickly greeting her, "Sinon-chan, did you just returned from helping out a team?"
She nods, "What about you?"
"Me? Nothing much. I mean, I joined Sakuya-san's raid party and try to clear out the upper floors, but we failed."
"Sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. It's not like this has never happened before. It's just a norm in all Virtual MMO."
"I see," Sinon nods as she tries to open up a different conversation topic, "Leafa, any news from your brother?"
"Nothing new. He seems to be really having fun there with Asuna."
"He quickly forget about us, huh? Still, he has already in his last year, right?"
"He won't be going home any time soon, it seems."
Sinon stares at her, being intrigued by her last words, "What do you mean?"
"I heard that he has involved himself with a new hardware development. From what he told me before, he is researching on ways to let people seeing computer applications with your own eyes while seeing the real world at the same time. It's aug-something…"
"Do you mean, augmented reality?"
"Yeah, that one! He might as well not returning home from America."
"Busy with his work, huh? Well, I gotta go. See you again later."
"Good night!" she waves at her as Sinon waves back at her, walking deep into the tavern.
She enters a room and pushes a button on an interface, quickly finding herself opening her eyes and pulls out the glasses around her head and grabs the nearest glasses to replace it.
Sinon, now having her hair black, pulls herself from the bed, moving toward the kitchen close by as she opens up the fridge, looking for something as a consumption.
She sees a cake inside there and grabs the plate underneath, putting it onto the table and starts munching on the cake.
Her eyes wander around, noticing a group photo of her with others, quickly find herself reminiscing the past.
She remembers how she befriended a group of gamers, thanks to a certain someone and found herself playing a fantasy MMORPG called Alfheim Online or ALO alongside. She is a gamer herself, but the game she played before is more of a cyberpunk setting called Gun Gale Online or GGO but she only played that for an entirely different reason.
She did played GGO once in a while, but that only happens if she desired to play all by herself. It's different with a group of similar-interest friends.
That being said, the leader of the team and his princess has long gone from the team, advancing himself to study in mechatronic far away from there and now the team just… disbanded.
Each of them are now playing separately and she now plays ALO similar to GGO; alone as a mercenary to other groups.
Others did their own stuff. One person taking care of both virtual tavern and a real world's bar. One becomes a blacksmith in-game. Some just… joined a team of their own.
She pulls out her phone, checking out news of whatever she can find and quickly noted on a gaming tournament called Bullet of Bullets or BOB. It's a contest for GGO gamers.
Hmm? A female win the latest one? In a sausage fest game? Quite a rare sight, even for her.
LLEN, huh? She would like to meet this girl and have a friendly match with her. Must be interesting to fight a fellow female gun user.
Well, it's not like this is going to happen. All of this current activity that happens right now has already happened.
Yes, you just read a flashback.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The real Shino Asada wakes up after hearing an alarm clock as she quickly turning it off and looks all over the different room.
Rubbing her cyan hairs slowly, she pulls herself up and walks toward where the bathroom.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shino has already cleaned herself up nicely, now wearing a white shirt with green cardigan around her. She also include a scarf around her face to cover it for some reason.
Her feet slowly brings her toward a tall building in which she enters it through the main door as she approaches a receptionist, "I have an appointment with… em…" she pulls out a card as she reads the name aloud, "Saito Aiman?"
"Please wait a moment."
Shino lets herself leaning forward on the desk as her eyes move all over the place, observing the whole building while still waiting for the receptionist to finish her works.
She then heard a male voice right beside her asking another receptionist nearby, "Can I meet Saito Aiman, please?"
"Do you have an appointment with him?"
"Yes."
"Please wait for a while."
Another person is meeting the same person as she does? Who could that be?
Shino quickly turns around, seeing a man in dark blue coat standing beside her. He notices of her sight as he smiles at her.
She just looks away, not wanting to make any unnecessary interaction. She isn't supposed to be doing that here after all.
The receptionist has finally puts down her phone as she turns toward both of them, "Mr Saito would like to meet you two in his office."
Them both? Is he there for the same reason as she is, whatever it is? She thought she's here for something secret. Together with him, perhaps?
Shino quickly walks away from there as she found herself following the man till both of them enters a lift, going for the highest floor.
The man turns toward her, calling out to her, "Hi."
She turns toward him, nodding but not speaking for she sees it as irrelevant to start a conversation.
But he sees otherwise, "I'm Shraffe Kyu. You are?"
"Shino. Shino Asada."
"Cool. I have never seen your face around here before. Are you new here?"
"Yes, I am."
"You are new here yet you've been called by the CEO of this company himself? That is a rare occasion."
"What do you mean?" she turns toward him, wondering what he is trying to talk about.
"I mean, even though the CEO is pretty friendly and all, not everybody can just waltz in into his office and say hi to him. The highest floor of this building; the 50th floor only has two people working in there; the man himself and his assistance. Not to mention, even the highest ranking agents won't be called out casually by him."
"For everybody here, he is just as enigmatic as his true origin."
"What about you?" she asks him a question.
"The same goes for me too. I am not as old as most people here but one year should is quite something in this line of work. Not to mention, he is one of those people "lucky" enough to be recruited directly by him."
"Why do you emphasized on the world "lucky"?"
"No reason."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
"Come in."
Both Shino and Shraffe enters an office through a door after being led by a female in black uniform as she bows toward a man at the desk, walking out of there as soon as she can.
"Ah, finally!" the man smiles, looking at the two, "WHAT's Kuala Lumpur branch's best agent and our newest recruit."
Best agent? She wonders as she takes a look at him. He doesn't look like the "best" at all.
"You know I'm the only agent in this branch, right?"
Huh?
"The only one?" she springs the question toward him out loud as he quickly responds with, "This place has the least percentage of being attacked among all of the World Hopping Association the Third's branches. People are literally avoiding themselves from working here."
"Because there are no enemies?"
"There are enemies. It's just that this place is not as glamorous as those heroes you watched on TV. We don't have to fight a variety of specialized enemies using different types of tactics and eventually moving on to a big final battle that will threaten the core of the world itself if one mistake ever appears on our side."
"Just like any typical superhero stories?"
"Yup. Just like them."
"Which is why I am going to start WHAT's very first secret unit against the threat of Terrors!" the man at the desk speaks up cheerfully and looking excited, standing up as he continues, "It is time for us to stand up against those creatures from different dimensions!"
But in all that moment of ham, he quickly notices of the two looking away from there, disinterested by his words as he quickly leans forward toward them, "What is with you two? Cheer up and embrace this branch's main goal!"
"No," Shraffe sternly responds, looking straight at him, startling him.
Saito sighs as he then turns toward Shino, "I just wanted to make an awesome black ops team like the elites… Still, this brings me to a different matter. Shino Asada, do you accept my offer to be an agent of this branch?"
"Wait, what?" Shraffe is in shock, turning toward her and turns back toward him, "Sir, are you sure it is a good idea for this branch to have another agent?"
"You are just jealous because someone awesome is taking over your role as the protector of this place."
"Like I said just now, there is not much enemy in this place! We are pretty much mirroring those old school tokusatsu shows where there are only one hero at a time and one enemy popping up between appearances. The scale here is pretty low to even consider a newbie."
Saito closes his eyes, thinking of something, "Well, I have an epiphany."
"What could that be?"
"The only reason why those enemies of ours are not so focused here unlike other locations is because they would like other places to be a distraction in order to divert WHAT's attentions to those place instead of here."
"That's stupid. If you want to do such distraction thing, you might as well not attack this place and build up armies instead for a full scale assault."
"That's the point. The only reason why we don't have as much enemies as others is because they keeping their ranks for that purpose."
"And why would they send one at a time?"
"Someone needs to keep updating the intel, right?"
"Pretty sure that's not gonna happen."
Saito only chuckles for that, giving a different statement instead, "Still, do you even know who the person right next to you is?"
"We've already introduce each other. I know her name already."
"Did you know that she is an irregularity like you?"
Shraffe turns his head in shock once more, looking at her intently.
Shino has her attention perks up, "Irregularity?"
He replies, "That means we were both been forced out of our own worlds and never able to return home immediately. We aren't supposed to be here, unlike other world travellers WHAT regularly taking care of, hence the title 'irregularities'."
"Sounds weird being called that."
"That was supposed to be an offensive slur for people like us. Supposedly the trope namer decides that we are just a bunch of intruders living in their own lovely world. Next thing you know, it has become an official terms in describing us."
Saito mutters, "Please do not mind that. Those who called you two that are just being rude. Some of us know too well of your situation. Enough chit chat about that. How about back to business?"
Shino quickly agrees, "Yes, about that. What do you want me for?"
"I want you to work as one of the agents of this new ops."
"A new agent?" Shraffe wonders, "It's not that I am not agreeing to this, but why recruit a new one for the cause? Why don't you just go and ask any other agents to join you?"
Shino questions him, "What exactly is this new ops does?"
Saito responds, "It's a top secret mission. I can only tell you once you've agree to join us. What can I say is that the stake is really high for this one."
Shraffe is now wondering something, "So you are not just playing around or something?"
"No. This is way bigger than you thought."
"I'm intrigued. I might as well just join you up for whatever this journey leads to."
Shino looks at both of them slowly as she turns toward the man on the desk, "I don't know if I can actually fight or not. You should have known that about me."
"What do you mean?" the man beside her stares at her.
Saito quickly responds to him, "Haven't you realized already? She's your favorite waifu from Sword Art Online anime."
Waifu?
"Wait, what?" he turns toward the man, before looking at her and staring deeply toward her as he turns back at him, "Sinon?"
He looks back at her one more time as he seems to have realized something, "Ah, the cyan eyes and the cyan hair give it away. She looks different here though."
"Well, this world isn't 2D."
"I guess so."
Shino ignores them, somehow assuming that even Shraffe knows who she is, "I don't really know if this body of mine is an avatar from one of the Virtual MMO that I've played or my real body."
Shraffe comments on that statement, "But you always had that colour as your hair in a game, right? Did you dyed your hair to match your avatar's hair before?"
"That's the point. I don't remember anything before I found myself here. Which body is this? How do I get here? There's just so many question unanswered."
Shraffe mutters, "I guess you need to join us after all."
"What?"
"All of us have our own questions we would like to find. Some of those questions are similar to yours. I too would like to find the reason of being in here."
Saito stands up, "About your fighting capabilities, do not worry about that. We have our own states-of-the-art technology that is able to cook you an equipment suitable for your fighting style. In fact," he pulls out a briefcase onto his desk from the floor near him, "I've already asked for the R&D department to commission an equipment for you to fight as an agent, in case you ever agree to be one."
"You seems confident on that…"
Shraffe mutters, having a sweat on his head, "Are you really that desperate?"
Saito then pushes it toward her, speaking up to her, "Now, how about a test drive of this thing?"
"Are you sure? Can you even give that to someone who isn't part of WHAT freely?" she glares at him, looking at him suspiciously.
Shraffe sighs, "I'm sure it's gonna be fine. This place has the least attention from the HQ after all. They won't notice even if we bomb this place down."
"That sounds a bit too much for a sarcasm."
"Because it's not."
"Calm down, you two," Saito chuckles, "Shino Asada, you can take this case and see what's inside of it yourself. Shraffe, you shall be her supervisor for this one."
"Sure, why not? It's not like I actually have anything else to do."
Shino stares at him, "Are all your words sounds like a sarcasm or it's just me?"
"No, that one is a sarcasm."
"I swear, all your words sound the same to me."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SLURRP!
Shino looks around of where she is right now.
Shraffe and her are now sitting inside a bakery with him enjoying a cup of hot cocoa as he comments on his drink, "Man, I have no idea why I keep on ordering hot drinks every time I got here. I really need to stop doing that."
He seems to be struggling with making the drink as cold as possible, blowing onto it.
She leans forward, speaking up to him, "Why are we here?"
"Because this is the safest place to talk about work within WHAT. You see those workers over there?"
Her eyes quickly move toward a man and a woman chatting near the counter, wearing white uniform and occasionally taking orders from the customers.
Shraffe continues, "They are also like us. They are forced to stay here till WHAT officially found their home world."
"Are they working with WHAT too?"
"Nope. They are independent fighters. Yet we will always make sure to ally ourselves with as many people we can find as possible."
He then leans closer as he mutters, "Now, open that briefcase up. I would like to see what abomination that guy made for you."
"Ab-abomination?"
"Just open it already. The anticipation is killing me."
She slowly puts the case onto the table, unlocking it as she opens it up for both of them to see.
"Well… this looks like…"
"The AmuSphere back in my world," Shino cuts his words off.
What they see is a circular ring that looks like it could be fitted around their head and become a clichéd futuristic glasses from the movies.
Shraffe mutters, looking at it, "I guess this is made looking like this just to make you feel at home."
Shino pulls the visor out, checking every inch of its structure before starting to comment on it, "But how do I use this thing? It has no wire like the one in my world."
"This isn't made for game playing like before. This is your equipment during battle against the enemy."
"Weapon?" she turns toward him.
Shraffe smiles at her, "Have you watched any of the Japanese superheroes kids love to watch? Notice any resemblances among them?"
She is triggered to try and remember anything. What she can figure out is that, "Those heroes have… masks? I remember seeing one with skin tight and all. It's pretty popular with young boys."
"That's what most WHAT's combatant agents wear during fight. It's a flexible skin tight material bonded on your body, letting you to move around without any problem while protecting you from some of the attacks. Sometimes death-triggering impact can be turned into a normal hit when it come into contact with the clothes. Of course, each agents have costumes that define us in term of strength, weapons or even the origins of ourselves."
Shino wonders of something, putting the visor around her.
From her point of view, she sees that even though the transparency of the visor seems dark from outside, she can clearly see everything around her as if she did not wear that at all.
There are also words forming on the interface as she tries to read them, "Agent Driver Type-SAO Activated… Ah, it's already activated? Without a cable or anything?"
"The technology that WHAT has is far more superior than the rest of this world," Shraffe mutters, "Just treat it as a computer on your glasses. Like Goggle Glass."
"What?" she asks him, confused as she quickly ignores his words, muttering by herself, "So, how do I get my costume?"
Shraffe is now holding a manual he pulled out of the case, "It has voice activation. You need to say the magic word."
"What is it?"
A beeping noise is suddenly heard with Shraffe pulls out his phone, looking at the screen, "The enemy is here."
"Here?" Shino tries to get a confirmation, "Right here?"
"Close by," he then turns toward her with a smile, "Say, how about a test on that power you have?"
Shino looks down toward the visor, ponders of whether or not she should try that thing.
The cashiers stopped chatting when the female one pointing out toward outside, having the male one turning toward the same direction as well. Both are now seeing a group of people running away in panic all over the place.
Shraffe did not notice of such commotion; or rather, he do not want to notice as he keeps his eyes straight toward her, not even once glaring at the window.
Shino really did took her sweet time staring at the visor.
She suddenly grabs it as she quickly turns toward the window, now seeing something grey and bulky not far from there as she stands up, "Wh-what was that?"
"A Xenos."
"Xenos?" she turns toward him for a clarification.
"The enemy that has been attacking this world. They are also the one that attacked our worlds."
"Wh-wh-what did you just said?"
"No time. Do you want to fight or not?" he ignores her question, turning toward her, hoping for her to give an immediate answer.
"I… I…"
"Yes or no?"
"Argh!" she groans, grabbing the visor and runs out of it.
Reaching the outside of the bakery, she has a hard time believing her eyes. What she sees is a grey dog-headed humanoid walking on its two hind legs while having two normal human arms. Owh, and that thing seems to be wearing a huge bulky grey armor around its abdomen and a leather metal pants.
Shraffe reaches toward her side, speaking close to her, "That's a Bio-type Xenos. Expect it to act exactly like what it looks like."
"Like a German Shepherd?"
"I guess. I'm not good with dog breeds. See if you can handle this. Put the visor on and shout 'Link Start'."
Shino quickly wears the visor once more as she holds onto the rim tight, shouting out loud, "LINK START!"
VOICE ACCEPTED.
NAME: SHINO ASADA.
STORY: SWORD ART ONLINE.
INITIATE GUN GALE MODE.
Shino quickly felt as if her body is levitating, with her feet few inches away from touching the ground. What she didn't see is that her body seems to be having green shading all over her. Her normal clothing seems to have been changed into a desert-colored military outfit and combat boots with a white muffler around her neck.
Two spirals appear around her abs area that split into two as each of them move away from each other. At the same time, her costume has been changed as the gap between the spirals widen into what appears to be a desert-colored skin tight outfit with some additional cyan knee pads, elbow pads and shoulder pads. There are also white tight vest covering her chest. Her head is now not just having the visor, but a helmet with a bigger dark visor. The helmet looks similar to a military's helmet with closed mouthpiece.
As she lands on the ground with the spirals and the shading disappear, she instinctively shoves her right hand to her side, now having a sniper rifle appears inside her hand. Shino then twirls the gun around, ending it with a firm hold at the trigger.
She quickly take notice of her new appearance, "This is…"
"A combat suit made for you," Shraffe smiles at her, moving his eyes toward the manual inside his hand, "I guess you are being now known as Story Linker…Hecate."
"Hecate, huh?" she wonders as she now takes a look at the rifle, "This is… PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate II… You guys even made this gun real… just for me?"
"A sniper can't go into the battlefield without his trusty sniper rifle, right? Now go."
She nods at him, running forward toward the dog as she pulls out a pistol out from the left of her waist, gunning down the Xenos, gaining its attention toward her.
At that moment, she starts jumping over it, shooting its head and lands on the other side, jumping away from there.
Shino seems to have notice something from her movement, "Is this suit… gave me more flexibility. I cannot do that jump in real life."
The dog seems angered by her and starts roaring, now charging toward her as she aims her rifle toward the dog.
Without any hesitation, she starts spamming onto its head, slowing it down and jumps away from there as it goes blind, shooting it with her pistol.
The dog now stops, looking confused with Sinon points her rifle back toward it.
With her skilful precision, she pulls the trigger as the bullet not hitting its left leg, forcing it falls onto its hands.
"Now!" Shraffe shouts at her, "'Final' is for the finishing move!"
"Final."
ZEUNIUM BULLET LOADED.
Zeunium? Whatever. She has no time to think about the bullet.
With a single pull on the trigger, a loud noise is shot out even with the silencer is still on the rifle as the bullet quickly turns into a bright blue laser that penetrates the dog's body, blowing it up on the spot.
"Great job, Hecate!" Shraffe moves close to her, having a big smile on his face.
She nods at him, now looking back at herself, "Maybe I should join you guys."
"Well then, welcome to the team."
Both of them shake their hands with her costume disappears back to her civilian attire, also having a smile on her face.
If you guys have read my last story, Story Linker Black Swordsman, yes, this is a remake of said story. I remake every single of my stories to fix any continuity error and to suit it with any future planning better.
This story will now be focusing solely on Sinon or Shino Asada from SAO. Other characters from the same timeline, the Extreme Hero will appear occasionally but she will get more focus here.
For those who are Kirito's fan, he won't be kicked out just like this. He will now share a story with Kuroyukihime from Accel World in Story Linker Black Blades, which will be finished up any time.
Next: Wonder what's in her head when she decide to join WHAT? Let's dive deep back into the past of what sort of life she had post-anime. Also, she is introduced with other characters from the same team.