As you can probably tell from my previous fics, I really like OCs and OC pairings, so this has both. Now that that's out of the way, this story takes place several months after the Phantom Bullet Arc of SAO II, with Kirito and Sinon returning to GGO for a new tournament, but immediately finding a new rival who's made it to the top in their absence.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online or SAO II.

Sinon's POV

I opened my eyes to the dim poluted sky of Gun Gale Online. It's been a while. I looked beside me as Kirito spawned in. "I missed this game," I sighed.

He smiled. "Yeah, me too. But I'm only here for the Multi Threat. I can't leave Asuna and Yui for too long."

The Multi Threat; a new tournament meant for entire squadrons to enter. The only squadron with a player standing at the end of the finals won 1,000,000 credits for each player. If we got those credits, they would convert to Yuld when we transfered back to ALO. "We should go register."

He shook his head. "I think I'll need to get used to this game again. How about we go out into the field?" He quickly grabbed a buggy and we took off toward the city limits.

"I can see a group over there." I pointed to the west. "I'll snipe while you go in close." He nodded and took off. I aimed at the group and waited until he had their attention to fire. I hit a wrecked car beside them and it exploded, killing two and injuring more. Kirito took the chance to get in close and start slashing at them with his lazer sword. Before long there was only one; a seemingly unarmed man in a cloak. "I don't think he has anything on him, but you should still be careful. I'll fire at him to try and draw out his weapons. If he doesn't have anything that could be a problem, you can-."

"I think he's surrendering." I looked closer with my scope and saw that he was holding both hands up. "Easy there, we won't hurt you if you take off your hood." He remained still. Two hatches suddenly opened on his palms, and a glowing liquid spilled out; red from the right, yellow from the left. The liquid floated from the ground and into his hands, then shaped themselves into swords.

"Plasma Gloves! Kirito, get out of there!" I fired at the man, but he slashed with both blades, cutting my bullet into fourths, then one curled into a ball and he hurled it at me. I shot at it, hoping to blow it up, but the bullet just passed right through it. I got up and tried to run, but it hit me in the back, exploding on impact.

Kirito's POV

"Sinon!" I turned to him and raised my blade as more plasma fell from his palm and formed another sword. "Who are you?"

He pointed the red sword at me. "Eternal Blaze; remember it." He lowered his swords. "How about you take the first shot? You've got a gun, right?" I nodded and pulled it out. "Try shooting me, then we can cross swords." I carefully aimed and fired. He turned into a blur, then suddenly he was right in front of me, holding my bullet between two fingers. He flicked it into my face and backed up. "Nice shot. It's too bad I maxed out my agility, or I'd be dead." He raised his swords. "I'm a man of my word, so let's do this SAO style, Gilded Hero."

SAO? Is he a survivor, too? He ran at me. I raised my lazer sword and parried his first strike, but the second took of my left arm. I slashed at him and made contact with his neck, but it went through the cloak and bounced off. "What?"

He took advantage of my surprise and took of my remaining arm. "I guess I should have warned you that I've maxed out more than one skill. You'd need max strength to sever anything from me with melee." He kicked me to the ground. "I have a deal for you."

"Huh?"

He opened his inventory and pulled something out. A dark metal sword replaced bis Plasma Gloves. "Take this." He dropped it on me, then pulled out a med kit and healed me. "If you figure out what's so special about this and comtact me before the Multi Threat, I'll join your squadron. If you want me, of course." He started to walk away.

"Wait." He turned back. "You called me the Gilded Hero. Where you in SAO?"

He stared at me before answering. "No, but someone really close to me was. On that last day a year ago, I was greeted by his dead body." He looked into the sky. "You know, I think I should thank you for clearing the game. I thought I'd never see him again. His body went missing when the game started." He turned away again. "I think I've said enough. You know my name, so contact me if you want to take me up on my offer." He started walking toward the city.

I took the buggy back to the respawn point and found Sinon waiting for me. "Did you beat him?" I shook my head. "So he just let you go?"

I pulled out the sword he had given me. "He gave me this and told me to figure out what's so special about it. But it just seems like a regular sword." I slashed it through the air, but instead of just cutting though nothing, a thin line appeared in the air. I looked trough it with one eye and saw an abyss filled with flying numbers and letters. "What the hell?"

Sinon came and looked through. "Is that... data?" We both looked at the sword, then looked around to make sure we weren't spotted. "You'd better put that away." I did as she said and we retreated from the hole in the game. "We'll wonder about that later. For now, let's focus on the Muli Threat. We need to have a squadron of at least three to enter, so we need to find someone we know. Dyne, maybe?"

I jumped in surprise as I realized something. "I think I understand the rest of what he said now!"

She looked at me questioningly, then glared. "No. Absolutely not."

"But he's the only player in any game I don't think we'll have a chance beating. If he enters with another squadron we're doomed."

"That bastard blew me up and gave you a glitched sword he probably hacked in!"

"We attacked him and you can't hack a VRMMO without being as tech-savy as Akihiko Kayaba."

"Well we don't even know his name. How can we contact him?"

"Actually, he gave me his name before he left; Eternal Blaze."

"Fine, I'll search him." Sinon opened the messaging section of her menu and searched the name. "Huh?!"

I looked at her display and saw what surprised her. "Number one in GGO?!" Next to his name was a one and any info he had allowed posted, which seemed to be his entire file besides his inventory. Max Health, Strength, Agility, Acrobatics, and Sniping and terrifyingly high Resistance. "Can we call him now?"

"Fine." She opened the messaging GUI and called him. A line appeared. "Blaze, you there?"

The line spiked as he responded. "Yeah. Who's this?"

"Sinon, Kirito's friend."

"Wait, are you that sniper bitch I blasted?"

"Don't think I'm gonna forget that. Anyway, Kirito wants to talk to you."

I stepped forward. "Hey."

"Yo. Did you figure out what that sword was?"

"Not really. Why did it cut through the game?"

He was silent for a second. "I don't want a GM listening in, so how about we talk about this in person?"

"So, where do you want to meet?" The audio message suddenly closed and a text message replaced it, with a city, address, and time. "He wants to meet IRL?"

Sinon sent the message to her printer, then opened her options menu. "Well, we'd better log out if we want to make it in time; he only gave us an hour." She logged out and I quickly followed.

An hour later, I met up with Shino in front of a cafe at the address. "He'll probably stand out so that we notice him." We walked in and looked around. We didn't have to look for long, though, as we noticed a guy with a black hoodie with flame designs on the trim. His hood was pulled up, concealing his face.

We sat down with him. "Sinon and Kirito?" he asked. We both nodded. He pulled down his hood, revealing a white face with matching white hair and red eyes; albino. "Before I explain my actions in GGO, I want to make something clear. I'd rather not reveal my name for my own reasons, and I won't tell you who my friend was in SAO. Now, about the sword..."

Shino glared at him. "Yeah, why did you give him a glitched sword?"

He shook his head. "It isn't glitched; it's more of a access code made into an item."

I was confused. "How'd you get that, and why give it to me?"

He folded his hands. "I was data-mining and found an error in the game. It seemed small, but I felt obliged to look into it. What I found was pretty bad." He pulled out a few papers and laid them on the table. "Apparently someone was trying hack the game. These papers have the error code copied onto them. I ran them through a scanner and was given this." He took out another slip of paper with a message on it: Access granted to Player ID Kirito. "Then a code bar popped up. I input your name and my web cam turned on. My face appeared on the screen, then it told me that I was denied access. I hacked my way a little farther in and found what looked like a Virtual Reality map with two bosses from SAO, both of which you should be familiar with: The Gleam Eyes and The Skull Reaper. I figured that you could use that sword to get into the game's data and find the error. I made it a sword because you'll probably have to fight them, and the GGO weapons aren't as effective on them as SAO weapons."

I nodded. "So I assume you gave it my Elucidator's stats with an editted model to avoid being recognized."

"Bingo."

Shino cut in. "Now that that's out of the way, why did you offer to join our squadron?"

He chuckled. "I wanted to go in with last year's BoB winners. Plus, I wanted to pay back Kirito for helping everyone in SAO, even if he couldn't save my friend."

Suddenly curious, I asked, "Did I know him?"

He nodded. "He was with the Knights of the Blood Oath."

An idea popped into my head. "Was he Godfree?" He shook his head. "Kuradeel?"

"I said Blood Oath, not Laughing Coffin. Now stop asking, I said I wouldn't tell you."

The cafe door flew open. Everyone turned to see two guys about our age walk in. Their eyes fell on Blaze and they walked over to us. "How's it goin', Yamato? Finally got some friends?"

Blaze refused to look at them. "Piss off, Koji. I'm busy."

They smirked. "What, feel safer since you've got friends with you? In case you didn't notice, your friends are a girl and a guy that could probably take one of us but not two."

Blaze sighed. "Kirito, this is Koji. His brother was one of the Laughing Coffin members you killed."

Koji looked at me in surprise. "K-Kirito?" His surprise turned to rage and he threw a punch at me. I caught it and knocked him to the ground.

"He attacked first," I pointed out. "I hate killing anyone, but I hate killing red players less." He stood up and left. "So, about your offer..."

"You don't want me, right?"

"Shut up, of course we-"

"Ahem!"

"-I do. You'll be a great asset." He looked suprised.

"Wait, what? I thought you wouldn't want me on your team after what I did to you guys."

I shrugged. "It's just a game. Forgive and forget, right?" I held out a fist.

He looked shocked, then smiled and bumped his fist against mine. "Right. Thanks." He looked at Shino. "And sorry for what I said over the message. Me and Blaze are more like two sides of a coin than the same person."

She nodded. "That's how me and Sinon usually are." She took a sip of her coffee. "Welcome to the team, Yamato."

He shook his head wildly. "Don't call me that! You weren't suppose to hear that!"

She shrugged. "Fine. So, what was with the cloak? To have max agility and only counter my shot at the last second, you must have more underneath."

He hesitated. "You can't tell anyone." We nodded. "Hyper-Mantle Cosmonaut Armor, Rank S."

I choked on my donut. "Seriously?! That's some of the best armor in the game!"

He laughed nervously. "Honestly, I'm not very good at getting rare items on my own, so I use real money to buy credits and buy the items or crafting materials off other players."

Shino looked at him in surprise. "You have enough money for that?"

He looked down sadly. "My brother had a pretty important job, so he shared his earnings with me and Mom."

I realized something. "Was he your friend who died in SAO?" He nodded. "Sorry, man. I didn't know he was that close to you."

He waved it off. "Anyway, I should get home. Mom gets worried easily. Will you guys be logged in tonight?"

"Yeah."

"Of course."

"Great. See you then." He got up and left, then came back in covering his eyes and grabbed a pair of sunglasses off the table. "Bad eyes." He put them on and left.

That night we met up in a small pub on a creepy alley. Blaze had his hood off this time, revealing a face identical to his IRL face. "So, what'ya think?"

"The pub or your face?" Sinon asked.

"The pub. My friend runs it and closes it down whenever I need to hide out here."

I looked at him sceptically. "Hide out?"

He sighed. "A bunch of idiots who want to buy my profile or items are always chasing me. When this place is closed, only people the owner sets to VIP can enter. Luckly I'm the only VIP. Unless you guys want me to talk to him about getting you on the list."

"It'll cost ye ten each time, though." We turned to see a man with a plain blue shirt and a black, obviously bullet-proof apron standing behind the counter.

Blaze waved. "Hey, Ian. I brought some friend from my new squadron for a private meeting."

The guy smiled. "I'll add'm and close up. And don't call me Ian, laddy; I'm The Great Odin."

"I'm never calling you that."

"You know someone from Ireland?" I asked.

Blaze nodded. "He's my house's groundskeeper, and he's acted like my dad ever since my real one took off."

"You have a groundskeeper?!"

He sighed. "My brother had a really good job. Now can we please stop talking about IRL? I don't want to get busted."

Sinon was more than happy to comply. "So, we need to make this official." She opened her menu and sent us each a squadron request. We accepted and she closed the menu. "Now, we'll need a name for the MT. Any ideas?"

"Black Fire?"

"What the ****, Blaze? That only fits you!"

I thought it over. "The Moonlit Soldiers?"

They both looked at me in surprise. "Where'd you come up with that?" Blaze asked.

"The first guild I joined in SAO was the Moonlit Black Cats. They were some of the best friends I've ever had, but in the end only I left the game. I kinda wanted to do something for them, but it wasn't till now that I saw an opportunity."

Sinon smiled. "The Moonlit Soldiers it is."

So, sorry about uploading so many fics in succession; I'm a bit bipolar and ideas just flow into my head 24/7. I intend to continue and finish most of them, though. So, till next time, seeya.