Bardic Clearer

by SmilingJester

Grognark the Strong entered the game with the hopes and dreams of never being a damsel again. Then found his name taken, so he chose a different one and entered as a dwarf shaped square. Grizzly now was trapped inside the fresh slice of hell that is, Gun Gale Online, seeking to escape intact and doing his best not to abandon those in need. M for vice and violence

I got back into SAO, not the new stuff mind. I'm not a fan of the newer animes honestly. So I thought, 'I want to write some SAO... wait... I already have a story on Gun Gale, one of my oldest, if not the oldest.' So I decided to rewrite that crapshoot and this is what came out of it. Replaced an OC, Cheshire's gone unfortunately, I did like her, but eeeeeeehhh... Hope you enjoy and please review

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Chapter One - What the hell am I doing?

My eyes was filled with a dazzling image of the splash screen under the nerve gear over my eyes. "Gun Gale Online!" It read in big stylized letters over a steaming battlefield. The new and first shooter made in virtual reality. To be honest, I understood the controversy behind this. Not enough to object about the game, but I understood.

Some people were going to get Post-Truamatic Stress from this game. I knew that even before I had booted up the beta. To be shot wasn't going to go over well with some people and to feel every second of it if you were hardcore like I was going to be. I say that now, but I really knew what was up. I was an idiot and planned to play without pain dampeners to test things out. There was a twenty-five percent quality of item drop connected to the stat, so the pain was not without reward.

Oh, they didn't have that feature in the beta, that… that would have messed up their sales something fierce. No, just the normal one to thirty percent scale. It was like a difficulty system really. The scale was for the normal people and the "Alpha" mode was for dumb asses that deserved natural selection to take them out. Thank Christ there's modern medicine to keep my ass alive to get kicked again.

Ah… the beta. Such fond memories. First time I ever role played. Too bad it was as a damsel in distress calling for my prince to save me from the ne'er-do-wells. That got a laugh out of me and the people around before they pressed a pistol to my head and carelessly blew my brains out. Sadly, my guild subordinates and superiors just watched that happen. Good times. Strange times, dark times, but good times.

My eyes flickered to the timer to see that the official server start up was about to begin. When the clock hit thirteen, I barked out, "Link Start!" The splash screen accelerated towards my face and I felt my body deaden for a moment before I found myself standing in a full white room, looking at a log in screen floating in front of me.

"Alright. Let's see if I remember my password," I muttered to myself as I typed in my username first. "BigDan11," I nodded and put in my password. "BigDan12." The password was accepted and I was in. "Yeah," I said with a nod.

A model appeared in front of me of what I looked like in real life and my GOD I looked like a fucking girl at this angle! Didn't help I was only sixteen, so I didn't have the full hit of puberty yet. My black hair came down to below my shoulders in shaggy waves, which I usually worn in a ponytail or when I was focused on work, a bun. I wasn't afraid of people's opinions. I might be a lanky man, but I could fight like a bitch and people knew it. Nothing was off limits.

The face, meh. I liked my face, but again, it was a bit too feminine. In Japan, it had served me well being a… 'bishounen.' However, it did not do me well during my time in Scotland growing up. Them lads liked to beat me. Body type was small and lanky. I was not a tall or built individual, more lean. Made like a runner really. Sadly I hated running and lifting was more my style.

All that being said, it was time to recreate Gronark the Strong. I switched my avatar around until I was a square headed, cropped haired, old grizzled looking bastard. "Alright. Done." The game confirmed it and a screen popped open for me to put in my handle. "Gronark," I typed in. And… someone has already taken that from me. Fuck.

I guess time for the back up. "Hardings." Nope. "Mother fucker I'm in Japan! Who's taking these names," I groan and type in my old handle for when I played serious RPGs. And… no. Well I gotta name myself something. It had to be tough though. Grizzled bastard deserved that. He was based off the damsel, Gronark the Dreadnaught! There had to be some justice. "Grizzly," I typed in and it was accepted. I gave a nod of success as my vision turned black and I entered the game.

It occurred to me that I probably should have boasted my height to go with my now squarish body. 'Fuck I made a dwarf,' was my first thought entering the game world. Well… that probably would be an original thought for a new player first stepping foot in this game realm.

I lumbered out of the spawn zone, a large square where many people were spawning in and already calling for people's names. I had no one meeting me, more of a solo player really. Plus none of my friends in school could get their hands on a copy of the ten thousand that were only released for launch. Hell, I probably wouldn't have if I wasn't lucky and got in the beta.

But, since I was, I knew exactly what to do, having played nine different avatars before I made Gronark. First, open my menu and pick my skills. There were hundreds to choose from, from weapon crafting, ballistics, tanks, and even singing, but who sang in a game for guns? Nerds, that's who.

I made the smart decision that I didn't make on the first eight goes and picked the [Small Arms - Rifle] skill. This would be so I could later gain more of the advanced skills like the skill on being able to fire a shoulder mounted rocket without whiffing it from the penalties. Skills didn't really aid the player, just made the penalties lessen. While I would always feel a set amount of recoil from a rifle, it would never be 'firing a Squad Automatic Weapon while standing ramrod straight' level of recoil with the aid of the skill.

Number two became [Perception]. Mistake number two I made for my first six characters. If I couldn't see a hostile, I couldn't shoot a hostile. Plus I read advanced levels unlocked night-vision, so that'd be fun.

Ready to finally set out and buy my starting gear as all I had on was a pair of ragged burlap slacks and a shirt I had a strong feeling was the rest of the sack used for the pants, I made my way to the cheapest weapon dealer.

The bell above the door rung and I entered without quick strides to the gun counter, ignoring the armor for now. Clothes could wait until I could secure a source of income for them. "Afternoon," the clerk greeted me and I gave him a nod. "Need help picking out your gear today?"

"No thanks," I replied to his inquiry. "I know what I need. I'll take the vermin rifle." The clerk blinked at me.

"A man that knows his price range I see," the clerk coughed out as he reached under his counter and put a vermin rifle on the table. An AR-15 outfitted for shooting at the most a mole. Firing .22 caliber shells, it had to be the weakest rifle I had ever held in my life. Perfect for starting out really.

"Excellent. Still thirty dollars?" The man nodded. "Alright, throw in a box of two hundred rounds and you got yourself a sale." The man slapped down the box and I handed him forty dollars of the hundred I started with. "Pleasure. I'll be back in an hour or two to buy some of your well-crafted boots."

"Good eye, son," the man said with a nod. "Shoot well and fast, them wolves be merciless even at this time of day."

I nodded and walked out of the store, sidestepping a man as I continued on my way down the road to the city's gate. It had multiple turrets scanning the wastelands on the other side for anything that might try for the core settlement of the world. City Green.

I walked through the opened gates and found my way to the starter field. It was made for gunfighting, so I quickly found some cover and began stalking the mobs. They were wolves with blood red eyes and large claws. Scary beasts, but easy to kill since their head was one big critical spot.

I found one quickly, it getting highlighted with a red diamond over it thanks to my perception skill. I took a knee, just as papa taught me on his three-oh-eight when I was four, lined up the shot with the creature's head, and squeezed the trigger.

The gun's bark was worse than its bite for sure, but when the bullet sung true and smashed through the head of the target, it didn't matter. A message appeared in front of me for what I got from my battle and I mindlessly dismissed it with a flick of the finger.

Trash loot could wait until I ran out of ammo. Until that time, I was not going to stop fighting. Grizzly the Dwarf would have his blood! I blinked as I fired another shot right through the eyes of a beast and lowered my head. "I've lost my fucking mind," I sighed before shifting my aim to the second in the pack I just pissed off and discharged four rounds into it, moving onto another as it shattered into pixels.

Ninety-four wolves. I killed ninety-four wolves in two hours. That had netted me three levels, so I was now level four and had points to dish out, but first. I needed some boots. Bare-feet on cobblestone was not a pleasant feeling in Alpha mode I had quickly figured out the moment I took my first step.

The gun was strapped to my back and I found my place waiting in line at the weapon store. Seeing as I had time, I opened my inventory to see how many credits I had amassed in my slaughter. Three hundred and thirty-two. A decent number. Could purchase some nice boots, a forty-five Nineteen-Eleven, and a three-oh-eight battle rifle. I should have enough for some pants, but boots, emergency gun, and bigger gun than a pea shooter took propriety.

I opened my ability score to see three Scores. Strength, Agility, and Fortitude. It was basic role-playing system really.

The Strength [STR] dominated the general strength of a character and if one could use heavier weapons with less penalties. It also took over the inventory weight limit.

The Agility [AGI] was general speed of a character's movements, plain and simple.

Finally, Fortitude [FORT] Was health and resistances. More equaled more healthy and more poison, fire, frost, so on, one could withstand. It usually was a must for anything but a glass cannon build.

I placed all three points into strength as I was still in an area where I shouldn't be hit too many times. I needed the ability to absorb recoil if I was going to be using a battle rifle of a caliber like a three-oh-eight. The kick would be too much if I didn't get at least that. Plus, I was planning a suppression build with a speed, so I wanted the strength out of the way so I could focus on the two stats I'd specialize in.

By the time I finished up with my scores, I arrived in front of the clerk. "I see you came back. Was the hunt successful?"

"Yep," I told him as I opened an NPC trade with him, placing the quality materials I had in them with the vermin rifle. "A Nineteen-Eleven, forty-five variant. A pair of your leather boots, and an M-14 battle rifle." The items were added to the menu as I ordered them, the man placing them on the counter, and the total came to two seventy. "Give me a box of seven sixty-twos and three magazines for both guns." He slapped them down and the price came to three ten. "Hurting me here man," I jested. "That's all I'll need. For now," I told him as I handed the money to the man.

"Pleasure," he said, reaching out. I easily shook the NPC's hand and gathered my gear, slinging the rifle on my back and belting the holstered pistol to my side as I moved out of the way. I inventoried the ammo and magazines as I walked out of the store and then out of the way. I quickly put on the boots and tightly laced them up.

"Now, pants," I told myself as I started making my way across the shopping district where I'd find the clothing store. This one was luckily, not filled with a ton of people and I was able to get to the NPC in a short amount of time, already knowing my clothes. "Hello, do you need to see the menu or do you know what you want?" The lady behind the counter asked me in a kind voice.

"A pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt," I told her which she opened a window to show me the price. "Twenty-one credits… damn," I muttered as I took out the last of my money and handed it to her. I took my clothes and placed them in my inventory. I'd put them on out in the field where I can get some privacy. I could do it via inventory, but where was the fun in that.

As I walked back out of town, I pulled out a magazine for my rifle and started loading it with ammo. I finished that quickly enough as the normal magazines held only twenty rounds. I didn't couldn't buy a box of forty-fives, so the pistol would be useless for another hour. My rifle would have to carry me through this session.

Pulling the rifle off my back, I quickly slotted the box magazine into the weapon and pulled the slide back, chambering a bullet as I walked through the gate. I quickly darted into the wild where I heard loud gunfire everywhere. I soon found a nice spot to change and I was now comfortable in casual clothing.

Ready, I got down low once more and began the hunt. The first wolf I saw, I lined up the shot with the iron sight in a moment before sending around to its center mass. The animal was torn off its feet into pixels and I staggered a bit from the heavy kickback with the strength penalties. A glance at the information in my inventory told me I needed fifteen to wield it properly and a hundred levels in the rifle skill.

A frown came to my lips as I dismissed the window and turned back to the hunt. That was six more than it was in the beta and I only had thirty in my skill at the moment from my accurate shots. People must have complained about the ease and they upped the difficulty. That would mean a heavier caliber rifle would be forty strength to fire even with the corresponding skill level. A fifty, Christ. If someone could find those monsters had to be a pure strength build to take that kind of impact.

My feet guided me through the woods and I found a few few more packs that I aimed for headshots, trying to make the most out of each shot to level up the skill. It was easy early on, but the moment the hundreds were hit, the experience needed was increased by a factor of ten. It was terrible hard.

My rifle lined up with the skull of yet another wolf and I squeezed the trigger. Unlike every other wolf I had shot, this one didn't explode into blue pixels, but turned red and grew. A name appeared over its head too, visible from a distance. Alpha Wolf I read. I found a mini-boss and I had no armor nor secondary. Joy. This was going to turn out horribly.

My rifle immediately focused on the head of the beast and I fired, leaning forward to swiftly reposition the rifle so I could fire again. My gun skill was forty-two from all my hunting, so it still bucked like a stallion with every squeeze of the trigger. The criticals from such a high caliber weapon for its level created a slight stunlock for the boss, allowing me a follow up shot with only one step in between each.

I couldn't see the monster's health, but even though I was planting criticals, I knew I was nowhere near killing it. So when my gun clicked empty, I was already sprinting away for a thicker patch of trees. The magazine was pushed into my inventory as I slotted home a new one and turned.

I leaned into the shot and quickly lined up the snarling visage of the beast. It wasn't that tall, a good two meters, so the head wasn't as large a target as I'd like for how little time I had to fire, but I managed the snap shot, which allowed me to empty my second magazine into its head.

It might be the level difference, the wolf was bound to be only about five for the area its in, not usually made to deal with my type of weapon, but the stun lock was too much. Even though it allowed me another twenty rounds into its skull, nothing but criticals, the exploitation of the boss would be sickening in the coming days.

My third magazine was pushed home and I fired a single shot at the beast, causing it to shatter. "Yeah. That was just bad balancing," I muttered as I looked at my winnings. I got a simple acog sight for a rifle, useful, and a good bit of money and bullets for my M-14. Also useful and with the ammo replacement, even more prone to exploit. A moment later, I got another window congratulating me on the last hit which gave me a knife.

I summoned it to check it out. It was pretty cool. Much better than a store bought one of course. Blade in design, it looked like it was made out of bone and shaped into a normal K-bar. It went back into my inventory. When I go back into town, I planned to buy a tactical vest I could put it in as well as a place to keep magazines for quick reach.

A few more windows appeared once I closed the rewards to find I had gotten to level… nine, holy damn, that was fast. Mini-boss solo runs must work out well. My skill took a leap to fifty, which was nice, but not as great as the levels. Boy oh god damn boy! I then preceeded to slap them all in strength so I could properly handle the kickback of my rifle.

'Man, I'll be too specialized by the end of this shit. Might as well start a strength build and slap a few agility points so I could flee. Was planning to be a guerilla, but a supporter might work better with how things were going. 'I guess I'll get to fifteen and start up on my AGI and Fort equally. It'll take some time, but early level balancing isn't so bad. Get my agility to the point I can climb and jump around, then get to some strength. I should be able to use an automatic battle rifle by twenty strength too, so I'll need to put some more points into that.'

I took a step away from the boss and my vision turned to white. My body seemed to tingle in a way I knew. Teleportation crystals, I didn't have one, so it had to be an opening day event to get everyone back to Green city.

I landed in the crowd and it felt completely like ten thousand people were crushed into the main square. I already had people stepping on my toes as they shambled around, gossiping and wondering what happened. All that ended as a red hexagons started crawling up the city perimeter until the entire sky was covered.

I stared in shock as a ball of blood appeared floating above us. 'There's gore, but jesus.' Then the blood began to expand until a giant robed man was hovering above all of us, his hood shading his face from all.

"Greetings," His voice boomed out across the clearing. "And welcome to Gun Gale Online!" Everyone simply stared up at him, not saying a world. "I'm am the lead designer and creator of this game, Kayaba Akihiko!"

When looked around, his face not appearing no matter the light that struck it. "Now, I'm sure all of you have noticed that there is no logout button." What? My hand flicked out and I had the menu opened and opened the system's tab to see that… yep. No log out. I could feel my face pale at that sight and looked up when he continued. "You see, I have a dream. A dream to create a new world. As you see, that have come true, but… what is a world without a population?" He asked and all I could do was look up at him wide-eyed with the rest of the gamers.

"Yes, you are trapped here now, with no way out." A mumble went up as people began to panic, but the man apparently knew how to handle that as he plowed on. "Not to worry, there is a way out of this. Just beat the game and you can all be free."

This quieted the sweeping wave of voices. "I'm sure you all are aware of the one hundred sectors and all you have to do is find each boss, and beat them. Once the final boss dies, the game ends." Seeing as the beta got to sector five in three months, that was a tall order. When there was nothing responded with, he seemed to remember something if the shift of his head showed. "Oh, and what would a population be if they were… immortal. So, if you die in game, you die in real life as well. I've also left you a little gift too, open your inventories and you'll get it."

We were all hesitant to do anything the man said, but our inventories all opened on their own and a mirror appeared in our hands. I glanced at it and saw a sight that pissed me off. I saw my blue eyes and black hair back. Grizzled bastard was replaced by my real form. Christ. A wave of general rage went up, but before it could take hold, the robed jackass made a noise.

He cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention back to him from the panic. "Unfortunately, two hundred souls have been lost to all after family members took the helmets off of them." Screens appeared floating around him showing news footage of body bags and crying families. "So… have fun and enjoy my world..." his form broke apart, but I didn't pay attention to see what happened to it.

I could feel the mounting panic and as the man departed, I was already rushing towards the exit to get somewhere to train. I knew the best grind spots with high bullet drop rates. Sure, the place sucked the fucking root, being an underground bunker full of mutated zombies, from what I read on the computers inside, it was a bunker before the war this game was set after. Something to do with aliens that had nuclear-powered weapons. Some stupid shit.

That being thought, I turned down an alley and began towards the marketplace to grab a flashlight to stick on my gun, more magazines for both my weapons, bullets, and a tactical vest. I'd be needing them for the bunker. The enemies were only level five, but I hadn't placed any points in my health, so it was still only influenced by my levels. My defense as well.

I found the items I needed and pulled on the vest then rapidly filling up the magazines as I jogged out of the town. As I exited the city, I had to duck as a laser-based rifle fired a shot right where my head would have been. If it had been a slug, I wouldn't have had the warning. My rifle was already on my shoulder as I took a knee and was aiming.

However, all I saw was chaos in front of me. People were shooting any mobs they saw, heedless of the death around them as people took stray fire. The man that had shot at him was quickly peppered with automatic fire as a wolf jumped onto another man, causing him to panic fire.

I froze as I watched the shocked look on the man's face turn into horror just before he dropped into red pixels. Not one person in the killing field noticed the death at all. Blinking rapidly, I tore my eyes away from the senseless death and began sprinting away for all I was worth, quickly ducking into the trees for cover as bullets were whining every which way.

My rifle was following my eyes as I dashed through the forest. Every time I ran into a wolf or the growing population of bears, I slid to my knee, and took careful aim. Wasting a bullet was not something I could afford with the town being over a five hour run at my speed.

It didn't matter really what my speed was for my goal however. It would still take an hour fully sprinting to get across the sector. Every one being forty kilometers in width while ever growing in circumference as it advanced. Why they added cars. Combat reasons sure, but it was more transporting around to towns without fast travel stations.

Night fell and I had to turn on my flashlight as I moved. This had the side effect of alerting the animals to my position, so my perception skill got a work out as I focused completely on hearing the environment around me.

The darkness also had a danger to it. The mobs were extra dangerous because at nightfall, enemies got boosts to their levels. More experience, which added to the advantage of night hunting, but also more dangerous. Something about mutations caused it. Even humans mobs got it.

Due to my slow progress and… getting lost multiple times as well as sidetracked when I had to flee from mobs in heart stopping chases, I arrived in at my goal as I discharged the last of my three-oh-eight into the skull of a beast loitering around the town itself.

My gun clicked empty and I shouldered it in favor of my still cold pistol as I walked to the walled settlement. The theme of sector one was a forest set up, so the town was walled by logs staked into the ground surrounding the place with wooden buildings within. I pushed open the gate, tired, but still wired from my trip. Also it helped me cool my mind over the 'death game' thing. Helped that I reached thirteen in my twelve hour journey through the wilderness proving I could make it in this hell, spending more time night hunting than ever as well as gaining enough hide to build myself a house.

I mean, most could get to that their first month playing the game, but I managed it in a day, be it straight half of one with a weapon I honest shouldn't be using at my level in an environment that was more likely to kill me than aid me, but I did it. Without death, there were no level penalties either, so no losing a level with death. Just your life. So much better.

A bonus to the long 'hunt slash getting fucking more lost than Columbus' was I gained a fair bit of ammo through the murder to keep myself safe. Ish. That and a good deal of money, enough to resupply and rent out a hotel room.

First, I'd secure the room so I had a place to drop when I got back from the hunt.

Hand fiddling with my long hair, I walked through the streets, and found the inn quickly. Too bad it was being swarmed by people like me, if… more directionally sound. Walking in, I found the innkeeper and leaned on the counter to get her attention. "How can I help you this morning?"

I gave her a nod for greeting and asked, "Any rooms available?"

"Yes, two hundred credits for a week," she told me and I blinked at her in confusion. It was a steep price, but for a week, it was a great price. The time frame was the problem.

"A week, miss?" I asked, to clarify what she meant.

She nodded her head, a bit impatiently. "We only ever rent rooms for a week. Some lesser inns do it for days at a time, but we are a fine establishment, like the rest of this village! Now, we have one room, do you want it or not?"

I frowned at her attitude and handed the money over, receiving a key with a room number on it as well as a timer. It was counting down from seven days. 'There goes my good deal of money,' I thought to myself as I walked out of the place. I guess it was… okay. I mean, the sector was huge and there were only five green zones in number one and four in the rest. One on each direction for easy access to stores while still being difficult to get around.

Sighing, I made my way to a general store and walked over to the counter. "Howdy," I greeted him in English. The NPC looked at me with a smile, understanding thanks to the universal translator built in.

"Hello, what do you need?" He asked me.

"Three boxes of three-oh-eight, two hair ties, and a gunsmith weapon tool kit," I read off from my to-buy list in my head then placed my materials from the hunt on the table. Hides, a few crappy gun drops, other trash loot, and a knife worse than my mob drop. The items were added to the trade screen, and I saw it mostly paid for the gunsmithing tools, them being fairly expensive, and I handed over the required money. The boxes were put in my inventory for reloading outside and I used one of the hair ties immediately to pull my long hair into a tight mid head bun. It was feminine, but it kept my hair controlled. The spare was placed in my inventory as I placed the tools, held in a two compartment toolbox, under my arm.

I needed them for my acog sight attachment. There were an allenwrench tool for all my needs, a series of gunsmith screwdrivers, a few little hammers, pin punches, and a set of files and stones. Outside, I sat down to the side and pulled my rifle out, making sure it was fully unloaded, locking the slide back and set it down. Opening the toolkit, I pulled out a screwdriver and then from my inventory, my acog.

The rifle already had rails, as did most weapons did from sellers, so I was able to take off the iron sights with ease and replace them with an acog that I'd need to calibrate before going into the bunker instance.

I packed up everything quickly and picked up the rifle. Aiming it up, I checked the sighting on the roof it was pointed at to see the magnification was fine, but I saw a problem immediately. In a bunker, it was too high. "Fucker," I hissed as I dropped the rifle into a one handed hold to think. The iron sights would work alright, but I didn't have the accuracy I'd be comfortable with to one shot a zombne, plus I would like to have it on the ten kilometer trip to the damn place.

Now, I'd be mostly snap firing, so what did I use for that kind of shit. 'Tactical grips were alright, but I would need to under-mount a rail system and I don't have the skill needed for that… yet. Okay, Grizzly, you have a long rifle and going into cqc ranges. What should I… Dammit!' I thought as I reached down and tore out my knife. A spin and I saw the hilt had a bayonet hole.

Sighing at my stupidity, I slid it over the barrel and using a screw from the sight, I locked it into place. 'Good as I'm going to get with this type of weapon,' I thought to myself as I placed the rifle back on my back.

I spun around and started to jog, only to run into a person behind me coming out of the general store. I gave a sharp cry of fright, sadly sounding much too feminine, and landed on the person. I quickly planted my hands on both sides of the torso under me just before I hit the pavement and stopped from crushing the poor gamer. In a burst of motion, I went down with the falling momentum before stopping just before I hit them and used my absurd strength to launch myself to my feet.

"So sorry," I exclaimed quickly as I offered my hand to the down person. "I didn't see you there!" My eyes dilated as they got use to the range I was looking down at and the first thing I noticed about the person, a girl, I knocked over was brown. She had a lovely shade of brown hair with two long tails to frame her cute face.

The girl also just stared up at me for a moment before taking hold of my hand and I pulled her to her feet. She gave a squeak at the sudden strength by the pull, but I made sure not to to do so too hard or she'd be on the ground again.

My eyes quickly examined her form before settling on her hazel eyes. She was dressed in a pair of black trousers and loose purple sweater, with an assault rifle on her back. A Kalashnikov, the… seventy-four variant I believed from my glance at her. The eyes had a note of panic to them that I thought fit the situation we were in. If I wasn't so stupid, I'd be the same way. "Are you alright?" I quickly asked in worry.

She gave a shaky nod. "I'm fine," she told me in a small voice.

"I'm sorry, again!" I quickly told her as I took a step back with a bow of my head. "Good luck!" On that, I quickly jogged past her, only to almost fall as she grabbed my vest's drag handle. I twist around to look at the hand on my back.

My eyes shifted back to the girl's and I gave her a raised eyebrow in question. "W-would you l-like to… party?" She asked quietly. "You were in the… beta, right?" Her voice was small and quiet as she asked me this, releasing my vest.

"Uhhh…" I started saying in confusion at the sudden question. I knew I had cut a formidable figure as the grizzled dwarf, but that was gone so why would she ask to join me? "Sure, I could use a… second gun." I saw her flinch at the word gun. "What's… your name, then?"

"Sinon," she answered quietly.

"Grizzly," I introduced myself, holding out a hand for her to shake. She blinked at it before taking it in a… weak… handshake.

I deftly manipulated the menu and invited her to the party. I saw her jump a bit at the sudden popup, but she hit yes and I saw her name and health appear under mine. My name had a king's crown to the side, telling of my party leader status. "Alright… You know how to fire that gun?"

She gave a shaky nod. I nodded. Good. "You got a chest flashlight or a rifle-mounted one yet?" She shook her head. "Alright, let's get you one. We're going into a pre-war bunker with slow moving zombies. It'll be dark as hell and dangerous, so you'll need one." I saw a tremble go through her, but she nodded.

"Tight," I mumbled lowly to myself as I opened the door and spun to hold it for her. She walked to the counter and purchased the item needed. I checked out the stock to see what they had while I waited. Normal tools for trades, ammunition, and a few odds and end accessories for clothes and firearms. I tabbed into the gun accessories and saw something interesting. A recoil buttpad and a brass catcher. The buttpad took away thirty percent of the penalties for firing of all level one through ten rifles, so my rifle would be fine as was with my strength. It was… three thousand credits.

I nearly made a startled sound at the price tag. It was worth it mind, but damn. Was it worth it? The conversion was a credit a yen. That was a large chunk of change, my entire funds actually. But… until I got a game modified drop of a more powerful three-oh-eight, this was going to hold me over for the first few sectors. Sure it was a 'level one' weapon, but until I could find the next tier of matching rifles, I wasn't buying a new weapon.

A small tap on my uncovered arm had me glancing over to see Sinon had placed the flashlight onto her chest. I nodded and held up one finger before going to the store owner. "Back already? You forget something?" The NPC exclaimed, causing me to give a laugh.

"I did. One of those rubber recoil-dampening buttpads to fit an M-14." The NPC nodded and placed it on the counter. "Ya killing people with the price of that thing," I told him with a chuckle as I pulled out the thousands of credits.

"Hey, for what it does, it's worth every penny, believe me," the clerk nodded as I took the pad. I just laughed and turned to see Sinon by the door. I gave her a lift of my chin to tell her I was ready. She opened the door and started out as I dropped the rifle from my shoulder into my hand. I made my way out and pointed the direction we had to go then began to slip on the buttpad.

"So… Are you a sniper?" The girl asked me in a small voice.

I looked over at her and shook my head. "Nah, just grabbed a powerful gun and upgraded my strength until I could use it. Going for more of a guerrilla fighter to be honest. Bad weapon," I held up the M-14 with a grin. "for that, but I figure slap a suppressor on this baby, change out the trigger for something with more… tap and fire, then I should be on a good way to that. Also stop putting everything in strength," I rambled as I walked out of the town next to the girl.

The girl just nodded to my words as we walked down the path. I knew exactly where I was going too from the dozens of trips I had made, so when we reached a certain place, I took a left off the path and shouldered my rifle.

Sinon was a bit surprised at the shift off the path, but quickly caught up. I stopped in the area I was headed, halfway to the bunker, and turned to Sinon. "Mind covering me?" I asked her. "I gotta zero my sight and all." She blinked and slowly, almost hesitantly pulled the gun off her back. I gave her a smile as I set my rifle down and pulled out my burlap clothes, reaching down to fill them with dirt.

It took a minute or two, but soon I had a weapon's rest. I flopped down next to the rifle and Shifted it until I had my aim on a tree a rough hundred meters out. I reached down and squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked back against my shoulder, but like everything, laying down helped the recoil as well as the dampener.

A cool thing about this game was going prone took away a good half of the penalties to recoil, base half. As I was, I didn't have a lick of penalties, just what it'd have in real life. I saw through the sight the point of impact about nine centimeters up and three to the left. "Click click click," I muttered to myself until I fired again.

The impact was only a bit high and to the right. Three clicks and I fired, hitting right where I wanted it to go. One thing not realistic in this game was zeroing. It never took too long and there was even an extra knob to quickly zero an extra hundred meters each direction on the scopes. I guess it was a design choice. Couldn't fault them. Zeroing a scope sucked.

I nodded and stood up, leaving the weapon rest where it was. Dead weight now. I turned to see Sinon staring vacantly at where my rifle was, a slight fearful look on her face. Blinking, I reached up and snapped my fingers, causing her to flinch back into reality. "You okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah, sorry," She mumbled. "Not a… big fan of guns is all."

"You picked a bad game then," I said with wide-eyes.

She rubbed her arm as I shouldered my rifle again. "It was suppose to help me get over my fears. The… beta helped a bit," she mumbled as she did the same, if with a good deal less practice.

I patted her on the back and replaced my hand on the rifle. "Let's get going. The zombies are dangerous, but only need a good headshot to put them down. You should handle it fine if you've been through the beta."

I began walking again and she quickly followed. We only had to stop twenty times for mobs. I had Sinon show me what she could do. Her accuracy… quite great actually, trigger discipline was fine, it was her tendency to freeze up for a second after firing that worried me. After seeing that, I had her take the next nineteen battles as well, keeping us covered with my rifle.

Her freezes didn't get better, but I could see she was growing more comfortable holding the rifle. I think the safety net I gave helped with that a bit. A bit scary when all you have was your own skills to keep death at bay. Back up was always nice after all and security never was bad. At first, I thought of just moving on without her, not wanting to be dragged down, but…

If I'm thinking of leaving her to fend for herself, so will everyone else. I was a beta tester. I was experienced with firearms and combat simulations thanks to my upbringing and… fucking insane father. I knew this game and how to fight. I could help her get comfortable with the weapon in her hands, make it so she could possibly survive through this shitty game.

She also leveled up from the fighting and as she was humming over where to put the point, I checked my new skills list. Players got a new one every ten levels, so I had one all lined up for myself. One which I slapped into [Acrobatics] so I could move more quickly between areas with the boost to jumping power.

We arrived at the instance to see the entrance was clear, so anyone wanting to go here were already in their own version of the instance. I nodded and beckoned the girl to follow. "Lights on," I told her as I opened the door and walked in, holding it for her.

Sinon did as told and the lights illuminated the dark corridor leading into the bunker. "Watch your corners and give call outs when you see something. Also, put in your earplugs," I reminded her, causing her to jump. She reached into her inventory as I did the same, placing the yellow hearing protection in. They'd dim anytime loud noise was picked up, so when someone fired a gun, it would lower the volume of the world until the echo stopped.

"You good?" I asked her to see her nod. I nodded before pulling out my pistol and discharging a round down the hall before rapidly unloading the forty-five at the open doorway. Nodding, I reloaded the weapon as I heard the moans of the dead pick up. "That should bring out floor one's mobs, so all we have to do is go through the second floor's complex down to the third floor's generator room for the boss."

I sighted my rifle on the door and stared at the opening, eyes wide to see every little detail. A shambling form appeared in front of the door, the light showing how it was a mostly decayed corpse that caused Sinon to gasp. I sighted its head and fired.

The zombie's head exploded in gore before the pixels fell to the ground. 'Working real hard for that unrated rating,' I thought to myself as I watched the remaining gore drip down the torso of the zombie behind the one that went down. When I didn't hear Sinon fire, I glanced over to see her frozen in terror. And it was terror, that look could not be mistaken as anything else.

I lifted my arm from the stock of the rifle and slapped to the side, hitting her in the chest before replacing my hand on the rifle. "Fire," I told her as I kept my sight on the skull of the monster. She did as I told her and fired a burst, popping the head like a balloon, sending the creature falling into pixels. "Well done," I mumbled to her before sighting the next and firing.

Positive reinforcement and desensitization was step one of getting her over her phobia. Something had obviously happened to her to fear a gun as much as she did, but that would get her killed if she couldn't work through the problem. And she did come here to do that.

Sinon fired the rest of her magazine over the next five minutes of fighting the hundred plus zombies shambling. The spawn rate of the bastards was multiplied per person in the party. So what would have been fifty for me, was a hundred for us. It was like this for all instances. Great before this game became a deadly mess, now, a scary prospect.

I dropped the magazine for the second time out of my gun and slid a fresh one home into the weapon. Sinon did the same as I started firing. While she did freeze with every burst still, she knew how to cover me quite well. When to not fire and when to reload so we were never defenseless.

My weapon gave an echoing bang as the last zombie died in the doorway. A window appeared before my eyes to let me know how much experience I got, not enough to get to fourteen sadly, and my loot. Seventy-three rounds of three-oh-eight, trash loot, a rusty knife, and a hundred credits.

I looked at Sinon to see her manipulating her menu. "Find something?" I asked before setting my sights on the entrance of the bunker. I knew it would lead to a motor pool area, then to a mess hall with several randomly generated storage areas with a small chance of good loot. Second floor was the living area with the mess hall, something I was looting for some canned food. There was no expiration date in this game after all.

"Level," she quietly said behind me.

"What you get to?" I questioned, a bit surprised she reached another level so quickly. I mean, the fight was intense, but I barely got a quarter of my level from the long fight even if my skill did go up a good deal.

"Seven," she told me in a small voice. I blinked at her. Seven? This instance was a level ten's… Fuck.

"Alright, let's get out," I told her as I turned, reloading my weapon. "Neither of us have the health to take on the entire complex. I sure as hell don't," I muttered as I grabbed the bunker door and went to twist it open. "Should have probably asked that information. My fault."

A window popped up. "Instance closed! Players must wait one hour to leave instance once entering, use a teleport crystal, or complete instance." I stared at the window for a moment before slamming my fist through the floating text, smashing my hand into the steel door.

I ignored the full pain I felt from being an Alpha and just shook my knuckles. My middle and ring felt fractured, but my index was fine. I even had minor health lose. Joy. "Alright," I hissed out as I turned and passed Sinon. "We go on. Mobs wander in instances and the noise we made will be having the second floors be looking for a door up, need to find the chokepoints for this place. Should be only one or two. Let's loot the motor pool for gear and move on."

Sinon looked nervous at the sudden attempt to leave failing, but I had to make due with what I could. As we walked through the pool, I was reloading my magazines as we went. Sinon found a helmet with a head lantern on it inside one of the ruined cars which she put on, preferring it to the chest light apparently. Good find, those things were a solid fifty credits in the market. Buy a handgun for that price.

I hummed as I walked through the pitch black bunker with the girl trailing my steps. The main area had a few stragglers locked in the storage rooms, but they were easily killed with a forty-five between the eyes. The locks never posed a challenge as they had a health stat to them as well as a lockpicking one. Sure, it was quieter and such to lockpick, plus the steel doors had outrageous health that could only be taken down via melee attacks, but I was more of a barbarian in how I worked, so several boots to the doors were fine. Of course later more advanced locks needed to be picked or it would never open.

I looked through the storage rooms, but never found anything too useful really. A few chemical inhalers, all holding Xedrial. An addictive chemical that gave a percentage increase for speed in exchange for a serious withdrawal symptoms if addicted. I liked them, breath in through the mouth and the speed it gave varied between ten to fifteen percent for tier one, but with upper tiers versions, it was insane. The addiction rate wasn't that great, being twenty percent, so that was a bit unsafe.

Course the withdrawal would match the gains, causing every stat to go down by fifty percent, no matter what, until you have another dose or two weeks passed. There were other chems to cure addiction and a town's medic could do so for a price, so it was never too bad.

Holding one of the inhalers out, I offered, "Want one?" Sinon hesitantly took it and poked it, bringing up the item information.

"T-this..." She started to say before trailing off, handing it back to me. "I can't… sorry."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow and nodded. Some people just didn't like the drug aspect of this game. No need to fault them for that really. I already smoked in life, so I was familiar with recreational drugs. I spun the inhaler around and placed it in a hotslot for my inventory, the first space actually. A nifty little feature really.

"Well… we have one more floor to clear before the boss. Two entrances from what we found," I started saying as I left the storage room, gesturing for her to follow. As I walked towards the staircases, I unscrewed the flashlight off my gun and pocketed the mounting. "You take one door..." I said as I pulled out my pistol and slung the rifle onto my shoulder, flashlight in my free hand. "I'll get the other. Call if you need help."

"Y-yes," The woman said as she stopped at the door leading downward. I nodded and took a deep breath of air.

My nose flairs as my chest puffed up with the virtual air. "AHHHHH!" I screamed down the stairs, my voice echoing the compound. My body shook from the force I used yelling before I took a breath, cutting it off abruptly. Rolling my shoulders, I turned a glanced at the wide-eyed girl. "Make sure to call out. We'll retreat back to the door if you need to. This is a dangerous instance and I don't want risky behaviors, especially now," I ordered, falling into my guild officer tone.

Sniffing, I patted her on the shoulder as I passed, cocking the hammer back on my forty-five, walking towards the only other door. I looked down, aiming the light and saw the red eyes of the zombies. My gun jumped as I discharged a round down at them, taking a skull off its shoulders. This started off the fight and I kept my ears to the side, focusing more on how Sinon was doing as I could easily pop off a headshot from where I was. They were basically lining up.

So when I heard a scream, I just turned and sprinted immediately, dropping the magazine from my pistol and pushing in my fourth and last one. I found Sinon stumbling back out of the door with a zombie being held off by her rifle. She lost her footing and went down with the monster on her.

I continued running and grabbed the back of the blighter's neck, hauling him up and back. The dead monster stumbled back and knocked into its buddies, only to slump into pixels as I sunk a forty-five round through its head. I twisted around and grabbed the girl's sweater.

With a grunt and exhale, she was on her feet once more. Even if she was staring with a crippling fear of the zombies shambling towards us, covered in the blood of their buddy. "Retreat," I barked at her, startling her enough to get moving.

I pushed her ahead and twisted around, using my free flashlight to sink the rest of the magazine into the creatures' heads. I managed seven of them before turning around and quickly following after the running figure.

She was faster than I was, but not by much. A balanced fighter at the moment no doubt. It didn't really matter as there was only one exit, so I caught up as she was pulling on the door to no avail. "Sinon," I sighed as I stopped behind her, but she didn't hear me. "Sinon," I called a bit louder, but she still didn't hear.

I rubbed my face and reached out, roughly turning her around by the shoulder. "Sinon!" I barked as I reached out and grabbed her rifle from her hand. I looked at her as I checked her rifle by the light her chest flashlight while she stared at me with fear. I saw the rifle was empty and dropped the magazine to the bullet covered floor. "Give me a mag," I ordered her, holding my hand out.

She slowly pulled out of of her inventory and I snatched it away, stepping to the side as I loaded the rifle and twisted on my heels, taking a shooting position down onto my knee. The zombies were already halfway into the room, so I shoved my flashlight into my mouth as Sinon had cornered herself, the light bouncing too much with her hyperventilating.

Aiming with the beginning tier rifle, I lined up the first zombie and squeezed the trigger once. It dropped, then I continued to fire until the gun was empty. Setting it to the side, my M-14 appeared in my hand and I unloaded that. Yet… there were still a good two dozen coming. "Shit," I sneered as I got to my feet.

My hand found its way on the base of the butt of my rifle as the other bowed out a bit. Teeth gritted around my light, I charged forward. My gun jabbed out and stuck into one of the mobs eyes, killing it. I withdrew and jabbed once more at the next before kicking another to knock the line back a bit.

The fight wasn't hard. Range was all one needed against zombies. So with a spear in hand, I didn't have much issue. I also had the strength to… crack a skull. "Wow," I mumbled as I spun low and sweeped the legs out from under another. It hit the ground and I smashed the blade down onto the mobs head with a sick wet sound. "This… fucking sucks," I grunted as I whipped the knife up and split the face of a lunging zombie in half. Didn't kill it, but did stagger it due to the critical hit. That allowed me to finish it and turn my head around, looking for another zombie, only to see… nothing left.

I turned my head down and spit my drool covered flashlight into my hand. Wiping my mouth, I shined it over at Sinon who was crouching on the floor, covering her head, trembling in terror. 'Fucking hell,' I cursed in my head as I walked over to the woman.

My knee struck the ground softly and I leaned down to look up at her face. "They're dead, Sinon," I told her with a frown on my face. Her freaking out would have gotten me killed if I didn't have my knife on the end of my rifle. Those zombies could kill with only a few bites to a level ten after all.

Her eyes flickered from the floor to mine to back to the floor, her body still shaking. I sighed and just dropped to the floor next to her, reloading my rifle with a full magazine. I then began filling up my mags with bullets. The girl soon dropped to sit, trembling from the close brush with death she had.

I ran a hand through my hair and groaned. My right hand was set on the top of the girl's head and I gave her a pat before getting to my feet. "I'll be right back," I told her as I got up. "One," I said quietly, catching an inhaler.

I placed it between my lips and pressed the top button, taking a hit off the drug. There were four uses in each inhaler, so I just put it away. Though, I snorted as I felt a wired feeling punch through me, like my heart was racing. A little counter appeared next to my name, going down from ten minutes. "Fuck!" I exclaimed in surprise as I bounced once on my feet. "They added a goddamn high feeling!"

As soon as my feet tapped the ground, I bolted forward, flashlight in hand and pistol leading. I practically leaped down the stairs in my hyped up mentality, landing in a stumble before aiming my gun around, seeing a few stragglers and killed them quickly with the pistol.

A grin spread across my lips as I continued deeper into the level and leaped down the second set of stairs, landing in a hallway with a closed door at the end. The generator room. I sprint to the door, a normal steel door with a valve wheel locking it. A quick turn had it opened and I kicked the door free. Inside the room was a large zombie standing in the center, right next to a dead generator.

Lightning Zombie Lord Appeared over its head with a skull next to the name to announce it was the boss of the instance along with five health bars. The beast was tall, a good seven meters, with long arms. It had the same body as a zombie, minus any armor what so ever and blazing red eyes.

Those red eyes landed on me and its jaw unhinged to give an echoing scream, like that of a banshee's, as lightning escaped its body. The lightning struck the generator, turning it over and causing the lights to burst on, bathing the room with the harsh white of the military lights. "There we go!" I yell with reckless glee as I threw my flashlight into my inventory and brought up my rifle.

It was barking rounds moments after hitting my shoulder, the rounds all slamming into the beast's head. It recoiled at every seven, but that made it so I would need to retreat and dodge. It gave a lazy swipe and I immediately threw myself under the swipe, just when a wave of electricity whipped out from the limb and carved a groove deep into the stone.

"Hoho shitt~" I laughed out as I felt an arc of electricity go up my spine. If I wasn't jacked, I knew I'd have screamed from the pain instead of using it to further my fight. My back continued to flip forward as my legs stiffened from the shocking pain, so I rolled across the ground with my sides to give me a slight bit more time.

My legs came down and I barely was able to bend them in time to stop the from smashing into the ground. I saw a little counter end on the edge of my vision of a lightning bolt, so I had been slightly paralyzed by just that glancing blow with a sixth of my health gone. Damn. They buffed this fucker.

Snorting as I pushed myself to my feet, I threw myself away from his backswing, this time letting my chest hit the ground so the wave missed me completely. I scrambled to my feet and turned, backpedaling with my rifle in hand, and began firing it anew at the boss, strafing around it.

My gun clicked empty for the third time, telling me I was out of loaded magazines and I gave a shout of frustration while hitting the ground again, just in front of the connecting point for the ground by the attack.

I rolled to my feet and took a breath. In an explosion of movement, I sprinted at the tall beast with my rifle head over my head, sinking the blade into the beast's gut and rapidly stabbing it in and out before I saw its arms move for the close range attack.

Pulling my bloody spear out, I turned tails and dashed away, diving that little extra distance before his hands clapped together, causing his whole body to burst into one big ball of lightning. An instant kill for as I was.

Groaning, I picked myself up and dash at the creature once more, going back to stabbing it. Then my ears deadened from an echoing bang as the beast's head recoiled back from a critical. I knew what that meant, but I could address it when the beast was dead. It did still have two full bars of health after all.

I gave a gleeful laugh as I continued to viciously stab it, that was until it reached its last health bar and did something it never did in the beta. A hand flex and before I could retreat, it grabbed me up with three times its normal speed. My eyes widened as I felt electricity begin to race up my body, overriding the mad beserker high I gained.

My jaw nearly unhinged as I screamed from the pain of the attack, struggling with all my might to get released. My health drained fast from the attack, but as it reached the red zone, the zone where I needed medical attention or I was going to die, it chucked me to the side.

Metal wasn't the most comfortable thing to bounce off of, but it was better than dying, so all I did was scream when I hit it hard, taking down another good portion of my health. Coughing as my body smoked, I heard an increase in fire.

Blinking the black out of my eyes, I remembered something I had forgotten. My hand went to my waist as the beast started towards Sinon, and pulled out my forty-five. I aimed it with one hand and fired a round, hitting the side of the monster's head, causing it to turn to me. I fired carefully even as it advanced, hitting it in the forehead with each round.

When the slide locked back, the magazine clicked against the ground and I reached slowly into my pouch as bullets were slamming into the monster's back, causing it to be indecisive enough that I slapped the fresh magazine into the gun and resumed firing.

On the fifth round, the beast just toppled over. It would seem it also got a new attack as its body burst into electricity, destroying anything around it. I gave another cough as I let my gun fall to the ground along with my head, staring up at the scorched ceiling.

"Owww..." I groaned out as I saw my health ticking down from the red effect. Anything below ten percent needed some form of aid to counter the red effect or else they died. A simple potion, to a torn up clothing. It didn't matter. My hands were already pulling out a few rags from my inventory when I saw a shadow appear to the side of my vision. "Sinon," I called out. "I need you to tape these… to my body."

I took out a roll of duct tape with the rags and held the tape out to the shadow, who took it. Spreading the rag onto a partially bad burn, I saw shaky hands place the tape over it and started doing as I told. The pain kicked up a good bit, but I felt like I had just walked through an inferno, so I didn't care too much. I was tired for some reason, likely the ending of my high, and I hurt too much.

When my health stopped moving, I let myself relax on the floor. "Damn..." I sighed out. "That was… stupid." I blinked and a hand shook my shoulder hard. Blinking my eyes back open, I somehow felt much better then a second ago.

My head turned to the side to see Sinon having done something. My eyebrows furrowed as I forced my sore body to get up. "Fucking Alpha, dumbass, shit," I cursed under my breath as I got into a sitting position.

"Grizzly! Are you going to be okay! You passed out!" Sinon rapidly said and I blinked at her in confusion. Passed out? I glanced at my heath and it was halfway to full. Yep. I did.

I waved a hand as I got to my feet, noticing how my clothes were burnt off me where the hand was. My vest counted as armor, so it had durability, but clothes were meant to be able to be damaged for bandage use and the like. So I had half my right side held up only by my vest and my left half was just skin.

I rubbed my face, knocking my pistol against my head on accident, reminding me to holster it. Looking around, I saw my rifle was next to me, so I crouched, picking it up, and spun it to rest on my shoulder. "Let's get outta here," I mumbled over to the worried looking Sinon. "I'm coming down from a wicked high and feel like I just stuck a fork into an electrical outlet."

I turned to look around the room and saw a small room on the other end. Shambling over, I lazily drop the magazine in my pistol into my hand, then reloaded the firearm as I reached the door. I gave the valve a turn and walked in to see a steamer trunk.

It wasn't locked, so I opened it to see the kind of loot one got from the boss. "Bike pump," I said as I pulled that out and placed it into my inventory. "Two Walkie-talkie with ear pieces." Those joined my inventory and then I pulled out the weapon in the bottom. I held it up, the full meter it was, and spun it into the light to see it better.

"Orange rarity… legendary, nice. Stoner… twenty-five. No magazines… and no sights or mounts, Christ. Damage is… one-thirty, fifty percent improvement. Range accuracy is… the same. Strength needed… Fifteen, of course, and level required… twenty. Shit. Called… Clicker…" There were also some flavor text on account of the legendary status.

The bunker was one of the last strongholds after the war. It repeled monsters and humans alike, all to keep the occupants safe. When the turrets fell to disrepair, it was left up to the guards to defend against the threat. This rifle was the weapon of choice of Major Kimberly and when all was lost, the last thing he heard before the zombie menace overran the base was a clicking as the hammer struck the bullet.

"Jesus," I swore as I got to my feet with the rifle. I pushed it into my inventory, since it was far better than my gun even if it was… A check told me it was four levels away from being used. The boss fight giving me three. Sinon was standing in the door as I looted the chest and just trailed behind me, looking like a nervous wreck.

To be honest. I wanted to ditch her. Her fear and hesitation made fighting with her dangerous. The boss fight was completely my own, but the trip there could have been infinitely more smooth if she had kept a semi-cool head and just called for help. But, goddamn. I wasn't just gonna quit. This was an extreme scenario and I'm sure we could work on the freezing issue somewhere safer.

I pointed ahead and walked out the way I had entered. Arriving at the end of the instance, I opened the door, and came face to face with a group of four players, all aiming their guns at us. "Put the guns down," I sighed out harshly as I sniffed, ignoring the burnt flesh smell hanging off me.

They eyed me and Sinon for a moment before relenting. "Sorry," One said, a larger fellow with a buzzcut. "On edge and all."

"I get it," I told him as I ran a hand through his head. "So, there's a change with the boss in there." The man's head picked up. "Two bars, he does a close range grab, zapping the SHIT out of anyone close. I'm unsure if its a lunging or not, I was a bit too close. On death it also blows up, looks like a five meter radius from the body."

The large man gave a hard nod. "Thanks for the information," he said as he reached out. "Berret."

I took the hand and shook it. "Grizzly. Also, any of you alphas?" I questioned as I took my hand back, addressing the group. Berret and one of others made a motion to show they were. "Drugs give mental effects to me. Xedrial makes you reckless. I'm unsure if that's for everyone now. But it is for alphas, so watch out."

"Will do," Berret nodded. "Be seeing you around, Grizzly and… you..." he lamely said, addressing the slightly cowering Sinon that was close to my back.

I nodded. "Alright. Good luck and I guess try not to die." A snort came to my nose. "Never thought that would have mattered in this game." This got a snort from the four men and they all began to ready their gear. "C'mon," I told Sinon and passed by the group to the forest.

The forest was a bit darker than when we had first began the journey, but that was fine. I just used the trip back to reload my magazines while Sinon remained quiet. When I had all my M-14 mags filled, I loaded the rifle and chambered a round. "Alright," I said suddenly as we were approaching the town. "Since I for some reason have decided to help you," I told Sinon who stared at me in surprise, "I will teach you how to be a marksman. Thought it over and you obviously do not do well in close combat situations, so make them long."

I held my rifle out for her to take which she did slowly. "M-14, a standard battle rifle that fire three-oh-eights. Safety on the side, normal magazine fed system, range about a thousand meters give or take. Twenty round standard magazines. Semi-auto of course," I rambled as she stared at me. "Shoulder it."

She blinked and slowly did so, giving a glance at the side of the rifle to see the safety was off. At least she understands that. "Now, the scope is zeroed to one hundred. Aim at that owl's nest on the far tree." I pointed across the clearing and set my eyes on the nest as well. "Fire when ready. I want to know what I'm working with."

A crack and the owl's nest blew up. I looked back and saw Sinon trembling with the rifle, lowering it back into its previous position. "Kicks pretty bad, but nothing super bad," I smirked. "So you got the accuracy, you just need to be more comfortable to make the needed shots."

The rest of the day, I spent going through all my rounds with her, hunting the game around. As a member of the party, I got ten percent unless I aided in it, than I got proportional to the amount I damaged the mob. So it wasn't too bad. Sinon even got to level eleven, one level further from what I gathered since we left the bunker.

Made minimal progress, but the girl had the potential of being an amazing sniper if she had her stats to par and such. Though, I did end up falling asleep next to her while she farmed the mobs for five hours. Since each shot she took was ten seconds of lining up and I slapped my entire ammo supply next to her, she was still shooting when I woke up from my long nap.

Rubbing my eyes, I saw the results of the day and while she looked incredibly uncomfortable holding the rifle, she bore the kick well laying down, and the shots had shortened to five seconds for a kill shot. Amazing accuracy, just her fire rate and what I wouldn't hesitate to call a phobia were the issue.

"Okay," I mumbled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "That's enough," I told her as I got up. She did too slowly and quietly handed my warm rifle back to me. I took it and checked it over, seeing everything worked, but it would need maintenance. "Nice work, Sinon," I complimented as I slung it over my shoulder and grabbed the remaining ammo off the ground and my four now filled magazines from where Sinon had put them together.

"Let's get you a room for the night. It's been a long ass day," I muttered as I scratched my messy hair, leading the way to the inn. Sinon followed by my side, looking a bit calmer now than when she had left the town today.

Entering the inn, I saw a large amount of people there already. Yawning, I walked over to the keeper with Sinon and she stepped forward. "Hi, I'd like to rent a room for the night."

I leaned down, "They only do weeks here unfortunately," I told her before straightening up. The innkeeper nodded to my words.

"But, we also don't have any available. The last was rented two hours ago." Sinon slumped when she heard that and I felt a bit bad for her.

I patted her head. "C'mon, you can bunk with me this week," I mumbled tiredly. "Can't have my protege sleeping in the streets," I snorted out as I lead her up the stairs. Key in hand, I found my door and opened it, seeing it was a simple room. One shower stall in the corner, one desk, and one queen sized bed.

I sniffed out of habit and pulled off my tactical vest, throwing it to the side as I set my rifle down against one of the walls, followed by my pistol belt looped around that. A glance to the side showed Sinon just looking around in confusion and slowly placing her rifle next to the door.

I pulled the rest of my shirt off by just removing my arm from it, and tossed it into my inventory. Stretching, I kicked my boots off next to the rifle and went to take a shower when I heard a squeak. A lazy look over showed Sinon staring at me in horror. "Ugly, aren't I?" I questioned with a grin, even though there was nothing wrong with me.

"You're a guy?!" She squealed out.

I blinked at her and inhaled deeply, looking over her shoulder so I didn't focus enough to get annoyed. "It would seem so," I sarcastically said. "Why?" I asked in a more serious tone. "You think a guy name Grizzly and with no tits was a girl?"

"B-but! The mirror!" She argued pointlessly.

Blinking, I just turned and continued to the shower to wash the smell of my own burnt flesh off "Join me if ya want, sleep on the floor if you don't, or leave. I'll find ya tomorrow using the party tracker if you don't dissolve it," I told her as I entered the stall and completely undressed.

The moment water hit my hair, I was scrubbing it fiercely. It only took a minute to get everything off, a perk of the game's shower, so I dressed in my jeans and walked out of the shower, scrubbing my hair with my hand to dislodge the water in it. Sinon was sitting on the bed in her combat gear. "Shower's open," I muttered as I hopped into the bed.

I was out like a light the moment my head hit the fluffy pillow.

A hand woke me up. Not a, hey-wake-up, hand, but a soft hit from a flailing one. Looking behind me in the bed, I saw Sinon was in some deep nightmare if the rapid eye movement behind her lids, shaking, and slight flinching every few seconds were to go by.

I reached across my body and shook her softly, then harder, but she didn't wake up. Groaning, I lifted my arm and chopped her in the gut, causing her to shoot up, panting. I was not a gentleman for a reason. "You good?" I asked sleepily as I looked up at her, replacing my arm to act as a pillow, seeing as Sinon had stolen mine. Ungrateful.

"Yeah," she said in a sleep-deepened voice before slowly getting out of bed. I checked the time using the menu and it was still night, two in the morning. She wandered to the shower and after a moment, I heard it turn on.

Snorted out an exhale, I got up as well seeing as she wouldn't be going back to sleep. Plus I had some training to do since I slacked off the second half of the day yesterday. Yawning, I levied myself out of bed and pulled on my vest and pistol. I didn't need a shirt, so I just grabbed my rifle and waited by the door.

She came out of the shower a few minutes later, eyes red. I tactfully didn't make note of this as she glanced at me, eyeing my rifle. "I'm going out, you want to come or try to get more sleep?"

She blinked and looked at the warm bed. "Bed," she muttered out. How she could go back to sleep after a shower, I didn't know, but I wasn't going to bother her. I was up, so I would be active.

"Alright, message me if you need me," I told her. "The door should open for you due to being part of my party." I walked out of the door at that and I trumped downstairs to go buy a pair of night vision goggles or a chest mounted light.

While I walked, I thought, 'Sinon going to be a sniper if she continues on the way I plan to teach her, so I'll be the spotter and close quarters. Since I already have fifteen levels worth of points in strength, I guess I'll keep going with strength build, with some agility. Support gunner and a tank. I'd have to get some bulkier armor, grab the sprinter skill so I could run faster. Each skill added half a percent a point.

Walking through the dark, using the streetlights, I found my way to the general store. I looked through the gear of the store, run by an android now for the night watch. I gave the man a nod as I opened up his menu to the side, looking into the gear portion. 'Nightvision goggles are… three hundred credits for base and… a thousand for a fucking panoramic! Christ. Alright. Batteries are… ten each, but they last fifty hour each. Ten credits a week wasn't too bad. Let's see, I could buy an automatic rifle for myself until I had the skill slot needed for an MG skill. I'll pick it up later.'

I walked over the silver and chrome person behind the counter. "Evening, I'd like to buy a pair of Night-vision goggles, the panoramic with two batteries. A box of three-oh-eights, and a chest mounted flashlight." The total came out to twelve hundred dollars, my savings plus a trading of trash loot from the bunker raid.

'That hurt,' I thought as I buckled my new goggles on after inserting the batteries. I made my way out of town, testing the goggles out to see they lit the world into a harsh green and any living beings stood out in red, yellow, and orange.

I walked through the night, firing at anything that moved with a name over its head. I racked up a good deal of pointed by the time I arrived at my goal. The large bunker door. I walked into it, agreeing to start the instance, and entered the formerly dark bunker. My flashlight flicked onto its dimmest setting to give my goggles something to work with, and I walked in with my rifle raised.

One round from the rifle had the zombies stumbling over and into the hallway.

It was five by the time I reached the boss room. I had four magazines for my rifle, four for my pistol, and the bayonet. I pulled off my goggles and shouldered the rifle as I entered the room. The Lightning zombie roared once more, activating the lights, and the fight started again.

With my knowledge of the beast now along with a clear mind, I was able to keep out of range and position myself smartly to get complete critical hits. By the time my rifle was empty, it had two health bars left. I put the rifle away and took out my pistol this time.

It began to charge, but an entire seven rounds to the head stunned it out of the attack, so the fight continued. Three minutes later and a few hundred stab wounds, it died across the room from where I was retreating. I took a good few hits from the fighting, but with my three points in fortitude, I withstood it way better than I would have without. Of course it still hurt terribly and left good sized burn marks, but I was able to handle things better.

When it died, I reached level eighteen, having gotten to seventeen while fighting my way down through the deceptively dangerous hoards. Wow, this was the best I had ever done with a game. Three days, be it three days with nine hours of sleep, but three days and I was almost level twenty! That took me all month to get to in the beta! Just two more levels and I could learn how to sprint.

I checked the room on the other end and opened it to find a… rifle with three other goodies. A kevlar vest with plates, a backpack which once equipped would give twenty kilos of inventory space, and a set of three steel studs for an ear which I equipped on my left ear via menu. The kevlar was put on under my tactical vest, which was made to go over lighter armors, so that was fine.

The rifle though, was in one word, shit. Level wise, it was a twenty and should be a good rifle, but it was absolute useless shit in quality. I'd need to hire a gunsmith, NPC at that, to fix the weapon up. The gun itself was a normal pump action shotgun, only blue rarity unfortunately, but this wasn't a party raid, so it was understandable.

The gun was made with a gun-steel grey with a black plastic stock and pump. The stats told me it held six shells inside, twelve gauge, and did a thirty times eight damage up until forty meters, then it drops off. The stock was cracked and the barrel was slightly bent, making it unusable.

I couldn't use it anyways as it was twenty and I was eighteen, but if I fixed it up, I could see myself using the weapon. Shotguns fit under rifles in this game, so it'd be easy to switch until I got to level thirty for my MG skill. I needed that sprint if I wanted to get anywhere on foot. I also couldn't take the skill until I was level two hundred in a small arms skill too, so that'd be a while.

The rifle went into my inventory and I walked out of the bunker, reloading before making an about face back inside.

By ten, I had gotten the bunker down to a science once more, well, more the boss fight at the end. Completed it nine times in total. And, I got to level twenty! That put me at sixteen strength, three agility, and four fortitude! Though, I nearly got caught in the last fight, so I decided to put up the rifle for now and go back to teach Sinon some things as well as get my new guns fixed up.

On the runs, I got a few more vests of armor I planned to sell except for one. A few backpacks with the same plan. Even a few medical kits. I got a gun for each round too, which seemed to be the standard. One was a nineteen eleven legendary that was going to replace my standard when I fixed it. It did double the damage and had an engraving along the barrel of flowers. Called Daisy.

The others were just normal rare weapons I didn't mind getting rid of. I was however going to keep one knife for Sinon as well as one nine millimeter for her, both were level ten drops. The rest were not a type I cared for or were just shit.

I put away my goggles and made my way back to town. I did type out a message for Sinon, "Meet me outside the town in three." Sending that, I picked up my pace until I activated my sprinting skill and was off.

I also trained my acrobatics as I leaped over logs and the like. I didn't move that fast honestly, I knew that from past agility builds, but it was fast for me without drugs and that was all good. But the time I arrived at the clearing around the town, I was dead tired from sprinting all the way.

I did see Sinon firing her rifle at targets in the field as I approached, so at least she was having a productive day as well. As I was making my way over, I saw a group also heading her way. Must want to recruit someone that looked competent onto their team.

I arrived at the same time as the group and gave them a nodded as I dropped my M-14 next to the shooting girl and took a knee beside her, tapping her on the shoulder. She looked to her side and gave me a half smile as she stopped firing. "You have guests," I told her, nodding my chin at the group of five men whom were staring at us.

"You ladies got a group yet?" The leader of them asked, a man that looked about thirty with a scraggly beard and orange hair.

My eye twitched as I turned to the field, pulling out the nine millimeter I planned to give to Sinon. Said girl just looked at them and turned to me with a pleading look in her eye, seeming to scream, 'Do something!'

"Yea," I told them in a deep voice, throwing them off. "And call me a lady again and I'll shove a forty-four up your collective asses," I threatened with a snort as I offered the nine to the brunette. "Got that off the lightning bastard." She gave me a hesitant smile as she took it, hand a bit shaky as she inventoried the pistol.

"Is it just… the two of you?" The leader asked skeptically.

I blinked lazily at him. "No. we're just training. I am an Officer of the Screaming Banshees. Now, you're interrupting our training." They grumbled and walked off back to town, probably to recruit someone more willing. "So, how have you been this morning?" I asked as I flopped onto my back next to the woman.

"F-fine… I've been here a while and got my rifle skill up. Though, this rifle's… not too great," she said as she looked at the rifle in her hands. I snorted when I heard that and grabbed my rifle. Fiddling with it, I pulled the pad off along with my knife using my allen wrench.

Sinon went back to her practice as I messed with my rifle until I had the iron sights back on. Nodding, I placed the rifle next to her, on the grass to her side before stacking my magazines I held for it. "You thinking of sticking with the sniper idea?" I asked her as I rolled onto my stomach and set my chin on the grass, ears deadening with every shot she made as I kept my earplugs in.

"I think… that would… be for the best," she mumbled as she took aim and squeezed the trigger. I hummed and tapped her on the shoulder after she made her next shot.

She looked to the side and I tapped the battle rifle. "Take this. An AK is not a rifle one keeps for marksman training. If we're sticking together, we should make builds off each other. If you're doing the sniper, well... I plan on being a support gunner, so I won't be using this thing," I explained.

"I… I can't," Sinon said in a stunned voice. "It's your gun! What will you use?!" I looked into my inventory and pulled out my shotgun, the name was REM Eight-Seventy, playing off the Remington Eight-seventy no doubt. I showed it to her. "B… but, that…"

"I'll use it until I find a better automatic rifle. It's a good shotgun, but does need work," I said the last part more to myself as I frowned. "Plus when iI take some more Xedrial, it'd work well when I get up close to enemies. Figure I'll stick a bayonet on it. Or.. Buy a machete!" I said excitedly as I hopped to my feet. "Be right back, I'm gonna go buy stupid stuff!" I told her with an excited pep. Oh this was going to be cool.

Jogging, I made it to the general store and entered, giving the man on duty a nod as I looked at his stock. I found that he did indeed sell machetes that were at base, stupid powerful. For me at least.

Standard Machete

Damage: 10

No skills minimum

Melee Bonus: Strength Multiplier. 1.5x per strength

I wouldn't lie when I said I nearly choked on my tongue reading that. Sure, to use a machete meant that I had to be close range in a game where the bigger the gun was, the more deadly it was, but. BUT! two hundred and forty damage. That was… that was more than my M-14. Christ. And with Xedrial, I could slash so much faster.

Needless to say, I walked over to the counter and nodded at the man. "A machete, sir." He put it on the table and I handed him my loot I wanted to get rid of, netting me a thousand credit. "Oh and do you know where I could get repairs done? I stumble across this nice shotgun, but… let's say it's seen some better days."

"Ah yeah, on the edge of town, we have a gunsmith. he's not all that great honestly," the man said with a look around. "A bit weird too. But he can repair things back into shape." I nodded at the man and thanked him for the weapon which I belt to hang loosely at my waist.

While I walked over to the gunsmith, I picked up a sandwich from a vendor along the street. My hand was resting on the hilt of my new machete as the belt hung from my waist at an angle, looped tight enough it wouldn't fall, but since I didn't have an unused belt loop for it, it was below my pistol belt.

Munching on the bland food, I found the gunsmith and entered. I saw the man work on a rifle on his counter as I stepped into the room. His eyes locked onto my form as the door shut behind me. "Afternoon," I greet him. "You open to doing a repair job?" I questioned as I approached the counter.

"Yea," the man grunted out. "What you need?" I took my pistol, stoner, and shotgun from my inventory and set them on the counter in front of him. A low whistle escaped the man's lips as he looked the weapons over. "Everything." He picked up the shotgun and looked it over with a keen eye. "Hmm… two hundred each for a full fix. There are parts I would need to replace."

"Done," I said and handed him the credit. He took it and nodded.

"Alright, this will take a few," he said as he removed the weapons from the counter and began working on my own weapon. I leaned against the wall beside the door as he worked. Most were automatic actions to save time, something NPCs had that players didn't.

A few minutes later, the guns were in tiptop shape. He nodded as he dry-fired the weapons. "Alright," he grunted out and motioned me to come to the counter. he handed me the weapons and I slung the shotgun over my shoulder, put the pistol into my holster, and inventoried the sniper. "Anything else?"

"You sell ammo?" The man nodded. "I would like two boxes of hundred twelve gauges." The man nodded and put the items on the counter. He gave me the price and I paid it. I grabbed the boxes and as I walked out of the building, I loaded the four shotgun strips I had on my vest with shells, twenty in total. Then I loaded my weapon while walking through the town, going to meet Sinon back in the field.

I shouldered the shotgun as I approached Sinon while she was shooting across the field and took a knee next to her, one hand pulling something from my inventory. A low whistle escaped my lips and Sinon looked over, eyes lingering on the shotgun. I offered her what I pulled out.

"Thank you," she quietly said as she took the sandwich I bought for her. I let myself drop to sit next to her and yawned as I looked over the field. "What do you plan to do today?" She asked before taking a bite of her sandwich.

"I think… I'll go back to the bunker, see if I can eek out another level. I think if I do it five more times, I'll be twenty-one. Get a little more agility," I absently said only to hear Sinon begin to choke on her sandwich. I reached over and slapped her on the back.

She coughed up the food and gasped for air. "Twenty-one?!" She hissed with wide-eyes. "How did you get to twenty-one?! The game's only been on for three days!"

I raised my hands in surrender with a grin. "I was raised around guns and shooting. I know what I'm doing and that helps. Plus soloing bosses is a great experience generator." Then I remembered something. I pulled out a backpack and armor. "Here, I got a few pairs of these and I figured you'd want something like it. Take a few more hits."

She nodded and put it on immediately. "Now, I'm heading back to the bunker to power level for the rest of the day, if you need something, message me. I'll get it when I come out." Sinon grabbed my ankle before I could get up. "What?"

Sinon looked up at me and frowned a bit as she stood. "I'm coming with you," she said. "I need to face my fears eventually and… I'd feel safer if I was with you." Blinking, I nodded slowly and we walked together to the bunker. Be nice to have someone covering my back as I get use to using the shotgun.