Author's Note

Call me whatever you want. I wouldn't be surprised to see rocks thrown at me in reviews to come. I have no excuse other than that I could only work on my stories one day each week.

So yeah, it'll be that way for another two weeks or so. I've been in the hospital, recovering from a serious illness, for a month and a half. Once a week, I got computer access (at my request), resulting in the eventual completion of this (short) intermission. Just something to tide everyone over for the next few weeks (the rest of my estimated recovery period), until I can start writing consistently again.

Now then, here's the first intermission!


Gun Gale Online: The Swordswoman

Transcendent Bonds

Intermission I: Cross-Players

"You know, people usually look behind them with a start when the door they just walked through slams shut like that."

Following the feminine voice's words, I immediately turned around to face their source. What I found consisted of a player with an undeniably small figure, who still remained a little taller than the pitiful height of my real body.

The player wore a brown cloak that was buttoned up enough to conceal pretty much every notable feature, save for – whiskers? No, more like whisker marks that seemed to be light red in color. They adorned her cheeks, the only part of her face not concealed by her cloak.

"The boss is a bit… eccentric. And you may as well just let her do whatever she wants; she's really scary if you piss her off."

Suddenly, the reason XaXa's words struck a familiar chord made perfect sense. There was only one person I knew previously who had whisker marks, and that personality description was the understatement of the century. And the fact that XaXa's boss was basically an information broker? There was no mistaking it.

"You're… Argo?!"

"I'm pretty sure your contact wouldn't have told you my name."

Although, one notable difference remained. The Argo I knew, the most famous, accurate and expensive information broker in «Gun Gale Online's» beta… was a guy.


And yet, as the player in front of me brought the hood of her brown cloak down, her facial features were undeniably feminine, aside from the whisker marks. Even if the unchanging smirk on her face was anything but ladylike.

"B-but… you were… you were a cross-player?!"

The notion that Argo, a male partner I had trusted with my life back in this game's beta, had been cross-playing the entire time, was a bit shocking, to say the least. I mean, I know I did it, too, but…

"So that's how you knew my name," she mused, completely ignoring my shock. "You must have been a beta player, too. But still, I don't remember associating with any girls with your voice…"

The fact that players in GGO's beta who had avatars of their real-life gender received no alterations to their voice was proving to be a double-edged sword in the face of someone with a memory like Argo's. We had apparently both cross-played as males, so our voices would have been randomized male voices.

But now, we were both in virtual replicas of our real bodies, and our voices were the same voices we had in real life. If anything, she must have already figured out, at the very least, the hypocrisy in my shock.

"There's only one person I could think of who would be so shocked that I cross-played!" the girl in front of me suddenly shouted, eyes widened. "But… that makes you a hypocrite, Kii-boy!"

Her smirk seemed almost predatory as she looked me over, leaning in close enough that our noses would brush against each other if I shifted a centimeter. Argo stayed like this for a few seconds, looking me up and down before withdrawing.

"But it makes sense, I guess," she finally concluded, more to herself than me. "With those looks, you must get asked out all the time in real life, so your inner hard-core gamer figured that it would be better to play as a guy, like most everyone else. It certainly would cut down on the marriage proposals you would receive in-game."

Her conclusion was almost spot-on, but I decided to refrain from sharing the second reason why I cross-played: my net persona pre-beta-GGO, which went by the same handle, "Kiriko", was famous for selling high-performance modded computer parts online. People knew the gender and facial appearance of that Kiriko, and I didn't want either of those to come up in GGO's beta.

The result, as you might guess, was my transformation into a cross-player.

"Yeah, you got it…" I told the cunning info broker, holding my hands up as a gesture of defeat. "But that doesn't explain why you cross-played, Argo."

"Do you want to know?"

Instantly, I backtracked a mile in my response. "Not if I have to pay for it."

"Damn."

"Five minutes chatting with Argo «The Rat» and he'll have worked a thousand credits out of you."

I vaguely remembered the person who first led me to Argo in GGO's beta period saying something along those lines right before I met 'him'. I didn't take the words of advice seriously until I parted ways with the info broker, checked my credits, and found that I no longer had enough to buy the new best Photon Sword on the market. In just ten minutes, my credits plummeted by almost four-thousand.

"So, what did you want to see me about?" Argo brought me out of my reverie with the obvious question. "You aren't the type to just forget the things the beta taught you, so I assume that your query is more related to the human element of PK, rather than the system."

"Got me," I replied with a sigh. "I want info on a player that tried to attack me and another one I found in the first dungeon."

"All right, then. First, tell me what you know about him, and I'll check my sources once you're through."

And so began my explanation. I told Argo everything, from the status damage, to his physique, and even through to his theories on killing in-game. The only thing I didn't mention was how I couldn't shoot a gun anymore without thinking of his words and missing horribly because of accelerated heartrate.

When I finished, out of breath and things to say, Argo shot me a scrutinizing look. I could tell she knew I was hiding something, but I had no intention of telling her that I couldn't even shoot. Finally, after a good fifteen seconds, the info broker spoke.

"XaXa, you may as well come in if you're that curious."

"—?!"

I whipped around to the doorway with record speed, finding it open by a mere crack. A single red eye, widened with surprise, peeked through the doorway at about a head taller than my short height.

"O-okay," the figure behind the door said after three seconds of silence. The doorway opened wide, and in slinked my pale, skinny contact, XaXa.

I briefly wondered why he would choose to listen in on us in such an obvious manner, before turning back to Argo as she began to speak. "I've never seen this player before, but I've heard rumors since the game's opening. He seems to be a solo player who will come up to people and give them free intel on exploits in the game."

I mulled over the possibility for a second. Before I could protest that it couldn't possibly be the same person, Argo continued.

"That doesn't sound too bad, right? The part that changes that is the specific exploits he mentions. He only mentions ones that are controversial in ethics, because they could end up decreasing other players' chances of survival, if not killing them outright. In other words, he only tells people exploits that I try to keep hidden as an info broker."

"What…?"

My almost silent query was ignored outright. "He's a dangerous individual. However, he never seems to want to do the dirty work himself."

For only a moment, I recalled how I found the girl he planned to kill before me. That's right… before I jumped in, he only hit her with a «Paralysis Bullet» and let the mobs in the area do the work.

"Well, that's about all the info I've got on him right now," Argo said after a few moments of silence. She looked at me from under the hood of her cloak, a wry smile on her lips. "Since you gave me more info that I didn't already have on him, we come even with this. You don't owe me anything."

I sighed with relief. I had been expecting to have to shell out a couple thousand credits, but with the money I just saved, I would be able to upgrade my «Photon Sword» once, perhaps twice more before the first checkpoint was cleared.

"Well, I'd best get going. I have a lot of things to do and not much time," the whiskered info broker told me, walking behind us and opening the door. "Kii-boy, I'll show you out. You've got somewhere to be, too."


During the walk outside, I learned that, in my few days away from the front lines, someone had almost reached the end of the first checkpoint dungeon, and had organized a meeting for the top players the next day. This info was given to me for free, but only on the condition that I go myself.

The moment we arrived at the front door to the office building HQ of the «Info House», Argo stopped, and I nearly bumped into her. "Kii-boy," she said in a gravely serious tone. "I need a favor."

"What is it?" I wondered aloud. This sounded far more serious than when she talked about the raid meeting.

"XaXa is a good kid," she started in a cautious tone. "But he's also too impressionable. I took him into the «Info House» because I didn't want people like the one you met to lead him down the wrong path. So… help me watch over him, will ya?"

"Y… yeah…"

I didn't know exactly how to respond to that. Argo seemed dead set on keeping that XaXa guy on the straight path; even more so than she was set on selling any and all information. All I could do was say that one word and nod quietly in the face of such determination.

"Thanks. See you around, Kii-boy."

I didn't see either of them for the rest of the night.


Author's Note

Okay, before you all leave a freaked-out review, I should say that I'm not out of the woods yet, but I'm expected to make a full recovery. I'll likely be in the hospital another three weeks, but just know that I'm not going to die or anything.

Anyway, thanks for all the votes on my poll! I'm keeping it open for anyone who may have missed it, although the current prevailing opinion of my fans is obvious (twenty votes for balance versus one- and two-vote options… that was a landslide). I'll keep it in mind for future updates, whenever they may come.

Next chapter will be focusing on the equivalent of Aria in the Starless Night, by the way. Get ready for a boss meeting and GGO Diavel!

Well, I should get going for now. Keep in mind that the editing done to the end of this chapter was minimal if/when you critique grammar. I hope to see reviews, and I hope I get valid critiques in them!

See you next chapter!