GGO: Swordsman and Sniper
Sorry that I've been less consistent lately.
I always end up writing less for time spent writing and spend less of me free time writing because, well, coming up with stuff to happen is getting harder, with the SAO arc I could always just rely on the cannon but with GGO and ALO it would just end up too short without it.
So my options in this case are:
A) Keep doing what I'm doing and just post shorter chapters if I don't manage to write longer ones.
B) Just skip to the canon part and write that and then possibly write another story for non-canon stuff.
C) Update less frequently.
D) Drop this story for now and write a new one. (I do have a few ideas, sort of...)
Please tell me which one you want.
Well anyway, I'll get to writing the next chapter (this one)
Chapter 7: B.O.B
(1st person, Sinon, November 24th, 1:48pm)
In twelve minutes the B.O.B free-for-all finals will begin and Kirito and I were looking for Yuuki to ask her who was new from the last B.O.B.
"Hmm, new people? The only people whose names I don't recognize are Musketeer X, Pale Rider, and Sterben, the rest are definitely not your friend though some didn't make it into the last B.O.B they did try." Yuuki said.
"Okay, thanks." I said, checking the time again, which was still 10 till 2.
Sitting/standing around in other places were a bunch of people who didn't make it in and who were betting on who was going to win.
For some 'strange' reason all three of us were getting quite a few bets, especially Kirito and I and to a lesser extent Yuuki.
"Hey Kirito, if we catch him before we win the tournament let's kill ourselves and ruin them all." I whispered to Kirito.
We had told the agent to put some people at my old apartment so if he does come there they can catch him, but we still want to catch BOTH people and there is alway a chance that he won't come there. They rented it in the process so hopefully he won't realize that it's a trap.
Compared to ALO this game lost in practically every way.
The people were worse, the monsters were worse—and gross on top of that—and everything smelled. Also there was practically nowhere to relax and chances are if you see a person they're going to try to kill you if you're outside a safe zone. Of and, there are almost no girls, which makes it very annoying for the few girls that are here.
As for the fighting itself, while shooting guns was fun and all, I preferred shooting a bow, and I think Kirito liked swords more then guns too.
I checked the time and saw that there was only 5 minutes till we get dropped in random places in the 10km diameter circle that is the arena at least a kilometer away from anybody else.
According to the info booklet we read every 15 minutes a satellite flies over and reveal everyone's locations on a mobile terminal which projects a map of the whole arena, so for the first 15 minutes we plan to head to the center and then once the map shows us where the other us we meet up, after that we hunt down Musketeer X, Pale Rider, and Sterben and hopefully find which one is Death Gun. Ideally we would want to enlist Yuuki as well but that is only if she is near us when we meet up or when we are heading to meet up.
Oh and one more thing we knew now, Death Gun used to be in Laughing Coffin. How do we know? He has the tattoo and knows about what happened in SAO and that we're SAO survivors. How do we know that? He approached us and asked if we were the 'real deal' pointing our names and skill, then before leaving his raised his arm and almost certainly deliberately showed us his Laughing Coffin tattoo.
"Good luck." Yuuki said.
""Good luck."" Kirito and I replied.
We waited as the minutes ticked away until suddenly we were al surrounded by blue bubbles which quickly became brighter and then faded out, but once they faded out we were no longer next to each other.
I was in a black space similar to during the prelims matches—speaking of prelims, people still didn't know Kirito had swords—with a timer counting down, more waiting... Ugh!
The timer finally reached zero and I was teleported once again.
This time I landed in a forested area immediately opened my map, which outside of scans is just a map that shows you and the map.
I used it to find which direction the center of the arena was and head that way, hoping that Kirito was doing the same. It seemed I had spawned near the edge so this might take a while.
10 minutes had passed and I still hadn't run into one, which wasn't all that surprising because no one would be moving very fast while watching out for other players so it was likely most people hadn't moved a kilometer yet.
I was currently following about 10 meters from the river so I was still in the tree line.
I saw a bridge up ahead and heard gunfire from that direction.
Stopping and pulling out a pair of binoculars to take a look I 'felt' someone drop down behind me completely silently and hoped it was Kirito, because otherwise I was very much dead.
I spun round as fast as I could pulling out my handgun and felt someone catch my hand "It's me." I heard Kirito say quietly.
I released a breath I totally hadn't been holding and lowered my pistol as I heard my heart beat.
"You scared me." I said, pouting slightly.
"Sorry." Kirito said.
I looked at him and saw that he had his swords and jump-pack—which was actually very flat and just looked like armor—equipped as well as his P90 because there was no need to hide them now, we were going to quit this game after this most likely anyway.
"You wanna go check out the gunfire. Also I have an idea on how to hide from the scan, and I think if people saw us a lot of them would want us dead." Kirito said as he checked the time.
"We have only a few more seconds so let's go, basically put your sniper rifle in you inventory and jump in the water, hopefully the satellite won't see us." Kirito said and unequipped his jump-pack before jumping into the water.
I went into my inventory and unequipped my sniper rifle before jumping into the water.
As the clock hit 2:14:59 we ducked out heads under water and waited 10 seconds before coming up again.
We opened our maps and Kirito had a smug smile on his face when neither of us appeared on the map.
Looking at the map it seemed that Dyne and Pale Rider were fighting on the bridge and that Yuuki was watching the fight from a little ways away, probably planning to finish off the winner.
I equipped my sniper rifle—and saw Kirito do the same with his jump-pack—and we moved as quickly as we could to Yuuki's position.
A minute later we arrived at her position and Kirito silently walked up to her.
He said "Hi." quietly to her and grabbed her gun as she spun around.
"Wait a moment before shooting please, we're just here to talk right now." Kirito said and signaled for me to come out.
Yuuki nodded and lowered her gun, turning her gaze back to the fight.
It seemed Pale Rider was definitely not Death Gun as his clothes were white, including the skin-tight helmet+mask covering his head with a green visor. Death Gun on the other hand had some white bandages around his arms that made him look like a mummy, black clothes, dark grey skull mask with glowing red eyes and a black cloak as well as an invisibility device.
Speaking of invisibility, Sterben not showing up on the map was suspicious, but he might just also have figured out the swimming trick, or just was swimming for other reasons without realizing that it hid him on the map.
We watched as Pale Rider dodged around jumping and swinging along the bridge, in my opinion he spent too much time in the air because dodging in the air is very hard as you have limited control of where you're going.
Dyne nonetheless failed to hit Pale Rider and he closed the distance, once he was barely two meters away Pale Rider fired his shotgun, nearly killing Dyne, who collapsed to his knees.
Then he landed next to him and put his gun to Dyne's head. After a moment he fired the shotgun and Dyne dropped to the ground, however instead of the normal shattering when someone dies his body stayed and instead a red marker floated about his body with the message "Dead" on it.
I aimed my sniper rifle at Pale Rider but just as I did he dropped to the ground, though his HP barely went down a little yellow lightning bolt appeared next to it.
On his right shoulder there was a bit of lightning zapping around and he seemed to be unable to move, paralysis.
If that didn't scream Laughing Coffin, then I don't know what did. If someone normal had snuck up on him they would have just shot him in the head and killed him instead.
Then from the shadows walked a man in a black cloak with a handgun.
He started to cross himself and then aimed at Pale Rider and yelled "Now you will know the meaning of True Power. With this gun I bring real death. This gun and I bare the same name, the name Death Gun."
I aimed at him and before he could shoot Pale Rider fired.
He dodged the shot, and kept aiming at Pale Rider, then he fired.
Pale Rider's HP dropped by about a 3rd and for a bit it seemed nothing happened.
Then the paralysis wore off and Pale Rider stood up and aimed at Death Gun, but before he could fire he dropped his gun and clutched at his heart before vanishing in green polygons and a "Disconnected" banner in green appeared where he was.
He... just... died... another person died before my eyes and I couldn't save him. I could have saved him, if I had shot faster or attracted Death Gun's attention, or shot just before Death Gun fired so his shot missed.
Then Death Gun walked back into the shadows.
I looked over at Yuuki and judging by her expression she didn't understand what had just happened, that was fine, she was safe from him so she didn't need to know.
I felt Kirito grab my hand gently and look at me with concern in his eyes.
We got up and Kirito said "Let's go find Musketeer X."
I nodded and just as we were about to leave Yuuki asked "What happened to him?"
"He died." I answered simply.
"No, he disconnected." Yuuki said, not understanding what I meant.
"He died IRL." I explained.
I could hear Yuuki's shock and then she asked "You're not looking for your friend, are you?"
"No, we're looking for Death Gun." I said as we started to walk along.
"How is it possible to kill someone IRL from in-game, I mean the Amusphere is safe, right?" asked Yuuki.
"We don't know." Kirito answered.
Yuuki didn't asked anymore questions so we walked away.
We started walking in the direction of the center, because on average if you are in the middle you'll be closer to people and thus hopefully closer to Death Gun.
The river flowed towards the center of the map and in the middle of the map was a large city, with building getting taller as you get to the center until in the center there was a large circular stadium.
By the time of the next sat scan we were about 2 kilometers away from the city in the center and we didn't bother hiding from people, so what if they found us, we'd just kill them, not like we were sneaking up on someone, and anyway, most people would stay away from us with how famous, or rather, infamous we had gotten.
We opened the map and looked at it, upon tapping all the names we saw Musketeer X in the city and didn't find Sterben. If Death Gun jumped in the river it was possible that the current could have already carried to the city.
"It could be Musketeer X, Musketeer for Gun and X for Death. And anyway, we don't have any better leads and I don't see Sterben. Which does suggest it is him but we can't find him." Kirito said.
"Okay, let's go after them then." I said and closed the map.
Kirito did the same and we kept on walking through the forest, though we picked up the pace now.
A few minutes of walking later several prediction lines appeared, judging by their spread and the distance of their source, as well as quantity, it was almost certainly an assault rifle or something of the sort.
I dropped to the ground and aimed my sniper rifle while Kirito's swords turned on.
As the barrage of bullets flew at us every single one was turned into a beautiful spray of sparks but Kirito's swords which formed an impenetrable shield.
A look of surprise painted itself on the shooters face and he ran out of ammo.
I remembered to aim instead of looking at the beautiful sparks and took aim.
Once I had him in my sights I fired, the bullet hitting him in the waist and splitting him in half.
We continued moving with renewed speed to preferably avoid any more encounters.
20 minutes and no encounters later we arrived at the city, having looked at the map we had still not seen Sterben so it was likely he was deliberately been hiding and Musketeer X hadn't moved much from their spot.
And that does it for this chapter, this time my reason is that this is the best spot to cut it off for the next while and I didn't want to make this too long so I stopped it here.
Remember to tell me which of the 4 things you want me to do.
Anyway, cya me oouuttiiyy!