"Sinon, what does the public know about Zaskar?"
Kirito's indigo eyes watched his blue-haired friend from across the studio table. While his attention mostly remained with the strawberry-shake-in-the-making put before him and his mouth firmly devouring the plastic straw, an old curiosity emerged to fill the empty void of a late afternoon post-PVE farming in Gun Gale Online.
For a moment, Sinon did not speak as she vanished her holographic reading window and a pair of glasses from her face. Her legs dropped from the opposite chair she once rested on in a faux-confidence kind of way and leaned onto the table. The furniture screeched as it wobbled upon the concrete floor, its unbalanced legs shifting with her applied weight.
"What brought that up? I thought you're pretty familiar with them at this point after playing for so long?"
Kirito immediately wanted to dismiss her scrutiny and his own question after realizing the foolish manner he broached the subject, however he pushed on through. He felt bored; there was no reason to leave the room any less awkward.
"Just curious, wanted to fill the time. Asuna's taking off soon so I don't think we're going to get into anymore farming today."
Their squad's hunting trip wrapped up an hour ago and what remained of them settled into "Asuna's apartment" as they got off to do their own things in the real world.
Argo was off to manage her machine-learnt forums manager so she could compile her Alfheim Online insights for the next day. Rising to the top of info-broking for VRMMOs was a challenge for her, even two years after Sword Art Online. Not to mention her internship with MMO Today.
Lisbeth had some afternoon shopping at the mall with her friends IRL. For those in the group more inclined to the solitary computer life, it was easy to forget about their livelier friends and their real-life obligations.
Agil had his American-themed bar and wife to contend with.
The rest of their absent usual suspects also had prior commitments. Leafa had her kendo practice and a boy problem to deal with. "Street samurai Klein" more like "office body Klein." Silica had family vacation.
That left just Sinon, Kirito, and his girlfriend Asuna who was also approaching her time to leave. However, she was over by the lone couch in their occupied space examining and processing her newest loot grab from the PVE run. Despite her fixation on both accelerating her education to catch up to her pre-Sword Art Online classmates and keeping perfect tandem with Kirito's high school completion, she was ever the detail-fixated person and even her games became a matter of fine art and fine paperwork.
Several of Argo's gun performance charts floated around the chestnut-haired girl kneeling over the couch and matching coffee table. Her monster drops laid on the floor in a corner, neatly stacked but largely forgotten. Her soft brown eyes rather focused on the small arsenal of weapons awaiting her heavy-weighted decision regarding their fates. One or two she might keep; the rest would become construction material or NPC shop junk.
Today had been largely her day, exposing her further to the firearms side of Gun Gale Online. The primary fixture of the VRFPS's experience. As Sinon put it to Asuna when she remarked about getting a laser sword to match her boyfriend's, Asuna was learning GGO the "wrong" way.
Some time later and now Asuna was a bigger gun nut that Kirito, a daunting reality when he didn't take to shooters the same way the rest of the gaming community did from the onset. Shooting games were the dominant gaming genre, Kirito couldn't deny the reality but he just loved swords more.
The voice of Kirito's girlfriend carried from the so-called 'living room' despite the safe area-zoned abandoned studio lacking any walls or any more furnishing outside of what Kirito described. "I'm curious too, Sinon. All Kirito said was they were a shady American company."
The blue-haired girl shrugged, her elbows lifted off the table as she summoned her own strawberry shake from her inventory and sipped away between sentences.
"Zaskar is a shady American company. They're named after a mountain range in India which is an odd choice. No physical or mailing address. No external support email and no phone number. They handle all in-game issues with service-to-service support. I think someone did figure out their Japanese offices at some point because there's no way Americans are running this thing from one side of the Pacific to the other. Also, Asuna, this strawberry shake is really good."
The girl-clad-in-red stood up from her gun collection and gave a sheepish shrug. "It's a work in progress."
Sinon hummed in response. "It's got a very cold and crisp taste to it, not too thick. A little too sweet but really no brain freeze. I'm surprised."
"GGO has no built-in brain freeze mechanic, at least not from what I know at the moment," Asuna explained. "I have Argo to thank for checking, but she's still trying to find a way for me to get it working. We had it in SAO."
Kirito shivered slightly at the thought of Andra's summer popsicles from the SAO days. The girls missed the reaction, probably for the best.
"That's just evil Asuna," Sinon mumbled as she continued to nibble at her drink straw.
The gleam in Asuna's eyes was apparent. "Kirito said the difference between virtual and reality is the amount of information input. I just want to see if I can narrow the gap in experiences."
Kirito made a mental note to rewatch the Matrix films with Asuna. He felt excitement at closing the gap between virtual fantasies and reality too, but that predatory look made him wonder if he was cultivating a gaming equivalent of an evil genius. She wasn't going to turn into a Kayaba, was she?
"Anyway," Sinon continued. "No one really knows how to get in direct contact with Zaskar. But there is a way apparently. If SIG Sauer-sama can do it… Well, I think anyone can figure it out with enough time and effort."
"What's the difference between American and Japanese servers?"
"The American servers are less played than Japan's because they have to compete against actual gaming companies in the VR Seed space. If to make a practical comparison, Zaskar is the literal equivalent of shady game advertisements on porn websites from a decade ago. Sometimes you get a virus, sometimes you get a broken buggy mess from a small foreign indie studio that is trying to make something good. Zaskar is just the latter of that situation."
Asuna's eyes bored into Kirito, looking for his confirmation. Her wide-eyed stare suggested her ears were more focused on one part of the explanation than the full scenario Asuna gave. He gave a quick nod and took a long sip of his strawberry shake – it suddenly tasted super sweet like American candy. Ew, wait… Asuna's food tasting weird was a bad omen.
Sinon continued. "As for what I've heard about the American servers from people that hopped across the Pacific to try them out. They have a 'more complete' and realistic sandbox than our own. They took out the bullet line mechanic after a bunch of American players complained about it."
"Sandbox?" Asuna asked, still not versed in the full gamer lexicon.
"No…" Kirito gasped in terror as dreadful recognition set in.
Sinon craned her neck around to face Asuna, "Sandbox. It means the extent of experiences or assets in a game world. Everything you can experience, interact, and create in a game is part of that 'sandbox' and enabled by the game engine. For example, the VR Seed from Sword Art Online being the engine that enable all the games on the Seed Nexus. Your cooking experiments and skills are part of the sandbox, as is my rifle, or Kirito's laser sword. Also, Kirito. Chill – Zaskar hasn't made a decision to take away your god mode anytime soon for the Japanese servers."
"But they could do it if they wanted to…"
"Oh, grow up Kii-bou. If it ever happened, it would be announced. Just learn to play with a gun like everyone else. It's Gun Gale Online, not Sword Gale Online. And your Five-Seven doesn't count."
Kirito grumbled but offered up no countenance to Sinon's teasing.
"Speaking of guns, Sinon. What's this Yeet Cannon G1? I got six of them this drop and I've never seen it before." Asuna remarked, holding up a bulky-looking black handgun to her friends.
The usually calm Sinon visibly drained of color at the firearm in Andra's hand. Kirito frowned at her reaction, viewing her face from the side as Asuna retracted the handgun in confused concern.
"Is it bad?"
"Throw them out."
"That bad!?"
Sinon shook her head as a little color returned to her face. She took a breath, putting her composure back together.
"You're better off deconstructing them into building components than anything else. They're worth almost nothing at the shops and you're better off just using anything else but that."
Asuna squinted in confusion. "I mean, they are Rare rarity, but no gun can be that bad? It's a gun."
"The Glock I got you on your first day is a better than the Model C9 and its variants. I admit the Yeet Cannon is an improvement over its other GGO variants but really its not worth the trouble."
Asuna and Kirito eyed the blue-haired sniper with morbid curiosity. She was always a serious girl, with a subtle sense of humor. When she reacted to something, she had good reason for it. But gamers like Asuna and Kirito were never ones to just take someone at their word.
"It does have a plastic feel to it, and it has a little rattling sound. This thing does feel a little cheap," Asuna admitted. "I still think I should at least give it a try."
Sinon frowned, biting her lip before shrugging out an affirmative.
"Go for it, I guess. Nothing like trying it for yourself."
No one reached for ear protection. This was GGO, a video game that knew it was a video game. Hearing protection was unnecessary except for dealing with distinct disorientation devices like flashbangs and noisemakers.
Asuna took a box of fresh 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition and poured them out onto the coffee table, quietly clicking the rounds into a Yeet Cannon magazine as the room remained still with curiosity and grumpy foreboding.
Kirito asked, "Sinon, why do you dislike it so much?"
"Because it's a joke that the developers implemented intentionally. So, what Asuna has is an upgraded Hi-Point Model C9, or just Model C9 in GGO. But really – anyone who knows firearms calls it the Hi-Point after the company that made it. It's one of, or THE cheapest handguns money can buy in America from what I hear. Something like sixteen thousand yen. And it's built to be cheap. This new upgraded one is called a Yeet Cannon G1 or YC9 G1. A lot of the stronger players at this point are complaining on forums for Zaskar to lower their drop rate in the rare item bracket because they keep popping up as drop rewards when people are looking for other stuff. Usually rifles or carbines honestly."
Asuna muttered through Sinon's explanation. "Only eight rounds? My G17 holds double that…"
"There's ten and fifteen-round magazines you can get at the starter shops for them!" Sinon called out, in a moment of trying to be helpful.
Asuna twitched at Sinon. "Starter shops?"
"After the most recent update, Zaskar increased the drop rates for C9 parts across the board and added purchasable pieces in the starter shops and only starter shops given the weapon in question. Before that, the C9 only dropped in the early beginner and tutorial quests as easily farmed construction material to give new players help with upgrading to the next tier of weapons. The starter Military M9 was better than it by far."
Asuna glanced at the loaded weapon now in her hands. She whispered, "How bad are you really?"
Looking down towards the end of her 'apartment,' Asuna scrutinized the semi-used target hanging downrange at about 40 meters. Really, her apartment was a high-level empty space in a warehouse-scaled skyscraper somewhere at the periphery of SBC Glocken's major protection zone.
Despite being a large Safe Zone, SBC Glocken only kept out monster spawns and trailing aggroed monsters. Guns were readily available almost anywhere in GGO, the only way to really implement true safe zones was player-owned properties and NPC facilities. Even player-owned properties like Asuna's warehouse apartment weren't safe without tweaking the game Civility Code, like other Seed Nexus games with their morality and ethics code systems.
For now, with her empty and extra retail space, Asuna felt inclined to leave her settings off to make use of her own personal shooting range in privacy. She brought the blocky handgun up in a shooter-ready stance and felt for the weapon in hand.
Kirito and Sinon watched the chestnut-haired girl in silent observation as she went about testing her questionable prize. Asuna flicked the safety lever on the Hi-Point's left side with a practiced click – while no means a true and proper gun nut, Asuna loved mastering the basics. Her firearms handling subsequently was near perfect.
"Doesn't seem too bad. A little big on the grip."
Asuna hesitated in surprise when her light attempt to rack the slide back into battery proved stiffer than she expected. Letting go, she adjusted her grip and completed the slide motion with a fluid clack.
Kirito observed, "That slide looks really frustrating."
"It's not that bad, more that it sits in that feeling-valley of 'so fragile it will break' and 'requiring angry explicative' to function." Sinon explained.
"It sounds like you've used it yourself."
"I have."
The two table sitters tabled their discussion as Asuna went to war with the target and her Hi-Point. Her first two shots echoed loudly through the warehouse-sized studio, bright flashes streaking in the darkness. Kirito took notice at how Asuna seemed to squeeze her hand with both trigger pulls, as if she expected the thing to explode out of her hand.
Her bullet lines clicked low and to the left of the target, missing the paper-made human outline by a meter.
"Asuna, you're overcompensating." Sinon remarked.
"The trigger is squishy. I just wanted to get it going." The shooter grumbled.
"Lighten up a bit. You're just going to have to accept a few things with the Hi-Point. Its trigger pull isn't too heavy but it has a lot of empty give before you hit the wall. Stick to slower, steadier shots. You'll get it."
Sinon rose from the table as Asuna experimented with another trigger pull. "This reminds me of a particular absurd fellow I met before you guys came along. I used a semi-automatic sniper rifle around this time and still kind of a mid-skill marksman. During one of the unofficial player-run tournaments styled after Bullet of Bullets, one of my info brokers asked me to chaperone one of their friends through the event – make sure he got into the final bracket or so."
Asuna's fourth and fifth shots landed on target but she appeared visibly frustrated at how slow she now took shots to get them on target. Every pull required her to give a hand twitch and adjust her sight dots back onto target. The Hi-Point continued to pull left.
"Guy literally named Hi-Point. Fairly straight forward dude in a mid-level body armor. I took him for a mixed build with specialization in strength and speed. Turns out like his namesake too, he carried a Model C9 as his loadout. But because of the limitations of player-run events, he brought this big box backpack and refused to get rid of it during the entire tournament. Low and behold, we spent most of the tournament waiting around and picking off people with my sniper rifle. He wasn't a bad spotter mind you, but he really didn't do anything. I was his babysitter the entire time.
We got to the top fifteen participants and he insisted we set up in the base floor of a skyscraper. I thought he was an idiot, and really, he was but I helped him move to a building and I squatted with my rifle above him for the rest of the match. This guy… He just started firing handgun ammo into the air and drawing people to our location. Started tossing Model C9s on the floor over and over as he ran out."
"How many Hi-Points did he have?" Kirito asked in confusion.
Sinon gave him a bothered look. "I have no idea. Like, no idea at all. I stopped counting after twenty-three. That box of his. It was like a giant replenishment box of just Hi-Points. He didn't bother with reloading at all, when he burned a magazine or the gun jam mechanism kicked in, he just dropped it for a new one. Over and over."
Asuna stopped shooting, about nine rounds fired from her pistol. "So, what happened?"
"In that confined space, he minimized the advantages of ranged weapons and managed to kill four players before being taken out. That didn't matter in the end, he bit the dust and I eventually got taken out too. But that asshole… He made it to Number Nine before going down with the entire Japanese server watching. A guy armed with hundreds of Hi-Points, a joke-noob-gun, outplayed some of the best and talented players on the server because I carried him to the finish. Just so he could have a stage to make all of us look like clowns.
After doing some digging, I learned that many new players over the six months in lead up to that BoB practice tournament encountered a friendly, experienced player at the starter hunting grounds offering people a chance to party up and learn tips about the game. He ended every play session, trading people nicer drops he got from his higher level for Model C9s. Just Model C9s. He collected who-knows-how-many just to put together that stupid ruse."
Kirito's right eye twitched, getting a slight sense of Déjà vu. It sounded a little too familiar to stories he heard from his pre-SAO days. Asuna blinked in disgust, looking between Sinon and her almost-spent handgun.
"Last time I ever agreed to supporting a client that I didn't vet personally, especially on a high-profile stage like Bullet of Bullets. And then I ran into you, Kirito-kun." Sinon explained, smiling sweetly at the long-haired boy at table. Mouth going dry, Kirito was glad he wasn't drinking Asuna's drink in that moment otherwise he might have choked.
Asuna gave a great sigh, addressing the blue-haired sniper. "I guess you were right. This thing really does suck. I can't get the headshot, even with adjustments and playing around with my aim assist function in the menu."
Sinon approached, gesturing an open hand. "Let me see it. I don't like the Hi-Point very much but I guess I haven't given the Yeet Cannon a go yet."
Asuna stepped aside as the polymer handgun traded hands. Sinon reached down and scooped up another loaded magazine for the Yeet Cannon G1. The sniper gave the handgun a look over, noting how it differed from her unfortunately intimate experience with the weapon's more common and noob-intended cousin.
"Still clunky as ever but I guess I can appreciate the more-Glock-like ergonomics and the adjustable sights."
Asuna shrugged as Kirito looked on, mouth back to his brain freeze-less drink.
Sinon took aim at the target between the dotted sights. "Apparently it was also supposed to have a last round bolt hold open but I guess like the joke goes, Hi-Points don't work as intended."
The blue-haired girl lowered the gun to rack the slide back with all the professionalism she had which gratefully worked out on the first try. It was a stiff and unwieldy slide action but it at least worked. Sinon gave the trigger a steady and slow squeeze, bringing it down until it detonated in her hand with the crackle of the slide bouncing back and lobbing a bullet downrange.
To Sinon the process felt slow but surprisingly straightforward. She didn't hate the feeling of the gun sliding back into battery. She didn't care for it, she might even like it.
The terrible thought dawned on her as she turned to Asuna.
The chestnut-haired girl shrugged with an expectant huff, "As you said, it sucks."
Sinon remained quiet for a long moment.
"Sinon?" Asuna asked in concern.
The sniper licked her dry lips before saying her next words. Speaking hesitantly, "It's… not horrible. Like, it's an actual noticeable improvement. I think… I think I might like it honestly."
Asuna stared at Sinon for an even longer moment. Kirito gave off a pale, confused look from the corner. The sound of the boy sucking down his seemingly endless shake was the only one that echoed through the spacious studio.
"I think I'll go for a walk…" Asuna muttered, walking away from her boyfriend and her GGO mentor.
The crashing of the door frame on the other side of Asuna's apartment left a deafening silence.
Sinon looked to Kirito, his face flashing between paleness and redness as it tried to figured out which emotion to settle on.
"I think I like the Yeet Cannon."
A/N: This premise came to me as a shower thought after Agent 94 pestered me to write more Sword Art Online. Nothing special, just a little humor over an established gun community meme. I hope you enjoy.