I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the characters.
Turning Tables
Michael glanced up as Ginrou scooted closer to Sinon.
"So Sinocchi," Ginrou spoke up, grinning. "You free after this? I found a gun shop with a great selection. While we're at it, how about going for tea? What do you think."
Though he was talking to Sinon surprisingly politely, at least for him, his eyes continuously shifted between her upper legs and her cleavage. And Sinon knew it.
"Sorry Ginrou," Sinon apolovized, sounding extremely sincere and even a little sympathetic. "I've got some stuff to take care of in the real world today."
"I see," Ginrou grinned. "Are you a student in real life, Sinocchi? Got a report to turn in?"
"Yes, well..." Sinon trailed off, not wanting to talk about real life.
"It's not very polite to ask other players about real life, especially when you don't know them very well," Michael stated, cating a smile on Sinon's face before she pulled her scarf up, covering her mouth.
"He's right," Dyne stated.
"Shut up!" Ginrou snapped. "Why is Michael the only one that gets to hang out with Sinocchi? Are you friends IRL or something?"
"There you go with those questions again," Michael sighed.
"Don't mind him," one of the others snickered. "He's just mad because he's a lonely solo player in both worlds."
"Hey none of you have gotten lucky yourselves in years," Ginrou snapped, then froze as the barrel of an Optical Rifle touched the side of his head.
"You know, I've always wondered if a barrier would work at point blank range," Michael stated. "It could be pretty interesting to find out."
"What the fuck's your problem?" Ginrou demanded.
"Because you clearly don't understand, I'm going to explain it to you very politely," Michael stated. "Sinon clearly wants nothing to do with you, she's just too polite to say it. Aside from that, it's probably extremely creepy to have a guy like you talking about getting lucky with you when you didn't even agree to go on a date. So, I'm going to do us all a favor and lay down one ground rule. Stay away from Sinon. She's not a trophy, and she's not interested. If not, you may find yourself on the wrong end of my sights again, except that next time, it may be a bit more...messy."
Ginrou gulped and backed away. Michael kept his rifle trained on Ginrou as one of the others
Players reported that he could see their target, the same group of players they had taken down before, but with an extra.
"Me and Sinon will snipe them," Michael said. "You all go get in position."
Dyne nodded and they all left. A moment later, Sinon called them on her communicator.
"I'm getting a bad feeling from the guy in cloak," Sinon stated.
"The one with the minimi should be your first target, it's the biggest threat," Dyne stated. "The other one is probably just a pack mule."
"I can't explain why, but I think the guy in the cloak should be first," Sinon said.
"No," Dyne stated. "That Minimi could be a real problem if we don't take it down fast. Start there."
"Alright," Sinon sighed.
Michael equipped his sniper rifle and set it down, setting his Optical Rifle beside him.
"I'll handle the Minimi," Michael said, fully agreeing with Sinon. "You take out the guy with the cloak. Even if I miss, you can still drop the other guy your second shot."
Sinon nodded and relayed the plan to Dyne, who accepted it. Sinon sighted in on the guy with the cloak and Michael sighted in on the player with the machine gun.
"Almost in position," Sinon said.
Michael gripped his rifle tighter, other hand clenching on the buttstock. Sinon glanced over at him, worried.
"You okay?" Sinon asked.
"Yeah," Michael nodded.
Sinon turned back to her scope and Michael swallowed, finding it hard to make it go down. Images flashed in his sight. Fire in a skyscraper's window. His aiming circle was expanding and shrinking rapidly. Blood splattered across Michael's face. He recoiled from the rifle, wiping his face but his face was dry. Clean. It wasn't real. He ignored Sinon's questioning look and sighted in again, his circle now shrinking and expanding once each within a second. His heart poinded in his ears, his sight began to grow fuzzy, the circle speeding up until it was shrinking and growing several times a second. He felt sweat on his palms and his back. He tried to breath but it came out in ragged gasps.
He rolled to his side, gasping for breath and holding his hands over his eyes, trying to shut out the images.
"Are you okay?" Sinon asked.
"No," Michael said honestly. "Not at all. I won't be able to shoot more than once. And I'm not going to be able to aim for long. Let me know when they're in position."
Sinon looked through her scope and then back at him.
"They're in position," Sinon said.
"Three," Michael breathed, closing his eyes. "Two." He opened his eyes again, forcing his heart rate back down. "One."
In one movement, he rolled over, shouldering the rifle and sighting in, firing instantly and rolling away from the rifle again. At the same time as he fired, Sinon sighted in aand fired. The two shots flew away from them, streaking through the air. Daniel silently swore. He had closed his eyes as he fired, so the position of the green circle was burned into his mind. It was over the player's left shoulder, not a single spot of it on the player. He had missed.
Sure enough, his bullet streaked over the player's shoulder and blasted into the ground behind him. Sinon's bullet flew straight at the other player's face. But somehow, he moved out of the way. The bullet missed by an inch and blasted the ground. Sinon swung her rifle around, shooting and obliterating the player with the Minimi. The moment the player was destroyed, Dyne's group sprinted forward, opening fire on the other players. Several of them died quickly but the rest took cover, returning fire. Ginrou sprinted forward, firing. Several laser blasts hit his barrier. Then, the player shooting at him died. Michael forced himself to swallow and picked up his Optical Rifle.
Sinon turned her scope back to the player with the cloak. As she did, he threw the cloak off, raising a minigun.
"A minigun!?" Sinon gaped.
"Oh fuck," Michael groaned. "That's why they were so late."
As Sinon watched, the player opened fire, killing Ginrou instantly. Sinon stood and Michael did the same, picking up the sniper rifle, putting it in his inventory. The two of them sprinted along the trail, running toward Dyne. As they ran, a massive red wall surrounded them. Sinon leapt into the air, flipping over the red lines and Michael dropped. He barely managed to get below the kill zone and bullets began to fly between him and Sinon, barely missing them. It sropped as Michael slid into cover to one side of Dyne and Sinon landed and rolled into cover on his other side. The other two were also present.
"We're going to die!" Dyne said, clearly panicking.
"Then die!" Michael snapped, nerves still shot after his episode with the sniper rifle. "It's a fucking game you goddamn pussy! You'll just fucking reset! If you can't handle this, stay down and get shown up by a girl, cause I know Sinon is going to try and kill this mother fucker. It's kinda sad that she has more balls than you."
And with that, he grabbed one of the other players by they shirt and sprinted out of cover, taking the player and hurling him behind the next bit of cover. As he ran after him, he hurled his knife at the player with the minigun. The player leaned out of the way, the knife knicking his ear. He dove behind cover, avoiding a wall of lead, and looked to the other player.
"You run to the next cover and I'll shoot him before he hits you," Michael said.
"And if he has a barrier?" The player asked.
"He can only take so much damage before the barrier breaks, and he'll turn to me anyway, at which point, you shoot him directly," Michael stated.
The player nodded, turning and sprinting away. Bullets began to fly around him and Michael rolled, firing at the minigun wielder. He ignored Michael complety, continuing to fire at the other player. The player got within a fot of cover when he was finally turned into swiss cheese. Then, the minigun wielder turned on Michael who sprinted away. Just as the minigun wielder was about to fire, Sinon did. Michael had been watching the minigun wielder, so he was able to see the single most impressive feat in his life. At less than two hundred meters, the player was able to dodge a second shot. This time, it blasted the glasses he had been wearing, but he was not harmed.
Michael dove behind cover as Sinon ran, a trail of bullets following her. Michael stepped out of cover, hurling his knife and hitting the player in the shoulder. The player began to turn and the other player with them began to shoot at the minigun player as Dyne charged the two remaining Optical Rifle users he had been fighting. His barrier shattered as he charged, but just as he died, he hurled a grenade. The grenade killed both and left only the minigunner, who had also destroyed the player trying to kill him.
"Just the two of us," Michael said over the communicator. "I'll draw his fire, close range, like I do best. You do what you do best and get some distance."
"Okay," Sinon agreed.
Michael stepped out of cover and into a field of red. He swore and dove into a role, barely making it out of the way before the ground around him exploded in a hail of bullets. He kept running, hurling his knife as he did but missed. The red field followed him, mowing down everything. Michael took a couple quick shots with his Optical Rifle but they did barely anything. Finally, michael dove behind a wall then lay flat on the ground as rounds began to punch clean through. Miraculously, the bullets stopped before hitting him and he lay there, panting. He slowly pushed himself up, looking through a hole as the player began to shoot up at a building.
Michael stood, looking to see Sinon over the trail of bullets, flipping and spinning through the air, one leg taken off just above the knee. The player began to pull his minigun up, struggling to rais it enough to catch Sinon as Sinon fell, moving toward him as she did. Michael did some quick match and figured out where she would land, on the player. Just as she neared him, she pulled her rifle up and grinned, squeezing off one shot. Her barrel having been withing a foot from his face left no room to avoid it a third time. The bullet went into his face and exited his right knee. The force of the recoil was enough to push Sinon upward, breaking her descent and giving Michael just enough time to dive and catch her, sliding along the ground as the plYer exploded into data shards.
"That was fucking amazing," Michael stated.
"Thanks," Sinon sighed, exhausted from adrenaline and breathing hard, lying on his chest. "That was definitely not how I saw this playing out though."
"Agreed," Michael snorted, also breathing hard but more exhausted from his earlier episode than from adrenaline.
"Now that we have time," Sinon said, pushing herslf up, "what the hell happened back there?"
Michael stared at her a second before turning his head to the side, no longer seeing her or anything around them.
"A memory," Michael stated. "A nightmare."
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