It's 12:35, and there are two trains of thought in Sinon's head as she stares at the developing situation.

If Sinon took an objective view of the situation viewable on two of the screens for the audience's viewing pleasure, there was no way Jaymes and the others could come out on top of the situation. No one had their eyes on any other screen besides the two that showed LPFM and Clarence's new group.

LPFM had all six members in the train car. They hadn't moved since the last scan, and where once the camera had to zoom far out to get both the car and the sea's edge onscreen simultaneously, the camera's much closer now. LPFM's aware of the encroachment; M has peeked out the holes in the car to check on the sea's position

On another screen, Clarence's group of sixteen had spread out, split into duos or trios. Positioned behind the scattered cars to the north and east of LPFM, spread about thirty to fifty yards away from each other, the alliance utilizes what was known as the "crane's wing" formation used in the Warring States era, named for its resemblance to the expansiveness of a crane's wing. Five hundred yards separate them from LPFM, outside of the effective range of Fuka's Rightony and Lethania.

It's a bonafide stalemate, but if the recessing amount of land plays a factor, LPFM is at a considerable disadvantage. With the sea to the west and south and enemies to the northeast, there's statistically little chance they'll break through the siege that's plagued them for nearly ten minutes.

If Sinon looked at things subjectively, then she knows LPFM isn't in danger, but the danger itself. Forget the ridiculous mesh of personalities that somehow work together; she has experience with their tenacity. Jaymes alone is one thing, especially with Kirito and the others, but for him and Sinon, there's a different attitude when they play with Crimson Squad. If she had to describe it briefly, it could be summed up as "ruthless aggression." The world of guns is much more hardcore than the world of swords and the world of fairies, so how she views her best friend's mentality in GGO differs from SA:O and ALO.

"It looks bad for them...but LPFM's tough, you know? Wouldn't they just be able to force their way through a siege this shallow? Once they know where the ambush is, they can snipe and grenade 'em there, right?"

"But I do think this strategy of their enemies is going to work better than the last one. The difference in numbers is big. And the battlefield is flat and open. If they're charging ahead and get shot from the flanks, big slow M is going down first, don't you think? If one person dies, that's a game changer, and it'll push momentum away from them."

The opinions of the bar patrons ring true, but there's one opinion Sinon is waiting to hear - that of the man responsible for the sieges of the top four teams. Sinon hadn't paid much attention to T-S, SHINC, and MMTM's progress, but she noticed neither had the man who came up with this whole idea. Ever since he explained things after the first scan, his eyes have been glued to the action between LPFM and their enemies with a smirk and a body swing back and forth like a pendulum. Something is off about this person.

He had given the other teams letters and smoke signals, hoping to eliminate the four favorites to win. HIs why wasn't explained, but she assumed it was because he wanted to see a different group at the top. In the previous Squad Jams, SHINC, MMTM, and Llenn's various teams have topped the charts, with Llenn's team winning each time by a hair.

If he specifically targeted LPFM, that's nothing new for the six and their squadmates in the audience. Who wouldn't want to see Crimson Squad taken down a peg? He just covered his goal by adding the other three teams into the mix. But LPFM has successfully fought off two dangerous situations, and that smile and jittery movement hasn't faded. Is he...testing them, then?

Or is he targeting a specific person? If he wanted to go after Crimson Squad, he hasn't said a word to the group seated in the bar. Most people know of Sinon, Zeliska, and Itsuki as prominent squad members, while Bazalt Joe tends to lay low. The other prominent members are in the battle, so if this guy isn't after the squad as a whole... Is it Llenn? Pitohui? Or...Jaymes?

Sinon has no time to figure out that answer as movement breaks the stalemate. Six figures exit the black freight car away. Two shrimps in pink and green, a taller woman in pink, another woman in black, a massive man in camo, and the lead, a man in red and black.

Sinon holds her breath as her friends are spotted, and a red signal flare flies up, then gunfire echoes from the screen...but not from LPFM or from the siege.

"Huuuuuuh?"

"What was thaaat?"

"Excuse meeeee?"

"Heh," Itsuki laughs cooly, his left hand cupping his chin. "She shows her true colors."

Sinon had forgotten one more player in the mix - another member of Crimson Squad (well, a close associate of the group) was on the other side of the siege, and she's gunning down the very people she set up to attack LPFM.

Clarence's AR-57, a cousin of Llenn's P90, spits gunfire on a pair of unsuspecting players. The first died without a clue why, while the second tried to beg for his life, only for Clarence to gun him down mercilessly. Her partner trudges up behind her while switching out his ammo. He, at least, looks to be apologetic about the betrayal. And the massacre continues as the pair gets the jump on another clueless pair hiding behind a train car.

And, still with the smile and jitters, the man in the red beret speaks for the first time in over twenty minutes. "Oh ho ho! I did not foresee this. What's up with them? They shot people on their side."

"I mean, they're not on the same side."

"This is a battle royale. You can team up or split apart as you please. You can shoot your own teammates dead in this game, so why would anyone complain about shooting other teams that are your enemies from the start?"

"Well, at least things are getting interesting!"

"Interesting" isn't the word Sinon would use, but she has to admit she did not see Clarence and her partner as turncoats. Then again, Crimson Squad is full of...self-interested people, namely Itsuki and Pitohui, so Clarence perfectly fits the bill. If Pitohui isn't the Oxford dictionary definition of "heartless game," Clarence is an acceptable substitute.

Clarence and her partner eliminate a third pair of allies and are locked in conversation while reloading. By now, the remaining eight players must know their numbers have fallen mysteriously in a short amount of time. Jaymes, Llenn, and the others haven't fired a single shot, so -

"Huh?"

A new development impedes Sinon's thoughts. Clarence's partner was suddenly shot, his chest bright red as he's eliminated from the game. Clarence immediately ducks down next to the dead body as a second shot ricochets around the area she occupies. It happened so quickly that Sinon would have missed it all if she blinked, but she knew what happened.

After all, she's a sniper herself. It takes one to know one. And she knows M could not have made that shot, not from his position. So who is the mysterious sniper?

The camera feed covering Clarence switches to a zoomed-in view of the responsible party. On top of the trainyard's toppled control tower is a player in a gray camo poncho. She holds a bolt-action rifle painted green and brown with an enormous scope attached. But nothing identified her more than the bright eyes and green hair around them. A smile forms on her mouth, exposing her canines.

"Oh, it's her! The one who shot Pitohui last time!"

"It's Miss Shirley!" Rei exclaims.

"Great, our entire group is coming together," Itsuki chuckles as Shirley reloads the rifle with a fresh cartridge and takes aim. Her Blaser R93 Tactical 2 rifle is not stabilized, but the standing Shirley doesn't seem to care. It isn't as heavy as Sinon's Hecate or M's M9, and the holes on the muzzle's side let heat escape to reduce the recoil anyway.

Shirley pauses and bends slightly, then pulls on the trigger. Her target is not Clarence but a man crouching next to the locomotive engine. He was wearing bulletproof armor, but this game has little protection against the power of a sniper rifle. Next to fall is a SCAR-toting companion, and last, a third man.

"Damn, that was rad!"

"I'm assuming she knows there are no enemies around and that being up high is a major sniping advantage."

"Makes you wish there was some epic BGM playing now."

"Go on! Shoot someone else!"

Yet Sinon notices something is off about Shirley's kills. The Hecate II is much more powerful than the R93 because it is an antimaterial rifle, and its bullets are 12.7 mm, so Sinon's rifle would leave much more red on its targets. Shirley's should not input that much damage. She just can't put her finger on the matter. "What ammunition does Shirley's gun use again?"

"7.62 mm," Bazalt Joe answers. "You're noticing it too, Sinon? Her bullets are causing too much damage to be the typical 7.62s. Of course, the R93 Tact 2 is customizable so that she can use different barrels and ammo, but I cannot see any modifications from the norm. Shirley's real-life job is a hunter and nature guide, and she uses the R93 as part of it. I doubt she'd switch out the barrel and caliber. If she's dealing the Hecate's level of damage... Ah, poor Shirley's has gone just as nuts as the rest of you."

"What does that mean?" Zeliska asks with an amused smile. "I mean, I understand the 'going nuts' part. She was a sweet girl who never turned her gun on another player before SJ2. Now she's got a taste and doesn't know when to stop eating. But what about the bullets?"

"Bullet Customization. She's using explosive bullets."

"Ah. I see you've helped her well, Sinon."

Sinon doesn't give Itsuki's remark a response, but she has to admit she is somewhat proud to see Shirley's training with sniping beget results. Since Sinon was training for the fourth Battle of Bullets, Shirley asked to be a training partner after Crimson Squad's excursion in the White Frontier in late May. Shirley had improved dramatically in their few weeks together, but whatever happened between the Battle of Bullets and today was entirely on Shirley.

She can understand the woman's drive too. If Sinon was Shirley, and she had shot Pitohui square in the head - essentially a lethal shot - and the target lived, she would do all she could to get stronger. But Sinon did not teach her to use Bullet Customization. That requires a high Dexterity stat to use in the first place.

Bazalt Joe made a point: Shirley is a hunter in real life, so her knowledge of guns is on the level of someone who has a military background or, like Joe, someone in the police force. Not many people customize their bullets; Jaymes creates and uses nonlethal debuff ammunition that can paralyze or burn targets, but those take time to develop and are used only in certain situations. So whatever modification Shirley made to her bullets to make them go boom, Sinon does not know of.

But, as someone said before, things are getting interesting.

Five men are hunched together by the train engine as time winds down to a minute to the next satellite sweep. They were formerly a pair and trio spread out along the left of the crane wing formation before strange things started happening. The full auto gunfire from the right flank and sniper fire from somewhere behind was unseen but heard, throwing them off. That gathered the five at the train engine, unsure of what to do.

"Maybe the guys on the right wing are fighting some new enemy?"

"No way, that can't be true! Nobody could've gotten here in time based on the positions of the last scan!"

"We're all shooting at LPFM, right? So the gunshots behind us must be some other companions helping out with a sniper rifle, right?"

"Okay, fine. We're not going to learn anything here. Let's move to the right side—but carefully. We want to be able to react to anything that might—" A sudden sound of an erupting cuts the man off, the source being the red splash that appeared on his upper torso. It was like he had spontaneously combusted, but the more logical answer was hidden from sight.

"Sniper!" The four remaining men scatter in pairs to the left and right, not knowing who shot them, what the eliminated man was shot with, and why.

"What the hell? It was an enemy! And with a superpowered gun!"

"Just run, dude! Damn, I hate cheap-ass snipers!" The two who ran right were looking for the friendly forces that gathered there and were fighting some unknown force previously. They were looking for a friendly face to regroup with, and eventually, they found one near a container car.

"Oh! You two are all right! That's great!" Who they found was the man in all black, the creator of their plan. Neither man could recall his name, but they were pretty relieved. They walked over to the man and crouched down while the man walked behind them.

They'll never know until later that they were shot in the back of the head right after.

As for the men who went left... All they can do is run around the scattered cars for their lives. "Shit, what was that? An antimateriel rifle?"

"It would have blown up a lot more than that!"

"So what is it, then?!"

"How would I know?!" They continued running, hoping to get away from whoever shot that man - just to cross the path of a grey poncho. As soon as they spotted it, a high-pitched shot echoes in the air, and the lead runner falls over, his lower abdomen bright red. His shocked companion doesn't apply the brakes to his feet, causing him to trip over the corpse, tumble down, and slide along the ground ten feet to a set of tracks.

As he recovered on the ground, the last thing he'd see was the poncho running in his direction, holding a thin weapon that could be mistaken for a spear...and the spear's tip flashed hot orange.

Sinon tries hard to hold back a grin, so she only manages a prideful smirk. Shirley had finished that last guy with the snapshot technique, a particular maneuver when a shooter takes aim and fires from close range, like shooting a camera up close and suddenly. It is a technique that requires both speed (for the sudden appearance) and accuracy. Sinon can't exactly pull it off with her sniper rifle because it's pretty weighty, but others like Jaymes' pistols or Llenn's SMG could easily allow this technique.

But Shirley did it while running. With a rifle, running and aiming accurately is an arduous task. But the hunter did it like it was nothing. She tripped the second man with the death of the first, reloaded the bolt-action R93 while running, and popped her opponent. Sinon's sniper pride is amazed and envious of the skills Shirley has displayed in such a short time.

Just after 12:41, thirty minutes after the first smoke signal rose in the air, Clarence and Shirley had unknowingly cleaned up the rest of the allied force for Jaymes and the others without LPFM making good on their possible escape plan. Now they had another issue, the rising tide, but the worst was over for now.

Just when Sinon thinks the tournament is back to normal, a chilling chuckle echoes across the bar, coming from the male in the red beret. Someone had mentioned her thought that the allied forces fighting Jaymes and his group were finished, the same as in the other corners of the map. But instead of frustration, he's laughing and smiling.

"Wonderful. Wonderful. I meant to test your mettle alone and see what you'd come up with, but I miscalculated. Your current strength is in your allies, not in him. It seems like I won't be able to see him yet. To get who I desire out of you...will require you to be pushed further, heh heh."

Sinon has a bad feeling, and a quick glance at Zeliska, Itsuki, and Bazalt Joe shows they're sensing the same. Minutes ago, she internally questioned if the man's target was Llenn or the team as a whole. Who wouldn't want to see the most popular player, practically the tournament's mascot, finally fall in a Squad Jam? Or better yet, to see Crimson Squad take a hit to their illustrious reputation?

But this man's words finally revealed his actual target: Jaymes...or a particular side of him. That sends a chill down Sinon's spine, one she hadn't felt in half a year at BoB III. With Kirito out of commission wherever Mister Kikuoka has him, Asuna's silence at the same time as she goes on an unknown trip, and Liz, Silica, and the other girls unable to receive messages between ALO and GGO, she has to do something. Jaymes can't receive a message from within Squad Jam, so she can't warn him, leaving one final option: prayer.

"Watch out, Jaymes."