Welcome to Chapter 21, everyone! I had no clue what to do for this chapter, so I just decided to have Nikki, Ian, and Kazuto play Destiny 2: The Witch Queen's Legendary campaign. Why? It's a diffucult experience, but it's tons of fun. There's nothing better than kicking the asses of tough enemies with your friends or family.

At this point, I ought to put this in the Destiny crossover section.

Anyways, between Origin Story, The Recollection, Redemption, and not fucking War For Remnant up, I have a lot on my plate. I also want to do an SAO story about the twins, seeing as I really like their dynamic.

Remember that flashback chapter with Ian and Sophia? I kind of hated it, because it was honestly a bit creepy on Ian's end, like it was some kind of fucking shota bullshit. As of now, that will be remedied, and in terms of what Sophia's character's like, she's a little bit like Pyrrha from RWBY, but less apologetic.

Concerning the future, I plan on doing an RvB/SAO crossover starting after Phantom Bullet and getting Ac3 Productions to let me do a crossover based on RvBvRWBY's universe set after War of Underworld's adaption. The RvB portion of both future stories is based on my RvB Legends versions, and some rules involving RWBY are different.

Anyways, enjoy!

Becker Residence, Florida

United States, Real World

August 17, 2022

Nikki Becker

A few months after Ian decided to leave for Japan, things had gotten rather lonely for Nikki. Sure, Ian made sure to contact the brunette every week, but after Sophia's family moved to Japan as well, she suddenly found herself without anyone to talk to. Times like this was were what really made the teenage girl regret not having friends.

Then again, most people were untrustworthy and had very bad intentions.

However, Ian had an olive branch, in the form of his friend Kazuto Kirigaya.

The two got along rather easily, helped by the fact that Ian and Allan had vetted him months ago, thus eliminating any paranoia about his trustworthiness. They could only talk through Destiny or Discord, but it was enough for the girl, who thought that Kazuto was rather nice for an antisocial shut-in.

She just wished that he could actually hit his shots. Poor bastard couldn't hit anything to save his life.

Right now, she, Ian, and Kazuto were playing the Legendary Witch Queen campaign in Destiny, as Kazuto had never played it-- or the normal campaign-- before and the SAO beta was under maintenance. The latter had planned to play it on normal, only for Ian to tell him that the Legendary difficulty offered powerful gear that passed the soft level cap and sent players straight to the hard cap grind.

That was all it took for Kazuto to accept the challenge.

"OH, SHIT, THERE'S TWO TANKS!"

"How the hell didn't you know that, Kazuto?!"

"JUST SHUT UP AND KEEP FIGHTING!"

Kazuto's black and silver Warlock jumped out of the blast raduis of the two Cabal Goliath tanks' shots as they landed, harmlessly impacting Eurpoa's snowy ground. Turning around, he threw an Axiom Bolt at a group of Cabal soldiers, turning them Volatile, and as they were tagged, Ian and Nikki laid into them with suppressive fire, ripping through the AIs' substantial health bars as they stubbornly fired back.

"Ian! Iceflare!"

"Already threw one!"

Ian's Iceflare sentry materialized and started firing Stasis bolts at an Honored Incendior, freezing it and allowing the three to lay into him, their combined fire annihilating him.

Unfortunately, Kazuto was hit by a Goliath's mortar, and the twins got the eternally hated "Revive Player: Light Fading In 0:30" message. At least they had Revive Tokens, but they would have to play more carefully from then on.

Ian groaned as he revived the Japanese player, warning him of the consequences of death on Legendary mode.

The two immediately jumped out of the way of a tank blast, with Kazuto throwing a Nova Bomb at the Goliaths and Ian supporting him with his Gjallarhorn Rocket Launcher. Meanwhile, Nikki threw her own Nova Bomb, incinerating the first tank in its beautiful violet Light.

Only to get hounded by War Beasts.

Shouting, she jumped out of the alien dogs' claws, throwing a grenade at them and killing them without too much effort.

Thank God that War Beasts and Psions were still kind of weak.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ian retreated to her position, where there wasn't any heavy fire directed at.

"Just needed to heal." he explained, placing a Healing Rift under himself to regain his lost health.

"OH, CRAP!" Kazuto exclaimed as he retreated as well, a mortar shot narrowly missing him and landing harmlessly in the snow. As he got up, the poor lad was sniped by a Psion with a Cabal Headhunter.

"Fuck. Maybe I should call you Carmine." Nikki grumbled as she used her Revive Token.

"Ouch." Ian said as the joke clicked in his head; Carmines were a family of soldiers in the Gears universe who had horrific luck and died a lot, with the eldest brother being the only survivor.

"Let's just finish this thing." Kazuto groaned.

After the second tank was destroyed, the fireteam gathered at the Darkness Splinter that materialized at the edge, along with the two reward chests.

"Finally..." Kazuto exhaled, slumping in his chair. "As long as we don't fight any more tanks this mission, I'll be good."

"No tanks, but we've got to do a lot of jumping and fight lots of enemies in a perpetually shifting environment." Ian said. "It was a bitch to do the first time me and Nikki went at it."

"Hooray..."

Ian Becker

Kawagoe, Japan

Landing on a platform jutting out of a wall, then jumping onto a floating platform in the middle of the chasm, Ian saw a group of Cabal soldiers on a bridge about a hundred meters away from him. He patiently waited for more platforms to form, and while they did so, he pulled out a Perses-D Scout Rifle and fired at the Legionaries on a platform on the other side, busting their helmets off as he killed them.

Once that part of the area was clear, he proceeded to jump to the bridge, appearing as a gold and black blur to his teammates, who followed suit without any comments.

Facing another group of enemies, Ian switched to his Fighting Lion Grenade Launcher and fired a grenade into the crowd, killing four War Beasts with it.

Soon, a heavy volume of fire erupted from his teammates, who went from cover to cover as they fought.

As he pushed forth and destroyed a pair of Legionaries with Fighting Lion, Ian yelped as he encountered an Honored Gladiator, narrowly dodging its two blades as he fired on it with his Scout Rifle.

"Ugh." Nikki groaned as she used Pocket Singularity to launch the Gladiator off of the ledge.

"Thanks. I hate those guys."

The fireteam simply continued onwards through the level, fighting through more Cabal enemies, and after a few minutes they found themselves in the first boss room.

"Okay, before anyone starts shooting, let's take a breather." Ian told the rest of his team, who popped sitting emotes as they set down their input devices of choice.

Ian did the same, picking up a cup of water and downing it, slumping in his chair as he relaxed, an older song playing in the background. He jolted slight as the door behind him opened and a young man with auburn/bloodred hair entered the room, taking a seat on his bed. In the back of his mind, he identified the man as Sophia's brother Daniel, who he was good friends with, but not to the same extent as him and Sophia.

"Hey, there, Dan." he absentmindedly said, exhaling. "Good to see you."

"You, too. Legendary campaign?" Daniel asked.

"Yup. It's a little difficult when one of the fireteam's members can't hit shit."

"I heard that!" Kazuto yelled indignantly.

"That bad? No wonder Sophia looked like she wanted to kill someone."

Ian laughed at the idea of Sophia restraining the urge to break something over the otaku's bad aim. He couldn't imagine Sophia actually killing someone, but he could see her breaking someone's limb if needed.

"Ouch. At least Jaymes is a good shot."

"He's the red one, right?" the redheaded man asked.

"And the only one who willingly uses a male Titan." Ian replied, as male Titans were notoriously bulky. There was a reason he always used female characters in Destiny.

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yup. He says that using female characters makes him feel wimpy."

"Uhh, you remember the 'Super Awoken Female?'"

"Yeah. Of course I do."

"Super Awoken Female" was a name given to a highly capable Destiny player who was adept at carrying players through high-leveled activities like Raids and Nightfalls, as well as completing older Raid encounters solo, before future Raids became too complex to do solo. In reality, he was a hard-working middle aged maintenance man, but he used an Awoken female character, as they looked the best out off all of the game's characters.

"He was anything but wimpy! So go tell Jaymes that!"

"Yeah, I'm going to."

Pulling out his phone, Ian entered Discord and went to his PM with Jaymes.

ItsaPOSSUM: Hey, Jaymes? You remember when you told me that female characters were wimpy to you?

He didn't even have to wait a full minute before he got a reply.

JaymesTheFirst: I didn't say they were wimpy, but I remember the conversation.

ItsaPOSSUM: Sure you didn't...

JaymesTheFirst: You know, I really didn't know male Titans were so bulky. I thought it was the armor.

ItsaPOSSUM: That's a part of it. Anyways, I was gonna tell you about a player I ran with at some point, but that seems a little dumb now.

JaymesTheFirst: Okay... What's Kirito doing?

ItsaPOSSUM: He's playing the Witch Queen Legendary Campaign with me and my sister to pass the time during the SAO beta maintenance.

JaymesTheFirst: Ahh. Let me guess, he can't hit shit?

ItsaPOSSUM: Not a thing. He's resorted to throwing grenades or using a damn Glaive because he can't hit anything to save his life.

JaymesTheFirst: Ouch. That's gotta suck. Anyways, it's good to know. I'm in Control if you want a break.

ItsaPOSSUM: I'll take you up on that.

Ian noticed his teammates bumping into him, informing him that they were ready to kick some more ass. Groaning, he sent one final message to Jaymes before setting his phone down and getting to his game.

Grabbing the Rally Banner to restore his ammo and abilities, Ian rejoined his team as they fired upon the Cabal, Nikki's shots striking home and Kazuto's shots... hitting nothing at all.

"How did you miss those?!" Ian exclaimed, blowing a Cabal Legionary's helmet off with a few well-placed shots.

"I don't know!"

"Gah-- never mind. Just throw grenades at 'em."

Ian threw an Iceflare of his own, pelting the Cabal in Stasis bolts as the fireteam exterminated the enemies in the room. As the last Legionary fell, a Harvester dropship flew in and deployed the "Imperial Deserter," the first of two bosses in the Communion mission.

The twins immediately opened fire on him, taking small bits off of his health bar as Kazuto kept the other Cabal occupied witn his many grenades and his Glaive, the former courtesy of his Discipline* stat-rich armor build.

"I really hate how tough these bosses are." Nikki groaned, firing a rocket at the Imperial Deserter.

"Me, too." Ian agreed, reloading and ducking into cover.

Switching to his Fighting Lion, he reemerged from cover and fired a grenade into a group of enemies, blowing them apart with ease. Loading another grenade, he fired it at the Deserter, causing enough damage to force him into an impenetrable shield and for the Pyramid Jammer that powered it to turn on.

Immediately, a mass of Legionaries and Incendiors entered the arena, bringing the fireteam's attention to them, as the close-range burst from the Incendiors' flamethrowers could knock them away from the jammer before they could deactivate it.

Another grenade landed into one of the Incendiors and burst its shields, but its Honored status saved it from death. In response, a trio of Legionaries launched grenades at Ian and forced him to evade, ducking into cover to avoid the deadly explosives.

Throwing another Iceflare, he let it freeze the Incendiors he was attacking before firing a rocket at them, blowing the cluster of enemies apart.

Now for the others.

Two more Cabal were put down, and afterwards, Nikki rushed forwards and deactivated the jammer, rendering the Deserter vulnerable again. Time to get to work.

After another immunity phase, the Imperial Deserter's body hit the ground with a loud thump. And after killing the Psion snipers at the top of the catwalk the boss spawned on, the three gamers collected their rewards from the chests and took another break.

"Finally!" Nikki exclaimed, setting her controller down and sighing.

"That was tough!" Kazuto added. "Can we do something else? Ian's got the checkpoint, right?"

"Yup. Jaymes wants to do Crucible with us when we were done."

"Please tell me it isn't competitive Crucible."

"It's Control. Nothing too big."

Ian laughed as he heard a relieved sigh from the other end.

"Good. I really don't need to deal with sweats right now."

That was a statement everyone agreed with, and after agreeing to join him, Ian joined Jaymes' fireteam, taking his other two teammates with him.

Watch out, Crucible. By the time we're done, you won't even know what hit you.

I originally wanted to make this chapter longer, but I don't think I had it in me, so sorry this is shorter.

I feel like the end of the story's nearing, but I don't feel like I've progressed quite as naturally as I wanted to. I think I'll put nine more chapters into the story, then it'll be finished. At least I know what the two end chapters will be.

Concerning my other projects, I'm gonna do a double release for both GFL: Recollection: Beginning and a prequel story set in GFL's World War 3. It's gonna be a bit difficult, but it'll be fun at the same time.

I also saw the videos detailing MICA's progress on GFL 2, as well as the new PVs for GFL 2 and Reverse Collapse, and I'm hyped. I rewatched the PVs multiple times (because they're awesome) and I found quite a lot of cool details in them as well. I'll list them in a GFL: Recollection chapter's afternote.

Thank you for bearing with me, and thank you for reading my stories.