Date posted: 25th December 2022

Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

This was supposed to be a longer chapter, but it's already bloated as is. So you get part 1. You'll get part 2 the next year. See you then!


Chapter 21: Power (Not) to the People - Part 1

"We should be nearby, let's park here," said Tadao.

Nuke Squad had traveled for a few hours, dodging patrols and hiding in equal measure. Speed and stealth had not only become their strength, but their only method of survival.

The chaos at East Eden had in a way been to their boon, as enemy resources were pulled to investigate the surrounding area. A little trickery from the commissar (read: blowing up a chemfuel station), and their pursuers were going the completely wrong way.

The rest of Nuke Squad had never seen someone side wheelie a big ass truck while the driver exited on the upper side of said truck and into a chempump before, but boy, it was a sight to behold. "That's why you level up your «Driving» skill, team," Tadao had told them.

The power plant was south down the road, a fair distance away from the closest settlement. It was a marvel of excavation engineering: a massive power plant with four great cooling towers, pumping hot steam up to the great crack in the ceiling. None of them could tell where this massive crack in the earth was, but considering the amount of new hills added to the area, it was anywhere between Mount Olympia and the city of Sparta. They could see only the stars peering down on them, and even the sight of the sky gave them hope.

It was fearsomely defended: a chain link fence two meters tall, barbed wire atop; four guard towers with searchlights, machine guns, and snipers; and patrolling squads of Stormtroopers with Flesh Puppers. Even with heavy armour support, it would not be something so easy to crack. The western and eastern ends were sheer rock, no way to circumvent the front of the power plant.

Kirito and Sinon returned to their hiding spot after some quick recon. Said hiding spot was an ancient pharmacy, long abandoned and looted, situated on a row of similarly closed shops. Mason had found a secret stash of medical supplies behind a cupboard, one of which including a mechanical-bracer. With some smart use of bandages, a splint, and after a quick charge on the ancient battery, the Wall was walking again. Not enough to race, but enough to provide supporting fire.

"Where's the commissar?" asked Kirito, entering the store with Sinon in tow.

"HE IS ON THE ROOF, SPYING UPON THE ENEMY AND TRYING TO CONTACT THE OTHER TEAMS," said Titanium Wall, who was in the process of doing the prisyádka, the bracer whirring quite audibly. He was very good at it.

"Careful there, Wall-san, you don't want to break a leg," said Mason.

"WORRY NOT, AMRIKI. IT IS ALREADY BROKEN, HAHAH!"

They sat around their 'campfire', a massive sizzling hot plate currently in the process of boiling water for coffee and cooking some hundred year old beans. Mason had popped open the nuclear bomb to use as a power source, long wires trailing to the hot plate. None of the others knew how this actually worked but Mason said he looked up how to do it on the Internet.

"Are you sure the nuke isn't going to suddenly blow up on us?" asked Sinon, sitting the furthest away from the bomb.

"Look, I forgot to bring my power bricks while we were attacked, and this is good enough."

"Is this even like, possible? Like IRL?" asked Kirito.

Mason shrugged. "We're a combined team of a journalist, a WW2 grunt, a cowboy, a femboy, and a catgirl, fighting an underground nation of mutants, riding on robot horses in underground highways, to blow up an underground geothermal plant, and the possibility of using a nuclear bomb to power up the hot plate is the thing that challenges your suspension of disbelief?"

"First of all, I am not a femboy."

"THE WALL PRESSES X TO DOUBT."

"Secondly, I was just curious about the wonderful potential of nuclear power. No need to sass me about it."

Sinon wrapped one big arm around his shoulder. "Don't worry, Kirito. You're not a femboy."

"Thank you."

"You're more of a femman."

"You know, it's a good thing you're in catgirl form instead of your kitteh form, or you'd be punted across the room." Sinon laughed.

The baked beans were slathered on plain crackers. It was as delicious as you'd think it was, which it wasn't.

The squad settled down into a similar routine, but quite new to Mason. One of the things that the journalist learned about the creation of the game was how the developers' insistence on down time and rituals. Actual war was 99% of mind numbing boringness punctuated by sudden bouts of sheer terror.

Of course, GGO was nowhere near that real, but missions were designed with players sitting around and hanging out in mind. It's why the game still had food and drinks, despite the fact the game had no such survival elements except for temperature. It's why the game zealously replicated every piece of equipment in the game; not just the weapons and armour, but even the bags, the clothes, the animals and every vehicle right down to the bolt. The CEO of Zaskar, Richard Zhang, who was also head modder of the mod back in the day, was simply that kind of guy.

Even the instruments were lovingly accurate right down to the smallest detail. Mason had noticed a fair number of players carrying an instrument of some kind, the most popular of which was the acoustic guitar. Apparently, Zhang himself was a singer, and half of the in-game songs sung by Wasteland musicians were sung by him.

Mason said so to his squad. "Turns out I can modify my drone to play music whenever it goes into battle. Pretty neat. Not that I have the luxury of doing so right now." Nahla was floating above the pharmacy, turned into a mobile sensor alarm.

"Wouldn't that also alert the enemy?" said Sinon.

"Yes, but if the bullets start flying, a little jingle isn't that audible."

"You know, I've actually wanted to learn how to play the guitar," said Kirito.

"TO BUFF THE PARTY WITH YOUR MUSIC, YES?"

"I just think it would be a neat idea - playing a game renowned for its accuracy to warfare, and then just going from town to town, earning my pay as a traveling bard."

"Nothing is stopping you," said Sinon as she took a bite of the exquisite beans-on-cracker. She frowned, the ears on top of her head realistically curling and Kirito caught himself from petting her. "Guitar's too bulky though, you should bring something more compact. Like a harmonica."

"But what if I want to sing?"

She giggled. "Kirito, I've heard you sing in the shower. You sing two verses then mumble the rest of the lyrics because you can't be bothered to memorise them."

"I cannot believe you would dare uncover my deepest darkest secrets to these strangers. We're breaking up and I'm moving out."

"Not with rent prices you aren't."

"Well shit, you got me there."

"MAYHAPS THE COMMISSAR KNOWS HOW TO PLAY," said the Wall, already guzzling down his own can of beans.

"What makes you say that?" asked Mason.

"HE IS A COWBOY. COWBOYS PLAY THE HARMONICA. THIS IS KNOWN."

"I know Tadao-san takes his roleplay very seriously, but just because he's a … he's a … what do you call a weeb version of a cowboy?"

"An Americanophile?" said Kirito.

"A weebstern?" said Mason.

"A NEW VEGAS FAN," said the Wall.

"Let's go with Mason's. Just because he's a weebstern doesn't mean he takes the cowboy thing that seriously," said Sinon.

It was at that point the Outrider came down the stairs. "Been looking at that power plant for too long and still can't find a weakness. Place is locked down tighter than a steam train guarded by Pinkertons."

Mason looked at Sinon and the sniper rolled her eyes. "Have you made contact with Black Dog or the FuurinKazan?" he asked.

The commissar took a seat by the hot plate and poured a cup of coffee for himself. "No, I've received no contact. It is difficult to get radio signals this deep underground. Even the Deep Dwellers use a combination of runners and landlines to communicate with each other. Wait, is that the nuke?"

"I assure you it's safe!" said Mason.

"Well, if you say so."

"So, what do we do now?" asked Kirito.

"For now, we wait. If they don't arrive in time, we will take on the power plant ourselves."

"If we die, we'll just respawn back at Glocken and miss the Clearer attack," said Sinon, clearly unhappy with the idea. "I'm not losing out on all my XP for everything we've done."

The commissar sipped his coffee. "That is the mission. We are outmanned and outgun. Had we have my Outriders, we would still have little chance of winning with no casualties. That's GGO for you. Unless, of course…"

"Unless what?"

He pointed a red glove finger at the sniper. "You turn yourself back into a cat and find a way in. We can dig into the earth, letting you go in almost undetected. If we cut the wires, they'll notice. Either that or we wait for Dyne or Klein to give their thoughts."

Sinon crossed big arms. "I guess we'll just wait."

"I guess we will."

"QUESTION, COMMISSAR?"

"Yes, Wall?"

"DO YOU PLAY THE HARMONICA?"

A smile appeared on the cowboy's face. "Well, Wall, I'm glad you asked."

Tadao produced a silver harmonica from his satchel bag and began playing a very faithful recreation of Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold. Somehow it worked without the vocals backing it up.

Sinon shook her head. "Goddamn weebsterns."


"What famous Greek dishes are there?" asked the decker.

"I dunno, kebabs?" the sniper suggested.

"I thought that was a Turkish thing," said the machine gunner.

"No, no, they're called shawarmas," said the medic.

"That's where you're dead wrong! They're called shish tawooks," said the scout.

"You could Google it," said the decker.

"You've got the fancy pants newest generation of AmuSphere, why don't you?" asked the medic.

"Something about my console not working well when it comes to using the browser. It boots me out if I ever do it, so I'm not gonna do that."

"Just use the in-game browser," suggested the medic.

"What? God no. It's like using Steam chat when Discord exists just fine. UI's terrible and it lags too."

"Well I can't be arsed to look it up. Klein, what do you think it's called?"

"Are you kidding me?! 50 credits for only six 12 gauge shells. And 100 credits for slugs?! That's banditry!"

"Yo cap'n, can ya' not?" asked an annoyed Dynam.

"You know how he gets with ammo prices," said Dale.

"Holy shit, EMP rounds are 150 per slug!"

Klein slammed a bionic fist against the ammo vending machine, prompting an «Immortal Object» sign to pop up. "I'm going to login onto the forums and lodge a complaint!"

"Yeah uh, I don't think that's gonna work." Dale pointed to the holographic sign floating above said vending machine. "It's player owned, not placed there by the game."

Klein looked closer, and sure enough, there was a tag on the right side of the vending machine, showing a set of numbers and a name. "Merchant Prince? Who's this?"

"I think that's the name of the player who placed the vending machine down here," said Harry, checking his gun for the umpteenth time. "How the hell they put one up down here in the first place, no idea. Sad to say we ain't the first ones here."

"Oh, so this is the asshole price gouging us, huh?" Klein committed the name and number to memory so he may commit righteous (and very violent) justice upon this uppity merchant. "We'll see about that."

Harry One, the guild decker kept quiet on how he could just hack the vending machine to lower the prices but decided seeing Klein banging his head against it would be much funnier.

Before he could whip up his buddies in a blood fervor and hunt down the source of his problem, there was a knock on the metal door. A gun appeared in every hand and pointed at the door.

"Password!" Klein called out.

"Klein, you didn't give me a password!" said Dyne.

Klein racked the pump of his SPAS-12; a completely useless action that only served to eject a completely usable shell onto the floor. But damn, it felt cool. "Nice try Mimic, I'm onto your tricks!"

"For God's sake, Klein I ain't a Mimic!"

"Oh yeah? Say something only the real Dyne would know!"

"We had breakfast at that diner in Shiba Park a few days ago, your treat. You had a double bacon burger."

Klein lowered his shotgun. "Alright. Harry, open the door."

The door opened with a press of a button on Harry One's cyberdeck, revealing the familiar duster and cowboy hat wearing player. "Took me a while to find all those white rabbits you dropped. Couldn't you have just sent coordinates?"

"Not through all this earth we can't." The rest of the FuurinKazan returned to their spots in the room and resumed the arguing of Greece's dishes.

The room wasn't very clean but it was cozy enough. Klein and his friends had arrived earlier than expected, dodging Deep Dweller patrol with such skill that would make a ninja proud. It used to be a break room of some kind, quite out of the way and requiring anyone who wants to come by by squeezing through a gap between rubble. It really was thanks to Harry's incessant scanning with his radar they found it in the first place. "Told ya' it was smart to buy this back at base."

It was smart, not that Klein would admit it.

"Kinda weird you're here, thought one of your teammates will send the message."

He lit up a cigarette. "You kidding me? Those bozos couldn't get a brief started on who wants what on their pizza."

"Aren't your team military?"

"Not all, some. Most are from law enforcement. And the thing about the military they don't tell you is it's filled with the dumbest people on the planet." He pulled a brick size gadget from his duster. "If you wanna do something right you gotta do it yourself."

He placed the gadget in the middle of the room and the FuurinKazan were one minute short of stabbing each other over an easily answered question over the Internet.

"Right, so here's the deal, this is where we're at," began Dyne as the top of brick slid open, showing a 3D holographic map:

They were three kilometers beneath the earth. A spiderweb of tunnels and roads expanding like veins in the human body. Red blots marked Deep Dweller strongholds and outposts and boy, there were sure a lot of red blots. There were but a couple splashes of green - safe spaces - both of which weren't even that far, only some four kilometers apart. But beneath the earth, it might as well have been the distance between Japan and China.

Dale, the FuurinKazan's heavy gunner, put a hand to his mouth. "I'm not claustrophobic or anything but … shit."

"Shoulda have asked for some drill arms," said Dynam as he inspected his new arm blades, which he sheathed with a satisfying shink. "Maybe we can head back to base and ask some from the Warhawks."

"Yeaaah about that," said Dyne, wincing. "Ginrou's sensors and radios had picked up emergency signals from the general direction of the base. We believe it's been destroyed."

A stream of curses immediately came out of everyone's mouths. Klein had dealt with this before and took charge. "Calm your asses down, everyone. Just because the base is gone, doesn't mean we're out of the fight."

The Black Dog leader nodded appreciatively. "The rest of my guild are currently in position for the plan. We just have to wait until the rest of the Clearers get into position again to assault the city. Their artillery has already dissolved the Pink Slime on the walls, thanks to the Mimic Poison they've inserted into their shells."

"Right. We can get close to Plant B in an hour from this position," said Klein.

Plant B referred to one of four geothermal power stations providing energy to the Ark Biologis. Intel indicated that, due to the entire city's mobilisation, much of the Deep Dwellers had been shuffled topside, providing a rare window of opportunity for a small strike team to destroy them. It was decided that both Black Dog and FuurinKazan would accomplish this at the last moment, when the Dwellers guarding the power stations were at their lowest. The other three had long ceased to function.

"We'll need to destroy both so the city's defenses don't annihilate the Clearers," Dyne continued.

"Don't worry, we're up to that, aren't we, boys?"

The FuurinKazan cheered, only to be immediately shushed by their leader. "Quiet, they'll hear!"

"Well maybe you shouldn't have been all inspiring and shit," said Harry One.

"What can I say, Charisma is my dump stat."

"How many times do I gotta tell you your 'dump stat' is the stat you don't invest in, it doesn't mean the stat you dump into."

Klein shrugged. "It's very confusing terminology!"

"So why are you here then, Dyne-san?" asked Issin, the team sniper. He had been grouhing about his inability to use his primary weapon, what with the whole being underground and in cramped spaces thing.

Dyne produced a card from a pocket. "Found this from a Dweller officer. It looks to be a security chip that'll disable some of the security turrets in Plant A. I thought you might need it."

"Much appreciated, friend. Harry, you slot that in. We'll have an easier time when we hit the plant."

"You got it, Klein," said Harry, who, of the entire group, only had some sort of chip installed in his brain. It helped a lot in hacking, Klein was told.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be returning to my team. Mind lending some ammo?"

"I'll do you one better, Kunimitz will help you back."

Kunimitz stopped inspecting his bionic leg and snapped his multitool's screwdriver close. "You got it. Come on, Dyne-san. We got some ammo somewhere around here."

The entire hideout returned to their usual routine. Klein found himself in the office's remaining working chair and laid back, the ancient furniture creaking under his weight.

He should have ditched SAO months ago. Goddamn, the entire campaign was tense as all hell. Everytime he logged out of the game, he found himself shaking with excitement. And to think, Kirito didn't tell him about this game earlier! That fucker.

As the leader of the FuurinKazan leaned in his chair to log out. He should order those burgers for dinner.

As he began to clean his already spotless shotgun, his PDA vibrated and he whipped it out.

There was only one word on it: ESCAPE


They had been waiting for more than an hour. Mason and Tadao had gone to find the missing two guilds, and failing that, they would go on without them.

Kirito and Sinon stayed on the roof to guard while the Wall logged off to run some errands. It was only the two of them on the roof, sitting on old crates, Sinon's Lynx perched on an ancient ventilation fan, Kirito's spotter binoculars next to it. They set themselves a little nest too, a tarp covered by trash; not the most useful considering the urban environment, but it hid their silhouettes well enough.

The situation was grim: a squad of five deep in enemy territory,with two other missing squads, and before them a great dungeon that would have given a hundred men with heavy armour a cause for concern.

But it was also peaceful. There was something about just taking your time, sitting down and examining the problem that spoke against every single design decision of fast paced action game design. It was a hard thing for Kirito to shake off, as someone who swung first, thought second. Something to be thankful to Sinon for.

"So I guess this is familiar to you?" asked Kirito.

"Are you talking about the sense of danger, the anxiety of losing everything we've worked so hard for, or the pit in my stomach before going to battle?" Sinon wiped her Lynx's lens with a piece of cloth.

"I was talking about the stake outs. That's what cops do, right?"

"What do you think I've done in my short stint as a police officer? That's what detectives do. I gave people tickets and handle drunks."

"Oh yeah, I knew that. Totally." He yawned, leaning against her. The fact that the top of his head just reached her shoulder reminded her of her height increase. "This is nice."

She smiled. "Maybe we shouldn't have gone to the gym today. I'm kinda tired."

"I don't skip running day."

She rested her head on his. "You know, in the Roman Legions, a sentry caught sleeping at his post would be flogged as punishment."

"So you're into that sorta thing, huh? I think we can fit something like that in our routine."

She blushed, her pink face quite the contrast with her blue hair. "Do you always think with your sword?"

Kirito snorted. "Women are just likely to consume pornography as men do."

"Wrong! Women consumed erotica. Completely different."

"How is it any different?!"

"Erotica's written, for the most part."

Kirito nodded. "I'll take your word for it, oh Erotica Expert."

"Shut up." Sinon turned to the power plant, and once again, the sight of it discouraged her. Say what you will about GGO's strict and punishing respawn system, but the fact she felt fear in a video game, of failure, was good game design.

She tried to take her mind off it. "Oh, have you gotten your sword back?"

Kirito sighed. "Yeah. It's busted now."

He retrieved the sword from his backpack. The blade, which was about 70 centimeters in length, was snapped two thirds the way up. The ragged edge where Kirito's chainsword did its work was clear to both of them.

"I could sharpen it with a grinding machine, but we don't have that. All I've got is a whetstone."

"And wouldn't that work?"

"It could, but it just takes too long. Plasteel has high HP, but also means more work to sharpen the blade. It's why you barely see me sharpening it, I go to a shop for that."

Sinon pursed her lips. "I could do it."

"Have you ever sharpened a sword? It's not a kitchen knife."

"I mean, how hard could it be?"

Very, it turned out. Sinon sat cross legged on the roof, where she had been sharpening the tip of the blade on Kirito's candy bar sized whetstone for a while. It was slow, grindy work, to no one's surprised.

Kirito was ceaseless with his criticism, because a man who spends that much money on real swords was the kind of person who was serious about keeping their expensive toys in good shape.

"No, you're doing it at the wrong angle! It needs to be lower. No, that's too low! You're going to scratch the flat of the blade."

FullDive games were realistic enough that it was able to simulate discomfort to a degree, right down to sweating. The sniper wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "Don't worry, I got it."

"Clearly you don't."

"I. Got. It." At this point, she was doing it for herself than to appease Kirito. After a couple more minutes of grinding, she laid the blade down. "Ugh, I need a break."

Kirito leaned against the ventilation fan, smirking. "Oh, giving up already?"

Sinon chugged her water canteen messily, her drink dripping down her face. "A break, not giving up!"

Kirito chuckled. "Uhuh. It's gonna take you quite a while to do that. We'll probably nuke the plant before tha -"

Ziiiiiip!

The swordsman's taunts died in his throat as he watched Sinon unzipped the front front of her vat suit and tied her sleeves at the front, revealing a very bare and very muscular torso.

It was amazing how much of her vat suit hid her body, because Sinon's catgirl avatar was absolutely shredded. It seemed her arms grew twice in size, her shoulders were broad, and her back was a map of hills and valleys. She got to work, increasing the pace of her grinding. Up and down the blade went, the familiar scrip-scrap a comforting tone to his ears.

Kirito got a good look at his girlfriend working. It was unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate), that she wore a tank top under the vat suit. Not only were her breasts stretching against the fabric, but her six pack did too. The poor white cotton seemed to struggle to keep her power contained. If he had to gaze upon the glory that was her abs, his heartbeat would spike and his ancient NerveGear would boot him out of the game. It certainly did not help that part of her tank top was wet, which made her body glistened even further.

Add to the fact she was sweating, the droplets of sweat accentuating the curves of her body even more. If Kirito had trouble resisting himself from scratching her head, it really did take a lot out of him from not embracing her right then and there.

It took a lot less time for her to finish the work. "Ta-da!" she said, and thrusted the sword at him. "Not bad, huh?"

Kirito finally tore his eyes off Sinon and looked at the blade. It was a lot shorter, about fifty centimeters. It looked more machete than sword. The sharp pointed tip turned into a rounded edge, which was still sharp despite what some foolish reenactors believe.

Overall, it wasn't a bad job. Kirito took it. "Huh, this looks good."

Sinon puffed her chest and crossed her arms. "Damn right it does."

"Not as good as you though."

She raised an eyebrow at that and noticed his roaming eyes. Sinon covered herself immediately. "Hey, pervert!"

"You're the one that's seducing me with those arms of yours!"

Sinon shook her head, ears flapping, tail wagging. "Pervert! Pervert!"

"We. Are. Dating."

"Kyaaa!"

As often in times of stress, Sinon forgot her 85 STR, and with but a simple shove, Kirito found himself launched five feet backwards and tumbled from the edge, and dropped ten feet onto the pavement below.

The Wall appeared in the doorway. "THE COMMISSAR AND AMRIKI HAS RETURNED WITH NEWS." He looked about. "WHERE IS SWORD MAN?"

"He's trying some new parkour tricks!" Sinon lied. The Wall's eyes narrowed, and Sinon just realised her jumpsuit was unzipped, showing a fair amount of cleavage and stomach.

"I'm fiiine ~" said Kirito, over the edge.

"UHUH," he said, though averted his eyes like a gentleman.


The newcomers looked terrible. Klein's hand (the fleshy one), was missing its pinky, and his face was cut up. Dyne looked even worse, his torso bandaged as if being ravaged by a wild animal, his left bionic eye going haywire. Both men looked down, sipping their coffee and eating their beans-on-crackers. The rest of the guilds looked in similarly bad shape.

"Thunder Fighters," said Dyne, and that answered all the questions. "They struck Black Dog first, only Smith and I survived. Thankfully my team got the message out before they were killed, and we were close enough the signal was working."

Said gunsmith was in the corner of the pharmacy, with the Wall applying another one of those mechanical-bracer on his arm. He looked the worst of them all, the front of his armour partly melted. It was a miracle that his face was still fine, thanks to his plastic/steel lump of a helmet currently sitting on the floor.

Klein finished his food before adding, "Harry died, so there goes our decker and our scanner. Please tell me we still have a chance. Are the rest of your Outriders in position?"

"This is all we have," said Tadao.

"Dammit!" Klein stood up and kicked his stool into the wall, destroying it. "We don't have the fucking manpower to do this!"

"Calm yourself, Klein. This is no time to be panicking," said Dyne as Sinon applied medical gel on his back. "We're up shit creek without a paddle, but we still have our skiff. Remember, we still got the card."

Klein gestured at the nuke. "There is no way we can carry that without alerting the base. Can't we just detonate it like, outside of the plant?"

Tadao shook his head. "Afraid not. Most of Under-Corinth was built to withstand a nuclear strike from above, and we have to detonate this right in the middle of the plant to properly destroy. A half-assed job and they'll just rebuild in a matter of days. It has to be utterly wiped off the face of the earth. Well, under the earth in this case."

Dyne gestured to Sinon. "Can't Sinon here just, like, turn into a cat again? Maybe she can find a crack in the security."

"YEAH, HOW DID SMOL KITTEH CHANGE BACK INTO BIG KITTEH?"

"Well, if I gotta guess, it's sheer amount of stress," said Sinon. "Honestly, I've no idea how it works."

"Well, not to be an asshole leader, Sinon-san, but if you could …" said Tadao, eyes pleading. Neither she nor Kirito had looked at the cowboy so stressed out.

She shrugged. "I'll try my best."

"FROM WHAT I SAW ON THE ROOF, YOU WERE QUITE RELAXED," he said, smirking. Sinon had the decency to blush.

Kirito coughed. "Well, I guess we can go back to work on that. Now if you'll excuse us, we'll need privacy."

"You have one hour," said Tadao. "Failing that, we'll assault it anyway."

They returned to the roof, Sinon still red after what had transpired. "I hope you didn't break any bones."

"I took a perk that reduces fall damage."

"Ah, that's good then. I think my «Felinis Extrema» form has that built in."

"Well, not everyone's so lucky to be a sexy catgirl."

"Do you want to be a sexy catboy?" A variety of very lewd images flashed through Sinon's head. Note to self, buy some cat ears for Kazuto.

He sat back on his stool. "Right, how are we gonna make this work?"

They tried a variety of tricks. Dangling Sinon off the roof, Kirito swinging his sword at her but stopping at the last moment, but nothing worked. For twenty minutes they tried to no results.

Sinon sat on the floor. "This isn't working."

"Aren't you stressed?"

"Of course I'm stressed! This is literal days of work down the drain if we can't complete our mission!"

"But you need to be more stressed?"

"Well it's not like I can just look up a guide for this!"

Kirito put fist to lips, thinking. After some time, realisation dawned on him.

He sat next to her and reached for her shoulders. "What are you -"

She found her head in his lap, Kirito gently stroking her hair. "There, there, kitty. Shhh. Just relax."

"No, it's the opposite! I need to be stressed! You can't - oh. Oooh. Oooh. That hit the spot."

You ever had an itch you couldn't scratch, no matter how hard you scratched it? Sinon realised how much she'd been missing. Kirito had scratched her ears before, but that was in cat form. He'd never done so in this form.

All tension seemed to flow out of her. Her body relaxed, her hand stopped twitching. She closed her eyes, enjoying the comfort of her boyfriend's lap.

"Hey, we got this," he whispered. "With you at my side, we can conquer the world."

Sinon choked at that. They had just returned from Suguha's dojo and she had overdone it with the weights. Physical exhaustion translated to mental exhaustion, as the game warned. There was no difference sleeping in game and sleeping in real life, aside from the waste of electricity of someone not playing the game.

She snuggled closer to Kirito, her head facing him. "Hgngh. Sleepy. But the mission."

Another yawn from Kirito. "Forget the mission. We can figure that out later."

The smart thing to do was to log out, take a nap on the couch, and boil some coffee. But everyone knows when a cat sleeps on your lap, you can't move until they wake up. That's the law.

When Kirito awoke, he found Dyne on the roof with him, smoking a cigarette. "Don't worry, the commissar gave you another fifteen minutes."

He cracked his neck. "Ugh, guess we'll have to do it the hard way then."

Dyne took a drag before asking, "What are you talking about? Asada is already prepared."

He looked down, and instead of seeing Sinon, he saw a familiar blue cat in green pyjamas.

"Well, would you look at that," he said.

"Nyaaa," the cat mewled in her sleep.


The act of going from A to B was one of the most important gameplay aspects when creating Gun Gale Online according to the developers.

Fast travel did not exist in any capacity, nor were instances even implemented save for some very specific areas in the game (most notably, player owned homes, motorpools, and hangars). The 'fastest' travel available to players was the use of Sub-Orbital Rocket Transport Service or SORTS. It allowed players to shoot from one end of the map to the other, in the span of mere minutes.

It was also impractical and prohibitively expensive. The former because there were only three places one could use them: SBC Glocken, Budapest, and Ulaanbaatar, with Glocken being the primary player hub, and the two cities being the easternmost and westernmost cities in the game respectively. The latter because the ticket to use them easily costs an entire guild's three months worth of earnings. The cherry on top of the Impractical Ice Cream of course being it could only fit a single player and their kit. Not very useful for country hopping at all, especially since missions and dungeons were scattered all about the Wastes.

Aside from the obvious land vehicles, quick travel in GGO was mostly relegated to air travel considering how underdeveloped water travel was and how most large bodies of water in-game were dried up. Taxi and transport services existed in the form of helicopter rides, both provided by the game and by players.

The most popular helicopter transport was run by a guild called the Aino-Yari Air-Transport Service, headed by a pair of brothers who owned an impressive fleet of over a hundred choppers, most of which were Mil Mi-8s and Chinooks. The guild was considered strange amongst the playerbase, as they apparently had no interest in any such infantry combat or air combat for that matter (though their choppers were more often than not armed). It was no surprise then to learn that the two brothers were also IRL pilots who ran heli-tours for a living, transporting their love of flying to the virtual world. Other guilds may have better military choppers, but none could boast the fleet the brothers had.

"You know, I hear the next DLC will have trains. We might want to get into that."

"First of all, the DLC just came out. It's barely a month old. Secondly, trains are boring. Lastly, this is the same source that said this DLC was going to add catgirls?

"You don't know! Maybe there's a catgirl mutant around. You seen those new Mutantopia armies? Ugly sons of bitches. Devs coulda added a hot catgirl army but noooo."

"Uhuh. Still ain't gonna invest in dumb trains."

"Come on, Aino. We fly all the time, don't you wish we'd do other stuff than flying? When was the last time we went dungeon diving?"

Aino, the older of the two, gestured to the snow covered Wastes below. "Bandits with RPGs are a pain enough, besides, you know I hate getting shot because -"

"Yeah yeah, PTSD because of your one firefight in Sumatra." Yari snorted; it was just a training exercise for crying out loud, he acted as if he was some sort of hardened commando.

"It's real!"

"The last therapist you went to see says you suffered no such thing. I think you just suck at the game, despite us being one of the wealthier players around."

"Listen little brother, you invited me for this run. We just gonna argue the whole way?"

"Fine, fine. Anyway, it's been awhile since we've flown together."

"That be true. It's just like the old times!" Aino patted the dashboard. The brand spanking new Bell V-280 was a beaut. He always had a thing for VTOLs, and the new white paint on it made it look an angel of death. "Remember that time you spent like 120,000 Yen, just so you could buy that Blackhawk that totally was going to bring us more money?"

Yari looked away in disgust. "Please don't."

"And then, you flew in the middle of Ankara, AKA the City With an RPG on Every Roof, just so you could show off to a girl? Who wasn't a girl at all? Then you had to beg everyone at work just so you could pay rent?"

Yari looked at the radar. "Oh hey, we're almost there! Best we radio in!"

Aino rolled his eyes but gave it up anyway. "Everyone, this is your colonel speaking. We've almost reached Kharkiv, prepare to disembark."

"Copy that, colonel. Permission to scout ahead?"

"Permission granted, captain. Careful, I hear these Kyivan Boyars AA guns."

They flew for another twenty minutes, almost absent mindedly. The Untamed East, despite the fearsome name, was a nothing area. There were some cool techno-knights about, but there was basically no lore or enemy the players could unite against.

The exception was the Chernobyl Forbidden Zone, with all those anomalies about, because when you set a post-apocalyptic game in Chernobyl, you gotta rip off Roadside Picnic. That was the rules. Those little anomalies were the last remnant of SAO's enchanting system, a magical element that was quite at odds with the game's sci-fi setting. There was even a long running rumour that there was an anomoly that allowed for teleportation.

Teleportation technology is hinted to exist in some capacity, but much of the lore was only mentioned on the official website, which was years out of date and written before the game was even released. The big question, asked by many a lore-let was "Well if the Overlords came from Mars, then why don't players use space ships?" which the old lorebeards will answer with, "Just because spaceships exists, doesn't mean humanity is able to easily recreate surface to orbit technology" or, "Such things are lost technology, even to the Overlords" and perhaps most convincingly, "A bunch of dickhead rich people aren't going to let their clone slave soldiers on their space yatchs, you goddamn fucking idiots read the fucking lore primer it's right in the main menu."

It was perhaps a testament to the moderation team on the GGO forums such outbursts were quickly doused, despite the odd thread where someone complained how the game was 'too political' or the ever so popular 'can we fight against the Overlords?' - which was always answered with a resounding no. For in the grim darkness of the far future, there was still capitalism. Speaking of which -

"Sir, the LZ is clear and I think I see our customers, they're taking fire. Shall we engage?"

"No, I'll do it. I'll signal the others to land as well. Be careful. Over and out." With that, Aino hung up the radio.

"Man, can you believe this job? It's such a milk run. Pick up and fly and for a good price too," said Yari.

Aino looked down at the camera feed. Sure enough, their customers were being fired upon by what could only be described as medieval knights with firearms. They even had a few banners about, and knowing the game, they probably gave them a buff. Their customers, some a hundred fifty men in total, were taking cover behind their wrecked tanks. One of them, a T-14 Armata, seemed to be the only tank that was opening fire. The entirety of the ancient airfield was a battlefield, an army in white versus an army of blue and yellow.

Aino cracked his fingers. "Finally, some fun! Let's try these babies out."

"What's that about PTSD again?"

"Do you want to shoot or not?"

"Fine, fine. Captain, we're doing a strafing run, cover us."

"Roger that, colonel."

The Bell of Hell rotated their propellers, switching from airplane mode to chopper with buttery smoothness. Aino opened fire on the feudal army with a blast of 20mm from the M61 cannon, shredding the tight formation of the enemy in an instant, a garden of red flowers erupting in the snow.

"Fifty confirmed kills, most of them horses," said his brother.

"Fifty? I can do better. Get us low."

Yet the army of the techno-boyars were not so defenseless as the missiles on their radar were showing. "They've got MANPADs! Popping flares!"

The Bell tilted left, discharging the flares from its underbelly. Half a kilometer away, Bloody Pheasant eliminated the mortar teams by the treeline. Aino hadn't had this much this fun in a long while, ever since he had his second kid. He loved his little girl, but sometimes dad needs to let off some steam.

It took very little time for the two VTOLs to clear the battlefield of the enemy. They retreated in an orderly fashion, with people running away as neatly as you could from flying machines of death. Even their banners escaped the wrath of Vulcan. Thinking about it, the sheer amount of firepower they brought was probably overkill.

Yari landed the VTOL in the one spot of the runway that wasn't completely blown apart by artillery. They exited the Bell, their fur-lined leather jackets not at all sufficient to withstand the cold but thankfully GGO wasn't that simulationist of a game.

A man approached them, flanked by two bodyguards wielding, of all things, ancient Papasha SMGs straight out of the Red Army. The bodyguards wore greatcoats with enough fur to shame a bear, big as them too actually. The man in front was tiny in comparison, wearing something appropriately white. The only thing out of place was the bright red baseball cap and aviator sunglasses he wore.

The leader of the guild clasped Aino's hand. "Speak of the angel, and he shall arrive with a 14.5mm Sword of Justice!"

"They're 20mm actually," said Yari, shaking the man's hand. "Afraid we didn't arrive sooner, general. Looks like most of your men didn't make it."

The general laughed, not something either brothers would do at the number of corpses. "Ah, don't worry about it! We've got an HQ at the Hungarian border. We've been roughing it out here for a long while."

"Heard your guild was out here for a while, general. Was it profitable?"

"Fuck no! Not enough content to justify the expedition. But we can chat numbers later. The Chinooks I requested are coming, right?"

"About twenty minutes behind, but don't you worry, Aino-Yari Air-Transport Service has the supplies and the machines to lift everyone back home." said Aino, all businessman. In the distance, Bloody Pheasant was out hunting the stragglers.

"Good, good. I can't believe this, but I'm glad to return back to the desert." He let out a long sigh. "By the way, how goes the Greek campaign? Been too busy to trawl the forums and the subreddit."

Yari gave him the lowdown as the survivors rallied themselves. Old diesel trucks, most of them carrying supplies were coming out of the hangars as the other soldiers of the guild looted the dead, friend and foe alike.

By the end of it, they all had warm mugs of coffee in hand as the two dozen choppers appeared in the horizon. It was a sight that warmed their hearts.

"It's been damn near a month and the Clearers hadn't punch a hole in Corinth, huh?"

"That's right, though I heard some sort of slime abomination covered it up," said Yari.

"On the other hand, I heard some guilds snuck in through the underground," said Aino, sipping on the coffee. "The Kyoto Warhawks and the Mobile Guard somehow set up a base of some kind."

"Isn't there another guild? Forget the name, but it's head by a Captain Nikita? Or was it major?"

The general spat out his coffee, melting the snow on the ground. "Major Nikita? Of the Zakon i Dolg?"

Yari snapped his fingers. "Aye, that's it. The name sounds familiar."

Aino slapped his brother on the back of his head. "Of course it's familiar, dumbass. You're talking the guild leader of the Zakon right here!"

General George Zenkou, head of Zakon i Dolg 1st Company, laughed so hard, he spilled the rest of his coffee and slapped his knee. "Goddamn Chie. That old fox! Can't believe she'd just go off gallivanting in Greece like that. She didn't even tell me!"

"Well, your guild business ain't our business. Don't worry though, we won't say anything about it."

A devious smile appeared on Zenkou's face. "By the way, the trip back to Hungary? Change of plans. How much is the cost of you transporting us to Greece?"


Welp, that's about it, folks. Been a pretty bad year for me personally, so I hope the next year is better for y'all. See you then.