Chapter 2 – New Friends

For once, Jet would admit he was mildly nervous, as he and Alice sat waiting for Argo to arrive at the bar.

"You seem troubled, grandfather?" Or apparently very nervous indeed if Alice could detect he was anxious. The girl was exceptionally clever sometimes, taking to even highly complex concepts like a duck took to water, but much like his sister Ell, she was not the best in social situations, often misreading cues.

"Alice, I've told you to stop calling me grandfather." It might be strictly true that Alice was some kind of granddaughter to him – his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, admittedly, but she was related to him… loosely. Being called "grandfather" however, had given him all kinds of existential crisis; he didn't know how to process being a grandfather at 21 years of age!

Despite his sister's reassurance that plenty of people became grandparents young in their old home of Bristol, he was fairly sure they weren't quite that young!

"- and yeah, a little bit. Argo is-" He paused to think of the words to describe the Rat herself and drew a relative blank. "You've just got to keep your guard up around her - If you give her an inch, she'll take a mile."

"Is she dangerous?"

"Not to anything other than my blood pressure, no." He admitted, remembering the days of Aincrad. "She knows exactly how to get what she wants, so if you are trying to keep something secret… you're honestly better just not talking."

"Can I ask why we're here then?"

"Because, for all those faults… she is the best info dealer I've ever met, bar none." It was an oddly high praise in his mind, especially as he realised something – he trusted Argo implicitly. Not as a friend, oh dear God no, she was to his blood pressure what his caffeine intake was to it - extremely dangerous – but as an informant and an ally, she was second to none.

He could absolutely trust her in that her information was verified as best as was humanly possible at the time, and she'd leave no stone unturned in looking for that information either.

And woe betide the sod who sold her duff information…

Eventually though, Argo had arrived, flanked by a tall man that resembled himself after a particularly rough night - no doubt her own private security - who she shooed off before long. "Gotta admit, din't think I'd be seein' th' ol' gang back round here! Or one o' ya's anyway, an' that robot chick 'pparently." Of course Argo knew about Alice - though he did wonder if there was anyone who didn't at this point, she was almost a minor celebrity after Dr Rinko's little press conference...

"Not quite a social call, sadly." He said, looking around him for anyone else that wasn't Argo's hired help. Argo always had been a bit of a shrewd operator; able to get what she wanted by being what he wasn't… good with people, for one.

"That's a shame, woul'nt mind seein' how me favourite customers are doin' these days…" Argo mused. "Oh, reminds me, Knight-boy, tell Ko-chan I said happy birthday, would ya!"

"Argo, you know my name." He told her. "And I will, don't worry."

"Heh, still the same 'bout that, I see!" She snickered. "Anyway, what brings ya to my humble shop, oh Knight of the Wind…"

He rolled his eyes at her use of his old nickname, and Alice raised an eyebrow too. "I need some information. Some group called the Madhouse, if you know them?"

Argo, usually one of the most composed people he'd ever met, keeping her cards close to her chest… groaned loudly. Well, that was foreshadowing bad news, if ever he'd heard of it… "Geez, ya really do pick yer enemies, dontcha?"

"Yeah, Zeliska said the same thing pretty much." He admitted.

"Shrewd woman, ain't she?" Argo commented. "Lemme guess, they pissed ya off, or summat?"

"Tear gassed a nightclub, raided it looking for something, and got filled with lead by us for their troubles. All to a soundtrack of Battle Tapes…" He reminded himself of yesterday evening, and beside him, noticed Alice almost sag into her shoulders and sigh.

"Sounds like 'em, I gotta admit. Still, ya say they're lookin' fer summat? That's a new 'un…"

"Philia said they're a griefer squad, so I guess them specifically looking for something is unusual?"

" 'less that summat is trouble, it's a bit outta character fer 'em. Don't s'ppose ya could ID 'em, could ya?"

"One of them was a big bloke - like massive, 7 foot tall…" He remembered. "Gruff voice."

"Better than nothin', I s'ppose. Anythin' else ya can tell me?"

"I thought I recognised one of their accents. Sounded almost like, well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say Yorkshire – West Yorkshire, maybe?"

"So, by West Yorkshire, ya mean a Leeds accent, 'uddersfield accent, 'alifax accent, Dewsbury accent, Wakefield accent, Barnsley accent or…"

"Yeah, I get your point." He cut her off. "Also, Barnsley's South Yorkshire, not West."

"I'm guessin' ya don't know which then."

"Not a clue, I'm afraid."

"Th' Yorkshire accent might be a bit of a clue, but that's kinda it. I know someone who's get a bit o' a… history wit' em. Not much of it pretty either…"

"Guess we need to check out this Madhouse then. See what we can dig up?"

" bout that, I might have a way in fer ya." Argo pulled up a window from her menu, to what appeared to a picture of a mansion. No doubt on the outskirts of the Old North; the area of GGO reserved for uber-rich players that spent their entire lives (and bank accounts) in the game.

These were the type of people who led the biggest of squadrons, the ones where their names were barely known, if they were known at all.

Or as Jet had labelled it during a conversation with Zeliska and Alice… Millionaire's Row.

Zeliska had quickly corrected him that millionaire was probably an understatement. She'd likened it to Monte Carlo, but without the mega-yachts, and quite a few more murders.

"The Mad Mate Freezer Freaks. Doubt ya'll find anyone less liked in th' musical community, but they're ya way in, I reckon. They're holdin' a party up near the Ol' North in that gaudy mansion o' theirs. Invites only, an' since ya ain't a gal, I doubt they'll let ya in wi'out one." Argo explained. "Still, don't mean I can't get ya in. Jus' not as a guest."

"How about all of us?" He asked, formulating the beginnings of a plan in his head.

"What're ya even plannin', Knight-boy?"

"Eh, you know me. Just a bit of recon – besides, I'd imagine you of all people know how easy it is to get information from drunk people." He really did reckon Argo had used that method once or twice; she was ruthless in finding information, and there was a reason that making a contract with someone who is intoxicated isn't considered legally binding – you, as the sober party, are in a position of power over the intoxicated party.

And Argo was very good at making sure she was negotiating from a position of power.

"Hmm, ya got a point, an' it ay like I ain't interested in what the Madhouse are up ta either. Jus' remember, ya never talked t' me 'bout this. I got my rep t' maintain, ya know?"

"Hang on, what do you mean by, "just not as a guest"?"

The fact she was grinning like she did whenever she was close to sealing a deal filled him with a sense of absolute dread…

/-/

The squadron house that functioned as the headquarters for the Madhouse (creatively named… the Madhouse) was nothing short of crass, Jet had decided.

He lived in an area known for its well-off residents, and as such, he'd seen his fair share of houses intended to send a statement to people – that statement being "bugger off, peasants" usually – but this was something else entirely. This was the epitome of "look at me, but only from a distance", given a physical shape, and the vibe that surrounded it was that of a large group of tossers, Jet had decided.

"Blimey, it's like watching a property show, only the people on it are the worst possible people imaginable…" Jet muttered under his breath, his displeasure at the scene evident to anyone with a working brain.

"I dunno, the cars are pretty cool…" Philia shrugged, and pointed to an older car. "Imagine showing up to prom in that, you'd have everyone looking around you…"

"Yeah, they'd be looking for armed guards. It's a dictator's car." He replied without thinking about it. The car Philia had pointed at was a Mercedes Benz 600 Grosser; a car that offered a particularly insightful view into the minds of those who drove such a car. A twenty-one foot long, veritable mass of steel, wood, hydraulics and German engineering, designed as a symbol of prestige and power all the way back in the 1960s…

Well, it wouldn't have been a lie to say it had been a popular car with the ruling classes – so long as by "ruling classes", you meant dictators. An owner's club that included such people as Chairman Mao, the Kim Dynasty, Saddam Hussein; all of whom owned a 600 Grosser at some point during their reigns of terror, alongside such people as Pablo Escobar… and Jeremy Clarkson?

Okay, so it was a stretch to say that every Grosser was owned by a dictator, but most dictators had owned one, and if the first impressions of the man whose car it was were anything to go by, he was certainly a wannabe despot, if nothing else. Surrounded by players armed with gold-plated AK-74s, and what looked to be the most gaudy, expensive gear that credits could buy in the Glocken, he certainly fit the image of a Grosser driver, Jet thought.

"Anyway, what happened to "I don't judge by appearance", huh?"

"I'm not. I'm judging them by car, which is a far more accurate way of understanding someone."

"You can understand people, off nothing more than the cart they drive?" Alice asked, clearly confused by that. He supposed that the Underworld didn't have motorised vehicles, so the concept of a car representing a person was understandably alien to her…

"So what does that one tell you about the person?" Philia pointed at a black Mercedes Benz AMG C63, that had been given tinted windows and was currently blaring out music at a pace that a concert speaker would struggle to keep up with.

"Mercedes Benz C63 AMG. That tells me that man was born with a curious condition, one that meant he had no penis. Therefore, he bought that… thing, in a vain attempt to look less impotent." He concluded, whilst behind him, the reactions were rather mixed.

Sanya struggled to keep a straight face at the vicious dismemberment of someone's entire personality, with only a single look at their car, whilst Rain wore a look somewhere between shock and amusement. Koharu, trying her best to be diplomatic, bit her lip at his comments, though he could tell she was dying to laugh too. Alice, ever the hardest to read, simply raised an eyebrow at his comment.

"So, what about that one?" Alice asked, pointing at a small car in the distance – a purple Fiat 500 lookalike.

"That one, Alice, is owned by our boss, and I like my job, so I will refrain from telling the British stereotype of the Fiat 500 driver." Jet, in a sudden turn of diplomacy bought on by catching a glance of Zeliska coming up the drive, said. "Let's just say it involves Ibiza and being a spoiled-" Koharu looked at him, and then to his side in a telling glance. "Ah ha, Zeliska!"

"Why does he look guilty, Koharu?"

"Oh, we were just discussing cars. You know how it is, boys and their toys." Internally, he felt a sigh of relief, as Zeliska shrugged it as him being a bit weird, rather than suggesting she fit the stereotype of a Fiat 500 driver.

Not that she did – she'd never been to Ibiza, as far as he could tell.

"Anyway, remember the plan – Jet, Rain, Sanya, you three are hiding in plain sight as waiters. See what you can gather. Everyone else, see what you can find out the old-fashioned way. Oh, and try not to start a firefight this time! I couldn't exactly smuggle a PKM in under my dress…"

He fought back the urge to point out she'd have struggled to hide a paracetamol tablet under that dress, let alone a machine gun, for two reasons. One, he didn't exactly want to have to explain that, no, he wasn't checking her out (though he wasn't entirely sure Koharu wasn't doing much the same either!), and two, he was too busy focusing on the fact that he was going to demonstrate the art of defenestration to Argo next time he saw her… of course she'd gotten them in as the hired help.

Actually, that wasn't strictly true – she'd gotten most of the girls' invitations, meaning that only two of them were helping him as the hired help.

Between them, they'd decided that, should things go south, Rain and Sanya would be the best of them to help out, whilst the others did their best to blend in amongst the crowds of people. Jet reckoned there was another reason to have Sanya as a member of staff – no doubt she would almost immediately blow her cover by attempting to shoot the first man to hit on her.

Not a great possibility when they were trying to be low profile…

Whilst they were in covert mode, they'd set up a chain of command – himself, Rain and Sanya would keep their eyes on the guests, and cover each other's blind spots, whilst Koharu and Zeliska would co-ordinate everyone else in disguise.

It all sounded so easy, said no one ever.

Still, with any luck, tonight would not be a complete disaster, and the group would come out of this a little tired, but with useful information.

Jet wondered briefly whether he'd just done the metaphorical equivalent of dangling his knackers in the crocodile enclosure, hours before feeding, with that statement…

/-/

The guests of the party were exactly what Jet had expected from the clientele he'd seen up to now – rowdy, unpleasant and the type of people he'd have quite liked to have punched out by now, had it not been for the "undercover" bit.

Not that they'd needed much effort to convince these people they were waiters – half of them were too drunk to notice, and the other half too pre-occupied by Rain and Sanya in slightly too small for them waitress get ups.

That was something else that was bothering him; he'd been spending more time watching their backs, to try and stop some unscrupulous prick from having his way with her, whilst their backs were turned.

Luckily for her, he was extremely skilled with that Sleight of Hand skill he'd gotten some weeks back now, and of the three drugged drinks, all three had been returned to their sender by some quick thinking of his, and she was fast enough to make it look as if the last of the would-be gropers had tripped and fell over, rather than being deliberately sent onto his face.

"Got anything so far?"

"Other than six player IDs for sexual harassment, no. Oh, and a trio who thought they could get away with spiking the drinks."

"What happened to the ones who… err…"

"Don't worry, they'll be happy for a while. Slipped them their own roofies back. They'll be out for a couple of hours at least, I reckon. Still, I'll report it to Zel, I'm pretty sure that's against the terms of service, anyway." And the law, he neglected to say – it went without saying that spiking drinks was a crime in most places anyway.

"Not having much luck ourselves either, though Sanya found herself an admirer…" Rain smirked as she told him that, whilst Sanya gave her friend a look that would turn the stomachs of most gorgons…

"As I told that cretin, I am not interested in some mouth breather who has yet to escape their mother's basement, no matter how large he claims he is." The fact that she'd said that with such a deadpan delivery had caught him completely off guard, and he struggled not to burst out laughing. "And speaking of overcompensating…" Sanya grumbled, looking towards a blonde man in a neatly pressed suit with a woman on each arm.

The man was undeniably handsome, and based on the fact his shirt was unbuttoned down to roughly the fifth button, Jet would've said he was rather proud of his physique too. All in all, he got a sense of confidence from the man, as well as the impression of a rather gaudy type of wealth – the new money, as his mom might have put it. The ones with something to show off, rather than the ones who already had power.

"Bit of a bastard, but he looks like someone I knew back at school. Casanova wannabe, I'd bet. Probably not who we're looking for."

"Wait-taar!" A rowdy group of lads called from the other side of the floor. "Bring everythin' ya can carry!"

"Bring the chicks too!" He watched as Sanya's eye twitched, much like it did when she was moments away from exploding, whilst the lads laughed look deranged hyenas. Some things didn't change apparently, and lad culture was one of them, sadly.

Realising he was standing there like a slice of fruit that had escaped being put in the torrent of vodka drunk tonight, he picked up two trays of multicoloured shots, and headed over to the table full of lads. None of them looked to be seven foot tall, nor did any speak with a thick Yorkshire accent, so he was fairly sure they weren't their main line of investigation.

"Aww, why'd it have to be the guy!" Not that it made them any less annoying though…

"Because she would have hit you hard enough to be sent flying out that window." Jet answered as bluntly as was possible, to a burst of laughter as he walked away, before he almost ran into someone…

The person he'd nearly walked headfirst into was a little younger than everyone else present, with greyish-black hair and red eyes, whilst he dressed in what looked to be normal combat gear – a silver coat, with blue piping, and black trousers. The only thing that was a bit strange was his insistence to shake his hand, even after nearly being covered in shots, something on which he eventually picked up on, and did so, before he took a drink.

As he did, he found a small piece of paper in his hand, a handwritten note – "Argo sent us." – and he looked back towards the lad, who offered a small gesture of understanding, and a smirk.

"Well, we've got some back-up at least." He told Rain, as looked out over the dancefloor for their attackers from the nightclub. No seven-foot-tall behemoths of men here, sadly, so that ruled out one of them. The only problem with that was, unless any of them opened their mouths, and a thick Yorkshire accent came out, that was the only lead they really had…

"I'm glad, I really don't like this place at all."

"Agreed, some of their stares are making me uncomfortable, so I can't imagine how bad it is for you girls. Sorry, I roped you all in on this one, but…"

"Don't mention it." Rain smiled, and he smiled back at her. Since they'd met back in the very early days of Aincrad, their relationship had always been a bit… confused, and it had only really been by the spring of 2023 that they'd actually been on the same wavelength about it.

They'd come to see each other as siblings, almost. Both could rely on each other to have their backs, even when the chips were down, and they had been so, more than once. Even after the Laughing Coffin crusade, when he'd rendered himself persona non grata, his group had still been willing to hear him out – despite all of them being beyond furious at him.

"We would prefer you to actually keep us informed of what you are doing, rather than going off half-cocked as you so often used to." Sanya said with a shrug. "As… infuriating as you can be, I certainly cannot say life has been dull since I…" He and Sanya had something of a tumultuous relationship – neither of them were particularly fond of each other to start with, and both of them made that fact known to the other.

It had only been after Sanya had been used by Laughing Coffin to attempt to break the frontlines, and then to murder the group, that the pair had come to an understanding of why they disliked the other: Sanya disliked him, because she was overprotective of Rain; he disliked her because she was haughty in the extreme, and much like him, her headstrong nature caused serious issues for her…

Nowadays though, they were… it was hard to explain, he thought. The pair would continue to spar verbally, but that was not out of malice, but merely a form of competition that appeared bizarre to any onlookers.

His reminiscing of the bad old days was soon interrupted though, as a bloke popped out of a corridor bellowing to someone. "Oi, boss, found someone snoopin' around." Bingo! That was their man, Jet thought, before he realised what had been said, and muttered a silent curse beneath his breath, at Zeliska's inability to be stealthy.

It was only when the behemoth bought out the snooper that he realised who it was who'd been caught – the lad from before, Argo's… hired help? Source? Bodyguard? Regardless of the semantics, the lad was being held in the behemoth's metal arm, functioning as an oversized bar across his torso…

It was also not too much after this that he felt a sense of dread, as a high calibre round tore through the guy's arm and forced him to release the lad. He shot Rain a sympathetic glance and reached into his pocket to retrieve his handgun - a Walther PPK, a short-barrelled handgun that could be easily concealed in his suit.

With a rehearsed accuracy, he let off a shot in the direction of the behemoth and raced in a different direction to allow time for Rain to retrieve her weapons. Unlike him, she'd chosen to keep to melee weapons, and purchased two photon blades (definitely not lightsabers, Zeliska had told him, but photon blades. The mouse's lawyers had been very clear on that point, apparently.), the Kagemitsu M6, a pair of red blades that she'd become rather adept at using, even managing to slice larger bullets away from their intended targets with some degree of proficiency!

"You again!" One of the grunts yelled.

"We really have to stop meeting like this!" The lad shouted back. "No, really! We need to stop meeting." A round from the lad's revolver cracked against the behemoth's shoulder. "Like this!"

"You know this guy?!" Jet asked, ducking behind a plastic chair nearby.

"I wouldn't say he's a friend!" The lad responded

"No kidding!" Jet said as he fired off a few more shots, though none seemed to have any real effect. The joys of using a stubby pistol, firing 9x19 Parabellum. You couldn't kill anything with even the faintest amount of armour! "Seriously, how did Bond do anything with one of these things!?" He grumbled, wondering if throwing the thing would have any effect either…

Luckily for both boys, Rain had managed to get into the swing of things and was currently doing her best impression of a photon blender, disarming as many of them as possible, before they were able to pop up and get a few shots off.

"I thought the whole point of this was to be stealthy!?" Sanya called, having grabbed a shield – more specifically a human shield, and one that didn't look best pleased to have become one. The man was even less pleased when a sniper shot took his head off (though admittedly, that hadn't lasted too long either…). "Of course, they have a sniper. Because this plan could not possibly go any more wrong, could it?" The silver haired waitress grumbled, fumbling around for her machine gun.

"Nah, she's on our side!" The lad shouted to her.

"If she is, could you tell her to avoid danger close. I rather like having a head…"

The lad looked towards him. "She's a glass half empty kind of person, huh?"

"More of "a glass empty before it's smashed across your cheek" type person." He shrugged, swapping out his PPK for his rifle. At least this way, he might hit something, he reckoned…

Whilst he and the new guy (he made a note to get his name when they weren't being shot at) did their best to handle the increasing number of enemies with the assistance of the friendly sniper, Rain had properly gotten into the swing of things as the number of enemies over her side of the room began to shrink rapidly… alongside the proportion of them that still had all four limbs.

"Oh, I have had enough of this…" The beast of a man walked out into the hail of gunfire, and to everyone else's surprise, remained mostly intact, other than some bullet holes where his clothes had been…

"Oh for… he's bulletproof?!" Jet sighed, regretting not asking Kureha along for this – that rocket launcher of hers would've been ideal right about now!

"I guess so!" The new guy shouted to him. "Never seen him before today though!"

It hadn't taken long before he'd spotted the biggest threat to his side; Rain, who was currently finishing off the last of her side of the room and charged at her. As it turned out, despite his size, the man was exceptionally agile, able to keep up with Rain as she fought – no mean feat in his experience!

Even back in Aincrad, she'd been able to keep Kirito on his toes during a duel, and that was nothing short of miraculous to him. The Black Swordsman himself struggling to land more than a blow on her was testament to her agility in combat…

And then there was this great ape of a man, currently keeping her on the back foot.

That wasn't on, Jet had decided as he aimed a burst from his 805 into a rather uncomfortable place on the man's anatomy... even if he was bulletproof, kinetic energy was still a thing, and the kinetic energy from being shot in the balls with a five round burst of 5.56 NATO was almost certain to be enough to get the guy's attention off Rain!

"You little bastards!" The guy shouted, his voice now an octave higher since the barrage of bullets to the bollocks. "I'll rip your heads off!"

"I'd say that worked, but…" Jet immediately realised the tactical mistake he'd made… yes, they'd gotten him off Rain, but they had no way to put him down either.

"He's coming for us now?" The lad asked.

"Yup. Run for it!"

/-/

Elsewhere in the party, Koharu was taking a sip of the free – and very expensive – champagne as she watched the scenes around her.

Mostly, it was people simply enjoying their night. Sure, they were more than a little tipsy, and she had had to basically drag some of the less well-meaning men away from both herself and Alice, who seemed to be attracting quite a lot of attention, but they were in the minority. The others were content to just sing and dance the night away…

Of course, her moment of peace and quiet was interrupted as gunfire tore the corridors, and many of the guests looked as if they were about to run for cover. She supposed that, if they were truly undercover, so should they, but she had an idea that Jet was involved somehow, and she'd made a promise all those years ago – she was his partner, through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad… through the times his lack of self-preservation proved something she'd never quite imagined a person could lack!

"Koharu, I believe that may be our cue." Alice told her, and she finished the flute of champagne.

"Yep, I reckon so too." She sighed as the flute was placed back on the table. "Any idea where Philia and Zeliska are?"

"I'm not too sure. They were on the dancefloor some minutes ago, but…"

"Guess it's just us then. Let's see which hornet's nest they've stirred up this time…" Despite her frustration at her partner's inability to be stealthy, there was a little part of her that truly enjoyed this.

Possibly a little too much, if the small trace of a smirk on her face was anything to go by. She supposed that was an occupational hazard of dating the hero (despite his claims to the contrary) in any story; you became far bolder than you would've been otherwise…

Despite that though, what she wasn't expecting to charge into the room was a seven-foot-tall behemoth of a man – the same one they'd fought last night, no doubt – grabbing hold of Jet with what appeared to be a robotic arm, holding her six-foot partner into the air by the neck, as he kicked and punched at him, though to no avail.

"Hey!" She shouted at the giant of a man currently strangling her partner… "If anyone is going to be strangling my boyfriend, it'll be me!"

That was definitely one of those things that sounded better in her head, she'd realised. Especially given everyone from Alice to the man holding Jet up by his neck, to Jet himself… was now giving her a funny look in some way. A mood somewhat broken as someone yelled "you tell him sister!" amidst the otherwise silent room…

The man snapped back to strangling her partner however, and she pulled her MP7 from her inventory, and pointed it so as the bullet line ended up squarely against the man's forehead, a clear sign that, no, she wasn't bluffing…

"Put him down!" The man smirked at her, before a second and third bullet lines found their way across his body.

"Put my grandfather back on the floor, now, or I shall be forced to use lethal force." Alice stated, having retrieved her USAS-12, and now pointing it towards the man's stomach.

The third bullet line came from a person she'd never even seen before, let alone met, and pointed at a sensitive part of the man's anatomy. Given the guy was wielding a revolver, she was fairly sure it was chambered for a fairly high-powered round, which would be… well, agony. "Now, we can talk this out like adults, or you can sing like a songbird again."

The man looked towards her partner, the person he was currently strangling, and made a comment that she wasn't exactly sure he would disagree with… "Grandfather? Kid, your family is fucked up…" The nod he offered back agreed with both their assessments, as yet more bullet lines appeared across the man's back.

First the one from Zeliska's smuggled shotgun (seriously, that dress was almost skin tight – where the heck had she pulled a Remington 870 from, Koharu thought to herself!), then Philia's rifle… before Sanya's LMG line appeared on the back of his head, followed by Rain's Bizon, and… wait, if Rain's photon blade was now to his neck, whose was that bullet line?

"You may be bulletproof, but let us see how resilient you are to my photon blade, shall we?" Rain threatened, inching the lightsaber closer to his neck.

"Hmph, I know when I'm beat…" The man coughed, and came dangerously close to slicing his own head off with the blade still there… "But I ain't lettin' ya-guh." That time, the crack of an anti-materiel rifle round ricocheting off a floor nearby did cause him to turn a bit sharply… and give himself a rather close shave.

So close that the man's head became detached from his body from his shave, and the man's now headless body fell back, a pop up telling them that he was dead – as if the fact he lacked a head now hadn't told them that with utmost certainty. Now free from being strangled, Jet fell back to the floor, clutching his neck and groaning…

"Uhh, oops?" Rain looked slightly horrified by the fact she'd decapitated a man unintentionally. "I swear that was an accident!"

"I think that was a little too close of a shave there…" The new guy grinned at the one-liner and earned a smattering of groans in response.

"Oh great, that is all we need… two of them." Sanya grumbled as she attempted to put her PKP away.

With everything dealt with, she rushed over to her partner, still on the floor rubbing his neck. "You okay?" She asked, looking over his wounds – a few bullet holes across his arms and legs, though none would've been fatal, and a vicious red hand mark that circled his neck…

"Been better." He croaked, as she handed him a syringe of green liquid – a medical syringe meant to restore a player's HP. Despite the throttling he'd been through, he still had a surprising amount of health; easily about half left, a testament to just how many points Jet had put into his vitality…

Leaving him to inject himself with the green liquid, she headed over to the new guy. "Thank you for the help, by the way."

"No problem, Argo said you guys would've gotten yourself into trouble if we weren't here."

"It does rather tend to be a running theme with us…" Sanya admitted. "If you wouldn't mind introducing yourself, so I know who to blame for this fiasco?"

"Sanya!"

"She's kinda right, it was my fault I got caught." The guy explained. "Oh, I'm Masai. The sniper's Sinon…"

"Wait… Sinon, as in the Sinon. The one who won the BoB last year?" Zeliska asked, almost shocked. GGO did have a rather large fanbase that focused on the tournaments, but they weren't something they'd ever felt a particular need to get involved with. As Jet had said, it was a job - a job they enjoyed, but a job nonetheless. If they wanted to compete, they were doing it on their own terms, not Zeliska's.

"Yep."

"We really do have an all-star cast for this one then…" Now healed, Jet could speak properly without sounding like he'd gargled with sand. " 'cause that's a lot of angry partygoers…" He addressed the elephant in the room. The crowd shaped elephant, that was…

"There's a window on the other side of the room – Sinon's going to shoot it out, so we can jump through it." Masai explained, tapping his earpiece.

"Jump out the window?! We're on the third floor!" Zeliska pointed out. "The fall damage alone will kill us…"

"A minor issue I have with an otherwise flawless plan…" Sanya said sarcastically.

"Nah, the pool's below, we should be okay." The word "should" was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, Koharu thought.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained I suppose…" Jet muttered to himself as he reloaded his rifle. "Okay, on my go – GO!"

Everyone in the group swapped from inching towards the window, to full on running instead. Despite being outnumbered, she, Jet and Masai raised their guns at the advancing crowd.

"Now, before anyone does anything stupid, just remember the smart thing here…" Jet gave his best impression of his old Knight persona, and for once… it actually worked. The crowd slowed down on their advance.

"And that is?"

"Let somebody else try first." Jet shrugged, and the crowd almost stopped as if they were deciding on how was dumb enough… or expendable enough, to go first. "That should keep them bickering for a few minutes."

That brief reprieve gave them enough time to defenestrate themselves, leaving just Masai and Jet to come, no doubt the two boys going last to hold the crowd at bay… or because Jet had developed a fear of falling from Aincrad.

Probably fairly, she thought, given how often he'd ended up falling from a great height back then.

Correction – only Jet left, as Masai splashed down into the water not far from her.

"Sorry lads and lasses, but it's been a wonderful night, but I really must drop out!" She heard Jet joke, before he fell backwards out of the window and into the pool below, splashing them all in the process…

"Can we please attend a single party that doesn't end in a firefight? Or a change of clothes being necessary?" Philia asked, looking rather like a damp poodle after the fall into the pool.

"At least nothing caught fire this time?" Masai half-heartedly offered as a defence as Jet came back to the surface, his hair now drooped in front of his face like a curtain over his eyes.

"Well, that went like every party I've ever been to. Load of people got drunk, started a fight and wound up in the pool." Jet joked… she hoped. "I'd call that a partial success, at least?"

"If that was a partial success, I dread to think what a complete failure looks like…" Zeliska grumbled, as she hid behind a tree to change from her dress into something that wasn't almost transparent.

"Well, we found out they're definitely part of the Madhouse, so there's that." Jet said, as he equipped a coat in place of his tuxedo.

"I'm not sure they all are. I think Madhouse are just the hired help." Masai countered. "When I was looking around, I came across a group of people in the basement. I didn't recognise any of them, but I got a good look at the one they called boss – blonde guy, definitely not Japanese, he spoke English with an American accent. They called him, uhh, "Subtilizer", I think."

{Author's Comments}

Yup, this is a crossover... sort of.

So, I mentioned in the last chapter that this discussion came about from the SAO Fanfiction Discord; the discussion was about what would happen should our OCs meet, and here we have the answer: chaos.

So, I'd like to give a big thanks to Aperax for this one, and go check out Fifty-Fifty, firstly because it's a bloody good story in my opinion, and secondly because you may be slightly lost as to who the new guy is otherwise.