"Per ardua et astra."
The sky meant a lot to him. It was the highway to fantastical adventures in anime and games when he was a child. When he was a teenager, it was also the domain of those famous warriors astride winged, metal beasts in the world wars. The oceans ferried men for eons, but that other, deep blue frontier held an allure far greater to his imagination.
He still remembered his first flight. He was a child then when he flew with his parents out of Narita International for vacation overseas, a rare treat for all of them. He remembered looking out the window as the large Boeing 747 cut through a field of fluffy white clouds, and how he wondered to himself if the pilot might stop the plane so he could walk around on the clouds if he asked politely.
Virtual skies did much to capture the majesty of the real deal, it could not be denied. That vast, lively space dominated by birds and aircraft in the real one; monsters, dragons, even faeries and all manner of other creatures in the virtual one. However, its imperfectness also made it unsettling in its usual, liminal stillness.
Most players kept their eyes to the ground. That was where all the relevant threats and content were. For the pilot of the Mi-24, even during SAO in his peaceful moments, he kept his eyes to the sky. And yet, the skies in SAO were as false as any other he'd seen after.
Doubly so in SAO, he decided. Despite being inside a castle, each floor offered their own unique skyline that even changed with the hour. Canonically they were artificial projections—meant to replicate real locations from the world Aincrad ascended from, or merely illusions to alleviate claustrophobia, who knew really?
The towers and high walls of the abandoned Zulu Compound loomed like a different kind of prison castle as the pilot gazed at the sprawling, mortar-pocked "courtyard." Even from up here, he could see the black confetti-like shards that had been the blown-out remains of the front gate. The debris was scattered across the exterior driveway, not the interior like it would've been in an assault; the Commander's work, undoubtedly.
He pitched the helicopter forward and increased the collective as he passed the landmark to his direct south. These wide open spaces were a nice reprieve when flying in such a densely built environment, but it also made him an obvious target.
The smoke plumes rising from the Industrial District's ruins made it hard for him to see. As ugly as the neon signage in Glocken were, for once he was glad for how easily they contrasted against the blackened backdrop he was working with. He used one as his next landmark, rolling his heavy Mi-24 onto its side as he reached a floating ad board that had half of its glass display blown off. As the rotary-wing craft rounded the corner, he hastily scanned along the street through his canopy bubble until he spotted what he was looking for.
[This is Crossbow to Ground! We are bearing 280, moving east to west along the road, direct north of the green smoke. Confirm: that's where you want us to hit?]
[Roger Crossbow, we see you. They're on your nose: splatter the bastards!]
The operator glanced down and double-checked his controls to make sure he was ready to go. He'd forgotten something; he flipped the pedal dampener switch back to the "On" position. He needed the agility before in this atrocious urban environment, but now he needed the stability to get his payload on target.
[Crossbow copies, Ground. Standby for strike, get your heads down!]
The skies over GGO were much the same as SAO's, in many respects. But for the pilot of the Mi-24 that day, callsign "Crossbow," the smoke-choked twilight city's skies were at once unsettlingly familiar, hostile...and extraordinarily liberating.
The pilot could feel the Russian air frame vibrate through the pedals under his feet and the joystick gripped tightly in his clammy, gloved hand. The noise of the rotors, the shifting of analog controls, the idle radio traffic buzzing in his ears; the feeling of vertigo and inertia as he maneuvered and positioned his bird for a gun run.
[Crossbow, this is Dagger 2. Watch your 9 o'clock, you've got movement in the skyscraper with the candle stick-shaped hole in it. Can't see what they have, too much smoke.]
[Copy!]
The pilot's reply was curt. His attention was focused fully on the task at hand, trying to stabilize the crosshairs of his craft's ancient, analog gunsight. Simultaneously dodging the walkways, overhangs, floating ad boards, and various other obstacles that congested Glocken's airspace.
'Would it have killed these assholes to expand outward instead of vertically?'
He switched channels on the short-range radio. The icon in the corner of his vision lit up green again. [Passengers, this is your captain speaking. Everyone on the left side, take a window if you haven't already and help your friend with the MMG spray down those skycrapers. If we take a rocket, it's going to go through your compartment.]
"Gunner, give me a double-check on periscope, but be quick. This is as low as I'm flying this fat bastard."
"Doors already open, Masaryk," replied his gunner, ever reliably ahead of the task. Though he couldn't see him, his partner was seated in the compartment in front and below him. "Okaaay. Eyes on. A few technicals, lots of small arms muzzle flashes. Oooh, I think I see some Yokohama power suits down there. Geeze, that might be a full squad of the things down there."
"Not Fuller? That's a shame. Don't we have that bounty mission running with Yokohama for a payout for wrecking Fuller Corp equipment?"
"I don't think they're going to honor that after we splashed an ATGM into their district office here."
"Yeah, you have a point." Masaryk said, steadily angling the craft until the amber crosshairs on his HUD lined up with the road. "Shame about the loot."
The air and motion inside the craft changed viscerally—literally, even—as the S-8 rocket pods burst down the road in one long, fiery trail of destruction. The shockwaves of the blasts, close and powerful as they were, buffeted the helo like reeds in a hurricane.
A thought and a flash of fear ran through the pilot: was he close enough to damage his tail rotor?
He only had a moment to consider this before he automatically pulled his bird into a diagonal climb, knowing he had suddenly become the preferred target of every anti-air gunner in the area.
Ping! Ping! Tink! Ping! ... Thump! Tink!
He could hear the sound of small arms fire pinging off the hull of the helicopter. Punctuated by dull, sizzling thumps of the occasional energy weapon.
"Hey Masaryk, I think you missed."
"Fuck off, you don't even have the periscope doors open. If I missed, we'd be eating minigun fire off of those SUV techies."
[Good hits! Damn good hits, Crossbow, I saw one of those power suits eat a missile head-on!] The voice on the radio buzzed excitedly. [We got the rest covered, we owe you many drinks, sir.]
[Sig's the drinker, I'm more of a tea guy myself. You tell the guys down there to split it between a box of sake and a box of green tea.]
The two-man helicopter crew laughed it off. Less a war, up here it felt more like they were shooting fish in a barrel while running an obstacle course.
"So Masaryk, is GGO exciting enough for you yet?"
He thought about it a moment. "It's no Viper, but the Crocodile is still a damn good bird to be flying. Even if it is just a flying, armored taxi." Masaryk said, using the nicknames of the only multi-role jet they had in inventory, and that of their personal helo. "Still beats having my own pair of wings strapped to my back."
"You're still not a fan of ALO?"
He scoffed. "Those joystick controls were hot trash. If I'm tracked by a fireball here, I can pop flares and jettison my payload before I'm cremated. In ALO, I'm getting shredded like I'm Icarus."
His friend laughed. "When we land, I'll let the mechanics know to install an ejector seat and a parachute for you. Just in case."
"That's the wrong kind of Snake(1), Sig."
[Crossbow, this is High Command.]
The channel on the long-range radio buzzed in. Masaryk muttered a curse under his breath.
Normally as a type of specialized unit, the aircraft primarily talked with only Company HQ or whoever was the designated Forward Air Controller. However, the executives of Argo's PMC, otherwise known as «High Command», were also on the same long-range radio net. And getting a message directly from them was both good news and bad news.
Good news, because it usually meant they had an update on the "VIPs" they were supposed to be looking for. Bad news, because it also meant that their day was about to get a lot more difficult.
Masaryk pulled the helo around in a loop. He soon found himself descending a lot faster than he'd want; there were a lot more overpasses and other obstacles at the elevation he'd prefer to fly at.
[Crossbow to High, give me a second!]
The Mi-24 was not an agile bird, unlike the AH-6 that Dagger 2 flew. The frame vibrated from a main rotor tip strike as their aircraft barely scraped itself under an overpass. But the Hind was more sturdy than the light-skinned Little Bird, and while still a bad form of damage, they were still able to keep the craft under control.
The helo was still moving at a high rate of speed. A dead silence permeated the cockpit bubble; it was taking him a lot of focus and skill not to crash.
[Re-inserts, incoming!]
He shouted over the radio as he closed the last bit of distance to the landing zone near Glass Bank, the place where the majority of "Alpha" Company had gathered to form a defensive circle.
He wasn't worried about them shooting him down—they could see his unit marking if they referenced their in-game map, and there weren't exactly many other pilots flying in the city—but it would make his job a whole lot easier if they started laying some hate downrange and draw some of the aggro away from him.
Meanwhile, the door gunners were getting to work on the MMGs. Music blared out the side doors at full blast as they came in for the descent, like a scene straight out of a war movie.
RATATATATAT!
RATATATATAT!
RATATATATAT!
RATAT—ATAT!
RATATATATATATAT!
The beat of "Shin Takarajima" serving as an impromptu fire rate guide, they swept the sides of the buildings with bursts of machine gun fire. Muzzle flashes and tracer rounds blooming out the side of the helo, flickering like candlelight, one of the last remaining "reliable" light sources in the city. Culminating in a long, jittering burst of fire as the song reached its signature chorus.
[RPG! RPG!] —Somebody screamed over the radio comms.
FWOOSH—!
The orange glow of rocket exhaust flashed past the cockpit bubble.
With a "Kuh!" sound, the pilot could do little to react but clench his teeth in anticipation. A muffled 'Brace!' from the passenger compartment behind him echoed his thoughts.
—But the expected explosion didn't happen.
"Holy shit, we're still flying." Sig said, in absolute disbelief. "The hell happened there? You think it was a dud?"
"Or they fired too close and it failed to arm. Either way, I'd hate to be the guys sweeping this place for UXO later."
"Yeah. With a fucking RPG impaled into the side of an office wall."
"Hey, if I had to choose between RPGs that were going to kill me—I'd rather eat the rocket than have another round in SAO.
Almost forgot. Gunner, send message to High Command before we get yelled at. I'm driving here."
"Yeah, give me a sec."
Without another word more, the radio buzzed again:
[High, this is Crossbow. Send it.]
[Crossbow, deposit cargo and prepare for a hot extract. You have a train to find and follow. Coordinates sent, it'll be on your map. You can't miss it, it's the only train with a running gun battle on it. Any questions?]
[Threats?]
[Light-class exosuits. Small arms.]
[How many VIPs?]
[Eight. If nobody's dead.]
Concise and to the point. Even if it hadn't been the calm and sedate accountant's familiar voice, the subject matter would've dictated brevity regardless.
[Any of those from ours?] —Masaryk this time.
[You'll see.]
He was silent.
The other voice continued.
[Anything else?]
[...Negative, High. We'll keep you updated.]
[Roger. Try not to die, prioritize the objective. If that means kicking a shooter off to make room, do it. Out.]
The line closed. Masaryk immediately switched radio channels.
[Passengers, this is your pilot speaking. Door gunners, congratulations, you are now promoted to «Air Crew». The rest of you: get the hell off my chopper!]
"Masaryk, what the hell? Did you not understand what High Command said?"
"Yeah—I know what he said, Sig," Masaryk snapped. "But we're going into a hot extract. If we need the space, we just drop them off. Those Phantom Ranger teams run light for missions like this, a couple of extra 30-caliber machine guns are going to be a big help either way."
He tilted the helicopter backwards; gravity pushed Masaryk's lap into his seat. The aircraft flared above the ground where their landing zone had been marked with a road flare.
"Brace!" Someone yelled from the passenger compartment.
The rotor wash whipped up a dust cloud that showered the nearby soldiers with black ash and gray dirt, as the Hind descended to a safe—albeit, rough—landing in front of the building known as «Glass Bank». A fact which his UI helpfully reminded him of at the bottom of his vision.
"Go! Go! Go! Everyone off, ride's over!"
Masaryk leaned over to the side of his cockpit window. He watched and counted the seconds until he saw the first uniformed player dash into view, heading towards a distinct glass-walled building with an interlaced steel frame.
A beautiful piece of architectural experimentation, set against a background of disrepair and oppressive industrial structures. With the sunset beyond the skyline and the lack of power, the interior was dark. But the movement of figures dashing between large, broken glass panels, and the faint reflection of nearby lights off of machine gun barrels and concertina wire betrayed the fact this was the guild's Company HQ.
Thunk! Thunk!
"Six dismounts! Two aboard!" One of the door gunners pounded his fist on the cockpit wall.
Masaryk advanced the collective and the helicopter started to lift vertically.
[Crossbow, moving to next objective.]
[Dagger 2, also egressing east. Company HQ, CAS will be unavailable for the rest of the OP. I will be back soon with a heavy lift helo to grab a vault out of here.]
[That's fine, Dagger 2! We'll just burn the rest of our drones. Just do a quick supporting run on Aster's group coming up the highway with the vault, they have a bunch of armored weapons platforms we're going to need while you're gone!]
"Haa. The beauty of awful logistics and not enough pilots to fly." Sig said. "You want to do a quick loop around to help on the way out?"
"Hell no," Masaryk said immediately. "I'm not flying through this city more than I need to. This Soviet piece of shit steers like a bathtub. I'm surprised we didn't crash earlier."
"Aye. Whatever you want, captain." Sig said in a tone that suggested he'd been scolded for backseat driving. "The pilot guides the ship, I'm just along for the ride."
"Dagger's a better pilot than me, and Aster's guys in 1st Platoon can take care of themselves. We still have a group of no-lifers to provide CAS for, save the cannons and missiles for them."
"Haha..." He chuckled inexplicably.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just realized we've got a lot of familiar faces down there. SAO Survivors and dead men all down there...or is that in the wrong order?"
Masaryk clicked his tongue. "Tch. Clear the fucking air, gunner. Let me know when we have eyes on the train."
"A-firm, captain."
—
GGO players generally weren't known for their discretion.
This was not to say they weren't intelligent. There were plenty of roles that required or encouraged a high degree of skill and proficiency.
You couldn't be a good sniper without an excellent grasp of math for long distance shots and an eye for terrain. Vehicle crewmen needed the technical knowledge of how their vehicles moved and behaved in the field. And the common riflemen, though versatile, could easily be picked apart by enemies with a better understanding of their craft.
Nobody would argue that a GGO player wasn't an aggressive and frightening opponent to encounter, even outside of their home game. Even Sinon, for as reserved and soft-spoken as she normally was, had heard as much in ALO from the people she'd shred with her arrows.
Woe to the fool who failed to realize that a setting as lethal as GGO, would attract and produce a certain kind of player base.
No. What GGO players lacked, was exactly what Sinon thought they lacked.
Discretion. The patience and skill to move around without people realizing you were there; the moreso in a world that almost completely lacked most of the «skills» that would ease the difficulty for players. While an aggressive posture was a strength in a fight and one that most serious GGO players possessed, it also formed a weakness to exploit.
As cool as the idea of stealth was—moving around silently, unseen by the enemy, poised to strike before your presence was felt—the reality of it was that it was a very boring, time consuming, risky maneuver to perform.
Why sneak behind someone's back to avoid a fight, when there's the risk of them turning around and shooting you when you're unprepared? Why assassinate one person with a suppressed gun when they're not looking, when you could use numbers and firepower to take out a bigger group for a larger loot drop?
And why take the long and difficult path through the vents, when killing everything between you and the objective was faster?
Thunk! Ka-sha!
Sinon understood why. It was a weakness she had gotten very good at exploiting, and part of what made players like her so valuable...
"Oisho!" Argo grunted as she landed in a crouch, taking care to land in front of the dislodged vent grate.
...most people simply lacked the finesse for this kind of work. Which must've been why Sinon felt glad, for once, that she was with someone else who seemed to understand how to move the way Sinon would for this terrain.
"Clear! It's safe!" Argo whispered loudly.
Sinon dropped to the ground afterward behind Argo.
It was a small concrete room. Little more than an alcove for maintenance workers to get access to the ventilation system. She flashed her light to both sides of Argo's blind spots before lowering her weapon again.
"Double checkin' my work, Blue Girl?"
"...Something like that." Sinon admitted. "Can't be too careful given the circumstances. And it only takes a few seconds to do... At least we can be certain that we're not dropping in the middle of hostiles."
Sinon looked forward. Her expression furrowed. "...What are you looking at?"
Argo smirked at her in a way that sent a familiar shiver down her spine. It was as if...
'Wait. That annoying expression. Isn't that the same kind of look Kirito would make when...'
Argo stood up. She flipped her shotgun around, the stock pointed forward, and started to walk towards a pipe on the wall.
"Argo! Don't you do it—!" She realized too late.
BOM! BOM! BOM!
Sinon roughly shoved Argo out of the way. She posted up at the exit where the room led into the rest of the structure. She aimed her SMG down the mouth of that cavernous abyss, her finger hovered on the trigger at the barrier between inactive silence and fully-automatic fire.
A series of split second decisions were all decided in a moment of experience. If she was going to make a stand, it was going to be at a choke-point. And reluctant as she was to do so, she definitely wasn't going to waste precious ammo on an idiot.
That could wait until later when she had better supplies.
"Nihihi..." Argo chuckled. She tapped Sinon on the shoulder, completely unperturbed by the tense situation, or the murderous glare the sniper sent her way.
'...Ehh? Maybe I took things a bit too far?'
Okay. Maybe she was a little afraid of Sinon's icy glower.
"If I heard even a whisper of movement, Sinon-san, I wouldn' have done that." Argo said. "Ya said yerself: the things down here react to sound faster than sight. If we were close enough for that to be an issue, we would'a already been swarmed in that ventilation maze. More than 'nough noise to wake the dead just walkin' in there."
The cloaked girl jerked her head to the side.
"C'mon. We're wastin' time. I already confirmed the coast's clear."
"..." Sinon said nothing as she watched Argo's retreating form stalk confidently into the darkness.
'...Are ALL melee weapon users this reckless? Or do I have a disposition that causes them to want to annoy me?' She shook her head.
"Don't do that again, Argo-san." Sinon said with undisguised hostility.
Argo flinched for a moment. "Oh my~. Bit testy, Sinon-chan~?" But she fixed her expression quickly.
"I'm not your friend. Argo-san." Sinon snapped. This time, she emphasized Argo's honorific. She glanced at the patch on the girl's uniform. "And I'm not one of your private company members, either. You do that again I'm going to shoot you right there."
Sinon had a well-earned reputation for being a loner. This wasn't just because of her role as a sniper, her personal preference, or her constant irritability around most players she encountered. She may have joined and fought with many parties in the past, but not once had she ever retained contact info after finishing her jobs. Nor had she ever joined a PMC herself.
"I have no patience for nonsense."
This kind of childish behavior was one of those reasons.
"..."
Sinon heard a sharp inhale of breath. Then Argo nodded without turning around.
"...Right..." Argo said, her pride slightly wounded. "I'll keep that in mind. Sinon-san."
"...Thank you."
They walked quite a long way. The concrete hallways and tunnels gave way to steel mesh walkways and rail guards. Argo and Sinon came to a standstill upon hearing the echoes of their footfalls inside this grand chamber.
In many ways, Glocken's underground mirrored its layout on the surface. This area of the sewers, especially. It was spacious with many open areas, vertical walkways, and an overall labyrinthine structure that would've been even more confusing to navigate than the back alleys without the help of the in-menu map.
If not for the cascading waterfalls of sewage waste and water runoff which dotted the perimeter, and the impenetrable subterranean darkness, the area didn't look too dissimilar, either.
'It's like a hole burrowing into the abyss.' Sinon peered over the edge, switching alternately through her «Cat's Eye» and then her «Eagle Eye» vision skills.
'I can't even see the bottom.'
Even if she could, Sinon would've preferred not to. While she hadn't been in this exact location before, she had been to the lower floors and could roughly guess what was below her.
Argo let out a low whistle. "Big place, ain't it." She flashed her light into the darkness, sweeping over the derelict platforms and walkways in the distance. "...What the hell is this place, anyway? I'm seein' ad boards and things that kinda look like furniture. And...is that a bike? Kinda doubt people are goin' on shopping trips here."
Sinon gazed out as well, simultaneously scanning her surroundings and regretting not bringing a full-sized assault rifle instead.
A stale, warm breeze swept past them. They didn't know how, whether it followed down one of the tunnels leading into the chamber, industrial exhaust from some forgotten operation, or if it was the exhale of some great, monstrous beast hiding in the dark. Nevertheless, they felt an unsettling, feverish shiver pass through their beings.
"...It's part of the Old City." She said, after a moment's deliberation. "You see how these platforms are all connected to each other by the walkways like a web? But unlike the aboveground areas, there are no actual tower blocks or skyscrapers?
Argo nodded. "Ya, I do. Kinda reminds me of tree house villages...but more science-y. What of it?" Although still a bit bitter from earlier, her tone was one of mild curiosity.
"...Bear with me, this is only stuff I heard from someone else. I haven't read the source material myself." Sinon prefaced. "But, he didn't have a reason to lie to me."
With a silent nod from Argo, she continued. "When Glocken first...landed...they didn't have the resources for proper city planning or structures. So at first, the settlement mostly had improvised structures. You can see a bit where point defense buildings got repurposed as central housing hubs, but most of the region is going to look like this: With a bunch of platforms and handmade metal shacks grafted on.
Then, the population got too big. Glocken might be a big spaceship with the infrastructure to support a large crew, but it's still only a battle cruiser. As the years went by, they soon had a population with the needs of a city, and, well—"
Sinon gestured to the area above them.
"—A city was made. And with the lower levels no longer being lived in and with plenty of space available...well, now we see how one of the infrastructure problems got resolved."
Argo looked around. Her golden eyes seemed to shine in the dark; perhaps she saw the area in a new light, now that she knew what kind of place they were in?
She turned to face Sinon. "...Geeze. Are ya a historian or somethin'?"
Sinon frowned underneath her scarf. "No. I read a lot, but not this... My friend did, though."
"And, what? He gave history lessons in his spare time?"
"When you're down here over and over again farming for the same materials, things get monotonous. So he...my friend...started sharing bits of stories about the lore to pass the time. Pointing out areas where the environmental design helped tell the story."
Sinon looked off to the side.
"...Also, I hadn't figured out yet how the in-game PDF reader worked."
Argo smirked. "Oooh~. So ya do have a cute side to ya, huh?"
"If you want to see it that way, sure." Sinon said, and started walking ahead as her way to end the conversation.
Argo frowned at the lackluster response, but shrugged it off.
The area was illuminated...poorly, albeit. The pale blue service lights mounted on the metal towers, of which well over half were non-functional, only gave just enough light to see they weren't going to walk off the edge of a platform.
The girls had long discarded the idea of battery conservation or caution; it was just too dark to see anything. The beams of their lights swept across the derelict platforms and dust-caked walkways. Dipping for mere moments at a time, just in case they missed something they were about to step on; then, back up again to scan for obstacles.
Argo pointed her gun straight up, following the length of one of the towers, then beyond. What would've been the "ceiling" still melted away into darkness.
"Sigh. I already read enough lore pieces just to make sense of the ridiculous corporate circuses happening up on the surface..." Argo muttered to herself.
"Whatever this place is Sinon-san—if I see anythin' comin' down from that ceiling, I'm gonna scream."
"...I wouldn't worry about that, Argo-san. The monsters here can climb surfaces, but they're not spiders. They'll only be able to get to us if they climb along the walls or across the...walkways..."
Sinon narrowed her eyes.
'Wait a minute...'
She swept the platforms again with her light. Once. Twice.
"—Ah? Blue Girl? Geeze, don' just suddenly go silent on me like that! It makes things sound creepier."
"Argo-san, bang the railings again please."
"...Are ya not gonna get angry this time, Blue Girl?"
Sinon shot a glance at her. "I don't see any monsters, Argo-san."
"What are you..." Argo started, but then fell silent in realization. Her look hardened.
As with SAO, the same with GGO. A seemingly empty dungeon in SAO would've been more than enough to have the alarm bells ringing in the former info broker's head. Monsters didn't just disappear for no reason.
"It's too suspicious." Sinon continued. "Although I haven't been on this level before, I do know roughly what's below us. This place should have a steady stream of insects going through here. But we haven't seen or heard anything other than ourselves."
"And neither of us have a clue why." Argo concluded.
Sinon nodded grimly.
GGO didn't behave the same way as SAO, and that somehow made it worse. Because of this world's focus on a more "dynamic" environment than other games, there was no telling what happened.
"What, did someone go down here and kill everythin'?"
"Or something bigger and meaner moved in and chased them out. It isn't likely with how this place is structured, but...it's still something to consider."
Argo grimaced. "Stop. Ya actually are startin' to unnerve me."
The cloaked girl looked around and behind her, then turned to face Sinon. Her expression became rigid at the incongruity of the situation they found themselves in. "Right... Ya said it'd be insects, yeah? Then I don' like bein' this close to the walls. How 'bout we go further in first, reach one of those platforms? If bugs start swarmin' out, I'm gonna want them ta come to us. Right?"
Sinon agreed readily. They immediately started making their way across the subterranean skywalks. She was annoying, but Sinon couldn't deny that Argo knew her stuff.
A common strategy, equally as applicable to dungeons as it would to field combat. Funneling enemies into choke-points made it easier for players to handle larger groups of enemies. And although not ideal to use ballistic firearms instead of energy weapons, the girls still probably had enough firepower to punch through insect carapace if they needed to.
'Although, if it turns out to be a monster parade or a dungeon burst…'
She tightened her grip on her gun.
"Ya ready? Blue Girl?"
Sinon breathed another uncountable sigh. She flipped the safety, and braced the Hecate against her knee.
'Just in case.'
"Do it."
BOM! BOM! BOM!
[—]
Glossary:
•"Per ardua et astra.": Official motto of the British Royal Air Force.
• MMG: Acronym for Medium Machine Gun, describing a machine gun chambered in a full-sized rifle round such as 7.62x51 NATO, or 7.62x54r Russian. Another related term is "GPMG" or "General Purpose Machine Gun," but I decided on MMG to keep common terminology with LMG (Light Machine Gun) and HMG (Heavy Machine Gun).
• Viper: Nickname of the American F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighter. "Viper" is the F-16's unofficial nickname due to its resemblance to both the snake, and to a fictional fighter aircraft of a certain famous sci-fi series.
• "Shin Takarajima" is a 2015 single from the Japanese band Sakanaction. It is the theme song of the live-action Bakuman (2015) movie adaptation. It is also a very popular song in its own right.
I was originally going to insert lyrics from the song in between bursts of machine gun fire for the section it is referenced in, to invoke the imagery of a Vietnam War door gunner firing to the beat of the music, but it didn't read well.
• UXO: Unexploded Ordinance. In summary, explosives which failed to detonate but are still live and dangerous.
• Monster Parade/Dungeon Burst: Uniquely game-related terms that I have only found in Japanese and Korean works in the fantasy genre. These are sometimes used to describe different phenomenon, but in practice they're both used to describe a specific event where a massive wave of monsters rampage through their home dungeon or even exit outside of it en masse to attack nearby settlements. From the POV of players/adventurers (depending on whether or not it is a "game mechanics world" sub-genre), these events are usually depicted as defensive or survival scenarios.
Footnotes:
• (1): Reference to the Mi-24 boss fight with Metal Gear Solid 1's primary antagonist, Liquid Snake.
A/N: I originally wasn't going to publish anything until I had amassed at least a handful of chapters completed.
However, today on the 7th of November is the IRL anniversary of SAO's canonical clearing. And I cannot miss that.
I will return again after I have fully completed a batch of chapters. Currently experiencing difficulties with writers block and figuring out where to put which scenes on the timeline.