Sinon ran through the cave... her breaths ragged, her eyes darting left and right as she carried the Silent Assassin Rifle with her..

Those looking at her blue hair and strange clothes, would have thought that she was currently in a heated pvp match in GGO.. but this was not the case.

"Twinkle Twinkle Asada... watch me kill your Misaka..."

Thevos's voice sang in the darkness..

"Up above the world so high.. I might drop her so she'll die.."

Thevos's echoing laughs reverberated throughout the cave

"How do you like that song!?" Thevos said. "I made it up myself, really speaks to my inner child. By the way, did you ever hear about the time my inner child ate my conscience with a side of inner pork chops? My inner child said the guy tasted like cartoon crickets from a Disney movie.. well however he tasted, I'm glad the guy snuffed it.. he was so annoying."

Sinon cocked her gun and aimed it around her. "Shut up!! Where's Mikoto!? Where's my Imouto-chan you bastard!?"

"So you're going to tell me to shut up, then demand I tell you something?" said Thevos. "Seriously, who taught you how to speak? I want to give him or her a consolation prize for failure."

"WHERE IS SHE!!!?" Sinon screamed.

"You know, you're not really in a position to threaten me and make demands if you can't even see where I am." said Thevos. "You might as well aim that silly stick at a poptart and demand it give you orange juice."

"I'M NOT PLAYING GAMES HERE!!" Sinon roared. "I've got two plasma grenades and I WILL let them off in here!!"

"Kinda reminds me of two kids the Integrity Knights caught." said Thevos. "One was drinking and Electric slime class monster, and the other was eating fireworks. They Charged one and let the other one Off.."

Sinon whirled her gun around and fired rounds at the direction of Thevos's voice.

"Oh.. missed.. though I'm not sure you were aiming for me with that poor shot." said Thevos. "That does remind me of that one Game Master from GGO they found eating guns at a weapon's depot. They Fired him."

Sinon gripped her gun tightly, backing around the cave, cold sweat pouring down her face. As she backed away, slowly behind her, Thevos's pointed masked head with it's glowing red eye emerged from the shadows of the ceiling upside-down.

"Watch out! Telemarketers!!"

Sinon whirled around and blasted Thevos's head apart.. in an instant, Thevos's Zant Helm repaired itself, and the large red eye emerged from the darkness of the mask as Thevos turned right-side up and levitated down, wielding his massive sword.

"Seriously! I'd do the same to any Telemarketer, but that's just rude considering that's the 5th time you've blasted my head off." said Thevos. "I've always been weird for a Viros you know.. what with the funny regenerative powers I have.."

Sinon's eyes filled with tears of anger as she took out a plasma grenade. "I'm going to drop this right here.. even you can't regenerate if there's nothing left of you.."

"Well actually, I left a little surprise in the Men's room at the Sword Academy, but do go on." said Thevos. "And about your little cousin or whatever, how do you know I haven't just killed her already?"

"YOU HAVEN'T KILLED HER!!!" Sinon screamed tearfully. "YOU CAN'T HAVE!! NO!!!"

Sinon fired off repeated shots.. as Thevos twirled around, waving his blade in a floppy fashion, like a rag doll, using his frightening and disorienting fighting style to deflect Sinon's bullets.

"A dyslexic Viros walks into a bra!! WHOOOPS!!" Thevos used his fabric bandage fingers to grope Sinon's chest, and use her surprised shock to move right in and hit her head with the butt of his sword, sending her sprawling.

"Now now." said Thevos. "We both know that you wouldn't set off that stupid grenade. Humans have a silly little philosophy called 'Not Dying' that they all prefer to abide by, and the blast would kill you and send you back into your brain damaged body before the silly JSDF can repair it.. pretty much sending you to.. eh.. your death. Ha! look at me, I'm Captain Obvious."

"Y-you killed my Imouto-chan..?" Sinon whispered, her eyes wide with grief.. her voice toneless, as if she had nothing left. "Then.. I have nothing to lose I guess.."

Sinon dropped the plasma grenade.. waiting for the explosion to engulf her and Thevos...

__________

"NO!!!!" Sinon awoke from her nightmare, clutching her blankets desperately. She looked around her dark bedroom within the Archery Corps Barracks. No one eyed Viros with Zant Armor.. no dark caves..

Sinon got out of bed, and looked in her bedside mirror. A girl with bright blue airs and tufty blue hair looked back at her, wearing a sleeveless undershirt and black panties

Two weeks ago, Sinon had been studying her Sacred Arts, after some repeated incantations, she found a new Sacred Art: System Command, Custom Appearance, which brought up a menu screen that allowed her to customize clothing, hair color and eye color. With it, she was able not only to recreate her old armor from GGO, but also change her hair and eye color so that in a flash, she looked exactly like Sinon the Sniper again..

The others in the Archery Corps felt the strange new look made Sinon seem tougher and colder, never having seen such modern-type clothes before. Mikoto and Kirito both applauded Sinon however, saying that her skill for customization was incredible.

Sinon yawned and popped her neck before standing up. She was just considering getting dressed, when her door opened and a brown haired girl wearing a green colored long sleeved shirt and a brown tunic peeked in.

"Linda!!!?' Sinon squealed. "I'm not dressed!!"

"Wh-WHAA!? S-Sorry master!!" Linda slammed the door shut, frightened. "M-my apologies Mistress Sinon!! I-I didn't know you weren't decent!!"

"You could have knocked!" Sinon growled. "Whatever.. it's early, why are you here?"

The Archery Corps were each assigned two guards and a personal servant to wait on their needs. Before Linda and two other gaurds were assigned, Kirito and Eugeo had been assigned to her, and Mikoto had been her personal maid . Guards from the Zattaria official military were always assigned these roles, whether to guard the Axiom church, or serve as a servant to a noble. Sinon thought that this kind of thing was just spoiling the upper class, and she rarely ever assigned tasks to her friends. However, it turned out other Nobles, whether from the Sword Academy or Archery Corps, were free to order around anybody of lower class then them and exploit them thanks to loopholes in the law known as the Taboo Index, and after Sinon caught one of her colleagues attempting to force an angry Mikoto to have sexual relations with him, Sinon began giving Mikoto tasks just to keep her safe.

Having a female as a subordinate, Sinon felt it was her duty to assign her maid tasks that would keep her away from other less decent males. So she assigned Linda menial tasks that would usually confine her to Sinon's room, or some place she could keep a protective eye on her.

Though Sinon didn't mind other girls seeing her in her underwear, part of the Archery Corps law prohibited indecent peeking, even if it was accidental or of the same gender. If Linda was caught looking at Sinon like this, she would be sentenced to execution by firing squad.

"You can come in now." Sinon said, after getting dressed and wrapping her trademark muffler around herself.

"I-I thought I would just let you know." said Linda, peeking in. "Misaka-sama, Kirito-sama, and Eugeo-sama all have invited you to a picnic this afternoon, if you are available."

"Yeah, sure.." said Sinon. "Want to come?"

"W-what!?" said Linda. "B-but I have duties as a guard and your maid, and I.."

"And one of your duties is to obey my every wish, and I'm ordering you to come, only if you want to of course.."

"Of course I'd like to.. come.. but.."

"Good, then we don't have a problem." said Sinon. "I'll see you there."

_________________________________

"M-Misaka-sama... I don't think I can go on.."

Down in the courtyard of the Sword Master Academy, Stella panted with exhaustion, her wooden sword hanging at her side as Mikoto held up her own wooden blade and beckoned Stella eagerly.

"Come on.. it's only been 15 minutes, and you've made plenty of progress since last month." said Mikoto. "Let's try that again! The Snake Bite is easy!"

"But.. the repetitions.. and trying to get it past your parry." said Stella. "It's sooo hard.. Misaka-sama."

Stella, as she had repeatedly told Mikoto, was not a gifted swordswoman. However, she had been born into a noble class family that prized the fact that many in their family had gone on to become famous Integrity Knights. Though her family's nobility status was rather low in the food chain, they still had enough influence to inspire some respect among the other families.

It was thanks to this, that the headmaster was convinced to assign Stella to Mikoto, whom had become quite famous thanks to her studying under Ashley Rowena, the oddest, yet most skilled student the Academy ever had.

Despite Stella's lack of natural ability however, Mikoto had been pleased by her motivational moments, as well as her ability to grow in a skill that was not her style, having gained a rather steadily growing ability in the Aincrad Style, as well as having gained some practice in the Flowing River style.

"I.. I get the gist of the combo Misaka-sama." said Stella forlornly. "But, I don't think I can ever get past your blade.. you're the fastest in the academy.. the only one who beat you every matchup tournament was the top seat Noble Kirito."

"And since Kirito beat me, that means getting past my blade isn't impossible." said Mikoto. "I think you have the potential to get the top spot when you become a Noble."

"That makes one of you.." muttered Stella. "I heard Kirito telling Ronye that she was going to be the top spot."

"Bah! He's only saying that because he's her mentor!" said Mikoto.

"Then aren't you only telling me this because you're MY mentor?"

Mikoto sighed. "Listen up! The reason I'm telling you this is number 1, yes I am your mentor, and number 2, you're going to beat Ronye to high heaven!!!"

Stella gave Mikoto a small smile. "Th-thank you for not giving up on me.."

"Give up? As if." said Mikoto. "You just need a little bit of pushing! Now come on.. it's almost time for lunch.. did you bring what I asked you?"

Stella sheathed her wooden blade and brought out a folded picnic blanket. "Yep."

Mikoto smiled and held up a picnic basket. "That-a-girl! Let's get going, I'm starving!"

After strolling to Zattaria's magnificent and beautiful park, the student and her mentor both found a large tree with rather decent shade to sit under.. as they set up the picnic, 4 other individuals arrived.

The first was Kirito, in his black noble uniform, accompanied by a girl with short tufty tea colored hair, Kirito's Valet Ronye. Ronye, like Stella, was also from a lower class Nobles family.

Eugeo came next, in his blue uniform, accompanied by his scarlet haired Valet Tieze, who was the same as Ronye.

"Misaka-chan!" Ronye waved at Mikoto as she ran over. "We're here!"

"I can see that." said Mikoto with a laugh. "Hey there Kirito! What took you so long? Sleeping again?"

"Eh.." Kirito shrugged. "You know that one of the keys to Aincrad Style is lots of rest.."

"And yet we don't see Mikoto napping, and she's thoroughly mastered Aincrad Style." said Eugeo, elbowing Kirito playfully. "Really now Kirito-kun, you've got to start admitting that sometimes you're a real lazy guy!"

"Lazy isn't the half of it." said Tieze. "Sometimes I see Kirito sleeping on the roof of my dorm.. you lazy bones.."

"Sounds like him alright." said Mikoto. "His girl friend Asuna gave him so much grief about it too.."

"And yet I haven't even met this supposed lover of his.." said Ronye with a pout.

So another has entered Harem Kirito. Mikoto thought, giggling to herself. Of course..

As everyone settled down and began setting out plates and food, Ronye looked around worriedly. "Where's Sinon-chan? She said she would be here.."

"She's having a late morning." said Mikoto. "She woke up with a weird nightmare.. and Yuniko's kind of making matters worse.. I think I spotted her as Scarlet Rain trying to send missiles through her bedroom window.."

"That weird girl always trying to compete for your attention.." said Stella. "It's so immature."

Mikoto raised an eyebrow at Stella. "Really? And I didn't see you get thrown into a dumpster for trying to lock Yuniko in her room?"

"E-eh.." Stella looked down slightly.

Mikoto thought she should be glad that Kuroko wasn't in the Underworld too, then she would have multiple people just pulling on her arms.

"It's kind of cute that many people want the attention of Mikoto-chan." said Eugeo with a good natured smile. "You've become quite popular in classes lately, especially since you're getting top scores on your written exams.. speaking of which, have you studied for the next exam tomorrow?"

"Oh crap!" said Kirito, slapping a hand to his forehead. "I.. forgot about that.."

"All that sleeping, it's a wonder you even made it out of bed to be reminded of it now." said Mikoto. "I'll help you cram later, but this is the last time."

"You are honestly the greatest friend ever." Kirito said sheepishly.

"Oh yeah.. " said Tieze, as if just remembering something. "Remember Frenica?"

"Frenica, you mean Humbert's Valet?" said Eugeo.

Humbert along with his friend Raios were both high ranking nobles in the Academy. They were often known for bullying Mikoto, Kirito, and Eugeo because of their status as commoners. They especially were wrathful to Mikoto because of her ownership of the Master Sword, which was practically the best Divine Instrument in Zattaria, it's priority exceeding that of even the proudest Integrity Knight's swords.

After Mikoto revealed her Armament Full Control Art with the Master Sword, summoning several Boss Class Monsters from the Legend of Zelda games.. the jealousy had only grown.. no other sword had a AFCA capable of summoning living creatures (AI objects). As a result, Mikoto had become even more harshly bullied by them, resulting in Kirito and Eugeo always rushing in to help. That also resulted in Kirito and Eugeo receiving harsher bullying as well. However, they could only ever bully with words as the Taboo Index kept them from exercising more drastic measures such as stealing the Master Sword, or.. as they always fantasized loudly enough for Mikoto to hear, attempt to rape Mikoto. Seriously.. rape? Was that all men ever thought about in revenge schemes? It made Mikoto angry and sick to her stomach.

"So.." said Mikoto. "What has Humbert the idiot done this time?"

"W-wow.. how did you know Humbert was the problem?" said Tieze.

"Well, if he's mentioned in a phrase, such as 'Humbert's Valet', then it's obvious he's the problem." said Mikoto.

"Well yes." said Ronye. "You know Frenica is a friend of ours.. and lately, she's been in tears."

"Yep." said Stella with a nod. "It's been awful...she says Humbert's been making her do a lot of unreasonable things lately.. if half the stuff I've heard is true.."

"Treating Valets like a personal tool of amusement.." Kirito growled. "That's uncalled for.. am I right in thinking that's what's going on?"

"Yes.." said Tieze. "We can't do anything.. since disrespecting Nobles is against the Taboo Index.. however, you three are high ranking swordsmen.. maybe you could talk to Humbert?"

"Yeah." said Mikoto. "Of course, we'll beat-I mean talk.. to Humbert."

"Mikoto.." Eugeo gave Mikoto a warning glance. "You know the rules.. we TALK to Humbert.."

"Of course! Sure!" said Mikoto. But her hair sparked as a sign of aggravation.

"Hey guys! Did I miss anything?" Sinon had arrived with Linda.

"Sinon-chan!" Ronye exclaimed with delight. "It's good that you're here!"

"Good to be here." said Sinon. "Linda's been trying to spoil me rotten, but I'm trying not to let her.."

"P-please ma'am!" Linda stammered pulling out a cushion, "don't sit on such a hard blanket!"

"Honestly Linda, did you really bring a cushion?" said Sinon, shaking her head. "If that's the case, sit on it yourself and get comfortable."

As everyone began talking among each other and distributing more news, Sinon turned to her cousin. "So, how is the forging coming along?"

Mikoto had recently discovered how to take the Boss creatures from her Armament Full Control Arts, and have them leave behind parts of themselves after their three minutes ran out.

Mikoto had discovered that weapons chiseled from the bosses had an unusually high priority, and had given one of her first weapon crafts to her teacher Ashley as a graduation gift, the Ancient Cistern Sword forged from the arm of Koloktos.

Mikoto was currently working on several other projects. The Flame Broil Sword, forged from rock off of Scaldera was just one of them, And she was saving the sword as a gift for Stella after her first tournament.

"Pretty good." said Mikoto. "Sadore helped me a bit with some, since I'm inexperienced, but I think we'll have a pretty good solid 4 blades created from Zelda Bosses.. the Phantom Drum Sword made from Shadow Beast Bongobongo looks pretty much done, just a few more days at the most.

"Nice." said Sinon. "And.. the other.. weapon we discussed."

"Yeah." said Mikoto. "That one.."

Mikoto had taken one particular boss from the Master Sword last week.. and it had nearly cost her, and the life of her own sword.. and when she tried to craft a weapon from it.. it ended up turning not into a hilt of a sword.. but the barrel of a rifle...

"The Ultimo 17 Majora isn't ready yet.." Mikoto whispered. "I'm still reeling from the fact that I'm chiseling this out of a mask.. I'll let you know tomorrow morning.. it should be done then."

Sinon nodded.. and the sniper returned to eating her meal.. also fearfully watching her cousin, as if afraid that her nightmare might come true, and her Imouto-chan might disappear.