Chapter 29:

I grinned back at her and formulated my plan. Going straight for the ammo would be too predictable and Sinon would counter it as easily as she breathed, so I had to attack from a different angle. I launched a hand at her right one where she held my prize. Like I suspected, she pulled to the left, away from my initial assault, but I was ready, lashing my other hand out to meet it.

Sinon's eyes widened in brief surprise and for a moment I thought I had her, but then she flicked her wrist down, dodging my swipe by a few centimeters, and threw the magazine to her other hand with two fingers.

"You know, I should report you for cyber-bullying," I remarked.

"It was a decent effort. But not good enough," Sinon said. Her smile turned positively vulpine, the spirit of competition alive and well on her beautiful face. I flexed my fingers and dove in again, trying and failing to get the upper hand on her. After a few more failed attempts, she stepped back out of reach and giggled innocently.

"You're enjoying this," I accused her. She shrugged one shoulder and pounded the closed fist that held the magazine against her open palm.

"It's...cute watching you try," she said. I didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or not, but my face heated up either way.

She couldn't keep getting away with this. I needed an advantage. A way to turn the tables or distract her at the very least. I watched her carefully, considering strategies on how to do so. Then I realized that her back was almost to the wall and she probably didn't know it. I could use that.

My mouth quirked in a confident grin, one that Sinon matched as she made subtle shifts in her stance. The energy between us seethed and crackled like lightning, heightening our senses for the thrill of victory, of besting our opponent. We stared each other down. Waiting, watching. Then like someone had fired a starter pistol, I shot forward.

I moved fast. Sinon saw me coming. She anticipated my swipes. But they never came. Instead, I rushed her.

She caught on too late. She tried to backpedal away but she hit the wall like I hoped, jostling her and making her lose focus for a split second as she registered what was happening. My grin turned almost feral as I seized the opportunity.

I lunged and grabbed the magazine. In that small space of time, Sinon recovered and put her free hand over mine to regain control. I did the same until the both of us had our hands on top of each other.

"It looks like the student has become the master," I said with a triumphant smirk.

"Don't get cocky. You still have to take it from me," Sinon shot back. Her eyes blazed with a never-ending fire, so bright and brilliant that it was hard to look away. Then I realized I didn't want to.

She was pressed against the wall, our bodies only a few inches apart. Her hands were small, delicate, and distractingly warm. It felt nice. Amazing, even. Having her so close sent electricity down my spine and set my nerves alight with glowing desire.

Sinon stared back at me. She didn't look anywhere else. Her gaze softened, but the fire in it burned as bright as ever as her cheeks were dusted with a soft pink. She swallowed and the hands wrapped around mine eased their grip and just held onto me like she needed to be sure that I was there and that this was really happening.

The energy in the room shifted. The high intensity of a friendly contest morphed into something else. Something new and exciting. And judging from the way Sinon stared at me with glistening eyes, she felt it just as much as I did.

The fluttering in my chest compelled me to admire her more. We had seen each other plenty of times and I've noticed her beauty more than once. But having her this close...she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever met.

From her silky hair to her flawless skin, she radiated with perfect feminine allure. It wasn't the same kind of pretty as someone like Serena, the kind I could observe and appreciate every so often. Sinon was more than that. She was gorgeous. And the need to confess that to her welled up inside me.

"Hey, Sinon?" I whispered to her. My voice was rougher than I expected. Even Sinon seemed surprised by it.

"Yes?" she asked, looking up at me with very clear blue eyes.

My throat tightened. Once more I found myself thanking the AmuSphere for not replicating sweat because clammy hands would really kill the mood right now.

"I-I…" Happiness, anxiety, longing, and pure unabashed attraction ached in my chest. "Th-thank you. For helping me. For being my friend. For...for everything I guess."

She sucked in a short breath and let it go. I felt it, hot against the bare skin of my neck.

"You're welcome." She murmured, looking down at our joined hands. "I'm here for you...you know."

The sweet, mellow tone of her voice sent a fresh wave of tingles down my spine.

"So am I," I replied. "I had fun today...being with you."

Sinon's grip tightened. Thousands of little emotions passed over her, but in the end, she bowed her head and nodded. "I did too. We should do it again. Sometimes..."

A soft chime came from my inbox and I fought hard to keep myself from groaning. Damn it. The world has a cruel sense of timing. I reluctantly unraveled myself from Sinon's grip and swiped the air in front of me to summon my menu. "It's from Argo. She wants us to meet her over at the Wastelands as soon as possible, near the center of the zone. And to bring our guns with us."

Sinon leaned back against the wall with her arms crossed. She didn't so much as a glimpse in my direction as she cleared her throat. "I-It's not far from the spawn point. We can get there pretty quickly. Ready to go?"

Some deep-seated part of me wanted to say no. I wanted to come up with some kind of excuse to hold off meeting Argo, if only so that I could keep talking to Sinon. But that was what sucked about my life. I had an obligation to see through, even if I'd much rather be doing something else. Duty calls as they say. Wish it'd go to voicemail. "Yeah. Let's get going."

We walked out in the traffic-heavy streets of Glocken and made our way to the nearest teleporter plaza. I stayed slightly behind Sinon and to her right, partly to let her lead the way and partly to hide my nervous fidgeting. Now that I was walking about in the clean-ish air of the city, I was starting to cool off and look at things from an objective standpoint.

What happened back at the gun range had been far more intimate than what I was used to. My heart was still racing a mile a minute. I already knew how I felt about her, but the impulses were getting stronger, harder to resist. I should have been concerned. But I wasn't. In fact, I found myself not caring in the slightest.

A few months ago I would have been hesitant to even stand close to her lest I risk getting told off. I knew about the kind of popularity she had among GGO's male player base. I knew she had been hit on more times than she'd been shot at. I even knew that all those experiences had turned her into a prickly, unapproachable ice queen.

But I went and did what I did anyway. What's more, she didn't push me away.

Why?

The optimistic part of me suggested it was because she was warming up to me. And maybe it was true to an extent. We'd been getting closer lately, fighting the same enemy and protecting each other from harm. It would be weirder if we didn't bond after everything we'd been through.

Or maybe I pushed things a tad far and she was too flustered to tell me to back off. But that didn't seem quite right. Sinon wasn't shy about expressing her displeasure to anyone, least of all me. If I had made her uncomfortable, she would have made it known. In a physical way, most likely.

So...maybe she really didn't mind. Maybe something could happen. I hoped something could happen.

Suddenly and without warning, Sinon stopped. I was too close and too wrapped up in my own thoughts to react in time and bumped into her, knocking her forward a step. She grunted and turned to face me with a raised brow.

"Sorry, I was thinking about something," I said with raised hands. Sinon's gaze drifted away, but she didn't move a muscle otherwise.

"Four o'clock. Don't make it obvious," She said. It was my turn to twitch an eyebrow up, but I did as she said and pretended to rifle for something in my pocket while scanning the area to my right.

A group of four men was sitting on the edges of a fountain. At first, there was nothing special about them and to anyone else, they might have looked like they were chatting amongst themselves. But I'd been hunted for a long time now, dealt with people constantly stalking my movements, learned to see dangers in shadows even when there weren't any, and one thing I learned during all that time was that it paid to be thorough.

I watched them a moment longer than necessary and saw it. Just like I was shooting glances at them, they were doing the same to me. Small, rapid ones that most wouldn't catch if they weren't actually searching for it. Their hushed whispers seemed a little more sinister knowing that.

The bounty hunters were on my tail again.

"How'd you catch that?" I muttered back to Sinon.

"Sniper's intuition. I learned not to ignore my gut feelings when it comes to watching out for threats," Sinon grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and tugged me along. "Let's get a move one. They can follow us, but they won't know what zone we're going to"

I did as she said and followed in step behind her until we reached the teleporter plaza. It was smaller than most of the ones scattered around Glocken. The biggest I'd seen was about the size of a football field, this one was more like a school gym.

Pyramid structures made out of glass sat on either end with bright blue orbs hovering above their tips. Incandescent lights colored varying shades of green and purple slithered beneath the surface of each pyramid like a living thing, thrumming with unseen energy.

There weren't many folks loitering around today, but that didn't stop me from feeling any less tense. All it took was one person to peek over my shoulder to see where we were going for a heap of trouble to come right on our heels.

The moment I stepped into the plaza, I felt the familiar shiver hit me, signaling I was ready to teleport out of the city. Even Sinon shuddered from the sensation. "Hurry and get us out of here. I'll make sure no one's nearby," she said.

I opened the menu and tapped the button that would take us to the Wastelands. The moment I pressed it, a white light overwhelmed my vision and took away all my sense of weight and direction. It felt like being underwater, at the mercy of riptides or massive waves tossing me every which way.

Then the moment passed just as quickly and a hot wind blew at my face, sand sunk under my boots, and the dreary wind howled in my ears.

Calling it the Wastelands was no small exaggeration. The zone simmered with virtual heat born from explosions that happened hundreds of years ago. Shimmering little waves like sunlight on water rose from the cooked sand.

The craggy landscape was littered with debris and parts from long-dead spaceships, destroyed research facilities, and abandoned military bases. Heavy, toxic clouds hung in the sky, almost suffocating the blazing sun. With all that, the Wastelands could be considered a desolate, unforgiving, bleak hellscape.

So really, a nice place to take a girl you like.

Sinon appeared beside me a moment later, Hecate already in hand as she surveyed the surrounding area. Spawn campers were a depressingly real thing to worry about in GGO, especially in the Wastelands. Its sister zone, the Remnant Wastelands, was a low-level area for beginner players still learning the basics. Hardly any worthwhile PvP happened there aside from the occasional griefing incident.

However, the Wastelands proper gave no comfort whatsoever. It was an endgame zone filled with powerful monsters, ghouls, and robots ready to separate your head from your neck with extreme prejudice.

Anyone that came here had to be loaded with their best weapons and supplies. What's more, the dungeons and raids gave out all kinds of expensive treasure, making the people looting them tempting targets for bandits and various other ne'er-do-wells.

"Clear," Sinon said after her third scan. "Let's get going."

I hummed my acknowledgment and pulled my MP7 from its holster on my right leg, then checked to make sure my Oroshi Nine was still in its place on my hip.

Without prompting, Sinon took the lead and headed down the sandy hill we were on. I made sure to watch our backs periodically as we went. An ambush would have been the last thing we needed.

Minutes passed in relative silence as we traversed over rocky hills and stretches of barren sand. I didn't see anything following us, human or otherwise.

Which was exactly the problem, because my gut was yelling at me nonstop.

It was small at first. A weight settled in my belly, then the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. All of the sudden, I heard the sound of the ground shifting behind me and whipping around. Grains of sand was being kicked up a few dozen meters out, far too much for the wind to be the culprit. Sinon must have heard it too because she gripped her sniper rifle a little tighter.

Without saying a word to each other, we picked up the pace and it wasn't until we reached another stretch of sandy hills did I hear more rustling. I was ready this time. I whipped around and tried to raise my gun, a hair twitch away from blowing whoever was following us to pieces. But somebody else already had me beat.

He was of average height and wearing pure black fatigues that seemed to swallow any light it came into contact with. Over them, he wore knee and elbow pads along with a tactical vest fitted over his chest with a bevy of pouches and frag grenades secured to it. I couldn't tell who he was. The Kevlar helmet, balaclava, and mirrored red goggles he wore completely obscured his identity.