hey guys, this is the beginning of my Sword Art Online fan fiction and I hope you all enjoy and please leave a review

November 5th 2022

Sword art online was due to be released to the world the next day, Zak and his two friends, Ted and Mark had decided to throw a party to celebrate the release of the new VRMMO. They were all sitting on the couch in Zaks house. Behind the three friends was a table filled with the leftovers of the food, from pizza boxes to Chinese food, they had gone all out when it came to the food. The friends sat there staring at the TV screen, they were playing some form of racing game. It was night time and the living room was well lit and the house was filled with the sound of laughter. Zaks parents had gone out for a meal living the three teens with the house to themselves.

"damn it," shouted Mark, frustrated as he watched his car spin of the track and explode in a plume of orange fire

The other two laughed

"don't laugh, if Ted hadn't knocked me of the track then this wouldn't have happened," said mark, still irritated

"what I can't believe is that you chose a racing game in the first place considering I always beat you," retorted Ted

"the only reason you always win is because you knock every one of the track," said mark his face now red with anger

Ted laughed loudly

Zak cut in shouting "Ted watch out your car's about to drive of a cliff!"

Ted watched eyes widened as his car dropped into the watery depths

"and it looks like I beat you Ted, how do you like that," Zak said with a triumphant grin on his face

"look what I got," said Ted pulling out three cans of beer from a red plastic bag that was next to his feet

"really Ted, you know we shouldn't," said Mark

"come on, don't be a stick in the mud and plus we can finally do the drunken fighter challenge on the new mortal combat," replied Ted

Mark angrily snatched one of the cans out of Teds hand and opened it, taking a big gulp from the can. Ted tossed a can towards Zak who caught it in his right hand. Zak opened the bottle and also took a large gulp. Ted soon followed, once everyone had become drunk, they opened up mortal combat and began to play they either shouted out in frustration or cried out in triumph, they went on like this for hours, after every few games they would drain another can of beer to make sure they didn't become sober. Eventually they all passed out with the TV saying the words "player 2 wins," over and over again. The floor was littered with beer cans.

Ted was a tall skinny boy with messy black hair and red eyes. Mark was bulky with tanned skin neat brown hair. Zak had dark blue hair and blue eyes he was reasonably good looking. But seeing them all passed out on the sofa was still not a pretty sight.

They woke up the next morning to a girl shouting at them, it was Zaks sister. She had dark blue hair tied into two pigtails and blue eyes just like Zak. Zak looked at the clock ignoring his sisters lecturing. It was 10:45 AM, oh crap he thought, they had to pick up their copies of SAO in 15 minutes. He stood up, dragged up his friend who were still drowsy and complaining that they had a splitting headache. He managed to get them to put their coats on while he did the same. They stumbled out the door and rushed over to the game store. They managed to get their just as it turned to 11:00 AM. When they reached the counter, a man handed them 3 copies of sword art online and smiled. The three of them thanked the man and rushed back to Zaks house. As soon as they entered the house, they ran up the4 stairs and into Zaks bedroom. The three of them inserted their disk containing SAO into their nerve gear. They then put on their nerve gear and turned it on,

they all shouted "link start" as they were plunged into the virtual world.

They found themselves in an old-fashioned town with shops and stalls. Ted now had red hair and grey eyes. Mark was now taller, more muscular and most importantly, bold. Zak had kept his original appearance deciding that he didn't want to change it. They all looked at each other adjusting to one another's new appearances. Once they had adjusted, they decided it would be best if they went to buy their weapons first so they could get to hunting as soon as possible.

"I want a meat Cleaver," said Ted

I don't think that will be very effective in a fight," Zak responded worried that one day they might fail due to Teds poor choice of weaponry.

"fine," Ted huffed, he was clearly disappointed "I'll just settle with a Japanese katana,"

"I want a spiked club," said Mark

Zak sighed but decided that a club wasn't as bad as a cleaver and didn't make any objections "I think I'll just stick with a normal medieval sword," Zak said,

the group all nodded and set off to acquire their weapon of choice and they agreed to meet back into the town centre once they had purchased their weapons. They met back up weapons in hand and decided that the first order of business was to form a party. After that was completed, they headed out to hunt. The first thing they found was a frenzy boar. The boar charged at Zak but Zak blocked the charge with his sword, a loud clang was heard as the metal blade it the tusks of the boar. While Zak was keeping the boar still, Mark brought his club down on the boars back causing significant damage and caused the boar to be stunned which allowed Zak to skewer the beast with his sword which drained the last of its HP. They watched as the creature burst becoming nothing more than a cloud of shards of light. They collected the loot dropped by the beast and continued moving forward. They stumbled into a swarm of large wasps. Ted charged at them, his katana glowing bright red as he shredded the horde of putrid bugs. Again, they collected the loot and continued moving forward. The group continued like this for two hours. Killing and looting monsters. Once they were done, they headed back to the town of beginnings where they sold the loot they had collected from the countless monsters that they had slain. They headed out again to do the same thing in order to get money but when they reached the gate Teds stomach began to rumble.

"I guess all this slaughter makes me hungry," Ted said, trying to hide his embarrassment

"so, shall we logout, get lunch and then log back in when we're done," Zak suggested "if you guys want, I can order pizza,"

"ok," the other two agreed, now that pizza had been mentioned, everyone was hungry

They all swiped their fingers to open the menu to logout but the logout button wasn't there

"hey, do any of you guys know where the logout button is," Zak said

"It should be in the menu," Mark replied "but I can't seem to find it,"

"yeah, me neither," said Ted who was also confused

The group stood around for a few minutes before they were enveloped by a blue light. When the blue light dissipated, they were in the centre of the town of beginnings along with every other SAO player. The group could hear the murmurs of confusion that filled the area. Then the sky turned red and began to bleed. The red liquid collected in a ball above the players heads before transforming into a massive figure in a red robe, his face hidden by the red hood. Then he began to speak in a low commanding voice,

Saying "Greetings players, my name is Akihiko Kayaba and I am the creator of the game sword art online. As you have probably noticed, there is no logout button, this isn't a bug, this is how sword art online was designed to be. The only way to leave the game is to beat the boss on floor 100 and clear the game. Also, if you die in this world then you will die IRL as well, attempted removal of the nerve gear will also result in your death. Sadly, 1,000 players have already died due to their families or friends attempting to remove the nerve gear, these deaths have been covered by the media all around the world so from now on the chance of someone removing the nerve gear of the 5 million players that are still alive is minimal. I wish you all the best of luck while trying to beat the game, I also left a little present in everyone's inventory,"

As he finishes talking, the massive figure begins to melt while emitting a purple gas until the figure is completely gone without a trace.

Everyone looked in their inventory and found a small mirror, then the whole place began to glow a neon blue as everyone reverted to their true appearances, everyone stood their shocked

Zak looked at his friends and said "hey, you two look like you do IRL," Zak watched his friends faces become covered into and expression of shock "yeah, Ted your hair and eyes are back to normal, and Mark, you have hair again but wait why haven't you become shorter,"

"oh," mark responded "I asked a friend to hack into my nerve gear and change it so the system thought I was taller,"

"that's random but anyway, we should probably get out of here," Zak said

The stadium then erupted into a panicked frenzy, people running and screaming. Zak and his friends began to push through the crowd in order to escape the city. They managed to escape the crowd and they ran to a nearby village. The group payed for a night in the inn and decided to sleep through the rest of the day, due to the fact that it will be wild out there due to the announcement

Anyway guys that's it for the first chapter of my version of SAO I hope you all enjoyed, please leave a review I would really appreciate it, the next chapter will be released on Saturday 6th of April so see you then.