AN: First off, Thanks to anybody who reads this. Second, THIS IS NOT DONE! I'm still working on this chapter. But I posted it early to see what kind of reaction it would get. So, please review. If it sucks, let me know what's wrong. If I'm a terrible author, let me know what I can do better. Thanks again for reading. Now! To the story!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the characters therein. I also do not own Maximum Ride or any of those characters. I do however own MY characters.
REUPDATE: Oh, and I changed the last bit of this chapter. Plot things. Worry not, little ones. This story has a plan.
UPDATE 2: The second chapter has been posted, and I am working on Chapter 3...I'm gonna stop posting updates on this chapter though...BYE FOR NOW!
CHAPTER ONE: SAO RELEASE
"Come on Tyler! Drive faster! We gotta make it to the midnight release! I preordered this game over a year ago," my best friend rolled his hazel eyes at me, glancing in my direction for a split second before returning his eyes to the road.
"Ryan. I will not drive over the speed limit. Now shut up and calm down, we will be there in a few minutes," I could tell he was excited as well; Sword Art Online was going to be our first real full dive experience together. We both previously purchased a NerveGear just nights before, preparing ourselves mentally and setting up the machine before the game launched so we could jump in as soon as possible. A few minutes passed as I gazed out of my window at the morning light, glaring down on the passing trees. We were on our way back from a camping trip with my family in Arkansas and we had left early in Tyler's small, silver Mazda Coupe to make it back in St. Louis by 10am.
"Hey...Tyler?" he 'hm'd' in response, "Have you thought about what it's going to be like? I mean, we are one of only ten thousand people in North America to even have this game...isn't that crazy?" Then I had a sudden, worried thought, "Wait! Won't most of the population be Japanese?! They won't be able to understand us, and vise-versa! What are we going to do?! This is gonna-" Tyler cut me off with another quick glance.
"They aren't stupid, Ryan," referring to the game creators, "There will be a translation software built into the game. They might speak Japanese, and we may speak English, but we will each hear and understand our respective languages." His tone was not 'all-knowing' or irritated, simply teaching. One of the many things that made Tyler so likable was that he very rarely looked down on people. He saw every moment of ignorance as a teaching moment. "Oh, hey look; St. Louis in 30 miles, we are almost there." He had said that in an attempt to calm my jitters...it failed and did just the opposite. I was simply too excited!
My mind began to race through all of the things I had previously studied about for Sword Art:
It's played via NerveGear and is one of the first full dive games released in America. This means that instead of simply seeing and hearing the game, you are fully immersed in the game. Taste, touch, sound, sight, and smell. All of your senses are receiving data from the NerveGear, which blocks the signals from your brain. If you were to move your arm, your actual body would simply lie still. Your avatar in game, however...well, its arm would move.
Sword Art Online is a more medieval type of game, with swords, staves, axes and the like. This means that the majority of combat in SAO will be at a close to medium range. Unless of course one becomes talented in a knife throwing skill. This could create a problem for me, as I am usually a DPS player and prefer to stay back and snipe or fire off a bow. But it's not like Tyler and I have ever encountered a problem we couldn't solve."Ryan...we are here...are you dead?" Tyler's voice slowly creeped its way into my consciousness, snapping me out of my pondering. I blinked, looking around.
"Where are we?" I asked, slightly confused. I guess I had fallen asleep without noticing. Tyler smacked the back of my head, causing a small cry of pain from me.
"Hey! What was that for?!"
"Gamestop, bro! We are here, and if you don't get out of the car, we won't get the game till afternoon!" Tyler's broad figure was to the right of me, where the door usually was. I reached down to undo the buckle of my seatbelt. But before I could even pull the seatbelt off, Tyler was pulling me out of the car by my arm and dragging me across the parking lot.
Once I pulled my arm free and regained my bearings, I glanced around, surveying my surroundings. Gamestop was directly in front of us, about a hundred or so yards away, and our local shopping center was at our six. The line in front of Gamestop was only about five people long, after all, only a certain number of people actually got this game...I don't know what our rush really was, it wasn't like people were gonna get in our way...
We took our place at the back of the line, and I heard a mumble from behind me. Immediately I jerk my whole body around, getting myself into a low fighting stance, I didn't like this particular surprise.
"Who's there?!" I stated in a firm, yet not overly loud voice. Tyler turned to face me, confused, asking me what was going on. After shushing him, I repeated my question to the mysterious voice.
"Calm down, I'm not here to hurt you," an older man walked out of the shadow. He was moderately tall, brownish blond hair and stood in a posture that I would use when consoling an animal or a small child, which wasn't really all that surprising as he was wearing a white lab coat and held small notebook in his hands. "I just come to offer a proposition for those who have access to this game. It's very rare, you see. And I would like to procure it. Unfortunately, I was unable to pre-purchase it due to some...unfortunate events in my life."
Still in my fighting stance, I replied in the same voice as before, "I really don't care what you offer us, we aren't giving this game up. Just as you said, it is very rare." His eyes narrowed at my reply. It was very apparent that this man was not expecting to being told 'no'. I could almost feel the frustration coming from him, which did absolutely nothing toward getting me out of my stance.
Tyler, being the mediator he was, almost gave the guy his copy; saying that I can just play by myself. I shot that down immediately with my usual counter of needing back-up. This awarded me with a severe look from the blue eyes behind the glasses, the man then turned and disappeared back into the shadows without another word.
AN: Ok...so this is the end of Chapter one. I couldn't think of what else to add...shut up. I'm trying here, this is my first story. So anyway, I'll be working on Chapter two now, and I'll try to get it posted this week. Please review and educate me on my mistakes or achievements. Thanks for reading!
