Chapter 1 - Press Start to Begin

Sword Art Online, the new VRMMORPG that just recently released. I saved up all my past 4 months allowance savings to buy the NerveGear for it. I originally played the game when it was in the Closed Beta to a certain 1,000 testers. Gratefully, I was one of the beta testers and made it to the 6th floor on my own, though my NerveGear was a prototype, meaning it wasn't mine to keep. From what I heard, the best of us didn't even get very high. 10th Floor was the highest they got. 10 out of the 100 floors. The big thing of us beta testers is we got first dibs on pre-ordering the game. I took this chance and gratefully accepted the chance. All my colleagues and classmates were talking about it, the NerveGear, how it connects to your brain, intercepting and manipulating the signals given off by your brain and transmitting signals to stimulate your natural senses such as sight, hearing, and so on. Along with its helmet like shape to cover most of the user's face and millions of signal units to generate electromagnetic waves to stimulate the brain. It was amazing how the creator, Akihiko Kayaba, created and thought up such an invention. Revolutionary to the gaming technology and very popular to the community us gamers created. Though this isn't my first MMO. I used to play a MMORPG on PC called NeverWinter. It was a Dungeons & Dragons game made by DnD players for DnD players. Along with that, I've always been a PC/Xbox person myself, playing games such as Call of Duty, Halo, Need for Speed, Final Fantasy, and Resident Evil. Such games not only changed my life and inspired me as a gamer, but also helped me make good friends outside of school and my neighborhood. I managed to help out a few of my friends from my "clan" to get their hands on a copy. We all agreed that when we logged into SAO for the first time to meet in the fields just outside of the Town of Beginnings where little warthog like monsters spawn. I'm expecting 1 or 2 of them mainly because one said he might not make it in time due to his NerveGear shipping was delayed. But either way, I can't wait for the servers to be launched. The game is already all over the news in Japan of how 10,000 copies was printed and sold out within seconds. Good thing I pre-ordered mine. Just a few more minutes before they put the servers up. Kayaba announced the servers will be first launched at 1 PM in JST time.

I plug in the NerveGear and put in SAO into its respected place, placing the NerveGear on my head. I take one last deep breath and lie down on my bed. This is it, my first real Virtual Reality experience. I've seen people on YouTube use the old Oculus Rift and the newer version, the HTC Vive, but I never tried it myself. This is my chance to find out what its really like. I watch the clock tick down to 1 PM in the left hand corner of the visor and slowly close my eyes.

"LINK START!"

The screen goes white and multi-colored laser looking lines flash and fly past my field of vision as I find my login info be typed in for me logging into my SAO account I made earlier. I set my name to Pyro, after my Xbox username and my real life clan name. The NerveGear begins to auto-calibrate my senses before my sight goes complete white and slowly fades into what appeared to be a marketplace plaza. I look around and move my body around, checking myself out. It's too real and feels real. As if I'm back at the real world only in a different place. It's unexplainable and impossible to believe that my body is back at home. It's similar to the feeling when your dreaming only you have full control over it. I walk up to a building and use its window as a mirror. Black hair, going to the top of my shoulder blades and just over my left eye, leather clothes and a small piece of armor just covering my torso. I have to admit, I thought I looked badass.

"Wow, Kayaba sure went all out. I gotta give the man props for real." I chuckle and let out a sigh with satisfaction. "Well, best if I head to that meadow in case the crew shows up." I swiped my hand in a downward motion opening up my menu screen and go through what I can select. Friends/Guild, Inventory/Equipment, my character and armor/weapon slots, skills, stats, Communications, Maps/Quest, Settings/Main Menu. Your basic video game interface. I nod to myself and look around as I wander out of the market plaza looking around for the meadow. Can't be too far, just as I spot it. Smiling with being impressed and satisfied with how the game is going so far, I dash over to it. "For a first-floor this place is huge!" I laugh with excitement, sitting on the edge of what appeared to be a cliff as I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"YO! CLOUD, BUDDY IS THAT YOU?!"

That's my real name, Cloud Ryuzimaki. Nothing special but I personally like it. My sister says otherwise. She can't stand the Ryuzimaki name and cannot wait to get rid of it when she gets married. That's why she sticks with the name she and her friends given her, Numasaki. I honestly don't see the difference but whatever. Its her preference not mine. I turn around to find a man looking to be about 16 years old with spiky black hair, simple leather torso armor, and pants similar to common denim jeans, and his build is a bit on the chubby side. I stand up and wave my hand up in the air to him.

"HEY, GET OVER HERE MAN AND CHECK OUT THIS VIEW!"

Sure enough, he came dashing to me with laughter in his voice.

"What's up man, how you been?" He gave me a high five, chuckling.

"Fine, fine, how bout yourself Tyler?"

"Same shit, different day." He looks off the cliff and whistles. "That is a long ass drop down. Bet you make one wrong move on the edge of this place, your done for within seconds."

"You don't say?!" I say sarcastically. For a hardcore player like him, he sure does have one hell of a sense of humor. Even if half his jokes are ridiculously stupid.

"Anything from Chris or Joel?" he asks me with a concerned look in his eyes.

"Chris shot me a Facebook message saying he may not make it, his NerveGear shipping got delayed" Too bad he's missing out on this.

He sighs and rubs the back of his neck, "Jeez, well that blows. What about Joel?"

"You should know Joel by now. He's always the last one to meet us. Just give the poor man a chance" We both have our little giggle moment and enjoy the view so more. "He'll be here don't you worry"

Just as I say that, I hear his voice calling out to us. We both turn to his direction and find him being chased by one of the warthog monsters.

"HEY GUYS I'M HERE BUT WILL ONE OF YOU TAKE CARE OF THIS ANNOYING PIECE OF CRAP PLEASE?!" he called out. As we look behind us we find a fairly decent built guy with bight yellow hair in a long ponytail with the same basic torso armor and leather pants. We both shake our heads sighing as I drew my hand blade, dashing in his direction. I slowly took up speed readying my blade as I slide past him and slice the monster clear thru its head and body as my slide passes it. The warthog turned a light blue shattering into shards and a pop-up menu rewards me for my kill. Not a lot to give me but its a start.

"Finally you decide to show up. Where you been you should've been here a half hour ago bro." He chuckles nervously and scratches his head.

"Sorry 'bout that. Mom had me clean my room before I hop on. I rushed and hurried so I could get in here on time" Well he's right on that. His mom can be a pain sometimes…more like all the time. Tyler facepalms as I sigh.

"You know, you seriously need to get outta that house of yours Joel you know that! Your at the age so why don't you huh?!" Tyler said with a slight bit of anger in his voice.

"Don't remind me, I'm doing the best I can. Sheesh." Joel shrugged it off.

We exchange our in-game names, for other people's sake in case we make friends here, and beginning stats. Joel is Spark, same as his Xbox username, and Tyler is Faderz, also his Xbox. I should've seen it coming, I have no clue why I didn't honestly. We all have the same beginning stat points and we put them into our stats in which we want. I put mine into STR and AGI. Mostly into STR. We spent the rest of our time monster grinding and building up our stats and levels as best we can do, slashing and hacking away at a variety of monsters throughout the meadow. Laughing and battling, having a grand old time. This is the best video game experience I have ever had in my entire gaming career. After many hours have past as we battle a couple monsters and do a little exploring and we take a little break back where we first met up at. After talking about some stuff we have planned back in the real world, 5:25 rolls over.

Spark bolts up from his chair in a frantic panic. "Shit! I gotta go guys I got stuff I gotta do back at home and my mom's gonna kill me if I don't do my homework!" He quickly opens up his menu going thru every tab searching for the settings. Faderz and I sigh as we figures as much he would have to leave before us both. Within seconds of him finding the settings his face goes to a panic like expression to concerned. "Wait…what?" He hesitates with confusion. "What in the hell?"

"What's wrong?" Faderz says as he stands up. I stand up too. It's not normal for him to act like this.

Spark scratches his head. "There's no Logout button," he says with agitation in his voice as it cracks. We both check our menus.

"Wait, what no Logout button?"

"No Logout?"

Sure enough, both of us had no Logout button.

Faderz begins to go through his menus. "Let me see if I can contact the GM about this." I nod and also try.

"I'm with you on that one buddy that's not normal what so ever… no Logout?" My mind began racing because if we don't have one as a group, all of us players don't have one which definitely means its not a bug or a glitch. My mind begins to panic frantically. If we can't get out of here through a button how will we ever get out?! I'm gonna fail school and my family is gonna be super worried if I don't wake up. Shit, what do we do. As we all begin to panic, we all disappear as we are all teleported somewhere where every player in the game appeared to be in. This when I realized, this is no ordinary game.