Disclaimer: I don't own Glee

Summary: millions of people become trapped in a virtual reality game. In order to leave, they must beat all one hundred levels or die trying. Unwilling to join a team, Kurt faces the game head on as a solo player and ends up crossing paths several times with another player, Finn, who has his own team and is determined to have him join. SLASH F/K

Notes: if anyone's familiar, this is basically based off of the anime Sword Art Online. I only saw the first three episodes, so this fic won't follow that story very closely, just the first two episodes; I'm simply using the idea of being trapped in a game with your life on the line :) Also, this takes place just after Schue blackmailed Finn into joining glee.

…

Chapter One

Penny The Beta Tester

…

Finn was a gamer, but he didn't consider himself so hardcore that he'd devote himself to sleepless nights in the darkness of his room trying to beat imaginary monsters and gaining experience points while also teaming up with strangers all over the world. His kind of games were ones that involved lots of explosions, guns, and things to destroy. That and the occasional Mario were the type of games he was into. World of Warcraft and junk like that was a little too far off his attention span.

He'd been friends with Puck long enough to know that he wasn't into that either. So it was a surprise to Finn when his best friend approached him one day over the excitement of saving up just enough money to get the new virtual reality game called ERA. It was going to come out in a few days, but even Finn wouldn't be so worked up over a game. The last time he'd seen Puck this excited was when the wii had first come out.

Finn had seen the commercials for ERA, but he didn't get what all the hype was. It was a virtual reality game set to different eras in history where most of the action involved interacting with other players and gaining experience through menial tasks. It sounded long and boring, and really not the type of game that would hold his interest for long.

Puck on the other hand, saw a different side to it. ERA was a virtual reality game in its own genre. Many scientists, neurobiologists, and all those people with titles too fancy for Finn to remember, were involved in the creation of the game. It was not only a screen in which ones body moves around in. It targeted certain areas in the brain that tricked the body in believing it truly was in the game. Tastes, smells, and other sensations were very real. Including pain and exhilaration when fighting bosses. That part did sound cool, but the whole concept of the game was still lame.

In the end, though, Finn found himself waiting in a ridiculous line with his friends, three hundred bucks in his pocket, and staring at the front doors of the Game Stop as if willing them to open. Standing amongst the crowd of chattering teens and adults, Finn felt like the oddball for not sharing their excitement.

The line had gotten long enough to block out a street after wrapping around the block itself, Finn was sure fights would break out once the store had sold out, but to his surprise and his friends relief, two trucks arrived with the Game Stop logo. The only games inside were ERA. They were super prepared this time.

It was a long wait, but after five hours of standing, Finn finally got a copy of the game. And it was nowhere near what he expected. It wasn't just a disk and flimsy head gear; it was an entire fucking package big enough to rival a game console.

Driving out of traffic and finding himself in Puck's house, Finn couldn't help but think that he could have been at the school auditorium embarrassing himself in front of a bunch of kids with his singing. He still hadn't figured out how that marijuana came into his possession. He felt kind of bad for skipping on Schue's glee club meeting. Technically, though, it wasn't even his fault, Puck made him promise, and he wasn't one to leave him hanging.

…Even if it meant waiting in line for five hours surrounded by a bunch of rpg nerds.

"So how does this work?" Mike spoke up as they gathered in Puck's chaotic room and unpacked the game. Finn found booklet's upon booklets of manuals before reaching the headgear. It was black and shiny with blue lining. It kind of reminded him of a motorcycle helmet except it was super light and designed in such a way that it would be comfortable to wear lying down without getting any neck aches. The interior was cushioned and dotted with red dots in no particular pattern. At the front Finn expected some kind of screen, but it was just a clear strip of plastic thick enough to cover the top of his face. There were no attachments to the helmet, but there were stickers of more red dots in the box.

According to the manual, these stickers needed to be put all over his body. A ridiculous task and waste of money since he'd probably have to go buy more stickers once he was done with these. What a rip off. He wanted to say so to his friends, but they were already placing the stickers on themselves without question. Letting out a huff of annoyance, Finn followed suit.

He jolted in surprise when he placed the first sticker. It flashed for a brief second after making contact with his jeans, then melted into the fabric leaving only a red dot that could be mistaken for a marker stain. How the hell was he going to get it off when he was done with the game?

He looked back at the manual.

'Marker's will only be needed once in order to record your data of physical appearance. Once the game begins they will activate and disintegrate once all data is collected.'

How convenient… Finn looked at the stickers skeptically. The creators really advanced the technology for this game, pity they didn't use it on something useful like flying cars…

The tall teen pouted, he was really sour over losing three hundred dollars. That money had been saved up for a car. He was only a few hundred bucks away from his goal, too. He glanced over to Puck and cursed his weakness to peer pressure.

Once the stickers were all used up, the next thing to do was to activate the game by connecting the helmet to the internet. That was simply done by turning the helmet on from the left side and letting it get a signal. The blue lining lit up brightly and dimmed down to a more comfortable brightness. It hummed softly to life, the line of dots at the front blinking green sporadically until they settled down to a steady glow, confirming that the internet connection was strong and stable. The next step was to install the game which was no bigger than a DS game chip. Locating the slot at the side of the helmet by the on/off switch, Finn slipped it in and put the helmet on.

For a few seconds he saw nothing but a distorted visual of Puck's room through the plastic screen. He was about to say his helmet was broken when it suddenly beeped and a soft female voice by his ear said, "Welcome to ERA."

The strip of plastic flashed with several dots of color, and the next second Puck's room vanished and Finn found himself floating in blue skies. Literally floating, he couldn't feel the hardwood floor of Puck's room underneath him, and warm gusts of wind felt real against his skin. He yelped in fright at the jarring sensations and finding himself thousands of miles up in the sky. For a moment he thought he was falling, but nothing changed in the peacefulness of the atmosphere, and after getting his bearings together and trying really hard not to freak out, Finn was able to see that there was a screen in front of him showing him a sketch of a male body.

'Choose Your Attire', the title said.

Once his hands were still enough to move, Finn hesitantly looked over the options he was given. There were a lot of locked outfits, the only ones offered to him simple and kind of peasant-ish because he was just starting the game. There was even an option to change his gender, though he quickly ignored that.

Fiddling over a few outfits, hair styles and age, Finn finally settled onto one look after twenty long minutes of mulling over his crappy options. He later noted that there were no options on what difficulty he wanted to play and figured that this was the type of game where it didn't matter. He pressed the Done button and the screen vanish with a 'thank you'.

He jolted again in surprise when his body glowed briefly. He was now a bit taller than before, much leaner, and in simple black and brown attire that he decided didn't make him look too poor. A modest sword hung heavily at his hip.

Once his appearance changed, several other flashes appeared around him, revealing people in clothes similar to his. He only got to see them shortly before a gust of wind blew at him and he was suddenly standing in a hilltop in the middle of spring.

In the whole time since he decided to buy the game to shut Puck up, he finally got why people were going crazy over it.

Everything just felt so real, from the warm spring breezes, to the smell of grass and flowers. The grass crunched under his feet as he wandered around in a daze, gawking at everything his eyes reached. It felt like he was literally pulled into another world. From where he stood he could see a town about a mile away. The stillness in the air and the style of the buildings gave him the impression that he was in the middle ages or at least in some time where electricity hadn't been invented yet. It was so quiet and peaceful.

And unbelievably beautiful.

Suddenly those three hundred dollars felt like a sale than a robbery.

"Takes your breath away the first time, doesn't it?"

Finn whipped around both in embarrassment and surprise. A petite girl smiled up at him, and he blushed. She was very pretty in a small town kind of way. Her chestnut hair glinted a bronze gold in the sun, lining her pale face angelically, and her eyes were so mystifying, Finn didn't know if they were blue, green, or something else altogether. She was dressed in simple attire like his, but somehow she made it seem higher class, arranging the shirt and pants in a casual way that he'd only seen in magazines his mother liked to read. The twinkle in her eyes gave off the impression that she was as spritely as her slim physique, and yet not in a crazy way like Santana or Brittany from the Cheerio's.

"Hello," Finn shook his head and tried to keep from staring. 'I have a girlfriend,' he thought stubbornly to himself.

"Hi," she chirped, cheeks flushing pink. "I'm...Penny."

"Finn," he greeted back with a sheepish smile. "And…" he looked around and let out a laugh of ill-hidden giddiness, "yeah, I didn't expect it to be like this!"

Penny looked over the grassy fields and smiled. "It's amazing how far we've come with technology isn't it?" Finn nodded. She had a kind of breathy voice that was neither forced in a sexy way, or out of breath, and it was kind of refreshing to Finn who was used to the sharp voices of his girlfriend and the cheerio's, this girl spoke almost as if she were singing. "Kind of wish they'd be able to use it on something more useful, though…"

"Yeah," he agreed, looking up at the sky where he'd fallen from. There were more lights flashing, and from afar he could see people landing on the ground as simply at he had. "This is actually the first time I've ever played a game like this. Usually I'd just stick to Fallout or Halo."

"This is actually the only game I ever played," Penny pitched in sheepishly, "video games were never my thing."

Played? Finn raised his eyebrows. The game just came out today. "You've played this game before? How?"

"I was a beta tester," she shrugged, a gust of wind blowing her hair softly in the air. She pulled it back behind her ear, and Finn was somehow hypnotized by the movement, "they let me keep the game for free to play again once it officially came out. I didn't even touch it until today."

"Really," Penny seemed so small and fragile; he couldn't imagine her going up against bosses. "how far did you get?"

"Stage ninety-nine," she didn't seem to think anything of it, and Finn wondered if she was lying just to impress him, "I died a bunch of times, but I managed to get there before the creators were ready to release the game."

"Doesn't this game have a hundred stages?" he wasn't sure what kind of time limit ERA had for beta testers, but surely not so much that players could reach all the way to ninety nine in such a short amount of time. Even so, the game should have only had a few stages open for them to play in, or he assumed it was like that, beta testing was always a foggy area for him. Penny nodded, though, and seemed to get his confusion.

"I didn't find any problems either, just that it was easy enough to finish almost all the stages," she looked over the hill by the town towards the small pack of wolves lazing about. Finn hadn't even noticed them until now, the disappointment was starting to sink in again that he paid three hundred bucks for an easy game. "But it's still fun..if you'd like I can give you a few tips on leveling up."

She seemed so hopeful that Finn didn't want to doubt her, so he just nodded and followed her down the hill to the wolves. When the animals spotted them, they tensed up and started growling. He hesitated behind her. He knew he wouldn't die in real life if he was killed by something in the game, but that didn't stop him from being nervous of wolves attacking him. His five senses were just as strong here as in reality; he didn't favor the idea of being torn apart and feeling it.

"Okay so, on this stage we mainly use weapons like swords and ax's," Penny explained as she pulled out an impressive sword much more refined than his own, "as we level up here, the weapon also becomes stronger. When you advance to other levels in the game, you can still use these weapons, but their strength depends on how much you've used it to strengthen it, and whether or not they're useful against an enemy," Finn watched curiously, she crouched in front of the closest wolf with the sword held out to the side with both hands. "The difference in reality and ERA when it comes to weapons is you don't really depend on your own strength to use the weapon, you let the weapon do the job for you. It makes it easier on people who know nothing about fighting."

With this she charged forward and barely jerked the handle of her sword, it sliced effortlessly through the wolf, instantly destroying its data. Penny walked back to the wide eyed Finn, her sword much slimmer now and with a blackened blade. He'd just barely seen it transform after the instant kill, but he got the gist of it. Penny stepped aside to let him try. Biting back fears of getting attacked, he pulled out his own sword and ran to the closest wolf.

The wolf pounced him instead, but was killed by Penny before it could jam its jaws into Finn's neck.

Smiling down at him not in a condescending way, Penny held out her hand and he took it, flustered that a girl just saw him make an ass out of himself. She didn't make fun of him though and they continued fighting the wolves until Finn's sword was no longer flimsy, but strong and sturdy like Penny's. He also learned how to use his menu and customize the small prizes some of the wolves had when he killed them. If he was ever in a pinch, his body would automatically heal a certain portion of his health, and he now possessed a protection bracelet that would ease up the blows he'd get from an enemy. Once the wolves were all gone and he got up to level seven, he realized that he'd been at it all day and probably missed his dinner.

His mother was going to be pissed that he hadn't gone home yet.

"Shit," he looked over the setting sun in horror. "I gotta go home for dinner." Penny blinked at him in surprise, "I was supposed to go home hours ago, my mom's gonna kill me!" Waving his hand in front of him, his menu popped up, and he went for the log out button. Sheepishly turning to Penny he grinned lopsidedly, "Thanks for teaching me…you know, all this stuff."

Penny smiled brilliantly and nodded, "I just helped with the basics, you should probably take a second look at the manual before attempting to fight a boss." Finn flushed, but laughed and went back to the menu.

The log out button wasn't there.

Frowning, he looked at the other folders, but there didn't seem to be any sign of it anywhere. "Uh…" Penny watched him curiously, "where's the log out button?"

Penny looked at his menu, and frowned as well when she couldn't spot it. She pulled up her own menu and found that she didn't have one either. "It should be there," she muttered, flicking through folders in confusion. "There must be a glitch, too many people logging in maybe?"

"What if I just took the helmet off?" Finn asked thoughtfully.

Penny shook her head, "the game incapacitates your body leaving only your brain active to fully experience the game. That's why the helmet is so comfortable; I've fallen asleep in it a few times." Finn was barely listening, he was starting to panic. This meant the he was stuck in the game until…when?

The question was answered when a window popped up in his menu announcing that he was being automatically transported. "What's going – " the fields vanished and he found himself standing in a town square by a grand fountain. Judging by the looks of the people around him, he wasn't the only one completely lost.

"Is this a mini game challenge?"

"I can't log out, can you?"

"I'm gonna miss my show!"

A small gust beside him and a flash of brown hair told him Penny had just arrived. More people were coming in small flashes around them. Finn tried not to worry over what was happening, but even Penny was starting to look a little tense and just as confused as everyone else. In the few hours he hung out with her he'd grown accustomed to her being calm and collected, if she was like this now, then he probably had good reason to start worrying.

"Hey, this is normal right?" he asked under his breath. Penny shook her head, brows knitted in thought.

"It looks like no one else can log out either," she said, observing a group from afar arguing amongst themselves while looking over their menu's. "This never happened in the beta test."

Finn wanted to ask more, but the sunset suddenly shifted into night and the only light in the town came from a large screen that appeared on the starry sky. A man in a hooded cloak came into focus, his face hidden in shadow.

"Welcome players, to the game of ERA," he announced to the silent crowd, "I am Paradise, head creator of ERA." Finn made a face, who would call themselves 'Paradise'? "By now you will have noticed that the log out button has been removed from your menus." At this the crowd murmured uneasily amongst themselves, "this is not a glitch in the system, rather it is a challenge I have laid out for all of you. For years I have worked to develop a game in which one could literally feel they are a part of without so much use of the imagination. You have spent your money on games to which to escape for a few hours, but this will not be a game that will be tossed aside so easily. My challenge to you is to finish the game with your lives on the line."

"What?" several people echoed incredulously.

"The concept is simple," Paradise continued, "when you battle bosses – even the menial enemies provided for experience – and you die in battle, you die in reality." The uneasy din of the crowd hushed in silent shock. "Take it or leave it, the reality is there," Paradise said simply, "removing the headgear will not safely get you out of the game either." Several screens popped up showing news articles and reports of people crying, several titles announcing death tolls over a new game that just came out. "If the headgear is removed, the internal battery will give out an electric shock into the brain that'll instantly kill the player, already over two hundred people have died in this manner by loved ones removing the headgear despite the warnings clearly placed on them. Fortunately, deaths have decreased now that it's understood what would happen should the headgear be removed."

Finn felt himself turn to ice at the thought of Pucks mother or sister coming in and yelling at them to stop playing, and then removing their headgear in irritation. He looked around feverishly in the hopes to find his friends, but then remembered that they might not even look like themselves since the introduction of the game let them change their appearances.

"Once all stages have been cleared up to and including the hundredth stage, the log out button will return for you to safely get back to reality," under the little light that reached a part of his face, Finn could see Paradise smirk. "This will be a fight of the bully against the bullied, and for that I think it's more fitting for you to face each other as you truly are."

Several people gasped and cried in surprise as their appearances changed from the make up in the introduction, to how they really looked. Their clothes didn't change much, but those who were disguised as other genders had their clothes switched to ones more fitting and less embarrassing.

"Dude what the fuck you're a guy!?" someone shouted. Other exclamations were followed by this, but they quickly died down with the growing anxiety that this wasn't bluff from Paradise. Once again they looked up at the giant screen, expecting more to be said. Out of curiosity, Finn looked to Penny, but just at that moment she threw the hood from her black cloak over her head, hiding her face from view. Despite that, the cloak – which she tightened around herself – couldn't hide that she was almost as tall as him, and a bit more broad shouldered. Not wanting to poke and prod, and feeling a little disappointed that Penny wasn't actually so cute and petite as he thought, Finn looked back up at the screen.

"I wish all of you the best of luck, and will be waiting for you at the end of the line," was all Paradise had left to say. The screen vanished, and after a few seconds of silence, the town square went into chaos.

People shoved and kicked at each other, trying to run out of the village in their desperate need to escape. Amongst all the jostling, Finn lost sight of Penny, but just as he noticed her missing, the floor broke away and everyone fell through to a dark abyss, their screams drowning in his ears.

…

The hospitals were quickly becoming overcrowded across the country. In a fairly small town like Lima, it had filled up long ago. When Carole Hudson had gotten the anxious phone call from Puck's mother, she rushed out of work and found herself at the edge of town in one of the lesser known hospitals, with a horde of tearful parents crowding around a nerve wracked receptionist who was babbling a mile a minute.

"Everyone remain calm – room 312 – yes? Okay, she's in 223 – 401." It took a while before the harassed woman finally turned to Carole expectantly. "Name?"

"Finn Hudson," she choked out, blinking back tears that were welling up.

She only glanced briefly at the screen before saying, "223," handed her a slip, then turned to the next helpless parent. Not needing any more information, Carole pushed through the tight crowd to the hallway guarded stiffly by security. They looked down at her expectantly and she held up the paper the receptionist handed her. Silently they let her pass and she rushed to the elevator where there were still more people all just as distraught as her. With this many people in the hospital, the slip the receptionist gave her meant nothing.

Unfortunately, the elevator was taking too long, especially since it couldn't occupy such a large amount of people in one go. Patience broken, the single mother left the group and looked for the stairs instead. She only needed to go up one floor anyway.

As she passed a few rooms she could hear people wailing and yelling, doctors telling them to calm down in futile. Her jaw clenched in pain, tears slipping of their own accord at the thought of being in their place. Only a few hours ago she had been on the phone with her son. He was on his way to his friend's house to play the new game everyone was talking about. Normally she wouldn't let him throw his money around so easily for some fancy new game, but he'd been working tirelessly to save up his money that she allowed him to splurge this once.

She regretted it deeply now.

She barely remembered climbing up the stairs and going through another busy hallway. Just the flash of the number 223 at the side of the door and the large room behind it. She walked down the line of beds and saw a doctor grimly throw a blanket over the head of a child, the headgear by his side and his parents sobbing into each other's arms. A small noise got lost in her throat and it became hard to breathe the more desperately she searched the beds for her son.

There were other kids she recognized, some even adults of whom she passed by on her way to work. None seemed to have any other ailment aside from wearing the same headgear of the new game. Then finally, she found him.

He was at the end of the room with an empty bed beside him that a nurse was busily rearranging. A doctor was looking over the heart monitor, taking notes on his clipboard. Too lost for words, Carole was at Finn's side in an instant, careful not to touch the headgear that covered most of his face, already aware of what happened if removed. The doctor looked at her in surprise, clearly not seeing her until now.

"Mrs. Hudson, I presume?" he said kindly. Carole nodded, sniffling and wiping her face.

"Yes, that's me," she managed to say without bursting into tears again. "How is he? I came over as soon as I heard."

"As far as we can tell, he's stable," the young man said, looking over his notes, "so long as the headgear isn't removed and he plays it safe in the game. I'm Dr. Adams by the way."

"What's going on?" she demanded shakily, "why would a game…do this?"

The doctor shook his head. "According to the co-creators, this was never meant to happen and from what we could gather, the original creator who calls himself Paradise has locked them in the game until it's beaten. They're holding a press conference to explain what's going on and will be traveling to all hospitals to try and hack into the system to get them out."

"And when will they get here?"

Dr. Adams hesitated, "a week."

"A week?" Carole practically screeched. She clutched onto her son's limp hand.

"Mrs. Hudson I know this is hard for you, my daughter is trapped in the game as well," Dr. Adams sympathized, the pain she was going through reflecting in his eyes. "But you must be prepared of what could happen in the next few days. The mayor's paying visits to each hospital periodically to explain what's been happening, if you'd like, you can go to the cafeteria in two hours to get the full story, but until then do not under any circumstances remove the headgear."

"Yes I know what'll happen if I do," Carole swallowed thickly. "And the people responsible, they're going to trial for this right?"

"If they were, we wouldn't be getting the help they're trying to give," the man said begrudgingly, "the team that made the game claim to have known nothing about this," he pressed a few buttons on the arm rest of the bed and the dormant television in front of them that Carole hadn't noticed until now, turned to life, focusing on a news report from NBC. They were showing video clips of several hospitals, and people in the same headgear Finn was wearing. "They know about as much as we do," Dr. Adams said grimly. A clip flashed to a group of people in sunglasses and hoodies, they were being clutched by security guards as they guided them into a hospital. The people around them were shouting and jeering, throwing things at them like eggs and bottles. "When they come here I hope you can remember that they're here to help, not make things worse."

"Those are the creators?" Carole asked softly.

"Some of them," Dr. Adams nodded, "They've been splitting up to get to as many hospitals as possible, but they still haven't been able to get anyone out of the game. The most they can do is pull up video recordings of each player."

"Video recordings?"

"I don't get it either," he shook his head, "I assume it's the progress of the player, it's not much, but it's putting people at ease a little," he wanted to say more, but was interrupted by the arrival of another patient. The nurses were rolling her in and switching her into the empty bed by Finn. Carole looked up in time to immediately recognize the patient, despite her face being half hidden by the headgear.

"Quinn," she murmured under her breath. At Dr. Adams's inquisitive look, she elaborated, "she's my son's girlfriend."

"Oh," was all he could say. The girl's parents rushed in and he steeled himself for another hard explanation.

…

The fall had been a short and scary one, but as soon as he found it in him to scream in horror, Finn found himself in a well lit area of town, alone with other players still freaking out over their situation. Penny was nowhere in sight, and out of a sliver of hope he pulled up his menu to look for the log out button. Just as before, it wasn't there, and wouldn't be there until he beat the game.

All 100 stages of it.

He barely managed to level up from the pack of wolves he fought, how was he going to face one hundred bosses?

...He had to keep leveling up of course.

He looked at the other players running around and saw they had the same idea. He wasn't sure how fast wolves would regenerate, but he had to at least get a few before they were wiped clean from the other players. Biting his lip, he slipped away from the glowing streets of the town and pulled up a map from his menu.

The stage was called Harvest Land, and it was based off of a peaceful period in the middle ages that wasn't marred by war, disease or tyranny. It was a perfect stage for beginners and an easy place to level up. There were four towns, the one he was in the smallest of them all. He was sure that if he remained here he wouldn't get much stronger with the crowd still here, he needed to get to the next town to get as much kills as possible. If Penny hadn't lied about reaching the ninety-ninth stage, then he was sure she was in the next town as well.

Glancing back at the streets, with it's over stuffed crowd of players, Finn chose a cloak from his menu and threw the hood over his head, running down a beaten path that would lead him to the next town called Opis.

…

After the first few days of deaths and patients coming in, things had turned to a sort of standstill. There was no escaping that with each passing day, someone was going to die in the game. A few rare cases involved heart attacks and brain aneurisms. When it became clear that no one was getting out of the game any time soon, orders were taken out to put players in tubes so they wouldn't starve to death. They were basically being treated like they were in vegetable states. It wasn't an easy thing for Carole to watch nurses stuff tubes in her son because he couldn't feed himself.

There was also the inevitability of returning to work, but even there she couldn't escape her worry for Finn. Practically everyone at her job had someone stuck in the game; the feeling of despair in the hospital was just as strong at work. She couldn't remember the last time she cooked a meal for herself; she'd always just go back to the hospital straight after work.

Still, Finn's condition never changed, the only bright side being that he was still alive.

Since the first day he'd been there, other patients had been going in and out. Quinn was still there thankfully, but now she was joined by her friends Carole had remember seeing once or twice. Frankly she didn't know these girls were into playing video games and could only assume they did it out of curiosity like some of the adults who were too 'adult' to play games.

Not that it mattered now; they were stuck just like everyone else.

She was just getting settled in when the door opened and Dr. Adams walked in with a young fragile man and two security guards. He was holding a fancy looking laptop in his thin arms, his face pale with a shiny purple bruise on his left cheek. He looked like he hadn't eaten or slept in days, which tipped Carole off immediately that this was the co-creator who was supposed to come to the hospital.

The other people got the same vibe and fell silent as he walked down the narrowing path to the back of the room. The closer he got, the better Carole was able to see that he was a very miserable man.

"Everyone," Dr. Adams called out, demanding everyone's attention, "this is Ryan Peterson, he was a part of the team that created ERA and is here to help us, not make things worse."

"Get my daughter out of your stupid game," Mrs. Fabray's heated voice vibrated throughout the room. The man flinched and hunched his shoulders in fear. The other parents didn't say anything, but the hard glares in their faces were enough to say they felt the same.

"I – I can't," Ryan mumbled meekly, "Paradise changed the codes, none of the others could hack in – but we're still trying!" he added, when one of the parents approached him with the intention of hitting him. He quaked behind a guard who held the angry man back firmly. "We're trying!" Ryan repeated, holding his laptop to his chest, "wh-what I can do right now is put up video footage of their progress so you can at least know how they're doing."

"So, we'll be watching over them?" Carole asked. Ryan jolted at her voice, but nodded hurriedly, his thick glasses almost flying off.

"It's not much, but it's all I can do for now," he opened his laptop and turned it on. After a moment of hesitance, he sat on the empty chair next to her. Carole watched his fingers fly over the keys, windows and html codes blurring the screen. It looked he was connecting to several things at once, and whatever it was seemed to work because the television turned on by itself and Finn's headgear glowed for a second before mellowing out.

A few more tapping from Ryan and the news on the television switched to what looked like a movie set in the middle ages. What Carole was looking at was a small outdoor stadium that was barely occupied with a bunch of people listening attentively to a young knight holding up a book. After focusing a little, Carole spotted Finn sitting at the top of the seats, a bit away from the cluster of warriors. He was dressed in clothes she'd never seen him in before, but at a whole he seemed fine.

"What are they doing?" she asked breathlessly, tears springing to her eyes, "can you get audio?"

"No, unfortunately," Ryan said reluctantly, "I was only able to get video, if I hacked any further, Paradise would notice and lock me out again."

"Where is Paradise?" someone demanded, "has anyone found him?"

"I – I don't know where he is," Ryan stammered. Rather than try and beat the answer out of him, the parents just seemed disappointed and tired. "But I can show you how your kids are doing!" He stood up anxiously, almost dropping his precious laptop. Now that no one seemed to want to hurt him, he was eager to help out.

Carole grabbed his arm, startling the poor man. "Thank you," she said, looking up at the television.

Clearly not used to gratitude, Ryan blinked furiously, and nodded meekly before going off to the next bed.

…

There was rumor going around that someone found the boss room. Announcements were mailed to all players that there was to be a meeting in the Opis Stadium on how to take on the boss. Figuring that many people would go, and that he was leveled up enough, Finn went to the location and was dismayed to find only about fifteen people gathered.

The name of the boss was Lug, an ogre with little smarts and deadly strength. The knight explaining all this was called James, and he got his information from the handbook all players had on the bosses and denizens of the game. Finn was only half paying attention until James announced that they should split into groups and strategize on a plan of attack. Startled, Finn looked around for anyone willing to team up with him, but already people were grouped up and talking amongst themselves.

The only other person not in a team was a stranger a few seats away huddled up in a familiar black cloak. Finn was sure that it was Penny and quickly scoot over and sat next to her.

"I was wondering where you went," he said quietly, hoping not to startle her. Penny tensed up anyway, "wanna team up?"

"Are you sure about that?" she mumbled. Her voice was deeper than Finn last remembered, but still very feminine. Finn frowned, not seeing why she was being so shy now.

"Yeah, why not? You're a good fighter," he grinned, "and shouldn't we stick together anyway? We're stronger in groups than on our own." Penny seemed to consider this, so Finn pulled up his menu and friend requested her to join his team. A window popped up in front of her asking if she'd like to accept. It took a minute of biting her lip and thinking hard, but she pressed the 'accept' button and the window disappeared. Finn looked at the name added to his friends list was surprised to find not the name Penny there.

But Kurt.

Oh. Finn felt a little proud of himself for not outright yelling his shock, but now he got why Penny – Kurt – was hiding from him. He was totally crushing on Penny, but this whole time it turned out she was a dude and that was just…ew.

…Ew.

Then another horrifying thought struck him. If this guy's name was Kurt, surely that didn't mean he was Kurt Hummel. The gay kid Puck liked to throw in dumpsters. No way, this had to be a different Kurt. Because if it was the Kurt Finn was thinking about…

Well that was just shitty karma.

"Just this once," Kurt said softly, hunching his shoulders, "I'm a solo player."

"Got it," Finn cleared his throat uncomfortably. "So…this boss…"

…

They didn't face Lug immediately after the meeting. James was a paranoid man and gave everyone a week to keep leveling up and practicing strategies before facing the ogre. In Finn and Kurt's case they did this separately. Their plan was to simply give Lug a one two punch. One would come in to deliver a blow then back off while the next came in to continue. There were no special attacks, or formations, which suited Finn fine because he was still sort of grossed out that Kurt was a guy.

And now they found themselves with the other players in front of a huge door that led to the room in which Lug resided. Kurt's face remained half hidden by the hood of his cloak and had been quiet when Finn met up with him.

"Remember to avoid looking at his eyes or you'll be turned to stone, target his back and knock out his bat first before delivering a full attack," James instructed. The group nodded and he turned around and opened the door to a dark room within. Swallowing down bile and fear, Finn followed everyone else and pulled out his sword in anticipation.

Once everyone was inside, the door closed with a loud and ominous thud. The room lit up from torches hanging on the walls, and at the other end a loud roar peeled out. Stepping out of the shadows was a monstrously tall and ugly creature with fat muscular limbs, yellow green skin and bulging teeth that poked out from its upper lip. It charged at them wildly, swinging its fists around.

Remembering not to look at its eyes, Finn ran away from the group who separated into different formations and reached for Lug's back as fast as his legs could carry him.

From then on it was a desperate fight of steel against rock hard skin, cries of pain and anger echoing in the room. Finn tried to ignore the bodies of people being flung around like toys, landing in heaps on the stone floor and slowly disintegrating into nothingness. He spied James among them.

Meanwhile the ogre was barely even losing health. Finn stabbed and slashed as hard as he could at his back, but was suddenly flung away by the angered ogre. He stood back up hurriedly and scrambled away from a huge fist crashing down on the spot he'd been in. Catching his breath behind a pillar, he noted with alarm that his health was at twenty percent. If he wasn't careful, another blow could kill him. He looked back at Lug and saw his back open for another attack. Clenching his sword, he made another run for it, but stopped short in surprise when someone else beat him to it.

Kurt was running so hard that the cloak flew off revealing a slender boy barely into his teens. His hair was just like Penny's but shorter and stylized to the side. He held his sword by the hip much like he had when he first showed Finn how to use a weapon, but halfway to the ogre, the sword glowed and his pulled his left hand away with another sword.

The tips scraping against the stone floor, Kurt used the momentum to jumped high in the air and drive precise and deep slashes into Lug's spine. He landed on the floor gracefully and jumped back when the monster fell with a cry of pain. Finn was awestruck until Kurt turned to him sharply and yelled at him to start moving.

His face was wet with tears.

And it was definitely the Kurt Hummel Finn knew from school.

Before he lost his nerve, Finn ran to Lug and threw his sword at its neck, slicing clean through it. The head lopped off and the ogre disintegrated much like the wolves he and Kurt killed only days ago. The ding of congratulations did nothing to cheer him as he looked over the grief stricken faces of the survivors of their group.

Altogether they were six. They lost almost half their teammates.

Finn's menu popped up announcing that he'd gone up a level, attained the ability to use elixirs, and a fur coat to keep him warm for the next stage. He looked over to Kurt and saw him already in a black fur coat of his own.

"You're a beta tester aren't you?" one of the other players asked thickly though his grief. "You knew exactly how to kill it, and didn't step in until the last minute." Kurt turned to him angrily, "we were just your pawns to weaken Lug so you could finish him yourself."

"That's not true!" Kurt yelled indignantly, "I fought just as hard as you! I would never use other people for my own gain!"

"You let James and the others die!" the man yelled angrily, "I saw you! You fucking fag!"

Kurt paled at the word, his face livid. Finn winced, but didn't know which side to choose. Kurt was a part of his team after all, but he hadn't seen him fight till the last minute either. He was more focused on surviving to notice. Pursing his lips, Kurt turned away sharply and headed for the door that led to the next stage.

"Think what you want," but there was no strength behind his words and even though Lug was defeated, he didn't have the air of victory, "but I'm not a killer."

"Wait!" Finn ran after him, not sure why, but not wanting Kurt to leave like this. "Don't listen to them, they're just upset."

Kurt didn't look at him; he was glaring at the floor. Without a word, he opened up his menu and discontinued his friendship with Finn. Not much later, a window popped up in front of Finn telling him he was no longer friends with Kurt. That hurt, a little.

"You should probably find your friends," Kurt mumbled, "or at least people you can trust to form a guild."

"Come with me," Finn found himself say, and he meant it. "You're a good fighter; we can form a team together."

Kurt shook his head. "I'm soloing it out. Besides, it's the bully against bullied, and I don't trust anyone. Not even you." He gave a halfhearted shrug, "good luck."

He stepped through the door and shut it behind him. Finn hurriedly opened it again, but Kurt was nowhere in sight. Clenching his teeth, Finn wondered if he'd ever see him again.