"Come on legs move faster." I say to myself as I run home to start my nerve gear. Almost there, I burst through my front door and rush up to my room. Oh I almost forgot I'm Jonny by the way, I'm 19, 6 foot 5 inches tall, I'm Caucasian with blue eyes, I have short black hair with frosted red tips and because I'm me I usually have it in a fauxhawk style, anyways back to the tale. I get to my nerve gear and put the disk into my pc and then lay down on my bed in a relatively comfortable position.

The lights are blinking as to say just go already, the time in the top left reads 11:55 am "only five minutes and it's go time!" My body is ready to play this game. I've wanted to play this game ever since I saw it at E3 about 3 years ago, hell it's the reason I got the nerve gear. 12:01 the time now reads, " Oh shit I'm late! Link start!" The nerve gear starts up and my mind is transported. The gear goes through the usual sense checks and then I find myself in a room of blue. The room is cylindrical in shape and I hear the voice of a woman, "Welcome to the character creation, Are you Male or female" I choose male respectively and continue on. The next thing is my weapon, there are an assortment of armaments in front of me in white selection boxes. There is a one handed axe, a small scythe, a claymore, short sword, long sword, pike, polearm, and a few others. I take a few moments.

"Hmm a scythe would be nice but knowing will he will choose that, and a hand axe wouldn't be bad but that's more Connor's style. Oooooohhh a short sword, fast, sharp and nimble. Not as much damage as a long sword but bigger and more damage than a dagger. Sounds like my kind of weapon." And with that I hit confirm and my vision goes white and text appears. Welcome to sword art online. My view flashes a brighter white and when it clears I find myself in a circular square with a small bell tower in the center. 'Hmm I guess the game doesn't have much in the way of character creation.' I accept it and move on to find a market, I look through my inventory for my money. "I have 1000 col I wonder what I can buy for that?" I start heading west and find my way to a market. 'hmm lets see where is a sword shop.' I catch my reflection in a shield. " oh god what the hell is wrong with me?" I seem to have burnet hair cut short, I'm still Caucasian and seem to be 5 foot 3 inches. "What is this bullshit!? I'm almost a god dammed migget!" After my realization I find a sword stand with a wide variety of swords to choose from but there is one that is in the shape of a scimitar and is 1500 col. "Dam I don't have that much." So I continue on and peruse the market a little more and end up buying 5 potions for healing and 2 teleport crystals. I now head to the west gate of the city with 500 col in my pocket.

"Ok lets pull up the map and see what there is. Oh wait I almost forgot I gotta mute my notifications because me and the guys said we would go solo for the first day. There we go all muted, now lets go and kill some shit!" The west field is green as grass could be with rolling hills and two paths. I adventure out a bit and find a basic boar with black fur, tusks and the whole bit. It decides to charge me, so I draw my sword and block it, then proceed to slash it into mince meat and kill it. "Cool a bit of xp and col." I continue on and get enough xp to get to level three. 'Hmm what's going on over there?' In the distance there seems to be a pack of boars and a couple of people. "let's investigate."

I move closer and realize there is one male fighting the pack and a female just looking on from a near by hill. The male has dark black hair and is about 6 foot even that's all I can make out from where I currently am. Mean while the girl on top of the hill has long light blue hair and looks about 5 foot 6. "she seems nice enough I think I'll approach her first." I start up the hill and it seems like the boy has the pack under control so I continue to the top of the hill and approach the female. She has long blue hair, a round face with rosy cheeks and hazel eyes. "hey what's up."

"Oh uh….. Hi" she replied

"I'm Souless." I say extending my hand.

"I'm Scerina. Nice to meet you." She says shaking my hand.

"So uh I was just wondering what's with the pack of boars and why is that guy fighting them alone?"

"Oh that's my brother ben it's his first time in a vrmmo, I'm teaching him the ropes the hard way. Come on ben take them out already!"

"I'm trying sis it's not as easy as it looks!"

"So how is this teaching him anything?"

"It'll show him how hard mmos can be." The next thing I hear is ben grunt and see his avatar shatter into pieces. "Ugh the idiot got himself killed."

"Oh well he'll just spawn at the town of beginings, here take this teleport crystal and get your brother." I say handing her the crystal.

"Thanks I'll do that and I promise I'll pay you back."

"Na don't worry about it I've collected plenty of col today."

"Ok, thanks I'll catch you around I guess. Teleport town of beginnings!" and with that Scerina is shrouded in a sphere of light and when it clears she's gone."

"Hmm that was cool, but back to grinding." I hunt some more boars and get enough col to purchase the scimitar, so I return to town and head to the stand. The scimitar is even better up close it is a sterling silver blade with a gold embossed hilt. It defiantly has better power than my basic short sword. After buying the blade it seems like I have about 1000 col left and its about 6:00 pm. "I think I have time yo make it to the next town." I start on the west side of town and head north. About a few klicks down the path two wolves spawn. "Oh shit! Those are level five!" the first one charges and I block it with the sharpened edge of my blade and then proceed to cut it in half mouth to arse. "Well that's one down now where's the secon…" The other wolf jumps on my back and drives its fangs into my right shoulder. "Ah! Why you little bitch!" I grab it by the head and throw it to the ground before running it through with my sword. "huh huh At least that's over with." I drink one of my potions to recover the lost health before continuing on.

" Wait what the hell is that noise? Is that a bell? Defiantly a bell." It sounds like the bell in the plaza. All of a sudden I'm shrouded in a blue light, when the light fades I find myself in the plaza again and other players are being teleported in as well. " A forced teleport what the hell is going on." There is a light in the sky blinking I believe it says warning. Then the whole sky goes red with signs that read warning server announcement. "server announcement this wasn't planned as far as I know." Then the sky starts bleeding, and starts to gather and form into a figure. It seems to have a blood red robe with a hood and cowl. "Hmm he seems like he has something to say."

"I welcome you to my world." He starts. "my name is akihiko kayaba, and as of now I am in control of this world. I'm sure most of u have noticed an item missing from your menus, the log out button. Let me assure you this is not a defect in the game. I repeat….. This is not a defect. This is how sword art online was designed to be. You can not log yourselves out of sao, and no one from the outside can remove the nerve gear from your head. If they do so a microchip in the nerve gear will transmit a microwave signal into your skull destroying your brain and ending your life.

'Ending my life? What the fuck, how can he even pull that off.' There is other questioning mutterings among the crowd but Kayba continues cutting them off.

"Despite my warning the family and friends of the players have attempted removing the nerve gear, an unfortunate decision to say the least. As a result the game now has 213 players less than when it began. They've been deleted from booth Aincrad and the real world." Floating screens appear around him and seem to have some kind of reports on them. "As you can see news outlets have around the clock coverage of everything including the deaths. At this point it is safe to assume the likely hood of a nerve gear being removed id minimal at best. I hope this brings you a little comfort as u try to clear the game. It is important to remember the following, there is no longer anyway to revive someone within the game."

'Oh shit… poor Ben but more poor Scerina.'

"If your health drops to zero your avatar will be deleted from the system permanently, and the nerve gear will simultaneously destroy your brain. There is only one way for a player to escape now, you must clear the game. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on floor 100 and you will clear the game."

"All 100 that's ludicrous!" others seem to think the same and are shouting at Kayaba.

"last but not least, I've placed a little present in the item storage of every player. Please take a look.

I open my menu and there in my item storage is a mirror "A mirror what's this for?" I pull the mirror out and look into it, all of a sudden I am enveloped in a white light. When it finally clears I see my real face in the mirror. My black hair with frosted red tips, my blue eyes and looking down I seem to be my normal height again. "How did he get what my face looks like irl, and my actual height?"

"Right now your probably wondering why? Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of sword art online and the nerve gear do this? Ultimately my goal was a simple one. The reason I created sword art online was to control the fate of a world of my design. As you can see I have achieved my goal. This marks the end of the tutorial and the official start of sword art online. Players I wish you the best of luck."

The figure that was Kayaba evaporates in a red mist into the sky. Then the sky returns to normal as if nothing ever happened. Everyone is silent as they try to process this whole load of shit. 'Why are they so quiet, I would think everyone would be freaking out at this point. I think I should get out of the square before everyone starts trying to kill each other.' I push my way through the crowd and run through the streets and find an alley. I lean against the wall and open the menu.

"Ok… first things first lets figure what the fuck is up with the guys. Or if they are even still alive… no Jonny you can't think that way." I open my menu and send a group message.

Jonny: G1, Storm, Will, Connor, are you guys ok?!

Storm: I'm fine

G1: just fucking peachy

Jonny: Why do I feel there is a little sarcasm there, and I was expecting something grander G1n

G1: well that's all you're getting

Jonny: So what about will and Connor?

Will: I'm with Connor we ended up next to each other after mass teleport.

Jonny: ok, so what's the plan?

G1: storm you were in the beta what should our next move be?

Storm: well the next town Horunka is a little bit away we should probably go there next, and preferably before the other players

Jonny: So we meet up there or later?

Storm: there, then we have less chance of tipping off the other players.

Jonny: so I'll see you guys there.

G1: yup!

Will: good luck boys and mat the odds be ever in your favour.

Jonny: fuck off Will.

With that I close my menu and go yo head out.

"Hmmm? What's that?" from down the alley there seems to be whimpering. I draw my sword and move down towards the sound, To find a girl with black hair crying. She is on the ground with her arms wrapped around her curled up knees and her face is buried with in them. "Hey don't worry it'll all turn out. We will beat this death game." I say approaching and sitting next to her.

"That's not why I'm crying." She manages between whimpers.

"Then what's wrong?" I say wrapping my arm around her, which she seems to welcome the comfort.

I….. I…. I…. I lost my….. my…. Brother today… and the last thing I told him….. Was that he was an idiot."

"Wait! Scerina!?"

"Have we met before?" she says looking up at me and is she ever gorgeous, jet black hair, hazel eyes almost red in fact, and a slimmer face with plush red lips.

"Uhh….."

"Why are you just staring at me?"

"Sorry." I say averting my gaze. "I introduced myself as souless but my real name is Jonny."

"I don't care who you are all I…. I…. I want is ….. my brother back!"

"Hey, hey we don't know if what Kayaba said is true. For all we know he could be alive in the real world."

"Really you… you… think so?"

"More than likely, and I have an offer for you."

"What is it?"

"Me and a few friends are going on to the next town and I was wondering if you'd like to come along, and bring anyone else you know with it'll be fun."

"really?" she says and her face starts to light up, then it goes grim again. "The only other person that I knew was Ben….."

"You mean is Ben. As I said we don't know for sure if what Kayaba said was true, and we also don't know what is going on in the real world."

"You think he's really alive?"

"Yup, now ready to go?" I say standing up and extending my hand to help her up. She takes my hand, gets up and dusts herself off.

"Ok let's beat the hell out of this world!" and just like that we set out on a journey that would change our lives forever.