In 2022, humanity has finally

created a complete virtual environment.

A grand castle stands below the night sky, with a small red moon and a large blue moon shining from above.

"It's time for this week's MMO Stream!"

Large amounts of lines were formed at many electronics stores.

"We began with a promotional video. Was this the day of last week's launch? What were all these people waiting in line for? Mabinogi Online!"

A crowd of very happy gamers stood in front of the story with their purchased copy of Mabinogi Online, some with the famous NerveGear helmet as well. There was one teen with a hidden face, hidden by a cyan cap with goggles on top.

"The ones at the front of the line were waiting for three days prior to launch. Simply Amazing! Or is this just what any real gamer would do?"

A newspaper flips pages, landing on a page with who seemed to be either a scientist or a programmer.

"On today's MMO Stream, we'll be covering the internationally famous Mabinogi Online, AKA MBO!"

Flipping the pages some more, the hand holding it received a light paper cut, with a small amount of blood leaking.

"To be honest, none of the NerveGear software released so far has really taken advantage of the hardware…"

The broadcast was cut by a light knocking on the bedroom door.

"Sister? I'm off to work!"

A older man with short black hair left the house in a hurry, with his sister watching him leave from her second floor window.

"But MBO was made by the NerveGear inventor, Kayaba Akihiko, and it's a long-awaited VR MMORPG. Only Five-Thousand copies were being sold in its first printing, it sold out online in seconds…"

A text message came up on her phone.

'Hey, ready to get started? I'm too excited!' – K

'Totally! See you on the other side!' - E

The game cartridge was put in; the girl with the black hair with slightly longer hair put the NerveGear helmet on, and laid upon her bed, staring at the ceiling. The clock on the display read 12:59 a.m. while the helmet powered on, and as the clock turned to 1:00 p.m., the girl smiled while closing her eyes.

"Link start!"

Flying past a wave of colors, a white background.

Touch: OK

Sight: OK

Hearing: OK

Taste: OK

Smell: OK

All flashed green and flew away from sight.

Language: English

User ID: ********

Pass: ******

Character Creation

Beta test data still available.

Would you like to use it?

Kyza(f)

Yes

No

Welcome to

Mabinogi Online!

A flash of blue leads up to the wide blue skies, while her sight lowers back to the ground, her feet, and her hands, her avatars long hair of black fading into silver.

"Finally…"

Her hands clenched in excitement.

"I'm back in this world!"

Many more players had teleported from nowhere, all in a small, beautiful town known as Tir Chonaill. After fighting her way through an entire hoard of players wanting to get their weapons and go through tutorials. Lucky for her, she didn't have to go through the tutorials again, but she had to start fresh in terms of equipment and skills, including the starting clothes of which she didn't mind, she hates armor, and with the scientist she proclaims to be, she uses the basic alchemy cylinder and a basic short sword.

Already knowing how the game works, Kyza made her way to the nearby wolves, away from the usual quest line, she could do it later.

"There you are!"

Suddenly the girl was hugged from behind by another girl about her age with neck length black hair and two cat like ears. and the same starting clothing, but was black and red as opposed to white and red and a black cats tail. Her golden-orange feline eyes happily gleamed back at her friends pink eyes.

"Ah, I was wondering where you've been."

"Sorry, I was looking around for another friend; I thought he wouldn't get the game after the beta!"

"It's not a problem, Fiorae, I'm just happy we're back!"

"We can take this game down together!"

They both smiled at each other before noticing a hoard of wolves surrounding each other. Exactly how they met in the beta. Kyza equipped her cylinder, loading it with fire red crystals on one end, the other end set on fire while Fiorae pulled a large two-handed sword out of its sheath. The wolves lunged themselves at the two, while the two's smile faded, and they both launched themselves towards them all.

The wolves' bodies were on the ground, either riddled with cuts and stab wounds, or literally burning to a crisp before they all dissolved into particles. Fiorae was surprised of the results, about ten level ups and a few sellable things.

"Unbelievable. We're too strong for wolves. This won't be too bad!"

"Keep in mind; we only got as far as Generation 3, who knows what lies beyond that. They may have even changed a few things."

"Right …"

Fiorae turned to Kyza with a swift turn.

"But that doesn't mean it's not possible!"

"Hm, I guess your right about that!"

The two made their way back to town, while Fiorae opened up her menu, requesting to add Kyza as a friend. She accepted before they both high-fived.

"I'm going to go and grab so pizza, it should be here by now!"

"Alright, I'm gonna go look around for a while, see if anything's changed."

"Cool, see you later!"

She had opened up her menu before Kyza started to walk away.

"Um, Kyza?"

"What's up?

She turned around to Fiorae, with her menu open, but there was a blank option.

"The … the log out button is gone?"

"What? That can't be right. Here, lemme see."

She pulled up her menu as well, and she wasn't kidding, the log out button was gone.

"H-how ..?"

"There isn't a way to call a GM, is there?"

"No … no there isn't."

The sound of a bell rung out in the air … however, there was no bell tower in this town.

"That bell … Dunbarton?"

"What the, Kyz-!"

Fiorae had suddenly started glowing, then disappeared, Kyza following along with her the same way. Regaining her sight, she found herself in the town square of the merchant town, Dunbarton, while many more players have been teleported to the town. It looks like Fiorae is nowhere to be found too.

The sky had turned blood red, a blot of shadow appeared from the ground, taking the form of a black robed man.

"Attention players. I welcome you to my world."

"My world …?"

"My name is Akihiko Kayaba. And as of this moment, I am in control of this world."

Pause

Alright, hold up a sec there. I'm sorry, but I'm not about to explain the plot of what's going on here, I'm fairly sure that whoever is reading this has already watched and/or finished SAO 1, so you already know what the deal is, but if you're new to this and don't want to watch the anime, I'll make things easy.

Basically this is a death game. Until the players have managed to fully complete the game, they are not allowed to leave the game. In SAO, dying means death, no matter what world you're in, so if you die in the game, you die in real life. Of course, I have to change the rules, not slightly, but a lot for the sake of this story.

Mabinogi is the game where death doesn't exist. Of course I have to mess that up. When all HP is depleted, you do go into a dying process, but if someone were to use a Phoenix Feather to revive you in three minutes, you are revived. You cannot be in combat to use said feather and you must be close enough to revive that player. No ifs, ands, or buts.

To replace the 100 floors of Aincrad, I instead have the story progress by the Generation/Story Missions of Mabinogi, ending at the first Saga. The end bosses have to be made even more powerful than you may already know, or not know if you have not played the game, basically VERY destructive.

Oh, one more thing! In SAO, the players true face was revealed in the first episode instead of their avatars. I will not be doing that. Why? Two reasons. Mabinogi's avatars can be very creative, and can lead to some interesting stuff in my eyes. The other reason is that with the characters I'm using, some of them are actual players from the game, so I have no idea what their true face really is. Just go with your imagination on that one, that's what I've been doing.

Alright, that's all from me. I hope you enjoy this series. Oh, and I own nothing but my OC's.

-The Detective

The Red and Black disappeared from the sky, all remained in silence for a moment.

Before they all started to panic.

Kyza couldn't waste any time waiting, finding Fiorae, and dragging her to an empty alleyway.

"Thank god, there you are!"

"Yeah …"

"Why would he do something like this? Just for kicks?"

"I'm not sure … but I think we can get answers."

"Huh?"

"Listen, we have to get started now, getting all of the skills and gear we can get. You remember how strong the first Generation End was, right?"

She had shuddered just thinking about it.

"I really don't want to … but if what he said was true … we don't have much choice, do we?"

"No, but one thing's for sure. I'm not about to die in here. And I'm sure you're not about to either."

"Of course not! It's just …"

She had eyed back at some people, completely unsure of what to do.

"Some of my other friends here haven't played the beta like you and I have, they must be scared out of their minds."

" ... I understand."

"Don't worry about me, I'll make sure that we meet up again at the First End! Just … make sure you stay alive until then, alright Kyza?"

Fiorae pumped a fist out, while Kyza only stared at it for a moment before responding back with a fist bump.

"The same goes to you!"

Kyza started walking back slowly, trying to hold back the tears before she started running back to Tir Chonaill.

"I'm sorry …."

A bear cub stood in her way, looking prepared to completely maul her as she loaded up a white crystal in the cylinder and shot out a powerful blast of wind, smashing it into the ground.

"I won't let this world be the end of me!"