Chapter 1 The Beggining of SAO 2
Day 1, 10 Minutes before the incident
A sparkling light blinded the eyes of the players looking towards it, four players, to be exact. Two of them were highly trained male players and the other two were low level. One Spryygan, one Salamander, and two Undines. The Spryggan extended his arms towards the light and muttered a few words. From his hands, black smoke was sent towards the source of the light. The players turned towards a cliff at their side and jumped, opening their wings while falling. They flew at high speed towards the closest flying island and landed on a small forest. The Spryygan muttered some words and the whole group seemed to dissapear. An invisibility shield was cast over them.
"Why are they following us?" The Salamander whispered, grabbing his red hair.
"Shut up John, you'll blow our cover." One of the Undines, the one wearing a blue skirt and shirt, said.
The Spryygan came closer to them, the second Undine hugging his left arm tightly, and pulled out his sword. He aimed it at John, and with a swift movement appeared in front of him, his sword by his throat.
"Who did you tell about our quest?" The black haired Spryygan said, taking his black hoodie off with his left hand.
"No one, I swear!" A loud booming was heard, and everyone in the party turned to look towards the sky.
A dark shadow, covered in flames, was casting Great Fireball spells towards them, destroying their invisibility field. When the creature destroyed the shield, no one was in sight. It only made a loud grunt and dissapeared. The players waited for 5 minutes until they felt the dark pressence dissapear.
"Thats a Balrog!" John whispered loudly, jumping down from a tree, "I swear i did nothing Haxs!"
"John, you can call me by my name." The Spryygan known as Haxs jumped down another tree, with one of the Undines in his arms "Dani, use your Distress Call spell." He let go of the Undine in his arms and she nodded.
"Hai!" The undine placed a hand in her long blue hair, just like a soldier would, and muttered a few words "The central is advised, they'll send a group of players to help." She smiled at Haxs.
The other Undine stood behind John the whole time. She pulled her long sword out and her wings appeared on her back.
"We have to kill the Balrog before he destroys the NPC we are searching!" That said, she flew towards the sky and dissapeared in a beam of light.
Haxs, John, and Dani dissapeared as well, only to find themselves between a gigantic group of players. All of them appeared together between a massive group of players, Haxs looked at himself and noticed his appearance changing to his real self. He was taller than his Spryygan form, he had long black hair covering all the way to his glasses, he had a better physical shape, and his skin was a tone whiter than his Spryygan self. He turned towards Mei, her blue hair was black and she was a little shorter than before, her long hair falling all the way towards her hips. Her skin color was pale, even paler than the regular Undines, and her blue eyes became turquoise. He looked towards John, his red hair became black with his hair turned upwards like a wave at the front, just like in the real life, and the exact same body shape.
His eyes met Dani's, she didn't change at all. He smiled at her and she smiled back with a little blush. Mei opened her menu window with a swing of her hand. Everything was gone, her level, stats, items, everything. She turned towards the options window and her face changed color...no logout button.
"John!" Mei yelled, John ran by her side, "look..." She placed her window in view mode, and when John saw it, he smiled "no logout...like in SAO."
"Haxs!" John yelled, some people in the crowd looked at him "open your menu!"
Haxs did as told, and smiled when he saw no logout button "Just like in SAO bro!" He ran towards him and they bumped their fists. A player from the crowd walked towards John and grabbed him from his collar.
"Why the hell are you happy?!" The player yelled, he looked to be in his mid-twenties "this is no joke! We are in a death game!"
"Exactly my friend!" John exclaimed, pushing him away "I've wished for this day to come for so long." He looked towards Haxs "We."
The player left, but not before everyone noticed a giant timer with a growing number of players and a decreasing number of seconds. When the timer reached thirty a voice out of nowhere started to speak.
"Welcome," the voice said. "I want to tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a man who had a grand vision. A vision of a new, fantastical world where the stakes were higher than ever before. A world called Sword Art Online. In his ideal world, we, the players would leave our old, boring lives, and lead new ones, here, in the realm of virtual reality. That man's name was Kayaba Akihiko."
"Is he serious?" A player suddenly shouted. Players all around were panicking even more.
Twenty seconds.
"But a misguided few sought to destroy that vision, and they succeeded. That's where we come in! The Laughing Coffin has dedicated countless hours… days upon days… constructing a new world to fulfill the true vision of Sword Art Online. And with the computer power from all of the servers controlling all of the VRMMOGRP's all over the world, we have made that vision… a reality. The work of art that was Sword Art Online has been made new, with SAO: Death Game 2! Welcome, players. And a special welcome back to our old friends from Aincrad."
Four seconds.
"We are done." Dani spoke, looking dark and grim.
Suddenly, they were all teleported away again as the timer hit zero. "Haxs!" Dani yelled, grabbing hold of his hand.
"You may be thinking to yourselves," the voice continued. "No, it isn't possible. They made it so it couldn't happen again. So let me explain… In the months following the SAO incident, a lab technician working on the AmuSphere named Sugou Nobuyuki was experimenting with ways to make the device control human emotions… human thoughts… no, the human consciousness, the soul altogether! While he was arrested, some of his assistants working secretly with him were not. They have joined us. No, the AmuSphere cannot cause your brain to fry with electricity, but what it can do is erase you… all that makes you you. And your body will turn into a vegetable, only able to survive on life support."
"Haxs, is this true?" Mei came closer to the group.
"It is, i was thinking about it just now..." Haxs replied.
"It will be different though. It's not just swords here… anything you can create in this world you can use. Perhaps someday you will even harness magic. Or perhaps we will… If you die in the game, you will not simultaneously die in the real world. You will be stuck, consciously observing your surroundings. Unable to do anything from your dead avatar. This state will last for fifteen days. If another player finds a way to bring you back within fifteen days, your life will be saved, but you will lose ten percent of all of your stats, levels and items. Be warned, though… the items and abilities required to bring a player back from the dead are very rare, and only found at very high levels. In other words, if you die here, now! You're what they say… S.O.L."
John looked at his vitals, in addition to hit points there was an orange bar labeled "energy," a purple bar labeled "spirit," and a black bar labeled "will."
"Dude, look at this vitals." John spoke, Haxs nodding by his side "What now?" He asked his friend.
"Run." It was not Haxs. It was the voice again. "Run because in commemoration of this glorious day, we have decided to perform a culling. Yes… run. Those of us who have joined the game are here among you, armed, unlike you! We're going to celebrate by killing 500 of you right now!"
"Run!" John yelled turning around and grabbing both girls with him, he then started to run, Haxs right behind him. A member from the killer guild Laughing Coffin, stopped John on his tracks. The player wielded a knife on each hand, and had a red scarf covering his mouth. His name tag readed JuKo.
"Death is coming sweety!" He yelled, jumping towards Mei.
John pulled her behind him while Haxs looked at John. John nodded and placed both of his hands together in front of him, to boost Haxs upwards. Haxs ran towards him and jumped on his hands, John pushed him upwards and Haxs kicked JuKo on the chin in a swift movement, making JuKo fall to the ground. Both dagger escaped JuKo's hands, Dani grabbed one and Haxs the second. It read "Killer Dagger" Attack +9, Speed+8.
JuKo got back to his feet, only to get punched by Haxs in the cheek. Blood dripping from his mouth.
"I do think the next part is possibly the best new feature of our world. I do hope you enjoy our wonderful graphics update."
JuKo dodged one of Haxs punches and kicked him on one side, Haxs took the hit and gave JuKo an uppercut. Haxs tackled him to the ground, and pinned him to the floor, then he grabbed the dagger and cut JuKo's throat open, his HP becoming zero. Another player pushed Haxs and his head hit a rock, it hurt him bad.
"I almost forgot to mention. Pain absorbers… we turned them down a few notched… to seventy-five percent. It's really nothing… but it should make the game a lot more fun." After that, the voice burst into a mad laughter, and was suddenly cut off.
Haxs stood up, with a hand rubbing his temple, "Keep running." He said without turning around, not noticing his XP filling up to a level up.
The group followed him out of the chaos, people getting killed by player-killer just like the one Haxs killed. They ran towards a small mountain in the south where a group of players were grouping. Haxs grabbed each person in his group and pulled them from the new crowd of people. Dani and Mei looked at each other in confusion. A player wearing black stood from the crowd and started a discussion
"Guys, i want you to stay here, with this group, until we come back." John placed a hand over Haxs shoulder "Listen to what they say, and when we come back, inform us about the situation." Haxs turned towards John smiling.
"Lets go...leader!" Haxs exclaimed placing a hand over John's shoulder.
John and Haxs turned to a side and started walking towards a group of weak monsters, mostly boars and wolves, that were near a small forest. John asked Dani for the knife while Haxs had his own. In the way towards the monster group they started speaking.
"Dude, i leveled up by killing that pk'er." Haxs said while he started to check his stats.
His stats were all low, all of them at ten. Vitality, Strength, Mana, Endurance, Speed, Defense, and Stamina were all the stats, and each time you level up you get five stat points. He placed one on speed, one on vitality, one on endurance and two on strength. John looked at him and shook his head. John grabbed a rock from the floor and threw to a bird sitting on a tree, one hit kill.
"Are you going for higher strength?" John asked him "Maxing stats is a bad strategy bro."
"Im not maxing them," Haxs started to explain "i just placed two on strength because we are low level, and we dont deal much damage. Besides, i got a new skill called Hand to Hand combat at level one." Haxs showed him his skill tree.
John opened his own, looking at two new skills "I have support at level one and..." He looked at Haxs confused "building?"
"Remeber that voice saying that we can fight with whatever we have...maybe you can build weapons." He jumped and grabbed the branch of the tree the bird was sitting on, it split in half and Haxs handed it to John "Sharpen this."
John grabbed his dagger and started cutting pieces of the tip of the branch, sharpening it into a spear. When John finished sharpening a small window appeared in front of the 'spear' reading "wooden spear" it had a small stats window below the name reading, strength +2 defense +1.
John took a rock from the ground and both guys sitted over a bigger stone. John using his knife to sharpen the stone. Haxs looked aroung himself and took a stick that was by his side, then he took a regular sized rock and took his knife. With his knife, he made a small hole for the stick to fit inside the rock, and then he cut a few vines that were falling from another branch. He used his knife to carve a small edge in the stick and used it to hold the vines used to tie the rock and the stick together. A small window appeared showing "stone club" strength +4 speed-1 defense +2.
"Haxs, look at this." Haxs was to inmersed into the crafting he didn't notice John finished his spear like stick, "Its called a halberd." He passed it to Haxs for him to look closer at it.
In fact it was a halberd, the long branch had a sharpened rock tied to a side of its sharp point. John presumed its weapon and looked at Haxs. Both of them smiled and changed weapons. John stood up from the rock and walked towards the small group of monsters.
"Lets go get something to eat." That said both guys walked towards the boars.
Somewhere else...
Dani and Mei where sitting over a small tree near the talking group of people, the group decided to follow another group of SAO survivors. Dani seemed to like the idea while Mei didn't care. Mei looked at Dani, stunned by her beauty.
"Umm...Mei?" Dani asked, cutting Mei from her trance, "You okay?"
"No wonder the boys call you beauty." Mei spoke, "You are perfect."
"Thanks, but that isn't the reason the boys call me Beauty." She jumped down from the tree, Mei behind her "You see, Haxs is pretty cute, and his real life name is Airas, a guardian angel, and his second name Velrock, devil's right hand. His username became SexyKiller, John was SexySlayer, and I was SexyBeauty.." She smiled at her, "then rpgs became serious and we became a foursome of players in the middle of Sword Art Online." This said Mei shook her head.
"Foursome?" Dani closed her eyes in a pained look, "Im sorry."
"Dont worry about it," she smiled brightly like she always does "its in the past. Whatever, than when we finished the game that he changed his username to Haxs. As you can see," she pointed upwards, towards her name and vitals "my username is still Beauty, but its encased in a couple of parenthesis." She smiled again "My real life name is Dani, so that explains my first in-game name. John still uses the slayer on his username as well as his name."
Mei looked at Dani and smiled even more, "My real name is Meiko, im from the US but i learned Japanese because my father was very stuck into traditions." Then it was like if a bus hit her "how do you speak japanese? Ain't you american?"
"Uum...you are speaking English girl." Mei shook her head "then they implemented a system for everyone to be able to speak the same language. Do i have a cute accent like you?" Dani asked, looking as beautiful as always.
"Yeah you do, it makes you look cuter than you are." She realized what she said and she blushed, to her relief Dani seemed to not notice what she said.
The girls walked towards a light hazelnut haired girl who was trying to cook enough food for the whole group of the girls stopped in front of her she looked back at them with a smile.
"Need help?" Mei smiled at her.
"Yes please!" The three girls laughed and they helped the cooking girl "my name is Asuna."
"Mei."
"Mine's Dani."
Back to the hunting grounds.
John was proned on the floor behind a wild boar, his stone club in one hand and his dagger in the other. Haxs stood in front of the boar, parrying and dodging his hits. Only hurting him enough for John to kill it in one hit. The boar charged at Haxs , who jumped behind the boar. The boar turned around and charged back at him, but Haxs jumped to a side. John jumped from the ground and smashed the boars head with his club, giving it a critical hit. The boar fell to the ground and a window appeared in fromt of John. He received an ultra rare drop from the boar, it said "Boar Skin Robe" and its stats read vitality+2, defense+5, speed+2.
John opened his inventory and equipped the robe, it covered all the way to his ankles and had a hoodie using the boar's head. It was red, John's most hated color. He was about to delete it from his inventory when Haxs stopped him.
"I dont like it either, but you can use it for trade later." John dismissed the erase window and nodded at Haxs, none of them noticing a pack of six wolves stalking behind them.
Two wolves jumped for the kill, one of them bit Haxs' shoulder as he screamed in pain, and the second one was stabbed in the neck by John's dagger. Haxs used his dagger and stabed the wolf's skull, killing it in one shot. Then another group of two jumped for the attack, but now they were ready. Haxs pointed the halberd upwards and the wolf impaled itself on it, killing itself. John attacke the second wolf using a randomized whirlwind skill, smashing the wolf's head while cutting all over its body, killing it.
"Switch!" John yelled as Haxs threw his halberd at John, John threw his mace.
The last group of wolves jumped at John, and he used the halberd to make a Helicoper like swing in front of himself, brutally destroying the wolf attacking him. The second wolf bit his arm very hard, John screamed in pain as blood dripped from his elbow. Haxs reacted fast and threw his dagger straight towards the wolf's head. John pulled his arm trying to release his arm, but that made Haxs' shot fail. Haxs ran towards the wolf and smashed its spine with a wicked crushing sound. The wolf let go of John and it fell to the ground, crying, John was about to finish it but Haxs stopped him.
"Look at this." He grabbed his dagger from the ground and stabbed the wolf on a side, he pulled the dagger all the way to its waist and then back towards his mouth. Then he stabbed the other side and repeated the process. He succesfully skined the wolf and a rare drop appeared on a window. "Winter Wolf Robe" it was exactly like John's but it was white and the wolf's upper jaw and head were the hoodie. Its stats read Strength+6, Speed+6, Defense+9, cold resistance. Haxs quickly equipped it and bragged John about it, but John also had something to brag.
One of the wolves' fang fell off as a drop, giving John a very sharp weapon. It had the same stats as their daggers but it had slightly higher durability. Haxs raised his club and the stone part fell off, John pulled the halberd from the ground and it split in two.
"I guess they have less durability bro." John said with a saddened look, he really liked the stone club "At least i have these." He took his fang blade and twirled it on his left hand "Im going to fight like the guy who freed us from SAO."
"Sure do bro, sure do." Haxs patted John's shoulder as both of them started the walk back to the camp, their inventories full with meat and drops. "By the way, dont tell anyone about the skining method!" Haxs placed a finger under John's chin "we could use this method to sell them later on, when the game develops a little more." Haxs smiled and looked at his vitals, everything was normal except his spirit, it was at ninety percent "John, how much spirit do you have?"
John looked at Haxs "A hundred percent, why?" John kept walking towards the camp, they could see the lights coming from there.
"Nothing nothing, forget it." Haxs forced a smile on himself and walked closer to John.
While they walk John picked a large branch from a tree just like Haxs did before, then he crouched and found what were like large stones with metallic colors on them. He looked further at it and placed a finger over it, a "Iron Ore" window appeared. John stored three ores and started to run, Haxs looked at John in confusion but realized it was a race...and he coulldnt afford to lose.
In the camp.
"Thanks for the help girls." Asuna spoke, waving a hand as she left.
When Asuna was fully out of sight Mei grabbed Dani by her shoulders "She looks just like you!"
Dani laughed at Mei's comment and turned towards the path the boys took...it was late and they were nowhere to be seen, and that worried Dani. Mei noticed Dani's worried look and shook her a bit, Dani turned towards her and Mei greeted her with a warm smile, followed by a hug.
"Haxs and John were the strongest players i knew back in Alfheim, they are in their way right now." Again, it was like a train hit her. She waved her hand and opened her window, she went towards the friends menu and touched the add friends button, she typed in Dani(Beauty), JohnSlayer, Haxs, and Asuna. In less than seconds all of her friend requests were accepted. She clicked on the message menu and started typing.
-Where the hell are you guys?! :(
-Turn around... -.-
Mei did as told and she was picked by her waist, she was raised upwards and started spinning, John had a strong grip on her as they spun like a scene taken from a cliche movie. Haxs stood behind them smiling, then he walked towards Dani and poked her right cheek, a window opened and he clicked "Add Friend with Dani(Beauty)?" Then he clicked the YES button and smiled.
"Now everytime you worry about me send me a message." Haxs turned around and walked towards a tree, Dani noticing his wolf coat.
"Thats awesome!" She exclaimed, most people around her turned to look at her "Umm, your coat." She ran at Haxs and rubbed her cheek on his coat "its so smoooth." She whispered