The Story of Red Player Kyle

by TbirdGT500

A one shot from 4 hours of work put because of passion for this anime. Kyle is a player from North America, once the news breaks of them being trapped. He lives the life of an outcast that cannot accept help from anybody. After months of ridicule and built-up frustration. He has an unfortunate incident with the Aincrad Liberation Force. Please enjoy!

I never was a junkie for these kinds of games. I was always more a jock.

In the real world, I went to the wieght room for about 2 hours a day, every day. I only ever got in to these games 'cuz I would want a break form senior high school life. I never played on and english game. I just got used to the boxes that would trun up instead of letters, and kept playing alone. I played this really old one at first. It wasn't anything like Sword Art Online. No 3D gear, no special equipment, just a good old MMO of the early 2000's. Walking around with an RPG fighting system: it was great. It was the hype actually for SAO that killed it off though. After that I had to go with the flow, 'sides, When my friend Jeremy gave me his free invite into the beta, I couldn't resist that chance.

Thats how I got here; thats how I became one of the 10 000, who would come to realize that this...this was no game.

I got the server announcement like everybody else: warped to the first town and told directly by the game maker himself. I couldn't understand I word he said at first, but soon, the game actually sent me a translated script after the mirrors took their effect. I got to read the last sentences of the first paragraph when the pandemonium set in,,,

"If you Hp drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost. And simultaneously, the Nerve gear will destroy your brain".

We couldn't believe it... we didn't believe it. How could we? When did this ever happen? When did a game ever kill you for real if you died in the game?! Didn't they see this coming?! DIDN'T THE GOVERNMENTS CHECK TO SEE IF THIS COULD HAPPEN AND STOP IT?! DID THEY NOT CARE?!

It became pretty clear to me when Jeremy died that it was real. He couldn't accept it. He kept muttering "this isn't real", as he went running into a mob of monsters. I told him to stop, I couldn't reach him in time! When the last slash to him was coming, he was screaming for me, screaming for his only friend that he had "Kyle... Kyle HELP ME"! ...I...i couldn't get to him.

From there, I solo'd the game. I was an english speaking player in an Asian game. Everyone around me talked in Japanese. Their was nobody who would party with me, even if I could get that across. One time I did get in, and we were taking on the 3rd level boss. I did my best to pay attention, I blocked every attack I could with my shield. It was when I guarded against 6 monster at once that I missed an order...one order...that was all it took. One by one, they all fell infront of me after that.

...i never party'd with anyone after that. Soon, I didn't see people walking around. I feel like I was in a crowd of real people in town squares...I just felt like their were a bunch of empty shells...walking around me. It was as if I lived on a different plane of existence.

I used every trick Jeremy taught me, how to find the best spots, how to find th brokers...it wasn't my first time playing an MMO. I was glad spent any time at all before this. Eventually, all the people around me started shunning me and calling me this name. The only english word I ever heard out of them; "Beater"... really simple, but the tone behind it powerful. I got used to the shells-I mean, other players calling me that. I ignored completely, I figured out from some odd faces in the crowd, that It wasn't just me. Some looked like they kinda understood my treatment. But they never could muster the strength to speak up...i don't blame them.

Then they started calling me this other name, one in full on Japanese. This one didn't just sting, it pierced right through me. The wall I built for lynching were only good against words I knew or could understand. But this one...they DELIBERATLY called me this name! I never could figure out what it meant. Once I finally lashed out, it only made it worse. I got lynched outta towns by shells shouting and screaming this name at me "Gaijin, Gaijin"! It hurt like hell and I didn't know why! I couldn't call 'em shells anymore, shells don't run after you looking like bloodthirsty animals! For two months it went on! I had to avoid all of the big towns! Then one day, on a day after I spent 2 whole days sitting underwater in a swamp to avoid a mob. I came to a little town, their was this one guy...decked out in full green armor. Who decided to slap me, and call me that... I snapped right there. I threw him into a tavern, and dared him to say it again. I think he say my level when I marched in from out side through their broken door. Because now he was scared, I kept saying the same thing, in the most angry and bloodthirsty tone I had ever had. "say that again...say that again..." I spoke clear English, no Japanese, and he was stuttering to get out the only bits of English or English he could muster. I was to angry to care. I punched him, hard in the face. I could see marker for dazed on him after that. I didn't see his health drop by half. I threw him again, this time into the back wall. I kept punching him and punching him, shouting and shouting! I didn't pay attention to his HP bar, or my marker going to more and more darker shades of orange. When I gave him one last punch, one last powerful shot of rage...he sent him through the wall, and I saw his HP...hit zero.

I was shocked, I remember looking at my hands and seeing blood on them, I knew their wasn't, the game didn't have blood, but I couldn't shake the picture. My hands were dripping with blood! I checked my marker, it was pure red. I looked around in panic, and saw another guy in green; orange spiky hair, a small goatee, looked in his 20's. I saw him in posters, and I knew he was the guilds leader. Back then he was still small. He wasn't the head of the fearsome Aincrad Liberation Force! He stood there for afew seconds, his red eyes, grew to angry slits, and he swung at me. Screaming as he just grazed my head as I dodged in time...i ran away.

I was so scared and horrified back there. It started my days of running away as a fugitive. I got chased by guilds of all kind. I never got a break, tried so hard not to fight them. I couldn't run fast enough to avoid them all. I was a defensive tank. I couldn't outrun one-handed light armored swordsmen. I had to fight them...there was no choice. One time the fighting was so intense, and I was so frustrated by constantly running, from either strong monsters or fast players. I fought so hard and lost myself. I ended up knocking this one fast guy flat onto a big tree, and just as I was about to swing my axe, his face lit up with fear... I stopped dead in my tracks; it sent me back right to that one ALF member. I remembered the bloodthirsty rage I had, and I realized... it was happening again. I backed up, horrified at myself, and looked at my hands, they went from straight clean in my mind to oozing with blood. My heart twisted itself at that moment, it opened my eyes in terror. And I once again ran out of fear for the mob

for the next year, I ran through woods and caves. Day after day, week after week, month after month I avoided all civilization in the game. I ate nothing but raw meat, and slept of the cold ground of every cave, forest, and swamp. The hunting for me quelled a bit. They only guild that ever came after me was the infamous laughing coffin. I guess the kill bounty I had of 4,000,000 Col I had from the ALF wasn't as enticing as it used to be if the Holy Dragon Alliance and Kight's of Blood Oath weren't coming. Still, those murderers would come at me from time to time. Was a bittersweet feeling to know I wasn't accepted by other murdered as well. I lived like a savage, my armor's durability soon ran out after the fist 3 months... I trucked on, day after day. I got poison after poison after poison for eating even rotten flesh. Paralysis was the worst. Their were days when I had to sit there as buzzards, and other monsters would pick at me. They never did killed me, after awhile, I built up a resistance of some kind, and for some strong ones I could drag my frozen body away or limp. I stayed clear of top floors, if I ever met a member of the lead group again...i was doomed.

On and on it went, getting poisoned, nothing but rags on my back. After 6 months I let my last and most precious heavy item run out of durability...my shield...the one that had saved my skin for over 10 floors...it vanished. All I had left, was a locket of a party member from way back at the 3rd floor, and the necklace from the guy I killed from the ALF. I promised myself I take those items to friends or families, and give them back when I stood trial. If the ALF or the Laughing Coffin had their way with me though. I wouldn't live past this games end.

After a year and two months of running like a wounded animal, I got a really bad disease. Every cough felt like it was trying to snap my spine in half. I coughed and wheezed my way to abandoned shack, where I dropped on my back on the wooden floor. I heard my heart slow down, watch my HP bar drop closer to zero, and closed my eyes. I embraced my end from this suffering. I didn't have any will left to live...

Then a face appeared, the face of the ALF member whose blood was still on my hands as my mind refused to stop conjuring. He smiled at me, and reached out his hand, and I reached out to him. I thought he'd come to take my soul, but just then. He vanished, and I woke up the the bright light of a house ceiling.

I couldn't believe it, I just looked at the bright torch on the wall. It's flame reaching out its hand, and gesturing me to come closer to its warm and inviting smile. I looked down at where I laid, I saw this one sheet, and immediately came out of my mouth "sheets...actual soft sheets". I heard someone burst out laughing from another room. The person came out, clutching his chest. He was small, he looked like he was 12 or 13. A little kid with no signs of masculinity, exactly half my size. He is vice told me he had yet to hit puberty as well. When he finally calmed down, wiped his nose, which had exploded with snot from his burst, and said "sorry about that".

Sorry!?... did he just saw Sorry?! I didn't believe it. He said it with a clear Japanese accent, but he said "sorry", I clear English and with the proper vowel sounds. I couldn't believe it! I looked at him in awe, and I was in for more. "It's not everyday I get somebody who said that. I guess you've been homeless for along time". He went on as my eyes and jaw dropped wide open, he walked over to me. "you had a really nasty disease there. That kind of thing takes months to get bad...how long had you been in the forest dungeons? Your lucky I just gotten my medicine level high enough, let alone that I was there when you broke down the shack door of my-". He stopped as he noticed my face. He giggled, and right there, I no longer saw this Japanese kid, I saw an angel. An angel of mercy who came and saved me...why I would never know. I grabbed him and hugged him. "Thank You! Thank you ya' friggin angel. Thank You"! He then muttered in a struggling tone "Hey mister...your squeezing me"!

We sat outside his house on his front bench. It was a really small house. Like a townhouse in the middle of endless fields. The wooden bench that we sat on by the door was all of a patio it had. We sat there eating bread looking at the sunset. "So how long have you been wandering through this floor'? He asked me. "Just short of a month" I replied. "I've been living that way for a year now". "Wow" he exclaimed, "so you've been on the run for that long"? He looked at me in awe. "Yea, got used to getting poisoned by raw foods so much I guess I never noticed the disease. I can't remember how long it was since I even tasted bread". I took another champ at the loaf I had "I'm glad", he said. He then turned bright sparkling green eyes away from me, and looked at his bread. "You know, and your marker as you broke the door, I thought you were a thief, and then I saw your level. It scared me to death. A level like that I had never seen so high. It was like you were a lead group member. But..." he tore off a piece of the loaf's crust. He looked down and pathetic, like one should take pity on him. "when I saw you, on the ground, wheezing as you closed your eyes...you looked like a dying animal. Your eyes told something totally different than your marker, it look like you had lost all hope. You were just wanting to die. I had never seen anybody, especially your size, look that desperate". He had turned his head up and smiled as he said that last part. "I never thought somebody like you could look so helpless, I'm used to always being the pathetic one... I could never let somebody like that die there". I could get an idea of where he was coming from, small guys like him probably don't get much respect. I could see a few scars on his arms, and since the game didn't give you those. I figured it had to be from the other world.

"So how did you manage to lug my fat butt over here"? I asked with a hint of disbelief in my tone. "it wasn't easy" he said, well no friggin-duh, I could figure that. "You weighted like a ton. I thought I had gone over 3 hills when I got to my doorstep. Luckily you didn't have any armor on...why don't you, did it..."? "Yep", I said "durability ran out and it shattered like glass. Never could get another shred". "aah" he said, lowering his voice, I could tell he was getting a bit down.

"so...how did it happen"? I looked at him puzzled, and he was looking over my head. "Oh" I said as I clued in "that", the red marker above me still hovered, like a beacon. "Well, as you know, I don't speak Japanese, I found myself solo'ing my entire time. When people saw me, and probably saw the text boxes that showed up instead of my name. They stepped away, and shunned me. After awhile of calling me a "beater", they started calling me something else. Something I couldn't understand, a word I couldn't build up walls for. It was like a shot to the heart. A member of the ALF had decided to call me that in a small town. I snapped, and gotten consumed by this bloodthirsty rage...i threw him into a building, and without realizing the damage I was doing... I beat him to death". I had said it, and I looked at my hands, and the last piece of bread I had. Its bottom was stained with blood. "I lived like a runaway criminal that day, I ran from the ALF, The Knights of the Blood Oath, the Holy Dragon Alliance... any guild who wanted the 4,000,000 Col bounty the ALF put up to kill me. I had ran out of horror. I looked at my hands like I am now, and though I knew the game didn't leave blood behind, I saw it dripping from my hands. Everyday, I wished I had never been in this game. That cooled down a bit, and I now wish I could just get arrested and brought to trail. But the ALF would never have it that way with me. They want me dead, and they along with the Laughing Coffin have tried hard for it".

He looked at me in shock, "You... You killed somebody"? He looked wide-eyed and shocked. I forget that the marker is never really red. Its actually orange, but I looked at him, and he was shocked, probably scared out of heck. "Yea...I did..." and I stood up, turned to him, and got down on my knees, and put my hand of hid shoulder "And when you found me, was ready to die. I saw the very guy I killed reach out towards me, and I was sure he was there to take my soul, and then I woke up, and I found myself saved by you. You saved me at my most pathetic moment of my life. I was sick and tired of running before I fell, and to hear you speak English...i thought you were angel". He blushed a bit, and I decided before any wrong feelings were taken, I'd get to my point. "Listen. I don't even know your name and here I am at your house. I owe so much I don't think I can ever repay in my life. So...i can see your uncomfortable, and I feel its only right that you decide what happens to me. If you want me to leave, I will. If you want to take me in, please; Please do"! I then gulped, as this was another possibility...and I would have to accept this if this was the case. "And if you want me to die...then you can take me anywhere...even the ALF, and I won't resi-" "Jihi"! He interrupted me very suddenly, and pulsed out as he spat it out. "what"? I said puzzled once again. "Jihi..." he said again, "It's my name, it means mercy in Japanese"... A bright smile overcame his face "and I wouldn't live up to it very much if I took you to get killed". I relaxed my shoulders, I was shaking as I thought of that. "I can teach you Japanese" he said. "You wouldn't have to walk around and solo anymore if you did, but you'd have to stay with me... and I'll need somebody to guard me when looking for herbs". I smiled "Jihi, I'm Kyle...and starting today, i'm your bodyguard for going into high levels". This was deal I didn't dare turn down. I was too glad. How could I refuse the one guy. The one guy who had forgiven me for what I had done in Sword Art Online.

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