Prologue

"Flashback"

'Why…?'

The red humanoid dragon says that to himself. He has green orbs on his chest and hands and has green eyes and a yellow spike at the arms and legs. He also had a long tail with a trident like shape at the end. On his back looks like thrusters. Other parts of the body has some sharp edges to it.

'Why does this have to be this way?'

He sadly says this to himself as looks at the creature that was once one of his closest friends in Accel World, Chrome Falcon.

…Now known as Chrome Disaster.

With Chrome's chrome-silver blade, several places of the edge that look like a sawtooth, stabbed into the ground, he stares menacingly at the dragon avatar.

Chrome no longer resembles the kind young boy or the simple Chrome Falcon with his round helmet that the dragon avatar used to know. He's an object of destructive impulses with a heinous silhouette. There are even more sharp edges than the dragon avatar. All of the edges of his armor are extremely sharp. His fingers are sharp as well. It's unbelievable that they were both the same levels.

The dragon avatar and Chrome Disaster are in the Unlimited Neutral Field, during the Purgatory stage. The same stage where they last saw each other. Right now they are far away any other players or save points.

And right now…

…They are waiting for the countdown to reach zero.

…The countdown for their Sudden Death Duel.

He had no choice. He had tried everything to convince Chrome to stop this madness, but he won't listen.

So, the only way to stop Chrome Disaster and save him from this nightmare is by forcefully uninstalling his program, Brain Burst.

'…This is was supposed to be just a game…right?…It was supposed to be just for fun...right…?'

The dragon avatar seems as he was about to cry.

'…But why?'

'Why did something as horrible as this happened!?'

The countdown reaches to five.

'How can I have fun right now!?'

The dragon avatar has gone through severe training and grab hold and almost risked of losing all of his points to get powerful Enhanced Armaments just for the sake of defeating his friend.

'This is the only way to pay him back.'

'After all…It's might fault that all this happened! Even if, everybody tells me it's not true.'

Both the dragon avatar and Chrome Disaster get in a fighting stance.

'I can't go back now! This is for Chrome's sake!'

The dragon avatar shouts out loud, so that his friend can hear him.

"Chrome Falcon! If you can still hear me, then listen! I will defeat you! Because you are my friend and the toughest opponent I have ever faced, I will not hold back!"

The countdown reaches zero.

The blazing letters that flared up said…

Duel Start!

Around the time when Silver Crow became a Burst Linker…

His name is Red Dragon. An Originator. A legendary Burst Linker who has traveled almost the entire Unlimited Neutral Field except for the Imperial Palace and can fight on par with the Pure Color Kings despite being at Level 5. Everybody admires and fears him. Holds the titles of Dragon King and Red Emperor.

He is also famous for his two legendary Enhanced Armaments, [STAR BLASTER] and [CYBER DRAGON]. (Though he is said to have a few support weapons with him.)

[STAR BLASTER] is said to have firepower that can wipe out an entire town if fully charged, which takes about an hour.

[CYBER DRAGON] is an armament said to be on par with the Seven Arcs. A mutation Enhanced Armament that has a will of its own and has many functions. Red Dragon refers to [CYBER DRAGON] as his only partner. Together they had fought against the Pure Color Kings and Chrome Disaster. Because it's a glitch in the system, the administrators were supposed to remove it, but for some reason they let it go except for a price. It's the only Enhanced Armament that has a level up system. The max level is 9 like a Burst Linker, but the amount of burst points to level is much higher than a Burst Linker. For example, Red Dragon had to use more than 1000 Burst points to level [CYBER DRAGON] form level 1 to level 2. This is one of the reasons why Red Dragon is still only at Level 5 because he prefers to level his partner up instead. Currently it's at Level 4.

Red Dragon has a lot of influence to the Accel World. He unofficially owns some of the neutral zones in some of the legions, so players can enjoy their fights. He is not part of any legions. He is in good relations with all of the Kings, except for Yellow Radio and White Cosmos.

Rumors also say that Red Dragon is one of the few people who has seen White Cosmos because he was also the only one who partnered with her before she created her legion. There are even rumors of them being lovers. Their relationship is unknown after Black Lotus's exile.

When Red Rider left Accel World, everybody thought that Red Dragon will take his place, but he refused.

He stated that he only had three goals.

His first goal is to defeat his rival White Dragon. White Dragon is rumored to be Red Dragon's first opponent.

His second goal is to obtain the worst Enhanced Armament in history, [THE DISASTER]. Nobody knows the reason why. The only thing that's known is that Red Dragon has fought against the four Chrome Disasters, many of the fights were one vs. one. He caused the termination of the first and third Chrome Disasters, while defeating the 2nd with White Dragon and the 4th with the Pure Color Kings. His desire for it is to the point of obsession. Red Dragon did say that the armor holds important memories, even if they're only painful in them. He feels that taking care of the armor is his duty and atonement.

His third and final goal is to end the game Brain Burst. He claims that he must beat the game before Accel World becomes too corrupted. He said that he had fun, but the game started become painful to keep playing. There is only one question that all the players are wondering: how can he beat the game if he has no interest of reaching level 10?

Why does Red Dragon show no support of Accel World's existence?

His story begins from the day that he got a mysterious email that contained the Brain Burst program when he was only a first year in elementary school…

Chapter 1

"Welcome to the Accelerated World"

"An email…?"

A boy looks at his email, while eating some snacks that his mom left him.

"Anonymous…?"

His mom told him to delete any emails that looks suspicious right away because they might be junk mails or spams.

"…It shouldn't hurt to take a peek at it."

His mom won't be back for another half an hour, so there was plenty of time. As the boy has only turned eight years old recently and just about to enter his second year in elementary school, he still has the curiosity of a child despite his intelligence that rivals a junior high school student.

He touches the OPEN button in front of him.

"This is…an application?"

The email contained an application.

" …?"

To be precise it said: [Execute BB2039 . exe? YES/NO]

The email contained more information:

"Would like to try a new game that nobody knows about? This must be kept a secret from everybody except the ones who received this application otherwise this application will be forcefully be uninstalled. Warning: If you accept this application and it's successfully downloaded, then your current reality will be completely destroyed, and rebuilt in a shape you can't imagine. If you don't accept it or the application isn't downloaded, then forget you ever saw this message."

"A game huh?"

This got the boy really interested. He's always been a fan of games for as long as he can remember. His favorites were especially the online games. It seems this game was the same kind. The boy realizes that he hasn't been playing games recently. He also has received emails that advertise games before, but this is the first time he's received something like this. Of course he failed to pay attention to the warning about his reality since he's still just a kid.

"It shouldn't hurt to try."

This all happened in a split second after he read the email. Without any hesitation, he pushed the YES button.

At that moment, the boy almost fell out of his sit because a huge flame erupted in his full view. He thought that the flame was going to consume him. The flame soon transforms into a logo. Its design sense was certainly not new. It's harshness reminded him of the late last century, of a certain popular VS fighting game.

The words that appeared was - BRAIN BURST.

The application started to download into his Neuro Linker.

The installation continued for about 30 seconds. It was a huge application even for the Neuro Linker.

The indicator bar under the burning title logo finally reaching 100%, the boy unconsciously gulped because of the anticipation that he has no idea where its coming from.

'…Do I have what it takes to play this game?'

The indicator disappeared along with the logo as if it was being burnt. The remaining orange fire displayed in small English font the message:

'Welcome to the Accelerated World'

The message was soon split like fireworks.

This, is how the boy met the single program that would let him find many irreplaceable comrades and teammates while changing his reality forever.

Author's Notes

The next chapter:

The first fight in Accel World.

Note that this is an alternate universe. I will be using story plots based on the canon, popular theories, and my theories. Don't expect this story to go 100% like the canon. Maybe 90% or 95%.

If you enjoyed reading this, then please read my other stories as well.