New fic. A what if story of Aincrad, but I'm hoping to put a spin on the story, it will feature characters from ALfheim Online and maybe further but I'll try not to use from after ALO, the story is told in Kirito's POV. I do not own SAO it belongs to Reki Kawahara.

Chapter 1

KIRITO

Beep. Beep. Beeppp.

The machine droned signaling the young man awakening. I opened my eyes to the real world, unconsciously I raised my hand to my face, but the helmet I wore obstructed my hand from running through my hair. Kazuto had a broad grin on his face, he was going to do it, no matter what Kazuto determined he was going to play Sword Art Online when it would be officially released, and he was going to beat the bloody game, although the thought of losing all his precious EXP and equipment saddened him considering he was on level 18, he shrugged it off and waited patiently for the nurse to get the equipment off him.

I was seeing her a lot more, Suguha that is, she kept on bugging me about SAO, she wanted to know everything at first I was suspicious, another one of her plots to get them to become 'friends', but eventually I found myself talking to her about the amazing VRMMORPG, it was my way of preparing for the day I returned to that world, smiling at that thought, I checked my clock and sighed, tomorrow was the day that I would return to that world and I needed to get sleep, and with the anticipation eating me up I finally succumbed to sleep.

The house was quiet that morning and he couldn't ask for anything better, the reporter on his computer kept gushing about the game, it was been hyped a lot, but the hype was not empty words, I noticed that time was being extremely slow, it was mocking me, 'you would never be the best' it said 'ya right' I concluded, the new players were bound to have a harder time clearing the game at the beginning, he knew that and frankly he didn't care, his plan was simple, get in and solo the game, easy as pie.

Finally the accursed clock hit 13:00, making sure everything was in order I said the magic words "Link Start", then the beautiful light that meant freedom came.

Account: *********

Password: ******

Kirito (M)

Yes

After 3 hours in the game Kirito realized one thing, plan solo the game was not going well, first fault, he had picked up a follower, Klein and he was as lost as he predicted, the wild boar was playing with the newbie and he found it hard to keep himself from laughing that aside he made a friend on the first day which was not planned but nothing ever goes as planned in this virtual world.

Although Klein was inexperienced he caught on quickly and time rolled bye, as this time was synchronized with the real world, Klein was ready to go and get dinner, they never lasted I thought gloomily.

"What's this…? There's no log out button." Klein said

I stopped moving my fingers and raised my head at that. "No button…? No way, look a bit closer," I said, a bit confused. The swordsman opened his eyes wide beneath the bandana and pushed his face closer to the menu. The rectangle, wider than it was high, had a bunch of buttons to the left and a silhouette showing what equipment you had on to the right. At the bottom of the menu, there was a «LOG OUT» button. As I was turning my head to the inventory that listed the items I had gained over hours of fighting, Klein started speaking in an unusually high voice. "It's really not there. You take a look Kirito."

I sighed as I tapped on the button on the top left to go back to the menu screen. I moved my hand down in a movement that had almost become a habit and… My body froze. It wasn't here. As Klein had said, the button that had been there during the beta test —no, even right after I'd logged on—had disappeared. I stared at the empty space for a couple of seconds then looked through the menu, making sure that it hadn't just changed its position. Klein looked up with "Right?" written on his face. "… not there, right?" "Yeah, it's not there." I nodded wordlessly already deep in thought. Klein smiled and started rubbing his chin. "Well, it's the first day so these sort of bugs could occur. Around about now, the GMs should be crying by now from the number of messages flooding in," Klein said calmly. "Is it all right for you to stand around like that? You said that you ordered some pizza, didn't you?" I asked teasingly. "Ah, that's right!"

"My anchovy pizza and ginger ale…! Why don't you call a GM? They might cut you off from their side."

"I tried, but there's no response. It's already 5:25! Hey, Kirito! Isn't there some other way to log out?"

My face became rigid. I felt a groundless fear send a chill down my back. "No… there's none. If you want to log yourself off, you have to use the menu. Apart from that, there's no other way." "That's impossible… there's got to be something!" Klein suddenly started shouting as if he was denying my statement. "Return! Log out! Escape!"

But of course nothing happened. There were no voice commands in SAO of that description. After Klein shouted this and that and even jumped around, I spoke to him. "Klein, it's useless. Even the manual doesn't have anything on emergency access terminations."

"But… this is just stupid! Even if it's a bug, I can't even go back to my room and my body when I want to!" Klein shouted with a bewildered expression on his face. "Hey… what is this? It's just really weird. Right now, we can't get out of this game!" Klein gave a desperate laugh then quickly started talking again. "Wait, we can just turn the power off. Or just pull the «Gear» off." "That's impossible, both of them. Right now, we can't move our bodies… our real bodies. The Nerve Gear intercepts all the signals that our brain is sending here," I tapped the back of my head, "and reroutes them to move our avatars here." Klein slowly closed his mouth and put his hands down. We both stood speechless for a while, each lost in thought.

"… so unless the bug is fixed or somebody in the real world takes the Gear off, we have to wait it out?" Klein mumbled, still a little dazed. I silently signaled my agreement. "But I live by myself. You?" I hesitated slightly. "… I live with my mom and my younger sister, a family of three. I think that I'll be forced out of Dive if I don't come down for dinner…"

"What? H-How old is your sister?" Klein suddenly looked at me, his eyes sparkling. I pushed his head away. "You're pretty calm right now, aren't you? She's in a sports club and hates games, so she's got nothing in common with people like us… but more than that," I spread my right arm in an attempt to change the subject. "Don't you think it's weird?" "Well sure. Since it's a bug." "No, I mean it's not just a bug, it's a «can't log out» bug. It's a big enough problem to bother the operation of the game itself. Like your pizza in the real world is getting colder every second, it's an actual economical loss, isn't it?" "… a cold pizza… that's as meaningless as hard natto!" I ignored these meaningless comments and kept talking. "If it's like this, the operators should take the server down and log everyone out, whatever the cause. But… it's been 15 minutes since we first noticed this and there hasn't even been a system message, let alone taking the server down. It's just too weird." "Hmm, now that I think of it, you're right." Klein started rubbing his chin with a serious expression on his face.

Just then the bell rang in the distance then our bodies began to shimmer with a blue color 'a forced teleport?' As the blue light faded, my surroundings became clear again. However, this wasn't the sunset-lit plain anymore this was the starting point, the central plaza of the Starting City.

Gradually more people appeared then the bustling crowd of people that surrounded the two of us. For a few seconds, everyone just looked around without speaking. Then a few mumbles and mutters could be heard here and there; it started to get louder. "What's happening?" "Can we log out now?" "Can't they take care of it quickly?" Comments like these could be heard from time to time. As the players started to get more annoyed, shouts like "Is this a joke?" and "Get the hell out here, GMs!" could be heard. Then suddenly… Somebody raised his voice above all these comments and shouted. "Ah… look up!"

When I looked closely, I could see that the pattern was made up of two phrases crisscrossing each other: the words [Warning] and [System Announcement] written in red. Red slime fell from the floor above formed some sort of throne, slowly a man materialized on the seat "Greetings subjects" and with that he started cackling, the type you would hear from the bad guy in kiddies' shows.

"Who the fuck are you?!" "Get me out of here asshole" and other similar comments were heard across the plaza.

The strange man stood up from his suspended seat, amidst the shouts he cleared his voice, the crowd quieted down eager for an explanation "Where are my manners, after all the host always has too introduce himself, you, my loyal subjects shall call me your King, King Oberon" he yelled raising his hand for dramatic effect.

The crowd was silent then "what!"

"Subjects, I welcome you all to my world." He said. My world? Klein and I looked at each other, dumbfounded. The King lowered his arms and continued talking. "Here I am King. Right now, I am the only person who can control this world." "What…!?"

But the he continued nonetheless, he was a king alright a stuck up wannabe king. "I think that most of you have discovered the fact that the Log Out button has disappeared from the main menu. This is not a bug; it is all part of Sword Art Online's system." "Part of… the system?" Klein muttered brokenly.

"Until you get to the top of this castle, you cannot log out of your own free will." Then the next thing that Oberon said blew my confusion away. "… also, the disruption or dismantling of the Nerve Gear from the outside is strictly forbidden. If these things are attempted the signal sensors in your Nerve Gear will emit a strong electromagnetic pulse, destroying your brain and stopping all of your basic functions."

"On that note, there have been several cases where the relatives or friends have ignored the warnings and tried to forcefully remove the Nerve Gear. The result…" he closed his eyes with a forlorn sigh before he grinned broadly. "102, 102 players have already exited this game, and maybe the real world, when you die your consciousness returns to the nerve gear, and it won't be freed until you comrades clear the game but don't worry you'll become my test subjects and we'll have lots of fun with various experiments but even I don't know how long the Nerve Gear can hold your consciousness for" His voice was dripping with sarcasm, the sick bastard.

"Subjects, there is no need to worry about the bodies you left on the other side. As of this moment, all TV, radio, and Internet media are repeatedly reporting this situation; including the fact that there have been numerous deaths. The danger of having your Nerve Gear taken off has already all but disappeared. In a moment, using the two hours I have provided, all of you will be transported to hospitals or similar institutes and be given the best treatment. So you can relax… and concentrate on beating the game." "What…?" Then, at last, violent shouts left my mouth. "What are you saying!? Beat the game!? You want us to play around in a situation like this!?"

I kept shouting, glaring Oberon. "This isn't a game anymore!" Then he started announcing quietly with glee in his voice. "But I ask of you all to understand that Sword Art Online is no longer a simple game. It is your new reality…. From now on, any form of revival in the game will no longer work. The moment your HP reaches 0, your avatar will be gone maybe forever."

That was what an RPG was: a sort of game where you keep dying and learning and leveling up. But now you can't? Once you die, you might lose your life? And in addition… you can't even stop playing? "… no freaking way," I muttered softly. Who in their right mind would go out onto the field with those conditions? Of course everyone would just stay inside the city where it was safe.

"Subjects, there is only one way to be freed from this game. As I have said before, you must get to the top of Aincrad, the one hundredth floor, and defeat the final boss that resides there. All players still alive at that time will be immediately logged out of the game and maybe some of the others who have died or maybe not, oh this is fun!"

Again shout of protest were heard and I was really begin to hate this guy, he trapped us here to become his experiments?

"Silence peasants" Oberon said rubbing his temples, then he smiled, "before I leave let me at least give you a present for volunteering. "If you open your inventory you'll see that there is a gift from me, confirm this." As soon as I heard this, I pressed my finger and thumb together and pulled downwards. All the players did likewise and the plaza was filled with the ringing sound of bells. I pressed the Item button on the menu that appeared and the item was there, at the top of my belongings list. The name of the item—«hand mirror» Why did he give this to us?

To answer my question the avatars around me were engulfed in white light, then everyone appeared differently, and then it hit me like a bus, what they look like in reality, my finger hovered over the mirror button before I quickly withdrew it.

"And this concludes the tutorial, good luck peasants"

With that the self-proclaimed King left. Coming back to reality or second reality I searched for my new friend Klein but he had already disappeared, they never lasted, I shook my head as I began to back out of the crowd, he needed to go, no matter what he would not die, once in the nearest alley, I looked towards the end, if I go out I could like seriously get killed, my head felt like it was going to explode, this kind of situation didn't happen in reality but then again this wasn't reality, pulling myself together I began to sprint, out of the City and a wolf materialized before my adrenaline pumped body, without missing a beat I drew my blade and slashed the wolf, it shattered into polygons, I stopped when I noticed a message.

'Badge Awarded: FIRST KILL OF THE GAME' was what caught my eye among others, but I didn't smile, my life was in danger, and I was not going to die doing one of the things he loved most, a fleeting thought passed my mind, Suguha was going to be sad and so was mum. I closed his my eyes sheathed my extremely low quality blade. I probably needed another one soon, and I also need to find Argo, with a new found determination Kirito took off to find his next victim.

I can't really do much in the first chapter, it's mostly cannon, but it will deviate in Ch. 2 or 3. Oberon is wearing red instead of green, if I can get a picture of his wearing red I'll post the link or put it. R&R, comment are welcome.