4:30 am, November 6th, 2022.

Marinette couldn't sleep. She was excited. She was up all night chatting on her computer with Alya and Nino watching watching the time tick down. At 5 am sharp, they were going to experience the greatest game ever created, Sword Art class.

They were extremely lucky. Nino managed to get digital two copies online when the store when the online store first opened. He paid for one of those bots to grab it as quickly as possible. One for himself and one for his lovely girlfriend. Alya wasn't too into the whole idea, but Nino was talking about this game nonstop for the last year, keeping up with constant updates, blogs, and reviews. They all pointed to one conclusion: SAO is amazing. Alya was at least happy that she wouldn't hear about it anymore on their dates, that was part of the deal.

Marinette's father has been a fan video games since he was a child. He loved to play the old NES games with her when she was little and loved to watch her excitement and joy when playing them. So when he over heard a true virtual reality MMORPG was in development when Nino mentioned it in the bakery, he was hooked. He went one day and bought all the hardware needed to play and upgraded the internet in their home, which her mom wasn't that excited about. Unlike Nino however, Marinette's father only managed to snag a single copy without any fancy bots. He waited and just got lucky, but he was very excited. Marinette was excited too, they agreed to share a character since there was only one copy and you'd have to fly all the way to Japan for another one, which wasn't going to.

But, an unforeseen problem arose. On launch day, the servers would open at 1 pm JST, which was 5 am in Paris, which meant he couldn't play because he had to bake everything before the customers arrived at 6 am. And he couldn't let the quality of his work slip because of a game. He wouldn't recover. So Marinette was able start the game with her friends on at the launch.

Chloe scoffed at them about their excitement at school, claiming it was a waste of time and that it would make sense that they would want to escape to a different world, considering how lame their were in the real world. It look every ounce of Alya, and Nino holding her back, to not slug the pretentious brat in her face. It didn't matter what she thought, all that mattered was that they were going to be together for what was going to be a truly amazing moment in gaming history. Who knows, maybe she was really jealous of them.

They had all got ready. Checked for all updates, set up the NerveGears, calibrated for their profile. Everything was ready to go. They chatted and decided where they were going to meet in game and start their party. They started learning Japanese watching a few videos online, but they only managed to learn enough to say thing like: "Yes," "No," "Thank you," "Please," and "Where are we." But the game supported french text so they hoped it would work out. With a few minutes left before the servers were up, they thought about how crazy it was that they all got copies and how even Max missed out. They were probably the only people in France to have copies of the game and that they probably won't be able to talk to anyone else in the game, at least for a while./span/p

4:55 am

They said their goodbyes and wished good luck on the other side. Marinette grabbed the NerveGear helmet and plugged it in to the computer and turned it on. She placed it over her head and laid flat on her chase with a cat pillow under her head. She laid there and stared at the clock in the upper higher corner, waiting for it to read 5:00. She imagined the colorful world she was about to enter and the excitement ran through her skin. Her breathing slowed and when the clock struck 5, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath…

LINK START!

Authors Note: Alright, this chapter is shorter then all the rest will be, the next chapter will be up soon, just gotta fix a few things. Also, if you haven't watched SAO, it might be a good idea to watch the first 12 episodes since that's what this is based off of. I'm not going into the other story lines and this is NOT a retelling of the SAO plot but with Miraculous characters. Anyways, thanks for reading!