***My first fic, here goes absolutely nothing! Feedback would be very nice.***

"And, I think we're done!"

Keith's desk was complete mess. Notebooks on a variety of subjects were scattered on it, open on various pages. On those pages were either dates, names, key terms or mathematical formulas, scraps of paper filled his wastebin. He decided it was better to organized the desk now before his foster mother decides to give him an earful about why he needs to keep things organized later on.

"Yeah...I think we've both studied as much as we can, Haruka-san."

"Now that still sounds very awkward coming from you, Keith-san."

Reclined on his bed while he was hunched over the notes, trying to sort them out, was the only daughter of the Iori household, Haruka. A healthy friendship formed between the two when he first arrived in Tokyo for the exchange student program. She was, after all, the one who dragged him to his foster home after his first day as an exchange student. The girl with the shoulder-length hair and the gigawatt smile whose optimism and laziness knew no bounds. This morning, she had volunteered to help him study for the upcoming test mainly because she hadn't studied for it yet.

"I've only been in Japan for the 2 months, don't expect big things from me just yet. In all honesty, I still have some trouble keeping up with class. It's not that I can't read Kanji, it's just that I'm slow reading it and I still need to ask people to repeat what they say every now and then."

"Well aren't you glad that you were sent to a foster family that knows how to speak English then?"

"Yes, I am. Except that I'm pretty sure my university would take that into consideration, the ability to at least communicate in English."

Except that being in a foster family wasn't on the agenda in the first place. The dormitory he was suppsoed to stay in was already full and his university had to find him a suitable place to stay. Thankfully one of the admin had connections and was able to get into an agreement with the Iori household to let him stay with them for the duration of 3 months. Living with a girl and going home with her every day made him the object of his fellow transferees' envy. He enjoyed bathing in it.

"Communicate in English PERFECTLY then AND willing to teach you Nihongo while you're here. Anyway, you're doing a good job learning our language, keep it up."

"Thanks."

"So how much longer are you going to stay here?"

"What? Afraid that you might lose your English mentor? I'll still be around for another month or so, but I'll be sure to sign up for the next exchange program and beg the admin to send me here again."

"Aren't you afraid that you'd lose the single most interesting person in your entire life?"

"You're really full of yourself aren't you?"

"Not full enough, I think I need more vitamin 'me.' Oh yeah, why don't we celebrate now. I mean we've studied our morning away, that seems plenty reason to celebrate already!"

"Celebrate? When we haven't even done the tests yet."

"I helped you study, you won't get any grade lower than 100%! You have the Haruka guarantee."

"Fine then."

"Yes! I'll just go get something from my room."

With that, his partner in crime had already disappeared leaving him alone to sort out notebooks and papers and neatly stack them on one side of his desk. She returned a minute later holding two helmets in her hands. The grin on her face just seemed to stretch wider.

"What's with the head safety gear, Haruka? Are we riding a motorcycle or something?"

"No, dummy, these are called NerveGears. I thought maybe an MMORPG might help us wind down. And it's not just any MMORPG, it is a VRMMORPG. Virtual Reality!"

"VR huh? I guess we'll be playing that Sword Art Online thing?"

"Yup! Here put it on, I'll hook everything up. When you're ready, close your eyes and say 'Link Start!' and it should activate the thing."

Haruka handed him one of the NerveGears. It looked like it would be a snug fit on his head, he glanced at the clock and the display showed 12:55pm. He looked over to Haruka who was humming some sort of tune as she plugged the helmets into the free slots on the router in his room. It was placed there since it gave the best coverage throughout the house.

"Well shall we get started, Keith?"

"I guess, don't you want to just take a nap or something?"

"Normally I would but I think I can take an hour or so off my afternoon for this. The servers start up at one pm after all and this is something I've been dying to play with a friend. So, since we're both directly connected to the router and I think we both need to be lying down...I think, you wouldn't mind sharing the bed with me for an hour right?"

Keith turned red at the thought of sharing the bed with a girl, with Haruka of all people. Though he could probably brag about this to his friends and that would elevate the envy to greater heights. In any case, Haruka began setting up.

"I trust you, that's why I'm here instead of my room."

"Yeah, I'll just roll out the extra futon under my bed."

"Aww, I get the bed all to myself? Thank you!"

"Stop jumping to conclusions, Haruka."

Keith glanced over to Haruka who was already snug on his bed and had the NerveGear on.

"I'm claiming it anyway. When you finish up the prep work go look for the player named 'Stahl,' see you on the other side noob. LINK START!"

He put the NerveGear over his head and laid down on the futon on the floor. He really had intended for Haruka to use the bed after all. The visor displayed the battery status as well as the current time, 1:02pm. His room was very quiet with Haruka already logged into the game, everything was shut down except for the two NerveGears. There was nothing else left to do.

"Link start."

It felt like he was freefalling down a tube as solid lines of colors just zoomed past him, with a blank white space as the background. The system began what looked like a check of his five senses and all of them had a green 'OK' on them. A prompt for language was displayed and he had settled on the language he was comfortable in 'English.' At the very least he could understand the game, even if he might have some difficulty understanding the players. Then he was prompted to log in with the account he had made just minutes ago. Finally he had been asked to create his own avatar for the game as well as name him.

'Steel.' The system accepted his name for the 5 foot 11 eleven somewhat tanned man with the clean shaven face and the black head of slicked back hair. Steel wore a green shirt over dark brown pants and similarly dark brown boots. His eyes matched the color of his shirt and the face wasn't all that remarkable, so much so that he could be mistaken for a normal mook.

WELCOME TO SWORD ART ONLINE!

He was plunged into a tunnel of light so bright he had to squeeze his eyes shut so that he wouldn't blind himself before he could try out whatever this virtual reality business was. After the sensation of movement had passed Steel slowly opened his eyes to find himself in the middle of a circular plaza. Streams of blue light opened up near him and as those streams faded, people took their place. He looked down to see his body and moved his limbs around. Everything felt so real, the excitement brought an unconscious smile to his lips.

Haruka wanted to celebrate by starting an adventure he guessed. Not that he was against it at all, Just knowing that he was in a different world and embarking on all sorts of adventures was enough to wash away the bland taste in his mouth after studying for 5 hours on end. She had told him to look for a player named Stahl but maybe that could wait until after he was done being a tourist and getting amazed by almost everything that's happening around him.

The fact that he was probably the only English speaker in this game didn't seem to matter much. He could understand bits and pieces of what the others were saying anyway, enough to get the main idea and everything. He was also confident in his ability to hold some semblance of a conversation as well so it wouldn't be that much of a problem plus he had Haruka as a crutch anyway.

Steel felt a hand literally crash against his back, almost flooring him. It seemed like someone wanted a fight so early in the game, he would be happy to oblige them. He spoke in somewhat broken japanese.

"What's your...problem?"

Steel found himself face to chest with a man who towered over him, his voice began to falter. He had a well groomed beard, a chiseled jaw and his hair seemed to be tied into a neat STALLIONTAIL. Ponytail couldn't even qualify as an understatement. The man was also muscular as if the tree trunks he called his arms wasn't any obvious indication. He was clad in a leather vest worn over a white shirt, dark brown pants and boots as well as fingerless gloves that covered like half his forearm. His arms crossed his chest and his face had a somewhat mischievous smile on it. The man responded with a booming voice and perfect English.

"Glad you could make it noob. I didn't expect myself to be so superior that you'd parody my character's name. Steel."

"Ha-Haruka?!"

"In the digital flesh, but around here I'm Stahl so keep it that way, Steel. Anyway let's get you geared up."

Steel watched as Stahl began moving his hands in the air infront of him as if he was keying in something on a touchpad or a keypad. Soon a prompt popped up in the space in front of him.

The player Stahl would like to request a trade.
[Yes] [No]

"We haven't got all day, Steel, accept the trade so I can dump my low level gear onto you. Unless of course you want to fight with that tiny knife of yours?"

Steel pressed the [Yes] button and another window showed up. Stahl on the other hand, began moving his hands in the air again and then some items appeared on the window as well as a green check beside all of them. He scanned the list to find some basic armor as well as a sword and some potions and 50 cor. He had nothing to give in return and just pressed the [Confirm] button on the lower part of the window.

Another prompt came up that said that he has acquired the said items from Stahl.

"Where did you get all this, Ha-Stahl?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I was a CBT player. So I already have a headstart. Anyway equip those items and let me show you the ropes. I'll train you in the most Spartan way you can imagine, Steel."