4-Boxing Has Its Perks
Chapter 1: Logging on
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the characters involved except Dren, Hiro, Shiro, Thiro, and Iro
It was a normally sunny day in the city of Tokyo, nothing could go wrong. Walking down the street was a young man wearing a black shirt, pants, and shoes, on top of this he wore a brown leather jacket, his jet black hair was styled into anime spikes coming down on his forehead he was carrying an armload of equipment and four game cases that read 'Sword Art Online'. Today was the released of the game, it was supposedly going to be the best game ever made and Dren had pre-ordered four copies of it and purchased four nerve-gears so he could 4-box* like he always did.
*For those of you unfamiliar with game terminology boxing is when 1 person controls multiple characters at the same time, if they're really good, it may seem like each character is a different person. 4-boxing is the term used to describe someone who uses 4 characters.
Eventually he arrived at his house; making his way upstairs to his room he kicked the door open with his foot.
"Finally." He said as he set the armload down on his bed. "Let's get started."
He produced a small screwdriver from his jacket pocket and began to unscrew the nerve-gears, eventually he had his bed covered in wires, nuts, bolts, and screws. Linking the nerve-gears together he grinned as he plugged in and it powered up, displaying four screens, each taking up a quarter of what was supposed to be the main screen.
"Now that that works, it's time to get started." He said as he opened four disk trays on his computer nearby. Four monitors had been set up, each linked to a different tower. He inserted his four Sword Art Online disks and closed the trays, the screens each lit up with an assortment of windows as the installation process began. Dren waited a few moments before the computers beeped signaling the termination of the process, each brought up the home page of Sword Art Online and he smiled to himself as he put on his nerve gear. Lying down on his bed he stated the activation code.
"Link Start!"
A multicolored flash of light appeared on all four screens; soon he appeared in a large anteroom. Four copies of himself appeared and they grinned at each other.
"Success!" They called at once.
Soon the game took over and outfitted each character with basic starting equipment. One of the Dren's was equipped with a red shirt/chest-plate another with a blue shirt/chest-plate, the third a yellow shirt/chest-plate, and the fourth a green shirt/chest-plate. Each had a short-sword strapped to his waist.
A/N: Think of what Kirito started with, only change the color of the shirt piece that was under the armor.
Each Dren looked himself over before nodding; waving their left hands they opened the customization window. The red Dren scrolled through until he found a design he liked, selecting it his body changed as his hair turned white and was bound in a small samurai ponytail. Blue Dren selected a short-cropped hair style, yellow Dren picked a calm-devout look to his hair and green Dren choose a sleek look that made him look suspicious.
Once their hairstyles had been selected another screen popped up asking for a name. Red Dren entered Hiro, Blue typed Shiro, Green Thiro, and Yellow Iro.
"Character creation complete, prepare to enter Aincrad." A game voice said
The group looked at each other before a light appeared in the shape of a doorway. They walked toward it entering the world of Sword Art Online.
When the light faded the group was standing in the square of a town, all around them they saw NPC's and players. The players were discussing the game and giving tips; the NPC's were going about their jobs or advertising their goods.
"Alright." Hiro said turning to the others. "Check starting gold."
A/N: Sorry for so many of these, I assume that in Virtual Reality RPG most boxing players might talk to their characters to keep up the ruse that they're boxing, at least some of the younger ones like Dren who like to play it that they're 4 different people.
The group swung their hands through the air opening their inventory menu. Each stated he had 150 gold. They closed the menus with a swipe before looking around.
"I wonder where the armor and weapon shops are." Hiro asked
"Over here." A voice called to them
The group turned to see a red clad-man and a black-clad teenager, the red-armor man was waving to them.
They turned and walked through the crowded street toward the pair.
"Hello, who are you?" Hiro asked
"I'm Klein" The man said with a grin, putting a thumb to his chest, he had long red hair that came down to his neck and a red and yellow striped headband.
"And him?" Shiro asked nodding toward the youth behind him
Klein looked back at him, and when nothing was said, nudged him.
"I'm Kirito." The youth replied stubbornly, he had long black hair and stern looking eyes.
The group introduced themselves. "This is the weapon shop?" Thiro asked
"It is." Klein replied
"The cheapest weapons in the game are sold here, perfect if you don't want to have to use the short-sword you're given to start." Kirito explained
"Must've done your research." Hiro said jokingly
"No, I was a Beta-Tester for the game."
The four clones widened their eyes at this. "Really?"
Kirito nodded "If you'll excuse us we've got training to do."
Klein nodded. "Keep in touch." He said as Kirito led him through the crowd
Hiro looked the group over. "Alright." He pointed at himself "Warrior" Then at Shiro "Wizard" then at Thiro "Thief" and finally at Iro "Cleric"
They nodded "Go get your equipment"
Hiro stepped into the weapon shop first, seeing a wide-variety of weapons on display he walked up to the NPC's shopkeeper and asked for a broad-sword.
The shopkeeper produced a plain, generic broad-sword, stating it was a 1 or 2 handed weapon, good for slicing through armor, but not as good as great-sword. Hiro bought it for 25 gold pieces. He left the shop with the broad-sword strapped across his back. He stepped into the armor shop next and asked around until he found a suit of chain-plate armor. He dyed it red and set off, the chain clinking against the outer-plate of his armor.
He sat down at the fountain in the center of the town and waited. Soon Shiro appeared; he was using a quarter-staff as a walking stick and was wearing a long blue robe.
"Apparently there isn't magic in this game, it's been replaced with a thing called sword skills which players attain through quests or level up."
"Oh, well that kind of sets things back a little." Hiro stated
Thiro appeared next, he was wearing a green leather jerkin and a green half-face mask that was bound around his mouth, on his waist were two daggers.
"You can dual-wield in this game?" Hiro asked
"No, daggers are all off-handed in this game, and according to the game manual any offhanded weapon can be equipped into the main hand slot, and since it was designed as offhand this doesn't interfere with you using it in main hand."
Iro was the last to appear, wearing a suit of armor like Hiro's, only dyed yellow, he was hefting a large war-hammer.
"It turns out there's no magic in this game"
"We already know." Hiro stated
"But I did find these." He said handing them each two red healing crystals. "I found a few group healing crystals as well." He said holding up two purple colored crystals
"Excellent, looks like we're ready to set off." Hiro said
A bell rang in the town and they looked up to see it was late afternoon.
"Strange, it was noon when we got here. We can't have taken that long to gather equipment."
Immediately they were all warped to the town square. There they noticed that all the other players in the game were there as well.
"What is this?" Hiro asked
"Hiro!" Klein's voice called to them
"Klein! Kirito!" Hiro called, spotting them in the crowd.
They regrouped and they asked Kirito for information.
"I don't know this didn't happen in the Beta." Kirito said
"Maybe it's an opening day thing?" Klein suggested
"Maybe." Kirito said ominously
Their questions were answered as a large figure appeared in the sky above them.
"Hello and welcome. SAO players." The figure called to them slowly "Some of you have probably noticed by now that the main menu lacks the log-out button… this isn't a bug in the game."
The crowd gasped "I repeat this isn't a bug in the game. It is a feature."
"A-a feature?" Klein asked
"I've also taken the liberty of adding an item to your item storage, if you could please activate it now."
Hiro opened his inventory along with his clones, they found an item labeled 'mirror'
"What is this?" Hiro asked as he summoned it.
Klein began to yell and the group looked over to see him be engulfed in a blue light, these began popping up all over the place until the entire plaza was alight. When the light stopped the group looked around to see complete strangers everywhere.
"What the?" Hiro asked
"Who are you?" Klein asked him
Hiro looked up to see someone who looked similar to Klein "Who are you?" Hiro asked
Somewhere nearby people began to shout about appearances changing and the group figured it out.
"This is what I look like in real life." Hiro said looking in the mirror
"Hiro… there-there are four of you!" Klein shouted
Hiro turned to see Shiro, Thiro, and Iro had reverted to their original statuses as well.
"Why would anyone do this?" Klein asked
"I bet he'll tell us in a minute" Kirito said pointing to the floating stranger.
The figure revealed himself to be Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of the Nerve gear and Sword Art Online. He told the players that if anyone in the real world attempted to remove their Nerve gear the headset would release a microwave that would fry the player's brain, killing them in Real Life, and if their HP dropped to 0 then the same result would occur. The only way to escape would be to clear all 100 floors.
Soon after he disappeared, a moment went by before the plaza erupted into pandemonium. Kirito led Klein and Dren's clones out of the plaza.
"What's going on?" Hiro asked
"I don't know, but I know that we'll need to move to the next town. Now." Kirito explained
"What, why?"
"You heard Kayaba, we'll need to grow stronger if we're to beat the game, and if we stay here we'll be competing with the other players for gold, experience, and items. The resources in this game are limited." Kirito explained "If we rush on ahead, we'll be the first to get the money and experience from the other quests."
"Kirito… I can't, I waited in line for ten hours with my friends from another game." Klein said "They're still out there in the plaza."
Kirito sighed. "I can't take all four of you Hiro, I'm sorry."
"It's alright, I'll handle myself, though I have a favor to ask, please don't tell anyone about my 4-boxing. I don't want anyone to claim I'm a cheater."
Kirito and Klein nodded before Klein turned to leave, as did Kirito, but Klein turned back around "Kirito!"
Kirito stopped, turning slightly. Klein was silent and Kirito went to leave again "Kirito!"
He turned to him this time.
"You look pretty cute, you know that?"
"Yeah, and that unkempt face of yours suits you really well!" Kirito called before turning and taking off
Klein turned and left to go find his friends, leaving Dren alone in the alley. He sighed before rushing off into the fields to train.