One of the players of Sword Art Online raised her saber behind her ear and held the position, feeling the Sword Skill charge. Once it was she let it explode as she spun her blade around. She was just one of a large group of Clearers currently fighting the Floor 49 Boss: The Sky Serpent. Floor 49 was Aztec themed with thick jungles, giant stone buildings, and ziggurats. It should have been little surprise that the Boss for it was based on the Quetzalcoatl from Aztec myth.
Lyra ducked under one of the giant green serpent's wings and slashed at it with her saber in an eight-part combo. The Boss's HP dropped from two bars to one. She grinned as she darted back and switched out with Jan, one of her Guild members. They were almost done. Once they conquered this boss then they were half-way to freedom.
Technically, Lyra and her Guild called The Red Hunters hunted red players, those whose cursors were orange from killing other players. In this death game, that was murder. When a Boss Lair was discovered though, they put their hunting aside to help defeat it and further the human frontier.
Jan ducked out after a hit to let Asuna and some of her Knights of Blood strike. The boss screeched and unfurled its wings. They were birdlike wings covered in feathers. Most were lavender and some had a red tip to them. It flared a crown-like crest of lavender feathers with a number of violet and red ones scattered in front and flapped the wings.
Asuna and her group were blown back, but lost only a negligible amount of HP as they crashed to the floor.
What was that? The boss's attack pattern was sonic screech, whipping its tail tipped with similar colored feathers to shower the enemy with deadly shards of light, or using the two swords it had had earlier. Nothing had to do with the wings other than using them to create a whirlwind.
The light from the roof of the room was slowly blotted out as it spread its wings. They were far bigger then they were before. It beat them again, forcing Lyra, Jan, and all of the other players present to drop down to avoid getting blown away. Then, impossibly, it beat them downward and lifted off the ground. All the players stared as it flew into the air. It flew around their heads and ended up clinging upside down to the roof of the room.
"H-how are we supposed to fight that now?" One of the players asked.
"This is impossible," Jan muttered. "None of the bosses can fly. It's not even fair because we can't."
"That coming from a kid trapped in a Virtual Reality world by a lunatic." Lyra snapped, "Fair really doesn't come into play."
Asuna walked up to Lyra, "It must have a weakness."
"Agreed," Lyra nodded, "Question is, how do we get to it?"
The Sky Serpent let out a roar. Its head was more like a scaled muzzle with a really long snake tongue. It was way out of reach of Sword Skills.
"A Sword Style?" Asuna asked.
Lyra shook her head. "My Guild needs to be close to it for that to work."
"We might have to pull back," one of Lyra's new Red Hunters, a young girl with a spear named Alto, told them.
Neither Asuna nor Lyra were happy with that.
"What do you think Lyra?" Asuna addressed her.
Lyra sighed and stabbed the tip of her saber into the stone floor. "Right now, it's relying completely on its ability to stay out of our reach. If we can get up to it then we should stand a chance, but so long as we're on the ground…"
Asuna grimaced but seemed to agree. They needed to pull back and re-think their strategy. The frustrating thing was that this was their second attempt to defeat The Sky Serpent, and only the first time they had managed to drop its HP to one bar. They would have to start all over again.
"Its wings are charging!" someone shouted.
The two players looked up as the Sky Serpent's wings glowed.
"Behind shields!" Asuna ordered.
The players quickly scrambled to do so as the Serpent unleashed a wave of lavender-red energy. Those under shields escaped unharmed but a few players were a fraction too slow and were picked up and thrown across the room, slamming into the wall. Their HP bars dropped to yellow. One dropped to a low red, almost disappearing altogether. Another player went to the one in the red zone and used a healing crystal on him.
A swordsman in black raced over. "Asuna, we need to rethink this. Everyone's running low on healing crystals."
"Now Kirito?" Jan demanded. "It's lost nearly all its HP!"
The Shield-Barer that had sheltered Lyra and Asuna, a Red Hunter named Xavian, nodded agreement. He kept his shield up, eyeing the boss, mace in one hand. Like his guild mates he was in his uniform of red and black.
"I don't like retreating but we're taking a beating so until we learn how to fight this thing we need to go before someone gets killed." Kirito repeated.
Lyra hated running away from fights but in this game, death in here meant death in real life. "I agree."
Alto went to catch the twins, Raiku and Aden, two of the original members of the Red Hunters.
Jan glared at her and looked up at the boss. Then his gaze traveled away from it. That's, that's it! He ran away from his Commander with a shout of "Cover me! I've got an idea to bring it down!"
"What?" Lyra turned around to look at Jan as he brushed by her. Not only was he a member of her Guild, he was her Vice Commander. And he was being a fool yet again. "Jan! Get back here! We're pulling out!" She checked Jan's HP bar in the corner of her sight. It was in the yellow, almost red.
He ignored her as he ran towards The Sky Serpent. "I figured out why the room's different!"
Lyra looked at her friend in exasperation. She couldn't believe he hadn't learned his lesson from fighting the Level 48 Boss when only a pixel of his HP was left, but what did he mean about the room?
It was a Boss Room and was circular like all the others. The only difference was that the roof of the room was flat instead of a dome and the pillars around the edges of it were closer together.
The Sky Serpent's tail started to glow and it flicked it, unleashing a rain of violet-red needles of energy. Lyra's saber lit up gold as a Sword Skill kicked in called Blade Dance. It was combo that could only be learned by sabers, and it had an unlimited number of moves. This time she used twelve moves. What it did was help her dance around the needles, slicing each one cleanly with her saber. It was useless in attacking but an invaluable defense against multiple projectile attacks. Once again, Blade Dance worked and she escaped unscratched.
Xavian ducked under his large shield again with Kirito. Asuna looked at Lyra enviously at her lack of injury. Calling them friends would not be the most accurate description.
The Sky Serpent was busy focusing on the group of warriors underneath it that Jan was able to get behind it. What he had noticed was that the Serpent was hovering near the top of the roof, right up against the pillars. He dropped his small shield so it wouldn't tangle him up and made sure he had a good grip on his longsword. His HP was too low to afford a serious hit, so he truly hoped that this worked.
When he neared one of the pillars he jumped up, his feet against the pillar, and he used his momentum to jump across to the pillar next to it, gaining some height. He repeated the move, the height he was gaining increasing until he was up to the roof where the Serpent was. He raised his longsword as he did one last jump and pushed off the pillar, flying in the air towards his enemy. The longsword glowed blue as the Sword Skill activated. Don't move!
The Sky Serpent obliged. Jan came down just behind the Boss's crest of feathers, sword in front of him, and the force behind the Skill thrust the sword into the enemy's head.
The Sky Serpent howled like a wolf and shook its head. Jan tightened his grip on the sword. A fall from this high was Game Over. He applied more pressure, pushing the sword deeper into the injury, twisting it. He could see the Boss's HP drop, nearing the yellow zone. It was steadily taking damage.
The Sky Serpent flipped over, front claws digging into the roof. Jan's death grip on his sword saved him but he was left hanging upside down. No! His weight was pulling the sword free.
"Son of a," Jan swore, reaching for his belt with one hand and grabbing a throwing needle. The throw was wild and his Needle Throw skill wasn't even at a hundred, but somehow it hit its target – one of the Boss's red cat eyes.
Its grip on the roof loosened and it rightened itself, HP dropping even more from the needle. Jan now had his feet on a solid surface of is scales. It thrashed in the air and Jan applied pressure to the sword. Suddenly it sank all the way to the hilt. The Sky Serpent's head snapped back and it fell from the roof. Its HP went to the red and then disappeared altogether. Midway to the ground, it exploded into blue shards as it died. Jan suddenly realized that he hadn't quite thought his plan through as he free fell.
Kirito jumped up onto a pillar and used it as leverage, grabbing Jan. They both crashed to the ground, HP plummeting to the red but the move had saved Jan. Jan's sword clattered to the ground away from him.
An announcement suddenly appeared saying "Level 49 Cleared!" The door to Level 50 creaked open. Screens appeared before every player detailing how much EXP and money they had won, listing dropped items. The players blinked in surprise and then collapsed to the floor in relief.
Another screen appeared in front of Jan, congratulating him on the Last Attack. As a prize for dealing the death blow it said he received a Sky Serpent Egg.
"Eh? An egg? That's it?" Jan glared at the screen. "Wonderful." He sat up slowly and dismissed the screen. "Oi, Kirito. Are you okay?"
Kirito nodded, and reached into his pouch, drawing a pink healing crystal. He held it close to himself and commanded "Heal!" It shattered and his HP returned to the green. "That was an interesting move."
Jan smiled and decided he could use a crystal to. His pouch though, was empty. "Wow, I'm just not winning. First a lame prize and now this."
"Jan!" Lyra shouted as she stomped over to him, saber in hand.
"Now I'm dead." Jan muttered.
Kirito helped him to his feet and backed up. He would rather risk Asuna's wrath then Lyra's.
The twins stayed back. Jan looked desperately to Merrik, the other original member of the Guild, but Merrik wasn't even looking in this direction. The two newbies Alto and Xavian looked at him sympathetically but did nothing to help. Xavian had joined their guild after his old guild had ousted him when they learned he was a Beta. Alto's guild had been killed by a trap in the dungeon. The Red Hunters were comprised only of Betas.
"What were you thinking you idiot?" Lyra demanded. "Are you making this into a habit? You did the same thing with the 48 Boss." She put one hand on her hip, raising her saber towards Jan with the other. "Well Alex!?"
Asuna straightened. Jan glanced at her, and Lyra lowered her saber.
"Jan," she corrected herself quietly.
Jan and Lyra were Alex and Jennifer in real life and they lived across the street from each other. Both had been overjoyed when they realized that they were part of the 1,000 Beta Testers who got to try out Sword Art Online for a month before its release to the public. It was considered an unspoken rule not to mention the real world.
"Eh, Lyra-kun, he did defeat it," Aden offered. Despite a build built for speed, he fought with a broad-axe that he now put on his back.
His twin quickly shook his head as he put up his light-weight rapier – similar to Asuna's – back into its sheathe.
Lyra turned to glare at Aden, "and almost got himself killed. Again."
The other members who fought the Boss relaxed and tended the wounded. A few went through the door to Level 50, but most helped the wounded to their feet using heal or teleport crystals and dispersed. Bickering between Lyra and Jan was one of the few constants in SAO.
"Why do you do it? Do you like making the news that much or is it the Last Attack drops?" Lyra turned back to Jan.
"Second one," Jan admitted. "It's not like I got anything good. All I got was a necklace from Floor 48 and now a stupid egg. What am I supposed to do with it? Cook it? I was hoping for an item that let me fly."
"Jan…"
"What? That is the only Boss to date that could fly. Something like that would come in handy." Jan shrugged.
Merrik shook his head at the normality of his guild mate, replaced his two-handed broadsword on his back and picked up Jan's longsword. It was made with speed metal and compared to his sword, felt like air in his hands.
"Are we going up or down?" Raiku asked Lyra as Merrik tossed Jan back his sword. Jan caught it.
"Down," Lyra decided, "back to our headquarters. We'll check out the new floor tomorrow."