Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, in any way, shape or form. Reki Kawahara wrote the original light novels, while A-1 Pictures produced the anime series. I do not claim own it at all.

Claimer: However, I do own any original characters seen in this story.

Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. The rain from the cloudy sky above pelted down upon Tokyo, while its residents fled in desire of not wanting to be drenched and instead wishing to be dry. Huge crowds of people dashing up and down broad as well as narrow streets formed everywhere one could lay their eyes upon, making it difficult for those with umbrellas - people are instead patiently walking as they have no need to increase their pace - to proceed normally.

One particular seventeen year old male student from the local school; wearing a black jacket along with a grey under-shirt, purple tie, white polo-shirt, black yet tidy trousers and dark brown shoes; was dashing through the crowd that was running the opposite way he was. For some reason, this teenager seemed angered. Pushing past people and narrowly avoiding puddles for the next few minutes, the teenager stopped when he reached his home - which was down a narrow street to the left and was attached to many other houses along the same road.

Upon whipping out a key from his jacket pocket, the teenager unlocked the door and shot inside, panting as soon as he made contact with the carpet placed upon wooden floorboards. Ugh...that was annoying. Those people certainly had no consideration for letting me through! It disgusts me how vile strangers can be...

"Hi there, son!" a much deeper voice, similar to the teenager's own, greeted. A man in a black shirt and blue jeans stepped out from one of the many doorway in the hallway. This man looked similar to the teenager, sharing the same shade of white skin and blue eye colour, though that was where the comparisons halted. "How was school?"

"Exasperating, dad," the teenager sighed. He obviously loathed his day. "Miss Fukurumi gave us a surprise test, which you know I despise, then later on, Mr. Yasakawa gave us another one! Ridiculous."

"Oh...well, even if sometimes life gets you down, you need to keep pushing on," his father reassured with a smiling face. "That's something my father taught me."

"Didn't your father teach you a load of things?" the teenager pointed out.

The father widened his eyes in realisation, then returned back to a blissful expression. "So he did! Thanks for that one, son!"

"I keep telling you, call me Senshi. You know that's my name and you're aware that I'm more than just your son," Senshi Pureya demanded, sighing.

"Yes, I am well aware of that. I just can't seem to pull myself round to doing it," Yujin Pureya replied, thinking about his son. I cannot believe he's already seventeen. It was his birthday last month, but I still can't get over it. What's with me?

Senshi rid his back of the trouble of carrying his heavy bag and gave the problem to his right hand. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be heading to my room to do some studying."

"Okay...have fun!" Yujin smiled. A glint in his eyes showed that there was more to his words than Senshi could think of right now. Thinking it to be a reflection of light, Senshi retreated to his small, white-walled bedroom with only a desk with a computer on it, a closet and a one-person bed within it.

However, Senshi expected to be alone. His mother, Shurui Pureya, was sitting on his bed, next to some sort of box that was still in its packaging. Senshi could not see what the box was, but a single thought entered into his mind that speculated what the item could potentially be. Instead of wasting his time trying to guess, Shurui - whom shared facial and body structure with Senshi - initiated the question asking and answering.

"I'm betting you want to know what is in this box. Maybe you've figured it out for yourself," Shurui teased, placing one hand on the box next to her. "I tell you something, my son. It is something you've wanted for your birthday, but you never received it due to...circumstances."

His mother was always a weird woman. "I don't have any concrete ideas. Mother, what is it?" Senshi asked, playing the 'I have no clue' card.

"Don't you know? I thought that clue was going to give it away," Shurui smiled. She grabbed the box and presented it to Senshi, though she gave to him backwards as to add to the tension. Senshi accepted the box thankfully but before he could turn it over to see what it was, thoughts rang in his mind.

A new game? Book? DVD? A new phone? No wait, I received all those already. What could it possibly be? Senshi theorised. After shaking his head to reaffirm what he was about to do, the seventeen year old boy slowly turned around the rectangular box, revealing something that shocked him to the very core of his system. "Impossible..."

"You're welcome, Senshi, my son," Shurui nodded, an even larger and somehow happier smile appearing on her face. "Enjoy your AmuSphere 2.0. Also comes with a game."

"Th-thank...thank you so much, mother!" Senshi dropped the box and hugged his mother, in a boyish delight that only children usually experience. "Wow, my very own AmuSphere...I can finally experience the world of online virtual realities for myself! Especially after everything Hitake has been saying about it. It's somewhat of the only topic he speaks about at school, he's absolutely dazzled by the technology!"

Shurui giggled. She too had a child within her. "I've been hearing constant good things about it on social media. Let's just say that Hitake's mother gets the worst of it..." Senshi and his mother shared a hearty laugh together, then the attention was put back on the AmuSphere device. "Why don't you go set it up? I'll be here to help you if need be."

"Thanks, mother." Senshi ripped open the box and took out all the components relating to the device, along with a Japanese instruction manual and the box for the free game. Placing everything on the bed, Senshi studied the manual closely and followed each order, placing plugs, connecting cables and inputting wires into wherever it needed to go. Sometimes, the instructions' steps did not follow through quite well enough, but eventually, the AmuSphere was set up. Luckily there was a dual plug socket next to the bed, so the wires did not have to stretch out too far.

Staring down upon it, Senshi was filled with excitement. Finally, a new realm to explore...the advanced step in computer gaming! I've missed out on this for six years, and six years too soon! Well, four years, I should say. I should not forget the controversy involving that Sword Art Online game...hopefully whatever game I'm going to join doesn't have that same problem.

"It looks like you're all set up," Shurui stated. "Are you ready to hop in and give it a test run?"

Senshi nodded. "Any day." His mother returned his determined gaze, then smiled.

"Good! I hope you do well, my son!" Senshi decided not to answer his mother with words, but with another chance to look at that determined grin before he moved everything but the AmuSphere off of his bed and layed down upon it, on top of the covers and all. He then carefully placed the device over his head, it covering his eyes. When he was ready to enter, Senshi realised he had forgotten something.

"Uh...I forgot the game."

Shurui wanted to fall to the floor in how much of an error this was, but decided not to. She simply walked over to the desk in which the game box had been placed on, opened it up and took out the small cartridge from within. As per Senshi's instructions, Shurui then placed the cartridge inside the slot and looked for an on button, though no such thing existed. This prompted Senshi to raise a finger to get the woman's attention.

"There is no on button. The AmuSphere and other FullDive-related technologies are activated with a simple voice command. It is..." Senshi stated, lowering his arm and shifting himself so that he was comfortable. "Link start!"

9:21 AM - Ingame Time

Lapis Pugna Online

Multiple streaks of colour flashed ahead of Senshi; he was in some kind of white realm, where the light streaks flew right past him and even behind him. Eventually, more and more of these streaks appeared, giving the illusion that Senshi was moving forward, when he likely was not. At one point, the world flashed and everything turned black. Utter darkness filled the world in which Senshi was in. Then, after some seconds, text appeared in front of him that spelled:

Welcome to Lapis Pugna Online!

It seems you have not created an avatar. Now running the avatar creation program.

Suddenly, the text changed to a screen that had many different boxes upon the two sides. At the bottom right of the screen was the 'done' button and in the middle of the screen was a reflection of Senshi himself, mirroring every raised eyebrow and widened eye sockets that he made. It even copied small details, such as which direction his black hair curved in and was active, meaning that whenever he moved a single muscle, the reflection did the same without any lag whatsoever.

So this must be where I create my character, then... Senshi deduced. He played around with changing his hair colour, shirt colour, trouser colour, skin colour, eye colour and more for several minutes, until he set on a look he liked: black hair just like his, but parted on the forehead; a dark blue shirt that parted down the middle, revealing a white shirt at the top where the buttons on the first shirt were undone; dark purple jeans with a zip in the crotch area and two pockets at the top of his legs; same skin colour as his real self and a bright yellow eye colour to juxtapose with his clothing choices.

"Done," he spoke clearly. The screen changed to that of a mere text box, with the text above it reading: 'What is your avatar's name?'

Senshi thought hard about this one. Since his real name was not going to be used, there were plenty of choices for a name. I could go for something deep and meaningful, or for something weird and wacky. Hmm...I remember Hitake naming his avatar Hitakaru, a combination of his first and last names. Apparently it's a common practice with Japanese VRMMO players, which I can understand. Maybe I should do that, considering I'll be here for hours if I don't figure out something quickly. Let's see... he thought, looking for a plausible means to combine 'Senshi' and 'Pureya'. It did not take long for him to figure one out, however. "My avatar's name is Senya."

He watched as the name 'Senya' was typed out into the text-box, letter by letter. When the game asked him to confirm the name, Senshi nodded and was taken through another light-based sequence as before, which he guessed was a kind of loading screen. Hopefully, he hoped. This doesn't take too long.

9:30 AM - Ingame Time

Lapis Pugna Online, Reperio Island

It was not an extraordinary amount of time until the moment when Senya was first born into the world of Lapis Pugna Online. When he appeared in the world, he found himself narrowly dodging sword swings, shield bashes, arrows and magical strikes - Senya was only able to dodge these out of pure instincts and because they were being fired from so far away, their speed decreased heavily by the time they got to him.

Movement feels really fluid and intuitive...I'm hoping I get rescued or something, Senya thought, evading a slowed fire blast spell. As Senya was busy dodging all these attacks, a warrior from his left side had noticed the strange person in the midst of their battlefield and was programmed to do something about it.

"Hey, you! Get out of there!" the warrior NPC called from over the wall. "Follow the sound of my voice, you fool, and get over here!"

Senya had no idea what was going on, but he went with it. He did as the non-player character told him, making it past the battle and into the miniature fortress that had been built by the designers of the game. Once inside, the NPC was ready to deliver his scripted sequence.

"How dare you waltz in the middle of the battlefield?!" the warrior barked. Senya looked up and found a nametag above the NPC, stating that this character's name was Epon the Fighter and Level 110. His experience from playing previous role-playing games told him that this person was not to be messed with. "You look like a rookie. I can smell it."

"Can you?" Senya asked the NPC, knowing that he was going to get a response thousands of other players did. I wonder if my smell from real life stems into here...I probably actually do smell rather poorly.

"Yes I can! It smells eerily like old cheese...or maybe that's me," Epon the Fighter answered. "Anyway, it'd be best if you headed into the village behind us and talk to the tutor. He can teach you everything you need to know about this world. Any questions?"

"No, sir," Senya quickly responded, not wanting to waste time. It was almost like a speed-run for him. Unfortunately, no quick saving or loading for him, something he lamented over. "Your orders have been received."

"Good! Then head out to the village immediately!" Epon finished, walking away.

This left Senya to wander up the fortress' ground floor, until he found a door that led south, away from the fight. He kept walking forwards, past tress and blooming flowers. He even found his nose stimulating at the fresh smell of the flowers. FullDive technology really is amazing...it covers all of your senses. Graphics are nice too, it's like an anime show or something along the lines of that.

Senya proceeded on, following the dirt path until he reached a collection of wooden buildings with yellow tent-like roofs. He wandered around and immediately started talking to the first NPC he could see. "Hi there, do you know where I can find the tutor?" he asked.

"Two buildings down and on your right," the NPC answered, walking away without saying anything else, as expected. Senshi followed the NPC's directions to a building that looked like any other. Walking in however, would yield surprising results.

9:39 AM - Ingame Time

Lapis Pugna Online, Reperio Island, Tutor's House

As soon as Senya's virtual body was fully inside the wooden structure, the door slammed shut and would not open for another soul. He noticed that some kind of pink glow was surrounding the door, further adding to the mystery.

What is this? Some kind of barrier that prevents me from going outside once I reach a trigger point? That...makes sense. This probably makes sure the game doesn't glitch, or that players find an exploit that allows them to skip the tutorial, Senya analysed, turning to have his back facing the door. Now to find the trigger to open it.

Taking some more steps, Senya found a strange elder in the middle of the well-lit room, whom wasn't wearing any kind of armour but was instead had the appearance of a wizard, blue costume and everything. When Senya stood in front of him, a conversation began and as expected, the elder had a dry, raspy voice, typical of old men.

"You are new to this world. All new warriors come to me when they are in need of directions, you must be the same," the elder NPC stated, staring straight at Senya. "I will teach you the basics of this world. Are you listening?"

Senya nodded. "Yes, I am," he answered with a straight face.

"Perfect. Then, I will begin," the Tutor started. "First of all, you have many skills to work towards, a grand total of fourteen: Unarmed, which is your striking power with your bare fists and related weaponry; Swordplay is your ability with swords and it is through this skill where you can obtain Sword Techniques, which will be explained at a later date."

Senya stood there, absorbing the information like a sponge of knowledge.

"Defence is how much damage you can take; Strength is how much damage you can deal; Magic is everything related to spells, how much damage you can do with them. You learn spells by levelling up this skill; Ranged is the same thing as Magic, but with everything relating to bows and arrows; Speed is how fast you can move," the Tutor continued.

Although it was a long process, it was necessary, which was something Senya knew.

"Creating is your ability to make items; Cooking is how well you can cook uncooked food items; Mining is your ability to obtain ores from certain stones; Health Points is how much health you have because right now, you only have 20 Health Points and while that might seem to be a lot, it is not; Farming is your ability to look after crops and such things; Buff is extra powers that you can apply to yourself to make you stronger; Dungeon Crawling is something that you will only be able to achieve at a higher level and will be explained to you then," the Tutor finished. "Do you need me to explain all that again?"

"No, that's alright. I understand," Senya replied. He felt strange as he was standing in the nearly empty room, talking to the strange old man. By now, my back would have started aching - that's the beauty of virtual reality.

The Tutor waited until Senya was paying attention, then began speaking some more. "I will now coach you in the ways of combat. Take this sword," he instructed. Senya did as he was told, taking the Wooden Sword. "Now, slash it around to get a good feel for combat movement. Do whatever comes natural to you and when you are ready to move on, talk to me again."

Senya took the advice to heart, then stepped away from the Tutor to practice sword swinging. Performing a vertical slash, he was impressed with the sensory technology at hand. This feels so good, like if I were to do this in real life, I'd barely be able to tell the difference, he commented inside his mind. Another slash, this time horizontal and followed up by a second sideways slash, though it was in the opposite direction. Realistic. If what the Tutor here says is true, then I won't need much practice, because every move I'll make will come from my subconscious. It's not like I'll need to go through an entire military-styled training regiment, but I suppose it'd help to actually practice, to get used to how this all works.

Gripping his sword as to not have it accidentally fly out of his grip, Senya began to slash the Wooden Sword in a flurry of different directions, covering almost every single angle in the process. After he was content with his moves, he approached the Tutor once more. "It seems you are fine with sword usage," the NPC noticed. Purple magical energy glowed from his fingertips, which then flew to the space in front of Senya which span around while ascending, forming some kind of humanoid figure. "Let us put that to the test."

Once the green-skinned Goblin was formed with the Tutor's magic, the energy dissipated and the Goblin began charging forwards, attacking with a vertical lunge with its axe in hand. Out of utter shock, Senya simply stood there, unable to move until he had been hit, where he noticed that the red bar in the top right corner of his heads up display had lowered slightly and the health reading now read '16/20'.

I've enough health to be risky, but I don't wish to lose too much, Senya planned, stepping backwards. This is not like any other game where I can just press a button, or click, to combat an enemy. This is virtual reality, so I have to do so with my own two hands. I am not to be bested by a mere Goblin!

He leapt forwards, stabbing with as much force as he could push in. Once the attack hit, Senya pulled the sword out of the Goblin and noticed that it would have been a mortal wound, though the health bar above the Goblin had only been lowered slightly and the text above the bar confirmed that not much damage had been done, it reading '15/20'. Senya realised that this was going somewhere, then used three more stabs to hopefully take the enemy out but on the third attempt, the Goblin moved to the side and slashed at Senya's arm, reducing his health to 13 out of 20.

"This Goblin...will not get in my way!" Senya barked, enraged somewhat. He used the adrenaline from his rage to leap in for another slash, taking out the rest of the Goblin's life, leading it to form into tiny fragments and disappear from the game altogether. Certainly, that was exhausting. I suppose I'll get used to it.

"Excellent work," the Tutor commented, using his magic to heal Senya's lowered health points. Senya returned to the non-player character, ready to receive his next instruction. "You can keep that Wooden Sword. Now, you will be using a staff."

Another Goblin was spawned in the same fashion as the one previously, with the same health points, weapon and stats. Senya was given a white-coloured staff, called an Air Staff, to fight with. Immediately locking eyes with the Goblin, Senya was sure to not do as terrible as he did earlier, so he began waving the staff around with nothing coming out of it, hoping that something would happen.

No spells are coming out...do I have to do something specific? Senya wondered, doing his best to shoot out a single spell while dodging the Goblin's attacks. Maybe if I... Senya stood perfectly still and stood the Air Staff up, then tried to charge energy within the staff. It appeared to have done something, because white energy was forming at the tip of the staff, eventually firing at the Goblin. It only did three damage, bringing the Goblin's health down to 17/20, though it randomly was knocked back into the wall, dealing a further two damage. Wow. Didn't expect that. Senya repeated this multiple times, not allowing the Goblin any time to get back up and try anything else, leading to its quick death.

"You must have the hang of this now. Remember that different elements of magic have separate effects," the Tutor remarked, having analysed Senya's learning patterns. As the boy turned to face him, the Tutor began stroking his elongated white beard as he was in deep thought. Out of nowhere, a longbow and a quiver filled with twenty Wooden Arrows was equipped to Senya, confusing the teenager. "Now for the final piece of combat training. Use the longbow to defeat a third Goblin, then report back to me."

Like a broken record, another Goblin with the same stats and weapons as all of the previous ones had appeared in front of Senya. He readied his longbow after much fumbling around, trying to figure out how to properly hold and use it while again evading the Goblin's attempts on his life. Senya eventually held the middle part of the longbow and used his other hand to ready an arrow. After getting a good aim, Senya fired, shooting the Goblin right in the chest, chipping away a measly four HP to lower it to 16/20.

Bows seem to be as effective as magic, if not more. I like them, but I still prefer swords. I'll probably end up using them in the real game, Senya planned, overestimating his agility. I've always had a preference for blades, though this game makes magic interesting to use with the different effects feature. Who knows, I may end up using magic sometime. Senya continued to shoot the Goblin until it was downed, again returning to the Tutor.

"You have completed your combat training. Well done," the Tutor declared. His expression had not changed since the moment Senya walked in, so it was difficult to tell if he was being sincere or if he was reading his script. "Usually when you defeat an enemy, you would gain experience and the blue bar below your magic bar would grow in size. However, my magic has made it so you do not gain any benefits from combat, including drops as well as experience. When you level up, you get five points to spend on improving any stats of your choice. As of now, all of your stats are at zero, so you have complete freedom as to any particular stats you wish to better."

"Is there a defined level cap?" Senya asked, curious. Most MMORPGs have a level cap so that their players don't become too overpowered. I know that Epon guy was Level 110 and the cap can't be that - it would be unorthodox.

What completely shocked and distracted Senya's train of thought was the Tutor's answer. "No."

"R-really?!" Senya rhetorically questioned. "There's no limit? Wouldn't that mean that some players are overpowered? Why would they continue to play the game if there's no challenge?"

"I am not sure, but what I do know is that the higher a level you are, the more quests that open up," the Tutor explained. "And because there is no level limit, that means that there is no quest limit, either. Perhaps that is why warriors keep returning to this world - to see how many quests they can complete."

Wow...no quest or level cap. How's that even possible? I'll have to look that up when I get out of here, Senya thought. He was bewildered by what had been said. "Is this the end of the tutorial, then?"

"Yes, it is," the Tutor answered. "I will now teleport you to the world of Lapis Pugna. Out there, you can do what you please and be the person you desire to be. Do try not to be disruptive to other players and please read the rules. When you get teleported, you will receive some starting equipment to help you start up without any trouble."

"Thanks," Senya thanked. Even though he knew there was a script for all NPCs, he could not help but be affected by the Tutor's actions. "Where will I be sent to?"

"The town that every new warrior starts in - Incipien. It has enough for starting adventurers," the Tutor further explained. He began charging white magic energy this time, which began to engulf the player that he was staring at. "Goodbye, Senya."

Smiling, Senya was warped into the world of Lapis Pugna, where he would begin to play the game for real. Many quests and experiences lay ahead for him - it all started from now on.

Author Notes: So this is what I was going to upload on the first of August, but it took to long to write and yesterday, the second, my PC was being used by another member of my family, so I couldn't use it. Here's the finished product: my first Sword Art Online fan-fiction! Hope you guys enjoy it!

Also, future chapters won't be as long as this one. Trust me, I don't want this to be too long, I've already got a large series in the form of Luster the Cat, which you should definitely check out if you're a Sonic fan. Hooray for shameless plugs! See you all next time.