A/N: Welcome to my first fic in a long time! I hope that everyone who reads this fic will enjoy it as much as I will writing it! SAO is by far my favorite anime, and I hold it pretty close to my heart.

I ask everyone to read the note at the end. Thank you!

Disclaimer: Do not own SAO, only own the characters Akio and Rin, and nothing more.

Prologue

Sighing deeply to himself, Akio read the message he got from the Beta Test of the new VRMMORPG that was due to release tomorrow. He scanned over the message, reading the Virtual Mail:

Dear Beta Tester:

The Sword Art Online servers will be unavailable from 12 O'clock PM until the release of the game at 10 O'clock AM, so we can prepare for the incoming users. We appreciate all that you have done to aid us in the preparation of the game, whether it was finding out a bug in the game, to testing the mechanics and engine of the system itself. As a show of appreciation, we deposited a small 'booster' into your game balance.

With thanks,

The Sword Art Online Team.

After reading the message, Akio logged off his account and stood up from his desk chair and moved towards his bed, laying back on it and taking out his phone. His news feed was blown up with all the people showing off their excitement for the new game coming up. A small smirk crawled across his face as he realized that many people will not know how to play properly, giving him an even larger edge ahead of the game. He turned his phone off and exhaled, the smile plastered on his face. Eventually, his excitement got the better of him and he checked the time.

"And so begins the countdown…"

Akio eyes shot open as he woke up, not realizing he fell asleep. He stood up and checked the time on his computer:

9:57 AM.

A sigh of relief escaped him as he found out he had not over slept. He grabbed his Nerve Gear and plugged it into his computer, the light turning on indicating it was connected. With a light nod to himself, he laid down on his bed putting on the helmet and waiting patiently. The three minutes afterwards seemed to drag on and on.

"Come on… come on…" he murmured as the Nerve Gear powered on, waiting for him to initiate the game. The clock on his HUD suddenly changed to 10:00, and the smile came across his face.

"Link Start!"

Right afterwards, his Nerve Gear lit up like a Christmas Tree, connecting him to the freshly started game. A moment passed, before he had to Log In.

'Username: Yuriko Fujibayashi.

Password: *******'

Light began to fill his vision as he was immediately transferred to his avatar.

Another moment passed, before he was back in control of his character. A small grin crossed his face as he looked to the sky. This was who he wanted to be: a better… Akio. He then sprinted off in the direction of the nearby Boar spawning area, wanting to jump into the fighting immediately. As he ran there, he avoided people who were spawning in for the first time, starting the tutorial quests, beginning their own adventure in the castle of Aincrad. However, 'Yuriko' ignored those people, knowing that if was too slow, the people who wanted to get their bearings in the combat system of SAO. Stopping for a moment, he checked to see how much time he would be on, which was roughly an hour by the time on the HUD.

"Excellent…"

With that, he arrived at this destination, the boar spawn zone, which was rolling grasslands that seemed to expand on forever into the distance. He opened up his menu and then his Messages and typed, "Meet me outside the Safe Zone."

He then exited his menu and turned to the nearest boar, taking out his dagger in the process. The boar seemed to know what was coming and turned towards Yuriko, digging its hooves into the ground, before charging at him. Deftly, he side-stepped the boar and stabbed into the boar's back, taking a chunk of its health, pushing it into the yellow zone. It squealed loudly, before turning around and charging at him once again, the AI not thinking that it wouldn't work, the player easily dispatching the boar with a stab to the skull.

Stepping back and closing the reward screen, he heard someone call out to him, "Akio-san!"

Turning around, he looked towards the voice: his real life friend, Rin.

"Why'd you call me out here?"

"To train you… unless you already know how to fight."

"…I don't want to brag or anything… but…"

"Duel me then."

"Fine. To the death I suppose?"

"Nah, how about the one with the lowest health loses."

"Okay."

With that, Yuriko sent the invitation to Rin, who accepted moments later. The two friends took out their weapons and waited for the countdown to commence.

'3…'

'2…'

'1…'

'Duel Commence!'

As soon as the timer ran out, Rin dashed towards him, trying to stab his sword trough Yuriko, but the other was too quick. With a quick slash upwards, Yuriko sent his opponent off-balanced, before he brought his dagger downward upon his friend's back, making the other's health drop slightly, stopping in the late-green area.

"…That hurt…" murmured Rin, who had jumped out of range of Yuriko.

"You don't look as confident as you did just a moment ago. Oh, you have less than a minute to turn this ar- "

Before he could finish his sentence, Rin suddenly lunged at Yuriko, catching him off guard and planting the sword into his shoulder, his own health dropping to yellow zone.

"Now that's not fair."

"Life is unfair," countered Rin, jumping back out of range.

Yuriko began to walk in a circle around Rin, trying to figure out where the best place of attack would be- but much to his dismay he couldn't find it. In a last ditch effort, he ran straight at Rin, his dagger glowing a dark red, before leaping towards him, moving too fast for Rin to react. His dagger cut right through the other's side, making Rin's health drop in the red zone.

"Good fight," he announced as the timer ran out, simultaneously sheathing his dagger. Rin gave out a disappointed sigh, before sitting down in the virtual dirt.

"Well… I gotta go now," said Rin, who was opening up his menu and pressing a few buttons.

"I guess we can train tomorrow," stated Yuriko as he opened up his menu as to change weapons to his hatchet.

"Sounds good… but…"

"What's wrong? Don't like the prospect of my really strict training regimen? You know I can be really harsh about this," Yuriko chuckled to his friend, closing his menu.

"It's not that… I can't log off. It's not letting me…"

"Yeah right… let me see."

With that, Yuriko opened up his own menu again and went to log off as well, but the button was greyed out.

"Just message a GM then. SAO did just get released just 30 minutes ago," Yuriko said, before going to ask for help from the GM, but did not get a reply. "Strange…"

However, before he could make a comment about it, a blue light began to form underneath the both of them, then enveloping them in the light and taking them to the Town of Beginnings center, where all the other players were being teleported to at that time. Many people seemed confused, not knowing what was happening. Yuriko turned to ask Rin a question, but was surprised that he wasn't next to him anymore. "I'll talk to him afterwards…"

Out of nowhere, the skies turned red, hexagons beginning to cover the skies, the words 'Warning' and 'Announcement' appearing on the hexagons. After the whole sky was seemingly covered, red, viscous liquid poured forth from the cracks in the sky, forming a massive blob. The sight caused many discontent among many players, murmuring words like 'Is this an event? What is going on?' Others seemed more confident, convinced that is a part of the opening ceremony. Suddenly, the voice began to speak, its word booming off the dome.

"Attention players… welcome to my world…"

A/N: And that brings the Prologue to an end. Thank you for reading thus far! I asked everyone to read until the very end because I wanted to ask you, the readers to send in OCs for me to use. If you are interested in sending an OC, or you have a question for me, send me a PM and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

As always, please Read and Review, I always like constructive criticism… as long as it is constructive, and nothing like 'this is dumb, you are dumb.'

Anyways, thanks for reading, I plan to publish Chapter 1 as soon as possible.