The setting sun filtered through the open windows of the apartment as the gentle breeze caused the tied up curtains to sway back and forth. If not for that breeze, the summer sun would have made the living space of the apartment quite hot. Although there was an air conditioner installed to fix that. The TV was on with a girl watching it.

The girl had black hair that if not tied up would hang just past her shoulders. At the moment though it was done in a loose braid which hung over her left shoulder. Her blue eyes gazed at the television as the apartment's other tenant stood in the kitchen, washing the dishes from their dinner.

The young man in the kitchen had rather flat looking brown hair and was a fairly average build. Neither of the two looked overly special but both were quite well known among online gamers. Well, their avatar names were well known anyway.

Ren Hikari and Megumi Junko were two members of the ALfheim Online guild known as Azure Storm. Together with their allies they had defeated the AI Nobunaga and saved all of the other players stuck in the game just six months previously. Since then, the names Chrome and Muko, along with the other Azure Storm members had become quite famous. None of them really minded the fame although for a while it had attracted a lot of attention while in game.

In the real world though, Ren and Megumi lived a normal life together as high school students. Ren worked part-time at a small supermarket near their apartment building while Megumi did the same at the local library.

Ren finished the dishes and glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 6:50, he had to be at work in ten minutes. He grabbed his uniform shirt and pulled it over the grey, long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. He picked up his keys and walked over to Megumi.

"Heading off to work?" the black haired girl asked.

"Yeah, if I'm not back before you're ready for bed you don't have to wait up," Ren replied with a soft smile.

"Alright, have a nice night and be careful on your way home."

"Thanks, give me a call if you need anything."

Megumi got up and kissed her boyfriend before walking him to the door. They shared a brief hug before Ren left the apartment and Megumi locked the door behind him. He walked down to the building entrance from the third floor and stepped out into the hot evening air.

Ren groaned slightly, feeling the heat and then began the two block walk to the supermarket he worked at. He hadn't realised it at first, but after one night when Megumi walked to work with him, she pointed out it was the place they had first met. Ren looked into the familiar alleyway as he passed it, it felt like so long ago that he had saved Megumi there. So much happened after that, but he didn't regret any of it.

The young man finally arrived at the supermarket, waving to his boss as he walked in the door. Junichi Takeda was a man in his forties, well built with a balding head. "You good to handle the back dock tonight Hikari?" he called out. Ren gave another small wave and headed out the back of the store.

The back dock of the super market was a large space with a cold cement floor. Shelves covered the walls with various products filling them. A truck was backed up to a large roller door and was unloading various pallets of items that needed to be put out in the store that night. Ren thanked the delivery driver once he finished unloading and watched him drive away before closing the roller door.

"Yo Ren, how's it going?" a young man with a rather absurd looking black Mohawk called out. The young man was Goro, one of Ren's colleagues. He was a fairly likeable character despite his choice of hairdo.

"Hey Goro, I just got in. Are you out stacking tonight?"

"That's right. Oh hey, when we get our break there's something I have to tell you about!" Goro said. The words puzzled Ren but before he could question him, Goro was already running back out to the store with a trolley full of products to put out.

Ren got to work sorting the products that came off the pallets, organising them for the stackers when they came in to grab things and put them out. That took him almost half of his three hour shift. With twenty minutes until his break, the young man decided to sweep the area and start tidying up the shelves. Just as he was getting into a steady rhythm, a voice boomed behind him.

"Hikari, time for your break! You're doing well tonight," Junichi called out from the door into the supermarket.

"Thanks a lot," Ren called back, putting down what he was holding and exiting through a door that led out beside the building. Goro was already out there, sitting on a milk crate and shoving a hamburger in his mouth without a speck of grace.

The area beside the building was a moderately wide area that ran half the length of the supermarket. The top was open but covered with wooden lattice, vines from some fruit plant wrapping around the wood. Several milk crates like the one Goro was on were scattered around the break area as makeshift seats. Ren sat down on one and looked at his co-worker.

"So you said you had something to tell me about?" Ren asked, raising an eyebrow as Goro's hair seemed to bob around with every movement he made.

"Oh yeah, forgot about that!" Goro declared a little too proudly for Ren's liking. "Remember about ten months ago, there was that ALO player that died? There was a huge in-game gathering of players when it happened."

"That Zekken person right? The one said to rival Kirito in terms of skill?"

"Yeah that's the one. Well I heard that apparently some of her friends are holding some big tournament on the anniversary of her death. They're saying the winner gets a ton of col and some rare stuff. But that's not all, there's a rumour that the winner gets the chance to fight the Black Swordsman or the Berserker Healer."

Ren's eyebrow raised from intrigue as Goro spoke. The chance to fight one of those two was something no self-respecting player would pass up. Ren went to say something but Goro held up a finger to stop him.

"There's a bit of a problem for you though. The tournament is taking place on the ALfheim server, not the Aincrad one you play on," he said.

Within New ALO, there were two main servers for players to choose. The first was the standard ALfheim server that held all of the game's original realms along with Aincrad. However a while after the initial release, a group of players got together and developed another server. This was the Aincrad server that Ren and his friends played on.

The Aincrad server played more like the original Sword Art Online. It didn't have the magic, flight or races of ALfheim, but players also could not explores the realms of ALfheim. Players were free to switch servers at any time but they would be required to edit their character upon doing so and would lose any experience they had towards their next level.

"Hmm, that's a bit annoying. I levelled up pretty recently though so if I swap over now it won't be much of a problem," Ren said, rubbing his chin a little.

"So you're gonna enter then?" Goro asked.

"I think it'd be pretty cool to do. I'm curious to know what items they're giving away as a prize and the chance to fight Kirito himself sounds fun."

"Yeah that's why I'm entering too! I'm pretty sure I won't win but hey, doesn't hurt to try."

"I guess tomorrow I'll have to sit down and transfer my character over. It'll give me two months or so to get used to the flight and magic mechanics, that should be plenty," Ren said as he got to his feet. He stretched upwards and walked back towards the door of the supermarket. "Thanks for letting me know Goro."

With that, Ren went back to work. The rest of his shift was rather uneventful and ended before he even realised it. He helped everyone else tidy up the shop before Junichi sent them home. Ren said his farewells to his co-workers and headed home quickly, he just wanted to sleep.

When Ren stepped through the door to the apartment, the living room light was on but nobody was in there. Megumi always left the light on for him if she went to bed before he got home, it saved him running into the couch or something in the dark. Ren hung his keys on a hook by the door and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, taking a long drink. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 10:13 now.

Ren took a bottle of water from the fridge as quietly as he could and took a long mouthful. A content sigh left his lips as they came off the bottle and he did the lid back up, slipping the plastic back into the fridge. He slipped off his shoes and silently moved through the living room, over to the bedroom against the rear wall.

He entered the small room and quickly changed into a sleeveless shirt and shorts before climbing onto the double bed in the centre of the room. There was already a lump on the left side and Ren scooted over to it before slipping under the covers. The young man placed his arm over his girlfriend and closed his eyes.

"Welcome home," Megumi said in a quiet groan.

"Thanks," Ren said in a quiet, content voice as he held himself against his girlfriend's warm body. He rested his head against Megumi's shoulders and slowly closed his eyes. It always felt nice to come home to someone else. It wasn't long before the gentle embrace of sleep took over his body and let him dream for the night.

The morning sun filtered through the partially open blinds, sending a prism of light skittering off the bedroom walls and right into Ren's closed eyes. The young man groaned a little as he slowly sat up, blinking his heavy eyes as his mind slowly began to wake, trailing behind his body just a little. His nose twitched a little as he woke, sensing something was being cooked in the kitchen.

He could smell tea… that smelt nice. Aside from that Ren could also smell pancakes, they were burnt. An ever-so-slight smile touched the corners of his mouth as he wandered out into the living room in his sleepwear.

"They're getting better Megumi," Ren said softly as he approached the kitchen and saw the pancakes, a lovely brown but with black edges. The black-haired girl pouted a little, serving up the pancakes. Ren smiled softly, they were certainly still edible, better than her first few attempts.

"The tea is good, I tried that!" Megumi said in a chipper tone. Ren did raise an eyebrow at that slightly, that comment meant she had most likely not tested the pancakes herself. Oh well, based on appearance they seemed safe.

"So, Goro told me something interesting at work last night," the brown-haired boy said as he sliced open one of the pancakes, inspecting the inside before eating it. They were pretty good. Perfectly cooked in the centre, just a tad overdone on the edge and bottom.

"That's the guy with the weird hair right?" Megumi asked in response, sipping at her tea.

"Yeah, him. Anyway, there's apparently going to be a really big tournament happening in ALO about two months from now. It's a player-held one to commemorate the death of Zekken, the player who died last year."

"Oh wow, that sounds really nice!"

"Yeah, apparently the winner not only gets some rare stuff and a heap of col, but also the chance to fight Kirito or Asuna from the original SAO."

"Are you serious? That's kinda awesome."

"I know right? The only problem is it's on the ALfheim Server, not the Aincrad one. Meaning we'd have to transfer our characters. We'd have two months to learn the flight and magic mechanics before the tournament and we'd have to get some decent gear."

"Well I heard they did an update on the game now where when you transfer a character, you can get these tickets that you can redeem in-game for equipment of an equal level to what you had on the previous server."

"Well that does solve the equipment problem. I'm pretty sure Lisbeth plays both servers as well, so if you can use those tickets with a player blacksmith we could ask her to forge our stuff."

"I guess we're moving to ALO then," Megumi said with a small smile. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but she always wanted to play on the ALfheim Server with Ren. The idea of flying through the sky with the person she loved was one that sent her cheeks a light tinge of pink.

The two finished up their breakfast and gave the apartment a quick tidy before heading into the bedroom and setting up their AmuSpheres. The two laid down next to each other and gave a small nod before closing their eyes and speaking in unison.

"Link start!"

On the log-in screen, there were the boxes to fill in the player's username and password, then the log-in button below that and to the right was a green button that simply had the text "TRANSFER" within it.

Ren reached his finger towards that button, hesitating for a moment. The memories of all the events he had done over the last few months flashed through his mind. He shook his head slightly and smiled. It wasn't as though that version of Chrome was disappearing, he was merely creating a copy of the character on the other server of the game. If Ren chose, he was even able to carry over all of his stats and records, which of course he would be doing.

Ren took a small breath and clicked the button. The next text box that popped up read as follows:

From here, you may choose whether you want to start your character completely anew or if you would like to retain your current levels, stats and records. Please choose carefully, once the transfer has been made, it cannot be undone. Please not that should you choose the later, your transferred character will come with special tickets that can be redeemed at any in-game store or blacksmith for equipment of equal quality to what was equipped on the previous server at the time of the transfer.

Ren took the time to read over the explanation carefully before selecting the "KEEP DATA" option. There were a few seconds of loading before the next screen appeared. This time it was the character selection interface.

When ALfheim Online had first been released, the character creation had been completely random apart from the character's race. Cosmetic changes could be done later through micro transactions if the player didn't like the randomly generated avatar. However when the game was later re-released as part of the World Seed, it was made so that the cosmetic changes were done free-of-charge upon character creation so players were free to make their own character.

Ren spent a few minutes looking through each of the nine races, this was something he probably should have thought about beforehand. His playstyle in Aincrad hadn't been anything fancy, he hadn't chosen the sword and shield for any reason other than that he liked it. Why should selecting his fairy race be any different. He shrugged slightly and clicked on Sylph. They seemed interesting and the description said they were fast. Next he began working on the physical appearance of the character. Once that was done, Ren clicked confirm and there was another short load before the words "Welcome to ALfheim Online" appeared before him and the scenery suddenly shifted.

Standing in the centre of Sylvain was the newest Sylph character. The male sword and shield user had a head of dark green hair that looked rather bland, nothing fancy about it at all really. His gold eyes scanned his surroundings, taking in the sights. Chrome's body was toned, rather than the muscled approach a lot of swordsmen liked to use.

He wore the basic starting gear for the Sylph tribe. A dark green top with black pants and brown boots. On his left arm was a simple, round shield made of wood and hanging on his left hip was a steel sword. The gear definitely would not suggest he was a very experienced and rather high level player.

Chrome sucked in a deep breath before stretching upwards, feeling the cool wind on his body. "Well Chrome… welcome to the World of the Fairies," he said to himself softly.