Chapter 2: So... How's Life?
(Samantha's POV)
After activating the helmet, all I was able to see for a solid minute was darkness. Also, I had the feeling as if I was falling slowly to the ground. When I opened my eyes, the face of a girl was staring back at me.
"Erica? Are you alright?" the girl asked as she reached down to help me up.
"Actually," I started to say, making an attempt at being funny, "I am mostly left but I think I'm okay.". We both laughed at the joke while walking towards an area to sit so that I could recover from what just happened.
"Are you alright? Is something wrong?" the girl, her name is Emily by the way, questioned as we stood up and walked down the street where I had, apparently, suddenly collapsed.
Name: Emily C. Hadden
Alias: N/A
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Personality: Unknown
Info: Daughter of Jamie Hadden.
Other Info: May posses half-blood powers.
"Well," I started hesitantly, "I need to find Alex, there's something important I need to tell her.".
"Well, I think I saw her out in the field." She stated, taking an actual interest in the conversation, as she started to speed up. We started running towards the field, where players were fighting off boars to level, and began looking around until...
"Hey," the voice of a girl screamed behind us. Turning around, we saw that it was Devin's daughter Alex who continued to complain, "Why the hell did you push me over?".
"Devin? Perfect! I located you much faster than I could have imagined." I exclaimed as I pulled him, I guess technically her, and Emily out of earshot of other players and tried to see if Devin knew what was going on.
"How should I know," He stated, looking like he wanted to slap me, "all I remember is turning on the helmet, and then waking up about to fall off the edge of a cliff.". We took a few minutes to try to figure out what had happened, but were unable to find an answer. As we continued to ponder this, along with how our 14 and 15 year old kids are in 2022, when a bright light surrounded us and we were teleported to the center of the starting town.
After taking a few minutes to discuss what was going on, a large figure appeared before us, and spoke the following statement...
"Attention, players. Welcome to my world. My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world. I'm sure you've already noticed, that the logout button is missing from the main menu. But this is not a defect in the game…I repeat..this is not a defect in the game. It is a feature of Sword Art Online. You cannot log out of SAO yourselves. And no one on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain and thus ending your life. Unfortunately, several players' friends and families have ignored this warning and have attempted to remove the NerveGear. As a result, two hundred and thirteen players Are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world. As you can see, news organizations across the world, are reporting all of this, including the deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger, of a NerveGear being removed is no minimal. I hope you will relax and attempt to clear the game. But I want you to remember this clearly. There is no longer any method to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost. and simultaneously the NerveGear will destroy your brain. There is only one means of escape. To complete the game. You are presently on the lowest floor of Aincrad, Floor 1. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the Floor Boss, you may advance to the next level. Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game. Finally, I've added a present from to your item storage. Please see for yourself."
Upon hearing this, everyone opened their inventories to see what was there. In there was a mirror, which I pulled from my inventory and saw my daughter's avatar. It looked exactly like me, I wondered both how and why this was possible, but Emily didn't question it so it must have already been like this. Suddenly, everyone became engulfed in the same bright light as before, and when it cleared, everyone looked different. Looking in the mirror, I saw what my daughter actually looked like. She was normal height for her age with brown hair and eyes to match.
We continued trying to figure out what was going on when I thought of something, "Devin, do you think we could get ahold of Jamie?"
We then remembered that Emily had been with us this entire time, and had not said a thing. We looked over to her and she said, "My mom did say to tell you two something after we ended up here.". We both looked to each other, then to her with looks of confusion.
"Well, what is it?" I asked her as I continued to try and figure out why it was we were here.
"She said to tell you that the line's always open, whatever she means by that." Emily stated, while Devin and I continued giving her confused looks.
"Wait!" I exclaimed, as I opened my menu, "I know exactly what she means!". I began to scroll through menu upon menu until I found it, not sure how but I did, a way of calling the lab. I called the number and, after a few tries, guess who it was that picked up?
"Hello?" Rang a familiar voice in my ear, as the cloaked figure continued to ramble on about whatever it was he was talking about, "Samantha, you there? I'm trying my best to keep the connection up.".
"Yeah. What the hell happened?" I asked her while Emily was a bit confused as to what was going on.
"I have been trying to figure that out myself." Jamie exclaimed, sounding very happy to be talking to me, "I'm surprised you were able to call the lab at all."
We continued to talk back and forth while Devin and Emily gave me looks of disbelief. Also, since he was paying more attention than I was, Devin will continue the POV for the rest of this particular scene...
(Devin's POV)
Upon pulling the mirror out of our inventories, we all became engulfed in the same bright light as the one from when we were teleported here. When the light faded, I looked into the mirror and saw how my daughter actually looked. She has long, I mean incredibly long, dirty-blonde hair with bluish-pink eyes. She didn't look like the weakest person I've ever seen, but she didn't look exactly strong either. She seems more like me that way.
Kayaba then continued with explaining about why we were trapped...
"Right now, you're probably wondering, 'why'. Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of Sword Art Online and the Nerve Gear, do all this? My goal has already been achieved. I created Sword Art Online for one reason. To create this world and intervene in it. And now, it is complete. This ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online Launch. Good luck players."
...Kayaba then disappeared and left us to endure the hell of this world. Everyone began freaking out as Emily, Sam, and I began to try to get out of town as soon as possible. However, we were chased by Alex's brother.
"Where are you three going?" He shouted through the crowds to us, "I think we should stick together!". We tried our best to ignore him and ran out into the field, fighting whatever came our way so we could gain more EXP.
After fighting off a large amount of boars, and a fair few wolves, we entered into the next town we ran into. The reason we were randomly trying to find a town was because none of us had any idea where we were headed. As we came close to the town a black-haired boy ran past, a sword that Alex's brother told her about that came from a quest at his side, seeming to be in some kind of rush. Upon entering the town the music became calm again, we saw a group of three talking about the sword I mentioned earlier before heading off farther into the town, and everything just became really serene and peaceful.
"So, this was fun, let's get out of this damn game!" I exclaimed before waiting for Sam to do something to get us out of here.
"Well," Sam began, sounding a bit ashamed of what she was about to tell me, "you see, escape is kind of impossible.".
"What do you mean we can't get out of here?" I questioned, a hint of anger in my voice, "I mean it's our kid's fault for entering, they can make their way out alone, we don't need to be stuck because of their mistakes!".
"That's the problem," Sam stated in a shy voice, "We can't get out because we are in the bodies of our children.". She began explaining to me why it is we are unable to leave, "When we first entered, our brains became linked with the brains of our kids, so we would activate the system that fries your brain if we were to attempt to leave.". We then decided that there was no other choice, and that we needed to play through the whole game, floors 1-75 due to what happens in the anime, without dying unless we wanted to kill our own kids. Once that was out of the way we explained to Emily the situation a bit better what was going on and she told us that she knew who we were and that she was here as an ally to us.
"So," I stated, yawning a bit as I spoke, "where do we start?". We had decided to rent rooms at the inn for tonight, and think about what to do in the morning.
(Emily's POV)
I woke the next morning, getting very little sleep in the first place, to hear two people arguing with one another in the hallway. Opening my door I saw "Alex" and "Erica" fighting about who would be the person leading the party. I say "Alex" and "Erica" because in actuality they were their parents Devin and Samantha from the year 2015 trapped within the bodies of Alex and Erica. When they noticed me standing there watching them, and laughing at them a bit, they stopped and looked over at me.
"So," Sam said, seeming to be scanning me with her eyes, "how did you sleep?". I took a moment to answer because I was unsure if I even slept last night at all.
"I slept great." I lied, trying to smile at least a bit, before motioning for them to come into my room.
"That makes one of us." Devin muttered under his, technically her breath as (s)he and Erica entered the room.
"Listen," I began, taking a seat on the bed while the other two sat on either side of me, "you two can't say anything about you being your own parents in public okay?". They both took a moment to exchange looks before I exclaimed, "Even if it's true, people will think you're insane, and don't forget to use your screen names!". Just so you know, Erica's screen name was Madalyn just in case I use at some point.
We all had made the decision to create a party in which I was the leader, because the other two would not stop fighting about which of them should be leader, and we headed out of the room to start off the day. "We should probably eat something." I suggested as we went down into the main area of the inn, thinking of what we should do next.
"So," Samantha began, in the midst of our meal, "What's the plan Em?". I gave her a look of utter annoyance, and giving a subtle cough to make a point, which made her understand what my problem was. "Fine. What's the plan Fidelity?" She restated, giving me a look that made me scared that she might actually kill me if I do something like that again, "Because I feel we should try to fight some of the higher level monsters.".
"I think that's a great idea Madalyn, if we want to ourselves killed." I stated, while trying not think about how I wasn't actually eating anything, "But since it's only the second day, we should continue with what we have been doing and, we should slowly work our way up to the harder monsters.". Erica sat back, crossing her arms as she did so, and continued to give me that death glare.
Deciding that my plan would be the safest, while the other two got used to the game's controls, and we headed out of town towards the field. We began fighting off a few wolves, which was a bit difficult, before we ran into Alex's brother Devin again. I'll call him by his screen name, which is Dax, in order to avoid any kind of confusion. He came running towards us, once he had noticed that we were here, and was attempting to avoid some of the wolves as he reached us.
"You guys are okay!" Dax exclaimed, stopping in front of us, "I thought when you guys left you might not make it here.". All three of us exchanged looks of confusion before turning to him.
"What do you mean 'not make it'?" Devin questioned as we headed back into town with him.
"You didn't really have any idea of where you were going, so I thought that you were not going to make it is all." Dax answered stopping at a quest giver. We continued to complain to him about how, just because we aren't beta testers doesn't mean we don't know what we're doing. After a while, we were fed up with Dax trying to explain how he knows more about this game than all three of us combined. So we just left him alone and went back to fighting more wolves. As the sun began to go down, we headed back to the inn for some dinner.
"Today went well," Sam stated, taking a sip of her drink, "not including the whole thing with Dax that is.". We all became silent for a few minutes after that, until Devin decided to speak up.
"He's just a bit of an asshole sometimes, even at home, trust me." He explained taking a bite out of the sandwich he had been eating.
"Hang on a moment," Erica interrupted, her face in a bit of shock, "how would you know about how Alex's brother is at home?". This was confusing because, if you had forgotten about it already, Alex was actually a 15 version of her father Devin.
We continued to ponder about this for a while, until we heard a commotion outside and went out to see what was going on.
Upon heading outside of the door to the inn there was a cluster of people, which we were able to get through, and saw two people about to duel against each other. Above the two reads "Klaus VS. Alshep" which I am guessing are their screen names. The duel was interesting, but nothing really to talk about. Afterwards, all three of us went back to our rooms for the night and went to bed.
Author's Notes: I hope anyone who read this chapter did enjoy it, and will continue to read as time goes on. Also, I added one or two references to a certain SAO story that I am reading so there's that.
