Warning: Mention of canon death.

Kirito, Arkus, and Mayzer went down the stairs and took seats near the top of the theatre in the town [Tolbana] where the meeting about the floor boss was being held. It had been a month since they were all trapped in the game and no one had found the floor boss. Two thousand plyers had died since then, some of them ex-beta-testers Arkus had known who thought they could go it solo. It made a grim kind of sense to Mayzer. Players had to level slower than they would have to avoid getting themselves killed. This meant not going for monsters of higher or same level as them despite the greater amount of XP offered. It also made sense that not everything was not the same as in the beta. This put the ex-beta-testers on the same playing field as the beginners to some extent. She frowned at the thought of how many beta-testers died because a monster was a higher level than expected, or the field boss was in a different area. Mayzer looked back and observed her party-mates as they found seats for themselves.

While Kirito's gear hasn't changed much except for his sword and some better armor, both Arkus and Mayzer had upgraded their outfits. Arkus now had a metal chest plate and pauldrons, as well as greaves and gauntlets. He also had an upgraded two-handed axe strapped to his back. Mayzer now had a second belt that held her throwing knifes and a pouch for some senbon and an ingredients satchel slung across her chest. She had a leather jerkin on and a long brown coat over it. She had soft leather boots and black fingerless gloves. Her hair was still in its ponytail and she now had a red bandana covering the bottom half of her mouth. Since she couldn't control her thought-to-mouth filter lately she had taken to hiding her face more in embarrassment.

As they seated themselves, the man standing in the stage area called for everyone's attention. Mayzer couldn't focus well on his speech because she was so caught on his hair color. Did he really waste money on in-game hair dye? Or did he dye it before coming into the game, and the face scanner read it as his real hair color? There is no way that is natural. Maybe I can ask him where he got it. I wonder if they have a good shade of purple, or maybe green. I could probably go red if I wanted. If I get a sample maybe I can reverse-engineer it and make it myself, add a few new colors, maybe sell it. Hmmmm…

Her focus broke when everyone started to break into teams of six. She wasn't worried about numbers, even though they only had three members, they were still a good team, each of them able to cover any weaknesses of the other members. She saw Kirito looking at something and looked over to see a lone player in a maroon cloak sitting at the other end of the stone bench. She grinned and nudged at Kirito, gesturing for him to go over and talk to the player, "Go on, we could always use another body. Plus, with that rapier she's got, she should have enough speed to keep up with you." He nodded and scooted over to her, talking to her and offering to take her into their party. The girl pressed the accept button and Mayzer looked at the bars in the top left corner to read the girl's username, [Asuna].

Her thoughts wandered back to what ingredients she would need for different hair colors and she almost missed the orange-haired man leaping straight over her head and face the audience. She felt Arkus wrap his hand around her wrist as red seeped into her vision listening to the utter bullshit this punk was spouting. She couldn't count how many times Arkus and Kirito almost died keeping her and whoever crossed their path alive. Even though he put on the face of one who didn't care about anyone else, and if it wasn't happening right in front of him it was mostly true, she knew Kirito wasn't the type to just let others die without helping. It just made her angrier, he was just a kid, he shouldn't have to be responsible for people older than him and who should have enough goddamn commonsense not to get in such stupid situations, herself included. It was the reason why she had thrown herself into making more efficient healing and regeneration crystals, as well as trying to perfect her aim. While Arkus had increased his strength and was starting to be a real tank, she had learned several skills focused on throwing off monsters' aim and balance, focusing on their wrists and other joints, as well as shifting their agro when her party-members were getting battered. She wasn't too good at it yet, but it had saved both of her teammates from some serious injuries. Abandoned them her ass. Maybe some of them had, but Mayzer couldn't blame them. She would be hesitant to put her neck on the line for strangers too, especially if she were in the same boat. And especially if it was with assholes like Kibaou going around running their mouths.

She was ready to rip away from her brother and smack that punk onto his butt when someone stepped up to him. Mayzer calmed down as the tall man, taller than Arkus, Agil stared Kibaou down and calmly explained how the ex-beta-testers had been helping. It sobered her further thinking about the guide book in Agil's hand. Some of the two thousand players had been those that died to make sure the guide book was accurate as possible so no one else would die for those same mistakes. It made her wonder how accurate the book was about the floor boss, and if the location wasn't the only thing Kayaba had changed. She sheepishly looked up at Arkus, who was giving her an amused but unimpressed look, knowing what she had been close to doing. She looked over at Kirito and gave him a reassuring smile when he looked over at her. He smiled back, recognizing the folds and creases in Mayzer's bandana that signified her smile, it was a little bit shaky, but it was something. He was still a bit nervous after Kibaou's speech, but loosened up as meeting continued. When it ended, Mayzer turned back to the pair, but Asuna was already leaving. She didn't feel bad about it, after all they had just met and her inclusion in the party was probably only going to last through the boss fight.

As they headed back into the town, Arkus and Kirito split from Mayzer, saying they were going to browse the stalls and shops. Mayzer nodded and told them to meet her back in the inn for dinner. After that she headed to the inn and reserved a couple of rooms, one for her and one for the boys. She didn't think it necessary, but it was one of those things Arkus was adamant about, and it was less trouble to just go along with it. Plus it gave her room to lay out her alchemy equipment.

She went into her items menu and selected the herbs and minerals she gathered on the way to town. It was interesting, how the game made its different types of crystals. The process started with a solid mineral base, the types of crystal dependent on mineral used. She had found out which ones were used for those used on the body, like health and antidote crystals, and she thought she was close to figuring out the base for transportation crystals, but that was a ways off yet and she was unable to reverse-engineer them with her current skill. Then you had to infuse the mineral with different herbs and oils to get the desired effects, such as health or regeneration. There was also the process of heating the mixture for the right amount of time, or the whole thing could cool into a dud or explode into molten shards right in your face. They didn't take away health since they were usually made in the safe-zones, but the shards are able to give you scars where they cut due to the different ingredients imbued into them. Her bandana hid several such scars and there was one splitting her left eyebrow, along with some on her hands and forearms.

The scars she had gotten her first few attempts were the things that ultimately turned Kirito away from learning, though he wasn't too set on it in the first place. The first and only time he and Arkus tried to dissuade her from continuing the skill after seeing the scars, it had only taken one look into her eyes and then the matter was dropped and never brought up again. It wasn't too long after that that she started wearing a bandana across her face instead of around her neck.

Not only could you make the standard crystals, but if you got real good you could add extra effects or enhance those already present. Right now she could make healing crystals and some antidotes, but the thing she was proud of was that she had managed to enhance the speed of the healing crystals and figured out how to make a regeneration crystal. You could also experiment and try to make new kinds of crystals, but she was leery of doing that since there was a chance of making a faulty crystal that damaged a player when used. They didn't look different than working crystals, and you had to look at it description to find out which were good or not. It had happened to Arkus when he tried one of the first crystals she had tried to make. It was a good thing they had pre-made healing crystals on hand. It was another couple of weeks and a few used by Kirito before he tried any of her crystals again. By now her skill had improved to the point where they only bought and used store-bought crystals when she ran low on supplies or hadn't figured out that particular recipe.

It was dark outside when she was brought out of her work by a knock at the door. "Come in!" She yelled, turning back to the lump of mineral in the bowl in front of her. She dusted it with some powdered roots, added some chopped up stems, put in some crushed petals and added a couple of drops of several oils and extracts with some eyedroppers. She then put the bowl on a stand over a small Bunsen burner like device. As the mixture started to heat up, it glowed and she quickly removed it from the flame with some tongs. As she set it back down on the desk, the mass separated into several globs and lost their glow. In front of her were several red healing crystals, each a shade darker than the ones available in the shops.

"You know you look like a mad scientist when you're like that, right?" Arkus remarked as he looked over her shoulder, reaching over to take some of the crystals.

"Isn't that what everyone wants be, anyway? Wait your turn, I'm going to hand out the ones I made in the morning." Mayzer said absently, swatting away his hand and putting away the crystals and other items. She usually did this when they were in town, handing them out between the three of them when they left for the fields. "So where is Kirito? I thought we were going to eat together." "He went off to find our new party-member, make sure she eats too." Mayzer nodded and they both went downstairs and ordered some actual food from the inn-keeper. Kirito may want to eat cream covered cardboard rolls with their new teammate, but they had made a good amount of Col from the quests they had been doing, and Mayzer wanted meat, actual meat, for once while they were here, before they faced the giant rat lord. After they cleared their plates and listened to the gossip the inn-keeper had they headed up to bed, Kirito coming in not too long after.

The next morning they met up with Asuna and Mayzer handed out the healing crystals, about six or eight for each of them. Asuna seemed confused as to why she was being given crystals, while the boys simply gave her an exasperated look. So she had gone a little over board while making the crystals, she was a bit preoccupied at the time. The hair dye refused to leave her thoughts! God, she wanted to color streaks in her again!

"I have a good enough skill in Alchemy to make my own healing crystals, and they're a bit better than the ones in the shops. I usually make sure each of them have enough on them before we leave a safe-zone." Mayzer explained to the girl. She looked even more surprised. "You can make these?" "Yeah," Mayzer said, as they followed the group of other players towards the dungeons, "most people don't get into it, either because it too much like chemistry for them, or the scars you usually get." "Scars?" Mayzer pulled down her bandana, showing little scars about half an inch long peppering her cheeks and one larger one going across her mouth on the right side, drawing notice to a few other scars on her forehead and the one on her eyebrow. Then she pulled off her gloves and showed her the same type of scar littering her fingers and hands, going past her wrists and thinning out as they climbed her arms. "The different ingredients you add to make the crystals can explode and shatter if you heat them too long, and they can react to your skin, causing the wounds to scar. I usually make them in safe-zones when I'm testing new recipes so it doesn't drain my health, but still, it's not a skill that just anyone can learn." Asuna nodded, looking slightly unnerved under her hood. Whether it was by the scars or the uncaring way Mayzer talked about them she didn't know, or care. She didn't really care how they looked, and only wore the bandana and gloves so the boys wouldn't get upset by them. It was for progress, and so the others could have better items, so she felt it was worth it.

As they walked, Kirito and Asuna fell behind as Kirito went over how they were going to deal with the sentinels. Mayzer and Arkus were going to pair up and fight together since they had the best teamwork, which left Kirito with Asuna. That was fine, since Kirito was good enough to work around a new team member and mesh their styles together. Mayzer looked back when she felt Kirito stop and saw him looking exasperated and resigned. From what she heard, Asuna was as much of a noob as she used to be before the boys taught her about online games. She snickered as Kirito started explaining what a switch was and how it benefited teams in a fight. Arkus just shot her a look which practically screamed 'you were just as bad'. This just made her grin at him from under her bandana.

They finally made it to the boss room and Mayzer readied herself, a knife in both hands, standing a few steps behind Arkus, who had unslung his battle-axe and was gripping it in both hand, holding it across his body. Diavel the leader finished a short speech and opened the doors, leading the others as they charged into the room.

It was a long stone corridor, with grey pillars at regular intervals along the walls. At the end of the room, cloaked in shadows, Mayzer could just see an outline of Illfang, and his red eyes which glowed in the darkness. Suddenly the doors closed and the room was lit up, the wall taking on a psychedelic glow, and Illfang jumped out of his throne and across to the middle of the room, his minions materializing next to him. The name hovering over him read [Illfang the Kobold Lord] with four health bars hovering next to it. The minions were similarly named [Ruin Kobold Sentinel]. Illfang was gigantic, a red rat-like monster with a blue diamond pattern on his bare stomach and minimal armor save for a loin-cloth and a metal helmet, holding a shield and axe with some kind of weapon strapped to the small of its back. The sentinels were also vaguely rat-like, covered with armor and holding rock-crusted maces.

The raid group charged, crashing into the sentinels and splitting into groups. Mayzer fell into the rhythm of battle, aiming for spots on the sentinels that were vulnerable while Arkus held their attention, dealing crushing blows and making openings for deadly blades to sneak in, finding and burying into vital spots, radically dropping the monsters HP and leaving them easy pickings for the brutal and cruel edge of her brother's axe. Nothing else registered to her but aiming and releasing her knifes, catching them when they appeared before her when the opponent they were buried in shattered and taking out new ones when the ones in her hands lost what little durability they had. One sentinel had snuck up on her, but she simply pulled out her dagger and ducked under its swing and into the sentinel's space, getting close enough to be out of the maces' range and sinking the blade directly into the sentinel's throat, dragging it across and opening a gash in the monster's neck before it shattered and she pulled out another throwing knife and shot it straight into another sentinel's elbow, giving Arkus an opening to sink his axe into the rat's skull. And so they continued, in almost perfect sync with each other, mowing through sentinels with a single-minded purpose, ignoring everything else, even their own wounds unless their HP dropped into the yellow.

Only when the last sentinel within their sphere of influence had died did Mayzer come back to herself, looking around to check on Kirito. Usually they were fighting with him so she was already aware of him, but she had lost sight of him after the second sentinel. As Arkus downed a potion to regain health, she spotted him and Asuna fighting a sentinel a bit away from them. They worked well together, she noted, Kirito throwing them off with sheer strength and Asuna coming in to put in quick rapid fire strikes that ate up the monsters' HP. She noticed Kirito staring at something and she turned just in time to see Illfang throw away his axe and buckler and pull out a sword, but not the curved sword Arkus had describe a talwar as. She heard Diavel yell and solo rush the boss, sword skill charging, also hearing Kirito yell out a warning, but too late. The rat jumped up and started to leap from wall to wall, homing in on Diavel. He was unable to react as Illfang launched straight at him, sending him stumbling back with a serious gash across his chest and then sinking his sword straight into the knight's gut, throwing the player back across the room. It then jumped into the middle of the main group, snarling and slashing at them. Mayzer hesitated before going to help the main group with the boss, letting Kirito take care of Diavel. She sank blade after blade into Illfang, into his elbows, into his neck, even into the back of its knees to slow it down and give the others the chance to land blows on it, steadily picking away at that last piece of health.

She looked over and saw Diavel start to glow. No, not now. Not again, she silently begged in her mind, but it was no good. The knight shattered, shocking all the players before they were forced to refocus on Illfang, who was still raging, wildly slashing its nodachi at the group surrounding it. Mayzer gritted her teeth, and took out her dagger. It wouldn't do her any good, but she had sank her last knife into the soft part of the rat's elbow, yanking the slash that would have taken a player's head off course. She watched as Kirito and Asuna charged at the boss, and felt her breath catch as its sword caught her cloak, almost catching her neck instead. She was unable to fully appreciate the awe-struck look on Kirito's face as he was shown the pretty face so-far hidden by the cloak, made even better with the sparkly remains of her cloak dancing around her, as he was suddenly blocking Illfang's strikes. She gasped and dashed over to him as the boss's sword made contact and threw him into the air and skidding into Asuna, his HP rapidly dropping. As the nodachi was brought down on them again, Agil came in and knocked Illfang off course, the rest of the players joining in and keeping the boss away and giving Kirito a chance to recover. Mayzer dropped to her knees and shoved a crystal into his mouth, making sure his HP was rising before turning and keeping an eye on her brother, who was in front next to Agil, the two of them blocking and throwing back Illfang's attacks, giving the others openings to attack.

Kirito's HP was almost back to full when Illfang threw all the players away from him, going on the offensive. Kirito jumped up and blitzed Illfang with a well-timed attack, sending him into the ground. Kirito and Asuna then charged at the boss, preforming a flawless switch routine and ending it with Kirito scoring two deep gashes into Illfang, nearly bisecting the monster.

The rat monster seemed to swell a bit before glowing brightly and shattering into a million tiny shards. Never has Mayzer been so glad to hear the sound of breaking glass. Everything was still for a moment before everyone burst into cheers, Mayzer and Arkus included. She didn't even care that every single one of her knifes had shattered with the boss and she was stuck with one lousy dagger before she could get to the nearest weapons shop. She could get them when they stepped onto the second floor! Everyone was still celebrating and congratulating Kirito when Kibaou started in on him, accusing him of letting Diavel die. Then came the accusations of being a beta-tester, like that was a bad thing, and the next thing she knew, Mayzer was surrounded by suspicious players, each eyeing their neighbors, as if they could spot a beta-tester just by squinting.

She was about to speak up when a laugh was heard. She wheeled around to stare at Kirito, the source of the laugh. She got an inkling of what he was about to pull off, and made to move forward to stop him when he said the next words, sealing his fate. "So you want to call me an ex-beta-tester. It's not cool to put me in the same class as those newbs." She stood frozen as he went on, ragging on the other testers, lying about how he got so much farther than anyone else, and taking on that despicable name, beater, putting on a new long coat that she realized was that last attack bonus. She couldn't move because she knew why he was doing it. He was taking the heat off the other testers, like her brother, and giving the other players a bigger target to focus on, to ostracize. She felt something tight in her chest as he walked away and she got a new window, one that stated [Kirito has left the party.] She could only watch as he climbed the stairs alone, as he pushed open the doors alone, as he left the first floor, and Mayzer's and Arkus' lives for the foreseeable future, alone.

No.

Mayzer latched onto Arkus' wrist and yanked him along as she sprinted past the other players, past Kibaou and Agil who had called out, past Asuna at the base of the stairs and almost crashing into Kirito as they stepped through the door into the second floor. She let go of her brother and tackled Kirito.

"Mayzer, what are you doin-"

"No. You don't get to just decide when to leave us. There are processes for these types of things," she started to ramble, distracting Kirito as she sent a party request and manipulating his finger to accept. "You have to make sure this is really what you want and not some twisted teenage angst/rebellion thing you got going on. Then you go to Arkus so he can knock your sense back, because obviously you wouldn't be thinking. Then if that didn't work he would drag you over to me where I would start to talk and ramble and make you too confused to even think about leaving…" Arkus dragged her off Kirito, the fact he had waited until Kirito's name came back up onto the party list was neither here nor there. "I think he's got the message, Mayzer" Kirito started and looked at the two other names under his. "You guys shouldn't-" "Shouldn't what, be seen with you? You're our friend Kirito, we aren't simply going to let you take all the heat." "But-" Josh interrupted, noticing his sister starting to puff up in irritation, "Just nod and say yes, Kirito. You don't want to set her off again do you?" Kirito stared at them stubbornly, Mayzer staring defiantly right back. He sighed and hung his head, "Fine, help me up would you?" Mayzer grinned triumphantly and grabbed on to the offered limb pulling him up. "Alright! Now where's the weapon shop around here? Mayzer needs her knifes."

Kirito just huffed a laugh and followed as his friends started to terrorize the nearby NPCs in search of good steel. He supposed sticking around wouldn't be too bad.