Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the second chapter of Player Killer Killer. I do not own anything other than my own characters, please enjoy!
Player Killer Killer
Chapter 2
Colours flashed past my eyes, and then everything went white. Five blue circles appeared at the bottom of my field of vision, labelled with one of the five senses on each, then they all moved to stack on top of each other on my right, the words on them changed to read 'OK!' Another box appeared asking for my username and password, which input themselves no sooner then they crossed my mind. Yet another message box appeared confirming that I was playing in English (Australia), I may have studied Japanese and moved to Japan to play this game, but that did not mean my mind was wired to understand Japanese automatically; I happen to like English. Somehow the confirm button was pressed without me physically doing anything, which I thought was both cool and a tad creepy at the same time.
I found myself lying on the ground, or what seemed to be the ground; I couldn't really tell what it really was. It was transparent and appeared to have no substance, yet it felt solid. I stood up, my injuries from the real world not affecting me at all. It then occurred to me that I could move, there was no longer some disembodied being making the decisions. I looked around, but there wasn't much to see; it was all pitch black, yet I could still see myself. I looked down at my feet to find them encased in brown shoes, I could see my pale hands; they seemed so real. A semicircle of message boxes appeared around me; they were customisation options.
I got to work adjusting myself, black hair, blue eyes and so on (most of the features I chose were very similar to how I looked in real life, because I couldn't really imagine myself looking any different). I decided against messing around with the facial features, touching them never turns out well because you can never quite get it back to the default and you always end up looking weird, always, height, semi-tall, weight, enough to be called healthy. I changed my starting clothes from their initial dull colours to a green long sleeve shirt and black pants, the only things that I didn't get to choose was the brown shoes and chest plate. A short sword appears in front of me, seeming to be levitating in mid-air. I reached out to grab it and I am given a short tutorial on how to use the menu and inventory, using items et cetera. One final text box manifests itself in front of me with a keyboard beneath it asking for my player name. I take a deep breath; this is it. I enter 'Rin' into the box provided and colour surrounds me once more.
Welcome to Sword Art Online!
With a sound like a sigh of relief, the world turns white, then reassembles itself to form a hard floor beneath my feet – one that I can see this time – two storey buildings in a wide ring around me, but not modern houses, these ones were made of large stone bricks, some of the roofs made from thatch or wood, like something straight out of a medieval painting, except about a hundred times more awesome. Other players were in all directions, many of them appearing out of bursts of blue flame. I was about to go and explore the town more, but then I remembered that I was supposed to wait for Shino, or Shiniki, I should say. I can't see anyone with that particular name tag, I'm almost certain that he'd know to stick around; besides, he probably got stuck in the many customisation options.
Fifteen minutes. That's how long I had to stand around waiting before I finally saw someone with the name Shiniki. "You took your sweet time!" I call out to him and I get a good look at his avatar as he turns to face me. He has green hair, boyish face, he is taller than he is in real life, more muscular, he has brown eyes and tanned skin and he's got the default short sword at his hip and a blue shirt beneath his chest plate and dark grey pants. He walks up to me after locating my name tag among the thinning crowd. "Yeah well, I was playing around with the gender customization options." He tells me, at least his voice is still the same. "Oh were you now?" I ask and he nods enthusiastically.
"Yeah, you know, if you switch genders, a whole new set of customisation options appear."
"You perve- wait, they do?!" I exclaim incredulously and he nods yet again.
"Anyway, sorry I took so long, I was... um... testing how far they went."
"You only did it so you could- no, never mind, let's just get out of here." With that, we both smirk at each other and sprint off down one of the roads leading out of town.
The boar charges at Shiniki, who hastily brings up his sword to block the oncoming attack, the beast comes to a complete stop upon hitting the sword, Shiniki staggers back, but neither side takes any damage. Seeing an opportunity, I run up and stick my sword into the boar's side and the curved health bar above its head, which had previously been red, got shorter before it disappeared completely. The boar starts glowing, and then explodes into white, blue and green polygons. "Woah, thanks Rin! I thought I was a goner there!" Shiniki tells me gratefully, I look up to where me health bar is, beneath it is a smaller version, representing Shiniki's heath points. "You didn't take any damage." I state and he chuckles.
"Yeah, and if you hadn't have stepped in, then I would have!" I look at him, unimpressed, but he genuinely seems thankful. "Whatever man." I dismiss him and turn my attention to the message box that has appeared before me, telling me that I'd just gained twelve experience points and asking me if I wanted to keep the boar pelt. I hit the confirm button because... I guess you can sell pelts? I think all they do is hang on walls and get turned into clothes. "Alright, eight exp.!" Shiniki exclaims. "Good start!"
"So that's where the rest of my points went." I mutter, but I'm happy on the inside; that was the first monster we'd fought, and my first kill. "C'mon, let's do it again!" Shiniki says enthusiastically and I nod in reply. "But this time you go up front." Ha adds.
"Alright."
We locate our next target and close in, Shiniki sneaking around the back of the boar with myself in front. Once I'm fifteen metres away, the boar looks up at me and charges at me head on. Now that I can see this thing running full-throttle at me, I decide against blocking its charge and step to the side and make a wild slash at it as it passes by me. My blade strikes true and the boar's health drops a little, but nowhere near enough to take it out of the green. "Damn it Rin, you were supposed to block!" Shiniki yells at me as he runs to catch up with me. "Sorry, we'll try it again." I circle around the boar, which has finished its charge, and is now recuperating. Then, once again, it charges headlong at me, demonstrating a real variety in its move-set. I hold my short sword in my right hand, put my left hand behind the tip of the blade and hold the weapon horizontally to intercept the oncoming attack in the nick of time. "Shiniki!" I call out because I don't know how long I can hold this thing back, it's moving around, trying to get away from me, but apparently it doesn't know how to move backwards. Shiniki comes running in, sword raised above his head, the blade glowing red. He leaps into the air and slashes down on the boar and its health bar drop from green, to yellow, to red. The boar squeals angrily, escapes my block and runs a few metres away. "What was that?" I ask Shiniki, confused.
"What was what?"
"You know, the whole red shiny blade thing." I say, attempting to clarify, but not knowing how else to describe what I saw. "Oh that. It was a sword skill, we read about them in an article, remember? They're like special attacks." He explains, now that he mentions it, it does sound familiar.
"Oh, right, sorry. I do remember now." I briefly reminisce to the article that Shiniki spoke of that talked about different sword skills for different weapons, (regardless of whether they were a sword or not) and how each skill has a different 'trigger position' to activate it. "Anyway, are you gonna kill that?" I ask.
"Wha- AARGH!" Shiniki screams and we both jump to dodge the boar's next attack. Note to self: kill enemy first, talk second.
We spent the next... I don't know how long we spent killing boars in the fields, but now we were both level three, and both of our inventories were full of boar pelts. We'd made sure to clear the hill before we dropped out guard and sat down atop it. "This is... nice." Shiniki says as he lies on his back. "The grass feels so real, and the sunlight feels so warm." He elaborates as he stretches his arms above his head. "Yeah," I agree "they really went all out on this." We both sigh in unison as we bask in the sunlight, appreciating everything about the game.
DOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGG! A bell sounds out across the floor; it came from the town we were in earlier, the Town of Beginnings, even though that place can be seen in the distance from here, we heard it as clear as day. "What the hell was that?" Shiniki exclaims in surprise.
"A bell." I reply and he casts me a withering glare.
"I know that, idiot, I mean, what was that?" he repeats.
"A bell." I answer, he opens his mouth to berate me, but at that moment, he disappears into blue fire. "Wait wha-" I start to say, but I too, am engulfed in blue flame.
My surroundings suddenly change, high walls on all sides, a dirt floor; is this an arena. It's shaped like a large oval, but there are no seats on the sides, so I guess it's not an arena. But in all seriousness, what is the function of this place? It's just a large space of... space. Do the NPCs of this town find joy in standing around doing nothing? Is that why they made this place? Well, they're made up of ones and zeroes, so I guess they don't feel joy for a whole lot of things in the first place. There are eruptions of blue fire all around me and people, other players, are appearing from them, looking just as surprised and confused as me.
There is a flashing red hexagon in the sky, its got words on it, but I can't read what it says. "Does that say 'error'?" Shiniki asked worryingly, and no sooner had those words left his mouth, the whole sky seemed to become red with hexagons in a giant dome over our heads. "Woah, that's a lot of errors." I mutter. A substance that looks suspiciously similar to blood starts to leak from between the hexagons, filling into an invisible bowl, then forming into the shape of an individual completely shrouded in a red cloak. Unless my dad somehow sneaked some sort of hallucinogen into my lunch, I am actually seeing what I have just described and it was not at all drug-induced. "And this would be the error." Shiniki says and I elbow him in the waist sharply. "Shut up, the joke's old now."
"Greetings everyone," The giant cloak spoke, its booming voice filling the arena "and welcome to Sword Art Online."
"What's going on?" A girl somewhere in the crowd asked.
"Don't worry, it's just the welcome ceremony." A man reassured them. The cloak spoke again, its arms raised as if looking for a hug, or a priest preaching to a crowd. "My name is Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of Aincrad, welcome to my world." The cloak now known to be Kayaba Akihiko continued his speech. "As many of you may have noticed, the logout button has been disabled, I assure you that this is not an error, this is the way that Sword Art Online was designed to be." Crap! I'd completely forgotten about logging out! Dad's probably going ballistic in my room at the moment, trying to lecture my unresponsive body to no avail. "Crap! Mum will have me arse on a spike once I get out." Shiniki mutters, his head in his hands. "And my NerveGear." He adds, in a somewhat more concerned tone.
"There is now no way to revive players; this marks the end of the tutorial, and the official beginning of your new lives." Kayaba continued. "Once your HP reaches zero, it's game over for you, and your NerveGear will release a microwave pulse into your brain, ending your life, and your character will be deleted from the SAO database. Forever." Shiniki was next to me, crouching down on the ground, head in his hands. "Why?" He asked no-one in particular. "Why would he do this?"
"Now, you're probably wondering, why would I, Kayaba Akihiko, creator of Sword Art Online, do this?" Kayaba proceeded, and Shiniki stood up. "Oh. How convenient." He muttered.
"I yearned to create a world of my own imagining, one of which I could control the fate of. As you can see, I was successful in that endeavour."
"Despite the warnings clearly outlined in the NerveGear's owner's manual, the friends and families of some players have tried to forcibly remove the NerveGear from the heads of some players. Two-hundred-and-thirteen players have died thus far because of it, and there has been widespread panic across Japan because of it." Kayaba explained, bringing up message boxes displaying images and videos of grieving families and victims. "The only way to escape is to fight your way to the top of Aincrad and defeat the boss on the hundredth floor. Only then, once Sword Art Online is completed, will the surviving players be logged out."
"Th-that's insane!" someone nearby muttered disbelievingly.
"You expect us to believe this crap?!" Another yelled. I look over to Shiniki, he looks shaken, and rightfully so; we've all just been handed the worst kind of ultimatum. But for some reason, I feel normal. Fear? Terror? I feel neither.
"There is one last thing." Kayaba announced before the crowd could get too out of control. "I disprove of liars, and thus, I believe that everyone should play as themselves." A full ten seconds of silence passed, before suddenly, everything erupted into blinding blue fire. When I could see again, I saw a message box in front of me that read 'Admin gift!'I hit the accept button, hoping to be awarded the most powerful weapon in the game, only to be misguided and finding myself holding a mirror, my look of disappointed expression staring back at me. Okay, let me rephrase that: I could see the real me staring back at me. It was my choppy black hair, my green eyes, boyish face, smooth skin, my- well, I could go on, describing each and every one of my incredibly sexy features, but I wouldn't want to invade the dreams of too many people (Please, allow me my delusions of self-confidence). I look over to Shiniki, whose body has been reverted to Shino's. Black hair, dark brown eyes and pale skin that suggested he spent more time than was healthy inside. He was shorter now and less muscular as well. Our bodies are actually very alike, and by that I mean pathetically flimsy and weak; it's a good thing that out strength in this game is just a number.
There was a very loud chorus of surprise from everyone else in the arena. "You're not a girl!" One exclaimed. "You're not seventeen!" Another responded.
"You're not eight feet tall!"
"You're not an extremely rich Iberian prince looking for love!"
"And you're not a little girl!" There were more, but Kayaba was talking again. "There, I have revealed you all to be whom you truly are. Personally, I expected more. Anyway, good luck." There was an audible pop and Kayaba Akihiko disappeared and the sky cleared (I'm a poet, and I didn't even know it. Oh stop groaning.)
Silence.
And then... Panic. Fear. Terror. Horror. We are trapped inside a death game.
