Ash stood in front of a floating keyboard, a few buttons, and a small text box. Surrounding him was a dimly-lit room, accented with bright orange lights.

Type your user name here.

He looked at the keyboard, and started typing. He and Serena had planned on using their real names for the game, and he started typing.

Is the user name "Ash Ketchum" okay? [YES | NO]

He tapped the yes button, to be greeted by a few more options. He read the first option.

Do you have any nicknames? [Type nickname here.]

He typed in the nickname Ash, and went to the second option.

Use attached Pokémon Link data in the game? [YES | NO]

He tapped the yes button once again. After all, what would have been the point of getting the Poké Ball Scanner if he didn't?

The VirtuLens has stored keycard data. Would you like to use it? [YES | NO]

He tapped yes one last time, and a big, orange "LOG IN" button appeared. He tapped it, and the dark room faded in to solid white. Suddenly, the words "WELCOME TO SWORD ART ONLINE: REBORN!" zoomed in to view. The trainer braced himself, and in seconds he was teleported in to the virtual world.

"Wow…this is incredible!" Ash was amazed. The world was vast, colorful, and expansive. He couldn't wait to explore it all.

In the top-left of his view was a health bar. It showed him his level, his HP, and any status effects. Below it, he saw little Poké Ball icons with fully-green bars below them. He figured they must be his Pokémon and their status as well.

He remembered reading the how-to-start guide, and he attempted to open the menu. After multiple attempts of what looked like one simply flailing their arms around, he finally got the menu to open.

"Player, Pokémon, Items, Friends, Map, and Settings," he read aloud to himself. Those were all the options in the menu, and he had yet to explore them all. He had gone to close the menu, when he was interrupted by a noise.

Beep!

The 'Friends' menu had started glowing orange, and a little orange badge appeared on the icon. He tapped it, and looked at the message on screen.

Player 'Serena' is now online!

We must already be friends in our friends list. Wonder where she is, he thought to himself.

"Hey, Ash!"

Never mind.

"There you are!" she said while breathing heavily. "I've been looking for you all over!"

"Well, here I am. Here we are. This is the world of Aincrad everyone's been talking about."

"Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?" Serena looked all around, in awe at the beautiful, detailed scenery.

"Anyways, we've got to start the game at some point, so let's explore a little bit!" Excitement filled the air, as Ash and Serena started their first steps in to Sword Art Online: Reborn.

"So, let's look at the menu," Ash said to Serena, as they both opened their menu. They tapped the 'Player' button. There were a few options, and they both tapped 'Equipment'. They looked through the items, and they found what they were looking for.

"«Starter Sword», here it is!" Ash pointed it out to Serena. "These are what we're supposed to use, until we can get something better."

"Alright, let's try it out!" The two equipped their weapons, and held them in their hands, taking a few swings at the air.

"I like it," Serena told Ash. "Wanna go find something to test 'em out on?"

"Alright, let's go!" Ash replied, sword in hand. They raced to the mob fields, and were greeted with…a field full of players.

"Aww, everyone's got all the mobs already!" Ash complained.

"I wanted some experience, too!" Serena added. "I don't want to be stuck as a level one!"

"Hey, who wants to have a Pokémon battle?!" someone in the fields called.

"Pokémon battle?!" Ash's interest was piqued.

"Nope," Serena pulled him away. "No battles right now."

"But I want to try a battle in this game!"

"Not now, young man."

"Hey, stop treating me like I'm five!"

Serena just giggled in response. She wasn't going to let a Pokémon battle detract from their first experiences in FullDive. This was her time with Ash. Not some other player's.

"Hey, Serena, I just remembered something," Ash said. He pulled up his menu and went to the friends list. At the bottom of the menu was a button with a flashing ! sign on it.

"Import friends from keycard data," Ash read. He tapped the button, and a window popped up.

Send friend request[s] to '[STAFF] Leo' and '[STAFF] Emily'? [YES | NO]

"Oh, yeah, those two!" Serena remembered. "Wonder how they're doing." Ash tapped the yes button, and the friend requests sent.

"Hey Ash, over there!" Serena pointed to a horde of wild boars. "Let's try that out!" Serena pulled out her sword, and dashed towards the monsters. She activated her «Basic Sword Skill», and the boars vanished in to polygonal fragments.

"Alright, XP!" she celebrated.

"Congratulations, Serena!" Ash hugged her. "Now, it's my turn!" He looked for another boar horde. After locating one, he pulled out his own sword, and started rushing them.

"Hiiyaaahh!" he screamed, swinging the sword. Right before he could attack the boars, he felt time slow down. Soon, he had completely stopped. The clock in his HUD was frozen. Everyone around him, even Serena, just stood there, not moving an inch. Time had stopped completely.

What's this?! He thought to himself. This…I'm stuck! He looked at his health bar – the Poké Ball icons were glowing. Now, what was the gesture to send out a Pokémon again…? He stayed there, frozen in time, trying to remember…I've got it!

He put away his sword, put out three fingers, and made a motion like throwing a Poké Ball. Time unfroze, and Pikachu came out.

"Pika-pi!"It jumped in to its trainer's arms.

"There you are, Pikachu!" Ash hugged it, and it jumped back down, ready to fight. Ash checked his HP bar, and he saw something new – under his health bar was Pikachu's! It showed exact HP levels, experience, and even moves! Ash knew that the Poké Ball Scanner was essentially just a VirtuLens for Pokémon, so everything that happened here, Pikachu would remember. Pikachu's moveset was even transferred over from the real world.

"Alright Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!"

"Piiikaaachuuu!" A huge blast of electricity shot towards the monsters, effectively defeating all of them.

"Alright, awesome!" Ash exclaimed.

"Wh…wh…what was that?!" Serena was shocked. A huge crowd had gathered around Ash. Everyone was shocked.

"What do you mean, what was that? Pikachu and I just defeated some monsters, what does it look like?!"

"No, I-I-I m-mean, you j-just had a sword, a-and then it disappeared and you sent o-out a P-Pokémon…" Serena was a stuttering mess. She was so confused. Everyone around him just looked at him like he was insane.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I went to go attack the things with my sword, but before it let me attack, time froze and it told me to switch to a Pokémon, so…"

"How did you do that?! And second of all, how did time bend like that?! This is all real-time, wouldn't we notice if time froze?!"

"Maybe, I don't know. I can't explain this!"

All of a sudden, Ash's menu opened itself. The friends list opened, and a notification was received: '[STAFF] Leo' and '[STAFF] Emily' accepted your friend request! Shortly after came a message from Leo.

Hey, Ash. I want you and Serena to meet us at the Town of Beginnings. We need to talk about something. Make sure you're prepared to fight some tough monsters along the way. –Leo

"Serena, we've got to go. Do you think you're ready to take on some stronger things?"
"N-no! And why do we have to go?!" Serena did not want to lose her precious time with Ash. After all, it would only be a matter of time before they were married…

"Leo needs us – it seems important." Ash looked concerned, and determined. He was worried about the meeting, but a friend needed him, and he didn't want to let anyone down.

"Well, alright. Let's go," she replied gloomily. She held on to her sword, and Pikachu hopped on Ash's shoulder.

The two headed down towards the Town of Beginnings – the 'starting hub' of SAO:R. It was much more peaceful than Leo had made it out to be; in fact, they were left completely alone on their way.

"Well, here it is," Ash told Serena, who had nearly fallen asleep. "Wake up, sleepyhead."

"Huh? O-oh, yeah, right, Town of Beginnings." She was still very drowsy, and it took her a little while to get her bearings. Eventually, they found Leo and Emily.

"There you are. You got here faster than I had anticipated, well done!" Leo looked fine enough, but something about Emily looked…off.

"What's up?"

"Well, Ash Ketchum, we had someone we wanted you to meet." Emily's voice seemed very stern, and unforgiving. She seemed cold – during the battle, she was really nice. What was going on here?

"Long time no see, Ash!" A player in a lab coat walked over towards the trainer, with something in his hands.

"Clemont! It has been a while!"

"It really has, hasn't it? I've talked to you over the phone, but not in person. Err...well, this isn't in person, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah. How have you been?"

"Well…" Clemont didn't seem to be too happy. A game he had dedicated hours, days, weeks, months of work in to had finally gone out to the public – he should be happy; instead, he was gloomy and seemed fearful.

"What is it?" Serena seemed worried. Was something bad going to happen?

"…Ash, I want you to open your menu," Leo said. He gave Ash a sort of an urgent look, and the trainer opened his menu.

"What about it?" he replied unsurely. "What's the problem?"

"I want you to go down the to the 'Options' menu, where the log out button should be," Leo told him.

The air in the mood, having three Ikubus employees in the area, and the words 'log out button' and 'menu' all raised red flags for Ash. He felt all of his energy rapidly disappear, turning in to fear and pain.

He slid down the menu, and opened the options. There, under the Option button, was a blank space – no icon, no text.

Right where the log out button was in the manual.

"…" No words were spoken. But words weren't necessary at this moment – Ash and Serena's tears said everything. Fear. Anger. Pain. Sorrow.

"How…! How could you do this to us?!" Serena snapped at the three employees. "Y-you could've…*sob*…warned us, god dammit!"

"We didn't have anything to do with this, promise!" Clemont snapped back. "Even the higher-up programmers didn't know about this change until after they logged on!"

"I-it's true!" Emily added. "Someone secret changed the code before the release, a-and, a-a-and, no one knew about it! We developed the greatest MMO ever…just to end up releasing another death game!"

"Th-th-th-this…this c-c…c-can't b-b-b-b-e…!" Ash was still struggling to grasp the idea of not leaving SAO:R, and with tears in his eyes, he held Pikachu as closely as he could.

"Pi...ka…!" Even his Pokémon felt it. They knew they were never leaving Aincrad until the game was cleared. After all, that's how it was in the original SAO, right?

"Anyways, I have both good news and bad news," Clemont said with a shaky voice. "The good and bad news is is that if you die in the game you're not dead IRL. So you can die, you'll be fine. But that also means that you can't suicide to escape."

"That's…actually…quite…relieving…" Serena responded, drying up her tears. Internally, the situation destroyed her in to pieces. But she had to stay strong, she wasn't going to make it through if she didn't.

"So, let me guess – we have to clear the game, just like the last SAO incident?" Ash asked nervously.

"We don't know," Leo told him. "We only know about the log out removal because all three of us tried. We still have to wait for a system announcement for official details."

"Speak of the devil," Emily interrupted. A system teleport was being forced upon all players, back to the starting area. It was time for the announcement.

~~A few minutes later…~~

The sound of players teleporting filled the air, as everyone was brought to the starting hub once again.

"This place seems a lot less cheerful after what we've learned recently," commented Ash.

"No kidding," Serena replied. The two held hands tightly, and kept each other close. Soon, a red panel reading "SYSTEM ANNOUCEMENT" appeared in the sky, and it multiplied in to many other panels, creating an invisible barrier surrounding the starting hub. They couldn't escape the area.

Suddenly, a voice came. There was no visible object it belonged to. Instead, it just echoed around everyone.

"Hello, everyone. Welcome to the grand launch of Sword Art Online: Reborn. I'm sure you are all aware of the lack of a log out button." The crowd started yelling, and getting angry.

"As you may guess, this was indeed intentional. The inability to log out was created on purpose. There is no way to log out of Sword Art Online: Reborn – not even death."

The players got even angrier. Weapons and items were thrown at the barriers, people started slashing at the walls with their swords. It was complete chaos.

"This time, in order to complete the game, you must defeat all 200 floors. Yes, you heard that right – we've added fifty more floors to the game. In order to log out, you must defeat all 150 bosses on all 150 floors."

"Th-that's outrageous!" one player yelled.

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?!" yelled another.

"And to make the game more exciting, we've designed new bosses for each room – all of the bosses from the original SAO have appeared as in-game mini-bosses."

"We have to defeat 150 bosses?!" Ash was angry, and worried, and scared. "We can't all do that…!"

"Now, you may be asking yourselves – why is this happening? We've decided that we will disclose this information once the game is over."

"You bastard!" cried one player.

"And with that, the tutorial for SAO: Reborn is over. Enjoy your time here, players – and good luck." The barrier vanished.

Even with the crowd bursting in to madness, filled with chaotic riots, Ash overheard a few words from another player that intrigued him.

"God dammit!…here we go again!"

~~End of Chapter 2~~