Months had passed since the 30 COD players joined up with a handful of SAO players and started a trend that spread like wildfire. Where COD players and SAO players started joining up together. Creating guilds or clans, whichever you prefer to call them by, and getting stronger together. The various guilds had made progress in getting stronger, but so far the first floor Boss dungeon had not been found.
"Hey guys. Remember we got that 10 am briefing at the coliseum this morning." British Titties reminded the group. Most of the group looked up from their breakfast and nodded in acknowledgement.
"It's BACON TIME!" Hollered I.M. Trigger LMG as he walked over to one of the tables where I.M. FreakGirl, I.M. Tank Boss and I.M. FF/EMT Diver were sitting. The other I.M. group members laughed at the bacon announcement. Trigger's plate was piled high with steaming bacon, scrambled eggs, and pancakes.
"Hey Trigger you gonna share any of that with your old buddy, old pal, Saggy over here?" Called out one of the older COD group members. Saggy was a 50 year old man with grey hair and a grey moonshiner's beard. He had old blue eyes and talked with a southern accent.
"I'm sorry Saggy, but I don't have any food to spare. They got more up at the counter though." Trigger called back.
"Ha-ha, awe come on Trigger!" Laughed Saggy.
Trigger wolfed down his plate of food before answering Saggy. Everyone looked at him in disbelief. As Trigger made his food disappear in record time. "See Saggy, I don't have anything to spare for you." Laughed Trigger.
"Damn Trigger! Did you even taste any of that food?" FreakGirl asked wondering where all the food Trigger eats goes because he never seemed to gain any weight.
"Yeah, I taste it!" Trigger gulped down his glass of orange juice and looked out the window. The day was warm and comfortable with just a few passing clouds. A couple of birds landed on the wall of a large water fountain in the town square.
"You guys ready? It's 0945 we should get headed to the coliseum." Announced Titties.
As the group walked out of the restaurant the sound of marching feet echoed through the square. Coming down the main street was a platoon of COD players. As the platoon got closer all the name tags of the players in the platoon started with USMC.
"It's the Marines!" Whispered Diver.
"Platoon Halt!" Called out the platoon commander. The last two steps the platoon took announced their arrival in the town square. "At Ease!" He shouted as the Marines relaxed. "Ok Marines, You all have a 3 hour pass. Meet back here at 1300 hours. Attention!" The platoon straightened up. "Fall out!" With that the platoon of Marines broke ranks and piled their gear around a large maple tree in the square. All of the, however, kept their M16 assault rifles and side arms with them. It was clear to see that each Marine has his M16 customize to their individual liking.
"Hahaha I don't think any of the SAO guilds would be able to go toe to toe with a platoon of Marines." Laughed Saggy.
The group of 30 arrived at the Coliseum as Diavel clapped his hands and called the meeting to attention.
"Ok people let's get this meeting under way! My name is Diavel and I would like to thanks you for coming today." Diavel motioned with his arm across the crowd before him.
"Right, so our scouting party found the Boss room today." The crowd hushed as players looked to each other. "We need to get there and beat the Boss. Once we have done that we need to announce to everyone here on level 1 that it is possible to beat this game!" The crowd murmured in agreement before they started clapping and cheering.
"Ok then. So we will have to split up into teams of 6. Now for those COD players who are here I would like it if you could team up with some SAO players as well and work out tactics that your team could use against the Boss." Diavel stated as he finished speaking the players before him started forming their own groups.
"Trigger, FreakGirl, Tank Boss. We should stick together on this one." Diver said as the three of them gathered around Diver.
"I agree but we only got a party of 4 right now. We still need two more players and..." Tank Boss started but FreakGirl cut him off. "Well what about those two SAO players?" She asked pointing to two young players sitting above everyone else.
"Sure." Diver nodded in agreement. "Right" FreakGirl walked over to the two SAO players. "Say you guys want to come join our party? We are two players short and could use you in our party." FreakGirl smiled. The two players before her were young only in their mid-teens at best. One of them was a girl who wore a maroon cloak with a hood; the hood covered her face so FreakGirl couldn't see her face. The girl also had white leggings and red calf high boot. The other was boy with black hair, greenish black eyes, and dark navy blue pair of pants, black boots. A blue long sleeve shirt and a white chest plate that stopped just below his rib cage. His sword was in a holster strapped to his back.
"I am FreakGirl by the way and you are?" She asked as she sent ally requests to them.
"I'm Kirito" The boy said as he accepted the ally request from FreakGirl. The girl didn't say a word as she too accepted the ally request.
"Nice to meet you Kirito. Does your friend have a name?" FreakGirl asked as she did the hooded girl stood up and walked over to Diver, Tank Boss and Trigger. FreakGirl was taken back a bit.
The hooded girl sat down near the guys but still kept her distance. This stuck the guys as odd. "Hey. We don't bite; you can come still closer and join the group." Trigger sent the girl an ally request which see accepted. Once she accepted his ally request her name showed up in Trigger's ally list. It showed the girl's name was Asuna. Trigger tried to figure out how to say the girl's name in his head, without making himself look like an asshole. Like what ClaymoreHoar did to Picka.
"So A-sun-a? Is that how you say your name?" Asked Diver, being the first one in the team to ask how to properly say the girl's name. She shook her head no, "It's pronounced As-su-na" She said.
The team making was rudely interrupted when some guy came bounding down the bleacher style seats. "Hold on here! I got something I need to get off my chest." Roared a short guy with spikey cactus style hair. He had brown eyes, and a goatee. He wore chain mail armor and had a large one handed sword on his back. "My name is Kibaou. Got it? We all know about the two thousand people who have did so far, and where have the beta testers gone to that know the ins and outs of this game? They should be here helping us new players learn the game so we can be able to beat the game faster!" Kibaou stated, clearly enraged at what his thoughts were telling him. The COD players just rolled their eyes at him.
"This guy is full of hot air." Trigger groaned as Kibaou went on with his rant. It was clear the COD players couldn't give a rat's ass what spike head had to say, they were in the same boat as the rest of the players. However they didn't really care about getting help from a beta tester. All that changed when Kibaou started pointing the finger at them.
"The same goes for all you Call of Duty players! You guys have better weapons and are a higher level than most of us here! You guys should be doing more to help us out! Than just playing back up! As far as I am concerned you Call of Duty players are just as responsible for those two thousand people who have died as the beta testers are!" With that Kibaou might as well have inserted his foot into his own mouth as a shot rang out and a chunk of the stage that Kibaou was standing was blown away leaving a small crater at his feet. He froze as he looked up to see DVD 2.5 standing up with a MK14 assault rifle with a red dot sight pointed right at him.
"Next shot I won't miss." DVD coldly said. "You and the other two thousand people, who have died, clearly did not read the guide book that is readily available to you for free."
"Who the hell are you!?" Road Kibaou.
DVD walked down the stairs and went to the stage where Kibaou was standing. "The name is DVD 2.5 but you can just call me DVD. Just so we are clear on what you have been trying to say. You think that the Beta Testers AND we Call of Duty players should be held responsible for the deaths of two thousand people because we haven't been helping. Is that the gist of it?" DVD asked as he slowly lowered his weapon.
"Yeah that's right." Kibaou said.
"Just so you know. The guide book for this game is available for free and has all the info you need on this game. Including info on the Bosses that not even your info brokers can get." A hush fell over the coliseum. "And you know who was handing those guide books out? Call of Duty players AND the Beta testers! Everyone has access to this info in the guide books. I don't know about the rest of you but I know that I would like learn from the deaths of those players and to teach my new SAO allies, the tactics and strategies from Call of Duty to see which tactics would best fit for situations in this game." DVD stated and that shut, Kibaou, up. Kibaou sat back down pouting.
"Ok guys, getting back to the meeting!" Diavel said as he then went into details about the boss's weapons and fighting style, reading from the guide book. "We leave for the Bosses room at 1030 in the morning!"
Later that evening, everyone from the meeting was in town eating their fill and getting ready for the big Boss fight. Kibaou was trying to make friends with some of the COD players or at least try to patch things up with them. The stars glimmered in the night sky as VenDettah, Tities, Steve and British Trigger started to liven' things up with a game of darts at the local bar. Perkynip was hitting on some of the cute girls walking around but getting no luck with them. Old Saggy, Ouch, inertia, Yogert, DEF, DVD, and Bucket were out doing target practice using their night vision goggles. MC Tank and MC Smith along with the I.M. group were hanging out in the bar watching the dart game with, Victor E Spoilzzz, Razorback, Striker, Bullet, Medicine, and most of the COD players.
I.M. Trigger LMG was laughing it up with the others when he noticed a few players were missing from the party.
"Hey Diver. Where are Kirito and Asuna? Have you seen them?" Trigger asked as a roar of cheers and attaboys came from the dart game.
"I dunno where they are. I thought I saw Kirito head to one of the alleys half an hour ago." Diver yelled above the noise as VenDettah called out for a second round of darts. Trigger LMG nodded in acknowledgement to Diver before heading for the door. Outside of the rowdy bar, it was a lot quieter but still lively. Diavel, Picka, Blast, Zargo and Wicker where in the town square, mingling with other SAO players. In the corner of the square sat the platoon of Marines. Relaxing, or at least they were trying too. Trigger laughed to himself as he walked over to the Marines.
"Hey guys how goes it?" Trigger called out with a friendly wave as he walked towards the platoon. A few guys sat up while the rest either didn't move or just rolled over trying to sleep.
"It goes." Replied one of them with a deep southern drawl. The southerner was decked out in the standard Call of Duty Delta Force urban camo. He had short blonde hair and had dual Desert Eagle pistols on his waist.
"If your platoon commander allows, it you guys are all welcome to come to the bar and join the party we got going." Offered Trigger.
"Thanks. I'll pass it on to him." smiled the southerner.
"Ok then, Cya." Waved Trigger as he went looking for Kirito and Asuna. It didn't take him long before he found Kirito and Asuna sitting together in a lonely looking alley. The gas fired street lights threw a soft glow of light through the alley. Trigger smiled as he saw the two sitting together.
"Hey there you guys are! We were wondering where you two had gone off too." Trigger waved when he found his teammates.
"Oh. Hey Trigger." Said Kirito sounding somewhat surprised to see him. Trigger picked up on the surprise in Kirito's voice.
"Now don't get too excited just cause I showed up." Joked Trigger. Kirito cracked a smile and Asuna was quiet as a mouse. "Say why are you guys over here all alone? Even if you guys are only going to be with the group for this one Boss fight. At least come join the party." Trigger paused when he saw the hard tack biscuits the pair was chowing down on.
"Thanks but I'm all set." Kirito said. Asuna shook her head before saying "No thanks." in a quiet voice and Trigger could hardly hear. Trigger sighed as he could tell they didn't want to join the rest of the group.
"Well could I at least treat you guys to a real meal that's not hard tack with cream on it?" Asked Trigger. "Anything you want, my treat. There is a quiet little tavern a few blocks away. It's a good little place and away from the others." Asuna looked at Trigger and he got a quick glimpse at her face but it didn't last long. Kirito also looked at him, surprised. Asuna was the first to speak.
"Sure, I'm up for that." She said and Kirito accepted the offer as well before Asuna spoke again. "I appreciate you being so nice to us and all, but why? It seems like the Call of Duty players hang with other Call of Duty players and don't pay any mind to the SAO players. You and your allies are different though."
"It's simple. Nobody gets left behind. That's the unspoken code with the group I run with. If you join up with us and show that you aren't a bad person. We will back you up. Now with things being the way they are it's more important to help each other out. Than to stay with the squads we have been running with. Besides, I'd like to fill you guys in on some of the plans we have been thinking about."
A cool night breeze blew through the ally as Asuna, Kirito and Trigger started walking towards the quiet corner tavern. In the town square the platoon of Marines started to pack up and head for an Inn across the street. A few of them headed to the party tavern. The party tavern was still rockin and rollin. A lot of the SAO players in the square had already packed up and called it a night. Trigger checked his forest green wrist watch. Its hands were showing it was 10:45pm.
