4-Boxing Has Its Perks
Chapter 3: Final Battle

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the characters involved except Dren, Hiro, Shiro, Thiro, and Iro

Two years have passed since the game known as Sword Art Online became world famous as "The Death Game". The players had purchased the game expecting a fantastic VRMMORPG, but instead got a game where you could die. The only way for the players to escape is to clear all one-hundred floors of the game. Since day one the players have been hard at work attempting to find each floor boss and defeat it in order to advance. Now, the players have begun to become complacent, accepting the fact of what their lives might be, and beginning to live in the game as if it were the real world, the advancing forces that continued to push forward into the upper floors have begun to slow, and few remain who are truly determined to finish the game. This has stopped the players at floor seventy-five, after Kirito the Black Swords, and Asuna the White Flash, cleared the boss of floor seventy-four on their own.

Dren was sitting in a park with his avatar's surrounding him. Klein had sent them a message, stating that the Knights of Blood have found the floor boss and are calling all players of exceptional skill to the front-lines. This included the protectors, who were now famous as the only boxed group in all of SAO. Since they'd helped clear floor twenty-five, people have constantly invited them to join groups, guilds, and adventures. Each time Dren had to turn them down because they were requesting him to help, not paying him to, which would go against his mercenary playing style if he picked up every request for help.

Also, when the group had inherited the sack of materials after defeating the twenty-fifth floor boss, courtesy of Thiro killing it, they'd taken them to an appraiser who told them it was a bag of the strongest smith able material in the game. Hiro and the group had eventually found someone who could smith it for them, a girl named Elizabeth, she had used the material to make Kirito's famous off-hand sword, and when the group brought the bag to her, she was ecstatic. She immediately fashioned the weapons and armor each of them wore out of the materials, using every piece of it she could to make the weapons as powerful and fit for each one.

Hiro sighed as he thought about what had happened in the year and six months since he'd single-handedly defeated the twenty-fifth floor boss. He replied to the message, stating he would come to assist them.

"Oi! Hiro!" A voice called to them

Hiro looked up to see a stranger approaching them. The stranger came within speaking distance and bent over, out of breath.

"Who are you?" Hiro asked in a bored tone.

"I'm a member of the Knights of Blood." He said looking up at them and giving the group a better look.

It was true; he was a member of the Knights of Blood, wearing their trademark red and white.

"What do you want?" Hiro asked

"I want to party with you for today's boss fight." The player told him

"Why?" Thiro asked

The player turned his gaze and nodded "That's a good question, I figured since you've been holding down the crime rate in the already cleared floors, and you've become famous as a boxer, not to mention how you handled the twenty-fifth floor boss, I wanted to party up with you at least once."

Hiro sighed "Fine, just be there when the attacking force moves out."

The player nodded sternly, he turned to leave, and about ten feet away leapt into the air and clicked his feet together "Yes!"

Hiro watched him disappear before sighing.

"That's one more I'll have to watch out for in today's fight." Dren thought to himself

A few hours passed before the appointed time. Dren took this time to make sure his group was properly outfitted, they had just had their armor and weapons repaired so they were at full strength, and they had enough personal healing crystals, making sure that Iro had enough group healing crystals. They had gone to one of the higher-level training grounds and had practiced some of their maneuvers before having their armor repaired, now they were waiting for the bell to sound, telling them the attack would commence.

As they waited the Knight who had approached them earlier approached them, he revealed himself to be a sergeant in charge of one of the squads for the second wave, but he had gotten away with joining Dren because his squad had died over the course of the previous floor encounters so that he was the only one left. They partied up and when they were settled the bell rang. Dren's avatars stood up and made their way toward the meeting point.

The plan for this boss was simple, as things had a tendency to go wrong if they made complex plans. It was almost identical to the double-headed giant plan. They would send in one wave to draw the monster's attention, following it would be another wave to attack and deal damage while the first wave distracted it, following them would be a third wave which would switch out the first wave, the first wave would fall back and be healed by a response unit before being sent back in to support the second wave. A fourth wave was on stand-by to assist where needed, but were given free-reign to fight as they decided, this unit consisted of Klein and his Guild, Kirito, Asuna, and Dren's group, as well as Heathcliff.

"So, what's your plan this time?" The knight asked

"Simple. I'll draw attention, Thiro will sneak around, Iro will protect Shiro who deals with the monster's defenses and draws its attention for our group."

A while back they had fought an armored troll as a regular monster, Dren had discovered that Hiro was the only avatar with armor breaking capabilities, he corrected this by getting Shiro to master "Armor Shatter Wave" A wave attack that would crack open opponent's armor like a walnut, including shields. When the group arrived at the meeting point the main force was waiting for them, seventy players had agreed on this raid and were currently gathered around the dungeon containing the floor-boss. Heathcliff made a speech to boost the morale of the troops before they charged in. The army entered the boss room and the doors shut behind them as the last player entered. They looked around, waiting for the boss to appear, when suddenly someone shouted:

"It's on the ceiling!"

The army looked up to see a large centipede-like creature with four glowing red eyes and a skull for a head. Underneath this it had two scythe arms, it descended upon the army and began to dart around, it scythe like legs hacking apart players who got too close. The arms taking care of those that tried to attack it.

"First wave!" Heathcliff shouted and the designated group rushed forward, starting to distract the monster, it seemed though, that these weren't designed to fight this boss, as almost every time a group approached it someone was killed.

"Second wave!" Heathcliff shouted again, and the heavy infantry rushed into the fray

Meanwhile, Hiro had stayed back to watch how this monster fought, this was a completely new style for him, unlike the twin-headed giant which he'd had experience with something similar, this new boss was brand new.

Hiro looked his group over. "Stay back." He told the knight "I'll handle this."

Hiro rushed forward, swinging his broad-sword in experimental arcs before settling on a charge position. Iro and Shiro were right behind him. Thiro had disappeared into the shadows above.

The monster noticed the new wave of attackers and went to charge them. Hiro darted to the left as the monster brought down its scythes in a large X, Iro held his hammer up and blocked the attack.

"Armor Break Wave!" Shiro swung his staff in three rapid attacks cutting the armor off the boss.

Thiro appeared above, falling down, daggers ready. He landed on its spine, forcing the blades in as far as they would go while Hiro used his attack enhance sword skill, allowing him cut through the three remaining health gauges. The monster collapsed before shattering into a billion pieces.

The fighters were exhausted, after they'd recovered a bit Klein asked how many died. Kirito checked and replied with fourteen.

Egil's eyes widened "No way…"

"And we still have twenty-five more floors." Klein said

"Will we even make it?" Egil asked

Kirito was looking around when he noticed Heathcliff standing perfectly still, as if he hadn't even been fighting.

Kirito drew his sword and attacked him, but right before he made contact he was stopped, and a window appeared stating Heathcliff was an immortal object.

Kirito explained to everyone that Heathcliff was none other than Kayaba Akihiko. He confirmed it and told them he was supposed to be the final boss on floor one-hundred, but he gave Kirito an offer, after paralyzing everyone except Kirito he challenged him to a duel to end the game. Kirito accepted.

"Kirito-kun!" Asuna called

"Kirito!" Klein shouted at him

"Don't do it!" Hiro called to him

"Kirito!" Dren cried with the other three avatars

He stopped and looked back at them all. "Asuna… I'm sorry. Egil, thank you for helping the swordsman class, I know how you spent a lot of money to get everyone leveled in the middle areas, Klein, I'm sorry about leaving you on that first day."

"Damn it, don't apologize to me, I won't forgive you until you buy me a meal on the other side!"

"I will, don't worry." Kirito said saluting with his sword

"Hiro, keep going strong, you've shown aptitude at what you do, don't lose sight of your dreams." He told him

Hiro nodded solemnly.

After that was said Kirito and Heathcliff began to duel, during the fight Heathcliff delivered a fatal blow, but Asuna overcame the paralysis and took the attack for Kirito. Kirito, at a loss over Asuna, feebly attempted to attack Heathcliff, but Kayaba sighed and deflected the weak attacks disarming Kirito before stabbing him in the chest.

Kirito's mind flashed back through his time in the game, and to the end right before Asuna died she told him don't give up.

Kirito's will returned as he forced himself to stay alive long enough to kill Heathcliff. As the pair of them shattered the others were logged out an announcement was made that the game had been cleared before the system logged everyone out. In the end, Asuna, Kirito, and Kayaba were watching Aincrad as it collapsed, Kayaba explained his dream of flying up to a steel castle in the sky, and how he supposed it existed somewhere in some other world. Kirito agreed with him before they were logged out in the final moments.

Dren awoke, in a hospital room. He looked around as he readjusted to his eyes. Next to him on a table were four monitors and his three other nerve-gears, the fourth still sitting on his head. He sat up and removed the nerve-gear looking down at it, its surface was scratched and dented, compared to the fresh shine it had when he first bought it. He sighed.

"it's all over now… what will I do? Virtual Reality games are going to take a hit from this…"

As Dren considered his next move, the doors opened and a flood of doctors came in, they began to examine him and question him, as well as offer him food and drink.

Dren's mind wandered away, back to Aincrad, where he imagined his four avatars sitting around the fountain in the town of beginnings. Each of them looked him in the eyes, his eyes, his face, looking back at him, like four individual mirrors, each with their own reflection of him.

"I can't give, especially not after what Kirito told me before he finished the game… No, I'll start over, with bigger and better games. Soon, everyone will know the name Dren Brand!"

A/N: This is very odd of me to release two chapters in one day, especially for the same story, but the reason the story of SAO only covers three chapters in this is because it's hard to work with a mage style character in a game where no magic exists, which is why I'm trying to get into the Alfheim arc a little sooner, that will probably be easier to write, it also introduces a whole new set of abilities and weapons for Dren to use.