I do not own The Hardy Boys or Sword Art Online.


Chapter Four: The End of the World*


It took two weeks for Joe to throw his arms up in frustration at Frank's behaviour. The rest of the day after the Laughing Coffin raid, his older brother refused to leave his side and catered to his every need. The next, Frank was nowhere to be found until dinner, when he snapped at Joe that they were both grown men fully capable of living on their own. That continued into the afternoon of the third day, when Frank once again kept Joe within his sight at all times. The morning of the fifth day, the elder Hardy Boy was gone again. Joe was exasperated, but let the back and forth continue because he knew Frank was wrestling with something - likely the man he killed. He let it go, but when it reached the two week mark and he stood in the living room watching Frank head out the door an hour before sunset, the last bit of his patience sapped away.

"Frank!" Joe snapped, grabbing his older brother's arm as he passed. The muscle tensed, and the younger Hardy immediately released it. No matter how much this conversation was necessary, it shouldn't come at any expense. "Wait," he murmured, voice low.

"What?" the brown-haired man asked. "I was going to go hunting, so -"

"That's bullshit." Frank turned to eye him, one eyebrow raised, and Joe rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. You may be going hunting, but we don't need the food right now. You're just trying to get away from me."

"If you know that, then why'd you stop me?"

Joe spluttered. If this confrontation had happened soon after the raid, he probably would have gone silent and let it go, still wrapped in the shock of his near death and taking safety from Frank's mere presence, unwilling to risk pushing him away. Now, though… now, Joe had withstood two weeks of Frank clinging and leaving, clinging and leaving, and he had had enough.

"I'm done!" he exploded, jabbing a finger into Frank's chest. "I get it, you're torn up over killing someone, well guess what! If you hadn't, I might not still be here! Maybe you wouldn't be! Did you ever consider that in a death game, we have to do our best to live, no matter what? Did you ever consider that we're not just living for us? Huh? Did you? Cause we're not! We're living for each other! We're living for Agil! We're living for every sorry son of a bitch stuck in this hell, and for every friend and family member stuck waiting for our return! There's no time for you to self-destruct and rebuild yourself, or even to take the risk, because guess what, Frank? We. Need. You. I need you, and I'm not letting you go! So get your head back in the game any safe way you can and come back to us!"

Frank blinked at him, and Joe realised with a start that they were both crying.

"I didn't even hesitate," Frank whispered, and then they were sobbing in each other's arms.

His older brother wasn't whole or healed, Joe knew, but he was closer to it than he had been in two weeks, and he would take it. The rest would come outside of Aincrad, and holding Frank in his arms while tucking their heads close together, Joe knew he'd do anything to get there.


The month of September 2024 was better for everyone. The bosses for the floors were hard to defeat, but the Clearers focused on the challenge instead of the fact that they rapidly approached the two year mark for being trapped in Aincrad. With Laughing Coffin taken care of, they were able to focus even more, and after Joe's intercession, Frank finally felt himself relax. Clearing and simple, commissioned detective work filled the Hardy Boys' days as usual. Sure, Frank still felt pulled between two ends - one, to always keep Joe in sight and out of danger so as to never be forced to make such a choice again, and two, to push him away in the hopes that distance would allow him the ability to hesitate - but the knowledge that they were needed as the scarily in sync team they once were pushed those actions away. Before he knew it, they reached the middle of October and the 75th floor. Of course that was when Heathcliff decided to halt all momentum with a duel between the Knights of the Blood Oath leader and the beater Kirito.


Agil, Frank, Joe, Asuna, and Klein all attended the match in support of their friend. Being part of the crowd did nothing to help, though, and Joe flinched as he watched Kirito walk, defeated, out of the stadium. Before him, the sight shimmered into a car on fire and back again.

"Come on," Agil said, laying a hand on Orion's shoulder and squeezing - a reminder that he wasn't alone. "We may not be able to do much, but we can at least be there."

"Right," Frank murmured, shoulders hunched but staring straight ahead. "We're still here. We're not leaving."

Asuna and Klein looked between the three of them and shared a glance, shrugging. Neither of them knew what was happening, but -

"You heard the man!" Klein exclaimed cheerfully, pulling Theseus into a side-armed hug. "Let's go! Kirito always needs cheering up, so we're gonna need more cheer than usual…." He tapped a finger against his mouth, thinking. "Yep! There's nothing else. We're gonna have to act -"

Orion looked Klein in the eye, grinning, and chorused with him, "More moronic than normal!"

They both burst out laughing, while Theseus, Agil, and Asuna gaped at them. "That… what?" the elder Hardy murmured. "Are you both idiots?!"

He started forward, and Orion and Klein both dashed away, laughs echoing behind them. Frank ran after them shouting. With a start, Agil and Asuna realised they would quickly be left behind.

Looking at the vice-commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath, the shopkeeper grinned and asked, "Shall we?," gesturing towards their friends' backs.

Asuna nodded sharply and they both took off after them, Agil shouting for them to wait up.


Two weeks later, the 75th floor boss, Skull Reaper, burst into crystals, and Frank stared at where it stood and felt nothing. The ground was hard under his knees, and he realised dimly that in his exhaustion he had collapsed down to them. It didn't matter. Everyone else did the same; the one exception was Heathcliff, who somehow retained the strength to lean on his sword.

"Fourteen people died," someone said, and something pulses painfully in his chest. Frank thought it might be his heart. Fourteen dead… it took them fourteen people dying, plus the ten who died in the initial scouting party for this boss, to open the gate to floor 76.

Klein pointed out that they had twenty-five floors to go, and Agil wondered if they would ever reach the top, and now Frank's head started to pound. Would they ever reach the top… would they ever be free… would they -

A black coat flared in the corner of his eye, and Frank blinked to attention in time to see Kirito's sword connect with Heathcliff's chest. A sign flared to life marking the commander as an 'immortal object'. Joe shouted in surprise from his position on the floor beside Frank, and all around them others did the same.

Of course that couldn't be all. That was never the end of anything, and Frank should have known it before Kirito revealed Heathcliff to be Kayaba Akihiko, founder of Sword Art Online, and the man didn't even try to deny it. Frank should have… he shouldn't have left the discovery to a young teenager. He pushed to his feet, anger at himself and at Kayaba and at this entire world driving him.

A few meters away, a Knight of the Blood Oath also rushed to stand, but he immediately charged at Heathcliff. The commander, the bastard Frank spit in his own mind, even while he wasn't satisfied with the strength of the slur, acted like it was nothing. Instead, a simple pull-up of the system had the soldier and everyone else paralysed. Frank dropped back to his knees, barely able to manoeuvre himself leaning one way enough that when he fell completely, it was with a view of Kayaba. The paralysis stung, cold and biting, within his veins. It was the first pain Frank had felt in two years, and he hated it. It meant he was helpless, it meant he could do nothing, it meant he could only watch. In two years trapped in a digital world, it was the first time he had ever felt like that.

"Theseus," Joe murmured, and Frank realised with a start that, despite the paralysis, they could still talk.

"I'm still here," he replied, and at least he could still do that. He was still there. He hadn't left Joe alone. As he watched Kirito stand unparalyzed, as he watched Kayaba 'reward' the beater with a fight to the death, as he watched them both draw their weapons, that was all he could think. His only reassurance. He was still there. He hadn't left any of them alone.


Kirito told Asuna the fight was something he couldn't "run away from," and all Joe could think about was how much he and Kirito had in common.

Kirito told Agil he knew all about how he spent his earnings helping middle-level players improve, and Joe wished he could laugh at his eldest brother's face.

Klein heaved himself up on one arm, and Joe wished he could be that strong.

Kirito faced Kayaba alone, and Joe wished he could stand by his friend's side. He closed his eyes, focused with all his might, but all he could do was scream his support. Frank's voice echoed beside him, and the cavern rang with a dozen difference voices, and all Joe could do was wish he could do more.

He didn't want to lose another friend.


"Theseus," Agil murmured, and Frank turned to see his surrogate older brother staring at him with eyes serious, but steady.

"Agil," he replied.

The absence of his voice from the screams didn't lower the volume one bit, so he had to strain to make out even his own voice. Still, that didn't prevent him from hearing the other man's words as clear as a sword strike: "It's time, Theseus."


Asuna jumped in the way of a killing blow meant for Kirito, and all of the cheering support died with her. Joe's voice lay stunned in his throat, and all he could think about was how he hadn't wanted that to be something they shared.

And yet… Joe stared and saw Asuna cradled in Kirito's arms. He closed his eyes and saw flames. Kirito, no matter how horrible the circumstance, got to hold his love before she died. He said goodbye. Joe got a fight and Frank's arms around him, hauling him back, voice incomprehensible in his ear. Joe got her killer's hand slipping from his own to fall to his death, the unsatisfactoriness of neither killing him nor putting him in prison coating his tongue in ash, so deep and long lasting he could taste it even now.

Joe opened his eyes to stare at the stalled fight. No… no, that was the taste of jealousy. He gritted his teeth, angry at himself. Whatever comfort Kirito got from a proper goodbye, he lost in the knowledge that Asuna chose to die for him. Joe knew the feeling well. While Iola hadn't meant to, she had triggered the bomb in his own car. Both their loves had died in their place and nothing could make that right again. Just like Joe, Kirito would bear that emotional and mental scar for the rest of his life.


Kayaba remarked that Asuna's strength to fight the paralysis was impressive, and Joe wanted to scream. Of course she did. The strength to fight for a loved one… that was a strength that was only beaten by being blown to pieces.


The scream finally came when Kayaba stabbed Kirito and his friend returned the favour, rising like a volcanic explosion. Blown to pieces, he noted numbly. Blown to pieces. Pieces are all they have and pieces are all they are. Pieces. Pieces…


"As of 2:55 PM, November 7, the game has been cleared. The game has been cleared."


Orion died, and Joe woke up with the NerveGear* heavy on his head.


*Chapter title taken from SAO episode 1x14.

*NerveGear is shaped like a helmet, and what connects players to the virtual reality of Aincrad and SAO.