Hey all! Sorry about the lack of update; lots of issues with technology and living situation and social life just sorted of exploded all over my writing; I wrote two or three, or eleven really dark chapters where everyone dies. That's not to say they don't, but certainly not so early in the series. Anyway, as I noted in the reviews; I'm less than happy with this fic's quality, and I'm gonna do better from here on in.

CHAPTER TEN: Broken

FEBRUARY 20TH 2023

"Hey, Noah, check this out!" Shou yelled, as he unleashed yet another of his powerful sword skills on the wall.

"Keep it up and you'll break your hammer." Noah said, not looking up from his hand.

He, Takumi, and Lynn were playing poker with a deck of cards they'd just received from a rare and otherwise totally useless quest line on floor one.

They were bored. As often happens with serious MMO players, when a certain level (in Noah's case 63), a game starts to wane a bit. Some of the White Ravens had even taking to joining the Front Lines, but it wasn't really a solution, more a postponement of the crushing boredom that had driven them to MMOs in the first place.

So, they started doing day-trips. Random journeys to arbitrary corners of the not-so-globe, seeing what they could see, making friends with new players; and enemies too.

And so that evening found them sitting the slope of a nice hill on floor one, as Shou, Lucien and Maria tried to break down the huge iron(?) wall that marked the edge of the castle; supposedly if it was broken, a rare event would occur.

"Boss, join us, I can feel it giving way!" Maria yelled, as she Switched with Lucien for a shot at the wall.

Three people switches were hard; four impossible, especially for a solo-style fighter like Noah.

"Step aside." he said, putting the cards away in his inventory and calling up his item menu.

"Here it, my best Katana." he said, Equipping a long curved sword with a black blade.

"That's a little bit closer to a curved bastard sword...or an executioner's blade." Lynn said, with the weary tone of one used to being ignored by a stubborn sibling. "And I'm not fixing it if you break it."

"It's item name is Ryu's Katana, sister of mine, and I'm not gonna break it!"

He took the stance to activate his favorite sword skill with that weapon; a simple cleave ability.

Then he brought it down on the wall; hard.

There was a noise, sort of like the 'clink' you get from dropping a paper clip onto a porcelain plate.

There was a long drawn out moment; time seemed to slow, and Noah was able to think some things over, in this odd, slightly detached state.

Here are his thoughts, as he had them, in that long moment after he cracked the wall;

Well...this was a bad idea. I mean, I'm not the king of geniuses, but I should really make a thought of thinking out any of Shou's ideas before I act on them. God, can you Banned in SAO? That would be hilarious. Anyway, it's not like I'm scared of what's gonna happen. I'm no coward...Am I? I specifically chose for me and my team to not participate in the freeing of the players in SAO...why? They might die. I might die. That's cowardly! Or? No, it is. I don't mind dying, I think, but facing that...every day? For a bunch of strangers, no less. Gabriel and Maria were strangers. Rin and Sakura too. And the scary contact-lenses guy. Lucien. How many Rins are dying right now up on floor...I don't even know where the front line is. Crap, I'm pathetic. The others, as always, follow my lead. The ravens are pathetic. Harbingers Of Death? Certainly. Crap! I can't let myself get mopey! So this weird time-delay thing seems to have frozen all our avatars (oh god what if we're stuck like this?), that's no excuse to freak out. I'm a coward. Not 'cause I was scared, but because I chose the path of the coward. From here on, me and my team are warriors. We fight the game, we fight Red Guilders, we fight the devil himself, I don't care. But. We. Fight.

Then, after a flash of white, burning light, the world returned to its normal state. Ish.

There was a hole in wall. While this had been their goal, it was sort of like playing the lottery; you never seriously think you'll win.

So they saw it; the world beneath Aincrad. It was...green. All shades of green; forest stretched as far as the eye could see.

"Woah." Shou said, accurately capturing the emotions of the others.

Takumi and Lynn stood up and moved closer to the wall.

"Okay, you broke it. Now what?" Lynn asked, as she came to a stop next to her brother.

An eerily familiar voice spoke, echoing all around them.

"Well, I'll be damned...someone broke the wall! That surprised the crap out of me, I tell you; I had to Pause all your avatars a full forty seconds before figuring out what to do."

In the open air above the wall, a ball of red light appeared, growing steadily until it was the size of a person.

"Congratulations, members of the White Ravens; you've completed the only event in the game I never thought anyone would find." the red-robed figure stepped from the portal he'd created; calling back memories of that terrible night; their first in SAO.

"You!" Shou yelled; it was a statement, a declaration, and a condemnation in one.

"Yes, I. There's no real need for introductions, I know who all of you are...now, a lot of people have surmised that this 'world below Aincrad' is in fact just a nice-looking backdrop; but it's far more than that. There are two ways to get to it; the impossible to beat dungeon beneath floor one, and this, the one I scarcely believed would occur; the breaking of the wall (any wall) on the edge of a floor.

Now, if you were to step off the ledge as you are now, you would all fall and die on the trees, which are still very far below...I have, as a reward for your cleverness, a quest-line that will gain you incredible power; power unheard of in Sword Art Online. First; you have to fall." with that, the red-robes figure vanished, and a powerful gust of wind pulled Noah and his friends through the hole.

"SHOOOOUUU!" Takumi yelled, as they tumbled towards the trees.

THAT EXACT MOMENT AT RAVEN CASTLE

"I just had a really odd feeling run down my spine." Haruka said, as she stepped away from an slash of Rin's lance.

"It's the shadow of defeat looming over you!" Rin replied, as he continued his barrage of attacks.

"Not likely!" she exclaimed, as she began her counter-attack, eerie feeling forgotten.

On the bench, watching them, Gabriel clenched his fists.

"I have a bad feeling." he said, quietly to no one, "I hope Maria's alright..."