Since this is a fanfiction I wanted to add a few more things to the story than what would be expected in a Sword Art Online fanfiction. Hopefully I made the right decision on how I want my antagonists to be.
"Ghost, you're my friend so I can't let you fight this woman all by yourself" Inataro said seriously
"And because I am your friend, I can say that attitude of yours along with your sloppy Katana slashes are really distracting."
Aqua shook her head and made a silly face at Ghost before running off past the strange woman.
Inataro almost stayed behind to help Ghost but instead ran off, surprised the woman let him go past her without challenge. Using Inataro's departure as a distraction, Ghost leapt forward and held a big axe against the woman's neck.
"Nice weapon" she grinned "but I don't use a weapon in this game though, my manna and element magic are enough for me."
She swirled up a tornado in her arms and sent it straight towards Ghost. Instead of dodging it, he charged right through the attack and brought his axe down onto her, dealing a heavy blow.
oOo
Kat quickly found herself being surrounded by more and more gargoyles, flying down and waving their claws menacingly at her. They were strong enough to deal far more damage than a small health potion could recover and their health level was substantially strong. To make matters even worse, her doppelgänger was now riding a Phoenix with orange feathers and yellow eyebrows.
"It's amazing what a game can give you once you've put several thousand American dollars into a computer hackers bank account" the player said in amusement as Kat just glared at him. "At one time I couldn't even afford to buy a friend a video game valued at forty dollars. Then one day I started writing and after I had written a bunch of stories, I got one of my friends to read them in a podcast. Lots of people watched them and were willing to pay for more, so I made a lot of money. I settled down with a nice girl and had two children... but one of them played SAO during the bad times when people could die inside it."
Kat could see the guy was hurting but it was hard for her to care when he was blatantly cheating in such an unbelievable and obvious way.
She quickly attacked the next gargoyle with a fireball and it soon exploded from the heat. She then went from one fireball at a time to shooting rapidly at the phoenix the player was riding, the phoenix shielded itself with its wings protecting it from any damage.
Kat managed to bring the phoenix down lower by changing from fireball to a stone hurling attack. It dropped rapidly towards her with its burning beak ready to peck into her, so she raised her blade and slashed the bird in an arc.
She used all her strength to put full momentum into the arc and in the seconds after it landed, there was a moment of absolute silence in the dungeon until things finally came full circle, as the Phoenix cried out in its agony and exploded into fluttering pixels.
The Kat impostor leaped up to the ceiling and sent terror raining from above in the form of gargoyles swooping down to attack her. They were no match for the real Kat as she defeated the lower level beasts by using her twirling blade slash combo.
"Now I will let you see my real face" the mysterious player declared. "In this game we raise a facade, hiding who we really are; I am a man who has cheated here, so I suppose it's only fair I die in the cheapest way possible."
The player came down from the ceiling with his real face revealed. He was a man in his early forties, with long hair straddling down to his back, nerdish looking glasses which Kat thought were very dorky, and a very pink ear. He held an axe in his hand and he tried to swing it onto Kat, but she used a lightning fast combo to deflect the attack and allow her to strike first.
This man who had pretended to be Kat just so he could kill her, ended up being utterly defeated by the strength of her weapon. She watched as his health bar dropped rapidly down to zero.
"Congratulations" he said with his last breath.
A hologram of the would be assassin appeared at the very same moment of his disintegration. It glowed emerald green and showed the man standing while leaning heavily on a walking cane, with reading glasses hanging from a chain around his neck.
"The fact that you are seeing this message means you have just defeated me in battle, so now I can share my plan with you. We concocted this plan after barely surviving two years inside Sword Art Online. You may not be aware but Alfheim Online consists of more data than a modern satellite could handle and its developer sank his entire fortune into it. What he failed to find was a special digital egg left in the system by Akihiko Kayaba. Inside that egg was the program of an NPC whose entire purpose to be the Eve of this game. Instead of being the first woman though she is made to show dominance of this woman, against the scrutiny of male and female players alike."
oOo
Ghost had no way of knowing of how Kat was listening to the longest explanation about an NPC anyone would ever experience. He was far too busy with his battle, dodging fast projectiles of Earth, Fire, and Ice, conjured by the girl who hid her eyes as well as most of her body in a thick cloak. When Ghost struck at her with his axe, he felt her counter with an Element Attack to hit weak spots.
To make the fight even worse, every time he was close to slashing back at her, she just floated off the ground like a strange balloon. The way she hovered over him reminded Ghost of of the Boss Fights he would have playing Street Fighter, for the method was almost exactly the same. To make matters worse, she even had a skill technique enabling her to set both hands on fire.
"Your obviously not playing this game according to the rule book" Ghost said, wishing he too could set his hands on fire.
Cocking back her fiery fist she attacked Ghost, dashing down towards him and hitting him in the jaw. Although Ghost was lucky he couldn't feel the pain of the strike while inside the game, he had to admit he was not doing very well fighting back against this girls attacks. But he did his best to retaliate by raising his weapon and slamming it towards her.
"Oh have a little patience." She mused sidestepping out of range from Ghost's weapon.
"You my dear are just like a barbaric cavemen" she said bluntly.
The strange attacker danced about, making it hard for Ghost to hit her but she still continued with her story.
"On the other hand, I am technologically advanced like a Viking. You may try to tell me Vikings were also quite barbaric, but they were far from being stupid people. They built long ships just the right size to carry lots of people wherever they sailed; and got lucky when they discovered how to make steel. You see the people of North America only had wooden weapons so when Vikings came, they killed the men, violated the women violently and generally ran around slaughtering everyone."
Ghost thought her story was a bit strange, but so was she. He also thought she should be more focused on the attack he was about to make, for if there was one thing he was good at, it was knowing how to steady his blade and use it as a powerful weapon against the fiercest of enemies.
"Although I have no special powers like you and your witchy things that bounce off me but sting...I know how to play this game like an expert."
"Okay I may not have of the special witch-like powers you do, and your attacks may sting when they bounce off me, but when it comes to sword play I am an expert" he grinned.
As fast as lightning Ghost lunged, slashing his blade far too fast for her to counter, winding her statics back with every blow. He even ploughed into her with his shoulder and when she fell back, he hit her with a heavy slash from over his head.
"Good game, but next time don't creep up on a player and use your special knowledge; just try having fun with them in a fair battle."
Ghost then used a three slash combo called 'The Zorro Attack' leaving a giant Z on her body. The mark didn't stay long and neither did her body as her health dropped to zero and she shattered into countless pixels. Ghost thought it was the end until another video message started playing in front of him.
"If you are watching this now, then I have been defeated but so have you" she gave an evil grin "You see, that whole 'having fun wearing clothes' thing was just a titillating lie I tell saps like you as a distraction so when we fight, I can switch your inventory with my collection of cheap clothes thus giving me an advantage. Since my body is able to conjure up mana far better than most of you other players, you resisted the urge to use magic and slash at me with your weapon, little knowing what is really happening."
She blew him a kiss, but her hand glitched a little as she did.
"Enough about me though" she continued "There are four other assassins other than myself on this mission and by my guess, there are only three of them now left. When we get our hands on your NPC, we will use her to make ourselves titans of Alfheim Online, and then use our powers to disable technology all over the world. In the real world when a child is too full to eat, their parents will often tell them how some kids in Africa are starving, but they never do anything to help. So we are doing the equivalent of giving food to the poor by sending all you rich spoiled people back into the dark ages."
Something about the serious of her voice gave Ghost a tremble down his spine, while his forehead dripped with sweat. Inataro and Aqua knew they were in trouble against these weird idealists as well.
