I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the characters.
Victory
Oh shit!
Michael's vision was filled with the golden explosion, but as the light faded, Tecchi was floating in front of him, smoking and with his shield still raised.
"Tecchi!" several of them shouted.
"I'm alright," Tecchi said, lowering his shield, health at three quarters. "It's not an instant-kill boss."
"At least, not that attack," Michael said, tossing Tecchi a healing crystal before turning back to the face. "Anyone who can summon again, and the summon flies, hit him!"
He sent his Fatal Scythe and Doppelganger at Cardinal, flying after them as a pair of dragons and multiple other summons did the same. They all reached Cardinal, all staying off to the sides, just as Cardinal sent his laser beam tearing through the summons. Then, as his mouth was closing, Sinon and Rain both sent one of their projectiles into its mouth, an explosion shooting out of its mouth, making Cardinal roar in pain instantly, head rolling back. Michael began to tear into the face as quickly as he could, using whatever sword skills he had that had a low movement penalty, the others all doing the same. After a moment Michael's eyes flicked up to the health bars, seeing they had done a fair amount of damage to the first one. Just as he saw it, his vision lit up gold again and he flipped, streaking downward. Less than a second later, the same attack Tecchi had blocked exploded into the side of Cardinal's face, rocking his entire body sideways. Michael held out both hands chanting rapidly and sending wind spells blasting into Cardinal as his doppelganger shot forward, activating its OSS and the others began to pepper Cardinal with spells as well. Finally, Cardinal roared, laser beams beginning to flash past them at random. Everyone took off, dodging and flipping past the blasts as rapidly as they could. Michael looked down, seeing that the lasers were spawning from random heights as well, and were also exploding on contact with the ground.
Finally, the laser rain ended and they all charged in again, tearing into Cardinal. As Michael checked their progress and resummoned his doppelganger yet again, he was pleased to note that they were down two full bars already. Cardinal's own attacks apparently were quite effective against him. With that thought in mind, Michael again shot out of the way of a light blast, allowing it to his Cardinal before he flew forward, driving his sword into Cardinal's eye and forming a sphere of gravity magic, which began to distort Cardinal's head before ending and allowing it to snap back into place. Then, he spun, using Horizontal Square with lightning and fire magic as Yuuki used Vertical Square with ice and wind magic. The two abilities sent an explosion of their elements back inward, blasting Cardinal before both scattered, allowing Cardinal to fire off its massive laser without hurting them. This time, Sinon and Rain were ready and filled its mouth with exploding projectiles, Sinon using light magic this time, since her bow amplified its effect. Cardinal roared, several light blasts flashing out of the sky at them, all of them avoiding them and Michael flipped, using a rejuvenation crystal to refill his magic fully. Then, he shot back inward, once again tearing into Cardinal.
Salamander grit his teeth as Heathcliff flipped, streaking back toward them and stopping beside them, panting.
"I need a break," Heathcliff said. "It's mentally draining fighting that thing."
Salamander nodded as Heathcliff transferred him the normal armor set and Salamander equipped it, giving Heathcliff the hacked set. Before he could fly off, however, Skuld caught his wrist.
"Be careful," Skuld said, kissing him on the cheek.
"I will," Salamander said. "And when I kill this fucker and come back, you'd better do that for real."
Skuld smiled and nodded, Salamander taking off toward the false Surt, reaching him and tearing into him. Within minutes, he realized what Heathcliff had meant. it was hard to see what was what when the whole thing was made of static, and yet, he had to be able to avoid its attacks in order to survive. Heathcliff was right. It was going to be ridiculously taxing.
Michael flipped, the laser just barely passing under him and fading before he began his OSS. As he did, his doppelganger did the same and Yuuki remained beside Michael, prepared to drag him out of the way the moment he needed it. The moment his OSS ended, Yuuki grabbed him, shooting sideways out of the way of a light blast, allowing it to hit Cardinal. Suddenly, Cardinal roared, a sphere of gravity magic appearing around its head, beginning to pull them all in. Everyone shouted, flying away as fast as they could, barely crawling away. Then, a massive purple seal appeared over them. They all pushed harder and finally got away just before a massive purple beam shot downward, engulfing Cardinal completely, barely missing all of them, the gravity magic ending.
"Is it dead?" Talken asked hopefully.
"You wish," Nori said.
"We all do," Adam said as the beam faded, revealing Cardinal's health to be yellow and down to two bars.
However, as they all moved to attack again, Cardinal's head snapped around, opening its mouth just long enough to send out a split second laser beam before snapping closed and snapping around to someone else, firing again. This continued, everyone flying around rapidly to avoid the blasts but unable to get close enough to attack. Then, as they continued to avoid Cardinal's attacks, light blasts, ice chunks, fireballs, and spheres of gravity magic began to fall, everyone struggling to avoid it.
"What do we do?" Alicia shouted.
"Sinon!" Michael shouted, Sinon opening fire as she continued to avoid everything.
Her arrows found their mark rapidly, explosions of light going off against Cardinal's eyes but doing nothing to stop him attacking, so Sinon began to fire faster but less accurately, covering his entire face rapidly.
"Strea!" Michael shouted, a chat window appearing beside him. "Did you apply the antivirus program to anything besides our weapons?"
"As long as the weapon is equipped, your spells will have the same effect, and we also applied it to your bow, just in case," Strea said.
Michael nodded, swapping his sword for his bow instantly and began to help Sinon. As he did, the others began to fire spells at it rapidly, and Rain began to couple spells with her swords. Slowly, Cardinal's health began to inch down its bar, then down the next. Finally, it hit read and Cardinal roared, all of its attacks ending as it began to glow.
"I've got a horrible feeling about this," Sinon said.
"Everyone get away!" Michael shouted.
They all flew away from Cardinal, getting to the maximum range of their spells before stopping just as massive purple beams shot off of Cardinal in every direction before beginning to end and fire somewhere else rapidly.
"This is fucking impossible!" Michael shouted, he and Sinon opening fire again, all of them struggling to avoid the blasts again.
However, after about two minutes, the blasts ended and Cardinal tipped forward. Instantly, he switched back to his sword and they all shot forward, all preparing their most powerful sword skills before beginning to tear into Cardinal's face, everyone that could also summoning a flying monster to help. Just as Michael's OSS ended, he summoned his doppelganger to use it again as Cardinal began to straighten up.
"Get away!" Sinon shouted.
Michael glanced at its health bar. Barely a sliver left. He grit his teeth and backed away with the others, all of them focusing on avoiding the blasts again. However, this time, when they stopped, lasers began to rain out of the sky at them again. Michael shouted in rage and streaked forward, sword glowing red.
"Just die already!" Michael shouted, slashing across Cardinal's eyes as he passed.
Flames exploded out of both sides of Cardinal's head and it reared back, roaring, health bar dropping to zero and fading. Then, Cardinal's roar climbed into a shrill shriek, all of them covering their ears. Then, it shattered, lightning beginning to flash around them. A door opened off to one side and the sky above them began to turn to static.
"Everyone run!" Michael shouted, everyone flying through the door, wings shutting off instantly.
They began to sprint along the path again, Michael bringing up the rear, a void of nothing but static less than a foot behind him. It occurred to him that the camera was flying along just ahead of him, another following his friends, but he ignored it, sprinting as fast as he could. Finally, he reached the straight away, pushing harder, arms and legs pumping, lungs screaming for air, and heart pounding inside of his throat. The static began to creep closer, but before it could catch him, the others reached the door to hangar and Sinon launched a sticky arrow, yanking him through the door and catching him, hurling herself backward into the ship, the door sliding closed before the ship shot backward, spinning and taking off into the loading program, which began to turn to static behind them. The program was clear of cubes this time as Michael threw himself into the pilot's seat, taking the controls from Yuuki, who was in the copilot's seat, but patches of static began to grow in front of them. He dodged and weaved through them rapidly, gunning it for all the ship was worth, the entire ship shuddering with the strain of moving faster than programmed to. Finally, they saw the exit speeding toward them and Michael punched it even more. Then, as the ship reached the exit port, it stopped on a dime and everyone was thrown to the ground, scrambling out of the ship. A door opened in front of them and they all hurled themselves through it, landing in a heap just before the door closed and winked out of existence.
Instantly, a deafening cheer rang out around them and they all looked around, finding themselves in a square in the city, its raised roadways running around the square and all lined with the players that had survived the war, hundreds of them, including Salamander, Skuld, and Heathcliff.
"You did it!" Salamander called out, flying down to them with Skuld. "Surt disappeared a little while ago, so I knew you had killed Cardinal."
Michael nodded, opening a chat window, Kirito's face appearing in it. "We're safe, right? This world's not going to get deleted too?"
"You're safe," Kirito said. "The port was disconnected from GGO before the corruption could reach it."
"Corruption?" Michael asked. "I thought the virus was deleted with Cardinal."
"It was," Kirito said. "But the AI running most of the virtual world being deleted caused a fatal error in the virtual war, causing it to be erased. Currently, the only virtual world not being erased is GGO. We weren't able to save anything else."
"Any casualties?" Michael asked.
"No," Kirito said. "Everyone was successfully evacuated to GGO."
Michael nodded, groaning and flopping onto his back again. "It's finally over."
"How soon until we can wake up?" Rain asked.
"Once the corruption finishes purging the rest of the games, it'll disappear and you'll be able to log out again," Kirito said. "Yuuki, we'll recreate ALO for you guys in about a week, once we're sure the virtual world has stabilized."
"Okay," Yuuki smiled, leaning on Jun's shoulder. "No rush."
"Hey Strea," Michael said. "Is the field still good?"
"Yep," Strea nodded. "I made sure to keep it protected from Cardinal, so it wasn't linked to anywhere. It's perfectly safe."
"Awesome," Michael said. "Can you recreate Kirito and Asuna's Aincrad house there? It'll probably be more comfortable for Yuuki and the others to wait there."
"Sure," Strea nodded, typing on her keyboard, wherever she was. "All done. Also, it looks like you can all log out now."
Everyone opened their menus and a thunderous cheer rang out instantly as they found a logout option, flashes of light beginning to go off everywhere like machine gun fire. Michael sighed, staring at his, Sinon slipping her hand into his.
"You okay?" Sinon asked.
"It just doesn't feel real, you know?" Michael asked. "Being able to go home finally."
Sinon nodded, smiling. She kissed him and he kissed her back for a moment before she pulled back, resting her head on his shoulder. "Together?"
"Always," Michael smiled. "And once we get back, I'll get you a real ring."
Sinon smiled and nodded, both raising their hands and pressing log out together.
Michael opened his eyes, sighing in relief. He turned his head, seeing Shino opening her eyes in the bed next to his and she smiled as well, pushing herself up. Michael pushed himself into a sitting position, smiling as their friends congratulated them on saving the world and on beating Cardinal.
"Finally," Michael smiled. "No more cameras, no more stalkers, no more death threats, no more invasions of privacy."
"I wouldn't say that," Agil smiled. "There's a bunch of reporters waiting in the hallway."
Michael half-groaned-half-sobbed and flopped back onto the bed. After a minute, he got up looking down and seeing he was in a pair of set of scrubs and shrugged. Shino was in a set of scrubs as well, so he assumed that was just what the hospital staff decided to put them in, rather than the usual gown and maybe underwear. Michael and Shino took a few careful steps, getting the blood flowing tot heir legs again and making sure everything worked. Then, Michael sighed, taking Shino's hand and they left the room, quickly pushing their way through the crowd, ignoring them and pushing their way through to the front desk, checking themselves out before getting outside where Kirito had a cab waiting. Then, they left, heading to Michael's home and hurrying inside, locking the doors and windows and closing the blinds before both collapsed onto the bed.
"This is going to be annoying," Michael sighed.
"That's true," Shino nodded.
After a moment, she rolled on top of him, sitting up and smiling down at him, lacing her fingers with his.
"Now that we're alone, safe, and in the real world," Shino said, smiling. "Are you ready to take my virginity for the third time?"
Michael blinked, realizing he had, in fact, had sex with her in both of her avatars. He grinned widely. "My God, I'm the luckiest man alive."
Shino laughed before bending down and kissing him. He kissed her back instantly, their tongues beginning to duel before Michael rolled them over and began to take the lead. He was so happy to be home.
THE END
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