It took us many hours, but we finally made it to the singularity's core.
After we reunited and Tia joined our party, our goal was getting to the singularity. Turns out there's more than just the one Ouroboros Gate that we found before splitting up. We found the third shortly after we began, and used the nearby teleporter to enter the Siobhan Eyrie region. We saw another fortress-like structure, which Kirito corrected us by saying that it is most likely a battleship, not a fort. He's proven to be right, though that comes much later.
We jump across the area, finding the warp gate to the fourth Ouroboros Gate, then another to the Orpharim Sky Fortress. In the eyrie and the latter area, we could see an enormous dark orb the regions seem to orbit, which I knew had to be the singularity. I confirmed it because the corruption was greater here than anywhere else. We couldn't even see the names of some of the mobs.
We came across a horde of stone golems along the way. a multitude of Delta Army Soldiers and the Lambda Commander. We fought them off as quickly as possible, given we had the advantage in numbers and the skill to handle the situation. We were rewarded with a metal plate of some kind, but continued on to the singularity, being barred by a ginormous black hole.
Kirito being Kirito, he tried to cross it. Kirito being Kirito, he failed.
With an item known as the Dimensional Isotype Crystal being unhelpful in crossing that specific wormhole, we headed back to the eyrie. Asuna suggested we look at the battleship in detail, and following that tip got us to a note found by Philia on a skeleton. Whoever the skeleton was, they had the same idea as us and failed. But they somehow got through by blasting a way through with the battleship. Crystals power the battleship, and while using them got the skeleton and company through the gate, it attracted monsters, resulting in the ruins around them. They sent soldiers to find new crystals and a control plate to get the weapons operational again, but that was a long time ago.
Thinking that the lore of floor, this Otherworld Gate, is synonymous or at least associated with the singularity, we got into "SAO frontier player" mode, using the story of the floor as our guide.
Lisbeth believed the plate we found was the control plate spoken of in the note, and near where Philia found the note, we found a suitable place for the plate..The control device caught us up on what happened to the soldiers sent out. We learned that they sought out Enhanced Dimensional Crystals, but because the soldiers were forbidden to enter the four Ouroboros Corridors and take the crystals that powered the city, nothing was done except protecting the Otherworld Gate from monsters.
Our goal to enter the corridors became our immediate priority.
Once the pathways to all four were located, we split up into four teams. Volunteering to make the sole party of three, I took Koharu and Lisbeth with me (they volunteered instantly, which creeped me out. It's...reminds me of you know who with red hair and you know who with grey hair) and we headed to the fourth Ouroboros Gate.
Each one is a procedurally generated dungeon, warped and seemingly formed by the singularity as we moved onwards with environments we've passed both on Ainground and Aincrad. There are numerous floors within each gate, and the only way to access the next floor is by finding Gate Keys in treasure chests and turning on the teleporter. To exit a dungeon, we had to make it to the final floor.
Team Kirito (Kirito, Asuna, Tia, Premiere) took on Ouroboros Gate One and entered a five-level dungeon with the features of the Kurjiez Desert, the highest level area on Ainground.
Team Klein (Klein, Agil, Sinon, Leafa) were assigned the second gate, visually that of the Oldrobe Forest area. They had it easy, with four levels to ascend.
Team Philia IPhilia, Strea, Silica, Alice) were assigned the fourth gate, which took on the likeness of the Stalvatos Ruins, the initial floor entering on Aincrad, and six levels in total. Apparently they had an easy time too.
Why do I add that they had things easy? My team of tree entered the fourth gate, modeled after the Northazard Tundra. One, its cold, and Koharu and I being winter babies means nothing. Two, as we got to the seventh and final floor, a paralysis trap was sprung, leaving me the only one capable of moving and fighting the boss.
Maybe I was being overly careful since Liz and Ko were in danger, but it took a moment to beat the boss.
We set the crystals in place and defended it from the onslaught of monsters for five minutes that felt like five hours despite our strength and teamwork. Hearing them fire at the warp gate was a beautiful moment, and signalled our mission was complete.
It was around six-thirty pm when we rescued Tia and reunited the group. We're back at the final path to the singularity, and it's about a quarter till ten. The singularity works just like the four dungeons from before. Nine floors, several obstacles to be in our path, and one goal:
Save Tia's data.
It is close to ten-thirty as I take my first step on the final floor of the singularity's self-made dungeon. Physically, I'm tired, and I've long decided that holding back my yawns were a worthless effort. I'm not the only one, everyone whose human (Real World human, that is) is hanging on by a thread of adrenaline and purpose. To be honest, if I was sure Alice, Strea, Premiere, and Tia could accomplish this themselves, I'd convince the others we should log out.
We walk down the row of pillars in the large chamber to a bright light at the other end. The sense of the climactic final battle, a sensation we've had numerous times now, partially rejuvenates me.
It's instantly washed away as we come into the boss chamber, a stone arena surrounded by fire. Several large rings of varying thicknesses hover above the arena, with a pillar of fire in the center of them all. And just when I'm getting my bearings, our enemy makes its landing in front of us. Plated entirely in gold armor, with wings of light extending out the back and a spear long enough to make a kabob of all fifteen of us at once on the rainbow-glowing blade.
I look at Kirito, waiting for him to say his catchphrase, but he's too stunned or exhausted to say those two words. He just moves forward and we follow to battle against Reign, the Last Apostle.
For the first time in SA:O since facing Tia six months ago in the center of the forming Aincrad, we're fighting a major boss without any information on it. This battle will put four years, four to five virtual realities of experience, and our knowledge of each other and ourselves to the test. That is, if we don't fall asleep first.
Once we're in proximity of Reign, we scatter out. On instinct, I align myself with Koharu and do what I do best, analyzing the situation to keep the two of us safe. Granted, I'm not that teenager who solely cared for his singular goal of protecting Koharu on the first floor of Old Aincrad, but you get the point. I'm looking for weaknesses in Reign's armor, exploits we can use, something other than flailing our swords wildly and hope to make a dent in its health.
One obvious fact is that it's slow moving, but even the novice Koharu could see that. There's also an attack delay, so it can't chain attacks, and the armor turns ready for about three seconds. I don't need to make mention of it, the others are already taking advantage of the delay with quick strikes, though there isn't enough time to launch a sword skill that requires a prone pre-skill stance or lengthy number of hits like Kirito's Starburst Stream.
Despite all that, we're merely chipping away at Reign's health. Simple gamer logic won't help here.
I cross my arms, and frustrated I don't see an Achilles heel, I turn to my partner. She may lack the experience I have, but she eventually learned how to quickly read enemies and come up with an on-the-spot strategy for when things were different than expected. Right now, she stands erect, a hand cups her chin, black hair pushed away from her face, and her emerald eyes on Reign like an eagle on its prey. If we weren't fighting a boss like a baby throwing a punch at a sumo wrestler, I might take a little more time to soak in this beautiful sight. Giving her another moment before I speak I look back on the battlefield. Liz, Agil, and Strea work as tanks; Kirito, Leafa, Klein, Alice, and Tia as the primary attackers; Asuna, Silica, Philia, Sinon, and Premiere as the B group of attackers. As in ALO, Asuna and Leafa drop back to heal with skills when necessary, so we aren't doing too bad in the opening moments of the fight.
All the more important to find the hole in Reign's defenses. Now I question my partner. "Koharu, see anything?"
"...No. I thought it would be more vulnerable after it attacks and the armor changes from gold to crimson, but I saw some strong skills unleashed with little effect. What about you?"
"Neither do I."
"...Wait a minute, look there, under the HP bar. There's a second meter." I focus on the green bar just underneath the boss' name, and sure enough, somewhat camouflaged by the reddish-orange glow in the chamber is a second bar, filled with orange-red color at about seventy-percent. A stagger bar, to be exact. Those bars fill up as the monster is dealt damage, kinda like hitting a thick tree with an simple ax for centuries until it eventually falls. A horrible analogy, given what happened with the Gigas Cedar in truth, but you get the point. We hit the monster, we fill the bar, we temporarily stagger it and can increase our damage output.
"Everyone, keep doing what you're doing! There's a stagger bar!" I hear a few affirmations and reach for my sword as the bar fills up to completely. Reign's armored body bends down a bit, indicating its stagger and I see my friends wail on it with their strongest skills. Eager to join in, I take a step forward, and that's when my partner grabs my shoulder.
"Ko?"
"Wait!" She's alarmed, and I see why. Not even before the stagger bar empties ten percent does Reign move again, ascending about three stacked Agil's off the ground. Armor completely red, it aims its sight on Kirito, Asuna, Premiere, and Tia. Then I heard the former vice-commander of the Knight of the Blood Oath order a hasty retreat and regroup. As a guild leader myself, I have to agree with her.
"Let's go, Koharu!"
"Right behind you!"
Somewhat demoralized, most definitely running on fumes, the fifteen of us gather back in the chamber outside the boss room. I listen to my friends discuss the fight, how they were doing nothing but wearing themselves out in that fight. I have no right to comment on that, I stood back and looked for an exploit, yet Sinon's assessment is spot on.
"So now what? We need to come at this from a different angle."
"Yeah… Jaymes, anything you notice?"
"Nothing except the stagger bar, and Koharu noticed that. Otherwise…" I don't leave the sentence hanging because I have nothing to say. That happens because my blood freezes solid at the most wrong time. I had raised my head to look the ceiling when the inside of the chamber when a chime went off, followed by a flood of red light. Of the fifteen of us, only me and eight others have seen this light before without prior warning. In less than two months, it will be four years since a similar light coated the skies of the first floor of Aincrad. I look to be the only one freaked out, though. It just surprised me, that's all.
"Whoa, whoa, what's this?"
"It's a system announcement," Asuna replies to Leafa shakingly.
"This is a message from the developers. We will be performing emergency maintenance starting at midnight tonight. Please be advised that all players will be automatically logged out ten minutes before maintenance begins. Thank you."
Well, that's nice… Huhhhhh?
"Emergency maintenance, huh?"
"It's got to be so they can take care of the singularity, just like Yui was worried they would. We made the right call listening to Koharu." Kirito looks at the upper right corner of his HUD, where the time display is located, then to me. "Jaymes, Koharu, can you gather more information on this?"
"We have an hour and fifteen minutes," I say more to myself than anyone else, then glance at Kirito. "We'll try, but...the next shot is the last shot." He nods and I face Koharu. "Logout, check the website. Kirito, send a message to Argo to gather all she can and meet me at the Teleport Gate in fifteen minutes. Strea, Philia, you're with me, we're going to Yui."
"Okay!"
"The rest of us will form a strategy," Kirito says with a discontent sigh. "You four… Thirty minutes, and with or without you, we're giving it another shot."
Koharu nods as she prepares to logout. "We'll be as quick as possible." She looks to me, her face determined to succeed. "You know where to meet up."
"Of course. Be there in twenty, got it?"
"Got it."
Market Square Inn, Town of Beginnings
It doesn't take Koharu seven minutes to log off, surf the web, log back on and make her way to the inn. Once she spots me, Philia, and the sister MCHPs, she waste no time sharing her findings. "As I expected, they're really going to remove the singularity tonight. It's on the website and social media."
"So fast."
"I had Suko help out."
"I believe this is the result of player activity spreading to the location of the singularity," Yui informs, backing up my hypothesis. "If we can't stop it from interfering with Tia's data, it is likely that the devs will close the singularity."
I fold my hands. "If that happens, data errors will probably cause Tia and Premiere to glitch, and Cardinal will delete them. And we have until midnight, no, less than that to stop that from happening."
"This 'emergency' is probably why they set up that OP boss outside the singularity! Honestly, why else would it've been such an impossible fight?"
"You're right, Koharu," Philia says. "Now that I think about it, that boss was way too strong for that area."
Strea clears her throat. "That boss actually came from a much higher level."
"H-Higher level?" I turn to Philia, who shivers just like I do. Facing potential higher-than-necessary enemies of Aincrad is not new to us, the Ordinal Scale Incident was not too long ago. But that was deliberate on Dr. Shigemura's part, not the gaming system.
"Mhm. But because Aincrad wasn't fully completed, it ended up getting placed outside the singularity."
I sigh. "Seriously… Any other time, if we had time to prepare for it, that would be fine and maybe even fun, but now that's a pain in the ass."
"What should we do? If we don't think of something, Kirito and the others are going to attempt it again and that fight will repeat itself." I honestly have no answer for Koharu. I aimlessly think to myself while checking my messages, hoping to receive something from Argo before ten-fifteen. Something that can turn the tide in our favor, give us an edge in the fight. Yet seconds pass, and nothing comes from Argo, and I unintentionally scroll up and down and tiredly read the names wherever the scroll stops.
Koharu, Kirito, Asuna, Lisbeth, Sanya, Argo, Alice…
Hold up. Sanya. Sanya plays Sword Art: Origin.
Wait a minute.
We've been in this situation twice this year, why wasn't this the immediate idea? In a sense, this is just like the OS incident and the Otherworld War. We can't use Yui to connect accounts from other games here, or maybe we could, but that's unnecessary. We have all the players needed online--and can log on offline--right now.
Now with a sound idea, hurried as it is, I turn to Yui and Strea. "Strea, tell Kureha, Rei, and anyone with an SA:O account in Crimson Squad to come here now. Philia, contact Rain. Koharu, sorry to ask you to log off again, but I need that deplorable Russian witch of yours, Liten, and Shivata to come online. Yui, what I'm about to ask you is...wrong, but I need you to send a message to the entire SA:O playerbase at once. Don't share the specifics, but make it enticing."
They seem to understand what I'm thinking immediately. Koharu logs off again without question, and the AIs do their work somehow. Meanwhile, I craft a short, blunt message to Argo, to gather as many players and send them towards the singularity for a 'special boss event'. No need to give the player base the specifics. And to help expedite her efforts, I send along a hefty payment. The response I get is quick and not too hopeful, yet she offers to help. At the same time, I send a message to Kirito, instructing him to tell the group back at the singularity to rally as many people as possible.
At ten fifty-eight, just three minutes as I spurt out those orders, I hear a pair footsteps come from behind me towards the table. Standing, Philia, Strea, and I turn and see our favorite singer in the world and the fourth member of our merry band. "Thank you, Rain. I hope I didn't wake you up or interrupt your session with Yuna."
She shrugs. "There's no way I'll deny helping you guys out if I can help it. So how dire is the situation?"
"The one we feared, and we got fifty or so minutes until we're forcibly logged out the game. Emergency maintenance takes place at ten."
"Sounds like another pain you got us in." That familiar tone of disappoint and bottled anger comes only from the person who has known me my entire life. I look over Rain's shoulder to see my childhood friend and our respective Artificial Financial Advisor System companions, Rei and Lievre. with her. I didn't count on many members of Crimson to answer a call to a game they might have never touched.
"Thanks, Kureha. You too, Rei and Lievre." Rei beams happily that her Master has need of her (and I hear a sharp click of the tongue from the buxom AI to my right) while Lievre turns her head as if I'm interfering in her life. I'm used to it, but it still hurts.
And just when I was starting to count them out, Koharu returns online with three familiar people enter the inn. A deplorable Russian witch and my old friends Liten and Shivata. Said witch looks at me with a scowl. "This better be good, Jaymes. We're only here because Koharu asked us."
"Not true," Shivata counters. "But she has a point. You must be in a lot of trouble to call on us."
"Considering all the trouble you put me and Ko through, we're owed a few favors, aren't we?" This is all the people I managed to assemble in a short amount of time, I leave the rest to everyone else. "Okay, now that the important people are here, let me explain why I called you here...and why we must do this quickly…"
At precisely ten minutes after eleven. me and my assembled group make it to the singularity, and may I say that I'm impressed with the numbers we scraped together in such a short amount of time. Looks like Argo and Yui did well attracting players with a special pre-maintenance boss fight, and I would rather not reveal how good a lie Yui told. I already feel guilty asking it of her.
You may ask "If you asked Strea to make the same message, would you feel that same guilt" and the answer would result in my nose growing a couple inches. It's not that bad...she partially told the truth about Tia and Premiere, that they need help, and that's all I'll say without a lawyer.
"Yo, Kirito," I say as I approach the Black Swordsman who looks overwhelmed by the reinforcements we received. He splits from a player he's chatting with and saunters over to me and Koharu with an unhappy expression.
"You had Yui--"
"Desperate times, and to be fair, she said those things herself."
"Asuna's gonna--"
"It'll be worth it if we save Tia and Premiere." Already knowing I'll be paying for Yui's actions by kissing Asuna's feet (she once said kissing her ass implies I rank higher than dirt to do so) and begging for forgiveness, Probably gonna be a servant for a week...or her birthday in two weeks. I should have had Strea do it.
Ejecting that from my mind, I face the crowd. "Can't believe we got this many people to come at once. Feels like we pulled a Diavel or something."
"He would be proud of this moment for sure."
"Yeah… Well, we're a few minutes early, but I think we should forfeit the rest of our time and get the raid started." He agrees and step away, leaping on top of one of the rocks to be on higher ground and gain everyone's attention.
"Ahem!.. Okay. First off, I'd like to thank everyone who came on such short notice. It… It was a lot to ask at this time, but it was necessary to help our friends. So with that said, I'll offer all the information we have on the boss...which isn't a lot." I can see the sweatdrop on Kirito's head as he says that, and I don't know if it is me or Koharu beside me who sighs in defeat. "All we know is that the boss, Reign, the Last Apostle, is covered completely in armor that nulls all attacks basically. He's much higher level than the floor itself, no time for that explanation. He's slow moving for us, but quick and powerful for its size, and a bunch of AOE attacks, and has an attack delay of about three or so seconds. His armor turns red during that delay, but against expectations, he is not more vulnerable. However, despite the lack of exploitable features, he does have a stagger meter that fills when the armor is red. That means we can hammer him all we like in those few seconds of the delay, fill up the meter, and lay down big attacks. Be careful, though. It seems he can counter during the stagger phase by moving slightly into the air. I know it's not enough to go on, but...if we can beat it before we're logged off by the system in thirty-five minutes, we will have helped my friends."
Kirito draws his dual blades, leaps off the rock, and turns to the light that is the boss chamber. "If you're still with me to bring the big bad boss down… Let's go!"
At eleven twenty, we engage in battle with Reign, the Last Apostle, for the second and final time, and this time, my partner and I engage in the fight.
"Koharu, the stagger meter is almost full," I say over ten minutes later. She nods and leaps back, switching me in. Reign's attention is on the tank players in front, so me and the attackers are free to flank and attack as fast as we can when the color switches. I attack with a four-hit combo skill Crimson Square, and along with my allies, fill the meter and stagger Reign. I expected some players to switch out or come from the rear and start attacking, yet neither occurs as we hesitantly watch the stagger meter fall. As expected, Reign leaps into the air, and against better judgement, I initiate another sword skill. We got four times the numbers we had earlier, meaning we may be able to go on a full assault. We're higher in level than we were when SAO ended, we can do this in one go. "Forget switching! Everyone, attack as quickly with all you got!"
No one speaks against it. Instead, sword skill fly with reckless abandon as nearly sixty people attack at once. Reign lands and stays in place, the stagger meter dropping quickly. I figure it would deplete over twenty-five to thirty seconds, meaning we have a short window of opportunity before we suffer another lengthy round to build it back up. It's eleven thirty-three now, so if we have to redo it...we'll be running out of time.
Thirteen seconds after the stagger initiated, that meter half full, Reign's health dropped to yellow. I drop back, and get my sword in position. Beside me comes Kirito, Asuna, and Koharu, and without a word to each other, we launch our best Sword Art skills at Reign at once. Dragon's Fury, Starburst Stream, Integral Existence, and Shooting Star. That, in tandem with the other players, leave a small amount of Reign's health, and in unison, we call out two names. "Tia, Premiere!"
The twins take center as their sword light up. "Ground Leap!"
"Shadow Recoil!" At the same time, they connect their attacks, and with plenty of time to spare, Reign, the Last Apostle, is no more...