Asuna and Church sped down the access branch of the World Tree that led to her Cage, Asuna smiling in relief at being free as well as feeling a surge of strength inside her. She had escaped her cage once before, but had been caught and returned to it.

Now, with Church's help, she thought, there was a definite hope for her returning to the real world and exposing Sugou for the psychopathic criminal that he was. But in order to do that, she had to log out.

"Church?" she asked.

"Yeah?" Church replied through her mind, as a result of their data merging together.

"If we're going to escape, we need to level the playing field." she said. "Can you find my player data from Sword Art Online in the system and transfer it?"

"Well, that depends." Church replied.

"On what?"

"On what data you want to have, there's a lot to go through here, even with my own capabilities."

Asuna could see the smirk on his holographic face.

"But I can transfer over player stats and inventory without a problem." Church affirmed. "The codes on your account locking you in are a bit trickier, and I'm working on them as we speak. This Sugou bastard is pretty good at coding his own digital language, I'll give him that."

A few moments later, Church reported that Asuna's stats and inventory had successfully transferred over. Asuna swiped her hand down and accessed her items, equipping her Rapier from SAO, Lambent Light. The design had changed slightly in terms of it being more ornate and white instead of blue, but it was still the same sword.

She gave it a few test swings, and then equipped her old KOB Vice-Commander's armor. As it formed around her, she could feel her metal chestplate and regalia on her avatar, and the light, revealing dress she had previously worn disappear.

"Good riddance." Asuna scowled. The dress barely did anything to keep her warm on cold nights in ALO, and it also appealed too much to Sugou's vision of her.

"We all set?" Church asked.

"Yes." Asuna replied. "Does Sugou know I escaped? He has to have learned about it by now…"

"Actually, I took care of that." Church smirked. "He was using a digital camera interface to watch the cage you were in, so I merely rewound the live footage and fed it a video loop of you resting. Should keep him occupied until he decides to visit personally. Then we'll need to get out of dodge as soon as possible."

"Right." Asuna said. "We should log out before that happens.'

"Agreed."

As the two of them sprinted down the hallway towards the laboratory, Asuna typed in the passcode she had memorized on her first escape. Surprisingly, the code worked and the door opened.

"Something wrong?" Church asked.

"Sugou changed the passcode after I escaped the first time. He didn't change it here. Either he's that lazy, or this is a trap." Asuna said quietly.

"Yeah, I could go either way on that notion." Church smiled. "You know Asuna, you remind me of someone I knew."

"Who is it?" she asked.

"My former partner, Carolina." Church said. "She and I might not have seemed to get along, but we trusted each other with our lives. We went through a lot of near-death situations and plenty of gunfights together."

"Is she still alive?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah, she's alive, and hopefully the others are too." Church said.

"The others?"

"Well, that's a long story." Church said. "But for a long time, I led a group of Sim-troopers at Blood Gulch outpost in a never-ending game of Capture the Flag. I was the leader of the Blue Team, and the Red Team made up our opponents. Funny thing is, we often spent more time talking to each other and making jokes than actually fighting."

"What were they like?" Asuna asked.

"Well, I'll start with the Blues." Church said. "First up was Tucker. He was a ladies' man, totally semi-perverted in terms of tastes, but he was also really good with an alien Energy Sword that he got from a giant hologram we ended up calling Santa. That whole debacle was not fun, let me tell you that. Also, he had a habit of saying an annoying catchphrase every time someone said something that was even remotely sexual."

"Next was Doc, who was our medic. He was a good guy, but he often gave you more medical problems than he solved. He was also pretty inexperienced with his medi-gun-thing that he carried around. Still fun to be around, mostly from the entertainment value."

"And then...there was Caboose." Church said. "I'm pretty sure his IQ, if that concept still holds, was at least -3. He rarely spoke coherently, and when he did it was a challenge getting any sense out of it. He was also pretty close to me, since I was kind of his semi-big brother."

"He sounds nice, albeit...dumb." Asuna smiled.

"Yeah, that's putting it lightly. He also had a really big temper if you managed to get him angry, which didn't happen a lot." Church said. "One time he said "My name is Michael J. Caboose, and I hate babies!"

Asuna laughed at that, though she kept it quiet due to the situation at hand.

"The Reds were another mixed bag of shitheaded-ness and stupidity." Church continued. "Sarge led the Red Team, and he lived up to his name in full. Always had some expression combined with another expression ready to say, such as "Benedict Arnold Palmer"."

"Griff and Simmons were the driver and engineer." Church laughed. "They were surprisingly philosophical at times, Grif was lazy as could be, and Simmons once stopped at a red light during a car chase because it was the law, despite the bad guys shooting at us non-stop."

"Lopez only spoke Spanish, and he was also a robot, so I really don't know much about him."

"Then there was Donut, who lived up to his name in his bright pink armor. Don't get me wrong, he could throw a grenade like no one else could. He was also the first to actually capture a flag during our time in Blood Gulch."

Church sighed and nodded.

"Then Wash showed up, and to be more specific, his name was Agent Washington and a former buddy of Carolina's. He also became the leader of Blue Team when I was recovering in a Simulation Memory Unit."

"What happened?" Asuna asked.

"During a fight with this former Freelancer turned Serial Killer called The Meta, I was damaged and I had to enter a Memory Storage Unit to heal myself. Inside was a simulation of Blood Gulch, complete with copies of the Reds and Blues. And then Tex showed up."

"Who's Tex?"

"Tex was probably the closest thing I had to a girlfriend." Church said. "Tex, or Agent Texas, was an AI inhabiting a robot body and a Freelancer. We bonded because not only were we both AIs, but we also had a lot in common beyond that. She ended up dying during our fight with the Meta and during my time in the Memory Unit, I got over her. It was tough, but I finally managed to be at peace with myself and my memories."

"Then what?" Asuna asked, seeing Church was seemingly a bit downcast.

"The Reds and Blues, the real ones, yanked me out so we could team up with Carolina to hunt down the Director of Project Freelancer. Not only did I get my name from the Director, I was also based off his memories like Tex was based off the mind of his deceased wife. It's also worth mentioning that the Director was Carolina's old man" Church sighed. "When we found him, it was tough seeing him like he was. A broken shadow of his former self, watching the recording of his last moments with his wife on repeat. We put him out of his misery."

"Did you kill him?" Asuna asked, slightly horrified and shocked.

"No. Carolina told me we needed to move on from what he'd done to her and me, which was tough, seeing as he was the reason I'm an AI Fragment in the first place, but he left him alone with Carolina's magnum sidearm. Things went from there." Church said. "Though the Director was a really messed up guy, he had his motives for what he did. Even if he did directly cause the downfall of Project Freelancer, the creation of the Meta, and the Civil War on Planet Chorus that I only recently escaped from."

Church sighed and returned to Asuna's mind.

"I can tell you more later. We need to move, we've wasted enough time."

Asuna nodded and sprinted into the lab. After plugging Church into one of the terminals that housed one of the 300 kidnapped SAO players, Church set to work.

"I can't release them all at once, as that would completely blow our cover, but I can seriously mess up his experiments." Church said. "I'm writing a program that should disable the experiment's parameters over time and erase his work as well. in about an hour or so, maybe less, he'll be back to square one."

"Good." Asuna said. "Let's go."

As they headed out of the lab, they didn't know that someone was also heading right towards them.

=RVB=

Kazuto Kirigaya, or the Black Swordsman Kirito, tore through the halls of the World Tree, Yui leading the way in front of him. He had just managed to battle his way through the Tree Knights with the assistance of the Sylphs and Cait Sith, along with Recon and Leafa's help.

Now, Yui was leading him to Asuna.

However, they didn't know that Asuna was actually closer than they thought. She was right around the corner that he turned at full speed, as a matter of fact. As they collided into each other, Yui realized who the figure was with a gasp of joy.

"Mommy!"

Both Asuna and Kirito came to their senses at that, and then realized who was in front of them. As they came together into a large embrace, Asuna began to cry in relief.

"Kirito." she whispered. "Thank God you found me."

"I'm sorry that it took me so long." he replied. "You ready to go home?"

"Yeah." she replied. "First things first, though. Church, this is Kirito. Remember that I told you about him?"

"Yep."

Kirito saw a small figure appear aside him and Yui, next to Asuna.

"This is Church." Asuna explained to the dumbstruck Kirito and a surprised Yui. "He's the AI Fragment that's been helping me to escape. I wouldn't have made it this far without him."

"Yeah, and it's a long story as to how I'm here and how we met." Church said. "Just know I'm from the future. Also, Asuna, you didn't tell me about her."

"About Yui?" Kirito asked.

"Yeah, I know another AI when I see one." Church said. "Look, we can all get acquainted later. We need to move and fast. I think we've got only ten minutes tops to get out of her before the system realigns the cameras, and the loop ends, thus signalling Sugou that you escaped."

"Right." Asuna said. "C'mon Kirito, I can help explain later."

"Also, I've got a plan for how we can stop this Sugou bastard." Church smiled. "get me to a system console, I'll explain on the way."

Kirito nodded and as the four of them ran towards an active system console in another section of the Tree, Sugou Noboyuki, or Oberon the Fairy King, was in a fit of rage at the moment. Asuna had not only escaped a second time, but someone or something had hacked into his lab's mainframe and was steadily erasing his experiments at a pace astronomically quicker than he ever could hope to achieve. At the speed it was going, it was only twenty more minutes tops before his life's work was gone.

And who knows how much longer before his fiance' would escape and expose him.

"Damnit!" Sugou cursed, frantically trying to stop the erasure. "What is going on? I made sure she couldn't do this, even if she had help!"

Sugou smashed his fist into the console, and took a deep breath in and out.

"Concentrate." he told himself. "The data can wait. I need Asuna back in the cage or at least unable to log out. Then I can deal with her like I should have a long time ago."

As Sugou stormed into his throne room and brought up the teleportation commands, he quickly found Kirito and Asuna's signatures near the system access node.

"I don't think so, Titania." he growled, teleporting them both to the throne room. As they appeared in front of him, he didn't notice a flash of blue from behind Asuna.

"Sugou." Kirito growled as he got to his feet, his sword in hand. "We finally met in this world. It'll be my pleasure to stop you once and for all."

"Pleasure's all mine, Kirigaya." Sugou replied. "Though I admire your tenacity, this game ends here."

"I was going to say the same to you." Asuna said. "I'm not your little caged songbird anymore, Sugou. Once I'm out, you're going to prison where you belong, you psychopath."

"I wouldn't speak to me in such a tone." he growled. "Once I manage to restore the data on my experiments, nothing will stand in my way! I can and will finally become a God of a new world, made in my image!"

"So that's it, huh?" Asuna replied. "You kidnap 300 players from Sword Art Online, perform mind control experiments on them, and blackmail me along with it? Just so you could become a god?"

"It's not like you would understand." Sugou replied. "I'm meant to succeed in everything I do. Regardless of what I have to do to accomplish it."

"Ends justify the means, huh?" Kirito growled. "Well, I'm not surprised. Care to oblige a question of mine, Sugou Noboyuki?"

"Try me, you insignificant gnat." Sugou replied.

"Do you know what you just did?" Kirito smiled. "Because I don't think you do."

"What are you talking about?" Sugou asked, feeling confused by the boy's request.

"I'm talking about exposing your plans to me and Asuna." Kirito smiled. "Thanks for that."

"Why are you so calm?" Sugou raised an eyebrow.

"I won't tell you." Kirito smiled even moer broadly. "I'll let him tell you. Care to do the honors, Church?"

Sugou watched in bewilderment as a small figure wearing sci-fi armor appeared in front of them.

"I'd love to." it said. "Hello, Mr. Noboyuki. My name is Leonard Church. I'm the AI fragment that's just completely ruined your plans."

"How so?" Sugou growled.

"Oh, I don't know." Church smiled. "Look."

Sugou then saw three small system icons behind the couple, and on his left and right. Sugou then realized what they were.

System-enabled livestream cameras, used for broadcasting footage.

"What did you do!?" Sugou roared, lunging for Church, only to be stopped by an invisible barricade Church had placed between them earlier.

"I just broadcasted your entire rant, from the beginning, plus the personal information needed to locate and arrest you, to the entirety of the game's player population." Church said with pride. "I also sent copies to the Tokyo Police and Law Enforcement, RECT Progress CEO Shouzou Yuuki, Youtube, Twitter, various other social media platforms, and the ALO Forums for those who aren't in game at the moment. I think it's safe to say one thing."

"You just got fucking busted wide open."

If Kirito wanted to hear Sugou scream, he certainly got what he wanted in spades.

"WHAT!?" Sugou roared with anger and fury as he pounded on the wall like a a madman. "You're the one who hacked my experiments, aren't you!?"

"Also true." Church nodded. "I've also sent copies of your records, which I might add are very thorough, to the Tokyo Police. Suffice to say, I think that when you wake up, you're going to one very special place reserved for people like you."

"It's called Prison, and you won't be leaving for a very long time." Church affirmed. "And seeing as Kirito and Asuna really want to tear you apart limb from limb right now for what you've done, including most of the game's population, who are basically rioting right now, I think I'll oblige that. I have one last thing to say, Sugou, before you die."

"Suck our balls."

At that, Kirito and Asuna lunged forward, propelled by two month's righteous fury, and proceeded to do just what Church predicted. As his screams faded away as his avatar died and was logged out, Asuna and Kirito shared a long-withheld kiss.

"You two should be going." Church said as they moved away. "And Asuna, I'll transfer myself to your NerveGear's local memory. There's just enough space there to keep me safe and sound."

"Thanks, Church." Asuna said. "Thanks so much."

"Don't mention it." Church replied. "See you on the far side."

As Asuna logged out, Kirito then followed suit after Yui rejoined them. Church felt elated and truly so. As he began the transfer to Asuna's nervegear, he smiled and closed his eyes as the world around him faded to black.

=RVB=

Tokyo, Saitama Hospital

Second floor, recovery wing

=RVB=

Shouzou Yuuki, CEO of RECT and Asuna's father, could hardly believe what had happened over the last few hours. After receiving a mysterious video file on his computer, he had prepared to delete it out of habit.

Then came the news that Sugou Noboyuki had been arrested on multiple charges including kidnapping, confinement, false imprisonment, and many more. Apparently a video of him confessing to these crimes and more had taken the internet by storm, published by a person named "Leonard Epsilon Church".

Shouzou had then watched the video and discovered the truth for himself. As he rushed over to the hospital where Asuna was being rehabilitated, he opened the door to her room with a sigh of relief.

Asuna was awake, and crying in the arms of a boy he knew to be Kazuto Kirigaya from their last meeting. As he sat down across from them, Asuna turned to him and smiled as broadly as she could due to her physical state.

"Father." she whispered hoarsely, embracing him. "I'm back."

As the father and daughter shared the embrace, Asuna's mother and brother, Kyouko and Kouichirou, entered and joined in. Kazuto watched, relieved and elated at the scene in front of him.

"Kazuto…" Shouzou said. "I take it you freed Asuna and exposed Sugou's...experiments?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't all me." he replied. "We had help."

"From who?" Kyouko asked.

"From me." said a surprisingly peppy voice.

As everyone turned to Asuna's Nervegear, a blue light appeared above it which formed into Church via a hologram.

"Allow me to introduce myself." he said. "I'm Leonard Epsilon Church. And boy, do I have a LOT to tell you.'