Chapter 10
June 27th, 2024
55th Floor, Granzam
Approximately 09:00 AST (Aincrad Standard Time)
Party stats
Will: Level 76 spearman
Emily: Level 76 shieldmaiden
Grace: Level 76 Katana swordswoman
Xander: Level 76 War Hammer tank
"You're back, what did you find?"
Asuna greeted Will, Emily, Grace, and Xander by shaking each of their hands, one after the other as they filed into the Knights of the Blood Oath's planning chamber. Inside, they spread out a large map of the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth floors, the old castle. It was the only labyrinth the clearers had ever encountered that had spanned more than one floor. As such, Commander Heathcliff had deemed it necessary to send the Assault team's most experienced group of scouts to chart the floors.
"As you theorized, all of the monsters that spawn on the sixty-sixth floor are stronger and more powerful versions of those on the sixty-fifth. All of them are tomb bound knights, bone serpents, and the like, at least, that's all we encountered," Will told her, and Asuna nodded.
"Well, given that you four were gone for an extra day longer than we planned for you to be gone, if those were the only things you encountered, I'd say those are probably all that's up there. What about the boss?"
Will shook his head. "Bosses, actually. There are two on Floor sixty-six, probably to make up for the lack of a floor boss on floor sixty-five. And speaking of, the entirety of floor sixty-six is one big castle. There's no town, no teleport gate, nothing. If we're going to get to floor sixty-six, the only way is to go through sixty-five first, so when you put out the call for people to join an assault party, make sure you make a note to have a good chunk of players bring nothing in their inventories but healing potions and healing crystals. I'm willing to bet we'll need them all."
Asuna tilted her head to one side. "What about a corridor crystal? Could we use that to get to the boss room?" she asked. Will shook his head again.
"We can try, but I doubt it'll work for these two floors. We packed one so that we could get from the boss room on Floor sixty-six back here more easily, but it didn't work going down, and neither did Teleport crystals, so I doubt either will work going up. As for the boss room, teleport crystals don't work inside, but the doors stay open, and we spent a solid hour testing its AI. It seems that the bosses can't, or won't target players outside the doors," Emily explained.
"That's why it took us an extra day to get back. The hike from the bottom of the castle on sixty-five to the boss room at the top of sixty-six took us a whole day, with pit stops to rest, heal, fight monsters, et cetera. So with a larger group, it could take us an extra half day just to get up there, maybe even a whole extra day," Grace surmised. "Fortunately, there's an above average number of safe areas starting with sixty-six. We've marked all the ones we found on the map. The ones with a second circle around them are the ones we used, which seem to have fewer monsters guarding them."
Xander stepped forward. "As for the bosses, as Will said, there's none on floor sixty-five, but sixty-six has two in one room. They're called the Sisters of Chaos, Ursa, and Alna. They're both a little taller than me, and they're wicked fast too. They've both got long greatswords, which seem to use sword skills from both the one-handed and two-handed sword skill trees."
Will nodded, pulling out a sketch Grace had made of them on the way down. "They've each got two health bars. Not much, but their movement speed alone it going to make it feel like they've both got four bars. Took us almost a half hour to chip away one bar from each of them," he told Asuna, handing her the sketch, which almost looked like more of a black and white photograph than a paper and pencil drawing. "When they both get down to one health bar, they become enraged. Their swords become curved, allowing them access to the Two-handed Curved sword skill tree as well."
Asuna nodded, pinning the sketch to a bulletin board behind her with a throwing pick. "Ok, anything else?"
"We've got one more thing for you. Xander managed to get a recording of the AI's movement patterns during our first trial fight against it. We tested it multiple times in the following days, and the AI seemed to take fairly similar strategies each time," Will said, sending Asuna a copy of the video. "There were a few discrepancies, but overall the bosses moved around and attacked the same way every time we poked our heads in."
After glancing over the video, Asuna nodded. "Good work you four. Go get some rest, you've earned a break. I'll review this video tonight, along with your intel. Hopefully, we'll be able to send out a call for an assault party by tomorrow afternoon, and we can leave the following morning."
June 29th, 2024
66th Floor, outside the boss room.
Approximately 11:47 AST (Aincrad Standard Time)
Will, Emily, Grace, Xander, Asuna, and Kirito stood outside the boss room in front of a group of about forty other members of the assault party, made up of the Knights of the Blood Oath, Divine Dragon Alliance, and Fuurinkazan guilds. "All right then. Guild leaders, I want a headcount of everyone who's all set before we go in. Did everyone go over the battle plan with each other?" Asuna asked. Klein and Schmidtt both nodded in affirmation, before going through their respective guilds and checking HP and cooldowns. Asuna meanwhile, checked the Knights of the Blood Oath, while Kirito, Will, and the others cracked open the boss room to take a peek.
"Yep, that's them all right. The one on the left in the red cloak is Ursa. On the right, in that navy blue coat is Alna," he said, pointing through the crack in the door.
Kirito's eyes widened. "Damn, you weren't kidding about the swords. Those things look straight up evil," he said, gripping his Elucidator tightly. "Wonder if those swords are going to be the last attack bonuses,"
Xander shrugged. "If so, we may as well let the DDA have it this time. I don't know of anyone in the KOB who could use a new two-handed longsword or curved sword, do you?" he asked Emily, who shook her head.
"All right, that's everyone. Let's take these twins down!" Asuna called out. The whole assault party echoed her cheer, and they charged into the boss room. The space lit up with overhead chandeliers made of gold, silver, and crystal, illuminating the room, which was revealed to be an ancient Throne room, with two identical thrones flanking the sealed exit.
"You dare disturb our resting place?" Ursa rasped, as she and her sister floated into the air.
"We will make sure you suffer for this insolence!" Alna warned, lifting her greatsword into the air like it was made of paper. With that, they charged at the Assault party. As they'd planned, the tanks blocked the crossing strike, suffering minimal damage as the shield users absorbed the brunt of the attack.
"Grapplers! Get them!" Asuna ordered. Emily and a group of the tanks leaped out after Ursa, who shrieked with surprise and they locked her arms. Emily kicked the back of Ursa's left knee in, and the boss sank to the floor, gripping her greatsword with one hand. "Attackers, let them have it!" Asuna then shouted, deflecting Alna's glowing greatsword with a sword skill of her own, the two opposing forces repelling their users from each other.
Will, Grace, and Xander jumped onto Ursa, weapons alight with the falling spear, lai, and devastating leap sword skills respectively. Their attack runs complete, they broke off and took cover behind the Fuurinkazan's tanks as Asuna, Uzala, Kirito, and Godfree charged at the immobilized boss with sword skills of their own.
"Well, this is going pretty well," Will remarked, and Grace playfully slapped him.
"No fair jinxing it!" she exclaimed, standing up and attempting to counter Alna as she flew past them to help her sister. Unfortunately for the sister, the Divine Dragon Alliance blocked her path, spearing the boss with Schmidtt's lance.
Ursa screeched as her first healthbar depleted, and as the assault party looked on in shock, her sword literally warped. Within seconds, it had transformed into a curved, sickle-like blade, and she threw the grapplers off of her with a shout. "How dare you peasants think yourselves worthy to dethrone the Princesses of Chaos?! For your asinine impudence, we shall make examples of each of you!"
Ursa's sword suddenly glowed a violent red, and in a flash of blood-red light, she created three shadowy clones of herself. Each one of them locked their gaze on one of the four members of the scouting party that had tested their AI before. "You! We fought you before, but you didn't have the courage to face us then! Now your cowardice will be your undoing!" the chaos twin and her clones exclaimed, before charging through the crowd of players towards Will, Grace, Xander, and Emily.
"Holy crap they're pissed off! They didn't do that before!" Xander exclaimed as he narrowly avoided being decapitated by one of Ursa's curved Greatswords. Fortunately, Alna was still being kept at bay by the Divine Dragon Alliance, but it was taking every one of them to hold her back, and that guild made up more than half of the entire assault party.
Emily grunted as she blocked a second strike. "All right, I've had enough of this!" she shouted, activating Retaliation as she blocked the third strike from one of Ursa's clones. With lightning fast movement, she countered the attack with two jabs. The hooded figure let out a dying shriek as it evaporated in a cloud of smoke. "Guys! Avoiding their attacks won't get us anywhere! You need to block it and retaliate while they're unbalanced!" she called out to her friends.
"Easier said than done when you don't have shields!" Grace shot back as another speeding cut from Ursa nearly split her entire body in two. The shadowy clone doubled back and attempted to skewer her from behind before she even had a chance to turn around. Moments before the blade pierced her gut, however, a second blade slashed right in front of her.
"Switch!" Klein shouted to the girl, and without a second of hesitation, Grace did just that, pummeling the clone with Gengetsu.
"Thanks, Klein! I owe you one!" she exclaimed, her eyes darting around for another clone. The Fuurinkazan's leader shook his head as they stood back to back.
"You kidding? You've saved my bacon more than once, I'm just returning the favor is all!"
The third clone charged at Xander, who blocked the attack with the handle of the Meteorite Clawhammer. Letting out a war cry, he spun around with a sword skill he'd only recently learned, Orbit. His hammer arced through the air and violently bashed the clone's skull with three consecutive hits as Schmidtt speared Alna once again, dropping her second healthbar into the red. The second twin shrieked, and the force of her shout sent the tanks falling backward.
Will's eyes darted from one sister to the other as they both glared at him. Suddenly, he heard a vague voice in the back of his head.
"Attempting shutdown in three!"
"What the hell was that…" he thought to himself, before shaking his head and focusing on the two bosses hellbent on running him through with their curved greatswords. The sisters charged at him, flying through the air like comets, and he raised his spear in time to deflect Alna's attack as he heard the voice again.
"Two!"
"Dammit! Now's not the time to lose focus!" he reminded himself as Ursa charged in after her sister. Will raised his spear again.
"One!"
Ursa twisted around his spear as time seemed to slow down.
The words "Attempting shutdown!" and Emily's cry of terror were the last things Will heard before a shower of lights overwhelmed his vision.
"He's coming around, everyone stay sharp!"
"Ready on defibs!"
"Vitals still look good."
Will groaned as he felt like he was in two places at once. Seared into his brain was the image of a girl in a tattered cloak about to stab him right through his heart with a curved sword, a double-ended spear in his hands. But what he saw was nothing like that.
"Will! Will, can you hear us?" a voice asked, and he felt a small, fluffy object under his right hand, a bulky… something on his head. He was sitting upright, and the room was full of bright lights. Someone was behind him, doing something that was causing his head to be pushed and pulled forward and back.
"Dammit! The transmitter's unhooked and I've got the energy bulkhead ready to replace it, but something's got the transmitter lodged in the NerveGear!"
"Keep trying, Carter. He's in a daze, we can't lose him," one of the other voices said. "Come on, Will, stay with us! You're almost there!"
Will heard a scream overlap with the tense voices he was already hearing. It sounded familiar, but everything was so… foggy… like his brain was working overtime to show him completely different things at once.
"Will! Please! Don't go!" the voice said.
"What… what's going… on… where am I…" he thought to himself. "That… that was Emily… right?"
The two voices overlapped again. "Wake up, Will! Don't give up now!"
"Get those defibs charged up, he's going back in! Shit, Will! Don't do this to me!"
"That voice… I know it too…:"
"Vitals are still stable, is the transmitter removed, Carter?" another voice asked. Will's head jerked backward violently, and he heard one last voice exclaim something that he couldn't hear before he saw words.
"Tampering detected. Initiating emergency return fulldive."
With that, another tunnel of lights overwhelmed him.
Will's body froze up as the sword pierced right through where his heart should have been. Without any noise, he collapsed to the ground as his healthbar depleted. Emily's heart stopped, and blind fury overtook her as she charged at Ursa like a raging lion, grappling her and stabbing her face over and over as screams sounded behind her. She paid them no attention.
She poured all of her hate, all of her rage, all of her terror, worries, and fear into each and every strike, drawing jagged red lines all across Ursa's face as the sister screamed in agony. She had no idea what had come over her, but right now all that mattered was that one of her friends lay dying, and the culprit was underneath her.
Within seconds, the rest of the Assault party had formed a ring around Alna and had dispatched the critically wounded boss for good, all rivalries and bitterness forgotten the moment one of their own hit the ground. With one last shout, Emily brought the bladed shields down onto Ursa's skull and split it wide open.
"Emily! He's alive!" someone shouted behind her. In an instant, she was running over to her fallen friend with tears in her eyes as she shoved people aside.
"Will! Please! Don't go!" she pleaded, but though he was breathing, it was uneven and shallow. There was no response. "Wake up, Will! Don't give up now!"
Will's eyes slowly opened, everything colored a deep red tint, and he groaned with pain. Out of nowhere, a white and red hand shoved a green gem in his face and shouted "Heal!"
His vision regained its proper coloring as his eyes closed and opened again, just a little bit farther this time. "Please, Will, don't do this to me! Please don't go!" the voice said again.
"Go… where?"
His eyes opened ever so slightly wider, and he recognized a face in front of him, even as it was stained with tears.
"E- Emily…? What's… going on?" he asked, and the girl simply pressed her face into his chestplate as tears streamed down from her eyes.
"Don't… don't ever do that again, you hear?" she asked him. When he looked around, he saw Asuna and Kirito nodding their heads with worried expressions on their face.
His face must have reflected his confusion, for the Vice Commander silently mouthed to him "I'll explain later." Will nodded back and looked at Emily.
"I won't ever do that again. I promise."
A/N: Wow, two chapters of this and a chapter of Twenty Fifth Knight in one day! I'm on a roll!
I hope you all liked the brief little look at the outside world in these two chapters! One of the things I wanted to do in this fanfic was show how people outside of SAO, like Kikuoka for example, were working to pull the people trapped in the game out without killing them, and I think this worked really well to show that, even if it wasn't a success at pulling Will out of SAO, since he was forced back in by the NerveGear.
Anyway, the next two chapters will hopefully be coming soon, so stay tuned!
