Disclaimer: All properties and/or references belong to their respective owners, creator, and/or distributors.
A/N: This is my first Fanfiction that I've written down and posted on a website. So I hope you enjoy, and as the disclaimer has stated All properties and/or references belong to their respective owners, creator, and/or distributors.
"Finally." I mutter while gazing at the clock on my dresser with a small box in my hand."The servers are up for SAO".
I turn to my left and head towards the PC resting next to my desk. I boot it up as I sit down on the swivel chair in front of the desk. I turn on the monitor and insert the gaming disk into the computer. I plug in the headset and make sure the game is downloading properly while I wait for it to charge. I hear a beep and a buzz a few minutes later signifying the headset is charged and the game is ready to start.
'You ready?' I text on my phone as I put the headset on.
'Gimme a minute and I'll be on. Don't forget, we meeting at the plains where we used to'
'Yeah yeah yeah, I know.' I respond with a smirk pulling at my lips. 'God I'm so excited. It's been , what, a year since the beta?'
'Around there, now shut up and get on I'll see you in a bit' 'Good luck'
'Good luck to you as well' I respond as I put the phone down to plug it in. 'Can't forget to do that again, school was hell without anything to read.'
I lay down in my bed wearing only my boxers and a long pajama bottom that has the symbol of a bat on the left thigh.
"Link start." I say confidently as my vision goes white and a rainbow of colors shoot towards me.
Once the colors fly by me, my vision goes black and I find myself in front of a floating blue screen with black font for it's writing.
"Oh god. Is that Comic Sans?" I mutter in horror as I stare at the hovering screen. "Please tell me that I can change that in settings." I say as I frantically swipe my left hand down only for nothing to happen. 'Umm' I think in confusion before another screen pops up in front of me.
"You can't open the settings menu before you've character customization!"
'Ah' I think as I nod my head up and down in realization. 'That makes sense'
"Hmm" I hum as I turn towards the customization menu once I've exited out of the message screen. "Lets see what we've got here."
The customization menu is surprising in depth; allowing you to adjust every little part of your body, the color of your hair and that of your skin, the color of your iris and even the 'whites' of your eye.
'I think I'll just leave it as it is. It's not like it'll matter in the long run anyways. I'm not famous in any way so there's no worry over being recognized.' I decide as I turn towards the full body mirror towards my right.
As I look into it I see a brown haired 15 year old staring back at me. He has hazel eyes that lean towards being grey more than brown and green. He has a slightly above average height for a boy his age, standing at 5'10" when he's standing straight. He has a lean build that is tone enough to see noticeable definition in his muscle from a descent distance away. All in all, from what everyone tells him, he is a decently attractive young man.
'Hmm, not that I'm complaining, but I don't think the game'll let me get away with playing in only my underwear, So I'll have to choose a main color for my beginner set.' I conclude as I press the small arrow pointing right at the bottom right of the floating menu, leading me to a new page that has a color wheel, with the option to change to a color palette. After looking at the options I have before me, I decide on having a dark grey color as the base color for my clothing.
Once I had decided on a color, my avatar shines a light grey, before it disappears and I'm in a set of clothing. I find myself wearing a dark grey short sleeved shirt with a sling around my torso that's a tan brown color. I look down to see that I'm wearing a black pair of trousers that are tucked into a pair of hard toed boots.
'Not what I would personally pick out for myself to wear but I have to admit that I don't look all that bad wearing it.' I appraise as I look at myself in the full body mirror.
I look back at the menu and press the button that has "Start" written on it. My vision goes white before I find myself in a plaza where a multitude of people are standing and chatting to one another with animated gestures.
I hurriedly make my way out of the crowd and into the town connected to it. 'I go straight here, then a left through this alley, and another left into the street. Follow the street until I come to the second four-way intersection where I make a right, and. Whala. I'm in the plain where we decided to find each other.'
There are a few people loitering around and exchanging tips and tricks with one another, and others fighting man sized boars. But none of them is the person I'm looking for. 'Did I get here ear..' "Uh" I grunt as something rams into me before I can finish my thought and force us to tumble across the ground, gathering an impressive amount of looks that are wondering what's going on.
"Who the hell...Don?!" I cry out in surprise as I glimpse the man who tackled me. It's a stout young man with thick, toned arms, who's in the later half of his teens. He has dirty blonde hair cut closely to his head, with blue eyes shining mischievously at me.
"Shut the fuck up you dipshit. Don't use my IRL name, use my gamer tag you fuck!" The man standing over me yells with a chuckle.
I roll onto my back so I can take a look at his username and see "Gamer4Life", floating under an orange plumbob, above his head. "Well fuck you too, Bitch." I say back to him as I sweep his feet out from under him, hearing a ding originating above me. I look up at the ding and see another orange plumbob floating over me, the same kind that was floating over Gamer.
¨What's that?¨ I ask as I point at the symbol above both of our heads. ¨Oh that.¨ He responds,¨Thats used to signify when a player has harmed another player. Green means that you haven´t harmed someone. Orange, to signify that you have harmed someone, and Red, to signify that you´ve PKed someone. The red stays with you forever, while the orange turns back to green after a couple of hours.¨
¨Ah, that's different from last time.¨I respond as I get up from my prone position. ¨So, lets see. The first order of business is to… kill some boar mobs if I remember correctly.¨ I state as I start heading towards a group of boras that haven't been touched yet by the other players. ¨Yes, you dumb piece of shit. What else could it have been?!¨ Don stares at me while he replies. ¨I don´t know,¨ I reply indignantly. ¨It could´ve been supply shopping for all I know!¨
I start heading towards the group of boars as I pull my sword out from my inventory. ¨Anyways, we better get started with XP grinding.¨
"Alright let's get this show on the road." he states with a goofy smile, joining me in battle against the boars.
After a few hours of grinding and a level up from the both of us, we decide to call it a day and log out.
"Gamer how do you feel about getting some pizza after we log out?" I state as I swipe my left hand down, opening the menu. I move my finger to where the log out was during the beta and find nothing there. "Gamer, just so you know the log out button isn't where it was during beta so I'm going to dig around the menu to try and find it."
"Ight man, to answer your earlier question, yes I'm up for pizza after this. Just let me shower first and we'll meet at my place again." He says, finishing up the boar mob with a swing. "You sure?" I respond. "Why not my place this time?" I question while I scim through the menus faster, starting to get confused.
"Wait," I say as I raise my head to look at my age old friend. "I don't think it'll matter anyways, 'cause I can't find the logout button." "Your shitting me, right." He says with minor panic and disbelief in his voice. "You have to be, I got work early tomorrow." "Same with me, so don't think you're the only one panicking!" I say roughly starting to frantically go over the menus a third time, hoping against hope that I'll find the logout symbol.
Before he can reply, we start glowing white with a blue outline. When our vision clears up, we find ourselves back at the spawn plaza that we first appeared in. There are other people showing up in the same white and blue flashes that we did.
I look at Don and tell him, "We have to keep our calm here. While yes we don't know what's happening, we've got to prepare for the worst. If we get separated, regroup at the main towns of the floor, same goes for the other floors as well if we're separated that far."
He looks at me with a frantic look in his eyes, "I know man, I know."
Before I can reply to him, and wow that getting annoying, hexagon starts appearing in the air, turning red and dripping dark red blood that starts collecting as an orb floating in front of the forcefully gathered crowd. After a couple of seconds, the orb of blood morphs into a figure with an icon floating above it's head.
"Immortal object"
"What does that mean?!" I whisper loudly to Don. "I think that it means that we can't kill it, now pay attention, it's started talking."
I turn to look at the figure at Don's suggestion, to realize he's right, it has started talking.
"Attention, players. Welcome to my world." It states in a loud, booming voice.
'The hell does it mean "my world"?' I question as I start to feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise. 'Uh oh, that's never a good sign.'
"My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world." It continues. "I'm sure you've already noticed that the logout button is missing from the main menu. But this is not a defect in the game…I repeat..this is not a defect in the game. It is a feature of Sword Art Online."
"A-a feature?" Someone yells out in confused horror. I agree with him silently as both me and Don look at each other in thinly disguised horror.
"You cannot log out of SAO yourselves. And no one on the outside can shutdown or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain and thus ending your life."
With the statement spoken, pandemonium breaks out in the crowd. Some people scream at him that he's lying, others stand in shocked horror, and the rest break down into sobs.
"Shit." I mutter with dread. "That's not good." "You couldn't have said anything now could you?" My friend says sarcastically. "Now all he has to say is that when we die in game we die IRL."
"Don't jinx it!" I yell at him. With my luck that could always be a thing.
"Unfortunately, several players' friends and families have ignored this warning and have attempted to remove the NerveGear. As a result, two hundred and thirteen players Are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world." He continues, ignoring the increasingly agitated crowd.
"Thank God that didn't happen to us, am I right?" I say, trying to lighten the mood with a bad good that's in poor taste. Don just looks at me like there's something mentally wrong with me. I just look back at him with an indignant look on my face.
"As you can see, news organizations across the world are reporting all of this, including the deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger of a NerveGear being removed is no minimal. I hope you will relax and attempt to clear the game. But I want you to remember this clearly. There is no longer any method to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost. And simultaneously the NerveGear will destroy your brain. There is only one means of escape. To complete the game. You are presently on the lowest floor of Aincrad, Floor 1. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the Floor Boss, you may advance to the next level. Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game."
I whip towards Don, a remark on my lips when he replies with an indignant look on his face, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I should've known better than to open my mouth with you around."
"Finally, I've added a present to your item storage. Please see for yourself."
With a hesitant swipe of my left hand, I open the inventory and see a hand held mirror. I press it with my finger and it pops into being in my right hand. But before I can look into it, I hear gasps and people crying out in surprise. I snap my head up to see what's going on. When I fully comprehend what I'm seeing I let out a gasp of surprise. Everyone that has looked into the mirror, is glowing before they turn into someone else. Some people are changing height, others changing body proportions, and I even catch a few changing genders. I see two men arguing with each other about how one was more attractive and with that one responding that the other was a girl. I snorted at the sight of the two bickering. I finally look into my own without much care, knowing that nothing is going to even change when I look into it. When I look into the pink hand held mirror, I start glowing. Once I've finished glowing and can see again, I look into the mirror not expecting much to change. But when I do I blink in surprise, "Huh." I mutter "They've added the scars and the moles, I forgot that I had them." In the mirror I see my face relatively unchanged, except for a few minor things. There's a small mole over the left side of my lip and another an inch from my right ear and a half an inch under my right eye. If you didn't know better they could've been mistaken as freckles. There's also an ugly scar between my eyebrows, that didn't heal properly. "Well, at least I don't have to worry about glasses now." I say as I turn my head to look at Don, who hasn't changed much. There's a new scar here and there, a mole there, and another here. But all in all, nothing changed.
"Right now," He continues, drawing the gazes of everyone there. "you're probably wondering, "why". Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of Sword Art Online and the Nerve Gear, do all this? My goal has already been achieved. I created Sword Art Online for one reason. To create this world and intervene in it. And now, it is complete. This ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online Launch. Good luck players." He says, fading away into nothing. Leaving the players alone to do as they wish.
"Well, shit. Looks like we'll be missing work tomorrow."
