Lady Lily Anne and I punched this out in about oh...*count fingers* two hours, probably a bit less honestly, more likely in total an hour if you didn't count the delay between messages.

Eh. We were both very amused with the end result and even though a bit short we're going to leave you with a little teaser.

PoH is a bit obsessed with the Black Queen, and he just found out she had some new disciples.

Hehehe...

Please review!

Kirito woke up at the crack of noon, sore, groggy, and still mentally fatigued from her impromptu late night training session with the mid-level guild she and her friends had inadvertently nearly killed with their very presence. Honestly she wasn't even sure why she had bothered training them up. Something just seemed, genuine, about Sachi and her friends, maybe it was because their enthusiasm reminded her a bit of her own group of friends?

Well, perhaps Klein and the boys, the Black Cats were not nearly jaded or sarcastic enough to be anything like Asuna and Argo really.

Or perverted, but that was mostly Argo being Argo so that comparison wasn't really...

"Ugh...why am I even thinking about this right now? Eh...breakfast sounds-" she paused and looked at the in game clock before snorting lightly, "-lunch sounds like a good idea."

She moved to sit up and realized a moment later there was an arm thrown across her chest, gaze following said arm she found her partner was nuzzled up to her and very much asleep. Eyebrows raising she glanced to her other side to see that Argo was haphazardly sprawled half off the bed snoring gently.

"Uh...huh..."

She was fairly certain she'd rented a private room at this inn so how did...

Huffing a bit she didn't bother asking herself further questions since the answers were likely going to make little sense regardless, and soon managed to get out of bed without waking her companions. Quickly dressing for the day and equipping her sword she headed downstairs while stretching and took a seat at one of the long tables flagging down an NPC waiter.

"I'll take the shepherds pie and a pint of the-" she cut herself off there while shaking her head slowly, she really needed to get out of the habit of ordering beer with most of her meals. It wasn't a healthy mindset to have when she eventually got out of the game, and the last thing she needed to deal with during her likely long term recuperation was the mentality of an alcoholic.

The NPC was still waiting while she finished with, "-a glass of the cranberry juice please." Order made she buried her face in her hands letting out an exhausted groan of frustration all while barely reacting to her meal being placed before her, maybe she should have ordered tea or coffee?

Absently picking up the glass she took a sip of the cranberry juice and almost spat it back out. Definitely should have ordered tea or coffee. She could worry about her health and diet when she got old and it was necessary, yuck.

Staring at the offending drink as if it had betrayed her she soon glanced towards the stairs as the Black Cats as well as her friends poured out into the common room. She gave the group a weary wave and a wan smile, the Cats paused to do the same in return while Argo and Asuna used the distraction to step around the lower level players to plop down beside Kirito.

"What is that?" Argo asked staring down at the cranberry juice, obviously surprised to see something that didn't have some sort of addictive substance in it before her friend.

"Well you see," Kirito began, "while the game has made a valiant effort to make many things taste similar to their real world counterparts, some of them fall flat. Or otherwise the items are things I've rarely had a chance to experience in the real world so I have nothing to compare them to, such as British cuisine and booze."

Gesturing towards the cup she then performed a dramatic twirl of her wrist as she continued on with, "So may I present you with something I have in fact had in the real world. Cranberry juice. That is not cranberry juice."

Amused Asuna leaned over and plucked up the glass, took a sip, grimaced, and actually spit it back into the cup while pushing it away, "Oh ok, vinegar much? You really should have just gone with tea or coffee Keiko."

The Black Queen turned to her accomplice with hooded eyes while flatly stating, "I am well aware of this Asuna, thank you for your input regardless."

Sitting across from the Queens the Black Cats ordered meals for themselves and after a few moments of silence Ducker spoke up, "Well ya kind of have to wonder what else has been distorted ya know? I mean the staples all taste the same, tea, noodles, rice, butter, milk and all that but what about more complex things?"

Kirito snorted at that, "I dare you to try this juice, trust me they can screw up even simple things, what hope is there for the complex? I mean for crying out loud we're on the 27th floor and we're still working with sandwiches here!"

"What about chocolate?" Asuna asked now looking slightly freaked out, "I mean we've had sweets and the such but no one has gotten anything chocolate yet right? What, what if they screwed that up like the juice?!"

Argo and Kirito paused, blinked and met each others gaze evenly as that potential nightmare set itself firmly in their minds.

"They wouldn't dare," Argo muttered to herself.

Scratching the back of her head while her gaze shot about the room Kirito quickly replied with, "No they wouldn't that'd be madness right? I mean who would do that?"

Of all people it was Sachi who gained the rooms attention as she sipped her tea then quietly stated, "If Kayaba did in fact do that, well... He'll have to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Won't he?" Her unsettling polite smile seemed to radiate arctic cold and her fellow guild members leaned away from her in wide-eyed fear.

"Holy shit," Kirito muttered.

"She is so channeling Unohana right now," Asuna whispered in turn.

All while Argo finished with, "Is it ok to be a little turned on right now? Because if so I'm a little turned on."

Hayato preferred viewing the world of Aincrad through tablets and televisions rather then the new Amusphere primarily because it allowed him to keep physical notes at hand, which was honestly just one of his little idiosyncrasies that his coworkers and boyfriend ignored out of respect really. Tsuna and Nagi already figured he was under enough stress to comment on it and Takashi just thought it was cute, so whatever.

That aside, he was so beyond glad he was not one of the millions of voyeurs standing next to the Queens as they all shot the newcomer Sachi appraising looks because he recognizes that smile all too well. He had after all seen it every time Nagi approached the media outlet reps to convince them to release their spin on SAO, and it never failed to send a shiver down his spine when said smile curled up in triumph.

What really had him unsettled though was that Nagi was likely going to want Sachi as an apprentice when she finally got out the game. That thought was just...horrifying on so many levels he couldn't even begin to process it.

One scary woman constantly near him was more than enough, he did not need her to train another, who will likely train another, and so on and so forth.

"I am way too sober for this," he muttered as he jammed a cigarette between his teeth, "but bring it on."

Kayaba stared blankly at his monitor for a few seconds before scrambling to log in. "CARDINAL, send me a sample of our virtual chocolate now!"

With what sounded like an exasperated sigh, the system did so. Pulling his NerveGear into place and quickly signing on Kayaba took a bite of the first offered sweet and cringed. "I was planning on living longer, and not dying at the hands of a mob of angry women suffering chocolate withdrawal. CARDINAL, just how many permutations of code can we make to the chocolate to change the taste slightly without losing its stability?"

"There are at least 175 possible permutations if stability is considered, and 893 if it is not."

Kayaba sighed wearily. "This is because I decided to pick an intelligent sociopath that is unconsciously charming as a protege isn't it? Karma really is a complete bitch."

CARDINAL decided to reply to that with, "I did warn you-"

"No one likes 'I told you so's' CARDINAL, just begin the testing!"

There was a brief moment of silence before CARDINAL sighed yet again and responded with a blase, "Very well."

Kayaba pulled his NerveGear off and let out a withering sigh, "If someone had told me this would be a hangup up for the program six months ago... I would have fired them..."

The Prince of Hell, the leader and founder of Laughing Coffin, leaned against a cavern wall lost in thought on how to best utilize his guild's rather grisly talent when his most loyal lieutenant quickly approached him. Curious he leaned his head towards the hooded man who he could see was grinning manically even through the shadows cast by the over head lights.

"Yes Johnny?"

"PoH, news, your Queen? She's got some Disciples now, the Moonlit Black Cats. Think they'd work to draw her out?"

He snickered at that as he twirled his cleaver menacingly while nodding to himself slowly, "Well done Johnny. Yes... Yes this is perfect."

I honestly love the fact that our Kayaba is a genre savvy dork, he's so much fun to write.

Also, charismatic sociopaths attracting charismatic sociopaths, this will not end well