Well… this is a franchise I haven't done much for. Considering the last SAO story that I ever created was probably my most negatively received creation ever, uh… can you blame me for not really doing much with the series since? But… I'm back to give it another try. If you don't like this, then a future project may not happen. Then again, it's SAO, so… we'll see where the cards lie.
So, thanks to the Persona crossover, I learned about the SAO mobile games and have recently been playing through Integral Factor. I'm honestly having a lot of fun with it and the new girl who is your player's partner character. Uh… what's her canon name again? I decided to name her 'Erica' and I honestly don't know what her name is actually supposed to be. *shrugs* Anyway, I've played through some of the limited events (but I missed the Persona one, so here's hoping they eventually have it again)... and one of them honestly scared me.
Within the limited event, you, your partner, Kirito, Argo, Leafa, and Klein are in this dungeon going after this sword that does bonus damage against undead enemies. You eventually encounter this ghost of a character from the latest season… Alicization I think it's called… and she ends up hijacking control of some goblins to fight the cast. ...during the event, I was highly concerned for the safety of my partner character. ...my concern was misplaced. Cause, after beating a goblin, the ghost does jump to somebody else… the player… and you have to go through some dialogue boxes as if it's you talking. *pales* ...that was honestly scary for me. *sighs* Thankfully, it does not last very long. I did end up finishing the quest line because Klein got kidnapped and I wanted to ensure that all of us got the heck out of dodge!
So… why did this scare me so much? *sighs* Well… we're going to be digging into that story for the first time in something a bit more public, so let's dive in. When I was seven years old, there was this episode of the Pokémon anime where… the thing that happened to the player character happened to Ash. At the time, it didn't scare me all that much. One very horrifying nightmare later, I couldn't watch the episode ever again, and an episode of Sonic X only reinforced the fear. Heck, it struck an entire WORD out of my personal dictionary because of how much I fear that. ...and then Integral Factor ended up striking that fear. *sighs* I will now be making a personal request with as much sincerity as I can give you guys… please… please… PLEASE DO NOT bring up the names of either episode of either anime. It creeps me out just THINKING about either of those episodes, so… please… don't name it. Ok? Ok.
And wanna know something that's a bit irksome for me? ...NOBODY bothers to ask your player character "Hey, are you alright?" following that. NOBODY! Not even your partner does! That kind of bugs me because of how much care your partner character is portrayed as having for you.
But, as some people say, "write what you know" and "write something that makes you happy". So, here we are. This story will be written in a first person perspective and the partner character will be using the name that I've given her. The player character, though, will be using a different name from what I gave my player character (which was my screenname). For this, the character's name will simply be 'Shu', derived from a Japanese word that means main character. If this bothers you at all, then turn away right now.
Disclaimers: Sword Art Online belongs to A1 Pictures and its various other owners.
(Shu's Perspective)
We made it back from that shady dungeon and had arrived back at the in. Leafa and Klein began to talk to each-other, Kirito had started to mumble something to himself, Argo headed off to get back to work, and Erica was simply making sure her health had regenerated. Myself, though… I couldn't shake what had happened during the quest. That… ghost from Alice's world… and what happened to me… I began to shudder a little.
I just… couldn't stop shaking. My nerves wouldn't calm down and my breathing began to go at a different pace than normal. I was finally snapped out of my thoughts when I heard somebody yell and looked around.
"Shu?" Kirito spoke, making me turn over to him, Leafa, and Klein.
"...huh?"
"I asked, are you okay?" Klein inquired, "You seemed to be shaking."
"...yeah… I'm alright…" I told him, trying my best to make sure that I was calm.
"Are you sure?" Leafa added.
"I… I'm going to go lie down for a little while. If you guys need me… you know how to contact me…" I told the group. I then headed up to the inn room without saying much of anything else, but I could hear Erica call my player name out as I headed upstairs.
After I closed the door, I decided to try and get a bit of rest after what had happened. All I could try to do was push it out of my mind and then try to get my emotions back to normal so that, when it came time to go to the next boss, I would be ready. However, I kept a small lamp's light on next to where I would be sleeping.
I woke up with a start and looked around nervously. I saw that I was back in the dungeon, my bow on standby, and there looked to be dead goblins around me. Erica was standing next to me with that smile that I loved to see so much, and then Kirito, Klein, Leafa, and Argo were all nearby. All of them had their backs turned from us and weren't moving.
"...did I… pass out?" I asked Erica.
"You're fine," Erica assured me.
I just nodded my head and approached Kirito and the others, but then I noticed that their player cursors were a strange purple color. It was darker than what would symbolize a high level monster, so… was it a status condition or something? My nerves began to flare up as I nervously walked towards the group and moved my hand towards Kirito's shoulder, only to suddenly get shoved to the ground. I looked up to see Erica had moved me out of the way and that Kirito had drawn his sword.
"What was that for, Kirito?!" Erica yelled.
"Is that what this boy's name is?" an all too familiar female voice questioned. I began to pale as I instantly recognized that voice as the ghost we had all dealt with earlier that day and my pale expression only grew as I realized the voice was coming from Kirito…
"Oh no…" I mumbled.
The voice then began to laugh from somewhere that wasn't Kirito and I saw it was now Argo who was laughing.
"How pathetic…" the same voice said, this time from Klein.
"All of them…? How is that possible?!" I managed to say as me and Erica both got back up.
No response came and the remaining three drew their weapons. Erica got out her shield in order to protect from a barrage of assaults that were launched towards the two of us. I rolled up and tried to take aim with my bow, but all the shots had ended up missing. My hands just kept shaking and I couldn't get a good aim.
"You two should just give yourselves up…" the ghost said.
Before I could even say anything else, Erica grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the room. She then took my bow out of my other hand and shot it to seal the exit. Her hand then grabbed mine and we began to run for it.
"How could this have happened?" I fearfully ask, "I thought we only dealt with one earlier!"
"Ever hear of the many worlds theory? There's an infinite number of possibilities and other worlds!" Erica quickly said, "That doesn't bod well for us!"
We then came to a stop when Erica heard somebody else approaching. I looked up to see Asuna, Liz, and Agil were all there. Erica was about to head over to them, but I held onto her hand to stop her.
"...they have the same colored cursors that Kirito and the others had…" I managed to utter to her.
Asuna then began to laugh in the ghost's voice and more players began to appear, all with that exact same colored cursor. Me and Erica began to run in another direction to try and get away from them, but we eventually got cornered at a dead end.
"Shu… what should we do?" Erica asked me.
I had no answer for her. I then saw Kirito approach, flanked by thousands of others that covered any way out. He then held up his hand and a dark blast of energy flew towards it. I froze… only to get shoved out of the way by Erica, who took the full force of the blast. My eyes went wide as I saw her cursor change color.
"E… E… Erica…?" I weakly spoke, only for her to turn towards me with dark red eyes and an evil smile on her face.
"You're the only one left…" she spoke before pinning me against the wall. She began to shake me and I could hear Erica's voice calling out my name…
"SHU! WAKE UP!"
I stumbled out of the bed and right onto the floor, coated in sweat, panting, and breathing like I had been running for miles without end.
"Thank goodness… I heard you screaming and I've been trying to wake you up for five minutes now!" Erica said in relief as she kneeled down next to me.
I fearfully looked up towards her and saw her cursor was now back to green. I reached towards it, tapped it, and nothing happened.
"...are you ok?" Erica asked me.
"You're… safe…" I mumbled. I then quickly opened up the menu and looked towards my friend list to see everybody that were in that nightmare all still had green icons, "...you're… all safe…"
"Shu… what were you dreaming about…?"
I meekly closed the menu and curled up into a ball on the floor.
"Come on… you were screaming like you were dying and you've been behaving strangely since…" Erica spoke before she stopped and seemed to have a realization, "...did that ghost really scare you that much?"
I could only nod in response. She sat down beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder to try to calm me down. I slowed my breathing down to a regular pace and turned to see Erica's green eyes looking right at my brown ones.
"Shu… are you ok?" she asked me.
"...I am now…" I told her, scooting a little closer, "...I'm sorry for scaring you…"
"It's ok. Just… can you talk to me at all?"
"...about my nightmare?"
"If you want to."
I proceeded to summon my arrow in order to hold onto it to keep myself calm before I tried to speak, "... we were back at that dungeon… and that ghost was back… it got to everyone…"
"...everyone?"
"Except for you and me…" I told her, tears starting to drip down from my eyes, "And then it got you and… and… and…"
She then simply pulled me into a hug as I finally broke out crying.
"That thing terrified me… I was so scared when I found out it had that power… and I was so scared that… what happened to me… would happen to you…" I managed to speak.
She just held onto me as I continued to cry and cry for a while. She didn't say anything to me, just being there and quiet. After I finally finished crying, I just hugged her back.
"Shu… I'm sorry…" she told me.
"...for what?"
"That you were so scared… and I guess for not talking to you sooner. You just seemed so… focused that I didn't know you had been so scared…"
"I was scared… but I just kept my mind off of it by thinking about the task at hand…"
Erica simply gave a 'shh' and just continued to hug me. We remained on the ground for a bit longer before she let go and looked at me.
"...I'm glad you're my partner…" I told her, "...thank you."
"No problem," Erica assured me.
After I had finally calmed down, I climbed back into the bed to try and go back to sleep. However, before I could close my eyes, Erica walked over and climbed into my bed. I couldn't say anything before she simply gave a 'shh' motion to me and closed her eyes.
I'm glad I have you for a partner…
Well… this is probably the most intense I've felt writing a fanfic in quite a long time. And, uh, hoo boy was this not exactly easy to type. The whole nightmare sequence… yeah… that was based on what little I remembered from the nightmare the episode of the Pokémon anime gave me. Just… y'know… replace the SAO characters with Pokémon characters (Erica with May specifically). Just… *sighs* That mission dragged up a bunch of unpleasant feelings and memories.
I have calmed down a bit since then and am simply going to pretend the mission just never happened, but I just wished that there was a moment where your partner just asked if you were okay. And, well, this was that.
All in all… uh… not much else to say. Just… uh… this is a fic and I will continue to play Integral Factor. I honestly enjoy the game (the mission that inspired this fic aside…) and, uh… I do have another SAO project that I've been considering, but I would like to know if you guys want to see me write more for this series. With my current semester almost finished, I may be able to put more effort into writing, but… we'll see.
No real favorite part to this one other than it's conclusion. Just… a short little one-shot.
Just Live More.