SAO A Different Story

AN: The biggest problem I have writing this fanfic is that it isn't the one I want to write. I've got a massive SAO & Skyrim crossover that I'm working on, but I need the backstory of SAO slightly modified for what I envision. So I need to write the SAO and ALO arcs before I can truly begin the story that I want. Hence, the early chapters will seem rushed and half-assed, because they are.

Disclaimer: I don't own SAO, wish I did.

A Different Story

Chapter 2- The Early Floors

The raid group stood outside the boss room, each party grouped around their respective leaders.

"All right, people. Here we go!" shouted Diavel as he slowly pushed the massive doors open. The players cautiously entered the room, weapons at the ready and shields up. Kirito and 'his girls'- as Argo jokingly referred to them as- were bringing up the rear of the group. Their job was to deal with the minions that Illfang spawned. As such, Kirito was flanked by Asuna and Argo to his sides, with Lisbeth a few steps behind him. As the first few Ruin Kobold Sentinels approached, Kirito and Asuna split left to handle the first one, while Argo and Lisbeth took another. Despite only working together as a group for a few days, their teamwork was nearly flawless. Kirito would dash in and strike the enemy with his twin swords, then parry the counter and switch with Asuna who would finish the kobold off with rapid stabs from her rapier. Meanwhile, Lisbeth would stun and stagger her enemy with heavy blows from her mace, allowing Argo to slip behind the stunned enemy and deal critical strikes with her clawed gauntlets. By the time Illfang was reduced to his last HP bar, Kirito's party had accounted for a quarter of the slain kobolds, with the other 42 players accounting for the rest.

"Leave this to me!" Diavel shouted as he sprinted towards the roaring kobold lord. Everyone watched as Illfang threw aside his shield and halberd, before reaching behind him and pulling out a sword.

'OH SHIT! Kirito and Argo thought in unison. Both recognized that weapon as a nodachi from the higher floors of the Beta, and realized that Diavel had no idea what was about to happen. The moron was about to die risking his life for the Last Attack Bonus.

"Get back!" Kirito screamed at Diavel as he started rushing towards the now stationary 'knight'. Diavel was too busy watching in fear as Illfang bounced off of several pillars before leaping towards him with the aim of slashing him in half. Diavel was struck three times before Kirito managed to intercede between Diavel and Illfang's blade. The two players were thrown back with the force of the last strike of the combo.

Shouts of "Kirito!" and "Ki-bou!" reached his ears as he stood from where he landed next to the raid leader. Kirito noticed that his health had dropped significantly, almost into the yellow, while Diavel was left with only a few slivers of red.

Kirito looked up to see the girls appear at his sides, weapons held ready. He gave them each a small smile before he asked, "Are you ready to finish this?" His girls each nodded, before the four took off towards Illfang in their previous diamond formation. Those watching the fight stared in awe as three blurs sped around the massive kobold while the fourth pounded away with a mace. The awestruck players were broken from their distraction by a large man wielding a massive warhammer.

"What are you lads waiting for? Are we gonna let a bunch of kids do all the work?" Feeling a new confidence, the rest of the raid party let out shouts and battle cries as they swarmed the boss.

Minutes later, Illfang exploded into pixels as Kirito's swords cleaved him in two after a brutal double downward slash. The raid group was cheering loudly as Kirito closed the message box informing him of his Last Attack Bonus. The revelry was cut short as a cactus haired player started shouting at Kirito.

"You cheater! You knew what it was going to do! You almost let Diavel die and you stole the last attack bonus!"

The mentioned Diavel was getting back to his feet, and was about to argue that Kirito had saved his life when the player, who Kirito remembered was named Kibaou, resumed yelling.

"You probably learned it in the Beta! You're a Beta tester, and a cheater! You- you Beater!"

Some of cactus head's friends started echoing the sentiment, but Kirito just sighed and looked at Kibaou with a disappointed look.

"Are you quite finished?" he said in an almost bored manner. The murmurs of the other players quickly quieted. "Because if you insist on being a total moron, I'll simply leave. Of course I knew what was going to happen. That last weapon was a nodachi, not a talwar. I saw it on higher floors. I was one of the best damn Betas there was. And as for cheating, where did you get the information on most of this floor from in the first place?"

"Beta players who shared the information," Argo helpfully chimed in. But Kirito was on a roll, and didn't give the opposition time to respond.

"And who lead the raid group, knew about the Last Attack Bonus, and stupidly risked his life trying to get it?" When the other players heard this, they gasped and glanced to Diavel, who had a sheepish look on his face and was pointedly looking at the ground. "And lastly, who saved his sorry ass when the boss was about to kill him?"

"Another Beta player." This time it was Asuna who answered. She could see the point Kirito was making, and didn't mind helping get the last word over the other players. It would surprise her to realize it, but her point of view was already shifting towards an "Us and Them" perspective, with the "Us" being the four who shared Kirito's apartment and his glorious bath. It was amazing how the little things could affect one so much.

"Exactly," Kirito continued, unaware of the slowly tightening circle of females that surrounded him. "The Betas are stuck here just like you, and we're pulling our weight trying to make it out of this death game just like you are. So stop being a selfish loser and grow up." Kirito turned to his three companions as he opened his menu and equipped his new Coat of Midnight. "Come on girls, let's head out." The effect his new trench coat billowing as he turned while it materialized was more than a little badass, in the opinion of several players.

Kirito and his girls walked confidently up the stairs to the second floor and headed for the first town to unlock the floor's portal.

"So what now?" Asuna asked as the party of four walked away after having activated the second floor portal.

"Well, there are a few unique opportunities on this floor. There's a quest for the martial arts skill over in the mountains, the field boss between us and the Labyrinth, and several rare crafting materials available," Argo listed off as she flipped through her notes. One of the reasons Argo made a great information broker was that she had a prodigious memory. She had rewritten from memory most of her notes from the Beta, which is where the basis of the Beginner's Guidebook that was handed out for free in shops came from. In actuality, Argo was the one who assembled and assimilated all the information into the book, but a large portion of information had been provided by Kirito during the Beta. Argo's notes on higher floors especially were thanks to Kirito.

"What would you suggest first, Argo?" spoke Kirito.

"Well, none of us girls could really make use of the martial arts skill with our fighting styles, but you should go for it. It would be a shame to let the unique skill go to waste," 'or to another player,' Argo added in her head. While it wasn't all that valuable to them, Argo wanted at least one of the party members to gain the unique skill, if only to prevent someone else from acquiring it. Was it greedy and selfish? Yes. Did she care? Not all that much.

"To the mountains it is then. Then we can gather the materials for Lisbeth to upgrade our weapons." Agreement was echoed from the girls, so Kirito led the way to the mountains that the party could see in the distance.

The quest turned out to be more frustrating than it was worth. Kirito had to deal with muttered giggles of 'Kiriemon" for three days as he did nothing but punch the gigantic rock outside the old man's hut. Eventually the rock broke, and Kirito was able to get the whiskers removed. When teased by the girls over the fact that he didn't like the whiskers, he offhandedly commented,

"They look much better on Argo than they do on me." Had he been paying attention, he would have noticed her face light up with blush as the other girls giggled even more. But Kirito was busy moving his newly acquired skill into his new slot, and failed to realize the seeds for his eventual downfall had just been planted.

The rest of the time spent on the second floor was used for slaying untold numbers of mobs and building up a large supply of materials and Col. If this were the real world, the local Wind Wasp population would likely have never recovered. Ten days after the floor was opened, the second floor's boss is defeated and the third floor opened.

"Are you sure it's around here?" shouted Lisbeth as she was helped up by Kirito. The group had been trudging around through the forest for hours in search of a quest that Argo wanted to do. According to Argo, the npc they had to kill to start the quest had never been successfully defeated before the other npc, named Kizmel, used a sacrificial move killing both npcs. Parts of the quest required the player to head near where the guild creation quest led. The girls insisted that they complete that quest, so this was the chance to kill two birds with one stone.

The four players trekked along for another hour before hearing the sounds of steel clashing. They picked up their pace, eventually coming to a small clearing in which they could see an unnamed forest elf fighting the dark elf Kizmel. Both npcs were wearing elaborate armor, and their equipment hinted at their high levels that didn't belong on the current floor. Without warning, the group leapt from the underbrush and attacked the forest elf in the same pattern they used on the first floor boss. Within twenty minutes, Kirito and Argo stood gaping open-mouthed as Kizmel thanked the group for their assistance, and proceeded to tell Asuna and Lisbeth about the ongoing war between the forest and dark elves.

"Ne, Ki-bou. Did we really just do that?" asked Argo. She was rather shocked that their group had managed to defeat the other npc without taking enough damage to activate the suicide magic that the npcs possessed. No-one had heard of anyone ever managing to do that. Groups of five and some of six had tried during the Beta, and still both elves had died.

"Well, we did manage to finish off a boss with that attack formation. And nobody had our unique combination before. You, Asuna and I have to be some of the fastest players in the game, and we're several levels ahead of where players normally are by this point," Kirito replied, which was true. Players were considered high leveled if they were level 10 by the third floor, while everyone in Kirito's party were level 15 at least. Kirito and Argo were level 16 due to starting their leveling sooner, but the other two girls were catching up quickly.

"Hey you two, Kizmel invited us back to the Dark Elf base to return the key that the other elf stole. Is this the next part of the quest? Um, guys? What's with that look?"

After they had been informed that their group had done something that had never happened before, Asuna and Lisbeth were just as incredulous as the other two had been. But that didn't stop the group from escorting Kizmel back to her base, nor did it deter them from continuing the Elf War campaign. The four were quite surprised when Kizmel decided to accompany them, but her presence easily became just another piece of their new normality.

The group ran into Cactus Head and his cronies while hunting the spider queen for the elves. It turned out that Kibaou was trying to complete the quest required to form a guild. Kirito and co. ended up slaying the spider queen several times after waiting for her tow respawn, which took three hours. They needed to slay her once for the guild formation quest, and once for the Elf War quest. The other times were to gain crafting materials such as Spider Silk and Poison Fangs. Overall, the third floor was another profitable time for Kirito's group, the newly dubbed guild Diamond Blades. Asuna and Lisbeth had come up with the name from the formation that they commonly used, with them charging and surrounding their enemies in a diamond pattern. Kirito personally didn't think it was a very awe inspiring name, but when prompted he admitted he couldn't come up with anything that didn't have to do with his trademark black colored gear. SO the name stuck, and the Diamond Blades moved on to the fourth floor.