Chapter 3: The One the Outside/A Strange Realization

(Jamie's POV)

"It's simple really," I started walking towards Devin, and placing my hand on his shoulder, "She needed someone to monitor you two while you were out, and I was happy to do so.". I walked to the helmets and began to examine them, looking to find anything. "You never know if Sam missed something." I explained after not finding anything of interest.

"So where are we going to?" Devin asked, trying to get us back on track.

"Probably enough to place us into the bodies of our descendants because I am unsure of how far we are able to travel." Sam answered picking up one of the helmets and turned one of the dials on the side that, I guess, sets the year. "All we have to do is place it on our heads, set it, and turn it on not in that order." Sam continued after setting the year quite far into the future and placing it on her head. I sat at the computer and gave a thumbs up as Sam and Devin placed the helmets on their heads and went still.

As soon as they went still, an error appeared on screen...

ERROR:

CONNECTION LOST.

ACTIVATING EMERGENCY PLAN #155

Suddenly I heard a loud whirring before being thrown across the room as it was sent out of the time vortex to somewhere in between World Lines...

I awoke a few hours later, due to passing out, to the sound of the lab phone ringing and slowly got up to pick it up. As soon as I picked up it seemed to hang up before I could say anything. I tried to search the computer for the issue and learned that I was being stopped by some sort of wall. The next time the phone rang I picked up and began rapidly typing code to make sure this conversation wouldn't end prematurely.

"Hello?" I exclaimed, trying to deal with a slight crick in my neck, "Samantha, you there? I'm trying my best to keep the connection up.".

"Yeah. What the hell happened?" She asked, seeming to look to me for help. I didn't want her to worry about my situation so I decided to act like I had been dealing with hers.

"I have been trying to figure that out myself." I lied, my tone of voice changing to sound like I was relieved, "I'm surprised you were able to call the lab at all."

"Why exactly is that?" Sam questioned as there began to be interference that made me have to work harder to keep the signal, someone obviously wanted me out of there. Of course I was able to hold them off easily and went back to my other problem. I decided that I would at least let her know what happened to the lab, while still not telling her I had passed out.

"Well, some sort of error occurred and then it felt like the lab was violently thrown from where it was." I explained to her, trying my best to get my thoughts together of the situation. As we continued to talk, the people trying to stop me got more powerful until I was cut off completely. I then focused completely on trying to break through this barrier, but was unable get through the system and get ahold of Samantha. I then heard the sound of someone walking down the stairs leading to the lab. I stopped typing and got up, slowly walking towards the staircase, and beginning to change into my wolf form. As I changed I began to move faster until I tackled the person just as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Would you get off me you large dog, I'm here to help." She exclaimed, doing well at holding me back. I did so and she got up, brushed herself off, and began to explain the situation. "You see," The girl began to say, walking towards the computer, "this building has been pulled out of the time vortex in order to stop time within the building and, by extension, stop the people within the building from aging."

"You think I will believe a story like that?" I stated, laughing as I did so, "Who to told you I would believe that?"

"Seriously? You told me you'd know the precise amount of crazy you'd be willing to swallow!" She exclaimed before motioning for me to follow her. Reluctantly, I followed her up the stairs to see that the door to the time machine was in front of me.

"Okay. You've got my attention. How are you trying to help?" I sighed as we went back down the stairs. Without saying another word the girl walked to the computer and began typing line upon line of code until we were able to get complete access into the systems of Argus. For those who don't know Argus are the creators of SAO. As she was leaving I thought I might as well ask the name of the person who helped me.

"Jessie. I was, or will be, the assistant of Sam to do these kinds of things." She stated as she went up the stairs back to the machine.

"What do you mean by 'was'?" I asked her. She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to me.

"I'd rather not say because future events and all that." She then turned and ran up the stairs as fast as she could before rushing into the time machine and taking off before I could stop her. After she took off all that was left behind was a wall where the door should be. I trudged back down the stairs thinking about whether there was any chance I would be talking to her again. I then realized that I had not looked at Devin and Sam's vital signs since they turned on the helmets. I went to check them and I noticed something odd going on with their brains as if parts of them were being overwritten. I decided it best to call Sam and report my findings.

"So what you're saying is there are issues with our cerebral cortexes that are causing them to begin to morph?" Sam asked, making me take a minute to process what she said, and I agreed. "Will these differences start to become apparent any time soon?" She then questioned.

"You, Emily, or Devin may not notice anything but if we talk often enough I may notice some of these changes." I answered before I moved on to giving her Devin's mental state. I hoped that these changes would start slow and only begin to speed up over time, but the next day Sam called and I already noticed a significant difference.

"Hey Jamie, how's it going?" She said. You may not see much wrong with this, but then you don't understand the issue. If you haven't noticed, Sam usually speaks using words to show her intelligence. However, that changed after she went through Aincrad and she may never be the way she used to be. We had a basically normal conversation before Sam heard a knock at the door and hung up. We then talked almost every day and I continuously checked the brains of the two of them, and found nothing. A month passed before the next big change occurred.

(Samantha's POV)

It had been a month since Devin and I first entered Aincrad, as well as Sword Art Online, and we had mostly adjusted to living within it. Devin, of course, was still having a bit of trouble getting used to his situation, but I think he was not having too many problems with it at that point. Also, not long after we had pretty much shunned him we did make up with Dax and were able to use him as a good ally. We hadn't explained to him about who Devin and I really were, but we were able to act like Alex and Erica when we needed to.

After a long day of training, we went back to rest at the inn once again, I called up Jamie like I did basically every day to chat.

"Everything is going pretty well on my end." Jamie answered to my question about what was going on with her, "There also have been no significant changes other than your manner of speaking.". We kind of just talked back and forth like this for a while before Devin cut us off, saying that there was a quest that we could do that would give us a bit more col for the materials for the sword he told me he would make for me. So we went out and did the quest, and Devin crafted my sword and gave it to me.

"You know," Emily started to say while I admired my new sword, "someone had said something about looking for the boss room recently, and that there would be a meeting for it.". She told us that we should go see what it was about. After we disagreed she walked off, a bit pissed, and we were unable to find her in the morning.

We figured that she went to the meeting she had explained about last night, and took a walk down to where it was taking place. When we got there, we saw her sitting in the very back and, she noticed us and motioned for us to come sit down next to her. We, hesitantly, decided that we might as well listen to this especially if we were planning to fight the boss. After apologizing, we began to listen what the person hosting the meeting had to say. It was boring really, all he talked about was how they were looking for the boss room and blah... blah... blah... that was all I heard before I couldn't stand it any longer and went to fight some wolves.

I entered town late that afternoon when the sun began setting. As soon as I got to the inn, I saw the less than excited faces of Devin and Emily staring at me from the table we usually sit at. I hesitantly sat down at the table with them, foreseeing the worst, and Devin took a deep breath and sighed.

"You know," Devin began, putting his hand to his head like he was getting a headache, "You could at least try not to walk away when something important is going on.".

"I'm sorry about leaving you guys," I apologized, actually showing a bit of emotion, "I understand how much this whole thing means to you two, and I will try much harder tomorrow.".

"Great," Emily exclaimed, going from being intense to being overjoyed, "because there is another meeting tomorrow!". I just had noticed that they had tricked me into saying that by making me feel bad, awesome job, which sort of angered me. We went to bed not too long after that, after having a bite to eat, but I took a moment to think about how easily I had been tricked.

I decided to call up Jamie for a short chat about what just happened. "Wait," Jamie interrupted as I was talking, a stern tone in her voice, "That really is odd. I think we have another change."

"I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I screwed up this much." I stated, then I realized what was going on. I usually show little care for any of my mistakes and show little emotion in general. Now I was close to tears over one small miscalculation that happened about a month ago. "I can't believe I never noticed this before!" I exclaimed as I hung up, left the room, and went to wake Emily and Devin up to tell them about the situation. I went downstairs and called Jamie again. There were a lot less people downstairs in the middle of the night, but there were people down here for drinks late at night. After a few minutes, the other two groggily came down the stairs and sat down.

"So, what is all this about?" Devin asked, sounding a bit pissed at me for waking him, "Because we do need to get up early tomorrow and, unlike you, we need sleep.". I shot him a look that showed that he should sit down or I would keep him up every night until we got out of here. They both sat down and I explained the situation.

"What this is about..." I began, making it so we could both hear and see Jamie clearly, "has to do with something Jamie and I noticed when we were talking a minute or so ago.". I had Jamie explain, most of, our conversation including when she had noticed that I wasn't acting right.

"Are you trying to say," Emily interrupted, trying to piece together the situation, "that you are slowly, mentally that is, turning into your kids?". I nodded and asked Jamie if she could attempt to try to figure what is causing this in the first place.

"Look I am unsure how large of an effect this will have on the two of us. So I need you, Emily, to help monitor our behavior." I whispered to them as I stood up in an attempt of a cool exit before Devin grabbed my arm stopping me. "REALLY?!" I exclaimed, beginning to heat up, as I turned and quickly ran upstairs to keep myself from killing anyone. My anger issues hadn't been affected yet.

I went into my room and decided to just go to bed and hope to god that this may have just been me. Sadly when I woke the next morning I began to notice Devin having different personality traits as well as continuously saying Erica then Sam then finally just saying my screen name when trying to get my attention. This would be the last time I would be able to notice differences.

We went to the meeting about the boss raid and were separated into groups. There were seven total groups that were split among three criteria. These were Tanks, groups A and B, high movement assault, groups C-E, and long weapon support, groups F and G, and the three of us had ended up being placed in group D. We were given the rest of the day off after that and just decided to walk around town and talk to each other. We did this for some time, but not really about much, until it began to get late and we made our way back to the inn. However, before we could go to bed, I stopped the other two and came up with an idea.

"You want to what?!" Emily exclaimed stopping as she had already started climbing up the stairs.

"I say we do some testing to see what other changes occur between Devin and I and then drink a whole bunch of coffee to be ready to battle!" I replied cheerily, already a change, as I pulled her back down and purchased the first of many coffees that we drank throughout the night while looking for changes in behavior, personality, or just something basic like how we stood when idle. I even called Jamie for help with noticing these changes, she actually doesn't sleep very much, and we did get a good amount of data and were able to make a timeline of how rapid these changes were. Just before I ended the call with Jamie, she gave some interesting information that she found on her side.

She told us that this was occurring because of a miscalculation I made which was causing us to slowly become them, personality wise, with no way to reverse it unless it was acted upon before the final change was complete. I told the other two to get some rest while Jamie and I tried to work out a way to stop this process from continuing. At one point I must have passed out and woke up the next morning with a bucket of water dumped onto my head. I jolted up, attempted to pull out my weapon, and stood up to face who it was that attacked me.

"That was for making me stay up until midnight." Devin stated, setting the bucket down on the table next to him, and deciding to help me dry off. Not too much later, Emily came down and the three of us went in the direction of the fountain within the plaza of the town. We had arrived early and very few people were there and I decided to try to talk to some of the other players. I met three people, two who I didn't find interesting however the third reminded me of a friend I had back outside the game.

Others began to arrive, so I joined Devin and Emily once again as Diavel, the one leading this whole operation, stood up on the fountain and began to speak with all of us.

"Everyone, although it may be sudden-thank you! Just now, all forty-four party members have gathered here, without a single person missing!" He exclaimed to us all causing me to think to myself, "So?" as everyone around me began to clap. Why was it so amazing that everyone was here, it's not like we had anything else to do today that would stop us from fighting. He said a bunch of other boring motivational stuff that I decided to block out. After, we all started to head in the direction of the dungeon. It took us a few hours to both reach the dungeon and reach the top. I then realized that I had never been this high into the dungeon before.

Of course I had been IN the dungeon before, but never this high up. For a minute I was scared, but then a thought crossed my mind. I have no reason to worry because I know what I'm doing so there should not be a problem. Each of the parties were lined up and Diavel raised his long-sword high, and all of us did so as well, turned, and pushed open the doors. He stepped into the large room torches began to light around the entire room and, as the brightness rose, we saw a large figure sitting in a throne at the end of the room...

Illfang the Kobold Lord...