I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the characters.

Glitch

Kazuto groaned and opened his eyes, looking outside. There were multu-colored lights flashing and the sound of explosions.

"Fireworks?" Kazuto thought groggily, standing and walking to the window, looking out.

His jaw hit the ground. The city around his house was burning. The explosions were exactly what they sounded like but in several colors. The reason was obvious. Monsters, straight out of ALfheim Online were destroying everything. He could see giant lizard humanoids with swords, giant plants with tentacles that was destroying everything, massive caterpillars, giant fat lizards releasing poisonous gas, even a few monsters from Aincrad like boars the size of an adult human and equally tall wolves. There were also dragons that Kazuto had never seen flying around, breathing several different colors of fire onto everything, as well as gigantic dragonfly-looking creatures doing the same thing.

"This is one wierd dream," Kazuto breathed.

Just then, his door burst open and Suguha sprinted in in a pair of shorts and her red jacket.

"Kazuto!" Suguha said panicked. "What's going on?"

Kazuto shook his head, unsure himself. Then, he looked to the side as a building exploded into debris and the Geocrawler scurried out of it.

"Oh shit!" Kazuto shouted as it spun toward their house.

He grabbed Suguha and spun, leaping out the window less than a second before the monster blasted through the house, obliterating it. Kazuto hit the ground first with Suguha landing on top of him. They bounced once then skidded a ways before stopping. A lizard leapt at Suguha but before it could reach her, Kazuto slammed a fist into the side of its face, knocking it sideways and making it drop its sword, which he grabbed. It spun on him, hissing and he slashed it, the lizard staggering away before shattering.

"It's not a dream," Kazuto breathed. "This is actually happening."

"We need to find the others," Suguha stated.

Kazuto nodded and ran off down the road toward Shino's house since she was closest. Suguha shouted for him to wait then ran to the remains of their house, finding a pair of shoes and her kendo stick then following Kazuto. As they ran, they slowly left the chaos behind, killing several of the lizard men and a few of the dragonflies along the way.

Finally, they reached an area of the city where military and police were scrambling around, setting up defenses and readying a vast array of guns. Kazuto and Suguha sprinted past, not wanting to have to explain where he got the sword or why she was carrying a kendo stick.

At long last, they slowed to a walk outside her house and Kazuto knocked on the door. After a moment, it opened and a terrified Shino leapt out, hugging Kazuto who sighed.

"I heard where it was, I was so worried," Shino said.

"We're fine," Kazuto promised. "Can we come in?"

Shino nodded, walking to her living room where the news was talking about the military's "quick response" setting up a four mile wide perimeter. Suguha closed and locked the door and joined Kazuto and Shino in the livingroom.

"-from the virtual reality video game ALfheim Online," the news was saying. "These monsters took almost no time destroying the area, making it difficult at best to know if anyone has survived. There are reports of several dozen civilians fleeing past the military but these are unconfirmed and in no way account for the rest of the population of the area."

"Does anyone know where they came from?" Suguha asked.

"No," Kazuto said shaking his head. "But I'll give you three guesses. We just saw how the other day."

"The device?" Suguha blinked. "That makes sense. But how?"

Kazuto didn't respond. He didn't know. He didn't want to. But he had a theory.

"We go live now to the military perimeter where the creatures seem to have begun to push outward again," the news said before the feed switched to a reporter trying unsuccessfully to shout over the chaos of hundreds of guns firing.

The reporter continued to try to yell but the camera swung around to the chaos, allowing them to watch as the military and police fired at a mixture of the land-based monsters they had seen, the dragons and dragonflies they had seen, and the Geocrawler. For a bit, it seemed like it was working, until they began to try to reload. Instantly, the monsters seemed to multiply and flooded toward the military. The military began to fire again but it didn't help this time. Monsters began to slaughter military, causing them to shoot dangerously close to each other in an attempt to protect each other and their own flanks.

Then, the line broke in front of the camera and a lizard sprinted past. Over the sounds of dying military, there was one loud gurgle then the cammera fell, landing so that it was looking back at the now headless cameraman and the reporter who had his throat slit.

Kazuto swor, realizing they had to run. He turned to Shino, pulling a pistol out of the back of his waistband.

"Can you use this?" Kazuto asked.

Shino nodded and took it, taking a steadying breath before nodding. Kazuto nodded as well and they sprinted out onto the street. Shino turned to leave but Kazuto stopped, looking toward the military.

"What are you doing?" Shino asked.

"Asuna's that way," Kazuto stated.

Just then Shino's phone rang. She answered it then tossed it to Kazuto.

"Hello?" Kazuto asked.

"Kazuto!" Klein's voice cheered. "Thank God. It's Klein. I have Agil, Rika, Asuna, and Silica with me. We're leaving the city toward the North. Asuna got hurt before we could get there but she's okay."

"Alright," Kazuto sighed. "We'll meet up outside the city. We're on foot."

"Agil's driving us," Klein stated. "Get a ride. These things are fast. And Kazuto, the Gleam Eyes and Skull Reaper are both here."

"Got it," Kazuto breathed. "So is the Geocrawler. See you outside the city."

He hung up and passed the phone back and swallowed hard.

"We need to move, fast," Kazuto stated.

They all ran down the street for several hundred feet before stopping as a group of lizards burst out of a building in front of them. Just as they did, a pick-up truck screeched out of a side street, plowing through the lizards, destroying them all before screeching to a stop. Two people stepped out. One was a man with a strong build, messy brown hair, and a replica of the Demonic Sword Gram resting on his shoulder. The other was a boy with a small build, fairly long black hair, glasses, a black button-up shirt under a large brown jacket, black jeans, and blue and white converse.

"Shinichi!" Suguha gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"We knew that if you were alive you would be here," Shinichi said. "So we came to give you a lift."

"Thanks," Suguha beamed before looking to the others and realizing they didn't know who he was. "Oh, by the way, this is Kazuto, and Shino, a.k.a. Kirito and Sinon. Kazuto, Shino, meet Recon. His real name is Shinichi Nagata. And this is..."

"General Eugene," Kazuto guessed.

The man nodded grinning. He motioned for them to hop on and he and Shinichi got into the cab with Suguha while Kirito and Shino got on back. Shinichi opened the back window and Kirito knelt in front of it.

"Take us north," Kirito said. "Klein and the others will meet us there."

Shinichi nodded and Eugene sped off, trying to leave the ruined city behind.

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