Well my hope is for the following chapters to be a bit longer then the intro. I wanted to have you guys choose Kirito's gender but *awkward laugh while rubbing back of head* nobody made any reviews. I think what I may do is have the questions not involving the next chapter immediately. Without further ado, I present to you my choice for Kirito!

Looking around I could see a few guys around that looked rather shady. A group of 3 guys in particular caught my attention because they were armed to the teeth and bore heavy scarring on their faces. One had a double barreled gun and another had this really funky red/orange weapon that was as tall as he was wide and one and a half times the length of his arm. The other was wearing a cloak that hid everything he had equipped but he had a massive frame. Trying not to look like I was staring at them I looked only briefly, trying to get my bearings in this strange, rather imposing world.

As I walked forward into this plaza/intersection of paths I noticed that there was no off road location to get around in the city and the roads appeared to be in slight arches with some going above the other. In a way it reminded me of Venice with all the bridges over water except this was a lot more open and modern. Looking back I realized I was most likely in a respawn zone/teleport zone as I could see a lot more people appearing where I did.

While I was looking backward I bumped into a group of guys that looked to be in a party. They shoved me back unexpectedly and I almost lost my balance.

"Hey look, fresh meat has arrived" the apparent leader said while leering at me. He had brilliant orange and blue hair in a style that defied gravity, all of it swept left over his head. The rest of the guys just laughed and looked at me waiting for a reply.

"Talking peacocks now? This world is strange." I mutter under my breath making sure he can hear. While I looked at him in defiance I realized I was a lot shorter than him-scratch that- everybody there. How tall am I exactly?

I turned to the left and began to walk away and was surprised when my shoulder was gripped roughly.

"Bitch, No one disrespects Tomohide the Terrible like that." A red haired flunky said.

I burst out laughing. Confused he lets go and the rest of the group surrounds me. I stopped laughing shortly because my laugh was so freaking high. That, along with the word choices of theirs so far made me pretty convinced I at least looked like a girl. I might be able to use this…

"I'm sorry Tomohide" I said as cutely as I could " I'm really new to this game and I'm used to people being a lot nicer. You wouldn't happen to be able to show me how to shoot this gun?"

As Tomohide the leader was slowly falling under my spell I couldn't help but catch hearing two of the people behind me whispering about my stats/avatar. I guess they decided to inspect my profile. "Please?" I could feel my face burning as I said this, this is so not natural.

"Urgg… fine. We will go to the shooting minigame in town and I will teach you the basics. After that you have to duel me for the insults you've given me" he grumbled out.

Looking around it appeared most of the guys were surprised by what he said, although the two that had inspected me went deadly serious.

As they escorted me along the road I was going to go down anyways, we passed a large NPC weapon shop, what looked like a hospital, and then entered into what I guessed was either the gambling or entertainment section. I couldn't tell because there was money being put down on everything happening. There was drinking, there was a bullet dodging game, long distance marksmanship, basically anything involving guns.

As we got closer to our destination, a shooters galley called Gun'er'up, (hardly creative in my opinion) I didn't miss the fact that "the terrible" was in an intense conversation with those two that had inspected me.

I was also starting to pick up their names. The guy with the red hair was Asoko who I guess was their second in command based on how others deferred to him. There was the two that inspected me who were apparently twins using the usernames Jessie and James. Wasn't that from an old anime involving a talking cat? Clearing my head of distractions, there was a 6th person who hadn't said anything yet. He was a little taller then me and had blueish-black hair that was mostly covered up by the headgear worn. He just walked silently with the group, not laughing at their jests about the surroundings and didn't have any weapons equipped. He walked to the left side of the group while I was walking in the center. For some reason he's the one that piqued my interest-

"We're here!"

"Wha-what?" momentarily zoned out I walked into the guy in front of me, Asuko.

"You are an airhead, you know that right" he laughed at me rudely.

"Sure, whatever" I said wanting to learn the mechanics of this game not letting it get to me.

The gang made a half circle with the counter of the game store being the straight line and Tomohide walked into it.

"You lied to me" he stated.

"I did?"

"You said you hadn't played this game before but there is NO way you could have those stats and that avatar if that was the case." He spoke calmly with hard inflections on the end of most the words. Each "you" was an accusation that I didn't like but I've heard worse.

"I wasn't lying, I converted this account…." Trailing off as I noticed he wasn't really listening.

"You are scum."

Something in me finally snapped "calling me scum when you introduced yourself with the words 'fresh meat has arrived' is very hypocritical you know right?

While I had been talking he had brought up the system menu and challenged me to a duel.

It read 'Tomohide has challenged you to an all out duel with no bounty to the victor. Do you accept?'

*sigh* I hit accept and take a look around the surroundings and take out the beginner pistol.

"No way! A MAC mle 1950? There are only 15 of those in the game!" said the quiet person in surprise quietly, and in a rather feminine voice. I looked over startled but focused on more pressing matters.

The surrounding area was terrible for cover; it was like a cul-de-sac with nothing in the center. The ground was level and with the acceptance of the duel, bystanders had moved to the entrance effectively making the dueling zone a circle.

I moved to an edge of the circle, keeping the crowd to my left and my new opponent mirrored my move.

Tomohide equipped a black gun that was short but looked like it had a large ammo clip. Is that a machine gun? I'm so bad with guns, why did I agree to this I chided myself.

"Just that pistol versus my assault rifle? You've got to be kidding me" Tomohide said loudly for his voice to carry over to me.

"I don't have any other guns." I yelled back.

The crowd interrupted further talk with a countdown from 10.

10… 9…

I bit my lip while thinking of possibilities

8… 7…6…

Tomohide raised his gun and began to take aim

5… 4…

I look down at my gun with the seeds of a plan blooming in my mind.

3… 2… 1…

"Start" stated something/someone in a NPC like tone.

As expected he began shooting right at where I was standing so I strafed to the right and I noticed there was a whole bunch of red lines appearing from his gun. It must be where the bullets are going!

As I got closer to the edge of the circle, this time opposite of the crowd, I jumped while running at the building and took 3 steps off it before jumping off towards him.

He was just standing there aiming and firing me. He hadn't bothered on moving. As I was in midair he got me 3 times with his rapid fire before he stopped to reload. Looking at my hp it was only down to about %80 even though he had gotten a solid hit to my leg, torso, and shoulder along my left side.

I landed just shy of him as he was reloading and rolled to my feet, ending with the gun aiming at his head.

"You lost" I said to him as I pull up my menu and forfeit the challenge to him.

I walked to the crowd and they parted to let me through. They were all quiet and were alternating looks between me and him, probably wondering why I had given up. What they didn't realize is that I didn't have any ammo. The tutorial guy was a farce. The game was probably set up that way to give players a taste of defeat from the start if they weren't thinking ahead.

I had only gotten probably two blocks before the quiet person from Tomohide's gang ran up to me and asked why I had forfeited.

Seeing no reason to lie "I didn't have any ammo according to the UI in the bottom right of my vision and I didn't want to shoot him in the first place. By the way, you're the only guy whose name I don't know from that gang. Care to introduce yourself?"

"Minako is my name and I am NOT a guy. You honestly have no ammo miss?"

I look away and grimace at the miss "yeah… I started playing the game only 5 minutes before getting in contact with your group and when I transferred my account from the other game I was given this gun and no ammo from the NPC tutorial."

He I mean she, ( I could start to see the more feminine qualities that were hidden by the clothing she wore which was more but still appropriate for moving around) just looked at me and after a bit of hesitation, (maybe she saw my grimace?) and said " you were telling the truth?"

"Yeah, as hard as it is to believe apparently" I replied a bit exasperated by this conversation and wanting to get going to the market.

"The way Jessie and James were talking about your stats makes me think you have the potential/are one of the best players in the game"

"They are ok, they were raised from where I transferred from."

She giggled "Tomohide missed you for the majority of his clip. Your agility alone is astounding for that. He's going to be entering into the Battle of Bullets and has a fair chance at winning it too. Can I see your stats?"

"Uh sure" I pulled my profile with the avatar model and stat listing for her and rubbed the back of my head with my other hand.

Minako gasped. "These were raised from the last game you came from? 67 AGI, 53 VIT, 49 DEX, 60 STR, 18 LUC, 75 SEN

I haven't seen any person in this game with a stat over 65 and you have two, and a total level of 322 out of 594. I haven't seen or even heard of any remotely close to that. The only reason it would be raised would be to make your stats competitive to the previous game. Also the fact that you started with such a rare pistol means you probably had like a pseudo-legendary or something ridiculous like that. And don't even get me started about your avatar."

"What about my avatar?" I replied, knowing that Kayaba gave me probably one of a kind one based off what he had said and wanting her to hopefully stop on the stat rant.

With that she just looked at me like I was stupid. " First, your avatar is a prototype meaning there only one of them in existence. Secondly it's based off the F-1300 which is extremely rare in itself. There's no speculation on how to obtain it. Third, you don't have a right eye but rather a cybernetic enhancement that looks like the M-46 assistplus but it isn't quite that because you have an ammo count, which I've never heard of them having." As she was saying this she was counting the points off on her fingers.

"Ok, ok, I get the point. I need to get to the market sometime today though. Talk while walking?" putting my words in action I start walking in the direction we came from. After 10 seconds of walking and not getting a response I looked back, she was gone. Not fully understanding what caused that I shrug internally and start heading to the market.

Having the time now to look around a bit, I noticed there was a whole bunch of flying TVS floating throughout the city displaying all sorts of information, useful and useless. In fact... there's even one showing the duel I just had! So much for keeping a low profile.

Regardless, I got to the market without further incident. By the time I got there, I had reevaluated why the crowd was silent- I was a nobody versus a highly talented player and I gave him a challenge, even beat him by some people standards. Current perception is that I'm a female so I have to keep in mind everything I say will be interpreted differently then if I was a guy. Like my conversation with Minako for example. I've already got the public eye on me and with this avatar it's impossible to fit into a crowd. I need to get a good weapon now, and to get out of the city before more questions arrive and I have a better sense of this game.

In fact, this led to me questioning why Kayaba gave me this avatar if he wanted me to lay low. There is no possible way to fit in with a prototype model. What exactly is he trying to do? Commensurate with my accomplishments indeed.

Internal rambling aside, I needed to decide what to buy and get out as soon as I could. My savings had transferred over from SAO because of the seed so I was good in that aspect but I knew that I was virtually unarmed. Heh. So my first goals would to obtain suitable armor and a primary weapon that I can use.

Not knowing the slightest thing about guns, I decided I would start on armor first just to get it out of the way. Armor in GGO is divvied up into 3 main slots with armor stats and everything else cosmetic. All the armor slots having a light, medium, and heavy variance which have different plus and minuses. The main trade off is better protection equals less speed or so I surmised as I was looking at the stats.

Here was a few of my favorites (which I proceeded to buy) out of what was in the shop:

Carbon plated nanohide breastplate: Light Armor
+31 defense
+4.5kg (10lb roughly) weight
Prerequisites: Lvl 5 strength
A small breastplate covering the vitals that has been plated in carbon for extra defensive capabilities

Woven Nanohide leggings: Light Armor
+4 defense
+0.3kg (0.5lb roughly) weight
Prerequisites: Female avatar
Weak leggings woven to give tensile strength focused on keeping the armor weight down.

Ferrous enhanced helm: Medium armor
+18 defense
+3kg (6-7lb) weight
Prerequisites: Lvl 7 strength
A helmet covering the entire head enhanced with iron particles that gives decent early lvl protection.

All in all I want to focus on putting my agility to use to avoid damage, and to look like a newbie to avoid today's events again. I would have preferred a light helmet but with this avatar I wouldn't be able to fit in at all. Unfortunately with the armor you're unable to change the colour of it to keep my traditional black however there was the cosmetic Items that could be purchased in all colours of the rainbow. They could also be equipped over armor, mostly hiding what you have equipped. Hence my next purchases:

Black boots
Black overcoat with hood 2pc set
Black leggings skin

Overall I spent around 47000 credits on armor/aesthetics. I'm not sure if that is a lot in this game but I still have another 3.7million that came with me. I hit confirm to enter in the order and then suddenly a droid came racing around the corner on wheels to my location. A interface appeared in front of me "palm interface to confirm order"

Pressing my hand to it, it went from black to a light blue and it suddenly said "thank you for your purchase! All the items are now in your inventory!" before racing off into the distance.

"Well that's definitely more efficient then SAO" I whispered under my breath while opening my inventory and equipping my gear to not attract as much attention. As it crystallized onto my body a couple of guys looked this way and started cat calling before going on their way again.

"Errr, I should probably use a change room next time" as I felt my cheeks starting to heat again (why does that happen so easily?) which luckily was hidden by the helmet I wore.

Embarrassment aside, I moved towards the weapon section which also contained a minigame. It appeared to be a dodging mini-game where you have to tag the shooter while running down a narrow alley. Coming to a stop, I noticed a guy in blue cameo who was about to attempt it.

Deciding I have a little time yet, I come to a stop to watch his attempt.

His two friends to either side of him were pumping him up with encouragement before he yelled out "This time I'm going to do it" and burst through the gate. He got to a silver blue line on the ground before he stopped moving and did an awkward pose as a bunch of bullets past by him.

"Hah not a chance!" he began running again straight at the AI shooter who was reloading and by the time the challenger got to the next line, maybe two meters later he was firing again. Bending forward arms out like a plane he managed to avoid this volley of bullets too. It was starting to look promising for the guy! He was more then half way there!

So he began moving forward again and that's when disaster struck. It looked like he did a quick reload or something and the guy wasn't expecting bullets that quickly and he got shot off balance before taking 3 shots to the chest ending his attempt. As it finished the number in the circle above increased by 500 to 308000 and the other 15 or so onlookers didn't even look surprised. Thinking about what I saw and his reaction as he got further down, there must have been less time to react to the shots fired as you get closer to him. So if you were relying on the prediction lines then you would get hit. You would have to anticipate them. And you fully could if you started weaving as you got closer and maybe took a dive/jump.

Then the reward for completing this mini-game must be the number in the circle in credits or goods or something else. I could definitely do this. But I have no reason to, it would just expose my abilities and start raising more questions. One day, when I need the funds maybe.

Back to weapon shopping!

Approaching the weapon section, it was shaped like an S with 90 degree turns with each of the walls having a different type of weapon on them. If you can imagine it on its side, I entered it on the bottom right pistols on the inside wall to my left and some sort of rifle on the right. Already having a pistol, I look at the right side wall and follow it along. As I approached it, I noticed a terminal showing off the stats and names of the various guns on that wall. These were all apparently assault rifles. The clip size was generally in the 20-30s and the bullet size (caliber) was low. Not at all interested in what I see I follow the path by taking a left. So now on my right hand side is sniper rifles. That I could easily tell by the large scopes and barrels and I already knew I wasn't interested going down that route. On my left; on the smallest wall possible for this type of layout, was rocket launchers of both the physical and energy variety which looked like they would hamper your movement a lot.

Luckily, there was an NPC droid nearby that was saying that "Each gun type, has 2 variances, one which is better in PvP and the other in PvE. Energy weapons had cheaper ammo, were cheaper to buy, and were lighter then their physical counterparts making them an excellent choice wherever and whenever however players can purchase an accessory that reduces the damage by half making it ineffectual in PvP. Physical weapons were harder hitting in PvP and the cost of them certainly reflects it. Due to the cost of the ammo it makes farming with this weapon in most cases inefficient."

Vetoing the rocket launchers, I look to the right again and there are these shorter rifles called "SMG". It didn't say what it was short for so after a quick glance I move further down. Now on the wall to the left there is several MASSIVE guns called a minigun. Quite misleading if you ask me. These are definitely your turret mode guns where you just camp out and have the enemies come to you. I can't see anyone being able to jump around, or even up with that.

Thinking I may have to go for an assault rifle I move around the curve and look at the 2nd and last short wall which had these cylinder forms on it. The title on the little terminal caught my interest right away- Laser swords. Without thinking twice about it I select the Kagemitsu G4 and choose black and purchase it for a whopping 150k credits. Talk about expensive compared to all my pieces of armor together.

Now with all the goods (keeping weapons unequipped for now), time to leave the city... Somehow.

Question of the day: should Minako show up later in the story aka become an important character?

Also If you're up for rating and reviewing it would be much appreciated. As always you can suggest plot ideas for the story, I have very few planned events.

For those that aren't gamers and don't understand some of the terminology, here is a small list to help you out.

PvP- Player vs Player

PvE- Player vs Everyone, generally refers to enemies controlled by the game

NPC- Not player controlled, refers to an avatar that is controlled by the game

mobs- slang for enemy npc's

farming- the act of repeatedly killing all the mobs in a certain area to achieve a certain goal, such as a level up or a unique item drop

AI- artificial intelligence