Chapter 2: The Most Original Beginning to An Adventure Possibly Imaginable

With my spawn point in Starting City a Swedish mile behind me, I am currently sprinting through the grassy fields of the first floor at a speed that a would make a F1 McLaren wet itself. I proceed to to leap over an entire hill, sailing thorough the air with the aeronautical grace of a wedge of swans and end up landing in the midst of a sea of Frenzy Boars. The barbaric beasts at first make an attempt to attack me, but when I approach with a ludicrously masculine gait they bow their heads in submission and then roll over, presenting their underbellies for the slaughter. I finish them off using nothing but my body; after all, that's how I usually pork things...

Huhah!

Anyways, with the swine swiftly snuffed out of existence, I pull up my xp/item menu. I laugh in a lordly fashion as I boost up to level ten, the fast leveling being a product of a system they implemented about halfway through the Beta: The Edgy Character XP bonus. Reserved for players with a heartbreaking, poorly developed, and/or tragic back-story allows me to gain experience at a glorious rate, allowing for easy training. The reason they gave this to us is, of course, so that while the regular players do lame things like hunt for treasure, quest, and grind their way to the top we can afford to take two week vacations to a little lake-side home, maybe kill a petty monster or two, and still meet any leveling quotas we may have. It also gives us time to envelop ourselves with angst, or, in my case: envelop myself in female players!

Huhah!

I jog up the adjacent hill, averaging a moderate 23.45 miles per hour. As I pull up over the hill, I spot two players attacking a Frenzy Boar. One of the players has long, dark hair and looks patient and composed, the other is a sissy ginger rolling on the ground holding his crotch. Suddenly and for no conceivable reason, a boar spawns behind the edgier player, turning its head towards him and initiating a charge. With the whimpering carrot-top occupied with being a little bitch, there is no one to warn the calm one of his impending in-game death. With a strange sense of urgency, I turn 'hero mode' on and launch myself into a Rage Spike, a basic one-handed sword attack. If you're wondering why someone as manly as I am didn't pick a heavier fighting style, like two-handed swords, the reason is simple: one-handed swords are hip.... and happen to be the only weapon which anyone really knows the Sword Skills of...

Anyway, the player looks startled when he sees me charging towards him. To avoid a misunderstanding I shoot him my most charismatic smile as I shout:

"Watch out!"

The player leaps out of my way, understanding my intentions immediately and allowing me to hit the Frenzy Boar head on. My blade cuts through the plot point's tusks, tearing a way through its body from head to tail and causing its health to hit zero. I sail through the scintillating aqua polygons and each one that touches down on my ostentatious biceps is a drop of beautiful water landing in a flawless ocean of testosterone, smooth-skin, and muscle-mass. The glittering polygons shatter slowly atop my outrageously mesomorphic torso and I realize that with all this light shining down on me, I must look like I'm sparkling under the sun-light. God damn, it's good to be average looking.

The black-haired swordsman walks up to me and shakes my hand with a firm, somewhat manly grip. The ginger is still on the floor, mumbling about his pizza or something stupid. The black-swordsman gestures towards me and I realize not a second later that he wants me to introduce myself.

"Gary Stunning. Gary Stu, for short."

"Kirito, it's good to meet you, and that...", we both shoot a sidelong glance at the writhing ball of estrogen and timidity nearby , "... is Klein". We share a knowing, mutually badass nod as we realize that with two guys as regular as us, there is no space for someone like Klein to be our friend. I'm damn happy that this Kirito dude is such an extrovert, because I don't really have that many friends in school despite the fact that I'm totally fucking awesome. I mean hell, it's their loss, but even I like having friends. If Kirito were an introvert, it would take time, dialogue, shared experience, and comradery for us to be real friends, which is so laaaaame. This is much easier to write.

The two of us, now best friends, decide to go on training without Klein. It's hard enough to have a harem when there are two badasses on the playing field, and we both know that. We can't have him developing into someone as cool as us, as unlikely as it is, so we opt to leave him behind. Unfortunately, we have not taken but ten steps until we find ourselves teleported into Starting City's main square.

Huh? Ah.

I am among a large mass of players, all of whom seem to be sharing panicked murmurs. Conveniently, Kirito has appeared right next to me so I haven't lost my best bud just yet. I am relieved when I notice that only about half of the hushed whispers are from confused male players who want to know why they've been teleported, the other half are merely women admiring my splendid figure.

Before I can make a move on a few of the options I have before me an annoying, loud noise bursts across the world and a bunch of warning signs appear in the sky. I watch as deep red blood seems to ooze out the ceiling, dripping down from the sky above in long, intertwining chains of serum. Being honest here: I haven't seen this much blood since last weekend. You see, a real man pleases his women any time of the month.

Huhah!

The blood-clot morphs into a GM, and soon we have a giant man in the sky, robed in crimson, drawing about a half-dozen females gazes' away from me and towards him. From underneath his dark and edgy hood, a voice booms out across the plaza.

"Players, welcome to my world. I am Kayaba Akihiko"

"My world?" I hear Kirito ask questioningly(as opposed to asking with certainty, of course) from my left.

"You've probably noticed that your logout button is missing from the main menu. This is not a bug, but a feature of Sword Art Online." Kayaba explains.

"What?" I hear someone sputter from nearby.

"You can not log out of Sword Art Online." Kayaba states. He goes on to explain all the different intricacies this involves while the crowd gives stereotypical 'oh my god' and 'you must be joking' responses for five to six minutes. I find myself thanking the lord that this is the first time I'm encountering this speech because even with my colossal and developed brain I'd get a damn aneurysm if I had to sit through this crap more than once.

"We won't die, Kayaba! We'll win this easy!" I yell, my voice projecting a booming, deep cry of outrage so powerful that it takes Kayaba aback. The video-game nerd turned programmer, when faced with my aura of refined might and manliness, can do nothing but stutter out some crap about a 'gift for the players' before he retreats. Around 4,000 ovaries explode simultaneously at my display of sheer bravery, and ten thousand players lift their swords and chant my name, we can win this. I sincerely hope I didn't overdo this, or those girls' bodies on the other side might hemorrhage from being too turned on.

Then, the unforgettable happens. Everyone uses their mirrors. Suddenly the blooming buxom babes running towards me are replaced with young, wimpy looking men. Klein, far to the right, morphs from a whiny ginger to a barbaric looking whiny ginger. Even Kirito, the epitome of a bro, turns slightly more feminine. Of course, since I built my character to look exactly like me the change has no effect on me and I remain with my slightly above-average looks.

With the whole world collapsing around us, Kirito and I remain calm. This is, of course, because we've been in life-or-death situations before. I made it through that elephant-feces incident when I was a child, and he's definitely got some dark past haunting him too. I also had that short encounter with a sleuth of grizzly bears at one point, although the hardest part of that was explaining to PETA why they were suddenly nearing extinction afterwards.

Anyways, I rush over to a group of broken and lost looking girls: one with chestnut hair, one timid looking chick with dark hair, a loli babe, and some weird girl who has a hammer for whatever reason. They need my help, support, and assistance, after all.

"Hey girls, do you need help." I don't ask, I state. That's how a true man operates.

"Yeah, we just don't know what to do..." the girl with chestnut hair mutters. She seems like a strong girl just from looking at her, but I'm sure she wouldn't survive without a male in her life. All women are like that, you see, even if she were a top fighter in a top guild she'd need saving 24/7. It's just how it works.

"Well, I might be able to help." I respond in an extremely smooth fashion, and behind a crowd of people a player carrying a "God Hates Fags" sign begins moaning in lusty pleasure. I opt to end this conversation quickly and get of here. I don't smoke, but saying that God Hates cigarettes is a little excessive, I think.

"My name's Stunning. Gary Stunning. What's yours?" I continue.

"Asuna." her perfect lips inform me. More like Ass-una, if you ask me. That's #1 ass, for those of you who don't speak Mexican.

Now that we know each others names and have said more than twenty five words to each other, we know each other well enough to have a relationship. She practically throws herself into my tree-trunk arms and we share a long, deep kiss. I see that to my right that Kirito has done the same with the timid dark haired girl, but that's okay. I don't work well with the timid types, and this girl is okay, I guess.

"So, who are the others?"

"Sachi, Lisbeth, and Silica" Asuna points to the timid dark hair girl who is playing tonsil-hockey with Kirito, the hammer-wielding weirdo, and the loli babe, respectively.

"Okay." I say, because talking for an extended amount of time to women is hard. Oh, the trials of being a gamer-geek.

"Hey Kirito, let's go." I tell my best buddy.

"Okay dude." He grabs Sachi's arm and I take Asunas hand and we begin to walk with the group of four girls towards the nearest exit.

"Hey, can I ride on your massive shoulders?" the loli babe, Silica, asks on the way there

That's not the only ride you'll be getting, babe.

I lift her up as if she were a feather and place her firmly around my neck. Asuna doesn't get jealous for a mili-second, after all, harems are a natural outcome of someone being as amazing, skilled, and average as I am. Polygamy is totally chill if you're too cool for regular relationship structures. Just ask those dudes from High School DxD, High School of The Dead, and Index; it works great for them.

I'm such an Otaku.

With the girl's lower body pressing at the back of my head, we keep on marching. I ponder over the fact that this week, this certainly isn't the first time I've had my head in between a girls legs. To be fair, I was facing the other direction that time...

Huhah!

Anyways, with our merry band of ridiculously strong, beautiful, intelligent, witty, and talented 'misfits' we head off, truly beginning our dangerous and exciting journey in the world of Sword Art Online.

NEXT TIME, JOIN ORDINARY GARY AND HIS PICTURESQUE POSSE AS THEY PUSH THEIR WAY THROUGH SWORD ART ONLINE

A month has passed since the start of the game, and with Gary and his friends at a mere level 95, will they be able to clear the floor? Find out in the next installment of the Tale of Gary Stu-nning, where character development, relationship building, and adherence to canon is what matters the most. Also, tune in for more Gary x Females.

There was slight AU in this chapter, but it was to expand on the concepts described in the anime/novel. If there was a huge two year timeskip after the initial segment, I wouldn't have to do this and could work inside vast boundaries within the canon. Hell, I could explore orange players, the Laughing Coffin, being a member of the KoB or the DDA, or even Furinkazaan. Unfortunately, Reki Kawahara described every single floor, enemy, boss, character, and guild in this game down to the most minute detail. As such, I am forced to make this AU. Kirito will still play a major role, because he's really cool and I hate FFs which overpower their OC and replace him :(

Actual A/N: Updates are daaaamn slow. You can blame Interfector for that, but I guess you can also thank him since he's written like 99% of this from the very beginning. If you asked me why I'm the one publishing this and why he's asked me to not put him as the author, I wouldn't be able to tell you. My best guess is that its probably because he makes fun of his own OC FF pretty frequently in Gary Stunning's tale and... Eh, crap, I got lost in what I was trying to say. Point is, this is a colab with Interfector(aka, I'm his Beta Reader) and he's a damn slow writer( a good one, though) so expect sporadic updates.