Welcome back everybody, and thank you to those that have taken the chance on my story, and chosen to follow and favorite. Hard to believe that I got a follow less than 10 minutes after I posted the story, so a shout-out to the first follower that I have gotten in over a year.
Thank You Kierron for your support in what I hope will be an original spin on the series that thousands, if not millions, follow. And another shout to my first reviewer , and I can say without doubt, this will be updated more often than my last stories.
Now that that has been said, without further ado, I present to you the second chapter of…
Primal Instinct
A Sword Art Online Fanfic
"Your Desire to Succeed Must Overcome your Fear of Failure" –Lorii Myers
Chapter 2
The past month had been hectic for me, juggling between schoolwork and the new Beta, I barely had time to eat let alone interact with my family. That being said, it still didn't damage my reputation as the strongest player in the VR world, in this world or the next.
As I had been making the final preparations for my first dive into the live version of the game, I heard my cousin shouting for me from downstairs.
"Kazuto, come get some lunch before you lose yourself in the game." That would be my cousin, Suguha Kirigaya. She was a sweet girl though sometimes overbearing in my life, which could be attributed to my lack of social interaction for the past month other than getting food, but it has been going on for far longer than that.
"Coming, Sugu." As I finished the final settings for comfort sake on the NerveGear, the call of food reared its head with a tremendous roar. Well there went my option of just diving straight into the game without lunch, along with the thoughts of beginning my stream, chuckling to myself, I trudged down the stairs towards what most would consider overkill for a midday meal. But for me, it was barely enough to keep my stomach appeased.
Suguha was a relatively short and unassuming girl, somewhat expected for someone who had just turned 14, standing at about 5' 5", and more interested in Kendo and sports than boys at the moment, though I have a feeling that that will change in the near future. I liked to think that I was relatively in shape for someone of my 'profession', being 15 currently and standing around 5' 8", as well as being one of my schools top kendo practitioners for the last two years, though the main reason for that was so that I would be able to choose what color my uniform would be. Almost predictably, the color I chose was black.
After a relatively silent lunch, and saying that I would be in my room for the next few hours, I was left with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, my fear of what had almost happened over a month and a half ago had returned with a vengeance. What if all of this was just an elaborate ploy to trap thousands of players in someone's personal world, forced to fight and kill each other just to escape a madman's delusions of godhood. As I had thought back on what had happened during the Beta, where I had become something that would not, and could not be stopped, without grievous losses on the opposing side, my fear had been replaced with a cold satisfaction. All my efforts and patience from the past 3 months had been rewarded, with the prize of having the chains, which had held me back from slaughtering the competition, to be shattered, and with it the last shred comradery that I may have had.
With a feral grin plastered on my face for the foreseeable future, I bounded up the stairs to my room and made a few finishing touches to the stream set-up, which was no doubt going to be viral in a matter of minutes. As the highest level beta tester for both SAO and the new game, I was given a specialized NerveGear at the end of testing that would allow me to stream what I see directly to my desktop, giving those who hadn't bought the game, or had missed out on the release a chance to see what the game is like on the inside.
"OK, time to greet the horde," As I started streaming from the web cam that was mounted above my computer, I checked the viewer count, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the count was well over 1, 000 before the stream had even been live, "Well I see that some of you have been anxious to get this started so I will skip the pleasantries for both of our sakes. I welcome all of you to the only active stream of the newest, and most anticipated game of the year. Many of you have waited months, wondering what the game looks like, how the gameplay is and many other questions that I doubt any of you know the answer to. So let me be the first to say, it is better than you could ever imagine, and I will show you just how far off most of you were. And here to help me are a few of the best beta players that I have the pleasure of meeting, joining us in the TeamSpeak. So while I will be able to hear them, you won't be able to hear them until the game has started."
Switching to the NVG view for the stream, I let another grin spread across my face yet again, deciding to put the populace out of its misery, I laid down on my bed to begin the start-up procedure. As I tossed a look to the digital clock in the upper right corner of my vision, my blood started pumping through my veins at a jackhammer pace, anticipating and urging the clock to make the final jump to 12:30. The moment of truth had finally arrived after months of waiting, and the return of The Black Swordsman was upon the Virtual World once more,
"LINK START!"
The feeling of turning into pixels is one of the most curious that I will ever have the memory of experiencing. Though my uncomfortable feeling was soon washed away, being faced with the character creation screen once more, and despite being offered to use my beta character, I decided to let my viewers see just how the creation process works in the game. Quickly checking to the left to see a minimized chat screen, I expanded the screen to see that many of my loyal fans were amazed with seeing just the start-up of the game, not that I could blame them.
"Okay everyone, before we jump into the actual game itself, I want you guys to see just what character that I will be using and, if I'm feeling generous, I may even take suggestions as to what you guys want the character to look like. Though I will be going with my original gender, more for comfort sake than anything else." As soon as that was announced the chat had exploded into action while I made the basic form that I would be using in the game, "Now that the basics have been set, let's make a Badass character, shall we?" With only a slightly insane grin etched on my face, my choices were made and submitted without too much complaint.
The end result had ended up being fairly close to what I look like in real life, though with a few key differences. The first being my height, while in RL I am about 5'8", in this reality, I was 6'0" and not as stringy as my real body, one of the things that was kept the same was the color scheme that I have had for the last few years, and will continue to have for the foreseeable future. But the most defining and striking feature of my character was his eyes, slightly narrowed in a predatory glare, as if searching for the player that would yield the greatest reward with his paralyzing blood-red eyes. I had the intense urge to shiver when staring directly into his eyes, though whether it was in fear or the fact that I would be such an imposing character, I had no idea. Adding a few last minute adjustments, and doing the last bit of calibration that was required before I started the game, I glanced at the clock in the corner of my vision to see that it was almost time for the severs to open to the public.
Quickly hitting the confirmation that this was indeed the character that I wanted to use, I was re-introduced to the sensation of pixilation, before being thrown through the air in my new body, one that would become a true legend in this world, though for what was anyone's guess. The only thing that caught my attention though, after the transfer had been completed, was that I was in the MIDDLE OF THE SKY WITHOUT A WAY TO GET DOWN! This was definitely different from the Beta, that's for sure, but I can see what they wanted to do and was thankful that the 'First Flight' was automated to a point, so that new players wouldn't fall to their deaths right after they had signed in for the game, no matter how funny it might have been to see. After the shock of a near death so soon after the game had started wore off, the sights below me had captured my errant thoughts and the attention of my viewers if the chat going crazy was anything to go by.
The starting city of the Spriggans, my race, was a grand temple ruin that was unofficially called The Crow's Nest by the majority of beta testers, what with Spriggan's being more inclined towards trickery and treasure hunting, rather than front line fighting like other races. The view of the Nest from above added an ambiance of mystery, intrigue, and a healthy dose of suspicion on the side, being that the race was primarily used for role-playing thief types, and the rumor of the mythic weapon stash hidden in the depths of the ruin. Behind thousands of high level monsters, elaborate traps, and a few dozen other things no doubt, but this just added to the feel of the game.
"Hey Kii-bou, have you signed on yet?" Ah, and here is my favorite informant.
"Yo Argo, I just signed in now, why don't you give a shout to the viewer's back home?" Of course just because I was preoccupied with trying to take in the sights, doesn't mean that I would forget about my personal fan base, "Everybody this is the person to talk to if you need info fast... though I would watch what you ask or you could end up broke from how much you have to pay, hehehe."
"Hey, watch it! I do have a reputation to protect unlike SOME people Kii-bou, hmph." Of course that is why she is offended, should have known better than to expect anything less than that from her. Now on to the next area of business so that Argo won't part my gullible fans from their money the moment they step in the game. Something that will probably end up happening in the end anyways, but whatever it was no skin off my back if I left them with at least a warning. Cutting off my clever partner in crime, I quickly landed on top of the temple to get the greatest amount of starting altitude, setting up a time and place to meet with the rest of the 'team'.
"Argo, message the rest and set up a meeting place that we can all get to, I want to introduce the rest in per- Oomph!" I would have continued, had it not been for the unexpected weight that had deposited itself from above me. Face half buried in the stone floor, and with the weight having made itself more comfortable on my back, I slowly turned to the sound of mischievous laughter that was emanating from the aforementioned weight with a dead pan stare. It seems my suspicions were correct, only two people had the audacity to do a sneak attack on me, and since one was on the border of Cait Sith territory, that had narrowed it down to one other person. With a sigh, I had pushed myself from the temple floor and in doing so, failing to dislodge the person that had chosen to use my body as a landing pad, "Well, I had planned to introduce everyone at the same time, when the viewers could see the characters that had been created, but it seems like some people were a bit too impatient. Everyone, let me present to you the treasure hunter extraordinaire, Philia, one of my fellow beta testers and apparently a fellow Spriggan."
With a cheery wave and a cheeky grin, Philia leaped off my back and gave the viewers a first had look at a character that had been created in the Beta. Philia was a rare beauty in a reality that was predominately a male population, and thankfully an actual girl, rather than just a male using a female character avatar. Standing at 5'7", with jaw length pitch-black hair that was common among our race, and ocean blue eyes that seemed to shine with a poorly hidden thirst for exploring hidden areas and finding new treasure. The main thing that had set Philia apart from the rest of the Spriggan population was her wardrobe, styled in what seemed to be blue half jacket that covered her shoulders, while most of her body was clothed in a black leather top with white stripes crossing at the neckline, across her chest and at her hips, which left little to the imagination.
"Yo, what's up Twitch™ world! Welcome to the place where the only thing that you have to fear is the security of your items, and where the enemy is. I am Philia and I will be Kirito's co-host for the next few hours, at least until we meet up with the other testers at our current base of operations." Great, now I have to be careful about where I go until we split up, don't want the others to know that even Argo doesn't have the best leveling spots, especially this close to the starting town.
With a few taps on the virtual keyboard in my field of vision, I sent a message off to Argo that I had already paired up with one of the others and that we would be arriving soon. After the window had confirmed sending the message, I quickly picked up what was left of my dignity and cleared my throat, bringing Philia out of her own… unique world, telling her that it was time to get going. But the first thing that needed to be done was making my wings form correctly, concentrating on the space between my shoulder blades and imagining a network of muscles and bones forming , becoming a part of what was an integral facet of the game, letting the player reach new heights and giving them a particular aspect of fighting. A slight twitch in my wings informed me that the process was complete, and that the only thing needed was a quick stretch to calibrate the wings with the player's body, bringing them to their full span I was amazed that the shimmering black wings were well over my arm length in width, being almost 7' across.
Behind me I could hear the nearly silent jealously of my current companion, seething that their own wings weren't as awe inspiring as my own. Letting out a slight chuckle at Philia's expense, I turned to see that her own wings had formed as well, though not being as magnificent as my own, they fit well on her character model, in the form of a dual set of Pixie wings about 3.5' across for the top set, with the lower pair being around 3' across. With her pouting for having an inferior set of wings, and her general cheerfulness, it gave her the feel of a child that had been scolded for trying to steal a cookie before dinner, though the natural aura of mischievousness that all Spriggan's had, around her had the resulting effect of creating an air of childlike beauty that could only be created by her. As I passed her, trying to avoid looking her in the eye because of how cute she looked right now, I gave into the urge that had popped into my head, giving her a slight pat on the head.
The resulting blush that had appeared on her face was vivid enough that steam was practically exploding from her ears, it was actually quite cute. Quietly laughing off my embarrassment, I readied myself for the long journey ahead, equipping my sword and making sure that I had all the potions that were required for the distance we were crossing.
"Hey Philia, if you are ready to go, we can start now and be there before most of the other testers, and I wanted to gain a few skill mastery's along the way." While still organizing my menu, I absently sent a party invite to her, and in doing so missed her reaction to my previous statement. Looking up at her, I noticed that she had drifted into her own little fantasy world, which I found ironic considering where we were. Though the small giggles that escaped her lips at various times gave me a vague sense of unease, and sent a shiver up my virtual spine. With twitching wings I decided to interrupt her before the rest of the community showed up, "Ahem, uh Philia, if you could return to the land of the living, that would be helpful to our travel time."
Her subsequent jump had been mildly amusing, as she was jolted out of her dream world, and accepted the invite. Seeing her name appear in the upper left corner of my screen, I nodded to myself, it was time to meet the others and they were on a tight schedule currently. Crouching down for a running start with Philia only slightly behind me, I let a smirk fall across my lips, craving the chaos that would follow soon after our meeting. With all the might that my current STR and AGI stats could offer, I rushed toward the Edge of Oblivion, the ledge that overlooked the Forest of Nightmares, and pushed off with a great heave. Quickly gaining control of my descent along with my current partner in crime, we surged forward, passing the shocked audience that had stopped to stare at what they had thought to be insane. Of those onlookers, the Beta testers were filled with the most shock, as the Forest of Nightmares was aptly name, thanks to its abundance of high level Illusion-class monsters, as well as being the only part of the map where only the best of the best could survive without a Teleport Crystal on hand. That being said, Kirito and Philia, were among the highest ranked players in both the SAO beta and the beta for the current game.
Small Time Skip
The travel from the Nest to the Ancient Forest Clearing wasn't very eventful in the end, the only real action was when we had passed a small group of Wyvern's that had decided to have a midday snack. Needless to say that plan didn't pan out very well for the Wyvern's. Touching down at the edge of the clearing after the half hour trip to find that none of the others had arrived yet, myself and Philia busied ourselves with working out the kinks in our shoulders that had made themselves known after being pushed to the extent of their power for long periods of time. Casting a passing glance towards Philia, I blushed slightly, seeing that her actions had made certain features of her character stand out more than others, and had I been paying more attention to her face, I would have seen the victorious grin that she wore. Thankfully I was afforded further embarrassment from her by the arrival, of 3 other players, though I could only recognize one of them as Argo, being that she had kept her Beta character as well.
Argo's character was of a fairly small build, not uncommon for the Cait Sith race, with blond hair that reached down to the nape of her neck , with a pair of large cat ears atop her head and pale green eyes. Standing at 5'5", Argo was towered over by me and the only other male player in the clearing, while only being slightly shorter than the two females. Her wardrobe consisted of a green hooded cloak that had ended a little past her waist, a black body suit that covered the majority of her body, and her weapons of choice, a pair of wicked claws that she knew how to use. Something that I have had the misfortune to experience for myself, it still gives me nightmares when I think about what she was trying to do when I had grabbed her tail.
The female player beside her, on the other hand, looked ready to shoot me when my eyes passed over her. Another Cait Sith by the looks of it, if the ears and tail were anything to go by, but the details that caught my attention the most were her eyes and her weapons. She had frigid blue eyes, like chips of glacial ice, searching for the perfect target, framed perfectly by her faintly tussled pale blue hair and complimenting her narrow features. The weapon strapped across her back wasn't anything truly powerful in most people's hands, mostly because the mechanics of shooting that type of weapon were fairly complicated, a white longbow, with the look of being custom made for distance shooting her secondary weapon was a slight surprise. A chrome black Glock 18C which was very uncommon for this game, seeing as most players that used bows, specialized in long range combat with next to no close range support. Standing at 5'7", she cut an imposing figure, draped in a desert green military half-jacket over a grey and black bulletproof body vest, and leather shorts that extended into a pair of green leggings which covered her legs, but left her inner thighs bare.
My final inspection was of the only other male in the clearing, an Imp player that had forgone the usual colors that people associate them with, and gave a personal touch. Standing a touch below my current height, at 5'11", the Imp player cast a fearsome shadow across the glade, most likely a supplementary darkness spell to make the shadows seem more intimidating. He was also the only one that had their wings still materialized, only adding to the fear factor, being a 6'2" wingspan of tattered, demonic bat wings seeming to merge perfectly with his wardrobe, a midnight blue cloak that extended down to his knees, with matte black body armour that cast a slight violet sheen in the air around him, it made me wonder how he had gotten enchanted armour this early on. But his, eyes were what gave a stark contrast to the dark that he had surrounded himself in, blazing golden irises penetrating the shadows like the last rays of a setting sun. Drawing my sight towards his weapon, so that I would know what to expect if I had to fight him, I was surprised and slightly shocked yet again to see another unusual weapon type, a dual sided scythe, which was something I had never seen before. It looked to be a sturdy grey oak branch, with handholds along the length of the scythe, the top side had a wicked serrated edge that was most likely used to cut through armour that the enemy was wearing and was stained a bloody crimson, while the bottom was a smooth curve and seemed to disappear from sight every so often.
Walking out to the middle of the meadow to meet our new acquaintances, I gave a shout to Argo, "Hey Argo, it's good to see you again, but what's with the extra baggage?" I narrowed my eyes in her direction, watching for moment with a small amount of enjoyment when she shivered ever so slightly under my glare.
"Well Kii-bou, the girl was having some trouble in the fields, so I decided to give her a few tips, for a small fee of course," and from the twitch that had made itself known at the mention of a 'small fee', I could tell that Argo had charged more than what she had on hand and was now in debt to The Rat, shaking my head and motioning for her to continue, "For the Imp though, he was apparently apart of the beta, and asked if he could join, said he had a few items that we would be interested in. I don't know about you but I wanted to see what he had before we sent him back to the starting city." Of course that was why she had let him tag along, the possibility of getting gear like his was greater than her suspicion of him, if only just.
"So what can we call them?" Of course I hadn't even asked for their names before now, first I had to figure out if they were a threat to my plan.
"Well the girl is called Sinon, but the Imp hasn't actually joined my party and he's barely said anything from when we first picked him up, so you'd have to ask him yourself." Of course I had to actually talk to new people, god dammit Argo, why do you have to help me try to make more friends. I steeled my nerves as I marched forward, as it would be a good idea to make allies with some of the other betas, however much the idea repulsed me. Stopping in front of the mystery player, we entered a stare down, heightening an unseen tension which hadn't permeated the glen a moment before. Seconds turned to minutes, as neither of us had so much as bat an eye at the building air of hostility, before we both shot a wild grin at the other. It was always fun to mess with people, especially when they were like Argo, hehehe. It was refreshing that someone had the same sense of humour that I employ on a daily basis.
"Good to finally meet the 'legendary' Black Swordsman in the flesh," I had to rub the back of my head embarrassment, even though it was flattering that I had earned a title, it was strange to hear someone actually use it while I was around, "It's good to see that you have a little modesty left after all the praise that has been going around. You can call me Fenrir." He had a pretty good grip to, it felt like my hand was being crushed in a steel vice, so I decided to return the favour.
"Good to meet ya, I hope that I will live up to your 'high' expectations, though you will have to forgive my lack of manners, I needed to find out if you were a threat to the plan or not first. The name's Kirito, let's get the party started shall we?" I gave him my most feral grin, issuing a silent challenge between us, provoking the ancient instinct that everyone had inside the deepest parts of their mind, behind a veil of darkness and the illusions of reality. Behind us, the girls could be seen giving an impassive stare at the actions that had played out from our encounter, with Argo and Philia just shaking their heads in exasperation.
"Is he always like this?" Sinon queried, with a dull tone, to which the female betas could only nod in conformation, "Great..." her face fell in depression at being mostly surrounded by crazy people.
"Don't worry about the boys little contest Sinon, let's just ignore them for now. In the end they will end up being best friends probably." A resigned nod was her only answer, making her sweat drop as Sinon continued to sulk in her misfortune.
As the hour went by, more and more testers landed in the clearing, with a majority of them being similar to what they had been in beta, having only small changes in hairstyles and outfits being different. As the rush of players slowed to a crawl, Argo corralled the audience towards the stump that was at one side of the packed meadow, standing atop it to see over the restless crowd of 100 or so testers. After so long, the best, and most experienced players in this world had gathered for a plan that was organized at the end of Beta Testing over a month ago. It was time to begin the show.
Almost every beta had gathered together for the first part of our plan to come to fruition. A plan that would never come to pass unfortunately, as Argo began her speech, she vanished. One by one, the cramped clearing began to open up as each player was forced to Teleport, most likely to their respective capitals. Looking to my fellow collaborator as she panicked from the sudden disappearances that were claiming dozens of characters by the minute. We were one of the last victims of the affair, blinded by the incandescent light which had encompassed itself around us. My previous guess had been spot, on we had been transported to the Nest, and our current leader stood above us at the ledge on the ruin, though they looked quite stressed.
The woman that would lead us for the foreseeable future held a hand out for the crowd to quiet down, her very presence permeating the air around her in an impression of true royalty. "Everyone, please quiet down as I have an announcement to make that will change the way you play this game for the next few weeks." Uh-oh, that did not sound very promising for the plan, "The GM's have informed myself and the leaders of the other races that they have created a competition in celebration of being the first majorly released VR game. As of now each race will be pitted against each other in an all-out war, fighting for being the first nation to conquer the World Tree Yggdrasil, said to contain riches and enemies beyond comprehension." This was starting to sound intriguing, a full scale war to overcome the World Tree, it would give me the chance to not hold back as well.
"Now with the first Grand Quest issued, I welcome you to…
Retribution!"
Phew, that took a long time to write, over 5,000 words between homework and school. This is turning into an interesting story for me, considering that I have no clue what I am writing half the time, it's more just spur of the moment. And for those that are wondering, yes guns will be a part of the game, but not in a major way more like pistol and small caliber semi-auto rifles, but I will include Sinon's main gun. Her appearance is similar to her GGO style with subtle differences, being her cat ears and tail, and Philia and Argo have the same look as their characters from the new game coming out, Lost Song. For Fenrir, yes he is my OC and will play a small part in the long run, but I mostly created him because I wanted to have another male character in the story that wasn't Klein as I can't write his character well enough, and this gives me a chance to create my own OC personality from scratch and have him evolve with the story. A reminder, this in not completely canon, and as such there will be some discrepancies along the path.
Should I make longer chapters or try to keep them around 5,000 words? Longer chapters=Longer Update Time
I have nothing left to say except for Read, Review, and enjoy my coming updates!
Tyranitar Out!