Three: Trapped In a Videogame AU
"Are you sure this will work, Aidoru -san?" Phantom asked, brushing aside her cloak to finger the sword belted at her side. "These guys aren't just Level One monsters—they're bosses! We barely have enough XP to even consider taking them on—"
"With this plan, we don't need the XP," Aidoru replied, tossing her head so that her golden hair flew out around her shoulders. "It'll work. We just need a distraction and then—BAM!" She hit the floor of the dungeon for emphasis, "we'll hit them with a combo attack—Kuusouko's freezing spell amplified by my Attention Drawing skill."
Phantom nodded, convinced. This was some party she'd managed to assemble. Before the Kagerou Project MMORPG, she'd never partied with anyone but her siblings. They'd carefully selected their classes to create a complimentary party—she was a swordswoman, Shuuya was a thief, Kousuke was an elven mage, and Ayano was a cleric. The Mekakushidan Guild had been infamous in other games—but even they were a little daunted by this horrific game they couldn't even log out of.
And after Ayano blasted her own HP in hopes of getting out and warning the rest of the world what the programmer of this sick game was up to, well, she'd found herself short a cleric. And while she was looking for a new cleric, why not pick up a half-medusa mage and a bard in the meantime?
Even if the medusa mage's clumsiness was only rivaled by the bard's utter noob-ness. At least the mage, Kuusouko, had an entire arsenal of rare skills and an intimate knowledge of the game manual to boot, and the bard, Aidoru, made up for her inexperience with a surprisingly strong grasp of tactics.
And, if they pulled off this boss battle, she'd be able to add Aidoru's older brother, a Level 54 mage, and his ally, the legendary Level 70 sharpshooter Ene, to their number. Not a bad outcome, for a single battle.
They just had to make sure their HP didn't hit zero before Kuusouko could put together a healing spell—especially since they didn't know how to get players out of the low-HP limbo the players had taken to calling the Kagerou Daze.
A/N:This AU is heavily based on Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, especially the former. Kido is "Phantom" because of all the ghost jokes in the anime, Mary is "Kuusouko" [空想子] or "Imagination Child," and Momo is "Aidoru" [愛ドル], a pun using the word for love (Ai or 愛) and the phonetic spelling of idol (idoru orイドル). Ayano's screenname is RedHero and Haruka's is Konoha. The reasons for the various character classes should be obvious. I gave Ene a higher level than Shintarou because she was part of the beta in this AU and is still a better all-round gamer, even if Shintarou is a genius.