ALO: The Rangers
People don't read my author's notes :(
Why am I complaining about people not reading author's notes in the author's notes? I must have brain problems.
Also just watched the new star wars(don't worry, no spoilers).
Chapter 7: Party
(1st person, Shino, February 4th, 6:59pm)
They told us to come not a minute early, so here we were, waiting outside.
Why would they not want us to come early, I could only guess.
The time hit 7-o-clock and we walked into the cafe, rather unsurprisingly everyone else was already here.
"Why did you give us a later time and tell us not to come early?" I asked lazily.
"The guests of honor must arrive later so everything can be prepared." said Rika.
As we walked in I noticed that Keiko was hiding to the side with a confetti launcher, there was also probably someone on the other side.
Also some of the lights were off, and in general it was somewhat of a failed surprise when the turned the lights on and dropped down a congratulations banner that looked like one from SAO and annoyingly, also rained confetti on us.
"Congratulations on clearing SAO!" they all said at the same time.
"Why the confetti? It will take forever to get all of it off?" I whined.
"Do you two hate parties or something? Everyone loves confetti." asked Keiko.
"How is it possible to love being covered in a bunch of colorful paper it takes forever to get off?" I asked.
"It means people like you and stuff..." Keiko answered awkwardly.
"It would be better for saying 'I hate you'." I said, though I knew they meant no harm.
"Oh whatever, I can help get it off if you want." Keiko said.
""No thanks."" we both said at the same time.
We walked over to one of the tables in a corner and sat down there.
Everyone sighed because we sat down in the farthest corner from everybody else.
Asuna walked over to us and said "You seriously need to be more social, you can't go your whole life avoiding people."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Oh and by the way, here." Kazuto said and gave Asuna the Amusphere we had brought for her.
Asuna seemed to give up for now and left us alone.
Eventually after things had calmed down a bit we moved over to the area where the Black Cats were, they were all part of the 300 who had been trapped after SAO was cleared, but for them they didn't remember anything as they were unconscious the whole time, far better off then Asuna, who had to spend two months in a cage where the only company she had was the pervert who trapped her in the first place.
"How have you been?" Kazuto asked them.
"Fine, we were unconscious so we don't actually remember anything from those 2 months, from our perspective they might as well have not happened other then the fact we're two months behind."
"That's good." I said.
We didn't really have anything to chat about with them so we just sat down in our corner and waited for the Alfheim part of the party.
Normally at parties people eat, drink, play various games if there are any, and chat with their friends.
We weren't hungry or thirsty, having already eaten dinner, there were no games here and any attempt to chat would turn into them asking what happened in Alfheim so we just sat to the side next to each other and waited for the Alfheim part of the party.
Something only we new of the people who weren't part of development in Ymir is that they had taken the floating castle of Aincrad and were going to put it into ALO with minor modifications later today at around 8:30, which is when we were planning on diving into ALO.
I leaned my head on Kazuto's shoulder and he leaned his head on my head and I closed my eyes.
(Asuna, 8:11pm)
Kazuto and Shino were taking a nap, as usual, and they looked so adorable together.
I had an evil idea. I doubt most of people here know it is impossible to sneak up on them even when they are asleep, so I can have people bet on it.
"Who thinks that they can get within a meter of them without them catching you?" I asked.
Unsurprisingly most of the people did and the few who knew that it was impossible kept it to themselves.
They argued with each other and eventually it ended up being Keiko who went first. If they were anybody else Keiko would probably have a chance with her low weight and near silent walking.
Unfortunately for her, I don't think they even used sound because the moment she got within a few meters of them Kazuto asked "Are you trying to sneak up on us."
She just froze and was then slowly asked "How did you notice me, when I was making almost no noise and you were asleep?"
"How do you know I was asleep?" he asked.
I walked over to her and said "Pay up."
"Eh?" Kazuto asked.
"We had a bet, she thought she could sneak up on you two." I answered.
"You're cruel. You know it is impossible." Kazuto said.
"How would she know?" asked Keiko.
"She tried, two or five times." Kazuto answered and leaned his head on Shino's again, closing his eyes.
"I think we should go before we wake him up again." I said and led Keiko away by the arm.
"Is all they do sleep?" asked Keiko.
"IRL? Pretty much." Sugu said.
"They deserve to do whatever they want." I said.
"True, but still they get the best grades of all of us and are better at fighting then all of us and yet all that anyone ever sees them doing is sleeping. They probably even sleep in school." said Rika.
"They did sleep through most of class, and the teacher noticed and did nothing about it." I said.
"You go to the same class as them? Aren't you a year older?" asked Sugu.
"They're ahead by a grade. Though I'm sure they wouldn't have much trouble a few grades ahead." I said.
"Onii-san passed the high school final exams with flying colors before SAO." Sugu said.
"The teacher probably already knows they know the answer and doesn't bother calling on them." Keiko said.
"So when are we diving into ALO?" I asked.
"8:30 so we should probably start heading home now, we're meeting at Arun, that's the city under Yggdrasil." Sugu said.
"Doesn't it take a few hours plus some fighting to get between the capital cities and Arun?" I asked.
"They added teleporting between your capital and Arun. That's all onii-san told me though, apparently there is some other stuff they did." Sugu said.
"Okay, well see you there." I said.
(Shino, 8:15pm)
"Wake up time to go." Kazuto said after shaking me awake.
"Okay." I said with a yawn and took my head off his shoulder.
Looking around I saw that everyone else had already gone home, including Sugu.
We got up and walked home, which was about 15 minutes away at a brisk pace, funny enough it was about the same by car.
We arrived home at 8:28 and ran upstairs, logging in to find ourselves still at the top of the world tree.
"This place brings back memories, and not good ones, though there seems to be some other stuff up here." I said.
"I recall them saying they made it into a possible quest, and it isn't a one time thing like Sugou said it was now and it is for individually the people who get to the top not their whole races. Also you just get infinite flight, not become an Alf." Kirito said.
"I see, so what do you need to do to actually get it?" I asked.
"Supposedly there is a statue of an Alf somewhere here and if you touch it you get infinite flight and some other bonuses, we just need to find it." Kirito said.
"And how long will that take?" I asked.
"Supposedly it is huge so I'm guessing turning around will be enough." Kirito said and turned around, looking.
"There it is." he said and we walked to the statue, the moment we touched it we glowed white and our wings appeared briefly, increased in size slightly and vanished again.
"That's it?" I asked.
"I think so. If there is anything else we'll do it when we come up here with the rest of our friends." he said.
"So how do we get down?" I asked, looking down at the city which was already full of people though the servers just went up.
"I have an idea." Kirito said in a tone that said 'something bad is about to happen.'
Then I realized that I was standing right on the edge.
"Let's go." Kirito said and grabbed my hand, jumping off.
Several seconds later we stopped millimeters from the floor.
"Kirito?" I said.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Let's never do that again." I said.
"I think it was fun." he answered.
"You're even crazier then I am." I said.
"Probably, now let's go find the rest of them, they'll be coming through the 9 gates around Yggdrasil so we're pretty close." Kirito said.
I nodded and we jumped down onto the street from the roof we had landed on.
We walked to Yggdrasil and waited for them to come.
"Also they built a whole city on top of the world tree, the one we walked through to get to the statue, it is a special city for everyone who cleared the world tree as it is above the normal flight limit." Kirito said.
Then looked like he remembered something and went into his inventory.
A few seconds later a blue tear drop appeared in midair and he tapped it.
It transformed into Yui.
"Papa!" Yui said and fell on Kirito hugging him, Kirito hugged her back.
She briefly turned into a pixie and flew up above me before reverting.
"Mama!" she said as she fell on me.
"Hey Yui, long time no see." I said, hugging her back.
She transformed into a pixie and landed on my shoulder.
At around this moment Leafa came through the Sylph gate and Asuna through the Undine one shortly after.
"Hey Asuna, I see you chose Undine? I guess you're our healer then." Leafa said.
"Yeah." she said and turned toward us "Oh hey you guys, by the way, you never did explain about her."
"Asuna, meet Yui, Yui meet Asuna. Yui is an AI that we adopted that was originally part of Cardinal and almost got deleted because she saved us." I explained.
"Wait, wait, you two needed saving?" Asuna asked.
"Yes we needed saving, we were fighting a boss that could easily be from floor 90 and she deleted, then Cardinal almost deleted her but Kirito saved her to his NerveGear." I explained.
"When and where were you fighting a boss from floor 90?" asked Asuna.
"When we were on vacation, on floor 1." I said.
"WHAT?!" she said.
"There is a dungeon that probably opens up more as the players go further along, we were in there helping Yulier save Thinker who got trapped in the dungeon and we ran into an overpowered boss called the [Fatal Scythe], and fatal it nearly was. Yui deleted it with a burning sword." I said, annoyed that she wouldn't stop asking about it.
"Oh, that doesn't make sense, but neither did the rest of SAO." Asuna said.
At this point Alicia and Sakuya came through their respective gates and were surprised to see us here first.
"How did you beat us here?" asked Sakuya.
"Remember, we logged off on top of Yggdrasil, we jumped off." I said.
"Speaking of which didn't you also log off in the dungeon?" Kirito asked.
"We got wiped out like all other raiding parties before us, but at least we helped you guys get through, speaking of which, did you get what you were after?" Sakuya said.
"Yeah, she was who we were after." Kirito said and pointed to Asuna.
"Hey. I'm Asuna." Asuna said with an awkward wave.
"Well technically her and 300 other people, but mostly her." Kirito added.
"Hi, I'm Alicia Rue, the Cait Sith lord, though clearly not the lord of all Cait Sith." Alicia said, sending me a look to which I responded by making a perfectly innocent 'what did I do?' face.
"What is she talking about?" Asuna asked.
"She was clinging to Kirito and he asked me to held so I shot an arrow next to her." I said.
"Yeah, you know that puts you in the wrong Alicia." Asuna said.
She pouted a bit and turned away.
"I'm Sakuya, the Sylph lord, and I just remembered there is a Sylph who needs exiling." Sakuya said.
"Alicia can you open a moonlight mirror to Sigurd, I'm sure he's on." Sakuya said to Alicia.
"Right." Alicia said and started chanting a spell I couldn't hear.
A mirror appeared but instead of a reflection there was the annoying guy who thought Leafa couldn't leave his party because she had been in it for a while.
"Hello Sigurd." Sakuya said.
"Hello Sakuya." he said, feigning not being scared.
"Surprised that I'm still the Sylph leader? I think I know where you should go if you hate the Sylphs so much." Sakuya said.
Sigurd was starting to panic now.
"To the neutral zone." she said and pressed something in her menu, suddenly Sigurd vanished and Alicia closed the mirror.
Around this time a pink haired Leprechaun came out of one of the gates looking almost exactly like Lisbeth from SAO.
A bit later there was a Salamander with a red bandana, a tall african-american Gnome, a silver hair Sylph with a great sword, and finally a short Cait Sith with her hair sticking out to the sides.
"Do you know them?" asked Alicia.
"Longer then we've known you, by a lot." I said.
"Hey Lisbeth, once you get to smithing I need a bow!" I called to Lisbeth who made a face.
"How did you manage to break your old on already, it was perfectly good." Leafa said.
"I needed to use it to block a flying sword that would have killed one of us." I said.
"You had it when you came up to the top and rescued me." Asuna said.
"It had one more shot worth of durability left." I answered.
"Shame, it was probably the best Sylph bow too." Leafa said.
"Well maybe it should have more durability then, because the bow I used before it could parry a hundred boss strikes with ease." I said.
"What are you talking about?" asked Sakuya.
"Uh-oh." Kirito said and I realized I had just mentioned SAO.
"Nothing, nothing." I said, hoping not to have to give an answer.
"You're not getting away that easy, the only game similar enough to this one that you would compare weapons in it to this one is SAO." Alicia said.
"Fine, we're all SAO survivors, happy?" I asked.
"I guess that would explain, well, everything, including how well you two fight." Alicia said.
"Anyway, we're going to go get these newbies some gear." Kirito said jokingly.
"""Did you just call us newbies?""" asked everyone new but Egil and Asuna.
"I might have." Kirito teased.
They scowled but let it go.
"Speaking of which, you had just logged on for the first time the day we met you right? Where did you get such a powerful sword and so much money?" asked Sakuya.
"It was the LAB from the 50th floor boss in SAO, apparently it also exists in this world because unlike all our other items it wasn't corrupted." Kirito said.
"Eh? Why don't the rest of your friends have their levels or money then, including Leafa?" asked Sakuya.
"Our accounts were never deleted unlike everyone else's, why that is the case I don't want to explain, also we logged in using our NerveGears while everyone else is using Amuspheres." Kirito said.
"Weren't all the NerveGears confiscated?" asked Alicia.
"Yeah, well, I have my ways..." Kirito said ominously, though it was actually pretty simple, but they had no reason to know we are the ones the cleared SAO.
The lords looked hopefully at the rest of our friends, hoping to get the answers we refused to give, finally settling on Leafa as Kirito's sister.
"Hey I don't know anything either, they are awfully good at being secretive and anti-social." Leafa said.
"Not our fault we don't like people." I said mock-defensively.
""""Yes it is."""" said most of them.
"I have a good reason, Kirito's is probably something along the lines of 'humans are stupid'." I said.
"What is your 'good reason'?" asked Asuna.
"I'd rather not talk about it." I said in a perfectly level tone.
"Let's just get you guys some gear." Kirito said, hoping to get the topic off my 'good reason' for not liking people.
They agreed and we head off to help Egil get an axe, Lisbeth a hammer, Silica a dagger, and Klein a katana.
Asuna wanted to get some sort of wand or something as well as a rapier but we were starting with the rapier.
Silica had gotten a crystal which she had used after we set off on login that summoned Pina from SAO, so her feathered dragon was sitting on her head in its favorite perch.
How intelligent the dragon really was, I didn't know, but it sure as hell was more intelligent then my pet bird had been, which I had also gotten a crystal to recover it with but didn't because I hadn't really had a bond with the thing and only tamed it to use make use of the dark elf charms for scouting.
We got them all good weapons but didn't spend too much money on it because they were worse then what Lisbeth would make once she was established, so the only person with a really good weapon was Kirito, who had looked at some swords to get a second sword but couldn't find anything better then the shadow sword he can create with a spell.
Such an exciting party, don't worry, the next chapter will be better. Damn I keep putting quotes where I shouldn't because I'm writing this fan fiction so anything that looks like dialogue I put quotes after and delete once I realize what I'm doing.
Anyway, no spells this chapter so no spell guide.
Bye!
My author's notes used to be much better I think.
Anyway, cya me oouuttiiyy!