Welcome to Chapter Fifteen! After a long writer's block, I finished Chapter Fourteen and released a new story for you guys to read. Now, the beta to the death game our beloved series is named after is finally here.

Just so I can clarify it, Joshua's skin color fits his CWC counterpart (his presumed beta appearance is used as whitworth5274's profile pic if you want a look) while his hair and eye colors match Lisbeth's in the real world.

Also, I am a very strange individual. Not only do I have a tendency to start three different stories, but I also got interested in RWBY, a Rooster Teeth show. As a result, there is a RWBY referrence in the chapter, along with a Red vs Blue PSA quote. Damn it, One Winged A2, it's your fault that I like RWBY now!

Note: As Presage was removed from Destiny 2 in the Witch Queen, I had to replace it with Vox Obscura.

Kirigaya Residence, Kawagoe

Japan, Real World

August 4, 2022

Kazuto Kirigaya

Today's the day. On August 4, 2022, Argus will pick the beta testers for Sword Art Online.

Kazuto awoke with a yawn, looking at his holographic clock, which read 08:21 A.M. Unlike other days, this one had him anxious. This day, he had the chance to get the closed beta for 2022's most anticipated game.

"Well, good morning, world." he said quietly, getting out of bed amd stretching.

"Onii-san! I'm off to practice!" Suguha yelled from outside the room. "I made breakfast for you downstairs! Bye!"

The boy heard fast and heavy footfalls as his sister ran downstairs to go outside. Smiling, Kazuto went to leave when an e-mail notification sounded off on his computer.

"What is it?" he asked, addressing the issue. After clicking on it, his jaw dropped and he stood in front of the computer, genuinely surprised.

Dear Kirito,

You have been selected to participate in the closed beta for Sword Art Online. You will find the digital copy on your NerveGear in the menu's "Ready to Install" section.

Thank you for signing up for the beta.

Sincerely, Argus Corporation.

Kazuto dropped the mouse, his eyes wide as he took in the news. He, Kazuto Kirigaya, a completely random otaku, was now a beta tester for Sword Art Online. As the e-mail reread itself in his head, a Discord notification caught his eye.

Clicking on it, he was greeted by a message from Jaymes in the group chat between himself, Jaymes, and Ian.

JaymesTheFirst: Dude, I'm a beta tester! I've got some serious chad material now!

Kazuto typed in his reply and sent it.

Kirito: Me, too. I got the beta as well.

ItsaPOSSUM: YOU SONS OF BITCHES!

Kirito: What?

JaymesTheFirst: Did you not get the beta, Possum?

ItsaPOSSUM: No. It's no big deal. Bungie still loves me.

Kirito: Don't be so melancholy. We'll tell you how it runs.

ItsaPOSSUM: Well... on a happier note, I got a god-rolled Fatebringer in Destiny.

JaymesTheFirst: You went raiding? And you didn't invite me? I have been betrayed! Kirito, Possum has personally betrayed me in the most diabolical of ways! He now walks the path of heresy, and the Emperor is not pleased!

Kirito: *Facepalms* Dude, you're acting so dramatic right now.

JaymesTheFirst: I know. I just wanted to be dramatic and stuff.

ItsaPOSSUM: Yeah. By the way, there isn't a single heretical thing in my house.

JaymesTheFirst: Come on. Not a single thing? Risqué novels or artwork, something truly disturbing, anything?

ItsaPOSSUM: Nope. Not even a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey or Ninjas of Love.

JaymesTheFirst: Huh? What's the second one?

ItsaPOSSUM: Oh, Ninjas of Love is an incredibly rare novel written by an author named Kali Belladonna. Only two hundred issues exist, but it's filth. Pure filth.

Kirito: Okay, let's change subjects.

ItsaPOSSUM: Yeah, I'll find something. For now, get your food and go play the crap out of the SAO beta!

Kirito: Okay...

JaymesTheFirst: Okee-dokee.

ItsaPOSSUM: Bye, you lucky bastards.

Ian's status changed to "offline" after the last message.

JaymesTheFirst: Do you have anything to do right now?

Kirito: Eh, a few chores. My sister also made me breakfast. What about you?

JaymesTheFirst: It sucks to be an only child. I'd enjoy the company. Anyways, family stuff.

Kirito: Wow, your family does a lot of stuff together.

JaymesTheFirst: If only you knew. You can get onto the beta before me. I'm not in a rush, but I'll try to be on as soon as I can.

Kirito: Okay. Bye, dude.

Kazuto turned Discord off and turned to the door, his hand reaching for the knob as if he was in a trance. Pulling it open, he looked at his NerveGear one last time before he left the room.

After breakfast, school, and chores were done, it was time. Holding the helmet-shaped device in his hands, Kazuto stared at the NerveGear with a strange feeling in his gut.

What if something went wrong and he got trapped in the game? What if the servers were still closed?

Kazuto mentally slapped himself, reprimanding himself for having such thoughts. Why would that happen? That would completely ruin the game's potential if he was trapped by a bug in the servers, so he shrugged it off and put the helmet on, laying on his bed next.

The boy had hooked his NerveGear up to his PC so the beta could download onto it while he worked, so all he had to do now was log in.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and said loud and clear, "Link Start!"

Soon, he was enveloped in a stream of multicolored streaks and he was now immersed in the game world.

Calibration

Kazuto now found himself in a white room with blue polygons floating upwards around him. Before he could ask about what was happening, a menu panel appeared in front of him, asking for his Argus account information.

"Okay..."

He entered the information and he was now greeted with a panel with new instructions to pat his body down so the NerveGear could simulate his avatar better. The boy slowly patted himself, first around his arms, followed by his chest, and finally around his legs.

"Excellent!" the system said, presenting the final panel. "Now please enter your name, player!"

A keyboard appeared, asking for the gamertag he would use for the entire beta. Of course, this was already decided, and the boy typed Kirito into the terminal.

"Please create your character. When you're done, press the blue circle."

Kazuto took his time making his character, modeling it after the typical MMORPG hero, with longer black hair, a more masculine face, the same black eyes, and a little more meat on his bones. His height and general build remained unchanged, as to remain familiar with his body.

When he was done, he finally pressed the blue circle.

"Wonderful! Welcome to Sword Art Online, player!"

The same streaks of light absorbed him and consumed the room, leaving nothing behind.

Sword Art Online Beta

Town of Beginnings

Kirito spawned dead-center into the first safe zone, the Town of Beginnings, and he was amazed at what he saw. The level of realism was almost unbelievable, from the feeling of the cobblestone streets on his feet to the buildings and NPCs to the feel of the sunlight itself on his skin. A light breeze kept a cool current of air blowing through the Town of Beginnings.

Looking down at himself, he saw his hands clothed in brown tipless gloves. A steel breastplate and a leather strap covered his blue shirt and brown trousers hugged his legs. Finally, brown boots protected his feet.

"Wow." he said, running a hand down his arm and feeling the lifelike texture of cotton threads on his fingers. "This is truly amazing."

"There you are, jackass." a relieved voice said. Kirito turned around to see a boy in a red version of his own clothes. He had black and red spiked hair with chocolate brown eyes, dark skin like creamer'd coffee, and a scar over his left eye.

If his guess was right, then this was JaymesTheFirst, Kirito's first online friend.

"Hey, Jaymes." Kirito said, waving at the jackass he called a friend.

"Hey, Kirito. How's the beta so far?" Jaymes asked.

"I just logged in. How's it for you?"

"Same as you, but I'm not disappointed. The opposite, to be exact."

"Same here. Now I understand why Ian said what he said." Kirito said.

"What, the 'You sons of bitches' line?"

"Yeah. I wonder what he's doing now."

"Committing heresy and raiding without me?" Jaymes suggested.

"Are you really going on about that?" Kirito facepalmed.

"No."

"Alright, let's go."

Joshua "Jaymes" Hardin

After some exploration, the two beta testers finally left the safe zone, heading out into the first floor's fields to hunt for monsters. It wasn't long until they found a pair of small, grey Dire Boars, the beginning monsters of SAO.

"So, you take left, I take right?" Jaymes asked.

"Sure. Let's do this."

The players drew their shortswords and charged at the Dire Boars.

Jaymes hit his head-on, running his shortsword along the side of the Boar and leaving a glowing red cut across the creature's side. As his attack ended, he saw Kirito take a stance and after a second, he slashed at the boar with a blue glowing sword, reducing its HP to zero. Now dead, the boar fell to its side and burst into thousands of blue polygons.

Wow. Is that some kind of skill?

Jaymes never got an answer as his Boar attacked him, knocking him down with its tusks.

"Damn it!" he yelled, getting back up and preparing to strike again. However, his sword began to glow blue, and without warning, he automatically lunged forwards, bisecting his Boar and shattering it into a thousand polygons like its comrade.

The boy looked at his blade with an interested look on his face.

"What did I just do?" he asked himself.

"Oh, you just used a Sword Skill." Kirito said, standing next to Jaymes. "They're supposed to be used to maximize your weapon's power, but they can be a bit predictable. so try to use different ones in combat. I haven't really gotten the hang of them yet, but I studied them before today."

"That's good to know. It'll make PvP a bit hard to do, though."

"You really are a PvP player."

"The pre-match lobbies are fun and the things people have to say are just the icing on the cake." Jaymes replied cheekily.

"And that's why I only play Destiny if I play an online shooter." Kirito deadpanned.

"Right. Speaking of which, what do you think our heretic is doing?"

The Gibsmack* Kirito gave Jaymes was well-deserved.

Ian Becker

Ian had a strange love-hate relationship with Destiny. On some days, he was all about the open-world looter shooter, and on other days, he didn't want to play it. Today was a better day for him, and he was grinding the Vox Obscura quest for the umpteenth time in a row.

"And that's how we do it, people!" he yelled as the final boss fell, his death ending the final encounter.

Allan and Sophia watched him with small smiles on their faces. It had surprisingly taken a bit for Ian to learn how to do it, but he was now capable of beating Vox Obscura without any help.

Ian's mind drifted back to Kazuto and Jaymes, who were likely still playing the SAO beta. Sure, he had not attained the beta, and it was only fair that his two new friends were playing it, but he felt lonely.

However, that wasn't going to stop Ian from enjoying himself in the slightest. He had played countless planetary activities and Crucible matches, earning quite a lot of stuff for him to use later, and having done the Vault of Glass raid with his siblings, Sophia, and two of Allan's friends.

Oh, Jaymes' mental breakdown at his Fatebringer acquisition was among one of the funniest things he'd ever read.

"So, you think you can get a god roll again?" Allan asked.

"Maybe." Ian answered simply. "If I don't, oh well."

"That's a simple way of looking at it." Sophia said.

"Eh, it's the only way of looking at it."

Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya

After a few hours of playing, the two beta testers had gained three levels each, and they had completed two quests already. Kirito was especially proud of their efforts, as they had mopped the floor with the boss in the last quest, who was simply an upscaled Dire Wolf.

Jaymes, now armed with a new sword and a round shield, was practicing his Sword Skills and shield defenses with a group of Angry Boars and Dire Wolves, his new black armor contrasting against his red shirt.

Kirito now wore leather vambraces on his arms, along with a new breastplate over his shirt and plate armor for his shins. The breastplate offered more protection due to its coverage, but it slightly weighed down on him. No matter, though, as his stats were good enough to negate the weight effect the armor had. Like Jaymes, he had a new weapon as well, a sword called Anneal Blade.

However, even if they felt like they could go on for another few hours, it was 6:23 P.M. in the real world, and the boys had to get off.

"Hey, Jaymes!" he called out to his friend.

"Yeah, Kirito?!" Jaymes yelled, using one last Sword Skill to kill the last Dire Wolf in the area.

"It's about time for us to get off!"

The darker-skinned boy looked to the corner of his field of view and let out a light curse.

"I hear ya. Same time tommorow?"

"Yeah." Kirito swiped downwards with his right index finger and the menu appeared. Selecting the system menu, he saw the log out button, an emblem of an open door with an arrow pointing in and the English words "Log Out" next to it.

"I'll see you later." he said, pressing the button and phasing out of existence.

Kirigaya Residence, Kawagoe

Japan, Real World

Kazuto awoke at once, pulling the NerveGear off of his head and setting it down, careful not to damage it. Everything in the virtual world was so exciting and realistic for a fantasy game, and before he knew it, he was addicted to it, and he wanted to go back to it again.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door and before he knew it, he told them to come in.

"Hey, Onii-san." Suguha said, walking over to the bed and sitting next to her brother/cousin.

"Hey, Sugu." he said, looking at his adorable cousin. "Sorry if I kept you waiting."

"Mom said that you got your game, so I assumed that you were playing it."

"You're right about that. What do you want?"

"Just to talk to you." The tone in her voice indicated that she just wanted some company. It was too late for Ian to be at the Kirigaya residence, anyways.

"Okay, what do you wanna talk about?"

"Well... it's about you."

Mwahahahaha! Cliffhanger Time, you fools!

O'Malley...

Anyways, this chapter is my return to Origin Story and unlike the previous draft, I decided to skip straight to the beta, and I thank whitworth5274 again for helping me out.

The Gibsmack is a thing from NCIS, where Gibs will smack a character in the backof the head.

For the viewers who missed the referrences, then I'll put them in the beginning afternote of the next chapter. I'll see you next time.