A/N: Apparently FFN is having view-counting problems currently. Let's hope it doesn't affect my overall stats.
"It's lucky that this is DLC, isn't it?" my only older sister laughed, sitting down at her desk.
"Oh, absolutely. We'll hold back on announcing it until after WrestleMania."
January 26th, 2023 – roughly 8AM JST. Near the end of our third month without Adsila Harbinger's closest friend in the Black Yeti Studios Executive Office, Aaron Rayner; known in most online games, including Sword Art Online, as SAUER.
Though I was the second-oldest of Dr. Alamea's daughters, I still considered Adsila to be my boss. It was her ambition to found a game development company; I simply followed her into the industry. Shortly after, our younger sisters, one by one, joined up with us upon the entry of each into uni. My preparations for each day were just like the others; I had to ensure that my dark brown hair was as silky smooth as it could be, in case someone happened to look into my amber eyes and see what they'd spent years looking for. My body had developed at an earlier age than my older sister's had, but we balanced out around adulthood, to a degree.
Adsila had acted like a mother to Aaron, despite being two months his junior. But whether it was his autistic need for extra guidance, or his depraved enthusiasm to be helicoptered upon by a young yet mature woman who already had experience as a parent; she was a major influence in his mental development, even in the four years he'd still lived in Australia since coming into contact with her.
Of course, that wasn't to say that I would be any less qualified to coddle him as needed – while my older sister was indeed a mother, she was a mother of one; I, on the other hand, had two daughters under my responsibility: twin sisters, Shada & Shania.
He didn't need that kind of treatment anymore, obviously, but Adsila would still occasionally invoke the more unsavoury side of the maternal figure role, just to toy with him. Considering how he had grown up since the first time they spoke in 2011, it was weird to me that her kinky jokes were only just that – jokes.
"Honestly, though, it just wouldn't feel right," she answered the following day, when I brought it up out of curiosity, "He is better off with only kids of his own. He's been an uncle to Yoki too long, to suddenly be her step-dad."
"Please – he already acts like her step-dad. He'd be more than happy to give her a sibling or two."
"More than happy to contribute to my parenthood, you mean," Adsila giggled, her face warming up just from the thought, "Either way, I'd catch up to you with your 'mommy magic' and all."
I shook my head at that phrase. "Come on, sis; that silly term was responsible for most of this."
That wasn't entirely true: Adsila and I were already mothers by the time ours coined the phrase, unfortunately having become such at 13 and 14, respectively. We were only even able to keep our daughters because there was so much faith in Dr. Alamea to teach us how to look after them, given the experience she had – and we wanted to prove that we could do it, too.
The term did have negative effects, however: shortly after Shada & Shania were born, our younger sisters were given that explanation by our mother. Alaqua, Alawa, Algoma, and Anna, all called her out on it shortly after, and Amira, the next-eldest behind me, took the phrase 'not until you're older' at face value, getting pregnant the very next year, and birthing Sisika the year after. Alaqua was the first of us to become a mother by unproblematic means, and even then, she and her loving, faithful boyfriend – now husband – were still fairly young.
Irresponsible reproduction aside, we were responsible parents. Our daughters were enrolled in the Resort Kids' Wrestling Camp as their summer holiday activity every August, and the roster would frequently intermingle with students from the Shoujo and Shounen Academies of Wrestling, which were able to run year-round since they taught teens, instead.
Though Yoki, Adsila's daughter, had lost the RKWC Girls' Championship to her former friend Alayla Cash last December, my daughters had won the Shoujo Tag Team titles from their aunts, the twins Shuman & Sokanon. The former tag champs then debuted on NXT JP a few days ago, as a part of WWE's program to introduce final-year SAWS students to full-time television; however, after only three more matches there, they declined to continue the orientation program, choosing to only perform for Shoujo Class for the rest of their final year.
While they had cited an interest in studying for their last year of high school, they were actually hesitant to continue supporting WWE in general – as were most of us. In the last week of January, online news had reported that Vince McMahon, supposedly retired in the middle of last year, was back in a position that allowed him to negotiate the sale of the company. The future of WWE was once again in his hands, and that was never a good sign.
His business decisions would become relevant again once they were finalized; for now, we returned again to our business – RECT, which had acquired all of Argus' assets after its closure following the Sword Art Online crisis, were developing a successor to the NerveGear. Though we had only had a chance to use Unreal Engine 5 for a couple years, we were more than willing to switch over to the appropriate forms of programming for FullDive technology, once we'd finished our current Unreal projects throughout this year – or at least, I thought we'd be done with it this year.
"That's not entirely true, Abequa," Black Yeti's CEO reassured me, "There will be plenty of people craving the sensation of a controller in their hands, nostalgic for the ways of tangible media."
"You're right – and we can bank on the ones who are still paranoid about closing their eyes with a chunk of plastic and metal on their heads."
"Well, don't phrase it like that," Adsila chuckled as she shook her head, "You make us sound so exploitative of consumers' emotions."
"I mean… Don't we kind of have to make fun of their fear when marketing the successor, anyway?"
Adsila shrugged. "According to mom, the medical field didn't have to do that when looking for volunteers to test the Medicuboid."
"I can't wait to hear our western brethren when they hear of that thing, too: 'As soon as they found something they could repurpose for use on the brain, Big Pharma went and jumped the shark.' Isn't that pretty much the entirety of Facebook in 2025?"
"I know we like to make fun of anti-vaxxers, but we just started 2023. Besides, you can't just predict that they'll jump on brain-computer interfacing the same way they did on the jab – they already believed the former was a part of the latter, long before FullDive was in sight."
I leaned back in my chair and sighed. "At least they never knew how the Owl Reaper spent her final moments, or they'd say we killed her."
"Don't I know it," Adsila agreed.
This past December, Nascha Harbinger, the family's inaugural Phoenix Crest, came all the way from America to spend her last Christmas with us, predicting that she would die soon. After passing down the title of Phoenix Crest to her daughter, Liluye, she insisted on spending what would be the last ten hours of her life, experiencing 'the future.' She logged into SAO, hopefully delivered messages from the rest of the family to SAUER in-game, and then passed naturally in the guest bedroom, without being cooked by the NerveGear. Too many things could have gone wrong, but nothing did.
Moving on from business, we had a massive string of birthdays. When it came to gifts, there always seemed to be a stand-out gift for every birthday. In Yoki's case as she turned 12 on February 7th, it was her first laptop, and WWE2K23 for Steam; for the elder twins, Awenasa & Awinita, they bought each-other rather personal items for their 19th birthdays, which was the day after Yoki's. Atepa, the runner-up in last December's NXT JP Women's Championship tournament, was able to laugh off a replica belt of that very title for her 20th birthday on February 26th. Just two days later, I turned 25, and most of my attention was directed at a rather personal gift, similarly to the elder twins.
When it came to the younger family members, we had a tradition of annual Pokémon gifts. On both birthdays and Christmas, three-year-olds and up would get games in generation order, all the way up to the latest. At three, a child got Generation I for their birthday, and Gen II for Christmas. At the age of four, Hoenn remakes for the birthday, and Sinnoh remakes – made by Black Yeti – for Christmas. This pattern was broken up by Gen V, wherein the original entries would be for the birthday, and the direct sequel for Christmas. In the case of Soyala, Alawa's eldest daughter at five, she got White on March 18th.
This pattern was broken up by Gen V, wherein the original entries would be for the birthday, and the direct sequel for Christmas. In the case of Soyala, Alawa's eldest daughter at five, she got White on March 18th. It was only the base games that family members received as gifts; when DLC arrived, starting with Sword & Shield, it was bought all at the same time for everyone on release day. We even did this for our very own Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl.
Ordinarily, we wouldn't log significant dates for DLC we created for our games. But we had continued working with BDSP long after its initial release, though we slowed down after Aaron was trapped. What made BDSP special was that we had been licensed to work on one of our favourite franchises, meaning major DLC was special to us – DLC we were sure no other developer would have made.
Although, it occurred to us that the major DLC would need to have BDSP's previous two pieces noted just for context, and so we did that: on May 15th, 2022, six months after the base game's release, we released the first DLC, which we called «Azure History». This added the pre-planned save file bonuses drawing from Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Though the only planned bonus was the appearance of the Azure Flute, we decided to help Gamefreak add a Time Capsule feature to Legends, and then add the receiving end of the feature into BDSP. This allowed for the transfer of Hisuian form Pokémon, their evolutions, and the models of the ancient Pokéballs displaying properly in gameplay and animations. However, we also added a new location, called the Ancient Plateau: a suspended block of land which rested at a similar altitude to the Hall of Origin, high above the Spear Pillar. Though we could have simply requested Pokémon Home support for Legends and BDSP, we felt that it was a good idea to cater to the nostalgia of the original Diamond & Pearl's Pal Park, as well as the entirely plausible way Generation II was able to receive transfers from Generation I, with the original iteration of the Time Capsule in the series.
The next DLC on October 28th, just over a week before SAO's launch, was «Written in Indigo», which continued where the first DLC left off, at the scene of a pink vortex and a yellow vortex, while blue shards floated nearby, labelled as pieces of an egg. This DLC added Plateau Monuments: puzzles all around the Ancient Plateau, which were solved by writing answers in Unown. With the monuments solved, deeper areas under the plateau would open, where the two vortices would appear again, drawing the player through the yellow one and into the Distortion World, within which more puzzles appeared – physics puzzles, rather, with changing rules from puzzle to puzzle. It was here where we offered the Kanto Legendary birds with their Hidden Abilities, having provided the versions with the traditional Pressure in the way Platinum did – roaming after a specific cutscene. After this point, the path led to the exit vortex, returning to the chamber where only the pink vortex remained, and the yellow one was replaced by egg shards of the same color, just like the blue shards. Finally, the pink vortex could be accessed manually, through which the player would be warped far away… to Sinjoh Ruins, with an exit leading to the Ruins of Alph.
This all culminated in the release of a proper expansion on February 18th, 2023 – one which we had worked on since the base game's release, making the two smaller chapters to fill time and create a connection justifying this expansion: «Rose Gold Journeys».
This expansion added in the entire Kanto and Johto regions, in a state setting the player's presence there, after the events of the Generation II games – which took place during the main DP/BDSP plot. One example of alteration was that the Galarian forms of the Kanto Legendary birds roamed Johto until engaged three times apiece, after which they appeared in their HeartGold/SoulSilver places, replacing the standard forms which had already roamed Sinnoh.
Our efforts with enhancing and expanding upon a mere remake, was making leaps and bounds far ahead of Gamefreak's own Scarlet & Violet. Just over a week after Rose Gold Journeys released, a Pokémon Presents announcement revealed DLC for Scarlet & Violet, a two-part expansion similar to that of Sword & Shield – but no matter how much their effort improved, these two DLCs would not catch the games' sales up to BDSP and their DLC.
With this in mind, we got in touch with The Pokémon Company and Nintendo, submitting a proposal which suggested giving Black Yeti Studios the development license for future core games, while still allowing Gamefreak to finish the two-part DLC for Scarlet & Violet. It was then determined that we would be stuck in negotiations for at least half a year, and up to three; we told all three companies that we felt it was worth it. And so, we began talking – all the while, we continued work on the Super Mario RPG remake.
Back to birthdays – on March 20th, was Aaron's 26th…
"Is it tasteful to celebrate it without him?" worried Amira, while claiming her slice of the cake.
"I'm sure he'd want it acknowledged," Adsila answered as she sipped her mocha, "Do you think any players are celebrating their own birthdays in-game?"
I shrugged. "They probably don't even pay attention to the date; they just count the days that go by."
"Exactly," the only sister older than me replied, "He probably has freedom on his mind, even today."
Alaqua snorted. "You make him sound American, with that phrasing."
"He still won't be more American than us," joked Alawa, as she installed software onto the 3DS she bought to give to Takchawee two days later, when she turned three.
Because of the Nintendo eShop shutting down, Alawa's third-eldest daughter would be the last Harbinger to own the Generation I Pokémon games on the 3DS Virtual Console. For Christmas, we would have to return to the DS remakes of the Generation II games – unless they appeared on the Nintendo Switch Online service, which had only recently begun to include Game Boy games.
If that wasn't enough of Alawa's daughters, already; she had managed to birth two on the same day during different years: on March 30th, Lomahongva turned four, and April turned two. When we ran out of Native American names whose origins we could verify, the kids began receiving Polynesian names instead. We wanted to only use Hawaiian names, to honour our late father, but most naming websites mistakenly listed Māori names as Hawaiian – Aperira being one of them, though we usually just called her April – however, we excused their use due to Hawaii and the land that had since been known as New Zealand, both being part of the old Polynesia.
Lomahongva already had a 3DS and the Virtual Console Pokémon games, thus, she received Omega Ruby this year. Though she had the game on a physical cartridge, she would have been missing all of the updates and patches that would make the game compatible with the Pokémon Bank app, which was still operating independently of the eShop. Luckily, we were able to copy said updates from her mother's 3DS, onto a microSD card, which were then copied onto her system memory.
Anna turned 21 on April 5th, and after opening her husband's gift first, it found use throughout the rest of the day – once she had an opportunity to 'install' it, while the kids' eyes were covered, and everyone else had finished laughing.
On April 8th, Alawa's at-the-time youngest daughter, Rosabella, turned one; her name was given following a series of errors on a naming website, wherein one L was omitted, and it was given as a Polynesian name, when it was actually Italian – Alawa only decided to use the name, because she actually liked how it sounded, rather than caring about the meaning or origin. Just ten days later, though only two after Algoma turned 22, Alawa gave birth to another daughter, Akela; named with the help of Wiktionary, which we found had pages listing popular names from the last century in various countries, cultures, and languages.
With April's birthdays out of the way, we were able to focus on business for the rest of the month. Although, without education, there would be no business.
April was when Japanese school years began – Shuman & Sokanon entered their final senior year, Ayita entering her second; while Yoki entered her first junior year at Aeterna Girls Academy, and my twin daughters Shada & Shania began their fifth elementary year. Sisika, Amira's daughter, started her third, and Sinopa, Alaqua's eldest, began her first year of school overall.
It was agreed that all the girls who were still in school, would finish the years that were almost over, while at their original schools. As it would help them cope away from home, we decided that they would all go to the same school of their respective academic level. This meant that Ayita would join Shuman & Sokanon at their senior high school, while Sisika and Sinopa would also go to the same elementary school as my daughters.
What came as a surprise to us as a result, was that the three senior students had made themselves another friend after uniting at the same school, in an alumnus from the junior high school, Aeterna Girls Academy: Tozawa Misumi. The very same one dearly missed by Alayla Cash.
We all saw this as a brilliant opportunity – we had been trying to get a hold of SAO beta testers who didn't play the released version, to ask them what they remembered about the game. Since the day Kayaba captured those players, we had wanted information which could tell us how long this crisis would last at the extremes, and how much of a chance they had in escaping. But we could not get a hold of anyone, to tell us what the trapped players would be up against. All we knew, was what our own close friend, Aaron, had told us; reaching the tenth tower, and running out of time in the test, right as the door to the boss chamber was opened. That, and the beta report that he gave to Argus, advising specific elements to be changed in the interface and worldbuilding.
Our youngest sisters were just as eager to help us, as we were to think of a solution. So, they made the decision to suggest to Miss Tozawa, for her to take an interview on her experience in the beta. Fortunately, she accepted the invitation to the executive headquarters, and told us that she would come to talk as soon as she had an hour or two to give us. Next in business, was our friends at YWT.
"We've had a week or two to sit on it, and we've made our decision: we're not renewing."
Adsila nodded in response to Phoebe Gengetsu's announcement. "So, no more WWE PCJP…"
Since 2020, Gengetsu had made annual partnerships with WWE that allowed them to use the SAWS Schoolground as their Japanese Performance Center. With a facility to train wrestlers from Asia and Oceania, they were able to establish the NXT JP brand, and produce its show on which the brand's roster could perform. But without a 'base' in Japan, they would have to either move or release most of the trainees there. And by the Backlash event in early May, many of the most promising stars had been sent to NXT UK or the core NXT brand in the US, while others whose potential WWE could not perceive, were released – many of whom were scooped up by YWT's new full-time promotion, set to fill the void left behind by NXT JP.
One example was Mercedes Varnado, who was granted her release per her own request, upon her losing the IWGP Women's Championship to Mayu Iwatani, while previously known as Sasha Banks. Shortly after, she signed to YWT's promotion as Mercedes Moné.
Black Yeti would also be affected by WWE's merger with UFC following WrestleMania, and a heavily modified-by-Vince Monday Night Raw. As we were developing a Ring of Honor game, 2K Sports had wanted to include ROH content in DLC for WWE2K23, and hoped to include WWE content in this upcoming ROH game. With the approval of Yuke's Co., we withdrew from 2K's publishing sphere, as Gengetsu revoked their publishing rights for Ring of Honor, giving it directly to us, instead. Then, we showed Yuke's what we had done with our recreation of their wrestling game architecture, which Black Yeti had made in Unreal Engine 5. As we parted ways with 2K, and ROH ceased collaboration with WWE, both crossover DLCs were cancelled.
"So, what will you be calling this new promotion?" I couldn't help but ask of Kosode Hollow.
"We're calling it Three Fox Wrestling. You know, because the Tribunal is made up of three wise, foxy coaches?"
"If you all eventually have kids, you'll have to change it to Three Cougars," Amira jested.
Amid walk-outs, requests for release, and decisions to ride out the remainder of waning contracts, several main-roster stars from WWE got in touch with 3FW, admiring the boldness to pull out of partnerships from so many mediums, from TV productions, down to the games. Some ROH alumni even mentioned the possibility of returning to it, instead of signing to 3FW; as it was, WWE stars whose ROH appearances were still ongoing, were asking Gengetsu to keep offering them work until they were done with WWE, at which point they would return to ROH full-time.
For the time being, though, 3FW's premiere event was set for June 3rd, one week after WWE's full weekend with Night of Champions and NXT Battleground. While they got set up, we helped them change the logos and decorations around the SAWS Schoolground, removing references to WWE.
Also in the first week of May, RECT released the successor to the NerveGear, called the AmuSphere. Most of the market was cautiously hesitant to believe in its new safety measures, but RECT gave us the role of speaking at the upcoming E3, on their behalf, as they thought it was more practical to entrust the presentation of a gaming product at a western trade show, to a company bearing high experience with presenting gaming products at western trade shows. Most of us at Black Yeti, thus concluded that the purpose of RECT's out-of-Japan branches, was different to what we assumed.
Then, Adsila had what seemed like an insane idea, at the time.
"What if we ask RECT for the first ten floors, and the engine in which to explore them?"
I stared at her from across the family executive table, as did all our bachelor's-level sisters; Amira, Alaqua, Alawa, and Algoma – the lattermost having joined the table a month ago after getting her degree, and having turned 22 in the middle of this month.
"But why?" she asked, arms spread with her elbows on the table.
"They have safe tech to run it on. Let's see what the beta testers saw, but with the changes made in the released version."
"What are we gonna do with this information?" asked the now-youngest executive, frustratedly.
The CEO smiled, pointing to the digital board on the wall which displayed an animation of her plan.
"Miss Tozawa gave us a good idea of what the players are up against, right? But we don't have many easy ways to present this to the public. They don't understand the challenge being faced by these trapped gamers, nearly as much as they may or may not grasp the stakes. Surely Kayaba would not simply allow a couple hundred guides to hold 6-10 hands each through 10% of his death game. He'd lose out on any lethality for that first month or two that it would take to clear the portion of a game that people already know. There would have to be enough changes to explain the 2000 we've lost in November alone. We have to know what's killing them in there, that's killing them out here."
As the animation depicted Miss Tozawa's interview, people reading a print of other interviews, and readers shrugging as they discarded said books, Adsila continued to speak.
"We can look at what's there now. Then, we show it to the beta testers. They can tell us what's not consistent with what they remember. We try to recreate their experiences, and compare them both side-by-side. Then, we label the different versions, compile them together, and release it as a PSA to anyone who trusts the AmuSphere to run it – a warning against confidence in any acquaintances of theirs who are trapped. To prepare for good or bad news about their loved ones, and not to have an implausible degree of faith in someone who doesn't really have full control of the situation."
The animation on the board depicted crude drawings of two separate boss designs presented in the same room, followed by a 3D rendering of parties following the same strategy for both, and then predictably disastrous results for the second version. What followed was a depiction of a typical Japanese citizen, happy-go-lucky throughout the year, until hearing of their friend's death, which prompted denial in the hypothetical subject over the friend's failure, so certain they had the means for victory, and the subject taking their own life.
"We do not want hubris to kill more people out here, who didn't even play the game. It's not fair on them to be punished for merely believing in their peers. Giving them doubt is just as dangerous, but may save more than it will hurt."
After a few minutes of silence, my sisters and I nodded. It was agreed that we would create the first FullDive interactive PSA, to help people get a better understanding of the threat being posed. After asking RECT for the relevant data, it was given to us by RECT Progress a week later.
Then, family matters. On May 11th, Alamea, once again the immediate family's matriarch after our elder ancestors had returned home, gave birth to a new child. She had surprised us at the year's beginning, with the news that she was pregnant. As she admitted unnecessarily, she had severely missed the sensation of being bred, which her husband could no longer do after passing in 2020.
Even more of a surprise, was that it was the second-ever male born into the Harbinger name, in just under a century; the first being Ahiga, born to my sister, Alaqua. But now, not only were my sisters blessed with our first nephew last year, but now, we had our first half-brother. Despite our mother confessing that she didn't even know the father's name, she chose to name the boy after our late father: Ali'iloa.
"Maybe… Maybe we can just say that this was his reincarnation. After he died, he wanted to find a way to see his widowed wife again, even if he had to become her son. Seeing his daughters, but as their little brother. Wouldn't that be sweet, if he did that?"
It was both a heartwarming thought, and a concerning one, at the same time. I just hoped that she meant it solely in a spiritual sense, and that she wasn't going to treat her son like he really was the reincarnation of her husband.
Six-Foot 4 came out on the 16th, and a decent chunk of Aaron's animations were done with Kenzo's mocap. Algoma had suggested that she may eventually have to put him in the spotlight less, if he doesn't make it.
Adsila shook her head. "Just in case, I suppose. But he'll escape. That's a fact."
"I know, I know. It doesn't hurt to be prepared for the supposedly-impossible, though."
Alawa chuckled as she fed Akela. "On the bright side, he'll probably get out after the conversation about Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has died down. He'll have no worries about spoilers."
Most of us had been playing it immediately after its release, so we were safe, too. Thinking about it that way, he would also avoid spoilers for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Near the end of May, after we all had AmuSpheres of our own, we finished packing the assets of the castle's first ten floors, and SAO's engine, into a single cartridge ROM compatible with the new and more secure hardware. We asked RECT to put the ROM on a baker's dozen of cartridges, reassuring them that we'd ask for more eventually, and they gave us the carts one day before Adsila and I went off to the US for E3.
When it came around, everyone had their usual thing to do, except Nintendo, who didn't have any particularly big offerings for the event. They chose to simply offer a Nintendo Direct a couple weeks later, withdrawing from the show this year. It was this that opened a space for Black Yeti to speak on behalf of RECT, and for themselves as well. Presenting the AmuSphere was met with tension, both from the crowd and from stage crew. But Adsila had the event staff bring out a bed for her to lay on with the device around the upper third of her head, like the band of a crown rather than a helmet.
After ensuring everything was plugged in, and we had one of the cartridges we received, she spoke.
"Link Start."
We were able to capture footage from the eyes of the avatar she used within the demonstration, in which she wandered an empty Town of Beginnings, populated solely by NPCs.
"We are running a LAN server for her to use in this demonstration," I explained as Adsila spoke to a stall merchant in town, "Completely separate from the players trapped in the real game. And yes: before your eyes at this moment, is the very same world featured in SAO. But this is not the actual game previously released – we obtained a tenth of the total map, and the full engine, to compile for the purposes you see here. My sister is not in any danger."
As part of this demonstration, Adsila ran out to the fields, and fought every enemy in sight, until her health ran dry. Her avatar shattered, but then rematerialized in front of a large stone tablet.
"Behind her, here, is what the released game calls the Monument of Life. All 10,000 usernames had been carved into it, and dead players were crossed out. As our current project with these assets was not made for the general public, we're unsure what to do with this landmark. For the sake of this demonstration, we're allowing Adsila to respawn at this location."
Adsila had returned to the fields by the time I finished the explanation, and the screen changed to a camera shot of her real body on the bed.
"Because the AmuSphere outputs less energy, it does not completely block internal signals. Adsila's nerves continue to move her limbs in reality. Please ensure you are in a comfortable position with measures in place to keep you in an ideal position."
As a final display, I yanked the band off of her head, and she sat up with no problems. The crowd cheered upon realizing she was okay, and we promised to reveal more information on software to release for it, and more details on the device's safety, in the coming weeks. And for all of those few weeks, RECT and Black Yeti had everyone's attention.
In the June 22nd Nintendo Direct, the Super Mario RPG remake was revealed, which was offered for Black Yeti to work on near the end of 2021, but after we declined, Nintendo and Square-Enix took it upon themselves for a year – until we joined in after Aaron was trapped in SAO. Once we took over, both companies directed their attention to other work, and we quickly built on the progress made already, by replacing the graphics with a more modern style as we threw out the Chibi models, and adding options to remove the new combo and timing prompts. Of course, those were the only two examples shown in the reveal trailer, but we had done a lot more that the co-publishers hadn't.
"Man, he's gonna flip his shit when he finds out we did a Mario game without him," Adsila cackled.
I shrugged with a giggle. "If we do really good on this, we might get to do more when he gets out."
The CEO smiled, leaning back. "Maybe we can finally do an official Mario MMO."
"Like the one you met Aaron on?"
"Ha! I want to do something original with the IP."
Though she could smile again, Adsila's eyes remained empty; devoid of light, no energy or real joy. About a year before meeting her star employee, she had been this way, too. And even when Aaron travelled from Australia to work for us, there would only be momentary sparks from 2014 to now. Most of us feared that if we were to lose him, she might stay this way for the rest of her life. But she held out hope, stronger than all of her sisters', that he would make it out. And there was never a moment where we had to remind her of that, and she'd be the first to do the same for us.
Rather amusingly, the AmuSphere that Adsila used at E3, was actually her 26th birthday gift; she had even made this clear during the joint panel, that she would not kill herself with an item obtained in celebration of her continued life. Following said birthday on May 26th, we had another long string of birthdays throughout June, all of whom were Alaqua's kids except for her next-oldest sister, Alawa.
As Pokémon gifting tradition would go, the gifted games followed an age pattern in perfect order.
Sinopa got Ultra Moon on the 4th for her 7th, Sooleawa got Y on the 6th for her 6th, Lenmana got White on the 15th for her 5th, and Koko got Omega Ruby on the 16th for her 4th. For Abegaila, circumstances required that she receive her first Pokémon game in the form of FireRed for GBA, on Alaqua's still-functional DS Lite, on the 20th for her 3rd birthday. Two days later, when Aputa turned two, we taught her how to eat cake by hand.
On June 27th, Alawa's 23rd birthday, Black Yeti released 'Ur Band 5 Years Ago', a more story-focused entry in the music series which covered the protagonist's initial response to their mentor getting cancelled in early 2019, the same timeframe in which the first game was released in reality.
There wasn't much Ahiga could do himself, to celebrate turning one on the 30th, but we were more than thrilled for the fact that Alaqua had given the family its first boy in generations.
We began July with a birth: Alana, on the 2nd, to Alaqua. As was the case when she was in uni, we were given the task of looking after this new daughter while Alaqua was in post-graduate study.
With a break from birthdays, we could return our attention back to business, as Black Yeti got done with its own exploration of the floors previously seen in the beta of SAO, just a couple of days after Alana was brought home.
The team scouting the released floors for analysis, consisted of Adsila, myself, Amira, Alaqua, Alawa, Algoma, Anna, Atepa, Awenasa & Awinita, Awendela, Ayasha; and Alaqua's husband, Minoru. This allowed everyone working at the top in this project, to see the world which we'd be trying to revert to a previous state. To that end, we closed our LAN server, and asked RECT for more copies of our work. Then, we took to all media platforms for an announcement – a 'call to arms', in a sense, by Adsila.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Japan, we at Black Yeti Studios, need your help. We have partnered with RECT, who hold the former assets of Argus, to obtain and compile assets from Sword Art Online. We have created a stable build featuring only the first ten floors of Aincrad, seen by the beta testers in August last year, two months before the game's release in November. We would like all remaining testers who did not play the released version, to contact us and obtain a copy of our excerpt. Play it alongside trusted Black Yeti executives, and tell us your story. We have not altered any details in the released version, except for a NerveGear's killswitch, which would not function on an AmuSphere. If you do not have an AmuSphere, we will provide one with your copy of SAO: Curated Concerns. Once information has been gathered on the differences between beta and release, we will try to recreate the beta details, and include that version alongside the released version in an informative software intended to increase awareness of the dangers faced by the players trapped in the full game. Please join us in reporting on this matter – we will be playing alongside you, and learn in real time, as you react to all the things which may or may not be different from the beta. You will not pay to receive these items; just tell us where to send them."
The commercial, running once or twice an hour on all TV channels, appearing in ad rolls online, and even airing on radio, finished with more specific details like the company's contact details, and how many beta testers we estimated were free on the outside; we had a copy for all of them, plus us.
We also included a disclaimer that only the photo-scanning option would be available for the avatar customization, to simulate the scenario we assumed Kayaba would engineer, to ensure that people associated their tangible lives with their physical bodies.
Counting Miss Tozawa, who simply told Shuman & Sokanon to bring her game and device to give to her at school, we had 148 submissions by July 15th, when we sent out AmuSpheres and copies of Sword Art Online: Curated Concerns. By the 20th, everyone had them, just in time for the service to open at 7PM.
That afternoon, we all set up concave safeguards on our beds, and then after dinner, we laid down, donned the rings of plastic and metal upon our heads, and wiggled into comfy positions as the hour turned over, and our sub-200 siege of Aincrad's lowest tenth launched. We just hoped that our beta testers were waiting for us in there.
Granted, we wouldn't be committed once we got in. But it just wouldn't feel right without them.
…Especially since we gave the other printed copies to the rest of our family.
"Link Start."
A/N: The next chapter is just as much an experiment as Black Yeti says their beta-replication project is in this chapter. I was in need of some padding for 2023, so that real time would stay ahead of this series, so I tried to stretch out late July and all of August by shoehorning in something that would slow those 40-50 days down.
Next week is Virtual Immigration Chapter 26, and I just might be able to have Chapter 27 up the week after. If not, it'll be Chapter 4 of this. For now, direct all roasting of my writing ability at the SAO Fanfiction Central server on Discord, through the key Sycypugbxq
See you all again next Friday/Saturday overlap.