It didn't take long for her group to feel the unease that lingered in the air, for whatever reason the wind was blowing slowly on their faces, normally none of them would have noticed it, except, the wind blew as if it was being controlled by something.
Asuna ordered her help screen to mark each time that the wind touched her face and she wasn't surprised when her help screen showed that the wind blew every five seconds.
She could feel her heart beating inside of her chest, there was a chance that what she was feeling wasn't the wind, but what was left of the attacks that failed to their its target.
She blinked and closed her eyes tightly, before cursing herself for acting this way, she stopped walking and nearly fell over when her subordinate ran into her.
'Asuna what's wrong?" he asks her.
"How long has it been since I sent the warning to the guild leaders?" she asks the man.
"Five minutes." he answers her before the realization hits him.
Asuna could see the color drain itself from the man's face, as he realized that either something was blocking the help screen's ability to communicate with the rest of the ship or something had isolated the area.
Meaning that while the rest of Aincrad was already reacting to the enemy, they wouldn't have any way of knowing about it because the area that they were in was no longer a part of the ship.
The two of them lock eyes and accept that for the moment they are unable to do anything, so they continue to move just as fast as they had been before, but this time they are a lot more careful with the steps that they take.
After what felt like an hour, but was only ten minutes Asuna finally sees the twisted forms of the servitors that are still firmly planted in their positions.
She stops walking and uses her help screen to access a servitor's memory and see if managed to see what happened to the people.
The video showed the townspeople going about their lives as they put up the last of their goods for the tourists that would be coming because of the festival that the school was having.
The next image showed the guards firing at something, that moved inhumanly fast, and the servitor barely caught a glimpse of it.
To anyone else, the image would have been a blur, but to her, it was clear as day. The attackers had the same kind of armor as the ones that the scavenger teams had found inside the alien ship.
She sent what she had found to the higher-ups as well as the images that her eyes had seen before ordering her group to move.
They weren't far from the school now and so the group began to move faster, they didn't stop moving even when they saw that the school was unusually silent.
As they walked into the grounds they noticed that all of the ribbons, banners, food stalls, and posters weren't out of place, and even the food that was being eaten by people was still hot on the plates.
Asuna began to feel her heart beating faster, as she felt herself begin to panic.
Had teh aliens taken Yui? Had they taken the people and their children?" if what she had seen from the videos that Aincrad had gained via the Imperial starships were true then.
"Asuna get ahold of yourself!" she heard her subordinate say to her as he shook her back into reality.
Asuna looked at the man with panic-filled eyes but before she could say anything, a blast of burning hot air blew past them.
None of them hesitated and ran towards the direction that the air had come from.
Asuna was barely able to react when her Ogryn protector lifted his hand, grabbed something that flew over her, and repeatedly slammed it on the ground.
She watched as the muscle-covered giant grabbed the alien's arms and tore them off its body before it grabbed its legs and did it again.
She ignored the alien's musical voice that somehow still sounded as if it was begging the ogryn for its life.
She ran and found the townspeople, and the children who were surrounded by servitors and soldiers, but they weren't alone, several other players were with them.
Unfortunately, more than half of the guard was either injured or dead, and the players were barely standing anymore, as for the servitors, the only reason that they were even making any difference anymore was that they were firing at anything that moved.
She began to look for any signs that Yui was among the group and she barely let out a breath of relief when she found her protecting the kids who were smaller than her.
Asuna watched in horror when one of the servitors finally stopped working and several of the alines raised their weapons before firing at the group.
Asuna felt her body move in with a speed that could never be matched by an ordinary Human.
With a single move, she cut an alien's head off, while at the same time, she threw her dagger at the one closest to her stopping it from being able to attack the kids.
Her last opponent didn't even turn to look at her, but she felt his attack, she could feel her very being tearing itself apart.
Her mind, not her brain, but the part that made her who she was, felt as if it was being cooked alive.
She struggled to move even as the weight of the alien's attack grew, she knew that she still had her sword in her hands, so she did the only thing that she could do, she called to its power and threw herself at the enemy.
She gasped for air when she felt the attack stop and as she looked down she noticed just how tall the alien was when compared to her.
"Mommy!" she heard Yui say to her before she felt her daughter's arms wrap around her leg.
Asuna slowly began to hear the world around her again, she turned and noticed that the world around her had suddenly regained the sound that it had lost.
All around her, the noise of war could be heard, as the soldiers and players regained their strength and did everything that they could to push the aliens back.
Then she heard Aincrad's alarms come to life, it was as if one of the aliens that she had just killed was responsible for keeping the area isolated, and now that it was gone so was its barrier.
"You shouldn't have run off like that." she heard her subordinate say to her as he looked at the kids.
"But we did the same thing.' he says to her as both the Ratling and Ogryn walk up to her.
"Ui, okay?" the Ogryn asks Yui who nods at him.
"Sprinkles you came!" Yui says to him as she ignores the firefight around her, but Yui's smile vanishes when Sprinkles screams in pain.
Asuna looked past the Ogryn and found an alien who was attacking the Ogryn as it fought off the rest of the defenders without care.
Asuna hugged Yui and forced her to let go of her leg before she charged at the alien, who laughed when it noticed her.
For a brief instant Asuna didn't see anything but a black void, the thought that the aliens had attacked her daughter, and the kids, and even killed innocent people, and for what, they never even tried to talk, filled her with rage.
her sword glowed brightly as she moved faster and faster with every step.
She used her legs to kick the ground where the aliens stood only for it to jump and laugh at her attack, but it didn't laugh for long when she threw an uppercut and struck it in its stomach.
The alien let out a cry of pain before it stopped attacking her daughter's friend and concentrated on her.
The two of them became a blue that no one could see anymore, as they tried and failed to kill one another.
Asuna kicked and punched the alien while she used her sword to cut the alien's arms and legs.
The alien used its invisible attack to burn away at her very being only to be unable to because she kept moving out of the way, so it was forced to attack her with its sword, arms, and legs.
Asuna charged at the alien and felt her leg hit something that shouldn't have been there, her eyes went wide when she saw that one of the aliens which should have been dead, had used the last of its strength to grab her leg.
She could almost see its mocking smile despite its face being hidden under enath its mask.
She blindly threw her sword hoping that luck was on her side, but when she didn't hear it hit anything, she knew that she had failed.
She expected to die either when she hit the ground or after, but she never expected to hear the enemy scream in pain.
As she looked at the sky, she forced her mind to work and slowly stood up, before she smiled Heathcliff had arrived, and with him were the members of her Guild.
He had killed her opponent, she wanted to thank him, but her mind, her very being was so tired and she needed to sleep.