Title: Misfits of Aincrad.
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Nothing Specific.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Asuna or Liz or Silica or Sachi or... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: After the First Floor Boss Fight, Kirito deals with Kibaou in a different way. This leads to him meeting a number of Players who play SAO in their own unique ways. AU which diverges significantly from Canon.
Kine'Iende shuffled his grip on the Quarterstaff to one end and lashed out with a swift blow that cracked into the jaw of the Bandit, breaking the jaw and sending that Bandit sprawling, before switching his grip back to the middle of the Quarterstaff and in three rapid moves knocked the sword out of the hands of the Bandit to his left, stuck the Bandit behind him in the solar plexus with the other end of the Quarterstaff and then crushed the larynx of the disarmed Bandit, dropping its HP to zero and that Bandit Mob shattered with the sound of breaking glass. Now there was just Broken Jaw ahead of him, Plexus behind him and the fourth Bandit off to his right who had been holding back a bit.
A snap shot to the fourth Bandit's knee, breaking it, a spin and a sweeping blow to the side of Plexus' head, followed up by a few rapid strikes finished off Plexus, resulting in another shower of polygons and more sounds of breaking glass. A back kick to the same broken knee of the fourth Bandit as he spun, causing that Bandit to drop to the ground clutching her thoroughly ruined knee. Switching his hold to more like a spear, Kine drove the end into Broken Jaw's solar plexus with much more force than he had with the other Bandit and Broken Jaw shattered. Shattered Knee was still on the ground, so Kine'Iende quickly finished her off with a pair of blows to the larynx.
Now that the Bandit Mobs were defeated, Kine looked around the large field where the Bandit's spawned. Kirito was on the far side of the field fighting against one of the Bandits. They were not in a group, just both Soloing the same area. Kirito used a Sword Skill to finish of his Bandit.
Kine found that name slightly offensive. Sword Skills. Many players did not use swords. Maces, Axes and Spears were extremely popular, combined as popular as Swords. Then there were the other weapons like Daggers and the much rarer Bows and Quarterstaffs. Besides, Kine did not use 'Sword Skills' that often, unlike most of the other Players. During the fight with the four Bandits, something that would scare the living crap out of most Players, he had not used a single Sword Skill.
The Sword Skills for the Quarterstaff basically sucked. Kine'Iende had been training with a Quarterstaff since he was a teen, over fifteen years, since he had first found the fanfic story that had inspired his Handle, and not a single one of the Quarterstaff Sword Skills accurately reflected how the weapon was really used. The Sword Skills were either thrusts, identical to the Spear Sword Skills, or sweeping moves like the two handed Axe Sword Skills. All of the Quarterstaff Sword Skills had the Player's hands down one end of the shaft, while in Kine'Iende's experience the vast majority of the time the Quarterstaff was held in the middle of the shaft. Sure, he did use strikes where he held one end of the Quarterstaff but they were mostly designed to be killing blows to the throat or solar plexus.
In Medieval Europe there used to be a saying. On the battlefield, the Quarterstaff is king. In reality Quarterstaffs were versatile weapons usable with great effect against single or multiple opponents, in both offense and defence. In all too many games they are slow, clumsy and used like big sticks more than an effective weapon. In Kine'Iende's hands, the Quarterstaff was king once again.
Kine heard a beep in his ear that indicated he had a new message. He was not in the Agro Range of any of the Bandit Mobs, so he opened his menu and checked the message. Kine whistled to get Kirito's attention and waved the Swordsman over. Kirito made his way to Kine's location, avoiding the scattering of Bandit Mobs.
"Just got word from Atalanta." Kine said. "Floor Three Boss Room has been found. The meeting is in about six hours."
"Got it." Kirito replied. "I still got some more of these guys to kill to finish the quest. You?"
"Those were my last lot." Kine informed. "Just got to turn the quest in."
"See you at the meeting then." Kirito said with a nod.
Asuna sat with Kine'Iende and Sovin Nai, both of whom she had been introduced to by Kirito shortly before. Kine'Iende, or simply Kine, was a friendly, if slightly irreverent, man ready with an occasional quip and enthusiastic about the virtues of his Quarterstaff and how the SAO Designers had no idea what they were doing when they designed the Sword Skills for it. Sovin Nai on the other hand was a quite, self-contained man and technically not sitting with her and Kine. Instead he was squatting on the stairs to the small amphitheatre. When she has asked, he had replied he was no Clan Chief and refused to say any more. His dark red hair was cut in an unusual fashion, short on the top and sides but with a 'tail' running down the back of his neck.
She had also been introduced to Atalanta, who was currently over with Kirito and four other Players. That group were all Beta Testers. After Kirito's revelation at the First Floor Boss Fight that both him and Diavel were Beta Testers, a lot more Beta Testers came forward and revealed themselves, and the vast majority had not 'up and disappeared' as Kibaou has put it, but had been scattered around the First Floor giving other players tips and helping them with difficult quests. There had even been a Beta Tester in Kibaou's own party, which had flummoxed the brash Player a lot.
Looking around Asuna recognised a lot of the faces from the First and or Second Floor Boss Fights, including Kibaou unfortunately but he was keeping quiet. All of the groupings had been switched up from the previous Boss Battles. Agil, the only other person besides Kirito she knew beyond casual acquaintance, was sitting over with a number of other big players, who either had two handed weapons like the Axe wielder, or were heavily armoured Tanks with large shields, a different group to the one he had been in for either the First or Second Floor Boss Fights. In fact, the only people she knew who had been in the same First and Second Floor Boss Raid Parties, and would be for this one, were herself and Kirito. They had been a party by themselves on the First Floor and had been teamed up with some other Players that Kirito called DPS Players for the Second Floor. Asuna assumed this meant her and Kirito's styles of combat also fell into this DPS Player category.
At this stage it was very rare for permanent Parties to be formed, as most of the lower floor quests were designed for single Players with only a few needing groups and most Players simply grouped up with whoever else was around and doing that quest at the time. The Beta Testers said that would change from around Floor Five, where the quests became harder for a Solo Player to finish alone. It kind of made sense to Asuna. Give the Players a chance to learn their own fighting styles first before forcing them to figure out how they fitted into a Party. Or it would have if this was not a Death Game. There were a few exceptions to the Party Rule, but it was agreed at this stage all of those exceptions were because the group knew each other in real life, or IRL as Kirito had informed her the shorthand was.
The group of Beta Testers broke up and both Kirito and Atalanta headed towards Asuna, Kine'Iende and Sovin Nai, while another Beta Tester headed for the floor of the amphitheatre. Kirito sat down next to Asuna with Atalanta on his other side.
"What's our role?" Kine asked.
"Flanking damage and Add Control if needed." Atalanta replied. "Sovin Nai and I are to also test the Boss's reaction to ranged attacks. We are being paired with Agil and Tomas' Party. They draw Agro while we do the damage."
Tomas was a large man in heavier armour with a large shield and a spear sitting over with Agil. The two men were almost the same size though Tomas had pale skin to Agil's dark.
"We're also on first rotation." Kirito added. "Kiki wants to know as early as possible if the Boss reacts badly to Arrows. There were no Archers in the Beta Boss Raid for this Floor."
At that point Kiki, a petite little woman with a single-handed Axe and a small shield, called for attention from the floor of the Amphitheatre. A tough woman, and the Beta Tester who would be leading the Third Floor Boss Raid, she was also teaching a lot of the more agile shield users how to manually use their shields as offensive weapons, by bashing enemies with them or using them to effectively deflect blows to make openings rather than simply hunkering down behind the shield to take a hit. Apparently, the System had taken these offensive uses of Shields to be 'One Handed Blunt Weapons' skills. There were no Shield Sword Skills, obviously, but it would mean the offensive shield actions would get more powerful as the Player levelled up and increased their 'One Handed Blunt Weapons' skill. It also meant those Players using a Mace and smaller shield would level up their weapons skills faster.
Some of the Tanks, with their larger and more unwieldy shields, had worked out together their own manual 'offence' with their shields. One of them had called it 'The Spartan Push', which was when they blocked an opponent's strike, if they timed it right, they could push with their large shields and throw the opponent off balance and give them a very short 'stunned' effect. Many hoped as the Tanks using this technique levelled up the 'stunned' effect would last longer. Two Seconds was not much of a window to exploit.
Kiki started giving the briefing and Asuna turned her full attention to it. Atalanta and Kirito had explained their part but it never hurt to know the big picture.
TBC….
A/N: In this chapter I have put a lot of emphasis on manual attacks that don't use Sword Skills. Kine'Iende's style, Kiki's Shield Bash and deflection and 'The Spartan Push'. In SAO there was way too much emphasis on Sword Skills and it seemed almost every attack anyone did was a Sword Skill, especially in the Aincrad Arc. Don't get me wrong, with an almost guaranteed hit and larger damage output, Sword Skills are powerful and have their place, but they come with some big drawbacks and may not be suited to every situation or fighting style.