Sword Art Online/ソードアート・オンライン 1. Immersion

The bell to the shop rang as Margaret walked in, backpack slung over a shoulder and sterling Bass Booster headphones wrapped around her neck. The kind of rock that she knew the shop owner loved to play was blasting over the speakers embedded in the ceiling and she immediately felt at home. This place, known across the downtown area as Migrations, had been her home away from home whenever she needed a place to crash or just to hang out. She had made a lot of good friends there, the shop keeper being one of her closest.

It was surprisingly empty for a Friday afternoon, but then again, everyone who would frequent such a place was probably at home or out enjoying themselves. The thought of going home made her squeeze the strap of her bag a little tighter but she swiftly pushed it out of her mind. She had come here as a favor for a friend, not to think about her personal troubles.

And as if on cue to snap her from her thoughts, her friend in question strolled out from the back, a fountain drink in hand and sunglasses over his muddy brown eyes. In all her time knowing him, going on four years now, his entire state of being seemed to have stayed the same. The same messy head of hair that looked like he had just gotten out of bed, the same 90's Action Movie Aviator sunglasses, the same kind of faded out t-shirts with bands most can barely remember and artfully torn jeans. And yet she couldn't see him wearing anything else. She tried picturing him in something other than his trademarked look or, God forbid, a suit and it just wouldn't fit with who he was. Whenever she asked him why he dressed like he just got out of bed, his answer usually was 'Cause I did.'

"Hey, Margie, ya made it!" said the twenty-something with a jovial grin as he flipped up the pair of sunglasses onto his forehead to get lost in the forest of dirty blonde that he called his hair. "I almost thought ya were gonna skip out on tonight's release."

She flashed him a grin and hiked her bag a little higher up onto her back as she walked over to the counter. "Joey, I'm hurt," she pouted playfully as she leaned against the counter. "You know I wouldn't leave my favorite shop shorthanded when they need it most. 'Sides, I owe you, don't I?"

He laughed and scratched the back of his head. "More like seven, but hey, who's countin', right?"

She only rolled her eyes and handed him her things to stuff behind the counter for the night before he give her one of the name tags for his store to pin to her jacket. "So you gonna take my offer finally?" he asked as she went about reorganizing some games on the wall. "Could use another pair of hands around here."

Margie frowned at the wall for a moment and glanced back at her friend, who was now thumbing through one of the game magazines set out for those who wanted to read it. They had joked every now and then that he should just hire her on with the amount of time she spent there, but at the end of the day, she just wasn't sure if she could do it. She enjoyed spending time with Joey as a friend and all, but would they ever get anything done? The time she spent there with him was a lot of goofing around and counterproductive to anything that could be called 'actual work'. But maybe that would be alright?

After all, he had been a good friend of hers for the last four years and she had been in the store for almost every day of those years. If anything, not taking the job was a detriment to herself because it was money she could use to move into a small apartment if she could find one. Which would be essential, since the only place she could live at the moment was with her brother and they both knew how well that went. Joey had been there when she had been kicked out by her dad, forced to live with her brother and been her rock through pretty much every awful argument they'd ever had. And yet she had never thought of the idea of them as co-workers?

She made her way to the portables section and started to browse through the games, flipping through the selection and frowning as she failed to find one that would hold her sway for more than a few hours at most. With a sigh, she picked up one of the newer RPGs and flipped it over to read the back idly, though from the corner of her eye she noticed something that was of interest. Sitting at the counter was a bright and colorful display with one of those Nerve Gear helmets beside it. Curious, she put down the game she had been looking at and made her way to the counter. "Hey Joey, what game is this?"

"Huh?" he asked as he looked up from the magazine he had been reading. Peering over the counter, he spotted the display she was looking at and his face lit up with an excited smile. "You mean Sword Art Online?" he said as she picked up the matte grey helmet he had stuck stickers of anime robots all over. "Launches tonight. I'm surprised you of all people don't know about it."

Margie set the helmet down and picked up the case to look it over, reading through the descriptions on the back and taking in screenshots before returning to the helmet on the shelf. "Oh really? Just cause I'm a game junkie, and I use that term lightly, doesn't mean I'm into all that VR stuff," she pouted. Though she had to admit, the concept did intrigue her greatly regardless.

The shopkeeper snickered and held up his hands placatingly. "Hey, meant no offense by it, Margie. No reason to get all defensive," he joked before gesturing to a monitor that had a trailer of the game world and some in-game footage. "But yeah, the game makes use of this baby right here." He patted the helmet for emphasis. "They're called Nerve Gear. With these bad boys, you can insert your consciousness into the game world as your avatar, after you make it of course, and you play it like any other RPG."

The girl leaned against the counter, fascinated by what she was watching. "Just between you and me, though, I can't wait for midnight to roll around so I can get home and pop mine in." She glanced at her friend with an incredulous look and he only smiled toothily back at her. "What? I'm excited! Me and a group of friends are all gonna meet up in the starter town so we can do this right. Team Nightblade will be a fearsome foe to reckon with!"

"Yeah, whatever you say, O' Fearsome One. Let's get through today first and then we can deal with the game," laughed Margie as she went about reorganizing the displays.

"Hey, you should join us, Margie. We could always use a sixth member of the team and I'm sure the guys'll warm up to ya in no time," offered Joey as he reached for his cell as it began to ring. "Besides, I hear SAO is really easy to pick up for beginners. I should know, I was a beta tester for a good chunk of the game."

Margie nearly dropped the stack of games in her arms at that little revelation. "You managed to get into a VR beta test!? You-" she looked around to make sure no one was around before continuing. "-lucky fucker! How was it? Why didn't you tell me sooner! Spill you asshole!"

Joey only smirked and tapped the side of his nose. "Join me in SAO and I'll tell you all about it," he replied smugly. "Besides, out of my group only one other guy got in the Beta, so it's not like everyone and their grandma got in."

"Yeah well... still! You'll probably start with boosted stats or something!" she huffed as she chewed over her options. On the one hand, she could go home and face the wrath of her brother, something she **did not** want to deal with tonight. On the other, she could possibly spend all night playing an MMO with a friend of hers and possibly gain some new ones in return. So far, the cons side of this proposition were looking a little slim.

"So, Margie, what's it gonna be? Pizza for five or six tonight?" His question snapped her out of her thoughts and she glanced at him, his phone in hand and a hopeful smile on his face. With a sigh, she nodded.

"Only on the condition you buy me the Nerve Gear."

That hopeful smile split into a full on grin and he pressed his phone to his ear. "Hey, Donny? Yo, my man! Everything set up for tonight? Great! Mind setting up that spare PC we had planned for my +1? Dude, come on, you owe me for that TPK I saved your ass from last week in Forever Fallen! Great! I'll pick up another pizza on the way over."

She just stood there watching the strange conversation go about and shook her head. Joey kept weird company indeed.

- **Outside the Apartment Complex, Later that Evening** -

"You what!?" Margaret flinched away from her phone at the rage in her brother's voice. "How can you even think this is okay! Especially without telling me first!"

"Darwin... It'll only be for the night. And it's not like I'll be with someone I don't know. Joey is going to be with me the whole time," she said, though her voice sounded quiet and timid in the face of his anger. Only after she had said his name did she realize the mistake and she winced at the shout that came from her phone. She wrapped an arm around her stomach and chewed on her lip gently as he yelled at her with increasing volume. She could see Joey looking at her worriedly, but she flashed him a quick smile in an attempt to assuage his concern. She wished that smile was on the inside too.

"Joey!? That deadbeat stoner! No, I forbid it. You're coming home this instant!" shouted Darwin. "We're gonna talk about you 'working' at that hole in the wall when you get here, but you can tell that asshole he won't be seeing a lot of you from now on! It's clear he's a bad influence on you, Margaret. One I plan on removing for you if you won't do it for yourself."

"D-D-Darwin, you can't do that! Joey is one of my best friends and you want me to stop being around h-h-him because you don't like him? What kind of sense does that make?" replied Margie as she began to tremble with restrained anger.

Before she could get herself into more trouble with her brother, Joey gently pried the phone from his friend's fingers and put a finger to his lips. "Darwin, buddy, listen. Your sis is gonna be spendin' some time with me and a couple of friends. Nothing serious, no booze involved. Just some pizza and some games. She's in good hands, buddy. Have a nice night." And with that he hung up before offering her her phone back.

Margie took it back with a trembling hand and smiled weakly up at him, on the verge of thanking him, but he shook his head. "Do you need to cool down? That sounded pretty bad," he offered as she leaned against the side of his car, a hand over her thundering heart.

"No... No it's fine... I just need to catch my breath..." she muttered, struggling to hold back tears. She hated crying in front of people, especially if it was due to a fight with her brother. When she was certain she wasn't going to burst into to tears, she swiped a sleeve across her eyes and smooshed her cheeks together in an attempt to snap herself out of her funk. "So where are we meeting your friends? Your place?"

Joey gave her a long look for a moment, trying to pick apart her smile for what lay beneath, before deciding against it. Some things came out in due time. "Nope. We're gonna meet up at theirs. Bigger spot, more computers, better circulation for the heat. We always use his place for the LAN meetups, so we thought this would be ideal." With a pat of his hatchback's roof, he gave her a bright smile. "Ready to meet the people?"

It didn't take long to reach Apartment #27, but it felt like eons up those stairs. Joey had tried to broach the subject of the earlier conversation a couple of times, but Margie just met him with quiet indifference or a 'not now'. Her relationship with her brother wasn't something she liked to discuss even on the best of days, and if she could avoid it all together then that was a bonus. But that argument was going to come back to haunt her, she could tell. Darwin hated being undercut by people, especially people he thought were 'deviants' or 'failures'. Herself included.

Margie didn't know what she was expecting when Joey unlocked the door, but to find the four people she was going to spending her night with already hooked up to their Nerve Gears, strewn about the place and more than likely playing SAO was a little annoying. They had moved all the furniture to various parts of the admittedly spacious living room so that everyone would have a space to lie down on, with a space on the couch left open for her. 'How... Kind,' she thought as she and Joey stepped inside. "So I take it we'll be meeting up with them in the game world?"

Joey nodded and dropped his bag off near the kitchen counter before snagging a slice of pizza. "Mmhmm. No point in waiting for introductions when we can do it in game," he said through a mouthful of food. "Besides, -mmm this is some damn good pizza- it'll give us all a chance to build team synergy when we get together and start kicking ass!"

Margie only shook her head and set her bag down near her designated spot, a little index card that read 'New Girl' left haphazardly on display. Ignoring it for the moment, she reached into her bag and pulled out her new Nerve Gear, still in box and ready to be broken in. "And how will I know who they are? Not like they look like themselves in real life. At least I hope not. No one's that vain."

"That'll be easy. We all picked easy to remember names for the launch event, while me and the other Beta tester would add a BT after it so we would know what it meant," explained Joey as he stepped over a veritable viper's nest of wires and a body to reach the confused girl. "Mine's Smog B.T. Thought of yours yet?"

Margie shrugged and rubbed the cardboard containing her gateway into the game. "I dunno. I'll probably come up with it when I reach the input screen," she replied. "But skipping over that, you will help me in this game, right? You won't ditch me for these guys?"

"Margie, why would I ditch you? I said I would help you and I meant it. Besides, I am your host afterall. It would be pretty scummy of me to drop you off somewhere and go roaming around with my friends."

Margie sighed and put the box on the couch with a little smile. "Okay then. Help me unpack this and set it up. I'm good with consoles, not all this VR mumbo-jumbo."

Joey snickered to himself and grabbed a couple slices of pizza before stepping over his friends' prone bodies and offering them to her. "Might as well get some food in your stomach, kiddo. You may not feel it in there, but you'll get pretty hungry just laying there while your brain has all the fun."

She rolled her eyes and took the pizza from him, munching on the first slice before wolfing it and then the second one, not realizing how hungry she had been. "Mmphfahhh, that's some good pepperoni, glad we picked it up."

"Well, pizza is usually good when it's fresh," teased Joey as he unboxed her Nerve Gear. "Which is why we got it from that place just around the corner and not near the store."

"Sounds about right." She sat next to him and slipped off her coat and headphones as she poured over the instructions that had come out of the box. "So, you nervous?"

"Who, me? Pfft, no. I'm a Beta Tester, remember? Me and Donny practically helped debug the game, so don't worry, you'll be fine." He patted her on the head and ruffled her hair a bit. "Besides, I should be asking you that. This _is _your first trip into VR space, isn't it? Can't imagine you being all sunshine and roses about it."

She tried to laugh it off, but he did have her dead to rights on the nerves. She was a bit nervous about her first trip into the virtual space, but it wouldn't be alone, so it should be fine. "Yeah, I guess I am a bit nervous about it. I mean, I'm putting my brain in the invisible hands of a computer! How is that not scary?"

"Does that mean you don't want to do this anymore?" he asked. It was a fair question. If she felt afraid of something going wrong with the Nerve Gear, then it wouldn't be right to put her in one.

"No, I'll do it. Just a little afraid of what will happen _if_ something goes wrong, you know? New experiences and all."

Joey smiled gently and wrapped his arm around her shoulders loosely. "Understandable. I'll go in after you, okay? Make sure everything is shipshape out here in the real world."

That put a smile on her face and she nodded. "Alright then. In that case, suit me up. Let's get this show on the road!"

- **Inside the Nerve Gear** -

The first thing she noticed after Joey put the Gear on her head was that it was lighter that she thought. Cooler too; the padding was nice and chill to the touch and it was almost like it was meant to cradle the user's head.

"Okay now, Margie, can you hear me okay? I'm gonna lay you down now and turn this baby on. When I do, you'll blackout for a moment. That's the Gear connecting with your synapses and allowing you to join the game." Joey sounded so confident when he spoke about the technology going on with the NG, but all Margie could feel was this pit of anticipation starting to form in her gut.

She gave him a thumbs up and he slowly lowered her backwards onto the pillow that was to be her body's only friend while her mind ran free in this digital domain. "Do you remember what the command for starting the game was?" Margie folded her arms across her stomach and closed her eyes as he plugged in the wires to the computer that had been set up for her. A pleasant buzz tingled across her scalp and her body went slack.

"Link… Start."

And then everything went black. It felt like she was falling through a void of infinite space, her body weightless but somehow not. And then her feet touched the floor, something she wasn't expecting. She looked at her hands, turned them over this way and that, poked at her face. As far as she could tell, it was still her.

"Welcome to the Nerve Gear Registration Program. Please input your user identification information." Joey had told her what to do during this step of the process and it went by fast enough, though she had to admit, the interface had quite the pleasant sounding voice. Once all the information and settings she would want for future sessions with her NG were recorded, the darkness vanished in a bright flash of light and she was standing in a featureless, cylindrical room.

"Welcome to Sword Art Online's character creation system!" chirped a cheery voice from somewhere in the room. "Please, raise your left arm and swipe vertically through the air to access the system. There you will find an option to make your own character!"

Margie looked around curiously for the voice, wondering where it had come from before, with a shrug of her shoulders, swiped as instructed and lo and behold, numerous menus were available to her; one for each body part it seemed.

'Well this is… oddly specific,' she thought as she began molding her character; lengthening the hair, making the model a little taller than herself, a little more 'ahem' generous in the chest area and before she knew it she was done. Now all she needed was a name.

Tapping the name selector, Margie spun through dozens of names, none of which screamed out at her. They were all bland and lifeless, nothing that meant me. So she went to the character creator again and tapped above her head, opening the naming interface. 'How about Corveux?' It didn't mean anything, sounded fancy and no one would think twice about it when she was playing through the game.

With her name picked and character modeled, all that was left was to pick a weapon, which was easy enough. As they came up around her in a circle, Margie's eye immediately gravitated towards a thin sword with a tip as fine as a razor and she grinned gleefully. Reaching out, she gave it a touch and made sure to accept her choice of rapier as her starting weapon.

With all of that done, she could feel this pleasant buzzing at the back of her skull and the darkness took hold of her again, most likely to acclimate her to the game's world. When she opened her eyes once again, all she could see was blue sky and a grassy field before her.

"Welcome to Sword Art Online, Corveux! We do hope you enjoy your stay!"


	2. Day 1

So this was Sword Art Online?

Margie gave a glance around what she assumed to be the starting area when a gentle breeze caressed her face. Time seemed to stop for a moment as a trembling finger touched her cheek in disbelief. 'Wow. This VR stuff is actually pretty cool, all things considered.' She touched and poked at her cheeks and her rather plain looking tunic, enjoying the feel of the coarse fibers against her fingertips admittedly more than she should have, but if this was her first experience in this world, then she was going to enjoy it, damnit.

After a good couple of minutes geeking out over just how real the game made everything feel, Margie remembered the blade that lay sheathed on her hip. With a deep, calming breath to try and curb her excitement, she reached for her rapier, a favorite of hers in any RPG she played, and pulled it free slowly, listening to the all too realistic rasp of iron on leather as it rest in her hands. It was a thin little thing, unadorned with any pomp or circumstance, and it felt perfectly at home in her hand. A smile slowly spread across her lips at the blade's weight and heft. She was quick to mimic a stance she favored from some of her favorite games, finding that the blade was much lighter than she had suspected. Was that the game compensating for her lack of skill or was the blade indeed that light? More than likely the former, but when she thrust forward and nearly tripped over her leading foot, Margie was certainly glad no one was around to see the blunder.

"Well, that was less than satisfying," she muttered, trying again. This time, the point of her blade sang through the air, straight and true and she continued into another thrust before skipping back from an imaginary attack. Letting the point drop into the grass, her head fell back and a whoop of joyous laughter exploded from her chest. She had never felt happier in her life! With every lunge and every thrust she took, it was like the awful nature of the outside world had just melted away. There was only her, her sword and the breeze flowing through her hair as she became accustomed to the steps she was teaching herself. Two steps forward then a lunging step forward before a sidestep into three quick thrusts before two skips back was the longest string she could muster before she found it harder to breathe.

'Gotta work on longer strings of combos… exercise is gonna suck,' she mentally muttered as she sheathed she rapier. 'Footwork too. Can't trip up during a fight and cardio will be a must if I can tire my enemy before dealing with them.' With a little giggle, she opened up the menu and looked for a map to see where she was, with little success. There was a broad view map that told her she was on floor one and it was called Beginner Town, which, while helpful, did little to help her. She shut the menu with a sigh and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. 'Wonder where Joey and the others are? Probably off killing boars for XP or something,' she thought as she started off in an aimless direction, hoping to do some grinding of her own before finding the titular Beginner Town before nightfall.

As she wandered the wilderness, watching the sky above her, Margie couldn't help but wonder about the game she was currently in. What was the end goal of it? All MMOs, good or bad, had an end game. Was that floating spire off on the horizon a part of it? If so, what lay inside it? And what kind of post-game experience would there be for something like this? The possibilities, while not endless, were certainly intriguing. 'Focus, Margie. One step at a time. First, find the road. All roads lead to the starter town. Then you can speculate what'll happen to the game when you're situated,' she thought as she clapped her hands together to bring her focus back to the present.

"Right! No more distractions! I'm sure Joey's beside himself with worry, so I best-" she was interrupted from her schedule making by the sound of a snort. Turning her gaze earthbound, Margie barely had enough time to dodge out of the way of a charging boar, landing hard on her side but turning it into a natural tuck almost on pure instinct and springing up into a crouch. 'Yeah, definitely digging this game,' she thought as she unsheathed her rapier and eying the boar for a damage assessment. Couldn't deal too much damage, it was a low level creature. Even so, if she got her ass handed to her by a boar, she'd never live it down. Getting up slowly, she held her sword loosely in her hand as it kneaded the ground menacingly with its hoof and swung its head in a show of force. Unfortunately for it, Margie was a well practiced master of the art of mob killing, so when it charged at her again, she moved as if she were dancing, blade humming through the air as it glowed golden before striking true and digging into its body with deadly precision. As they passed by one another, she heard its dying squeal cut off into a gasping breath before it fell to the ground, laboring for breath as it digitized into particles of data.

She brushed her hair away from her face and let out a whoop of joy as the adrenaline rush from her first monster encounter began to fade into a pleasant buzzing sensation all over her body as she smiled to herself. It had all happened so fast that she hadn't been able to take in the beauty of her motions or how it had felt to kill the boar, but one thing's for certain, she was going to love this game.

Margie scanned the horizon quickly for more boars and spotted one quickly enough, as they weren't hard to miss when their fur is a dark blue against a verdant green backdrop. Grinning like a madwoman, she charged at it quickly, eager to gain the experience. In mid-stride, however, it heard her boots crushing grass underfoot and turned to face he'd, only to get the point of her rapier through its eye as it turned around. It flailed around a bit, but it soon fizzled and digitized after that. She shouldered her blade and sighed pleasantly as that warm buzzing feeling came back. 'Must be battle high,' she assumed as she wandered around, looking for more boars to kill for the experience.

It didn't take her long to find a few more boars to grind out for exp so she could level up, but it felt really good to do it. After what must have felt like at least a couple of hours, Margie wielded her rapier with a more confident air about her. That charge attack she had done before, while it had been on pure instinct before, was something she was doing on command in the middle of a combo string now. With just a little finesse, she could cancel a mid-step into the charge. It was a refreshing change of pace to watch your progress rise in tandem with your skill level through use instead of some arbitrary leveling system.

As her last boar fell, Margie was beginning to feel exhausted with her efforts to grind and brought up the map again. "Town isn't too far away. If I hoof it, I should be there within the half-hour." With a bright grin and a little fist pump, she turned in the direction of the town to start her jog. As she stepped forward, she was encompassed in a bright halo of light and when it dissipated she was surrounded by an immeasurable number of players, all looking as confused as she was. Well… probably a smidgen less than her because the teleport had carried over her momentum and she had stepped into someone's back with the speed she was going to push off with. With a cry of shock, both tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs and weaponry. Some colorful words were exchanged as they disentangled from each other, but they could barely hear each other over the sound of the numerous conversations going on around them. As he pushed her off of him, Margie could only stare dumbly around at the gathered players and wonder aloud, "What's going on?"

"Margie! Margie, hey!" She blinked and looked around quickly, the voice snapping her out of her stupor and she grabbed someone's sword to help haul herself up to her feet, at the expense of them trading places with her. Oops. As she tried to get away from the surprised player she had just dragged down, Margie was looking around for whoever was shouting her real world name out to everyone in the crowd. Top dollar was Joey, but she wasn't putting it past him to have told his friends her real name. "Would you all just… Margie! Wait right there!" Well, she would know soon enough, cause the voice was getting louder and closer the more she politely shoved people out of her way.

"Damnit girl, would you stop moving! These legs aren't as long as yours!" She whipped around at that and saw someone squeezing their way between two players before falling down in front of her as she came free. She looked up at her and gave a halfhearted thumbs up, to which she gave one back before crouching next to her.

"You must be one of Joey's friends. Pleasure to finally meet you." She held out a hand to help her up and she just arched an eyebrow curiously. "What? Is it something I said?"

"No, no. Just surprised you think I'm one of my friends is all," laughed the girl as she took her hand. Despite the disbelief in her eyes, Margie pulled her up as she stood. "Don't know where they are though," she said she looked around the crowd, trying to peer through the gaps in the people milling about, hoping someone would know what was going on. "Guess we got separated."

"Joey? That you?" She cautiously asked, uncertain of her assertion. When she looked up at her with a toothy grin, Margie socked her in the shoulder. "You ass! You said you would be easy to recognize!"

Where Joey was tall and lanky, this woman was shorter than me by a good six inches and full figured. If he had a constant dirty blonde bedhead, she had long, flowing locks of deep black and these eyes that reminded me of the sea that looked like they could knock even the hardest man on his ass. And this was the woman who was calling her name!?

She put her hands up in appeasement and smiled teasingly. "I never said that. I said my name would be easy to find," she replied as she pointed to the corner of her HUD where her name was. As she noticed it, Margie blew an exasperated breath of air out of the corner of her mouth. "Speaking of which, your name sounds French."

"Yeah, it is. Doesn't mean anything," she muttered sullenly. "So what's with this gathering of people? I didn't see anything about it on the menu feed."

"Beats me. I was in the middle of a fight when I got 'ported here. Been hunting for my friends ever since we got here but no such luck." As she gave 'Joey' a once over, she figured it was little wonder why.

"Maybe it's cause you're so short?" she asked. She shot a dirty look at her and she stuck her tongue out at friend before a steadily darkening sky caught her gaze. "Hey, look. I think something's going on."

As she, and everyone else, noticed the sun being eclipsed by… something, words began to make themselves known amongst the blackness that had taken up the skybox. "System Announcement" and "Warning" were repeated over and over to create a dome of crimson hexagons above their heads. A hushed sort of panic was quick to spread across the crowd, but it was nothing that couldn't be solved by a few reassuring words here or there. But when a being clothed in red robes with golden trim with their face hidden by a hood and shadows manifests from crimson goop that bleeds down from the sky? Kind of hard to calm someone down after they've seen something like that. "Joey... Was this part of the Beta?" she asked, a trace of fear starting to creep into her voice.

"No... I don't remember this kind of event being even talked about among us BTs," murmured the girl as she stared at the being.

That was when the entity spoke.

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko and I am the father of this world that you are now living in." Hushed voices of confusion could be heard throughout the crowd after the booming echo of his voice had died down, both at who this was and his choice of words. World they were living in? What did he mean by that? "As some of you more astute players are aware, the logout prompt has been removed. This is not a bug and it is not some kind of joke, I assure you, in case there are some of you who believe this to be some kind of launch day event. This is, in fact, by design." He let his words sink in for a moment, as if savoring the mounting fear that this revelation had instilled in his players. "When you put on your Nerve Gears, a protocol was set in place that is linked to the completion of this game. If, for whatever reason, your Nerve Gear is removed from its connection to the game, the transmitter that is beaming your consciousness into this world to make this," he gave a grand, sweeping gesture to emphasize his point, "a reality will emit a powerful microwave, causing irreparable damage to your brain. Unfortunately, two-hundred and thirteen people have been killed because outside forces tried to remove their Nerve Gears. Rest assured that news outlets are aware of these deaths, so the chances of your deaths by the Nerve Gear being removed is minimal at best. Thusly, you are all trapped in this world until someone reaches the 100th floor of Aincrad and defeats me in pitched combat.

"However, because I have trapped you in this world of mine, I would like to reiterate this point to you all. If you die in this game, as in you lose all of your HP, the same effect will be done to your mind. As I said, there is only one way to be released from my world, as this is very much my world to control, and that is to defeat me. There is no cheating life, as there is no cheating death." A gamut of emotions ran through the crowd, ranging from threats of death upon the cloaked man to pleas of mercy and bargains for lives spared. But he wasn't done yet. "There is one more thing I shall leave you with before I depart. Please, take a look in your inventories. A gift has been given to each of you."

A ding announcing something hitting Margie's inventory awoke her from her glazed stare. Fear guided her hand as she opened her menu and went into her inventory screen. Sitting there as if it had every right to be there was a 'Hand Mirror' of all things. Morbid curiosity compelled her to pick it up, but she guessed it was because everyone else was doing it. 'Peer pressure and curiosity… what a fine mixture,' she groused wryly.

Her hand trembled as she held the mirror, though she didn't know why. Whether it was a fear of the unknown that lay before her or the crisis that she had found herself neck deep in, she couldn't say. The mirror itself was a plain hand mirror, nothing special about it. It was purple and felt like cheap plastic, like one of those toys you would play with as a kid. But as she stared into her reflection and at her character's bouncing blonde curls, that tingling sensation came back. A bright, blinding light engulfed her and as it dispersed, she blinked the dark spots from her eyes. As her gaze readjusted to the mirror, her reflection had changed.

Her hair was long, messy, brunette and in desperate need of a combing. Her eyes, no longer green, were now a murky hazel with speckles of green and orange and her cheeks were a little more round than she remembered making them. In fact... The realization dawned on her at the same time as it did Joey. He was no longer the young beauty but what he looked like in real life, standing bewildered as one by one people were stripped of their avatars and returned to their original selves.

"This is my final gift to you: Truth. If this is the life that you will be living until it is completed, there is no reason to be living behind masks made of fake names and idealized faces." Panic, which had been brewing under the skin of the crowd like a beast lying in the shadows for its prey, pounced with a fury unlike any other. What started out as murmured conversation and the occasional hurled threat to build confidence blossomed into screams of terror and a mass exodus of people trying to leave the square they had been teleported into. Threats and bargains alike were hurled towards Kayaba, adding to the cacophony of noise that stirred the crowd into an even worse frenzy. And yet Margie was stunned into silence. Her mind was flooded with images of the various ways that she could die in the game. She could barely feel it when someone was shaking her by the shoulders but when she was slapped across the face, everything came back in a rush of screams and sensation. She felt like she was going to vomit.

"We have to go! Now!" Joey was in her face, eyes worried and yet determined. When she nodded weakly, he turned and grabbed her hand as he tried to drag her towards a gate that wasn't filled with people, shoving others unceremoniously out of their way. As they tried to make their escape, Margie couldn't help but look around at the various faces around them. Children, men, women, young, old. They were here together in this death game and yet had never felt so alone. That urge to vomit was growing stronger and stronger with each step and she had to physically put a hand to her mouth before she remembered that this was a game. she couldn't vomit.

"Joey…" she whimpered, the noise almost being drowned out by the ambient din around them. "Are we going to be okay?" He didn't say anything as he led her to the gate, leaving her to stew in her thoughts as he shoved an entangled couple aside. And the more she stayed there, amidst the darker and darker machinations of her imagination, the more she wanted someone to talk to. She didn't want to stay locked up in her own thoughts, so she just blurted, "Are we going to die?"

That got him to stop cold. He whirled on her faster than she thought he could move and he grabbed her shoulders, his head hung so she couldn't see what kind of expression he was wearing, but she could almost tell by the way his shoulders were trembling. "I don't know, Margret. I honestly don't know. I wasn't… I couldn't have known this was how it was going to go. Maybe your brother is right… maybe I am a deadbeat, but I will do all I can to save us from this nightmare. Do you understand me?"

Margie was silent for a moment, unsure of what she was going to say to him. Instead, she numbly nodded her head and reached for his hand for security. When he took it, she squeezed it tightly, tears dewing in her eyes already. "Joey… I… F-F-F-Fuck…" She pressed her head into his shoulder and cried, clutching tightly to him as she felt the weight of the situation come crushing down on top of her. She wanted the world to swallow her up at that moment, for this entire digital nightmare to have never happened.

"It'll be okay, Margie. We'll figure something out together, okay?" he murmured softly. She almost couldn't hear his voice over the roar of pandemonium , but to hear his voice in her ear was enough of a salve to keep her fears away. For the moment. "Come on, let's go. I'm sure my friends are worried sick about us by now." She brushed a hand across her eyes and nodded, doing her very best to block out the sounds of panic and fear that were ever present around her.


	3. Night 1: Heart to Heart

By the time everyone had filtered out of the square and into the town proper, night had well and truly fallen. Normally, the stars in the sky, as bright and as plentiful as they were in this world, were meant to be a soothing thing to the players. With how the game sometimes depicted beautiful star showers or, in some places, a gorgeous view of a nebula in various shades of purples and blues, it's easy to see how. But today, with everyone's nerves fraying over the news of what had transpired, they were just another reminder of how much trouble they were in.

Joey and Margie had gotten themselves lost in the town, looking for a place to spend the night, though as more time passed and the deeper into the town they got, the more despondent they became. Hope wasn't a luxury they could afford at the moment and even Joey, with his bullheaded nature and determination to keep Margie's spirits afloat, was beginning to fade. As he pulled them down a street he could have sworn they had been down before, he could feel her let go of his hand. The lack of warmth was almost painful.

"Joey," she began, voice unsure as they both looked at each other. "Do you know where you're even going?"

The doubt in her voice stung, but he had to grin and bear it. For both of them. "I'm looking for a place to spend the night, where else?" There was that suredness again. It was his lifeline. They had seen people huddle together, rocking back and forth in a state of shock. Others were simply shut down, standing there like they were utterly lifeless. Its was chilling to see how some of these people were taking it and Joey refused to let that happen to them.

"Joey… we don't have any money for a place to stay, you know that, don't you?" she asked hesitantly. She was rubbing her fingers against her forearm gently, but he could see that she was desperately trying not to grip her tunic sleeve. "What're we gonna do to pay an innkeep even if we do find an inn tonight? Sell them our weapons? And what about you? Are you gonna keep running around in those clothes now that… well, this has happened?"

Before he could respond, a door next to them was thrown open, flooding their little square of the street with candlelight. "An' nex' time peel them potatas right, ya lazy bastard!" Turning in unison, Joey and Margie stared at the woman standing in the doorway next to them. She was about Margie's height, if not a little taller and definitely more full figured. She looked liked she ate well every night, unlike her, whose diet mostly consisted of instant noodles, soda, takeout and the occasional salad. "Well, aren' ya two a sigh' fer sore eyes! Don' jus' stan' there gawkin' like a buncha slack jaw'd cows! Come, come, don' be shy now!"

Confusion was rampant between the two of them, but the dominant personality of this innkeeper had them inside the comforting embrace of the inn's lobby before they could utter a phrase of protest. Closing the doors behind them with a soft click of the lock, she casually walked behind the counter and leaned against the aged wood, propping her chin up onto her the palm of one of her hands while the other reached into her tunic for something. "So. Wha' brings ya intah mah inn?"

Margie and Joey looked at each other, unsure of who should speak up first. In the end, Joey was the one who took charge. "Um… miss?"

With a wave of her hand and a bright, almost infectious smile, she interrupted him. "Don' be callin' me miss, laddie." Pulling a small pipe with a golden ring around its oaken finish and a packet of matches out, she popped it between her lips and lit it accordingly. Taking a slow puff from her pipe, she motioned for him to continue with a little nod of her head. "The name's Eva."

"Right… Eva." Joey placed his hands onto the counter, trying to support himself. It was strange for Margie to watch her friend try so hard for her sake. No one had asked him to, but there he was, making his stand for her sanity. And what was she doing? Poking holes in his plans, no, his hope. He was hoping that this 'person' was going to give them refuge, otherwise they were going to have to find a place to sleep outside. "I won't mince words with you, we need a place to stay the night and we need it badly. Before you opened up your doors to us, we weren't even sure we'd find a place that would open their doors. So… I guess what I'm asking here is, will you put us up for the night? We won't be a bother, I swear! You'll hardly know we're here." Margie nodded silently and clung to his arm, expecting to be thrown right out onto their asses. What shocked both of them was the hearty laugh that rippled out of the innkeeper's throat.

"Nonsense!" The redhead ducked behind her counter, the sounds of obvious rummaging easily heard in the quiet lobby. "Today is -oh where'd I pu' the bloody things- a special evenin'!" When she finally came back up for air there were a large stack of colorful fliers in her arms. Dropping them onto the counter, with a cloud of dust exploding from them, she swiped a hand across the top of the stack and picked one up from the stack to show it off. Clearing her throat, Eva read,'"All guests are allowed a complimentary night's stay'!" With a satisfied nod, she offered the flier to Joey. "In other wor's, ya ge' tah stay fer free tonight, no charge!"

Joey took the flier gingerly, hand shaking as he was close to tears. "Th-Thank you!"

Again, Eva just waved it away and jerked a thumb towards a flight of nearby stairs. "Don' thank me, laddie. Jus' par' o' the promotion is all," she replied, her joviality slipping a tad as she took another puff from her pipe. "Yer room is jus' up the stairs. Firs' door on the lef'."

Joey nodded and began to head up to their room when he noticed Margie not with him. She was still standing at the counter, clearly struggling with something while she fretted with the sleeve of her tunic. Eventually, she up and said, "What about a key? Do the doors not lock?"

Eva, in all her wisdom, gave her a sly smile around her pipe. "Course not! So I 'ope ya won' be plannin' nothin' tha' be needin' a lock." With a wink that made Margie blush in shock, Eva was back to her cheery self again.

As she made her way over to Joey, he couldn't help but laugh a little as she hurried herself up the stairs passed him. 'That's more like it...' he thought as he followed after her. 'I don't think I could have handled another moment of silence from her.'

The two of them made it to their room easily enough. Like Eva said, up the stairs, first room on their left. The room was sparsely furnished, which was to be expected for an inn in the starter town. Two beds, a bedside table in between them with an oil lantern on top and a weapon rack for storing their weapons during the night. Huffing through his nose, Joey unlimbered his spear from his back and slid it into the wooden stock before falling onto the nearby bed. "Sleep… sleep is good."

Margie couldn't agree more. But as she went to take off her rapier, she hesitated. Instead, she shook her head and kicked off her boots before falling onto the not-so-comfortable bed. There, she unbuckled her rapier and hugged her arms around it for security. She knew nothing bad could happen to her inside a town, after all, it was a safe zone, but it felt… right to have the sword there. It reminded her of the joy that had bloomed in her chest not a few hours ago. She drew her blade a little to listen to the rasp of iron against leather and it sent a shiver down her spine, but it also made her heart ache. Ache for what? She didn't know.

"Margie?" Joey's voice shook her from her thoughts and she opened eyes she hadn't realized she had closed to look at him. "You okay?"

A deep, shuddering breath followed and she shook her head. "No, Joey, I'm not okay." Her words came off as a little more biting than she had intended, but she soldiered on. "We're trapped in this game for who knows how long with no idea how we're going to get out." Then it dawned on her and she sat up like she had been shocked by a bolt of lightning, her sword clattering noisily onto the floor. "What if no one finds our bodies!? We'll die from starvation! Or dehydration! O-"

"Margaret!" Joey was sitting up now, gripping the sheets of his bed so tight that his knuckles were turning white. "I know you're scared right now, trust me, I am too, but you aren't the only one in this room who's feeling that way. So, if you wouldn't mind keeping your speculation to yourself, I would greatly appreciate it."

"Speculation!?" She jabbed a finger at him angrily, her temper flaring. "This isn't speculation Joseph, this is reality. We don't have a way to put food or water into our bodies while playing the game. If we can't log out," she opened her menu for emphasis on her point, "then how do you propose we fucking get out of her alive in time for our bodies to, oh, I don't know, not _fucking eat themselves_!"

"Don't you think I fucking know that!" he yelled back. "I was thinking about that the moment Kayaba said we were trapped in his game." Dragging a hand through his hair, he tried not to laugh at the look of angry confusion on her face. "I was trying to think of everyone I might have told about our gaming night who might know where we are, who might actually be watching a TV or might actually be bothered to come bring our whereabouts to the authorities. But what do I know, right? I'm clearly not thinking about this as hard as you are. I'm only kicking myself for bringing _five other people into this game with me_! So the next time you think you know better than me about the problems we're having, quick tip: you probably don't."

Margie recoiled visibly from the scathing heat in his tone, almost pressing her back against the wall. "I… I'm sorry Joey…" she mumbled meekly, her anger towards their situation quickly giving way to sadness and fear again. Without saying another word to him, she crawled under her sheets as gingerly as possible and kept her back to him as she tried to go to sleep.

Joey realized his mistake a minute too late and he ground the heels of his palms into his eyes before falling back onto his bed. 'Great job, genius. Yell at the girl who already has a guy doing that in her life. Brilliant.' With a groan, he dragged out his map and spent the rest of the night plotting out a course to the second town, highlighting possible monster spawns and potential kill zones that they should avoid. As he circled a valley that he remembered from the beta, his mind couldn't help but wander to his friends. If they were together, they'd probably be planning out how to take out bosses on the next five floors, figuring the boss on this one was a forgone conclusion. 'They're probably off killing mobs in the middle of the night… Crazy idiots. Sounds like something they would do.'

After sufficiently mapping out the floor to the best of his memory, he closed off his menu and reached over to dim the lamp so he could sleep when he caught a glimpse of Margie looking at him. She had turned over when he was pouring over his map and had been silently watching him, almost afraid to saying anything to him. When their gazes met, he heaved a sigh. "Margie… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. You have every right to express your frustrations and I shouldn't throw them down your throat like that."

Pulling the blanket down from over her mouth, she nodded. "Apology accepted."

With a soft smile, Joey reached for the lantern and turned the knob to dim the light before letting the day's excitement and horror catch up to him. As his eyes slipped shut and his body began to finally relax, he heard the sound of gentle snoring from across the room. Margie had finally gone to sleep and he was quick to join her.


	4. Day 2

Morning crept upon the slumbering players like a playful younger sibling. It slipped it's way into crevices and through open windows by way of the smell of fresh bread and the sounds of shops opening for the day. Shopkeepers joked and bantered with each other while setting up displays. Bakers put out their daily wares. The market was getting ready to be opened and the town, while still a little sleepy, was abuzz with excited energy. As the sun began to rise a little higher in the sky, the players that had stayed behind the night prior began to stir. Many were greeting the dawn with gleeful, if not delusional, optimism, treating it and the prior day's announcement announcement as a hoax. Any minute now, the logout button would come back onto the menu and they'd be able to leave and come back as they saw fit.

Those who weren't waiting for a button that was never going to come cursed the sun's arrival and regarded it with aggravated realism. They were all in it for the long haul, so there was no point in waiting for a nebulous miracle to save them. They figured that anyone who had stayed behind during the night was either lying to themselves or gearing up to leave. But no matter how they looked at the day, or their peril in general, they could all agree on one thing: they had survived their first night in SAO.

Margie, however, greeted it with a few choice words. As a rooster crowed proudly from some nearby perch, she smacked her hand against the frame of her bed in aggravation. "Someone shut that fucking bird up!" Not one to get up early unless she absolutely had to, she was surprised she had gotten to sleep at all given the situation. Though, looking as she blearily looked at the state of her sheets, she realized how fitful her sleep had been, seeing as she was entangled with them. With a long, protracted groan, she shoved her head under her pillow and tried to go back to sleep, hoping the rooster would quiet itself soon.

Joey wasn't faring any better. The sunlight that was peeking through the part in the curtain was jabbing him right in to the eyes. Rubbing his knuckles into his eyes, he tried to escape the sun's persistent gaze by rolling onto his side. Unfortunately, he rolled the wrong way and ended up off his bed, hitting the floor with a loud thud and a muffled groan as he fell onto his face. Reaching up, he blindly searched for his pillow before grabbing it and trying to go back to sleep.

Eventually, the two managed to drag themselves out of their cathartic states, not like they wanted to, Margie had a harder time of it, but managed to make it out of her cocoon of fabric and cotton through much frustration and wiggling. As they took stock of their current state of being, the first words out of their mouths were, "You look like shit." The words sounded strained, almost forced with how casual they were spoken. The argument from last night, though resolved, still lingered over their heads like a fog.

To try and cut the awkward air between them, Joey spoke first. "So… I drew up a map of possible spawn locations where we might farm for wolves today… You know, if you're up for it."

"Of course I'm up for it, why wouldn't I be?" she blurted, the words tumbling out of her mouth faster than she wanted them to.

"Margie… We can talk about it if you want. You don't have to keep this to yourself," he offered though she turned away from him when he offered his hand to her.

"Look, let's just drop it, okay?" she snapped, though it was half-hearted at best. "Just show me the map so we can get out of here."

Joey hesitated but acquiesced in the end. Opening up his map, he pointed to the various places he had marked out the night before. "Well… we're probably not gonna be doing much else but grinding today. Since we don't have a lot of money for supplies and not much experience, we'll be staying in town for a while," he said, highlighting specific places nearby. "If my memory serves well, these four areas to the west should be farm worthy for money and wolf pelts. To make it clearer for us, I marked them with circles. If you want, I can show you ho-"

"I can figure it out on my own, thanks," grumbled Margie pointedly before turning to make her bed. Virtual world or not, someone probably had to make it up.

Joey frowned but didn't make a big deal of it. If she wanted to shut him out, he'd give her the space she wanted. She'd come to him when she wanted to talk, but he didn't know how he would react when she did. Deep down, he was feeling the same way, but he had to keep a strong front for the both of them. 'Maybe you shouldn't have told her she had free reign to complain to you,' grumbled an annoyed part of his mind. As much as he wanted to disagree with it, he felt a little put out by the fact that she didn't want to confide him. With a sigh, he sat down on his bed and waited for her to finish making up her bed, pouring over his map and trying to sort out his thoughts.

'Just tell him, dumbass,' she thought irritably as she yanked the blankets into place. 'Just say 'hey, I'm afraid of dying out there!' How hard is that to say?' Throwing her pillow haphazardly at the head of the bed, she sat down heavily onto it, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance. 'But of course I can't! No, I have to take my fear out on him. Some friend I am.'

The two of them sat in silence, ruminating in their thoughts before Margie couldn't take it anymore. The silence was killing her. Someone needed to say something. "I'm scared alright!"

Joey looked up from his map, not sure what to say to that, so he stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't and instead stared back at him, fuming, he closed his menu and clasped his hands lightly. "I am too."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Joey. At least you've played this game before! The only experience I have with this kind of game is behind a controller where, if I died, I can just go 'oh darn I died' and restart the fucking game. But here? One mistake, one false step, one slipped stab and this thing," she jabbed at her head with a thumb, "is jelly! So I'm sorry if I'm being harsh, but I am terrified of everything outside of the safety of this town. Nothing can kill me in here!"

"I agree."

"What!?"

"I agree. We're safest in town. Nothing can hurt us, nothing can kill us. Players'll come and go all the time, so we can still know what's going on." He took a deep breath and leveled a stern gaze at her, steeling himself for what he had to say. "But it's not what I plan on doing. See, knowing my friends, they're long ahead of us. Probably almost reached the second town by now. They know the risks of playing this game just as much as your or I, but they don't care. All they care about is getting the most out of the experience."

"Yeah bu-" she started, but he cut her off with a raised hand.

"Let me finish. I plan on finding them and getting as far as we can together. No matter how long that'll actually take, we'll meet up. Whether that's with or without you is your call."

"But you said…" started Margie, but she visibly deflated as he shook his head. "You're a dick, Joey, you know that?"

He nodded, the way she looked at him, eyes full of betrayal and hurt, felt like a dagger in his heart. "I am. But when it comes to my friends, I try not to joke around too much if their lives are on the line." Standing up, he offered her his hand. "You're free to come with me, you know. Two people stand a much better chance out there than one. And I could use someone to watch my back."

She looked at him, emotions warring with each other inside of her for dominance. She didn't know what she wanted. She fully believed that Joey was going to leave her here if she didn't follow after him. Which was what she wanted, wasn't it? Like he said, the town was safe, hell it was the safest place in the game. As far as they knew, there weren't any restrictions on just staying in town indefinitely. She could bum it under a bridge if she absolutely had to, but she'd be safe. So why was this so hard to say no to? Why did he have to give her this stupid question? Why did he have to back her into a corner like this? Wasn't he her friend?

Gritting her teeth against the tears that wanted to well up in her eyes, she slapped his hand away and climbed to her feet. "Grab your fucking spear and let's go." Wrenching the door open harder than she needed, she didn't wait for him to follow after her.

Joey watched her go and dragged a hand through his hair as he tried desperately not to cry. It was a hard thing for him to do, tricking her into going out of the town like that. She was going to hate him for threatening to leave her behind and most likely want to kill him when she found out it was a just a trick. 'Well… it worked didn't it?' he thought with a humorless smile. 'She doesn't want to stay in town anymore.' Grabbing his spear, he slipped it into the leather loop on his back before it dematerialized into his inventory. Taking a long, steadying breath for the wrath he was going to face for the rest of the day, he headed downstairs, only to find Margie wasn't there.

'Oh fuck.' Feeling panic rising in his chest, he turned his attention to Eva, who was resting against her counter with her pipe planted firmly between her teeth. She didn't look very happy. "Um… Eva, you didn't see the girl I had come in with last night by any chance, did you?"

"Oh, ya mean the goo' fer nothin' tramp who can' even spa' the time o' day tah gree' a person? Yeh, I seen 'er," she grumbled as she tapped some ash into a nearby tray. "Stompin' aroun' here like she own the damn place an' she 'as the gal dern nerve to kick open the fron' doors! Nex' 'ime I see 'er I'mma wring 'er damn neck!"

"So… so you're saying she went outside?" said Joey, that rising panic blooming into full blown nausea as he bolted out the front door, a rushed thank you hurled behind him. Scanning the street, he didn't know where to start looking. Pulling up his map, he looked for the nearest gate to the world at large, which was to the west. Figuring she was going that way, he sprinted as hard as his legs could carry him there, praying that she hadn't already gone through. It took him a while, as he hadn't had time to explore the entirety of the town to commit it to memory, but when he finally made it to the gate, out of breath and doubled over trying to breathe, he found her sitting on a nearby set of steps, staring at the plains outside the walls.

"Oh, you caught up with me. Great." She wiped the heel of her palm against her eye gently to dry her tears. "Was hoping you'd leave me alone for a little while longer."

"Why'd… you run… kick door… inn keeper angry… Me out of shape…" gasped Joey as he trudged over to those steps and slumped down onto them to catch his breath.

Margie looked at him incredulously and snorted quietly in disbelief. "Really? You're going to ask me that now? After the shit you just pulled? You really are a piece of work Joey." Turning her gaze back to the grassy fields, she folded her arms across her knees loosely. "Did you mean what you said back there? About leaving me behind?"

He was silent for a moment, save for his gasping breath, before he answered. "Would… would it make you feel any better if you knew the truth?"

She snorted again and shook her head. "You know… I thought, out of all of the shit I had been through in my life, you were the one thing I could depend on." Letting her fingers curl into fists slowly, she sighed. "Guess I was wrong."

"Margie…" he started, but the withering glare she shot him, with her eyes rimmed with tears and cheeks wet with those that had fallen already, made his voice die in his throat until all that came out was a croak.

"No. You lost the privilege to call me that. It's either Margaret or nothing at all." There wasn't any anger in her voice, only sadness. "Hope it was worth it, Joey."

Forcing herself to stand with a body stiff with tension, she put a hand on the pommel of her sword. "Where's the first spawn zone you wanted us to go through?"

Joey was silent, stunned into it by her words. His mind was trying to reboot after the sound lashing that it had been and when Margret's hand lashed out and cracked against his cheek, his screech of "Fuck!" was loud and full of a cocktail of emotions.

"I'm not going to ask again, Joey. So either tell me or I'll find someone who-"

"Alright, alright… shit…" he muttered. Rubbing his cheek as the game at least did its job of making the redness go away, he pulled up the map from his inventory. "I was gonna suggest we go here." He pointed out a circled off area not too far off from the town. "Shouldn't be too populated with low level creatures. Once we're done there, there should be another one about a ten minutes walk from that spot to the northwest."

She stared at the map for a moment, trying to tell the type of terrain from the map layout, and shook her head. "Fine. Lead the way, wonder boy."

Grunting as he pushed himself off the steps, Joey didn't say anything as he walked by her. He knew the score now. He'd tread on a line he should have known would have, at the very least, strained her trust in him, and because of that, he was going to have to work at crawling back across that line. Rubbing his still stinging cheek, he could scarcely imagine what was going through Margaret's head at the moment.

The walk was held in relative silence. Joey had tried to strike up a conversation, but all he was met with was stone faced silence. So, to give himself something to do, he talked strategy. "These wolves are your basic mob. They're just like the boars, but they fight in packs of around four or five strong. So long as we stick together, we should be fine." Margaret snorted derisively at that, but he ignored it and continued. "They don't have a lot of health, seeing as they're a starting area monster, so they can still kill you if you aren't careful."

"What can't?" she muttered sullenly as she crossed her arms across her chest sullenly.

Smiling just a little now that she had broken her silence, he shrugged. "Fair enough, but if we're patient, we should be fine," he replied with a wry smirk.

She just glowered at him but didn't reply as they continued to walk through the quiet expanse of nature around them. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, there was a beauty to this digitized greenery that Margaret could get behind. The serenity of a gentle breeze breaking across one's face, the scent of grass and wilderness pungent in one's nose. She was certain that if she were to touch the ground, her mind would think that she were really in a field; touching the ground, feeling the soil move and shift beneath her questing touch.

'And yet I don't want to stay, do I?' she thought, her anger starting to return from its bed of smoldering coals in the small, dark part of her heart. 'I want to leave. I want to choose whether or not I get to experience this wonder, not be forced into it by someone pretending to be God.' Her teeth were grinding as her fury began to mount, stoked by the choice stolen from her into a roaring inferno.

"Margie? You okay?" Joey's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she looked around, looking at her surroundings for the first time since she had started to lose it.

They were standing at the crest of a hill that was steeper on the other side, dipping into a shallow valley that was kept from the morning sun's warm glow by the hill on it's opposite side. From their perch atop the hill, they could see across the plains for a good ways around, with little dots of color milling about on the horizon on either side. Looking down into the valley itself, she found there wasn't much to get excited over, just grass and a couple of sheep that had gotten away from their herd.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath as she desperately tried to quell the sea of flames that threatened to boil over inside of her heart, she sat down hard and glared down at the innocent sheep minding their own business. "Joey… do you think we were brought here for a reason?" Her tone was measured, but she was cracking beneath it. Fissures in her cold, indifferent facade began to make themselves known, and she didn't want to go back to caring, back to who she was earlier.

Joey sat down next to her, watching the sheep grazing, enjoying their simple existence. "To be honest? I don't know. To say that I know what we're doing here would be a boldfaced lie. Part of me just wants this to be some kind of sick joke that some hacker threw in to get back at someone and we all have to play a part in it… but then I have to wonder why take us along for the ride for that kind of revenge?" Leaning back onto his hands, he stared up at the sky, watching the clouds drift by. "On the other hand, there is every possibility that Kayaba is telling the truth and we are, in fact, trapped inside this game until someone beats him at his own game, so to speak. But if that's the case, he's trapped in here with us. Which raises another, equally important question: why? Why go through all this trouble to trap ten thousand people inside your game just to add yourself to the equation?"

"Maybe he likes to watch people squirm?" she asked, hugging herself around the middle gently, though her fingers dug into the fabric of her tunic for what little comfort it could provide. "You saw how everyone reacted in the square; there wasn't a person there that wanted this to happen except him."

"True, though we don't know that yet."

That got her attention, though her mind filled in the blanks a couple seconds later and her eyes went wide. "That's sick, Joey."

"I didn't say anything, Margaret. I only put the idea out there," he said with a shrug. "But think about it. In this world, what's the worst that can happen if you act out a fantasy of yours? Before today that answer would have been nothing. PKing is frowned upon, yes, but certainly not villainized. Hell, I dabbled in it a little during the beta, but I certainly didn't get hunted down like a wild animal for doing it. But now, with what Kayaba has done, what do you think some people are going to do?"

"Joey… I don't want to talk about it anymore. Just drop it." Margaret looked physically ill as she clutched her stomach. Just the thought of another player trying to kill her sent her paranoia meter up another notch and that facade gained another spider web of cracks to it.

"Just food for thought, that's all." Turning to her, he gave a her gentle smile. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. It's ju-" Her fist cut him off as she punched him square in the jaw, sending him reeling.

"I don't want to hear your justification for talking about such a topic!" she snapped before climbing to her feet. "We are not going to be like them, do you understand me!" As he was holding his nose and working his jaw slightly, she grabbed the front of his tunic and hauled him up so that they were eye level. "I don't care if we have to sneak by other players, we are never going to be PKers. I will not be responsible for killing someone's son or daughter or father or mother. You get me, Joey? Cause if you don't, I will personally throw you to the first enemy we see!"

Joey nodded, surprised at the passion she had in her voice, and she shoved him back to the ground. "Good. Now, where the fuck is this spawn supposed to be?" she grunted before rubbing her neck irritably. "I'm itching to kill a wolf or something."

Pushing himself onto his knees with a groan, surprised how much he was hurting despite the game's best efforts to remedy the issue, he pointed down into the valley. "Down there. Unless they moved it sometime between the beta and now."

"Wouldn't that be something." Without uttering another word to him, she unsheathed her raper and slid down the slope of dew slickened grass into the valley, disturbing the sheep with her entry into their grazing area. Giving a quick look around the small indentation, she deduced that there was nothing there and that, indeed, the spawn had been moved. "Hey! Looks like you were right! Nothing's coming out to attack me, so it looks like we're going somewhere else to hunt for wolves!"

Joey rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "Well… if this place is a bust, then it's best to assume that the other places are too!" he called back down to her as he opened up his map to erase his marks. With this revelation, he didn't know where to put down his marks now, but he did put a check over the valley they were standing in. No point in coming to the same place twice.

As he was doing that, Margaret had started to scale the opposite hill. "Stupid hill… should've gone around the side instead," she grumbled as she nearly stumbled as her boots caught on a particularly wet patch of grass. As she neared the crest of the hill, she began to hear the sounds of growls and the grunts of battle. 'Huh, guess we weren't wrong after all.' Hastening her pace, she made her way to the top of the hill, hand on the handle of her sword, when something slammed into her chest with enough force to knock the breath out of her. Tumbling ass over teakettle backwards back down the way she came, Margaret ended in a neat little heap at the bottom, panting for breath and disoriented from her spill. That is until something heavy landed on top of her. Something that… dripped?

With a groan and a swipe of her hand across her face, her eyes fluttered open to see what had landed on top of her, only to widen when she saw rows of fangs baring down in front of her. Her heart seemed to stop for a moment as time slowed to a crawl, adrenaline slamming through her veins. Her eyes darted to and fro and her hands found purchase around its snout, digging desperately into its mouth to keep from getting bitten while she tried to gather her hips to leverage the wolf off of her, but it didn't work; it was just too heavy. Spittle and drool flung onto her face in copious amounts and she cringed at just how real it felt. It's teeth felt just sharp enough to dig into her fingers as it tried to snap its jaws shut against her grip, but she wasn't having it. If she couldn't push the damn thing off, then she would hold it at bay until Joey got there to kill it.

"Joey! Help me, damnit!" came her hoarse cry as she could see the red marks and flecks of digitized 'blood' floating away from where the wolf's teeth were digging into her fingers. 'Where the hell is he?!' Chancing a look away from the impending death above her, Margaret frantically looked around as far as she could without turning her head, hoping that he was running down the hill towards her. And he was. Towards the other wolves that had decided to finally show up. Her heart plummeted as she realized she was on her own until he could wade through the rest of the pack to reach her. 'Fuck my luck...' With a humorless laugh and tears welling in her eyes, she began to contemplate her options. Her arms couldn't hold out forever, in fact they were already starting to tremble from holding back the wolf's continuous pressure, and her rapier was nowhere near enough that she could drop a hand to grab it and stab the wolf.

"Margie! Damnit, you flea bitten mutts, get out of my way!" snarled Joey as his spear swung through a wide arc to force them back, but they wouldn't take the bait and they actually gathered even tighter around him, growing more bold the more desperate he became to save her. Snapping at his heels and jumping back whenever he took to wide a swing at them, they were herding him away from his intended goal.

At the sound of her name, Margaret looked over and watched as he was being slowly pushed to the other end of the valley, her hope flying away with each growl and snarl of the wolves around her friend. 'How did I get caught up in something this shitty so early!?' With an almighty heave, she pushed the wolf's muzzle to side and watched as its force carried it into the ground, dazing it for a second before it reared back to shake its head. Before she could act on what was basically an impromptu plan, the wolf howled in pain before it began to fizzle and shimmer as it died. Blinking in confusion, she could only stare in wonder as the wolf exploded into a number of sparkles and a small dagger that had been sticking out of its back. A flick of her hand kept it from falling into her gut, but she couldn't be bothered to worry about its owner now. Joey needed her help.

Sticking the dagger into her belt, she shook off her fingers with a loud, pained hiss and watched as the angry red gouges began to fade away but the pain was still there. 'Ignore the pain, help Joey...' she thought. A quick look around found her rapier laying on the ground nearby and she was swift to pick it up, gripping it tightly with a grim set of her jaw before taking off at a dead sprint towards the pack harassing Joey.

By the time she had gotten to him, he was out of breath and his swing was barely able to clear the distance anymore. The wolves looked ready to make the concerted effort to jump him at once when her rapier, glowing its signature gold, sang true and found a home in the spine of one. It's pained yelp brought her to their collective attention, but she was already moving on to the next one and it met its end with her blade deep in its eye. "Miss me?"

"How… Nevermind, glad you're here," he said, a tired smile spreading his cheeks wide as he gripped his spear with renewed vigor. The remaining wolves were more cautious now with the evened odds, but not deterred from their goal. Spreading themselves out to compensate for the lesser number, the pack circled around the two and forced them back to back.

"So, guess our first fight is going poorly," remarked Margaret as she held her blade out to ward off any eager wolf.

Joey snorted and rolled his eyes. "Don't know what you're talking about. I think this is a great lesson in humility."

Margaret shook her head and kicked out at a wolf that had thought it had caught her unawares, catching it square in the face with her boot and sending sprawling. "Oh really? That's the story you're gonna roll with?"

"Of course," he replied. As the wolf she had kicked staggered to its feet, they traded places and his spear found a home between its ribs, fizzling it away into nothingness. "After all, live and learn from our mistakes, right?"

"And what mistakes might those be? Don't run into a supposed spawn without checking first?" she scoffed as her rapier stabbed into a wolf who had missed its lunge.

"Well yeah, that's the big one. But another would be always talk to an NPC before we leave town about this kind of stuff." With a grunt, he caught a wolf on the shaft of his spear and let Margaret stab at it from below. "Pretty sure one of them could have told us a general location of the spawns."

"Excuse me for not being in the proper state of mind to talk to anybody while I was in town," she said, her tone turning cold as she side stepped a wolf's clumsy lunge and stabbed it repeatedly before it fizzled into nothingness.

Joey didn't say anything in response as he smashed the end of his spear into the wolf's skull with as strong a swing as he could muster, causing it to fizzle and fade away, before he sank to the ground, gasping for breath as his spurt of energy left him. Sheathing her sword, Margaret did the same, sitting a little ways away from him.

The two sat in silence for a good while, trying to catch their breath after the ordeal they'd had. Eventually, it was Joey who decided to cut the tension that had been mounting between them. Taking a deep breath, he leveled a tired smile at his friend. "I'm sorry."

"For what specifically? The way you stabbed me in the back earlier or the way you tried to disgust me before the wolf attack?" came the sharp reply.

Swallowing dryly, Joey shrugged with barely lifted hands. "Both, I guess. I… I was out of line back at the inn. I shouldn't have tried to force you to leave if you wanted to stay. That was extremely shitty of me and I hope, someday, you'll forgive me for that." Climbing to his feet slowly, he slipped his spear back into the leather loop on the back of his tunic.

"Yes. Yes it was." With a sigh, she climbed to her feet and dusted off her tunic before she pulled the dagger she had been saved by out of her belt. Now that she had a chance to look at it, it wasn't anything special, just your run of the mill iron dagger with a leather grip and a simple crossguard. What baffled her was who had thrown it. "Hey, any of your friends using a dagger for their first weapon?"

"No, why?"

"Actually," said a voice above the two of them. Margaret looked up, hand already shooting to her rapier as she turned to face the new voice. Standing on the slope of the hill, with a thumb in the vacant sheath of his dagger, was teenager with a scarf around his neck and an affable smile on his face. His tunic, much like theirs, wasn't anything to write home about. It would blend in with a crowd fairly easily enough, thanks to the browns of its fabric. With a gesture of his free hand to the dagger in her hand, his smile turned into a jovial smirk. "I do believe that belongs to me."


End file.
