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

Hey there, the names Shane, Im just your average 14 year old gamer who happened to get caught up in the Sword Art Online incident, you probably heard that the Sword Art Online incident had occurred in Japan, but in fact It could have happened in 2 other places as there was 2 other servers, for America and one for Europe, fortunately for the Americans the news of the incident got to them before the launch time.

The Europeans on the other hand failed to get the news till after everything had happened which caused another 10,000 people to get caught in the death game.

This is the story of my time in the European server of the death game;

Sword Art Online

Le Line Break Of Destiny

As I awoke that morning like I did every other morning or my quite boring and dreary life, I felt quite happy for once; I had pre-ordered the new revolution for the gaming industry. Sword Art Online; the first Vr game of its kind, while they had made little Vr game like crosswords and other such brain teasers, there hadn't been anything that satisfied the immense hunger of the gaming community, that is, until Sword Art Online came along.

It was an mmo unlike any other; (aside from the fact it was a Vr game) it had no magic spells or powers like in almost every Rpgmmo game, although it did have magic items for healing and other stuff, I sort of understood why they made it that way; it would simply be more fun to swing a sword or mace then to standing there chanting a spell, in my opinion anyway.

While thinking about topics such as that I got up out of my warm comfortable bed and sat in my computer chair, I looked over at my magnificent gaming computer which I had had custom made for me as a Christmas gift one of the previous years.

I turned it on pre-emptively as I knew what the day would consist of: playing Sao like a madman, I smiled to myself as I thought about how I would finally be escaping reality for a world with weapons and quests and monsters to be slain! Another smile creeped on my lips as I continued thinking about it like that.

Luckily for me It was a Sunday so I needn't go to school which was a very pleasant

thing for me as I was kinda the odd one out, the guy who sat in the corner of the class, the guy with no friends, unfortunately that made me a direct target for bullies, that was one of the reasons I got into gaming other then the fact that I enjoyed it a lot; escaping reality and adventuring in a world where the weapon in your hands can take you where ever you want to go.

Bullies were also the reason I felt like I had just woken up from a coma as I had cried to sleep since Friday as the bullying was worse that day then usual, nevertheless I dragged myself downstairs to say good morning to my mother and to get breakfast.

I launched myself on the couch as I said morning to my mother who had already been making me breakfast (I swear she is psychic sometimes), I sat there once again thinking about Sword Art Online; Since I had pre-ordered it I would get an in-game manual and a pretty epic starting kit with armor and weapons and everything (which I was able to pick the color of), even a little bit of In-game currency too.

As I finished that thought my mother placed my breakfast down in front of me, one of my favourite foods; A Nutella sandwich which I monstrously devoured in 3 bites, drank up my drink just as quick and bolted up the stairs to start playing Sao.

I grabbed the Nervegear which was required as it was the device that brought my sense's into the game by cutting off the signals my brain sends to my body and instead sends them to the game, apparently, I wasn't very interested in how it did it to be honest.

I pulled the headset on and the first thing I noticed was how heavy it was, it felt like a bowling ball on my head! So I put my head down on my pillow to help support it, once I had gotten comfortable I muttered the voice command to start the nervegear and Sao; "Link start"

My room and everything in it disappeared momentarily as a bunch of different color's blasted past my vision as the checks for my senses were carried out after which I was brought to the character creation screen, I inputted a username for my character- Shade; it was my generic username that I used for everything as it closely resembled my real name.

I was also able to choose the character's height and width, I made them as close to my actual width and height as I could, after that once I was happy with the appearance of my character I pressed on the "done" button with my finger and the screen as well as everything around me dissipated.

I felt myself land on cobbled paths,

I made a fist with my hand and then opened my Eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

The very first thought that I had was "God this is blurry" but luckily my vision cleared up quite quickly, as I scanned my surroundings I came to the conclusion that I was in the starting city "obviously..." I muttered to myself.

I glanced up to the top left of my vision and saw my Hp gauge, level and username, the Hp being shown in a green bar spanning almost a quarter way along the top of my vision. My level sat to the right of my Hp saying "lvl 1" and my username was to the left of the Hp gauge "Shade".

I looked around for the second time and noticed that most of the players around me were either talking to other players or running around like they had no idea what to do, I smiled at that thought as that mental image was slightly amusing to me.

Then I remembered that I hadn't a clue what to do either, I immediately decided getting to grips with my menu would be the best thing to do in this situation, that's where I ran into my first problem of the day.

Opening the menu. I had no idea how to even do that! "...idiot" I again muttered to myself, I had been trying to avoid talking to people as I wasn't a very social person so I kinda had trouble conversing with new people, after a minute or so of trying to remember how to do it, I gave in and tapped the closest person on the shoulder.

The person I tapped on the shoulder turned around to reveal that she was actually a girl which from my experience wasn't very common on games and especially on mmos, I felt my cheeks get hot as I tried to remember what I was about to ask.

"H..hi..erm...can you..uh...tell me how to open the menu please?" I rushed out the last bit as I looked up from the ground to look at her face, "sure! You just put your thumb and index finger together and move it down" she said happily.

The first thing my 14 year old mind registered was not that I now knew how to open the menu, but instead of how pretty she was, no, that was an understatement; she was beautiful. I immediately reminded myself that her quite beautiful appearance was just an avatar this person had made, in fact she probably wasn't even a girl!

"th...thanks" I once again stuttered after which she laughed happily and said "no problem, oh and I'm Chrissy" she told me with a broad grin on her face.

I was actually starting to think she really as a girl as of how happy she had been the whole time but I pushed that thought aside as I said back to her "I'm Shade, nice to meet you" Remembering that it was bad mmo etiquette to ask someone their real name.

I just assumed Chrissy was just a nickname or something, she then spouted out "oh yeah! Let me add you as a friend" "A friend...?" I replied, even the word seemed alien in my mouth as I spoke it.

I had never made friends in school as I was always the quite and odd one out but for some reason I felt almost compelled to find out what she meant, she then said "yeah if I add you as a friend I can see if your online and some other stuff..." she trailed off which I found odd because the rest of the time she had a happy go lucky aura around her.

I decided not to pursue that as I changed the subject "okay I'll add you as well then"

I replied, she then gave me a questioning look and asked ""are you new to mmos?"

"no, I'm just new to Vr games" I replied

"Ah that explains part of it... but how do you not know what friending someone is? Its in most mmos to date..." she asked pointedly

"Truth is I'm usually kind of a solo player so I never added anyone as a friend..." I answered, it was kinda the truth but not the actual reason, sure I was a soloer in most games but I never actually had any friends so hearing that all of a sudden was quite strange.

I wasn't about to say that someone I just met though, I was about ready to start soloing as per usual so I said "well I better be off now" as I walked off she shouted to me "he just message me if you have any other questions!" I continued to walk off without replying.

At the time I thought nothing of that chance encounter with that girl but I would soon find out later that it was more then just a chance encounter.

Once I had found a shop with seats outside I sat down as I opened the menu by extending my left arm up and outwards then moving it down swiftly, a transparent blue screen appeared in front of me with a small audible "ping" that seemed to emanate from nowhere in particular.

I scanned all the options that the scrolling menu had; Inventory/Equipment, Friends/Guild, Messaging/Chat, Maps/Quest and Settings, were all I could see there, then I remembered I hadn't added Chrissy as a friend yet, I scrolled down to the Friends/Guild option and tapped on the friend option with my index finger, another "ping" noise filling the air.

Once there more options appeared but I disregarded them and immediately tapped on "add friend" and then proceeded to input Chrissy's name into the box and click "okay" after which a little message materialized saying that the friend request had been sent to her. Not even 5 seconds had passed before another message pooped up saying she had accepted it.

After backing out from the friend menu I checked out Inventory/Equipment which displayed 3 submenus; "Equipment", "Items" and "Skills" I immediately tapped on "Skills", not even bothering to check the others as I shouldn't have anything there, after I tapped on "Skills" it opened a scrolling menu

"One handed sword"

"Throwing weapons"

"Maces" and so for different weapon types and such things. Though many of them were locked, "One handed sword" was open so I Experimentally I tapped on "One handed sword" and to my surprise a box slid down from underneath, it said "level increases with usage, increase level for more sword skills with this weapon" "sword skills?" I asked myself mentally, I then remembered Chrissy had said to ask her if I had any more questions so I opened up my friends list and sent her a message saying "what are sword skills?"

I went back to the skills menu and looked at it again and this time I noticed 2 things; one of them was that beside each skill there was a little (0) which I had to assume was the level of the skill and the other was that in the little drop down menu there was another option saying "Sword skills" I tapped on it and once again a drop down menu appeared, listed there was "Vertical", "Horizontal" , "Slant" and "Uppercut"

I guessed if I killed things with the specific skill then it would increase, "not a bad levelling scheme" I muttered to myself again, then I heard for the third time "ping" rang through the must be Chrissy messaging me back I thought to myself as I opened my menu and sure enough she had sent me a message; I opened it and it said "sword skills are what replace magic in this I'm pretty sure" I messaged her back straight after saying "that's what I thought,thanks for clearing it up :)"

I involuntarily smiled after replying, I started to get up when a strange feeling ran through me, I felt my stomach rumble which could on mean one thing; I was hungry, I went to the shop that these chairs belonged to and bought one basic bread from the npc there for 1 col (which I assumed was the currency), I went back outside but didn't sit back down as I now had an objective; finding my first quest.

After a few minutes of walking around while eating the very hard and not very nice loaf of bread I finally found the exit to the starting city and ran outside of its gates.


	3. Chapter 3

November 6th 2022

After a minute or so of running away from the "Town of Beginnings" I turned around and my jaw hit the floor; the "Town" was enormous contrary to its name, then again, it did have to compensate for 10,000 people so that was to be expected I thought after staring at it for a minute.

After tearing my eyes away from the enormous town I continued running until I found a farm type house with a field of crops behind it, I ran inside to see if there was an npc with a quest inside and sure enough I spotted a yellow cursor above a middle aged man which signified he was an npc, I approached him and asked him casually "Do you need help with anything?" which was one of the phrases that activated the npcs dialogue.

He replied in a monotonoustone; "There are some troublesome boars thrashing my crops! Please do away with 5 of them for me" afterwards another blue transparent menu appeared asking me to accept or decline this quest with some details defining what I had to do et cetera. I wasn't too interested in the details, what I was I interested in though was that I had to kill things which meant one thing, my first battle!

I ran outside of the farm house and straight onto the field where the boars were, I remembered to check if I had a weapon equipped; sure enough I felt the weight of a sword on my back, the sword felt too light to be metal as I removed it from its scabbard, "too light for me" I muttered but nevertheless continued my approach towards my target; a blue boar.

As I charged towards it I brandished my sword above my head, I felt the sword gaining energy and shaking with the power of it, I glanced back at my sword, a green glow enveloping the blade, as if it had been dipped in some radioactive waste, I got right in front of the boar and let the energy lose, that is to say; used the sword skill "Vertical" as it cleaved down on the boars face, leaving a red pixelated line down its face.

It felt like my arm had moved on its own when I used the sword skill, no, that IS what happened I thought to myself, I wondered if I timed my arm movements with the skill if it would increases the speed or something, after slicing the boar using vertical a few times,a horizontal clean through its body finished it off.

After it exploded into particles a transparent blue screen once again appeared in front of my vision detailing my rewards; Xp and tiny amount of Col were all I got from it but knew that the reward for the quest would be a nice amount for starting off.

After repeating the process 4 more times on boars that were spread across the field I ran back to the farm house and handed in my first quest, I got a nice amount of Xp and some Col too. I ran around the house looking for other quests but then realized that the man from before was the only one here, fortunately though he had another quest for me.

I once again talked to this npc, got the quest, and ran back outside. It was something to do with collecting some seeds for the crops, apparently there was some worms that dropped them, "worms? What worms?" I asked myself

After accepting the quest I once again ran back outside and scanned the surroundings, looking for these worms that the quest mentioned, sure enough a decent away from the fields some worms were digging around in the dirt, I looked up at the sky trying to see the time, no, it wasn't a sky it was a roof I realized.

I then noticed the time in the bottom left corner of my screen, 3:00 pm it said, so I had been playing for 2 hours already? "Jesus christ" I muttered to myself. I continued my steady pace towards the worms which were lazily crawling and digging around in the dirt, As I had done collection quests before in many other mmo's I realized it might take some time to complete this, maybe an hour if I was unlucky (which I was with drop rates in general).

As I got closes to one of the worms, I drew my sword from it scabbard and instead of wielding it over my head I brandished it by my waist instead which I assumed would be around the position for "Horizontal", I was right as it glowed a harsh red color, once again my arm and sword moved on their own, slashing right to left across the worms midsection.

It seemed these worms had high defense and Hp but no attack whatsoever as it took me a full 10 minutes to kill one of them and it did nothing back to me in return, adding to my annoyance it didnt drop the seed I needed either. Repeating the process a full 20 times I finally got the last seed I needed for finishing this quest.

I ran back to the farm house to hand the quest in and looked at the time afterward; 5:25 pm "God damit it took almost 2 and a half hours!" I shouted in annoyance. I then noticied for the millonth time that there was a transparent blue screen in front me me, this time saying I had leveled up from 2-3"Wow those worms must have given a decent amount of xp if that's the case" I wondered to myself.

I decided to check out if my "One handed sword" skill had increased and if I got any new swords skills for it, I opened my menu and went to skills to find that "One handed sword" had increased to 25 already and I also had unlocked the "Sonic Leap" sword skill which looked like a plain dash to me but I decided to go out side and check it out anyway.

That was when everything went to hell.

I heard a loud bell that seemed to come from the "Town of beginnings" A split second later my senses became over ruled by one thing: Blue, that was all I could think as the landscape around me disappeared which was replaced by a blue glow surrounding me.

When the glow vanished I was somewhere else; "The town of Beginnings"I realized this as I looked around at people being teleported in, the bell at the middle of the square. "A forced teleport?" I wondered, A minute or so later there wasn't any more people being "tped" to this square, the sound of everyone asking whats going on and the like was astonishing.

Then everyone went silent, as 2 red warning signs appeared on the roof of floor 1, one of them saying simply "Warning" in a stretched red hexagon and "System Announcement" also in the hexagon shaped crisscrossing throughout the roof of the floor.

From the middle of this pattern , a crimson liquid slow dripped down, almost like a red maple syrup or something of that nature, it stopped dripping at about 3 quarters of the way down from the roof, and then the liquid started congealing into a shape which meta morphed into a twenty meter tall hooded figure which needless to say- scared the crap out of me.

It floated down so it was right above everyone's heads and then started speaking from its hollow robe, "Players, I welcome you to my world" I didnt understand what he meant by that, maybe he was a staff member of some kind? Or maybe even the creator but as the creator was in Japan with the main SAO server I doubted the latter so It might have been pre-recorded or something like that.

He continued by saying "My name is Kayaba Akihiko. Right now, I am the only one who can control this world."

"Kayaba Akihiko... where had I heard the name before" I wondered to myself, oh wait, he WAS the creator! This must have been pre-recorded though as he had to be in the Japanese server.

"I think that most of you have discovered the fact that the Log Out button has disappeared from the main menu. This is not a bug; it is all part of "Sword Art Online's system" He continued again, my heart started to beat 10 times as fast as it had been a mere minute ago.

"The Log Out button is missing?" I wondered to myself "No way" I said aloud in such a low volume it could have been considered a whisper, I quickly opened my menu and searched through options and other related menu's, I found nothing.

He then said "Until you get to the top of this castle, you cannot log out of your own free will."

The castle he was referencing was obviously "Aincrad"

The next thing this hooded figure spoke could have sent everyone mad "...also, the disruption or dismantling of the Nerve Gear from the outside is strictly forbidden. If these things are attempted..."

Silence was all I could notice about his pause.

"the signal sensors in your Nerve Gear will emit strong electromagnetic pulse, destroying your brain and stopping all of your basic functions."

I was in denial as what he was saying was crazy, it would be mass murder if that was true, I glanced up at my Hp bar the number displayed there was 342 , if that hit 0 then my brain would be destroyed, in other words if I died here I died in real life.

The weight of that suddenly hit me but I swallowed down my fear and accepted it, he went on to explain that 213 players had already died because friends or family had tried to take their Nerve Gear off and that our body's would be safe as the media would be covering it as he spoke.

I thought about Chrissy and wondered if she was 1 of the people who had died already and to tell the truth It deeply saddened me to think of that as I felt tears well up under my eyes but I pushed that thought aside, as I understood that this was now real life, to be honest that thought wasn't that bad as I didn't like my other life that much anyway but realized that I had to get back either way as there was so much that I hadn't done there.

I looked around at the other people near me, all of their faces showed that they still hadn't or couldn't accept it.

"Then I will show you evidence that this is the only reality. In the items section of your inventories is a gift from me. Please confirm this."

I immediately opened my inventory, going to my items and noticed what was there; a mirror and a guide book, I decided to ignore the guide book for now as that didn't seem what he had meant as a gift so I tapped on the Make into Object button for the mirror and grasped it in my hand as it appeared in the air, I looked in it but I saw nothing different; just my avatars face, at first I didn't understand what the point was but then I was surrounded in a white light for a few seconds.

When the white light around me evaporated into the air I was still in the same place, nothing had changed but when I looked into the mirror again, my avatar's face was gone, and replaced with my actual face.

My face.

My real life face.

To be quite fair I actually wasn't that bad looking, I had black hair that went down to jsut above my eyes, quite a good physique, my eyes were bright blue,

I now understood what the point of this mirror was; to prove this was real by making our appearances the same.

I wondered how SAO could get what we actually looked like and everything, but then remembered that to calibrate the Nerve Gear by touching your body here and there so it would know your height and everything else so it wouldn't feel weird in game and since it covered our head it could easly see what we looked like and such things.

"You will all most probably be wondering, "Why." Why am I —the creator of both the Nerve Gear and SAO, Kayaba Akihiko— doing something like this? Is this a sort of terrorist attack? Is he doing this to ransom us?" The hooded figure said again

"These are not the reasons why I am doing this. Not only that, but for me, there is no longer a reason or a purpose in doing this. The reason is because... this situation itself was my purpose in doing this. To create and watch this world is the only reason I have created the Nerve Gear and SAO. And now, everything has been realized"

he then finished by saying "...Now, I have finished the official tutorial for "Sword Art Online". Players- I wish you luck."

It echoed the last sentence as the hollow hood flew into the sky and evaporated into the error messages that dissipated after the hood had gone.

The roof went back to normal and the background music had returned, the game was in its original state apart from the few "rule" changes.

Then after a silent minute.

The crowd of 10,000 player gave their proper reaction.


	4. Chapter 4

The silence was replaced by an orchestra of different sounds; Screaming, begging, shouting and nervous laughter filled the air, through all the pleads to be let out and accusatory screams and shouts, I remained silent, I was trying to come to terms with what had been laid out before me.

I laid out the facts again myself to try to find a solution, 1: If I run out of Hp; I die, 2: Facing mobs that are stronger then me will probably result in death so I should avoid that at all costs,

3: If im stronger then the mobs im facing the risk of death will be lower so I should do that when I can, 4: To get stronger I need to keep leveling up and practicing my sword skills and what not,

5: Getting the best equipment I can will greatly improve my chance at survival.

There was one thing that left me confused though; The guidebook I had found, I assumed no one else had it as someone would have mentioned it when they were checking out the mirrors, I decided I would check it out later.

once again my mind brought me to thinking about Chrissy again; wondering if she was okay and what not but I immdieatly pushed the thought aside once again, I had no idea why I restrained my thoughts about Chrissy, I had no idea why there was even thoughts in the first place!.

I decided then and there that I wouldnt join any partys nor guilds if I could help it, because if one of the members died while I was around... well to put it plainly I wouldnt be getting any sleep for a while.

Once there was no threat of being stampeded I made my way to the one and only exit of the square,

the same way I had that very morning, fortunately I had been teleported quite close to the exit so I was one of the first to get out, I walked until I found where the chairs and tables I had sat down at that morning as well, coincedentally everyone filling out of the square had to pass this shop, some going and buying some food and what not.

I opened my inventory and pullled the guide out, it materialized in my hands, the black leather cover smooth to the touch and a picture of "Aincrad" on the cover, I opened it and the first page listed the different topics it covered; all of them seemed to be extremly helpful, I had just started reading the first topic which displayed the inventory layout and giving definitions of keywords like "Col" and "Npc".

As I was reading it I heard a girls voice say to me "excuse me, you seem to know what your doing would you mind helping me through the basics?"

I looked up from the guide and was about to say "sure" when my voiced died for the second time that day; the girl that was standing in front of me was quite beautiful, she had blonde hair and eyes as green as emeralds.

Once I had found my voice again I said "s..sure" once again stuttering while feeling my face heat up,

she giggled happily and replied "thanks, well let's get going then!" as she said that she grabbed my arm and hauled me out of my seat and ran me all the way outside of the "Town of Beginnings"

and on to the fields where the boars and worms were, once she had let go of her death grip on my arm I noticed we were close the the farm house where I got my first quest from.

I asked her "okay uh d...do you know what sword skills are then?"

she giggled again and said "I know about them yeah but I dont know how to use them"

I answered with "okay well there is a quest in that house to kill some..."

she interuppted me mid sentence by saying "its the boar one right? I already did that one"

"what about the second quest in there then?" I continued

"there's a second quest!?" she shouted.

"yeah...there is so lets go do it then" I said.

We walked over to the house and went inside to find a guy talking to the npc, as we came up to the npc he finishedn acepting the quest and what not, he turned around sharply and a mischievous smile streak across his face as he looked at the girl but quickly vanished as he looked at me, after which he ran out of the house

"well that was weird..." I muttered half to myself and half to the girl

"He kinda creeped me out..." she murmured back to me.

"ah sorry I havent introduced myself yet,my names Chrissy" she said to me

"My name is...wait your name is Chrissy?!" I replied astonished.

"Yeah...so what?" she asked blankly

"...its me, Shade!"

she just stared at me for a minute in an awkward silence before smirking and saying

"well you look a whole lot different then your avatar" she said with a broad grin on her face

I blushed and replied "so do you"

"wait a minute..." she said

"what?" I replied pointedly

"you dont know what your doing either right?" a smirk growing on her face

"Well at least I can do sword skills" I said smirking back at her

"haha" she said sarcastically

"actually I have a guidebook I found in my inventory that looks like it has a lot in it so yeah" I said to prove that I was worth being around (why I felt I had to prove that I had no idea but you get my point)

"Well good then because I would prefer to live you know?" she said again sarcastically but at the same time nervous like that fact had been hanging over her thoughts, I guess it was the same for everyone right now, but I had been trying not to think about it, regardless she got the worm quest from the npc and we walked over to where the worms were.

"Those worms look gross!" she said obviously disgusted at them,

"I guess your right now that I look at them, all slimy and wriggly and what not" I said a smirk growing on my face

"do you really have to describe them like that?!" she asked obviously annoyed

"yes, yes I do" I said laughing to which she stuck her tongue out at me which I replied to by doing the same, we both started laughing after that but by then we had to one of the worms.

"Okay here we go I'll show you a "Vertical" sword skill first because its really easy and simple, also these worms are perfect as they dont do much damage at all" I said to her almost in a teacher like manner,

"okay" she replied plainly.

I drew my sword and ran up to the worm, brandishing my sword over my head and once I felt it gain the energy for "Vertical" I let the sword skill fly, a vertical line of green glowing energy slicing down the body of the worm, I repeated it a few times so Chrissy could see it done properly and then finished it off as quick as I could.

I ran back to where Chrissy was sitting on the grass nearby and said "do you get it now? Pretty easy huh?" I asked Chrissy,

"yeah I think I got it but there's one problem..." she replied

"mmh? What is it?" I questioned

"I use daggers" she stated blankly

"oh...well Im pretty sure that the first few sword skills I know are usable regardless of what weapon it is so give it a try" I replied with a smile on my face

"okay here we go..." she murmured, She took out 2 daggers from sheaths on her waist and ran up to a worm that was close by, as she closed in on it she raied the dagger in her right hand above her head and I could see it glowing green which brought a smile on my face, with her weapon in hand she brought it down on to the worm, slicing the worm right down the midsection, she then brought her left hand swinging in from her waist, glowing red and hitting horizontally instead of vertically like the other, realizing she had used "Horizontal" without meaning to I unintentionally smiled at her, as I was looking at her I realized how beautiful she looked fighting the worm; Her daggers flying around her almost if they were dancing, her blonde hair flying around like a cyclone and the glint of her emerald eyes had a furious glow in them.

As she swung he blades around slicing up the worm with "Verticals" and the odd "Horizontal she brought it down to about half of its Hp, thats when it went wrong, she had dodged every single attack it had threw at her from the start of the fight but it managed to land a hit, using a body slam technique, knocking her back and taking up half of her Hp, wait, HALF!?

I looked at the worm again and noticed something was wrong, it's name wasnt the regular "Large worm" as normal instead it's name was "The Worm King", as I noticed this I heard Chrissy scream out at being hit again, being reduced to jsut a little above 0Hp

"oh no...Chrissy back off! I shouted to her while I ran over towards "The Worm King",

lowering my sword down to my waist as I ran over, I glanced at my sword, its blade glowing a light blue, realizing this wasnt "Vertical" or "Horizontal" I knew it had to be the skill I never tested; "Sonic Leap" I let my Sword fly 3 meters away from the worm as I flew past it; slicing its side.

As soon as I landed I sharply turned around andscreamed over to Chrissy "BACK OFF!"

Fortunately for Chrissy the worm turned its attention away from her, unfortunately it was me that it turned its attention too.

Chrissy backed off as I closed in on the worm with a mighty War cry that sounded mad even to me,

I contunied using "Verticals", "Horizontals" and even "Sonic Leaps" here and there, it hit me once but I contuined fighting on anyway as it was almost dead, Chrissy watching on in horror, about 10 minutes later It finally exploded into pixels and vanished.

I walked over to Chrissy who was looking down at the ground and said to her

"Chrissy Im so sorry, the other worms dont do that much damage which was why I used them for target practice but that was a mini boss thing,Im sorry I should have made sure it was safe first!"

She looked up at me from the ground, tears glistening in her emerald eyes, she ran straight forward into me as she crushed me in a bear hug which I returned, holding her head into my chest, she sobbed into my chest and said through tears "I..I..I thought I was going to die..."

"No" I said in a determined tone

she looked up at me again, tears still falling down her face from her beautiful emerald eyes and asked "no what?"

"Your not going to die" I looked straight into her eyes when I said that,

"Im not going to let that happen" I contiuned in a determined tone.

A broad smile appeared on her face which contradicted the waterfall of tears coming down from her eyes

"Lets go back to the town" I whispered to her softly,

"okay..." she replied quitely

after waiting a moment still holding her in my arms I felt her strength go as she fainted in my arms,

I picked her up in my arms which was suprisingly easy, I then noticed a "Results" window was in my vision, it displayed a huge amount of Col, Xp and and 2 items, a sword and dagger it said, I would have to check them out tomorrow I thought as I walked the not very far distance towards the town to find an inn to spend the night, once we got to the entrance the few people who were still out looked at me susipicously but didnt say anything.

Once I got to the inn I asked the npc was there a room with 2 separate beds, luckly there was but it was the most expensive room in the whole inn but the Col I had recieved from "The Worm King" gave me plently of spare Col after paying it, I climed up the stairs and opened the door to the room and carefull placed Chrissy on one of the beds, careful not to wake her up as I got in the other bed and took my equips off and laid on my bed.

I looked over at her sleeping, her blonde hair cascading down to her chest, she was really beautiful I thought to myself, especially her emerald eyes, woah, where did that come from? I wondered to myself, I pushed it aside for now and Thought about what I had told Chrissy not even an hour ago

"Your not going to die"

I knew I had meant it and I really had a will to protect her and stuff but I still wasnt sure If I could keep that promise, no, I thought to myself, I have to, I will take any hits that will kill her even if it will kill me. Hopefully It wont come to that though, I realized jsut how exhausted I was from everything and put my thoughts to rest, I closed my eyes and instantly fell alseep.

*Authors note: I really enjoyed writing this chapter and would appreciate it if you left a review and what not :D


	5. Chapter 5

*Author's note: Sorry for no update yesterday I was testing my internetz on League Of Legends

and Minecraft sooo yeah :D on with teh story!*

I woke up to find a pair of emerald eyes staring me in the face which needless to say surprised the crap out of me as I fell of my bed and onto the floor "Woah!" I shouted, waving my arms around like a nut job, "mmmm good morning" I mumbled, Chrissy giggled and said "Good morning sleepyhead" I picked myself up and jumped back on the bed.

I noticed she was lying on my bed which I found odd as I strongly remembered putting her in the other bed, getting curious about it I questioned "uumm...how did you get in my bed?"

she replied "Well I woke up during the night and It was kinda cold so I got in your bed" she rushed out, a blush forming on her face as well as mine, I decided to change the subject before things got even more awkward.

"Are you okay over what happened last night?" I wondered

She cocked her head sideways and pouted which was extremely cute but I ignored that feeling as she said "Im as okay as I can be I guess..." she trailed off and took a large breath in but it sounded...Shattered; like she was breaking apart inside but forcing herself to hold it together which to be honest broke my heart.

I was still unsure about my feelings towards Chrissy, maybe it was just that she was extremely pretty, but I doubted that because what I was thinking about the night before when Chrissy was crying in my arms, I had just wanted to find a way to stop her crying like that because it felt like my heart was being ripped open.

I know its silly because I had just met her yesterday but so much had happened in that time it was almost unreal, I had practically promised her that she wasnt going to die and I was being quite honest; I didnt want her to die no matter what, when I had told her that the smile that appeared on her face was...almost angelic and I wanted to make her smile like that as often as I could.

When I thought about it there was only 1 thing that I was uncertain about; whether I actually...Loved... her or not, the feeling I got when she was brought down to red Hp by that worm was unbeareable, it was like my heart was in my mouth and the adrenaline I got from it was immense, so immense I mannaged to defeat that boss. I only wasnt sure because I havent actually been in love before...I thought to myself.

Chrissy was waving in front of my face and saying "Hellloooo? Anybody in there?"

while doing her little cute giggle, after coming out of my daze I replied "Yeah sorry I was just thinking about something..." I trailed off at the end which made Chrissy eyes get a soft glow to them, "about what?" she asked softly

blushing again I quickly said "just about my other life..."

"Oh yeah? Do you miss it much?" she asked once again in a soft voice, "not that much to be honest, in fact, I think I prefer this one more"

"Seriously!? she said surprised

"mhm..." I mumbled in reply

"Why!? Couldnt have been that bad could it!?" she said almost shouting

"Well...I dont really have many friends in school and stuff..." I trailed off

"Oh...sorry" she quickly cooled down

"No its okay, just wondering if this incident is actually a blessing in disguise"

"a blessing in disguise?" she asked

"well I mean I always prefered games to real life and this Virtual reality makes it all the more real for me, and also, I actually have a friend now"

"so im your first friend eh?" She said with an expression somewhat between blushing and smirking

"Yeah...I guess.." My face heating up too.

"Well lets keep it that way, your a nice person and I like you so yeah" she said with a big grin on her face, I laughed and said "I like you too", after sitting in silence for a minute or so Chrissy asked me

"Do you mind if we dont go out today?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" I replied

" I mean we dont go out questing or nothing, just hang out and stuff"

I frowned and said "well I guess that would be okay but the stronger we get the less chance there is of dying"

she frowned too and replied "I know that but I just wanna get last night off of my mind..." trailing off

"No its totally cool but here let me give you something I found" remembering the sword and dagger I had gotten from "The Worm King"

while I was opening my inventory she asked "you have something for me? What is it?"

I pulled out the twin daggers and handed them over to her, they had black handles and the blades were a silvery color with 2 purple lines running down the edges of the blade.

"Huh there're purple" I said perplexed

"Yeah...so what?" Chrissy asked confused

"Purple is my favorite color" I told her with a smile on my face

she tapped on the daggers, a little screen opening showing the name and stats of them

"Snake Bite" she read off of the screen "

"20 damage with a poison effect (20 over 10 sec's)

Level 3 required...Im only level 2" she said with a pout

"Are you close to level 3?" I asked

she opened her menu and smiled "yeah im only a bit off"

"Great...now to check the sword that I got

I opened my menu; going into the weapons part and found myself confused "there is 2 swords in here...but I only got 1 from the drop and I didnt get another at any other time..."

I checked the first "Worm Grinder, 15 damage and lowers enemy strength by 5, required level 2

One handed sword, eh not that good, maybe its because you started the fight or something" I wondered,

She just shrugged as I checked the other sword "Zweilhander of Courage, 25 damage with a strength boost o 10, 2 handed sword, strength required for use 15, Heirloom (levels up with you)"

I read aloud, "Well the Worm Grinder is obviously the boss drop but the other one is a lot stronger, wait its a 2 handed sword though, can you equips those yet, and you need 15 strength to even equip it" Chrissy said to me

"maybe...it levels up with me though...OH WAIT!" I said in realization

"WOAH! Chrissy shouted in surprsie as she fell off the bed, after she pulled herself back onto the bed I explianed what I had realized "You see I got picked for the beta of this but I wasnt able to join because of some...ah...obstacles and the beta testers got to choose a nice set of gear, aglong with a guide which explains why I have this stuff"

"Shouldnt the stuff have been wiped after the beta though?" she questioned

"Your right there it should have...well I heard a rumor that the European server coding wasnt as stable as the Japanese server, so maybe it bugged and forgot to wipe it...and if its here..."

I opened my menu; going into my Equips and finding a full set of armor there "yes! Its here!

Brilliant!" I said

"What is it?" Chrissy asked, totally confused

"well I did say the beta testers got some stuff that they chose, well here is mine"

Each piece of armor had suffix "of Courage" at the end -the same as the sword- each piece giving a pretty good boost to defense and they were all heirlooms too which meant all my equips leveled up with me now.

I equipped the stuff on the spot (I couldn't equip the 2 handed sword though, I didnt have enough strength yet) , an obsidian chest plate with purple desgins running down from top to bottom, so did the other pieces "pretty cool huh?" I asked Chrissy,

"you actually look pretty epic, it matches your hair and your eyes" she replied, I blushed at her praise.

"How about we go out and buy some potions and stuff?" I asked Chrissy

"sure!" she beamed, we walked around just making small talk and buying some potions and some light armor for Chrissy and then stopping off at the shop I had sat at the first day and bought some bread.

"Are we going to go out tomorrow?" I asked

"Obvsiously! Were friends now remember?" she giggled,

"okay then just checking" I said with a smile.

The sun had started to set as we finished our conversation and we headed back to our room in the inn, ready for tomorrow's danger.


	6. Chapter 6

I woke up for the second time in this new world; Chrissy once again sleeping in my bed, it was a little weird to have a girl sleeping next to me and I always blushed when I thought about it because in the other world there was 100% that wouldn't happen, hell even talking to girls was hard enough but...with Chrissy it was so easy and I totally felt comfortable around her.

Truth be told; I was shitting my boxers that we were going out questing today, I mean, I knew Chrissy was good with her Knives considering she took down half of that bosses Hp without being hit, if it was a normal monster it wouldn't have stood a chance but her fear of death overcame her other senses and stopped her from being able to fight when she was hit into red.

That was of course completely understandable though but I decided to put it out of my mind as I started to get up, I felt a pair of arms grab around my waist and pull me back on the bed; of course It had to be Chrissy,I felt myself blush madly, embarrassed at being so close to her, feeling he body heat surround me.

I knew full well that her "heat" was only a bunch of data that stimulated my senses but it didn't feel abnormal in any way, "Wh...what are you doing?" I asked in surprise "mmmmmmmmmmm" she responded, apparently still asleep but I wasn't too sure.

"Hey come on wake up" I said, she slowly opened her eyes and after a few seconds realizing what had happened she blushed as well "W..w...what are you doing? She asked shyly

"what am I doing? Your the one who pulled me closer to you" I replied; A broad grin appearing on my face, she blushed even more and retracted her arms (to my disappointment) while saying "well anyway we should get going".

We both got up from the bed I don't know how I hadn't noticed it before but Chrissy was standing in only a bra and pants which made me blush fiercely again, I tried to hide it with a smirk as I said "good job changing the subject" she giggled in response and said "your the one blushing like a cherry, not me"

"Excuse me!? You were blushing too!" I cried out

She stook her tongue out at me in a cute way to which I just laughed, she then pouted even more cutely after which we equipped our armor and weapons as we left the room both laughing.

After we walked out the doors of the inn we went to the npc merchants and bought some more of the disgusting "Basic Bread" for a miniscule amount of Col and ate it while we walked outside the gates of the "Town of Beginnings.

After I had bravely devoured it I asked her "Where do I look at my stats?"

"There is a button for it in the top left of your character menu" she replied

"ah thanks" I said

I opened my menu and looked to the left, the character menu showing my armor and sword and what not, I saw the button named "Stats" just as Chrissy had said, I tapped on it and it showed a few different variables.

Listed there were "Attack" "Defense" "Move speed" and "Maximum weight limit" as well as my Hp, Exp and Level (which was on a 3 right now, halfway to 4). I noticed 2 more variables which I could control; "Strength" and "Agility" with a + next to both of them and I had 9 stat points, I decided that since my armor gave me a huge boost in defense that building strength would be better for me then agility.

I put 8 of my stat points into "Str" and 1 into "Agi" which increased my Hp and totaled it at 761 which was quite an impressive boost as my original Hp sat at 500, I also noticed my "Attack" had increased by 40, It rested at 65 which I figured out was the combined values of my "Zweilhander of Courage"

As well as my "Attack" increasing my "Max Weight Limit" had increased by 20 and the weight on my back from my huge sword seemed to be a lot lighter, I took it out of its scabbard and just as I suspected; it was a hell of a lot lighter then it was before, I swung it around hearing it whistle threw the air.

I was curious how Chrissy divided her "Stat points" so I asked her "how are your stats looking then?" she turned her head to look at me and smiled as we walked down the path, she then said with a smirk "I went for 8 into "Agi" and 1 into "Str"", surprised at that I replied in an amused tone "I did the exact same thing, except reversed" and then laughed.

Once we had made our way about half the distance from the "Town of Beginnings" to the next town

I once again checked out my "Skills" and saw that out of the 3 slots 2 were used up; them being used by "One handed sword" and "Two handed sword" while the other was faded gray which I assumed meant it was inactive for the time being, I took out "One handed sword" (which sat at LvL 75) out of the slot since I wasn't using it and looked for something to replace it.

There was a filter that I could use to see what I could actually equip, most of them being weapon skills and armor skills but a few caught my eye; "Sprint", "Battle Healing" and

"Light Armor Equipment".

I tapped on the first of them which was described as " passively increases effectiveness of dodging andwhen activated increases movement speed by a percentage depending on level until you take a hit or stop running", not very useful for combat I thought to myself as I tapped on the next which simply had "When in combat heals every 10 seconds for a certain amount depending on max Hp and level" that one seemed extremely good but I checked the last one regardless "Increase Def contribution from "Light Metal" equipment"

I decided to go with battle healing as that would be the one to keep me alive, but I would equip "Light Armor Equipment" once I got my next skill slot, unless a better skill was unlocked before then.

My preferred "set up" in most mmos was to be a Dps-Off Tank which meant I could deal a decent amount of damage while still be able to take a good beating from whatever mobs were thrown at me, I found myself curious as to what skills Chrissy had taken.

"What skills did you take?" I questioned curiously, "well I took the dagger weapon skill and venom specialty"

she replied with a grin, unfortunately I frowned as I noticed there wasn't any defensive skills in what she had just said, "you didn't take a defensive skill, and whats venom specialty?"

she smirked at me and said "I don't NEEDa defensive skill since I'm a Dps and venom deals damage over time when I hit an enemy"

That answer made my heart beat faster; she had no defensive capabilities. Which meant if she took even a few hits she could die later on, but that's crazy! I thought to myself.

"You ARE going to get a defensive skill at some point right?" I cried

she frowned in response and quite blankly stated "only if I have to"

My heart started beating for the second time while my brain tried to find a solution, only 1 idea came to my head which unfortunately was for me to tank most if not all the damage I could while I "Switched" with Chrissy when there was an opening.

"If that's the case then...I need to ask a question and I need you to promise me something" I blurted out, she looked at me with a surprised expression and simply said "um...Okay"

"Can we stay in a party like this until the end of this?!" I cried out again

she smiled and said "Of course, what did you think? I was going to leave you on your own once I figured this game out?" she laughed and continued "I would never do that, we are friends remember" An even bigger grin appearing on her face.

"O...okay good...please promise me...that...you let me take all the hits for you and if we get in a bad situation you will save yourself..." I whispered almost inaudibly

she blushed and it seemed like she was wrestling with an audience of different emotions; which ones I couldn't tell.

After a minute she replied quietly "We either die together or neither of us die, so I'm not going to save myself and watch you die" It was my turn to go through a range of emotions "I...I...I...I cant let you do that...you need to live..." I said quite as a mouse.

To my complete and utter surprise she suddenly shouted "Why are you so bloody focused on keeping me ALIVE!?" I looked down to the ground to hide the tears forming in my eyes as I once again whispered "I promised you that you weren't going to die and I'm going to honor that promise to my last breath, your the first friend I have ever made in my life and I want to stay with you for as long as I can! My voice raised its self at the end as I lifted my head up, the tears now freely flowing down my face.

Chrissy had tears in her eyes too yet was smiling at the same time as she came close to me and we embraced, "Truth is, your my first friend too, but I would much prefer dieing with you then without anyone" she whispered in my ear. I felt myself blush for the millionth time but I just enjoyed the embrace for a while before saying "we should get going to kill some mobs shouldn't we"

"Yeah" Chrissy answered

We spent the rest of the day killing monsters called "Nepents" with different varieties but I gotta say, we devoured them with our tactics, I levled up to 5 and Chrissy leveled up to 4 which meant she could use her new dagger which was pretty cool.

After our killing spree had ended we walked back to the inn (and as it was about 11 at night)

and with Chrissy in the same bed as me again we immediately went asleep, ready for every and any obstacles this game/world could throw at us.


	7. Chapter 7

My eyes flew open as I knew immediately something was wrong, A: I couldn't feel Chrissy's arms around me and B: I didn't feel her body heat, I quickly turned around to look at the bed opposite me but she wasn't in there either.

"Where could she have gone...?" I asked myself, I threw myself out of bed and rapidly equipped my armor and what not, as well as checking my friends list, Chrissy's name wasn't greyed out; if it had been then it would mean she had been killed, it was a light green color though, so no worries there.

My brain desperately searched for any clues to her whereabouts but I came up with nothing. I thought back to what had happened in the last few days and realized just how weird it had been, I have slept in the same bed as Chrissy for 3 nights now, but we are just friends, very weird indeed, I got back to the matter at hand; finding Chrissy.

I decided to leave the inn and search for her around the "Town Of Beginnings" which even though it looked huge on the outside, it actually was pretty small apart from the spawn area, I decided to check there first, running past the shop I had sat at so many times, unfortunately the spawn was empty, I ran back the way I came and I noticed something different then before; Chrissy.

She was leaning against the wall of the shop with some guy standing In front of her who I didn't recognize, a strange feeling washed over my consciousness, it made me want to take Chrissy away from him from some reason; not because he looked dangerous or anything (which he didn't).

Jealousy, I guess, but what have I got to be jealous about? I thought to myself.

Its not like I love Chrissy or anything, I mean I have only known her for 3 days so falling in love with her was out of the question...right? I once again thought about the events of the last 2 days, the strong need to keep her safe, involuntarily smiling or blushing when she was around, the jealous I had right now, the embraces and tears we had shared, the cute was she pouted and her beautiful emerald eyes.

I had been pushing those feelings back...but...I didn't know If I could even protect her, much less myself, no, I would just have to get strong enough to do that, if have to stay awake all night fighting then that's what I will do, I decided then and there to wholeheartedly accept it; I did LOVE Chrissy, no ifs, buts or nothing.

I walked over to Chrissy as she and the mystery guy were laughing, I didn't really care about what was funny, I was just glad that I had found her. Once Chrissy saw me she went wide eyed and blushed, I blushed as well despite myself and said "Chrissy where have you been?! I was worried something had happened!" I cried out, she frowned and said "sorry I just went out to get some food because I was hungry but Alex here started a conversation and we were just talking a bit, didn't realize how long I had spent"

I forced a smile and said "Its all right I just overreacted a little bit"

she giggled and said with a smirk "you could have just messaged me you know"

"oh" I replied so intelligently "I didn't think to do that, guess I was worrying too much" I said with a laugh to hide my embarrassment, Chrissy blushed but didn't say anything as I also leaned against the wall.

The new guy introduced himself as Alex, he had a strong Irish accent with short blondish hair with a tinge of ginger, his eyes were caramel coloured and he had this mischievous smile the whole time, which I would instantly label as : Trouble Maker.

"Shade" I replied, I was still quite jealous of him but I also felt ashamed that I felt jealous, Alex gave me a mischievous look that seemed familiar but I thought nothing of it as he said with a smirk "so are you this beautiful girl's boyfriend?"

We both blushed at that question but I managed to answer "N...no were just friends" If this guy had been hitting on her the whole time I didn't stand a chance, he was so confident it was almost a living force, making me feel small and pathetic.

I decided to try and change the subject to something a little easier to handle "so what weapon do you use?" I asked, he looked down at his waist and laughed "hang on let me equip it" he opened his menu and a few seconds later I heard the ever familiar sound of the menu, he swiftly pulled it from his waist and flourished it, a rapier blurred its way into view, "I use this babe with a Agility build.

I pushed myself off the wall and pulled my sword off my back and swung it around in a circular motion "Two Handed sword with a Strength build" I smirked at Alex and it had a effect I wasn't expecting: Intimidation, I realized what had just happened; he is putting a confident front up and he dropped it accidentally for some reason.

Regardless Chrissy stood up and said "dual daggers with an Agility build as well"

After last nights killign spree I had reached level 5 and Chrissy had reached level 4 so she was able to equip the new daggers that the worm boss dropped, I hadn't used the 6 stat points I gained yet though.

Alex regained his mischievous look and said "I know its rude to ask but what level are you guys? I'm level 3" he smirked, obviously thinking that was amazing considering the circumstances but I laughed hard inside and replied "your only level 3? what have you been doing?! Eating bread all day?! I'm level 5 and Chrissy is level 4"

Alex's jaw dropped to the ground as I finished my sentence, Chrissy whispered to me "you didn't need to talk for me..." with a slight blush she looked away apparently trying to hide it, "sorry I just felt like I needed to" I replied confused as to why she was blushing.

Alex picked up his jaw and cried "How on earth are you that high!?" I frowned and replied "well we spent 2 days killing boars,nepents and worms, though we got a big bonus at one point but meh no need to go into it, that's about it right Chrissy?"

She gave me a big smile and said "dont think you left anything out"

I left out that it was a boss that almost killed the both of us, Chrissy locked eyes with me; giving me a silent thank you for doing that, she blushed as well as I did, remembering what had happened after the boss had been slain.

Alex broke the silence "are you _sure _your not dating...?"

We both blushed even more but as I was about to deny it Chrissy quickly blurted out "we are just very goods friend and Shade saved my life and without him I would have died right from the start" she seemed close to crying after saying that, but unfortunately I didn't have time to comfort her as she ran back towards the inn.

I was stunned. So was Alex; his jaw dropping even further then before, "what just happened?" Alex asked me blankly. "I don't have a clue but Id better go after her" I told him quickly, after I added him on my friends list we agreed we would go hunting at some point, I ran back to the inn to see if Chrissy was okay.

I got back to the inn and went upstairs, the door to our room there as it had been every night in this new reality, I opened the door (which I had given Chrissy permission to open) to see Chrissy inside with her head deep in a pillow, crying her eyes out, I closed the door behind me as quite as I could so I wouldn't startle her.

I walked over to Chrissy and sat on the bed, "Chrissy...what's wrong?" I asked her worriedly, I know it wasn't the best thing to ask but hey, I was nervous and concerned.

She lifted her head up from the pillow, her emerald eyes bloodshot, "you saved my life...that means I owe you...but how can I repay that!?" she shouted with tears in her eyes, fortunately the walls in SAO were soundproof, so she could shout and scream all she wanted; only I would hear.

"You don't have to repay me.." I said quietly

"WHY DON'T I!? "she shouted again, even louder this time,

"I didn't do it...so you would owe me...I did it so you would say alive, and I promised you that I would protect you, I'm doing it out of my own will so you don't have to owe me" I said quietly again.

"Why are you doing it though...?" her shouts turned into whispers,

"I told you already, your my first friend, in both of these worlds, and I want to stay with you until the end of either this world, or...my life".

I thought about telling her that I loved her then, but I didn't, because it would make me look like I was taking advantage, which I would never do and I still very much doubted she liked me too, Chrissy started crying again, I scooted myself over to her and have her a hug, "everything will be okay, I wont let this world beat us" I whispered in her ear.

"Okay" she whispered back, her voice cracking slightly. I pulled back from the hug and Chrissy regained her bubbly self, giving me a funny look and saying "did you just ditch Alex then?"

"Well, kind of but I added him as a friend and told him we would go hunting together at some point but I'm not _that _bothered really, he would slow us down a lot".

Chrissy giggled and said "you don't like him very much do you?"

"wha...why are you saying that?" I asked sceptically,

"I don't know...you just seemed jealous of him or something"

The accuracy of that caught me off guard so I desperately tried to hide it "I don't know what your talking about" I said as blankly as I could but I involuntarily blushed to which Chrissy giggled, making me blush even more.

I decided now would be a good chance to put in my new stat points, I opened my menu and clicked on the stats button, I had 6 points to use, with 5 in Str and 1 in Agi already, I put 5 in Str and 1 in Agi, once again increasing my weight limit and damage and what not, totalling the stats at : Str ; 10

Agi: 2, my Hp sat at 1296 points, just a little off 1300.

I closed my menu and said to Chrissy "how much Hp have you got?"

"984, why?" she replied

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, "that's a lot lower then mine..."

she frowned and said "well its going to be lower because most of my stat points are in Agility"

"im tanking any damage that is going for you then" I stated

"okay..." she replied blankly.

We lay on the bed for a few minutes before I got a message from Alex, I opened it and read it out loud "hey bro did you find out what was wrong with Chrissy? Yeah anyway do you 2 wanna do some quests or something?"

I groaned and got up equipping my brilliant obsidian armor, I still didn't have enough Strength for the Zweilhander yet though. Chrissy equipped her armor and daggers again.

"well it looks like its time go" Chrissy said disappointedly,

"yup" I said blankly.

We left the room and I closed the door, ready for another day of SAO.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: as im writing this SAO: The other server has reached 1000 views :D, also sorry for the long time I didn't update, I kinda lost interest, but im back and that's what matters :D**

We met Alex at the same place we had left him; the item shop, "sorry for running off like that" Chrissy said apologetically with her head hung down "don't worry about it darling" he said in a confident manner, she blushed and my jealousy came back even stronger then before, oooh now I REALLY disliked this guy.

Gulping it down I moved the subject on "Are we gonna go do some questing or sit around on our asses talking?" Alex laughed and nodded, Chrissy had once again lost her talkative side as she said nothing.

I decided to lay out some rules as we walked towards the jungle with all the nepents and wolves in it, "lets lay down some guidelines, A: if possible for the area we are in, we do the kill quests first and the others later" (kill quests were exactly what they sounded like: killing stuff for rewards).

Alex nodded again with Chrissy staying silent as well, "B: you both use Agility builds, while I went with Strength, so if you guys get damaged too much I will take as much damage as possible, C: we attack 1 target at a time, I know this isn't very efficient but i don't care if it takes twice as long to level up, I have developed this for...uh... increased safety"

I stuttered because I realized that I had just made the last part up for one reason; Chrissy's safety. While I knew that she was good with those knives but...well...I was scared. Scared Chrissy would go solo an enemy to have it morph into a boss again, maybe with skills that would stun her or something, in SAO a stun = death.

Chrissy looked at me and I knew she had figured out why I had "developed" this system as I had so intelligently put it, "If you two feel you don't need the extra safety then we can all take a target each"

I told them, Alex just smirked and said "come on man we can just wipe the floor with them no need for strategies at this low level".

After being silent the whole way Chrissy suddenly said "Alex you can do what you want but im staying with Shade no matter what happens" her voice raising at the end, Alex just shrugged and said in a sarcastic tone "hey shade you sure your not her boyfriend?"

I blushed but tried to hide my embarrassment with a laugh "haha, as if, im not THAT lucky come on" I glanced over at Chrissy to see her blond hair catching the sun's rays (who knew that was possible in SAO) perfectly; glowing golden in the sunlight, woah, how had I not noticed that before I wondered to myself as she turned around in my direction; her emerald eyes glittering like a green star.

She wasn't blushing like when he asked that question before, it made me involuntarily frown as I wondered why she didn't blush this time, maybe she didn't care? Because that wasn't a possibility? Woah calm down everything is cool.

"so whats your opinion on it huh Shade?" Alex asked me, "my opinion on what!?" my annoyed response came flying back at him but he didn't seem to notice nor care. His fade dropped as he mumbled "weren't you listening to a thing I was just saying?"

"Nope" I blatantly replied, "me neither" Chrissy suddenly added, come to think of it, she hadn't said a word since we left town, Alex had just kept on talking the whole way, obviously I wasn't listening since I was preoccupied but it seemed Chrissy was thinking about something too.

Alex started "I was talking about the reason...", "the reason for what?" Chrissy interrupted, "I was getting to that...the reason why kayaba akihiko made this game and trapped everyone in it" he continued. "kayaba aki-who?" Chrissy asked in confusion.

"Kayaba akihiko; the creator of this "game" I supplied, using my fingers to exaggerate "game" Chrissy blushed slightly and said "oh right", jokingly Alex said "I think its just cuss he's a nut job" "nah I kinda understand his reasons, I don't like it but I totally get it; wanting to be in another world is what drives people to make and play games, if anyone knows that its me" I said depressingly

"Your right, I totally agree with you, Shade" Chrissy, she gave me a pitiful look as if too say sorry for my troubles, but I really didn't understand why, its not like it was a chore for me to save her or life or anything.

Eventually we got to the forest where me and Chrissy had rampaged through the other night, the familiar cries of the Nepents and Wolves ringing out, for hours we slaughtered everything in sight, taking out our frustrations on this worlds beings, Alex swiftly sliced the sides of the enemies, Chrissy dodged her enemies attacks,her hair flowing around her as she drove her daggers through them. I just tanked their attacks while slicing them with my "Worm Grinder"

I kept my eye on Chrissy and her Hp bar, since we were in a party I could see it under mine (as well ask Alex's), although we were killing enemies pretty fast, the Xp we were getting wasn't amazing so even though we had been doing this for hours only Alex leveled up at all, it seemed the Xp needed to level up increased a lot more then in other mmo's I was used too.

The day was turning into night which meant the enemies would give out more Xp but would also be a lot stronger so hardly anyone fought at night, "Its getting dark now so we should head back" Chrissy said, she had a slight look of fear on her face, definitely because of the monsters strength increasing, Alex just shrugged and said "don't see why we should, neither of you two have leveled up yet and we haven't gotten any good loot yet"

I got mad right then, partly because he didn't even notice Chrissy's expression, partly because he didn't care about the monsters strength increase, "The monsters get a lot stronger at night, idiot...this isn't about loot or experience; its about bloody surviving so I'm going back with Chrissy but if you wanna stay here and die that's fine with me! come on Chrissy let's go..."

Alex looked at the ground in shame while Chrissy looked very surprised at my sudden outburst but at the same time flashed me a thank you with her gorgeous emerald eyes, they seemed to glow with the moons light shining on them, we started walking away from the forest and out onto the road again.

Once Alex was far out of sight Chrissy laced one arm through mine as it was quite cold and the light leather armor she was wearing probably didn't help with that, "Thanks for that back there, I just wanted to leave before it got too dark" she said quietly.

"Your welcome, truth is I actually wanted to find a way for you to leave anyway" I replied laughing "what? why?" she asked confused, "well...since the monsters get stronger at night I was...scared I wouldn't be able to keep the promise I made to you" I answered quietly

"Good to hear you keeping it then" she replied happily, she then hugged me from behind which made us laugh for no reason, probably because she was smaller then me, so it looked weird, we walked the whole way back in pleasant silence; our arm still laced together.

Once we got back to the inn we unequipped our armor and what not and got into bed, as soon as Chrissy's head hit the pillow she fell asleep, but unfortunately for me sleep didn't come as easy for me as my heart had been racing the whole way back from the forest.

I really did love Chrissy, maybe it was only because I hadn't felt anything stronger then that before but I didn't care, I glanced over at her, she was really cute when she was asleep, I wondered if there was any chance she loved me back, I doubted it but decided to put that thought to rest and sleep.

The dream I had was one of the weirdest in my life, hands down, It was like I was looking down at myself, this other me was standing in some sort of throne room made of some crimson material; something like rubies, he had 2 swords, which should have been impossible, they were both the "Zweilhander Of Courage" which was also impossible.

I willed myself to move closer to this other me and when I got down their, I noticed he had streaks of red from his eyes, they looked like tear streaks, his expression was the opposite of what the streaks defined; it was one of determination and anger at the same time.

The place that looked like a throne room was open air and had no walls, just a set of stairs leading down to the floor below it, it was on the top floor of a castle I realized, there were 2 throne at the side opposite to the stairs, both of them looking like they were made of light that had been dyed red.

That was when I saw something even stranger, the other me running towards the edge of the platform, both swords hung backwards as he ran, he reached the edge, and to my horror he jumped off the edge into the pale yellow clouds below.

The scene changed to a plain of grass, it was as flat as a piece of paper, once again I saw the other me in the middle of it, as if out of nowhere, dozens of enemies appeared around the other me, he fought and fought and fought taking out dozens, maybe even hundreds of them, It was obvious he was tiring though.

His sword skills shone out through the monsters, but eventually he was swamped by all of them, just when I expected him to explode into particles like all the enemies he had slain, the ground opened up below him, swallowing him up in the darkness below, the monsters just floated above the chasm below, almost laughing at his demise.

Once again the scene changed but it seemed to follow the second one as the other me was falling through a void of some sort, he seemed to be at peace with his demise until he landed, the place he landed in was like a cave but instead of rock lining the walls it was obsidian; making him blend in to the surroundings.

The ground around him started to tremor, he stood up from the knee he had landed on while stretching his shoulder and arm muscles, he looked towards the other end of the cave, standing there; emanating a shadowy aura around him, was another him, another me, I was losing track of all the me's in the room

The first me started emanating a Crimson aura, while the other intensified his shadow aura, it morphed him into a half shadow, half human version of me, the two of them charged towards each other, their swords enveloped in their designated colors, they fought for what seemed like eternity, both of them equally as good as the other, their armor and weapons broke one by one, until they were wearing just beginners items and as they charged for what would be the last time...they stopped.

They seemed to have a short conversation before they morhped together to form one me again. This time though both auras were emanating from him, it seemed they had joined in peace or something like that, wings sprouted from the auras, again each with one color; crimson and black. He flew into the air and looked past me...no...he was looking at me.

He regarded me with a amused expression and flew back through the hole he had fell through.

Then I woke up.


End file.

Sword Art Online/ソードアート・オンライン, Adventure, Romance