Sword Art Online : Fighting as One ( On Hold )

Floor 5

December 29th, 2022...

Floor 4 Boss room...

The Assault Team players were going through their inventory, making sure they had the right equipment, the right skills, and potions ready for the upcoming boss raid. Amongst the group of players, one girl stood out. Mainly because her hair was purple, Alexa still couldn't believe how fast it took them to get to Floor 4 in the span of a few weeks.

"Don't get too tense, Alexa."

Alexa looked away from her character tree and toward her party leader, Kirito.

"Don't treat her like a newbie."

Alexa looked beside the boy and saw who the voice belonged to, Sinon.

"I-I'm fine.....I still feel like a newbie anyway...." Alexa mumbled, giving the two a weak smile.

"Don't you need to get your weapon serviced, Kirito?"

Alexa looked over beside her to see Asuna equipping her new rapier she got.

"I took care of that yesterday. I'm as ready as I'll ever be. What about you, Asuna?" Kirito asked.

"Of course I did, what? Are you going to treat me like a newbie too?" Asuna said, turning toward the boy.

"I-I wasn't treating Alexa like a newbie....just trying to....you know.....give some type of support?" Kirito mumbled as he looked away from the girls. Alexa would look over to where he was looking, where she saw someone behind a pillar as if she was waiting to do something.

"All right, it's time. What don't we get started?" a masculine voice called out, grabbing the four players' attention, where they saw Kibaou at the boss room door, standing next to someone who was almost dressed like Diabel, even matching the correct blue color for his hair.

"For those who don't know me, I'm Lind from the Dragon Knights Brigade. I'm your raid leader for this mission. I'm glad to meet you all!" Lind said, bowing to the players in the room. Amongst the raid group, only a few faces Alexa recognized.

Other than Kibaou who was up in the front at the door, she saw Agil amongst the group of players. The girl would frown a little when she saw that Klein and his guildmates weren't participating in the raid battle, or Asuna's friend, Mito.

"I'm Kibaou of the Aincrad Liberation Squad. I'll be your sub-leader today. Let's do this!" Kibaou announced.

"About the boss's attack patterns and each squad's role, it's just like I explained earlier. We couldn't have gotten this far without all of you top players! And if you can lend those skills of yours to this leader, I'm sure that we can defeat this Floor Boss, too!" Lind said, proudly.

"Leader, my eye! All you did was find the boss room a second before us." Kibaou mumbled.

"But you know those are the rules. Don't tell me you're feeling salty about that now?" Lind said, turning toward the man. Alexa would look away from the two, as she heard Kirito sigh out loud.

Could they please not fight again... Alexa thought, frowning.

"LISTEN UP!" Kibaou shouted, causing the purple-haired girl to jump a little from the sudden shouting.

"We're making it to Floor 5 today!" Kibaou announced as he turned toward the boss room door. Lind would nod at the sub-leader, as both men would push the door open. One after the other, the players would enter the boss room, a blue room, that was designed to look like it was an underwater dome. In the middle of the room stood the boss.

<<Wythege the Hippocampus>>, a horse-like boss with the end tail of a mermaid.

The boss, like the previous three, was a challenge, but with both the Aincrad Liberation Squad and the Dragon Knights Brigade, alongside Agil and Kirito's party, they were able to drain the bosses' HP gauges down. Kibaou ran forward and slashed across the boss's face, draining its third HP gauge down.