The Player Killer: Sword Art Online

Chapter 1

1

Before you ask, yes I did base Zero off of Zero from Vampire Night. Appearance-wise anyways. Personality-wise they are nothing alike and I'd like to think of the Zero in my story to be a completely different character. I just liked the name and since my main character is an albino, he ended up looking like Zero from vampire night, to a certain extent anyways.

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There was no possibility of sleep that night. At least, not with Sword Art Online publically releasing in a matter of minutes. The nerves were too high, the anticipation killing the both of us and surely thousands of other players. We (My twin brother and I) had been waiting for the final release for weeks, so we could have others to play with. Since our uncle was once part of the developing team, he had been able to get the both of us to be apart of the beta test. Akihiko Kayaba had dismissed the rest of his developing team the moment the beta test began, which uncle said was odd and he often complained about. Kayaba had told everyone he would work to finish the game while it was in the beta test. For the past month we've been playing the game, leveling up and clearing floors as fast as possible. We had cleared up to level nine together, higher than any other beta tester. I still feel as though I cheated, after all, our uncle was a developer who had been telling us information about the game months before the beta test had even came out. The only player who came close to our levels was Kirito, another beta tester who I had made friends with on my very first day in the game. We met when I tripped and fell off a tree branch, landing on a bush and accidentally stabbing myself with my sword which landed below me. He found it hilarious so I stabbed him in the leg so he would know to stop laughing. For about a week we all worked together clearing floors, though for a while we weren't able to be in the game in at the same time. We all had other things to do, and Kirito lives in a different part of Japan. (I know nothing of time zones btw) His time-zone being an hour ahead of ours sometimes made playing together difficult with school and all. We drifted apart from him, although we had said we'd see each other eventually and agreed to stay friends.

When the beta test was ended a week ago I was a level 35 and my twin brother Zero was level 31. I teased him so badly uncle threatened to take away my nerve gear. As any responsible gamer would do, I quickly shut up out of fear. If he took my nerve gear I think I would actually cry, and that says something since I haven't cried in about five years; not since Zero and I's parents died in a plane crash on their way home from America, where they were visiting our sick grandmother, who died shortly after that. Our father was had lived in America most of his life, he was born there. He met our mother while she was attending an American collage, Julliard. Shortly afterwards they moved to Japan together and got married. They weren't home much in our childhood, both being famous musicians. Before they died our mother had taught us both to play the violin and to sing while our father taught us piano and to play the flute. You could say our family was very musically talented, well, all except uncle. He couldn't even learn to play the flute. Our uncle is our mother's younger brother, sometimes people mistake him for Zero and I's older brother. He finds it extremely flattering and amusing. He's only 31, while were both 15. Our mother would be 41 if she was still alive and I think our father would be 42. I still don't remember that much of our parent's, even if they died a few years ago. I do remember how they always nagged uncle to find a wife and for us three to stop playing video games so much. Even now as I wait in the living room with my brother for the game release, I know that will never happen. Video games have become my life-- our lives.

"How much longer will we have to wait?!" Zero nagged, for the millionth time today. If he nags again I swear the first thing I will do when we get into the game is stab him in the balls. "Fifteen more minutes, you will live I promise you" I rolled my eyes at his childishness. I was defiantly the more mature one out of the two of us, at least in the real world. In the game I become quite the character. I usually run around killing other players for fun, at least in most games. Killing players is a lot more fun than monsters or NPC's. They actually do a good job at fighting back and the loot is a lot more promising in most cases. Sadly when you kill other players in SAO you become an orange player, eventually a red player if you kill a certain amount. Which can be annoying when you're in town and everyone is afraid of you or wants to kill you because of your status. Kirito always nagged me for constantly killing other players although Zero gladly participated. "Hopefully uncle Akio gets home soon, I know he said he'd be out late and he'd join the game when he could but he's taking forever" hanging upside-down from the back of the couch with a paper airplane in hand, white hair flopping into bright red eyes, my stupid brother continued to annoy me, but now he's throwing paper airplanes and other random things at me for his own amusement. I really am contemplating killing him.... although I'd probably get in trouble. Is it worth it? Hmm.. I guess I'll settle for killing him in his sleep in-game. "He has a life, unlike you. So naturally he would have things to do. Maybe he found a girlfriend or two, which is far more impressive than the pillow with the hot anime chick on it that I know is hidden in your closet" I smugly said, his eyes widening and he fell, landing roughly on his head. "I do not! You liar!" He said defensively while looking around all shady. He gets likes this when he's nervous or lying. He's a terrible liar, unlike me. "Do you want me to go get it to prove I'm not bluffing? Maybe I could burn her and we could roast marsh-mellows over her, hmm?" I said raising an eyebrow, leaning towards the hallway where his room is located. He's probably going to panic and give himself up any second. He always does. Biting the skin on his thumb Zero changed the subject, "isn't it about time to get into the game?" Oh shit, he's right it's 4:59. Eye's widening I ran towards my room, calling out to him "See you in the game." My room was located at the end of the hallway across from his. Our uncle's room being on the floor below ours. Our house was fairly large. It was only two stories but it was still pretty big. There were a total of eight bedrooms, though we only used three. My brother and I were really the only people to go onto the second floor, other than the housekeeper. We had our own living-room and a music room. My room had large windows covering two of the walls, the other two walls were a dark green and all of my furniture was black and I had thick white carpet. One wall was covered in posters from all of my favorite virtual reality games; on the other wall had a giant triforce in the center, from the new virtual reality legend of Zelda game. Apparently a long time ago there were video games played on these weird handheld box-game-thingie's and a popular game to play on it was an old legend of Zelda game that I've never seen. My nerve gear and helmet were placed on the center of my bed, anticipating my arrival. I lied down, attaching my gear and plugging my helmet into the wall. Taking a moment I breathed in and cleared my mind, not knowing that it would be the last time I did in two years.

"Link Start!"

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Color's flashed and the intro I knew all-to-well after having been playing for a month was shown. The character design showed. The Enter player name here box was shown. Should I use my real name or should I make one up? I do love my name but people might recognize it and call me a beater, which would be annoying. I had went with my Uncle and Kayaba to a press conference on the game, I had answered a few questions to the crowed and all of the reporters for the team. People knew who I was, which was another problem. I decided to take the risk and entered my name Estelle. Estelle isn't actually my name, my first name is Yui but I've always preferred Estelle. Estelle is my middle name, chosen by my father. My mother insisted on naming at least one of her children a traditional Japanese name, which is how Yui happened. Father had chosen Estelle and Zero.

I continued making my character, as close to my actual appearance as I could. Unlike some people playing this game I have nothing to hide. Uncle always makes himself a tall muscular and overly attractive man with black hair and blue eyes, when in reality he's about 5'5 and has the trademark black hair and dark brown eyes that most Japanese have. My brother and I inherited our looks from our mother, who was also an albino much like use. Father always said we looked like dolls, with clear porcelain-while skin, long white hair and oddly colored eyes. The only difference is those two both have bright red eyes, where I have a dark green color. Which is extremely unheard of for an albino. Most albino's have red or blue eyes, albino means lack of pigmentation which for humans makes their eyes these colors. While Zero's hair is choppy in the bangs and reaches a few inches past his shoulders in the back my hair reaches down to mid-thigh. Though I don't have the heart to cut it yet, before my mother died she usually did it for me. I haven't had it cut since. Zero and I are both the same hight, 5'7 and while he's somewhat muscular I have more of a willowy body type with somewhat large breasts. After entering my completed character waited at the loading screen appeared.

We have found data from a previous game, would you like to use this data? I said yes as the screen changed. Are you sure? Really game? You ask this? Yes I repeated for the second time. There was a blue pixelated flash.

Colors flashed in front of me and in an instant I was standing in the middle of a large marketplace. I turned towards the crowed, my long black cloak that I had gotten in the beta test swishing with my movement. I surveyed the area, looking for my brother or Kirito or anyone else I might recognize. I was going to move forward, but then, I saw him.