Sword Art Online: The Unsung Heroes

Chapter 2: An Unexpected Turn of Events

After a flurry of colors and sound, senses calibration, and test sounds, David was met with the login screen. He used his old account from the beta test, but opted to create a new avatar, creating one that somewhat resembled him, but was overall more handsome and a tad taller. His hand trembled slightly with excitement as it hovered over the <<Finalize>> button. Smiling to himself, he pressed it. A pleasant *ding* sounded, and there was a flash of light.

David looked up, seeing that he was in a massive plaza. Flashes of light where going off all around him as other players spawned in. He broke in to a grin. "I'm finally back." He said quietly. "Finally."

The NPC orchestra played a fanfare as fireworks where shot off outside of their giant prison in the sky known as Aincrad.

David spent his first hour exploring the city. It was called <<The Town of Beginnings>> on his map. "A little big for a town, don't you think?" Said the player standing over his shoulder. He turned around to see a rather teen about his height looking at his menu with a slight smile. He had short spiky blue hair and a sort of mischievous look on his face. David was surprised that he was speaking English. "Yeah, kind of a weird naming choice." Said David. "Tell me about it. I'm Dagien." The boy outstretched his hand for a handshake. "Damond." He had to stop himself from telling him his real name rather than his avatar name. "Cool. Hey, you wanna party up? We'll get an XP boost that way." Dagien slowly moved his hand to the menu position. "Sure, great idea." Dagien nodded and swiped his index and middle fingers downward, navigating the menus until he sent Damond an invite to a party, which he accepted. "Cool, let's go." They began running to the main gate of the city.

Out in the fields, the <<Boar>> rammed against Damond's shield. He bashed it, sending it reeling backward into Dagien's sword. With only a sliver of HP left, Damond charged it, activating a sword skill as he went. His sword glowed blue as he brought it down on the boar's head. The two still marveled as it burst into thousands of blue shards, floating away. "I still can't get over that." laughed Dagien as he looked at the reward screen hovering in front of him. "I know right? It's so cool!" They laughed together as they walked over to the next enemy.

<<FOUR HOURS LATER>>

Dagien and Damond sat on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the field they had been grinding in, both having reached level 3. "It's amazing, huh?" Damond said. "Yeah." Dagien stared off into the distance before giggling a little. "Dude, we're IN a game! How damn cool is that?" "Yeah." Damond said in response. He sighed contentedly, before checking the time. It was about time for him to log out. "Well dude, I'd better log out. I got dinner waiting for me." Dagien looked up. "Okay. You're on my friends list, so shoot me a message if you get back on later. I'm gonna be on most of the night."

Damond nodded, smiling. "Sure. Anyways, see you." He got up and turned around, navigating his menu to the logout button. He pressed it once, but nothing happened. "That's strange, it normally logs you out right away." Looking a little closer, Damond realized that the logout button simply wasn't there. It was just a blank white rectangle highlighted yellow. "Um, something is wrong here." Damond said. Dagien got up and looked through his menu as well."You mean the fact that there's no logout button?" "Yeah, that." Damond sighed. "Oh well, It's the first day." Dagien, still looking at his menu suggested "Call a GM." Damond hit the call button, but there was no response after 30 seconds. "Well, we could always-" Dagien's sentence was cut short by the tolling of bells in the city.

With a flash of blue light, Dagien and Damond where in the plaza where they first spawned in. "Uh," Damond started, but cut himself short after looking at the sky. There was a red hexagon with something written in it, flashing. Soon, more appeared, creating a dome over the massive plaza. Something red began to ooze out of the cracks between the hexagons, eventually forming a giant Game Master robe with nothing in it, nevertheless taking shape. The empty robe stretched forth its hands in a welcoming motion. "Welcome, players," Said the voice. "to Sword Art Online."

The giant GM introduced himself as Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of Sword Art Online. He addressed the fact that there was no logout button, explaining that it was a 'Key feature' of SAO. He also explained that should you die in the game, you die in real life, as well if someone removed the NerveGear from your head, or if your battery ran out. All this, he explained, was made possible by microwaves that intercepted signals from the brain. The power could simply be maxed, frying your brain. The only way to get out was to clear all 100 floors of the game.

"You may be wondering, why? Why would Akihiko Kayaba do such a thing?" Said Kayaba. "Yeah, why?" thought Damond. "I never saw him as a sick bastard." "It is because I've always dreamed of a world under MY control, that I ruled over. And now, that is a reality."

"Best of luck to you all." With this, Kayaba vanished, and the sky cleared of hexagons. The golden light of the twilight shone into the plaza.

And with that, everything erupted into chaos.