Sword Art Online: Echoes

Regroup

2022.08.01 Aincrad Standard Time 1808: F1 ToB-Central Plaza

When Kayaba leaves the scene, the plaza erupts into chaos. Cries, screams, and other various forms of ridicule can be heard throughout.

"The government will save us right?"

"We won't really die will we?"

"We won't die if we don't leave!"

"That freak thinks he's a God? My ass he is!" 

As we follow Mina, questions start forming in my head. "This is insane, how long will it even take to clear all 100 floors? How are you supposed to beat an MMORPG? Will there even be many people who want to try?" 

"Mina!" a voice in the uproar cries out nearby.

"Gin!" Mina shouts back, picking up speed as she sees her friend.

The Boy Gin is wearing red. He has darker brown short hair with teal colored eyes. He standing by a group of 8 other worried children. 

"Wow, 10 kids? How many more are there?" I ask openly.

"There were 20 of us in the medical room when we started, Onii-san." Gin replies.

Without skipping a beat, Sasha immediately consoles the worried children in a teacher-like manner. "Please come with me to the church, Onii-san will find the rest of you." Giving me a 'take care of this' look.

Pondering to myself "I guess they really need a larger demographic for their experiments, but kids though? That's kind of wrong to lure kids into an experiment using a game..."

Snapping out of my thoughts I ask Gin. "So we need to find 10 more, let's split up and meet back at the clock tower." 

Gin gives a nod and as he runs off shouts. "Got it Onii-san!" 

"This plaza is huge... At least grade school kids won't be difficult to spot in the crowds." 

2022.08.01 AST 1832: F1 ToB-Central Plaza clock tower

The sun is almost completely set over the town and the chaos from earlier has died down. I make it towards the meeting point with one last child. "Convincing kids to follow you is really hard, how did Sasha do it so easily?" 

Meeting back up with Gin, he does a headcount. "7, 8, 9... Hmm, we're missing one more."

"Did you forget to count yourself Gin?" Kain, a kid with light brown hair and blue tunic, states while all the other kids are laughing at the comment.

"Oh, yeah I didn't..." Gin says while scratching the back of his head and giving an embarrassed chuckle.

"It's a good sign that kids can still laugh in this situation." I smile and then proceed to say. "Alright, if that's everyone let's make our way to the eastern church! It'll be half an hours worth of walking from here, so stay close to each other. Hold hands if you have to, I'll send my friend a message saying we're on the back." with that said, I pull up my menu and write a message to Sasha.

"Gin and I found the rest of the kids from their group and we will be on our way there in half an hour, see you soon. I'll grab food for everyone from the stalls on the way there. 

Could you upgrade the room we're renting to house all of us? I think you can rent the entire North wing."

As our group heads out I receive a reply from Sasha. 

"Yeah, I can but isn't the max party size 8 players? How are we going to house 22 of us?"

"Oh, right I didn't tell her to that we can make it into a raid group and use it like that." Slapping myself on the head as I reply back to her.