Traitor's Tomb, Level 10, Aincrad (BETA)
2052 AD, 1 BA
"Well, shit" thought Kirito, as he flew threw the air to slam into the wall of the «Traitor Lord»'s burial chamber. He slammed into the wall with a puffing cloud of dust and crushed plaster and paint, hieroglyphic wall paintings cracking and crumbling around his impact. From the over-sized sarcophagus that Kirito had been investigating a giant bronze skeleton covered in highly stylized and elegantly decorative armor emerged, green corpse-fire burning from gaping eye sockets. Above his head player’s HUDs displayed a name in the deep purple-black with a skull icon denoting an over-leveled boss along with four HP bars and two shield bars; «Nephren-Ra the Traitor Lord».
"Foolish mortals, I will wear your skins for this trespass."
"Scouts, get Kirito! Heavies, open him up! Tanks, let's get that aggro! Sweepers, look out for adds! Let's do this!" The player in the bright blue «Makeshift Power Armor» slams a full helm over his head and readies a «Super-Sledge», the name over his head reads «Blue_Diavel».
Several rockets lance out, exploding in showers of flame and shrapnel, and with the echoing sounds of shattering glass, «Nephren-Ra» staggers, his blue shield bars completely emptied. Several machine guns open up, streams of tracers converging on the towering boss, ricochets whining away threateningly, the bullet streams only break off as the Tank group reaches assault range. The heavy armor-users charge in to take and hold the Bosses' threat, bright blades flashing.
The first indication that something has gone wrong with the plan is when the beaked head of Ra's appropriately giant-sized <<Great Maat'Tok>> emerges from Diavel's back in a shower of gore, then— adding contemptuous insult to mortal injury—the Maat'Tok's head forcibly flowers open and with a sickening wet crunch, tearing Diavel's body into several bloody chunks, throwing them to either side of the line of Tanks, showering them with chunks of chum and comically exaggerated showers of blood. Finally with a sound like lightning in a bottle, a bolt of corpse-green plasma impacts among the Heavies, throwing several aside and killing two more out-right. And then the scarabs emerged from cracks in the walls and several more players are reduced to «Remain Lights» ticking down.
As the wheels comes off the raid's initial plan, a cloaked figure makes the final rush to Kirito's crumpled form, quickly applying a «Stim-Pack» to awaken the stunned player and restore most his lost HP. Freed from the shadowy «Stunned Lobby» Kirito can sit up and grin at his rescuer, "Thanks Argo".
"Any time Kii-bou!"
"I told you not call me that Rat-chan. What are we going to do about this mess then?"
The goggled and hooded girl with comic whiskers painted on her face pouted in response, "Ahhh, you're no fun Kirito-solo, anyway, when I give the signal, Sin-san will hit its face with her sniper, and you and I will exploit any opening, and then we hope everyone else plays into it."
"Well, that's not much of a plan, is it?"
Argo shrugs eloquently in her camouflage cloak and smock, reloading her favored «Salvaged AKS-74U» with another of her extended 45-round magazines, "Nope! Ready?"
Kirito sighed heavily, checking his gear, then he nodded his helmeted head, encased in his full-faced and red-eyed «Scavenged Ranger-Helmet» which provided him with buffs to low-light vision, detection, poison, and rad resistances yet was surprisingly comfortable. At his nod, Argo reached up to the radio mic hanging on her web-gear, and clicked the send button three times.
The effect of the signal is immediate, with a great bang and the golden-yellow muzzle flash of a «Ballistic Skill» user invoking a «Skill Shot», «Sinonanon», in her hidden position on the far side of the boss-room, opens up with her «Makeshift Anti-Tank Rifle», the 14.5mmAP round impacting in Nephren-Ra's face, wiping out an entire health-bar, red damage pop-up surrounded by critical-hit and weak-point markers. Turning her head as she works the bolt on the monstrous rifle, she shouts at her fire-teammate, "Just keep those scarabs off me «Spiegel»!"
"Easier said than done!" he shouts back, squeezing another burp from his «Scrapwerk PPSh-41», "I'm already on my second drum!" In the corner of his vision he can see a screaming player, swarmed by bronze scarabs go under the swarm, wet crunching sounds echoing horribly. Movement, turn, burrrrrrrp, click, "fuck!"
A stream of wind driven razor-sharp ice drives back the scarabs about to leap onto a screaming Spiegel, fighting to get a sidearm clear of a clumsy holster, "Hurry and reload ess-mhm-gee-san, we have to keep sniper-san covered!", the cute raven-hared caster in high-heeled boots and robes, the sparking of her overloaded «Kerukeion-Wand» spell-catalyst making her face shine and taking his breath away, he whispers her screen-name, «Hermietta» to himself like a talisman, before he scrambles to get his 'papasha' back into action.
Across the boss-room, on the raised dais supporting the massive sarcophagus, the metallic giant bronze skeleton labeled Nephren-Ra staggers back, baleful-burning eyes locked on the sniper who rocked him, Maat'Tok rising into line with his tormentor, who can be seen visibly struggling with the massive turn-bolt of the over-sized anti-tank rifle, trying to get the thing to go back in battery.
Kirito, already up and running, brown duster streaming behind him, singing «Bastard Vibro-Blade» already drawn and shimmering at high pitch, and «Salvaged Colt Delta» thrust out straight-armed in off hand, point shooting as he rushes impossibly fast, then, while sprinting full tilt, triggering his «Acrobat's Edge» skill, letting himself get carried by the skill-lock animation into a massive leap and driving his high-frequency blade high up into the Traitor Lord's back, planting his feet and hanging on while twisting his blade and emptying his reaming magazine at point blank in one smooth motion.
"Focus Fire on the boss! Burn him down!" Argo cries out as Nephren-Ra stumbles backwards clutching awkwardly at the Kirito shaped pest latched onto his back. Taking her own advice she takes a supported firing position behind a pile of rubble and starts hammering the target with long bursts, her shorty AK making a thunderclap noise and fireball of muzzle flash. Movement in the corner of her eye, a glance, a short, sharp hissed intake of breath, "Kirito! Incoming!" she screams as the smoking trail of an anti-tank grenade streaks across her vision.
Taft, Level 11, Aincrad (BETA)
2052 AD, 1 BA
"Kanpai!"
"Cheers!"
"Prost!"
"Drink-Hail!"
Cries of good-cheer and victory in every tongue, clanking tankards, and laughter filled the common room of the «Prancing Pony Inn», located just off the plaza containing the <<Mega Road>> teleportation-gate the Raid Party had just unlocked, allowing for their re-spawned casualties to catch up and enjoy the party. Everyone was remarking on how steep the difficulty curve of this game was, and this was just the Beta.
"Oh man the gore in full-dive is something else, how are they going to get this past the ratings boards?"
"I could feel those damn scarabs eating me man, not cool!"
"Make sure you meet up with me on release day!"
"You ain't never lyin brah, wouldn't miss it for the world!"
"Can't believe this is it, last night of the Beta, how will I survive the wait?"
Sitting at the table with his «Midnight Sun Rangers», Kirito smiled at the shenanigans around him. IRL he had his nerves and anxieties, but here he wasn't Kirigaya Kazuto, blandly average Japanese youth, recovering grass-eating Hikikomori, painfully self-conscious adopted son, and awkward college-nerd, he was Kirito leader of men, slayer of dragons, clearer of dungeons, square of jaw and tall of stature. In fact the confidence boost from excelling in this Beta-test, and moving out of the house for college, well, he had finally made his piece with his adoption and his adopted family. He was even helping his cousin-slash-sister Suguha with her Kendo and her homework. Life was good.
Kirito looked around at his team, at least, his team in the game, but he felt like he knew them almost better than his adopted family, like he depended on them and they him. To his left, Sinonanon the sniper, slightly built waif with shoulder length green anime hair and matching eyes, her voice sounded young, like it fit her avatar, and she seemed like a shy high school girl who was disturbingly proficient with long range shooting. To his right, Argo, another waif like girl, although her voice was more considered, more mature, when she was serious at least, aside from her prominent painted on whiskers, she had twitching cat ears and blond hair cut in a page boy style and a perpetual grin that only occasionally turned down into a sneer, she was playing a pure stealth build, and was excellent at scouting and information gathering, as well as sneak attacks.
Across the table was the African giant Agil, the player’s voice matched the avatar, yet he spoke fluent, if American accented Nihongo, the which was a mystery, not that Kirito cared much, he was a cracker-jack at tanking and an excellent crafter besides. At Agil’s side sat Spiegel, whose avatar just screamed, ‘I left all the sliders on average, gave myself a silver pony-tail because it looked cool in an anime I saw’ and didn’t customize anything else, aside from that he was a decent twitch shooter in a pinch and he was classmates with Sinonanon, and seemingly friend-zoned.
"Penny for your thoughts, leader-san?" Argo smirked at him, "Why so serious?"
"Just thinking I'd like us all to stay in touch, you guys want to re-form the fire-team after release, right?"
"Of course!" exclaimed Sinonanon, "I'll make us a web-site, we're learning about HTML in my class!"
"If Sin is in, I'm in" added Spiegel, "but don't do all that, I'll set us up a private chat server."
"No doubt!" added Agil, thumping his over-sized stein down on the table.
Argo just rolled her eyes and gave Kirito a thumb's up.
Kirito stood up, raising his tankard, "To the Rangers, to us, to Aincrad!"
"Kampai!"
«Kirito» noticed «Blue_Diavel» approaching and waved him over, "Diavel! Way to go down first!"
The blue-haired devil himself himself crosses his arms and looks off to his left shoulder in mock indignation, before laughing and slapping «Kirito» on the back, "This from our resident Ranger-Shinobi who got turned into chunky salsa by friendly fire? Not very stealthy of you, fam."
Kirito rubbed the top of his head, "yeah got carried away trying for that last attack bonus, who got it anyway?"
"Ah, some American team, husband and wife I think, '«Jedidiah»' and '«IceHeart»' wasn't it?"
"Wait, not the «Jedidiah» and «IceHeart» from Gun Gale?" «Agil» interjected.
Kirito raised an eyebrow, "Heard of them?"
Agil looked thoughtful, "Well, lot of the jar-heads at our cyber-cafe play GG, and they talk, a lot, those two where the last Ballet of Bullets I think, and they have a popular gun-tube channel. Course, Sinonanon here aught to know."
A suddenly shy and blushing Sinon suddenly found the wall very interesting, very interesting indeed.
"Sinon?" «Kirito» asked.
«Agil» grinned, "Didn't you know Boss? You got yourself a genuine champeen on your team, you're looking at the winner of the last BoB. Snipered down both gaijin, in the face! I suppose it was probably better that way, who really wins when a married couple end up in a duel to the death?"
Kirito looked over at the now fiery-cheeked sniper who was studying the floor and smiled. "That's nothing to be shy about Sinon, heck with a record like that you could be the leader!"
"Don't tease me like that, I like my support role, I like playing with you guys, but this game is what I do to relax, I'm trying to keep the competition confined to GG. That's why I changed my name, what gave me away Agil?"
"No offense, but there aren't that many female crack snipers playing full-dive VR games, and going from «SineQnon» to «Sinonanon» wasn't a huge leap."
Sinon sighed explosively and threw up her hands, palms up in an eloquent shrug, "Got me."
Agil laughed, long and hard, a pleasant if deep and booming sound. "Heheheh, what are you guys doing for dinner? It's what 5pm Tokyo time? You could drop by the cafe for..."
Kirito jumped to his feet "5pm! Shit, I promised my little sister I'd take her out, shit shit shit, ja-ne!" and with that there was an audible log-out thump and suddenly no Kirito at the table.
Sinon rolled her eyes and looked up, long suffering at the ceiling "baka."
The laughter of the friends echoed out into the dark torch-lit city of Taft. In the shadows across the main avenue, in a dark-shrouded alleyway, two glowing red slits narrowed.