Sword Art Fanfiction Online

“… log out, log out, let me log out, let me—” Lisbeth's slow Lovecraft-esque slide into madness was interrupted by Yui gently stepping forward and taking Lisbeth's flailing hands.

“Lisbeth-san,” she said gently, “look at me.”

“…orange rider, orange sentai, orange…”

Yui didn't sigh, probably because she didn't really know that was an option. Possibly because she had been programmed with the patience of a saint. “Lisbeth-san,” she said, louder, finally getting the older girl's attention. “Calm down. Panicking will not benefit anyone.” And then, because she knew logic was a very poor sedative, she added, “And if you don't, you'll keep on losing relationship points with papa. He won't bridal carry you or hold your hand anymore.”

For a moment, the two stared at each other. Yui's gaze was patient and intent, trying to keep eye contact. Lisbeth's was a little 'WAAAAAAAHHHHH!' and 'why me?-!-?-!-?-!-?' with a touch of the pain induced by the constant cruelty of reality not pausing to indulge your hurts.

Slowly Lisbeth straightened and smoothed out her her, which had become uneven from her pulling at it. If she were wearing skirts instead of plate armor she'd have smoothed that too. “Okay, I'm done. Now what?”

“Now, [Friends Lists] for everyone!” Yui declared enthusiastically.

Everyone stared at her.

"Because if you have someone on your friend list you can send them messages,” Yui said. “Remember? Didn't [Sword Art Online] have the same feature?”

There was a brief, embarrassed pause at having forgotten that obvious point. “Oh, right,” Lisbeth said.

“I've already sent everyone [Friendslist Requests], so all you have to do is confirm,” Yui said, looking excited at this confirmation of their status as friends.

“One question,” Sinon said. “If I remember right, you add someone to your friend list by either [right clicking] them to bring up a window or [drag and dropping] their status box with the [right click] button, correct?”

“Yes?” Yui said, not sure where this was going.

Sinon held up both hands. “How, exactly, do we [right click]?”

Philia, formerly an [orange player] due to a really weird system bug, formerly trapped in the Hollow Area, currently a [Lvl. 19 Elf Sorcerer]] with a [Magic Swordsman] build, wondered if there was something about her that made her some kind of disaster magnet. First she'd been trapped in the isolated [debug room] of [Sword Art Online], which had been filled with a)hugely powerful mobs and [Field Bosses] so overpowered they made [Floor Bosses] feel inadequate, b)flawed [A.I.s] based on player data that acted like bots and had erratic [fight or flight protocols], and c)insane [red players] trying to seduce to either be an accomplice, a murderer or their next victim. Sure, she'd been rescued by a handsome guy, a [Swordsman in Sexy Black Leather]… only to find out that d) he was married, with a kid, and she was nowhere near second in line (there were all those rumors about him and his sister with the slutty clothes and the huge… tracts of land). Then the girl she'd become good friends with had turned out to be e) a near-insane [A.I.] sorta-allied with a total asshole and was now a [Boss]. And now…

She sneezed.

Now she was trapped again in another game (AGAIN! DAMN YOU KAYABA!), in the frozen north, in a city that was falling into anarchy and mob rule. And by 'mob' she meant closer to wannabe Yakuza than the (relatively) harmless and stupid monsters. When she'd seen a bunch of older(-looking) players harassing a younger(-looking) one, she'd tried to step in, and oh, how in over her head was now, to find her opponents were all at level 90. Faced with such odds, she'd used the first [Skill] every newbie of [SAO] had learned to use right away when they were first starting out and facing monsters they weren't equipped, physically or psychologically, to deal with.

Special Non-Assisted Skill (Lvl. 658/1000): [RUN AWAY]!

The red-headed little Druid, no dummy, had quickly and intelligently mastered the application of this skill and was swiftly building up her own skill level beside Philia.

Philia thought the kid would have made an excellent SAO survivor.

“WHAT ASSHOLE DOESN'T MAKE CITIES SAFE ZONES?-!-?-!-?-!” she cried as she ran.

The Next Day

“Halt! What's the password?”

Klein rolled his eyes. “Dude, it's us!”

“I don't know that! There's magic here, you might be someone else under some kind of… [Species Disguise]… spell… thing.”

“Wasabi, you can see the name of my guild on my [Status Box]. Any who could possibly have a spell like that?”

“We have kitsune in this game, that's their sort of thing! Password!”

Klein rolled his eyes. “3.14159265359. Wasabi, even among gamers, there's a limit to acceptable levels of nerd. And [Foxtail] characters don't work like that.”

“Pi is above such things!” Wasabi declaimed. “Pi is part of the universe! And did you buy any pie?”

“No, it's just like the other stuff,” Klein said, reaching into his magic bag. “Have an apple. It at least tastes like an apple.”

“Apples. Yay,” Wasabi said unenthusiastically as he munched. Klein continued on inside.

Fuurinkazan had pretty much claimed the [Ancient Stadium] by sundown. In-game, it hadn't really had much purpose beyond a wide-open space with a line of straw dummies you could practice skill combos on. Since most skills had long cool-downs, it was mainly used by [Monks], though occasionally a [Sorcerer] or [Summoner] trying out a combo that exploited short charge-time skills would use them.

Currently, it was filled with young players who were technically banned by the end-user agreement of Elder Tale from actually playing it, but when has that ever stopped anyone? There was a wild assortment of character builds, most of them nonhuman. At least three seemed to have somehow managed to complete the quest that allowed you to subclass as a [vampire], since they'd found them moaning in pain in the sunlight the day before. Right now they were all curled up and sleeping in a shadowy spot. Whatever mad scientist had rigged this new deathgame was thorough. Before, the [vampire] subclass only lowered your stats and made you susceptible to the [sleep] status during the day. The three girls had complained of weakness, nausea, dizziness and being sleepy all the way until the sun had gone down… at which point the three blondes (and Klein had to wonder what was up with the trend of blonde loli vampires) had become over-energetic balls of sugar. Thank goodness none had tried sucking up blood. He recalled the class also granted a monk-like skill that drained [HP] from its targets and healed the user…

The rest of the children were sleeping now, following an energetic night of crying, running, playing, jumping, crying some more, shooting spells at each other (and how pleasant that had been when the little monsters had worked out how skills worked) and learning that getting hit by weapons and spells hurt. Since it was a [PVP] area the [Royal Guard] hadn't appeared, but things had looked hairy there for a moment when one of the children had summoned a Phoenix (and how the hell did a little kid get a [Lvl. 90 Summoner] anyway?-!). Fortunately, Asuna had been on-hand to resolve that issue. Klein had watched, impressed at how she had gotten the not-insignificant crowd of children calmed down and doing what she said with the force of her personality and some well-chosen words.

Later that night she'd told him it had been much simpler than getting gamers organized into a semi-formal army, since kids were less likely to be arrogant assholes.

There were more than children there, of course. Some other players had joined them once they realized what they were doing. Others had begged to come along, having recognized them as [Someone With Their Shit Together] and reasoned that even if they didn't know what was going on, they might at least know what to do.

Some had joined because they were SAO Survivors.

Don't Worry, It's Argo!

Argo wondered what it said about her that she took the transition so smoothly.

When… whatever… had happened two days go during the [Elder Tale] update, she'd been in the field checking out rumors that some old, commercial tie-in quests had stealthily been put back in place with the serial numbers filed off. So far she had confirmed the [Variant Excalibur] quest, the [Returning Mighty Shield] quest, the [All-Killing Revolver] quest and the [Orange Armor] quest had been returned, renamed and likely with some slight cosmetic changes to the final item so that they wouldn't be sued. Argo had even finished the [Returning Mighty Shield] quest since she'd luckily had the right items in her inventory, coming away with a nice new round shield whose special property let it be thrown around like a boomerang, even if she couldn't equip it. She was just confirming that, yes, the [White Cat-Rabbit Thing] NPC that gave the [Mahou Shoujo] variant subclass was to be found in one of the 5 random locations after activating the quest when weirdness had happened.

When she found herself waking up in a semi-ruined, overgrown Akihabara, she had sat there for maybe half an hour before rousing herself, dusting herself off, and seeing what information there was to be had.

It all felt so distressingly familiar. So perversely comfortable, like a familiar routine she hadn't done in a while but whose motions she could do with her eyes closed. Face down, not making eye-contact but scanning everything, her hood pulled down low to obscure her face, Argo had wandered, trying to pass through all the [zones] of the hub city to try and get the most accurate view of the general opinion.

Most of it boiled down to [WTF Just Happened?-!].

Many many were going around engaging in perfectly normal Akihabara behavior.

Some were crying in addition to being confused and afraid, and Argo noted a disproportionate number of them seemed to have very small avatars…

And a few, a bare few, maybe a two or three in each area, were going with [DAMN IT, KAYABA! NOT AGAIN!].

Argo took special note of those players and extra care not to be seen. She'd have bet money they'd recognize her on sight, and it wasn't sound business sense to advertise yourself when there were still no products for sale.

The Thing Not Usually Included In A Game? It's In This One

Some time after her first experience with the, in her words, 'badly designed' hunger mechanic, Yui found herself experiencing the natural consequence of eating for the very first time.

Everyone agreed it was an absolutely disgusting mechanic to add to a game, even a deathgame, and clearly their new tormentor (who had still not bothered to show himself) was a skeezy, disgusting pervert with weird fetishes. The exclamations of 'Damn it, Kayaba!' were almost longing. At least he hadn't been a disgusting pervert. The most excessive he had been in-game– besides the aforementioned deathgame, of course– had the proliferation of ramen carts at all levels. Since some of the ramen had actually been good– some of them actually had flavor, which made it an infinity +1 step above the ramen available in his game!– it wasn't something they added to Kayaba's [con column], and thus generally ignored.

Fortunately, Yui had been paying extra attention to her own status since the 'badly designed' hunger debuff had afflicted her that morning, and had been able to warn ahead of time that some kind of unlisted counter was filling. What followed… will not be uttered here, as even this evil chronicler has standards. All that will be said was that no one's dignity was compromised, although some awkwardness had ensued, and the benefits of big leaves was recognized and discussed. Whether it was utilized will be unlisted.

“I take it back, papa,” Yui said once the ordeal was finished and they had moved off a ways. “This is the most badly designed mechanic in this system, with the hunger mechanic a close second.” Despite the recent trauma, Kirito had to struggle not to smile like a loon at the very cute 'determined' face Yui put on. “We'll need to be careful to avoid these [debuffs]. I'll have to check my [spell list] to see what can get rid of their effects.”

Kirito almost didn't have the heart. Almost. “Yui,” he said, sounding sad. Yui looked up sharply. As gently as possible, he continued, “If whoever programmed this deathgame modeled those mechanics as accurately as he could… then there's no doing that. Removing one [debuff] will instantly lead to another.”

Yui's face turned an interesting shade of pale and Kirito straightened abruptly as Yui let loose a vile and disgusting expletive he hadn't known his cute and innocent little girl knew.

“[Rule34]!” Yui cried.