//------------------------------//
// Episode Three: Comrades 
// Story: VRMMOEQGRPG 
// by Yarael-BJ-Poof 
//------------------------------//

10.25.16  8:34P  F#01

"I'm Husky Blitzer, and you're watching NCN. In today's news, the game Sword Art Online has actually killed some of the people playing it. The Nerve Gear headset delivered an electric shock to the brains of over 600 people, ending their lives. Akihiko Kayaba, the designer of Sword Art Online and Nerve Gear, is unable to be reached for comment."

Fluttershy's eyes filled with tears. "R-Rainbow...?"





Kirito rubbed his eyes. He could have sworn he recognized this girl from somewhere. He was going to say something, but she beat him to it.

"Um, hi, my name's Rainbow Dash. We seem to keep bumping into each other."

Kirito then remembered the previous two times that happened. "Oh, that's quite alright." He stuck out his hand and helped Rainbow to her feet. "My name's Kirito. I was one of the beta testers."

Rainbow cocked an eyebrow. "Beta tester, huh? Lucky stiff. How much did you pay them to let you in?"

Kirito shook his head. "I didn't pay them anything. I sent in a form, like everyone else."

"Oh well. Luck of the draw, I guess. Say, do you have any clue why that Kinky Kahuna guy switched all our faces and stuff back to the way they actually were? Not to mention the dying-in-the-game-equals-dying-in-real-life stuff."

"I don't know. It was never like this in the beta version. We all assumed it would be a really fun casual RPG that you could play whenever we wanted."

"But it still is." Rainbow crossed her arms. "Just with actual deaths."

That comment elicited a small laugh from Kirito. He quickly stopped, due to the severity of the situation. "You see, when we were—"

"RAINBOW!"

Rainbow turned to see Pinkie running up behind her. "Thank God, we thought you had died!!!" She leaped at Rainbow and wrapped her arms around her body in a tight squeeze.

Rainbow managed to get out, "Thanks a lot, Pinkie, but I actually will be dead if you squeeze any harder."

Pinkie released immediately. "Sorry about that. Stimulus-response, you know." She took notice of Kirito for the first time. "Hey, who's your friend here? He's kinda cute." She put her index finger under his chin.

Rainbow made a cutting motion across her throat. Pinkie ignored it and said seductively, "There's some nice motels around here."

Kirito was sweating. Rainbow forcibly pulled Pinkie off of him and chuckled nervously. "This is Pinkie Pie. She's my, uh, acquaintance. She also thinks she's a prostitute."

Kirito mumbled, "Yeah, I gathered that."

Rainbow saw Pinkie become momentarily distracted by her touch menu, so she asked Kirito, "How exactly did the mirrors change everyone's body shape?"

This he knew the answer to. "The Nerve Gear calibration test. Remember when it asked you to pat your body all over?"

Rainbow facepalmed. "Of course. The one obvious yet innocent detail everyone dismisses. Curse you, infallible logic!"

"Hey, sugarcube." Applejack patted Rainbow on the shoulder as she came up. Pinkie here contacted us all and we figure we shoulda stayed together. It's gettin' mighty dark out."

The others were close behind. Rainbow said, "That's fine. By the way, this is Kirito. He was one of the beta testers."

Kirito waved. The girls introduced themselves and immediately began bombarding him with questions.

"Can you stop Kayaba's plan?"

"Can you hack into the system and find a quick way to the top floor?"

"Can you access any online wardrobes?"

"ONE AT A TIME, PLEASE!!"

Kirito's sudden outburst startled everyone into silence. He began, more calmly, "I only played the game to look for glitches and bugs. I didn't design it. And I actually tried to hack into higher floors, but it was made so you couldn't do that."

"Awww," came a simultaneous groan.

"However, if we organize a party, we might be able to clear it together."

Pinkie perked up at the sound of "party".

Rarity slapped a hand over Pinkie's mouth before anything embarrassing came out.

Sunset looked puzzled. "Why are you being so quick to trust us? You haven't even known us for a full ten minutes."

Kirito gave a small smile. "I know trustworthy people when I see them."

A warm feeling arose in everyone's hearts.

Kirito started to walk off. "Come on, I know some really good room-and-board places in town. We've all got lots of big days ahead of us."

The six girls followed their new friend in the direction of the town. Some of them held hands.





"Applejack?" Pinkie whispered from one of the beds.

Applejack grunted and checked her menu for the time. "What is it, Pinkie? It's one in the morning."

"I was thinking, how can Kirito help us clear the game?"

"Ah think we can trust what he says. Go to sleep." She stuffed her head under the pillow.

A few minutes of silence passed, and then, "Applejack?"

"Pinkie, WHAT?"

"Where's the bathroom? I gotta take a shit."





11.30.16  11:28A  F#1

Over a month had gone by. The streets of town were busy with people finding out where to go. Near the square was a big circular pit with stairs all around, and a stage in the middle for someone to talk.

The person talking was a tall green-skinned man with a question mark on his face.

"Hello, everybody. Thanks for coming. My name is Anon, and I like to call myself a knight."

The small crowd erupted in laughter. "You call yourself one, but you can't qualify as one!"

Anon looked flustered. "Look, there are no legit jobs in this game, all right? I'll bet any one of you here right now thinks of themselves as an ultimate weapons master, amirite?"

Pinkie said to Rarity, "I'd like that position."

"Anyway, back on track. My party and I have located the boss in the Floor 1 dungeon."

The crowd sobered up at this news. Kirito's eyes widened. He had not remembered the location after the beta testing was over. He was amazed that a new player had found it before any of the testers.

"We need to tell everyone in the Town of Beginnings about this. We need to show them that there is a way to beat this game. Who's with me?"

At first there was silence. Then there were a few slow nods, and then they all started applauding. Pinkie was leaping up and down on the stair. Kirito was in an inward state of ecstasy, although he didn't show it. Now he could gather all the information about fighting the boss, and teach the girls about it. He would make it a point to make sure they got through as far as they could. Maybe he would even cross paths with Klein again.

"Okay then," Anon continued. "Here's how it's gonna work: We all divide up into parties of six. No one party can defeat the boss alone."

Kirito's stomach knotted. He had not been prepared for this. He looked behind him and saw the six girls adding each other to their party list. They would get themselves killed without his guidance, and yet they had forgotten about him already. He sighed, looking around for anyone else who would want to be his partner. He still wouldn't leave his only in-game friends behind. Nobody was alone anymore. But then, he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

It was a cloaked person with a hood concealing their face. Kirito rapidly scooted over to them and asked, "Nobody wanted to be in a party with you either?"

The person spoke in a female voice, "That's not the case. I stayed out since everyone seemed to know each other already."

"The same thing happened to me." He looked dejectedly at the group of happy girls in a party of their own. "You're a solo player, then. I didn't want to be, so do you want to form a party with me?"

The girl didn't respond.

"He said we can't fight the boss on our own. We could party just for this one fight."

She nodded.

Kirito opened his menu and added her to his party list. He saw that her name was Asuna.

Asuna.

Anon scanned the groups of people. "Alright, has everyone formed their parties? Good. Now we—"

"WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE!"

An angry voice came from above the stage-hole. A heavyset red-headed man jumped down and took the stage. "My name is Kibaou, and I wanna say a few words before we get going."

He paused to let everyone swim in their confusion. "Some of you here need to apologize for the deaths of 2000 people!"

No one knew what he was talking about. 

Anon scratched his hairless green head. "Look, man, are you talking about the beta testers?"

"Obviously!" Kibaou snapped back.

Kirito's heart jumped.

"Those beta guys abandoned ship and left us new players alone here since day one! As far as we know, they've already beaten the game!"

Kirito prayed that the girls had forgotten the fact that he was a beta tester.

Kibaou continued, "They took all the good powerups and hiding spots so they could make themselves stronger. They don't give a crap about the rest of us! And I'm damn well sure some of you here right now were in the beta!"

Kirito looked over and tried to listen in on the six girls' conversation. He was relieved when he heard what sounded like, "Those beta testers sound like terrible people. Maybe it's a good thing they're all gone."

"If any of the beta testers are here, they need to fall on their knees, apologize, and give back all the money and prizes they've taken from us. Otherwise, we'd be leaving our lives in the hands of these rats, and they shouldn't be able to trust us, either!"

Kirito was quivering with anger when a very tall man stood up from the crowd. "Can I say something?"

He got down on the stage. He was broad and muscular, brandished a heavy battle axe, and was a good head taller than everyone else.

Kibaou stepped back at the sight of this giant. 

"Kibaou, was it? I'm Agil, and there's a couple of things that need to be straightened out."

Kirito heard Twilight tell Sunset, "Is he going to kill him with that axe or tell him that beta testers aren't all bad?"

Sunset whispered back, "I don't know, but I think I would agree with whatever he says."

Agil talked in a rich, deep voice. "So you are saying that all those beginner players died because the beta testers weren't there to protect them. And that those beta testers, who are most likely trying to find a way to make the game easier for the other beginners so they will NOT die, should now down to your wishes and give you all their money and equipment. Is that what you're saying?"

Kibaou adjusted his collar. "Um...well, y-yes. That's what I'm saying."

Agil nodded. "I see. And I assume that you got a copy of this guidebook." He held it up and showed it to him. It was small with leather covers, and it had the words GUIDE BOOK printed neatly on the front. "They were giving these away at the market." 

Kibaou stuttered, "Yes, I did, yeah."

Agil stared into the shorter man's eyes and proclaimed, "It was compiled by information collected from the beta testers."

Everyone chuckled. Kibaou now looked like a rambling idiot. 

Agil turned to he listening crowd. "Listen up. Everyone had access to this information, yet many still died. We can learn from those who passed on in trying to defeat the boss."

He turned back to Kibaou, who scowled and went to slump over on a seat. He sat down as well.

Kirito let out the biggest internal sigh of his life. He didn't want to be untrusted by his six friends or this Asuna girl he just met.

Anon was the only one on the stage once again. He made sure nobody else was going to interrupt, then spoke. "Okay? Let's keep going, then. The latest edition of the guidebook has information about the boss. Its name is Illfang the Kobold Lord. He is guarded by underlings called Ruin Kobold Sentinels, and he's armed with an axe and a buckler."

Sunset whispered to Rainbow, "This is only the first boss? Sounds more like a final boss to me."

Rainbow said, "Yeah, but if we know what to do, we can kick its ass real good. Where's Kirito?" she saw him sitting next to the cloaked Asuna. She then felt guilty about leaving him out.

She made up her mind to invite him to be the party leader while they followed his directions. After all he knew what he was doing; he was a beta te— Rainbow stopped thinking.

Oh.

Anon was still talking about the boss. "He has four HP bars, and when the last one hits the red zone, he'll switch to a curved sword called a Talwar. His attack pattern changes as well."

Gasps escaped from the crowd.

Kirito was prepared. He had defeated this boss before, and he very clearly remembered the attack patterns.

"When he's defeated, the spoils and money will automatically be divided among all the players. EXP goes to the party who defeated him, and any player who obtains an item gets to keep it. Any objections?"

A Phoenix Wright reference flew through Twilight's mind. No one else said anything.

"Okay," Anon concluded. "We'll leave at ten tomorrow morning. DISMISSED!"

Everyone got up and started head back to their temporary homes to pack for the expedition. Tomorrow was a big day.

Kirito turned around to talk to Asuna, but she was leaving. "Oh well," he thought. "She'll be back tomorrow morning."

He turned again to face his companions. Rainbow apologized. "I didn't remember you were in the beta. There's no hard feelings, right?"

Kirito shook her hand. "It's all fine. Now we'd better get home and lazy around as much as we can. Tomorrow we've got a boss to fight."

Rainbow pumped her fist in the air.

They caught up with the others, and Kirito told them, "By the way, that girl that I was with was named Asuna. She's he other one in my own party. I would appreciate it if you could add her to yours." he pulled up his menu, and the others did the same.

After linking her to their party, Applejack asked, "Why did she have that hood 'n cape on? Ya think she's tryna hide somethin'?"

Kirito stared. "I guess we'll find out sooner or later."