• Published 15th Sep 2019
  • 8,678 Views, 2,906 Comments

EQG: Sword Art Online - Aincrad - Mindrop



The Girls get trapped in the newest video game, Sword Art Online. If you die in the game, you die in real life.

  • ...
27
 2,906
 8,678

PreviousChapters Next
Episode 11 - Into The Red

Floor 3

December 21

Diemond grunted under the strain as the branches of Nerius the Evil Treant pounded on her shield. Knightstar was behind her. Backbreaker was protecting Thunderborne. AFCK and Bladescape were making their own defense as their forwards.

The treant was a bipedal tree, with long, solid boughs for arms, ending in fists of sharp branches and twigs. Each leg was as thick as a regular tree's trunk on their own, and its feet were formed from its gnarled roots. Despite standing a good 6 meters tall* it actually wasn't all that imposing as far as Floor Bosses went, but it was incredibly slow to fight. With 6 health bars, it mostly just walked around, shrugging off hit after hit.

If you got too close, it would kick you, throw a punch, or backhand you across the room. The leaves on it were razor sharp and the twigs could shoot out to strike at any time. From time to time it would point it’s arm at a group and launch branches that shot out to slam into anyone in their path. The tanks were the only real defense against it because of their shields. Weapon defense skills struggled to stop the immediate follow up strike by the same branch. They would just pound away.

Worse still, only hacking attacks did any real damage. Smash did nothing against it’s thick bark. Stab was useless as well. Slash was okay, but it was the axes that did the real damage. If you could slip out and cut those protrusions that it shot from his arm, Nerius was unable to grow them to that length again. It sounded easier than it was.

Bladescape and AFCK were switching rapidly to slice away at the branches. AFCK would get chances to dart in and land a destructive swing of her axe at its legs. It was almost like trying to chop down a giant hard cedar. It took time, patience, and endurance, but a regular tree wasn’t fighting back. Bladescape was only using Lacerate, a single hit skill similar to Horizontal, but it had a lot more power and it was meant to hack into an enemy with the lower part of the sword.

AFCK swung her axe with a blue glow and landed a strong hit on it. She jumped back and Bladescape’s blade glowed green as she unleashed Lacerate. It thudded into the leg almost exactly where AFCK’s axe had bit. It dealt a satisfactory amount of damage compared to how slow things were going.

Bladescape had to use Weapon Defense twice as they retreated. AFCK just bounced away like normal. It brought a smile to Bladescape’s lips. Despite the situation with their lives truly on the line, some things were not changing, and they were important things. AFCK managed to avoid all of the strikes the treant was lashing out with classic Pinkie Pie maneuvering, all while she seemed oblivious to most of the attacks even coming.

Diemond was taking six or so on her shield. She had been afraid and certainly wasn’t the happiest, but the fashionista knew how to stand her ground when she needed to. The times they fought evil Equestrian Magic had strengthened her mentally and her real life diamond shield skills had done a whole lot for her steady feet.

“Switch!” Diemond yelled to Knightstar.

Knightstar stepped out from behind her and took a blow on her shield. She swung her sword as it glowed blue and hacked off a bit of a branch. She couldn’t adjust in time as a branch slammed into her right shoulder. It knocked her back, but she was still on her feet. Another rammed into her shield in quick succession, knocking her back again. They didn’t stop as they pounded her defenseless chest.

Bladescape’s voice caught in her mouth as she saw her friend’s HP bar dip far into the red. Diemond was already in front of her and Bladescape dashed along the ground as she sheathed her sword along her back. Thunderborne joined them, having to hack a few branches out of the way.

Thunderborne helped protect them as Bladescape slid to Knightstar’s side. Bladescape pulled a health potion out of her pouch and immediately had it to Knightstar’s lips. She tipped it back, forcing Knightstar to drink it.

“It’s alright,” Bladescape said. “Shake it off and lets keep going.”

“No,” Knightstar said quietly. “I don’t belong here. I can’t do anything. I should just stay out of the way. I'm just Twilight Sparkle.”

Bladescape didn’t know what to say as the pit formed in her gut.

“But, you are Knightstar,” Bladescape stammered. "And Twilight Sparkle beat her own demon! You can do this."

“Yes Darling,” Diemond grunted as she took a blow to her shield. “You are among your friends. It was a close call, but we have your back.”

“No,” Knightstar sighed. “I am not even Twilight Sparkle. Not right now. And Knightstar can’t do this. Knightstar can fight, but not a boss. My job is statistics.”

She began to sob. Bladescape grabbed her armor and pulled them face to face, but Knightstar kept her face looking away.

“Knightstar, you can do this!” Bladescape said forcefully. She needed to get through to her, home. “Look at me! Look at me!”

Bladescape grabbed the back of Knightstar’s neck and forced her to look at her. “This is hell. But we all have to do our parts. You get close to death, but you don’t die. Because we are here. Your friends won’t let you die. We fought those evil plants on the first floor and we all got close, but we survived as friends.

"Diemond was immediately protecting you, Thunderborne and I were also right here to protect you and get you on your feet. Not get up, and lets fight, before our sacrifice becomes our undoing. Together we can beat this!”

“No,” Knightstar said, sobbing more. “I can’t. I knew I shouldn’t have come, but I did. I failed you.”

“Do you see AFCK?” Bladescape said, trying to soften her voice. “She is terrified. That’s why she is searching for a way to make cupcakes, with lots of frosting. She wants something to be normal and something to be Pinkie Pie, and to her, cupcakes are normal. So she is going to fight for normal.”

“I’m terrified,” Thunderborne admitted. “I am putting that energy into being the fastest I can be. Backbreaker isn’t going to break so we can survive.”

“I’m terrified Darling,” Diemond said as vines lashed across her shield. “But we need to stick together. We can do this. We have beaten worse. Okay, not worse, but we have faced things most of these gamers never have. Even Doombunny is still fighting with us on the front lines. She isn’t backing down at all.”

Bladescape had used their encouragement to take the moment and down a health potion. She tossed it aside as they finished. It was back to her. She had to be assertive yet soft, and she had to build her friend up. She was already fragile. Bladescape couldn’t break that. If she did, Twilight would never again fight on the front lines.

“I’m scared too, Twilight," Bladescape said, using her real name to try and soften things by igniting the spark she would so often see in her friend's eye. "But I won’t ever ask you to do something I am not completely confident you can do. I have to go hack that thing apart and distract it from Diemond. Dash and Rarity will get you up. But you can do this. We are working in a team for a reason. You are not alone.”

Bladescape flashed one last smile before she leaped backwards. As she spun she undid Iron Splitter. As the sword came off her back she activated Heaven Splitter. It sheared through the 4 limbs attacking Diemond’s shield.

Bladescape lunged forward and skipped to the side to avoid an incoming branch. She slid and unleashed Heaven Splitter again, pruning the branches back before they could retreat any further. Bladescape now had even more of a reason to beat this thing.

AFCK slid up to her. “I sure hope Twilight is okay. I want to bake her a cake, but I still don’t know how. I will learn through. I just need the right ingredients, starting with taffy! Then I can figure out how to make sprinkles.”

“Sprinkles?” Bladescape laughed. “I thought you were trying to make cupcakes?”

“Well duh, but I need sprinkles first. I need to eat something while I figure out how to bake whip cream.”

“Some things never changed,” Bladescape said, rolling her eyes.

“I know. What is life without cupcakes. Or strudel. I am sure I can figure out pie, but Dash doesn’t like pie.”

“Since when?” Bladescape asked as she blocked a limb and then turned it into a strike that pruned off a good 8 inches.

“Since always, silly.”

“I swear I have seen her eat pie.”

“No, she always looks like she is eating up, but you wouldn’t believe how many Tank ate for her.”

“Her turtle? Her small turtle?”

“No,” AFCK giggled. “Tank is a tortes. And the school always gets random pie deliveries whenever I make her one too. She is good at hiding it, but we are friends, so I stopped making her pies and I forgave her for all the times I pushed pies on her.”

“Pinkie,” Bladescape said, using her real name to get her full attention. “Are we talking about the same thing?”

“I dunno. I’m talking about Dash. I think you are talking about something else.”

Bladescape shook her head with a smile as she darted in. She blocked the incoming branch, forcing it to slide over her head. AFCK popped forward with a roar and severed the branch at the Treant’s fist. That strike put Nerius the Evil Treant into his last health bar.

Agil took a giant gouge out of Nerius. He had been hacking away at the same spot AFCK had been. Bladescape didn’t give him much of an opportunity to get clear as she brought up Lacerate and landed her blow in the same spot. Bladescape dove out of the way and AFCK drove her axe home. Agil put another swing in.

Nerius swung his arm to bash them but it was met by a bellow from Backbreaker and a bash from her war hammer. The rest of the strike was stopped by her shield.

The three of them landed several consecutive blows on the same place and Nerius the Evil Treant roared in pain, faltering backwards. Just like a tree, he could be staggered by hacking away at the same spot.

A volley of assaults from all directions came as he was staggered. They had all been waiting for this moment. His HP gauge was dropped into the yellow as the rest of them were taking their movement penalty.

“ROCK CANDY SMASH!” AFCK howled as her first sparked.

It slammed home. The HP gauge shot down. It was not enough. Only a few pixels were left. Bladescape swung, activating Avalanche for the Last Attack Bonus. As her sword came down Nerius exploded in polygons and her sword cut uselessly through them.

The Beater was on the other side. His sword had beaten hers. It was clear he had gotten the last strike in. Bladescape knew her nostrils were flaring as she caught her breath. But it was over. Twilight was safe, despite the close call. That was all that mattered.

“I thought you were going to be bringing fighters to this raid!” Kibaou said, storming over to her.

“Excuse me?” Bladescape asked, aggressively meeting him head on. She was clearly taller than him and forced him to look up at her.

“You heard me. I thought you were going to be bringing players who could fight.”

“We did,” Bladescape fired back.

“What about her!” Kibaou cut, pointing off behind Bladescape.

Bladescape didn’t have to look to know where he was pointing, but before she could speak Diemond beat her to it.

“No need to be ugly about it. Her HP dropped down almost to single digits. I would like to see you try to fight after your HP goes down that far in a few hits.”

“A fighter likes me never lets my HP drop that far!” Kibaou declared. “A true fighter who deserves to be here doesn’t either.”

“Hey!” Bladescape said getting his attention by disrespectfully snapping in his face. “That is my friend! Your HP can’t drop that far because you are too busy either fighting with Lind for ‘command’ or because you are ‘commanding’ from behind. You barely swung your sword at all! So lay off my friend for a moment of humanity.”

“We all survived,” Agil said walking over. Kibaou never liked how he really towered over him. “Everyone did their best in this fight. She wasn’t the only one who faltered. Plenty of other players did here, including in your own guild. Its no shame to falter a bit. Especially when your HP is almost depleted.

“And unlike so many others, she actually was here, fighting. She was brave enough to fight, and not just here. I have seen her on the front lines clearing the Labyrinths. She isn’t just trying to jump in out of nowhere.

“Let’s just be glad no one actually did die and move on. We have the 4th Floor to open and clear.”

Agil was enough to put things right and Bladescape looked at what she got. There was plenty to be proud of, but nothing of a particular interest to her.

“I got a new axe!” AFCK said bouncing up and down. “Bark Biter!” AFCK made multiple Rawr noises as she gnashed her teeth and turned her fingers into fake claws. “Its a good deal better than what I got now. BUT! Did anyone get sprinkles dropped?”

“Sorry AFCK,” Thunderborne shrugged. “None of us got sprinkles dropped.”

It was better than arguing with her that sprinkles never would be dropped.

They moved up to the fourth floor and grabbed rooms in the first town, Rovia. The Beta Test had it as a dry, sandy floor. Now it was overhauled with water and greenery. The entire floor required players to float through the river to the different towns and dungeons. Rovia was an island in a square lake now and the roads were all water. The villagers used Gondolas, but they had to use rubber tubes.

Bladescape messaged Argo from the inn’s pub. After brief negotiations, Bladescape learned how to start the quest to build their own Gondolas. Argo needed some calculations from Knightstar from another area of the Floor. It was now a common trade for them.

Knightstar had been quiet the entire time. At the moment, she was just staring at her drink. No one knew what to say.

“Twilight,” Bladescape said quietly. She was using her real name to try and make her words sink all the way in. “Just listen to me, your best friend Sunset Shimmer. You and I fought the same battle once, in the real world. I showed you the way. Now I am going to show the way again. We all are going to get closer than we want to death. That is this game.

“But it also is life. Real, non virtual life. If you had an HP gauge for life, you would see it a lot different. Back in the real world, we get through life because we don’t have one. We can ignore that idea. But every time we fall, or cut ourselves cooking, or whatever, it chips away at our HP and we need to revive it. We do it naturally in the real world, but here it is hanging over us because that gauge is the only one we have.

“You fought valiantly. Just as hard as the others did. You got knocked around pretty bad, but you got back up. You survived, and your friends didn’t abandon you. We were there and we still are here.

“I didn’t need you as a tank, I didn’t need you as a powerful damage dealer, I needed you doing exactly what you were doing. And you did it. You didn’t see the times I snuck a health potion in the middle of that fight. That’s a boss battle. You fight and heal on the run.

“I think BB was the only one who didn’t need to drink a health potion, but she was basically behind her shield the entire time, and doing an amazing job of it.”

“That pounding was tough,” Backbreaker admitted. “But even I drank a potion shortly before you took your hit, Twi. It still chips away at my HP every time I take an attack on my shield.”

“I drank a lot of them,” Dash added.

“Me too, Darling. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s the cool thing,” Astro said, smiling into her drink. “You got roughed up, but the battle is over, and you got a ton of XP from it. And that means you are getting stronger. The next fight, you will be an even higher level, AND you will be an even stronger fighter, with more experience, better gear, and new Swords Skills to unleash.

“Death game or not, it is a game. In real life, you can’t level up like you can here. Okay, you seven apparently can.”

That got Knightstar to let out a sad chuckle. “Yeah, we have leveled up a few times in real life. And the battle got me a new level. I already am statistically stronger. I’ll be okay in the end. I just need to wrap my head around it a bit more.” Knightstar looked up at Bladescape with a smile. “You were right. In real life, we just can’t see that HP gauge. But you could easily argue it’s there, but not visible. Thanks.”

Sunset Shimmer hugged her friend. It started a whole round of hugs. While the others hugged Knightstar, Sunset Shimmer let out a big sigh of relief. The Twilight behind Knightstar was going to be alright. All of her friends were going to be alright. Their new friends were going to be alright. Sunset Shimmer was going to be alright.

Bladescape (SS): Lvl 16– Two-Handed Sword – Search – Weapon Defense – Leather Armor
Knightstar (TS): Lvl 15 – One-Handed Sword – Shield – Equipment Appraisal – Parry
Thunderborne (RBD): Lvl 15 – Rapier – Sprint – Agility – Armor Pierce
Backbreaker (AJ): Lvl 16 – Shield – One-Handed War Hammer – Extended Weight Carry – Heavy Metal Armor
AFCK (PP): Lvl 15 – Two-Handed Axe – Parry – Cooking – Weapon Defense – Martial Arts
Diemond (R): Lvl 15 – Shield – Mace – Tailoring – Light Metal Armor Forging
Doombunny (FS): Lvl 14 – One-Handed Dagger – First Aid – Hide – Search
Astro (PS): Lvl 14 – Two-Handed Spear - Purchase Negotiation – Armor Pierce – Acrobatics
Kiefer: Lvl 11 – One-Handed Curved Blade – Parry – Weapon Defense
Lessa: Lvl 11 – One-Handed Sword – Shield – Light Metal Armor
Joltron: Lvl 11 – One handed Axe – Shield – Light Metal Armor

Author's Note:

I admit. I enjoyed a bit of philosophy about life at the end there.

Thanks for reading and sticking through to Episode 11~!

PreviousChapters Next