Virtual Reality||Sword Art Online

|The Starting Day|

"Heidi, hurry up!" Max sang, as she and Remi ran ahead, laughing and skipping away. Heidi was swiftly walking down the road, persuing her two friends, to whom she was very close with. Even she, the quiet, calm and reserved one couldn't hide the skip in her step, and the grin on her face. SAO was going to be lauched today. Watching, as Max and Remi clutched onto their NerveGear, and hardcopies of the video game, Heidi tried to think of how many others would be on their way home from school, excited to finally start the game. She imagined her fingers wrapping around the smooth cover of the game, clutching it as if it was the most precious thing to her. Heidi's of course, was at home, safe and sound in her room, along with her NerveGear headset.

 It was such a hassle getting the hard copies; they had camped out for days like wild animals, just waiting to get their paws on the magnificent treasure. All of them had been Beta testers,(funnily enough, that's how they met, to which they found out they all went to the same, rather large school) but seeing as the company had run out of the patched hard copies to give out to the Beta's, they had to fight tooth and nail to get them, like the rest. But this made Heidi even more excited to go back in: to full dive into the virtual world, feel the fresh wind in her face, and witness the exhilaration of killing monsters gave her a high, that would not go down for a few hours. SAO was truly amazing, and it would only be a few more minutes untill she got to feel that once more. 

The bunch of them were going to be staying at Heidi's place for the week,  and they planned on playing SAO as much as they could. Every day, after school they planned to come and play SAO until 3 or 4 in the morning. (It was lucky the school was starting at lunchtime the whole week!) It would be amazing. Heidi, being the planner she was,  (that came naturally with the whole "calm, quiet and reserved" deal) had made sure there wouldn't be any homework for them to do during the week, and had made meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, for each day of the week. That way, the time spent  in SAO would be maximized, to which they wanted to reach the goal of beating the first floor in a week. Since they were betas, it wouldn't be too hard: they knew the best places to hunt, and the attack patterns of the first boss, along with the location of the entrance to the  dungeon that would take them to said boss.  They could easily become strong players. Just the thought of being one of the best, made Heidi want to prance for joy! 

"Heidi, come on! We're almost at your place, and the game starts in 10 minutes, we have to hurry!" Remi shouted, her long, dark red pigtails moving up and down, as she jumped.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming!" Heidi shouted back, flipping her own, golden brown hair behind her shoulders. She picked up the pace, dashing over. (though huffing a bit, as she was dreadfully out of shape; it was a wonder how she stayed slim, seeing as she ate a large amount of junk food, and hardly did physical work-books, videogames and schoolwork seemed much more appealing to her)

Max grinned, her own shoulder length curly brown hair swaying in the wind, as she waited for her friend to catch up. Heidi soon joined them, and they all shot towards her apartment. (Heidi lived alone) Swinging through the doors, and racing up the stairs, Heidi quickly faced her appartment door, that was luckily just on the first floor above the lobby. Twisting the doorknob open using her key that swung on her lanyard hidded under her shirt, she pushed open the door, and dashed straight to her bed, picking up her change of clothes she had put there that morning. 

"Quick get changed, we have less than two minutes left!" She chimed, quickly stripping her school uniform and putting on her comfortable shorts and t-shirt. 

There would be no time to waste on privacy, so Max and Remi did the same, though a faint "Sorry for intruding"could be heard muttered from both of them, which made Heidi chuckle. The Futons Remi and Max would sleep on were already rolled out, and made (curtosy of Heidi) so the only preparations needed would be to get the NerveGear running. Each of them still needed to make their characters, so they had decided the night before to meet up in the bazaar of The Town Of Beginnings, and buy the needed weapons and armour together. Since they were still starting out, today would be a day dedicated to getting used to their weapons, and killing as many monsters as they could to level up. It would be glorious, or so Heidi thought. 

With everybody having the NerveGear ready, and up, they were ready to head out. "Alright, remember, everybody meet up in the bazaar!" Heidi stated, laying down on her bed. Wobbled nods came from Max and Remi, so Heidi layed her head back, once again, another smile crawling across her face.

"Link.....Start!"