The Floating Castle in the Sky. (Sword Art Online)

Beginnings

- This is a non-profit fan based story which retells and rewrites the events of SAO arc one. Sword Art Online is owned by A1 Pictures, Aniplex USA, and Reki Kawahara. Please support the Official release!

- This is mostly just a call to action and I didn't want or need it to be totally in depth. Please take into consideration.

- Now, "it's showtime!"

The clock reads 12:54 pm, our main protagonist is seen laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Her blinds are drawn and the lights are off. Her phone buzzes and she looks at it, opening Twitter. The tweet reads, "@Dexerto: The new full-dive MMO RPG 'Sword Art Online' has been released! Servers online at 1:00 pm GMT+9! (12:01, 6/11/22)".

"Maybe.. this is it.." Nori says.

She scrolls for a bit then sits up and reads the clock, it now reads 12:58 pm. Nori walks over and puts on her Nerve Gear, lays down in her bed and turns it on.

"Link Start!"  She exclaims.

The screen flashes white as surrounds colorful pixels take up the space of the screen. A login screen appears as Nori fills in the details, setting her IGN to "Mirumi".

"Welcome to Sword Art Online!" appears on the screen. She is taken through and shown the beautiful floors of Aincrad, The Floating Castle.

"Wow.." She says.

She is then transported to the central area of The Town of Beginnings, Mirumi looks around in awe. She had played VR games before, but they had never been this advanced and real in feeling before. She begins to walk around and explore the new world, shortly after speaking with an NPC and obtaining her first quest, she is approached by another player.

"Hello!, What's your name?" he looks at her grinning, extending his arm out.

Mirumi looks at him a little perplexed, unsure on how exactly to respond. After a few seconds though, she reaches for his hand and shakes it.

"My name is Mirumi, and what's yours?" she says quietly.

"My name is Maikeru!" he points to his chest, saying to her in a triumphant tone of voice.

She looks at him for a few seconds, then starts to giggle, making Maikeru confused.

"I thought I'd at least try and make some friends since I haven't been on a VR or anything like this before" he says stretching his arms.

"Cmon let's go!" he says, sending her a party request. She accepts it and the two begin to walk to the fields to complete their early game quests.

Maikeru tries to attack a boar but ends up falling over trying to hit it with his blade. Mirumi helps him up and brushes him off. She begins trying to show him how to attack using a sword properly.

"You gotta hold it like this, then you have to use these things called sword skills", her sword begins to glow a bright red. "And after you do that, you attack!". Suddenly, she charges at the boar and slices right through it. A bright red cut appears and the boar explodes in small, bright, and colorful shards of light that slowly disappears in the breeze.

Maikeru watches in awe, then grins widely.

"My turn!" he draws his blade and the sword glows a light blue color, he charges up his sword skill then attacks. He hits the boar dead on and watches the boar explode into light shards. They high five and continue farming XP in the fields for a few more hours.

"Well it's starting to get late, I think I'm gonna head off Mirumi" he says while opening the menu, sending her a friend request. "Wanna play some more tomorrow?".