The Master Tactician - SAO Aincrad Arc X OC

Trapped

By now there were definately people shocked and afraid, but there were others that haven't actually thought about this whole situation much, and still treated this as if it was a normal game. The only thing they did was complain, saying things like 'this game sucks' and 'this is BS'. Some even tried to leave the plaza, only to get blocked by an invisible barrier. 

"Listen to this guy. He's gotta be nuts. Right?" asked Klein, still not completely convinced about the whole situation. However, Kirito was clearly shocked and filled with fear. Since he was a bit of a tech genius, he probably knew something we didn't

"He's not. The transmitter signals in the headgear work just like microwaves. If the safety is disabled they could fry your brain. And the Nervegear has an internal battery, so cutting the power wouldn't work either". After hearing those words I was genuinely afraid. Before it was just a bad feeling, but now I understood how screwed we were.

"That's crazy. He's totally crazy!" Shouted Klein with an angrier and more fearful tone. Kayaba followed up his announcement with some very bad news

"Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted removing the Nervegear, an unfortunate decision to say the least. As a result, the game has 213 less players than when it began. They've been deleted from both Aincrad and the real world." If I was afraid already, this news added to that and more. By now I was so shocked I couldn't even speak, and Kirito and Klein clearly felt just like me. Kayaba then proceeded to open several tabs in front of him, which looked like news articles. Upon a closer look, they all covered everything about the 213 deaths, so it's safe to say that death by removing the Nervegear was very unlikely at this point. Kayaba had to say the worst thing after that.

It's important to remember that there is no way to way to revive a player within the game. If your HP drops to 0 your avatar will be deleted from the system forever, and the nervegear will simultaneously destroy your brain". This was crazy. One slipup, one singular mistake in battle would kill us. This wasn't a game anymore.

Everyone was now at a loss for words. No one screamed, no one cried, and no one complained. Everyone was terrified.

"There is only one way to escape" Kayaba continued "You must clear the game."

"That's insane! This is an MMO. How are we even supposed to beat it? There are 100 floors in total. This is Crazy!" I really didn't have any meaningful words to say at this moment. I just needed to say something. I wasn't expecting a response, and i indeed didn't get one.

"Last but not least, I placed a little present in everyone's inventory. Please take a look" After he said that We opened our inventories and found an item denominated as 'mirror'. Most of us were clearly confused, and grabbed the item out of our inventories. Soon after, everyone got enveloped in a similar animation as the teleport one. After the animation stopped, I looked at the mirror and saw a tan-ish long face, with thick black hair, Very dark brown small eyes and a long nose. Wait a sec. THAT'S JUST ME! THAT'S MY FACE IRL!

"Kirito, JP. You guys OK?" asked Klein

"I'm fine, wait. Who are you?" As I looked up I saw two faces. On my left was a guy probably in his early 20's. He was pretty tall. A bit taller than me. He had a pretty long face with red brownish hair tied up with his bandana, and a small beard below his mouth, to my right was the most generic looking guy I've ever seen. Black hair, black eyes, and a white average face.

"I'm me. Who are you?" asked the guy on my left. I'm guessing that's Klein, and the one on my right is Kirito. The others were clearly surprised y this as well, and funnily enough, most of the girls changed into very ugly guys as well. I knew there was something wrong with that. There would never be this many girls playing a video game.

"Hold up. How did we end up with our real faces?" asked Klein.

"The Nervegear makes a high frequency scan. That's probably how it can see our faces. But how does it know my height and body type?" said Kirito. A thought then came in my mind

"That's probably what the calibration sequence was for. So that it could know those things" I said almost forgetting what was going on. Thankfully Klein reminded us of the situation.

"But, what's the point of all this?" Asked Klein. This was a good question. No one really knew the 'why'.

"I think he's about to tell us" said Kirito looking at Kayaba once again.

"Right now you're probably thinking, why? Why would the developer of SAO and the Nervegear do this. My goal was simple. To create a world in which I held absolute control, and as you can see, I have achieved my goal." As he said that, I saw Kirito clenching his fist, and quietly said the name 'Kayaba' under his breath.

"This marks the end of the tutorial, and the official launch of Sword Art online. Players, I wish you the best of luck." Following that, the Kayaba cloak began to vanish and turn into a red smoke. And the sky turned into the orange-ish color of the afternoon.

Still not sure about what I should do, I glanced over at Klein. He had the same expression as almost everyone else. Pure shock and fear. He was still processing this whole thing, on the other hand Kirito, while still in thought, had a more serious look, clearly knowing what he had to do. When everyone got back to their senses, some people cried, while others looked at each other. Soon enough, everyone began panicking, running everywhere. I got swallowed by the masses, and I could see Kirito and Klein looking for me for a few seconds. Knowing it was in vain, Kirito grabbed Klein and got out of here. I didn't feel particularly betrayed. I just felt frustrated that if I reacted sooner. I could've gone with them.

Even though only a few minutes passed, to me it felt like half an hour. Trying to get out of that crowd seemed impossible. Eventually I did manage to leave the central plaza, only to bump into Klein on the way out of the town.

"Hey dude, why did you go back? The crowd's going crazy back there. We need to lea-" I said until I was interrupted. Noticing Kirito wasn't with him

"JP, I've gotta ask a favor. Kirito offered me to go with him, but I've got a bunch of friends back at the plaza. He said he was gonna go to the next village. I've got a bad feeling about him going off on his own. What do you say tagging along with him?" asked Klein "He left around 5 minutes ago, but I'm sure you can catch up to him"

"Hey, don't worry, I can track him from my friends li-" I said as I noticed I forgot to friend him. You can only friend people if you're close to them, so if I tried to follow him, it wouldn't be easy. 

"If you want I can message him and tell him to wait for you"

"Don't do that. He's already focused on going by himself, and time is of the essence. Other beta testers might catch up to him and get to that town before him"

"Don't tell me you're planning on going alone! If you were a beta tester I'd get it, but you're not"

"Hey, don't worry about me. I've played other RPG's like this one. I'll be alright. Just go and find your friends back at the plaza" Saying that, we high-fived as we ran past each other. I left the Town of beginnings, and this death game officially started. Even though the situation we found ourselves in was very bad, I didn't expect such good memories I would get from this place.