Author's Note: Thank you for taking the time to read this! This is my first time writing a fanfiction, and I have to say I enjoyed this a lot! Please any criticism you have will be super helpful to me! Enjoy!

The amount of players already inside of Sword Art Online was astonishing to Matt. The game had launched only a few minutes prior, yet the spawn zone in the Town of Beginnings was filling up with players logging in by the second. When Matt checked how many players exactly were logged in, it showed eight thousand and eight. His eyes were wide with amazement after seeing the number.

Sword Art Online was the first of its kind: A virtual reality massive multiplayer online role playing game, or a VRMMORPG for short. What made it so special was that it created an avatar and put a person inside of the game. This meant that the player was virtually inside of a game, actually walking and moving as if it were real. All of this was possible due to new technology the Japanese invented, the NerveGear, which was just a big machine a person put over their head, it would then link that person into the virtual world of the game they were playing.

Some were worried that this would cause the players to hurt themselves while playing because they could swing their arms while attacking. However, this issue was put to ease when they announced that the NerveGear would cause a paralysis, making the user unable to move in any way while the NerveGear was connected. Matt was never worried about this issue. He was more worried about if the game would be Japanese exclusive or not.

When they first announced the game, the creator, Akihiko Kayaba, told the press that the game would be a Japanese exclusive. However, over the course of three months, he started giving hints that it would be released outside of Japan, but only a limited amount of copies. He finally stated that eight thousand five hundred copies would be released in North America, as a way to test how much reception the game would receive. As soon as Matt heard about this, he pre-ordered two copies: one for him, and one for his brother, Anthony.

Matt looked around, smiling to himself. Matt was nineteen years old. His in game avatar was similar to how he actually looked in real life: medium blond hair with his bangs going to his eyes, he was a medium height for a male living in America, yet oddly skinny. His starting outfit was a blue and white vest with white pants and white gloves and he carried a one-handed sword on his right side. Then there was his favorite feature, about both his avatar and real life body: purple eyes. In real life, Matt had Alexandria Genesis, or "purple eyes". This condition had no real affect on his body, other than making him more pale than most.

"Hey bro, are we just going to stand here and gaze dumbfounded at the game, or are we actually going to play this thing?" Matt looked over and noticed a tall man trying to grab his attention.

The man was at least half a foot taller than Matt, putting him well over six feet. Not only was he tall, but he was big; the man looked like he was a professional football player. He had a buzz cut, with dark brown eyes. He was wearing all heavy armor, and carried a huge shield and an axe that Matt would probably need two hands to carry, and if Matt didn't already know who it was, he would be very intimidated by the appearance.

Matt smiled. Good, Anthony's avatar looks just like him: intimidating as hell. Hopefully I shouldn't ever have any troubles finding him now.

"Well hello there stranger, what seems to bring you here?" Matt said to Anthony in a sarcastic manner.

"Who's the stranger here? Surely you'd be able to recognize your own brother! I mean, I created my avatar to look just like me!" Anthony exclaimed jokingly.

The two stared at each other emotionlessly for a few moments, until Matt started bursting out laughing, which cause Anthony to start laughing uncontrollably as well. Their burst of laughter went on for a couple minutes before they could finally start to calm down. Players around them looked at them with strange looks, but the two paid no attention to the onlookers.

"I'm glad Mom and Dad let you take some time off from your schoolwork to let you enjoy the new game with me." Matt said excitedly.

"Yeah bro I'm glad too! It wasn't terribly hard to convince Dad since he's a gamer as well. Mom on the other hand just wanted me to work my ass off until Fall Break, but Dad talked her into letting me have some free time."

"Dude you're like… eighteen and graduating this year. Why the hell is Mom still so hard on you with it? Unlike me, you actually do your work and get good grades.

Anthony chuckled. "Yeah that's true, but you know how Mom is."

Matt nodded. Ever since he didn't start doing well in school, Anthony had to pick up on the slack by doing all the most advanced classes he could. Matt always felt bad for putting him through it, which is part of the reason why he bought the game for the two of them.

"Well, should we go ahead and get started with the game then? Or do you just want to explore the town and get a feel for the virtual reality?

"Bro, I wasn't able to sleep last night I was so excited to play this with you, so you're damn right we're going to get started with it!" Anthony stated.

"Alright, sounds good to me. I think I see the entrance of the town from here." Matt said pointing at a large gate to the left of them.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

The two started walking, but Matt stopped suddenly.

"Oh yeah, I forgot something!" Matt said as he swiped his fingers downward in front of him, opening up a menu. From his menu he added Anthony as a friend and sent him a party invitation. The benefit to having a party was that it allowed you to keep track of the player's health in the party more easily, but the loot was shared, so if a rare item was dropped, the players would have to win a dice roll to determine who would receive it. After the roll was won, the item would go directly into the character's inventory, so that there wasn't any way of a character stealing the item even after the outcome had been determined.

Anthony accepted both the friend request and the party invitation and smiled, then started walking towards the giant gate they believed was the town entrance, and thus the beginnings their epic adventures in Sword Art Online began.

Anthony swung his shield into the Frenzy Boar's side with an ability called 'Shield Bash'. It took out half of the boar's health instantly. The boar, being an AI knowing the possible outcome of every move made, tried to retreat. Matt jumped in front of it and slashed his sword at the boar, going into a combo known as 'Sword Flurry'. He didn't even finish the move when the boar's HP had dropped to zero and he dissolved into thousands of tiny glimmering crystal-like particles that faded away into virtual nothingness.

"That was the last one we needed, right?" Matt asked, sheathing his sword.

Anthony nodded. "Yeah bro, we can go turn in the quest now."

Matt nodded and stared off into the distance. Surrounding them was a vast plains; large enough to where they couldn't see the other eight thousand players at all. To their left was a huge body of crystal-clear water. In the center of it all was a huge stone pillar, which held the dungeon and boss room somewhere inside of it. Each floor had the pillar, as it was the only way to advance to the next floor initially. After the boss room for the floor was cleared, a player could use the teleporter to go to whatever floor they wanted, as long as they had completed the boss room to access the floor.

Anthony realized Matt was gazing at the open world, and joined him. They stared for minutes in blissful silence, until finally Matt spoke up.

"You know, this is absolutely amazing. There's so much space here, it's like being in an actually place. Yet it's not even real." He paused, smiling, "I don't know about you, but if I could never leave this game, I think I would be happy!"

Anthony laughed. "Well, unlike you, I'm pretty sure Mom would kill me for ignoring my responsibilities and not leaving the game, and if that wasn't enough to worry about already there's still my girlfriend who would kill me for never spending any time with her. Either way though, I have to agree with you."

They stood there in silence for a few more minutes, each savoring the beauty of the world they were in. Neither of them wanted to move from this space, but they knew they should because they didn't want to fall behind everyone else and so that they could get all the best items and experience possible.

"Well," Matt started," I guess we should go turn in this quest now, huh? Which way was the quest giver again?"

"Do you have no sense of direction whatsoever?" Anthony said in a joking matter, "Well, regardless, I at least know where she was. Follow me!"

Matt sighed. Anthony always bugged him about the little things he wasn't good at. Even though he was his younger brother, Anthony acted a lot like an older brother; always teasing and pushing him around. Matt shrugged it off though, he couldn't let something as miniscule as that get in the way of him enjoying the world's first ever VRMMORPG.

On their way to the quest giver, they only passed by one other player. It was still unsettling to Matt the game was so large and expansive yet you could play through it all and never see a single player outside of a major town.

"Hey Anthony, do you find it unsettling that you could possibly go through the entire game without seeing another player outside of a major town? I know it's only a game, but it makes it seem like we're the only ones here, doesn't it?"

Anthony chuckled. "No way bro, because the spawn time of the monsters is so low and the experience and items given from completing a quest dwindles as it gets completed by more and more players, it only makes sense to make everything so far away from each other so it makes it more fair for the players just starting, or who are behind because they had to get off. I mean, it wouldn't be fair if this was a game the size of World of Warcraft, yet that game had the same questing mechanics as Sword Art Online does. Only the players who had the opportunity of getting game first and logged in instantly would ever have a chance of getting good gear and really enjoying the game to the fullest."

Matt couldn't help but to stare in awe at Anthony's response. Younger brother or not, Anthony put tons of thought into what he was saying, something Matt had always been jealous of. They continued walking until Matt noticed something.

"Hey Anthony, is that a mini-boss over there in the distance?" Matt said pointing over toward a large object.

Anthony squinted to try and see. The game had an autofocus feature that took effect when a player squinted, allowing them to view the object in more detail. As he examined it, he noticed it was a boar like the rest they've fought on the first floor, except this was one a giant compared to the rest.

"Yeah, that's got to be a mini-boss! It's definitely a boar, yet it's at least five times the size of all the others we've been fighting!" Anthony exclaimed excitedly. "Want to go kill it?"

"I don't know, do you think we can?" Matt asked with an uneasy feeling to him. Even though this was just a video game, it didn't stop the enemies from looking intimidating.

"Bro, we've been killing these boars here like nothing. Mini-boss or not, it can't be that hard. I mean, it's only the first floor! The worst that could happen is we die and respawn, right?"

Matt paused, and nodded in agreement.

"Well alright, let's go kick some boar ass!" Anthony said as he started to charge towards the boar.

A few minutes into the fight, Matt and Anthony were regretting their decision to attack the mini-boss. The two still weren't completely used to how the movement system worked in the game, and often times tripped over nothing. This exact incident had caused the mini-boss to bite off Matt's right hand, which caused him to freak him out.

"Anthony, I lost my hand! I am losing my shit over here!"

"Suck it up and use your other one! This thing is kicking our ass and I can't handle it on my own." Anthony responded, putting his shield in front to block the boar in just the nick of time.

Matt stared, still not knowing exactly what to do. He knew if he didn't help Anthony out they would lose this battle, and he didn't feel like losing to such a low level mini-boss, but without his right hand, he was sure he'd be all but useless as he was dominantly right-handed. He weighed his options, then picked up his sword with his left hand and charged at the boar, whose complete entranced with Anthony. He's good at keeping the enemy's attention; the boar isn't even noticing me! Matt smiled as he swung his sword at the preoccupied boar.

Just as his sword was about to make contact, the boar's hind legs kicked Matt and made him go flying. Matt landed with a thud and was disoriented for a few moments. When he finally came to him senses, the boar was charging at him. Shit, my HP is already in the red, there's no way I'll be able to survive this! Matt thought to himself, clenching his fist tighter around his sword. He didn't want to be the first one between the two to die.

As the boar approached him, Matt realized there wasn't much he could do. He thought about dodging the attack, but the boar was too close for him to do that, and if he tried attacking it while it was charging he was certain he would most likely miss due to the fact that he was using his left arm. Suddenly, he felt himself being pushed out of the way. As he looked back he saw Anthony was in his place. Anthony looked over and smiled. Hah, even inside of a game he's always trying to be the one helping people. Matt laughed to himself as he fell to the ground.

Anthony had successfully put himself in the spotlight. He raised his shield, but with the boar being moments away, he didn't have enough time to raise his shield in defense and it hit him with a direct hit. Shit, I think the boar just took out his HP! Moments later Matt's fear came true, as Anthony came down with a thud he watched his HP, which was already in the red, drop down to zero and saw his avatar disintegrate into crystal-like particles and faded away.

Idiot! You were the first to die! Matt smirked, thankful he wasn't the first out of the two to go. Now that Anthony was dead and had a respawn timer, he had another issue: he had to finish the boss fight himself. He scanned the boar to check its health, which was in the red. Just one more hit and it should die, but I need an opening first; I can't really do much in this situation without one. As if on cue, the boar stood on its hind legs and let out a victory squeal, completely oblivious to Matt.

Perfect! Matt said as he dashed towards the boar, preparing to use 'Skyward Blast'. As he began the uppercut motion, the game assistive feature kicked in to assist him with the move. He slashed at the boar, whose health depleted until it hit zero. Hell yeah! Matt jumped in the air to cheer as he noticed the boar dropped an item: a necklace with a miniature head of a boar. Sweet, since I was the only one alive when it died I get to keep it! I'll have to show Anthony what he's missing out on when he respawns in a few seconds.

Matt sat down and relaxed while waiting for his brother to respawn. A few minutes had passed, and Matt noticed wasn't there yet. Weird, it should only take a few seconds if that. Maybe he got mad and exited the game? Matt shrugged, opening his menu to see if Anthony was even still online. But as he went to the social page where his friends list was, he noticed Anthony wasn't even on it.

That's weird. I know for a fact that he accepted my request. He stared at the screen, puzzled, when suddenly he heard a loud ringing. What's that noise? But before he could investigate, a light blinded him.

The next thing he knew, he was back at the Town of Beginnings, as well as everyone else that was still in the game. Mat looked around, confused as to why suddenly everyone was teleported here. Nobody spoke for the first couple a moments, but soon the crowd started murmuring and talking to one another. As Matt looked around, he noticed a lot of players looked extremely angry, but before he could investigate further, people in the crowd started screaming.

"Hey everyone, look up at the sky!"

"What in the world is that?"

"Can we logout yet?"

Matt looked up to see what was going on, and noticed two flashing words in a red font that read WARNING and SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT. What the hell is going on here? Soon after the words were shown, a giant person at least sixty feet tall, clad in a robe with a crimson hood suddenly appeared, but something was off about his appearance: where his face should've been was an empty space, and every other place that should've had a visible body part also showed an empty space.

"Welcome to my world, dear players." In the next few moments, the life of all the players inside of the game would change.