The Equestrian Seedby dowdlekidChaptersEvery Adventure has a BeginningMeetings and ToursPreparations (Unedited)A Change of Clothes (Unedited)EXPOSITION!!Every Adventure has a BeginningChapter 1 Thousands of tiny flakes sparkled as they drifted through the air. The scene was beautiful, and serene. The only sound to be heard was what seemed to be the sound of millions of tiny bells ringing in the breeze. The calm seemed to last forever… In reality it was about three seconds. With the tell-tale electronic ring a gigantic ‘Congratulations’ sign appeared over where the beast use to stand as the group burst into ecstatic cheering. “We did it!” Yelled out Recon while falling to his knees, “I thought we were done for!” Jumping back up the energetic Sylph flew over to Lyfa, a whole five feet away, throwing his arms around her “I was so worried when you went-.“ He came up short on account of Lyfa’s hand being shoved into his face. Lyfa and Recon, whose real names are Suguha Kirigaya and Nagata Shinichi, were currently playing their characters ALFheim Online, Slyphs are a fairy race denoted by green and known for their wind magic and speed. A very exasperated Lyfa held her admirer away with one hand saying “I know, I know it was stupid of me to charge in there… But I couldn’t let Asuna hog all the glory again.” Floating back a foot Recon gave Leafa a very confused look. “What are you talking about? Asuna is one of the most humble people Iv’e ever met, especially around your brother.” A very oblivious Recon stated, receiving a glare for his blunder. “I know,” fumed Lyfa, “she’s so perfect with her perfect hair, and her perfect smile, and her perfect cooking, and her perfect swordsmanship, and her perfect-“ “Still sore from when she saved your behind on floor 54,” cut in a voice from behind the duo, “I remember you oh so boldly jumped into an obvious mimic trap just to get that golden tiara, which ended up only having a basic speed buff.” Purred a very enticing Cait Sith, “I seem to remember you saying something about it being a very high level item that should make your base movement skill so high that we wouldn’t be able to see you when you are walking down the hall.” This is the lord of the Cait Siths, a species of cat like people from ALFheim Online who specialize in beast training, Alicia Rue. She has been joining the party from time to time with her 7 player dragoon guard in their dungeon crawling. “Ya, and didn’t the room not only end up being a teleport trap, but also home to about ten invisi-spiders?” Chucked a very amused swordsman. “And wasn’t – .“ “SHUT IT KLEIN!” Snapped Lyfa turning to the katana wielding rogue. This is Klein, Tsuboi Ryoutarou in real life, he met Kirito on the first day of SAO and they ran into each other from time to time over their time in SAO. He still uses his avatar from the original SAO, a normal human that looks eerily similar to his real world body only with fairy wings. “Yes Asuna saves my but from time to time, and YES I made a mistake going for that tiara… although it does match my cape of the swift wind quite nicely” Lyfa added while admiring herself “You too Alicia, I do not care that you are in charge of an entire species, WHY-“ “Alright, we get it” chuckled Klein putting an arm on Lyfa’s shoulder, silencing her “let’s check on our fearless leaders and see where we stand from here. HEY KIRITO, ASUNA!! WHATS THE PLAN?” And adding as an afterthought, “HEY WHO KILLED THE BEAST ANYWAY?” Across the room Kirito and Asuna sat on the floor leaning their backs against each other for support trying to catch their breath. Kirito, Sugu’s (Lyfa’s) older brother, hero of SAO, and boyfriend to Asuna, was a black clothed Spriggan avatar of Kirigaya Kazuto. Asuna is the Undine avatar of Asuna Yuki and Kazuto’s girlfriend in real life. On Kirito’s shoulder sat the navigation pixie Yui, a rogue program from the original SAO game who became close to Kirito and Asuna during the original game and considers them her parents. “These dungeon bosses seem much easier now that we aren’t actually fighting for our lives.” Chuckled the black robed Spriggan. “Ya, and it’s almost like we have a party of people we actually trust and know to be good players or something.” Replied his in game wife and real life girlfriend, “Still, I’m glad we didn’t lose anyone.” “Yeah, the death timer would have been annoying.” Added Yui. “The death timer would have been annoying. Oh, and,” Kirito echoed, and then as he turned to Klein across the room “,EVERYONE GATHER AT THE PORTAL TO THE NEXT LEVEL… AND I BELIEVE LIZ KILLED THE BEAST, BUT I AM NOT SURE... LIZ?” Standing a few yards away were two girls and a small dragon. The girls were Lizbeth and Silica, in real life Ayano Keiko and Shinozaki Rika, two of the original SAO players. The dragon, Pina, is a pet of Silica in game, and has a main ‘attack’ of a health breath. “YA I KILLED IT… broke a perfectly good mace on it… but YA I KILLED IT.” Replied a slightly disgruntled blacksmith, “thanks for supporting me Silica, without Pina I don’t know what I would have done.” “Hey, no biggy, it’s what I do” Replied the younger girl “besides, it feels good to do more than just be the mascot for once.” She looked over to see that everyone was moving toward the portal gate to the next level of the dungeon and motioned to Liz to show that they should join. As the group gathered at the portal gate the quite banter died down till at last there was silence as Kirito opened the gate. “Now everyone,” He said turning to the group of about 30, “I know some of you are high enough level to take on about half of the 67th floor in pairs or as solo players, but I know that I have an exciting meeting with my pillow in an hour and would like to go home, so I am teleporting back to the inn at level 50 and logging out… It never gets old to log out.” He said with a smile, getting a smile and a nod from a good third of the group. “Whenever you guys are ready to tackle the next boss contact the rest and we shall talk strategy.” A round of ‘ya’s and nods confirmed the deadline. “Alright, see you on the other side.” And with that he pulled out his blue teleport crystal and teleported back to the lobby of the inn. Turning to go up the stairs he was not surprised to see that most of his party had joined him. Doing a quick head count he found that they were all there: Leafa, Reon, Asuna, Klein, Lizbeth, and Silica. With a smile he walked up the stairs to his and Asuna’s room opening the door for her and receiving a smile in return from her. As he turned around the back of his head received quite a strong glare from both Lizbeth and Lyfa. Sadly the back of his head was not all that receptive to glares. As the girls sighed Klein walked past laughing full-heartedly at their expense. As Kirito closed his own door and walked to the bed and then flopped down next to Asuna on the bed. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheak before they both logged out. *^~~~~~~~~~^* The café was calm as the team quietly celebrated another victory over yet another dungeon boss with a round of drinks (mostly tea). Smiles and stories were shared as the team sat back and relaxed after another hard day of dungeon crawling. Ryōtarō, Kazuto, and Asuna sat at one small table near the bar sharing a plate of nachos while Naga, Sugu, Rika and Keiko sat at another table nearby the one male at the table beaming at a fuming Sugu while the other two girls laughed at her expense. “I saw that quick well-placed mace attack that you used to finish off the boss, nice work Rika, though why you went with the extra sharpness mace instead of the heavier mace is beyond me.” Commented the happy owner of Dicey Café. Said owner was a large tall bald black man named Andrew Gilber Mills. He was one of the original players of SAO and went by Agil in game where he became good friends of the Kazuto and the group. He owned and worked the café along with his wife. Turning to the bartender “I wanted to try out my new mace.” Retorted a disgruntled Rika, “Besides, how was I supposed to know that Gantruna had an armor level of 38? If it was below 30 the sharpness would have cut through the armor and done extra damage of up to 300!!” “Well you would have known if you read the guidebook.” Commented Ryōtarō casually from the other table. “I did read the book.” She huffed “but there were no actual stats on the armor for Gantruna. I guess I am just not as good a smith as I thought.” She said looking down and sighing. “Hey hey hey,” he franticly said trying to cheer her up, “I didn’t mean to put you down! You still fought great, it is just something to think about next time.” Turning to her friend, Keiko added “Ya Rika, you couldn’t have known. And if anything it is my fault for being a poor support and not having all the stats on me… Ah ah ah.” She added holding up a hand cutting off Rika’s obvious denial, “If I want to be a great support I need to know everything about every battle and make sure you know exactly what you are doing and are at your most prepared at all times.” Smiling at Keiko, Sugu asked “where do you get all that information anyway? You always seem to know exactly which weapons we should use and are always ready with a health potion, crystal, or the right status effect crystal.” Blushing Keiko replied with a smile “well I memorized the guidebook, plus I talk to Yui on the downtime. That and I just try to stay stocked in general.” “Hey guys, have you seen this?” Asked Kazuto gesturing toward the television hanging on the wall. “And with us here we have Professor Karamazato Azimeo, the leading researcher in the exciting new world of Alternate Dimensions, Professor Azimeo.” Gestured a lovely young reporter woman toward a well-built elderly man standing on her left. “Thank you Amaya, and you are only partially correct. The correct term is Alternate Universe, because if it was Dimention it would me a method of moving, which is not what my research is about.” He laughed jollily, “ No, what my colleagues and I are researching right now in this very building are methods of seeing, and hopefully one day contacting and traveling to alternate worlds. Worlds where physics is different from ours, worlds with people completely different from us, worlds beyond my or your wildest imagination.” With a gleam in his eye he continued “Think of the advances for our people, for our race! And think of what we could do! We could travel and settle on other worlds we could form trade agreements with other cultures for their sciences and maths, goods and services, and ideaologies philosophies and religions completely different from our own!! It boggles the mind… Why…” Tuning out old man’s energetic theories and tech mumbo jumbo the group turned exasperated looks to Kazuto. “Really brother? Alternate Universes, parallel dimensions, other worlds? I know we live in a virtual fantasy world most every day, but even you must realize that this is a silly childish pipe dream.” “Ya, it’s all still theory anyway. I have heard they still haven’t gotten anywhere near a working prototype yet.” Said Ryōtarō, “Tell him Asuna, never gunna happen.” He said with conviction “Well, it is a nice idea.” Asuna contributed while leaning on her boyfriend, Kazuto. “But I agree, it will probably never happen. And even when it does there is going to be such a horrible political and public backlash that I don’t think would make the research be anywhere near worth it.” Nods and ‘Yeah’s were given by all in agreement to Asuna’s comment. Kazuto harrumphed and crossed his arms with a small smile “True, but it would still be cool to go to a completely different world with actual people there, not just AI and to see things that a human could never have imagined…” “You know, they did have some interesting codes in their viewing machines you have to admit.” Naga commented out loud to which the group gave a collective huh. “What do you mean by that?” Asked Keiko. “Well, my father is actually working on this project… not a high ranking official of course… but he does get to do some basic code crunching, and I was allowed to have a look at it. It doesn’t work right now so they saw no harm in a kid like me taking a copy to play with at home...” Naga ended awkwardly with a bashful look on his face. “Well” Sugu said poking him in the shoulder “What was so interesting about the code?” With all eyes on Naga he started to explain, “the code takes several very advanced number generating algorithms and details about our world to try and find other worlds.” With a gleam in his eye he continued “They do not know what they are doing, or what they are looking for or anything yet, so they are just punching numbers and figures into the code hoping to get some sort of sequence of figures that correlates to an ‘alternate universe.’ So far they have found several possibilities for worlds, but there is still no way to view these worlds besides sheets of papers with millions of numbers on it that the lower level scientists, like my dad, are currently trying to make heads or tails of.” “Wow, that’s kind of cool.” “Interesting.” “I wonder if you could plug in a code to find a world completely filled with Egg Rolls…” Rika trailed off dreamily looking off into the distance. She quickly noticed the silence and when she refocused she noticed everyone giving her an odd look, “Oh come on I like egg rolls!! And I know you guys want all want some sort of odd thing in a different world.” As the group became lost in thought Naga continued “So anyway, I took the code and tried to make a virtual world from it. But I am not sure if it works yet…” He quietly added when the room when silent again. “Please continue.” Requested the bald barkeeper. “Um, ok, well, um I haven’t tested the world out yet, so I have no idea what it will do, but I took the random number generators from the alternate universe world code that the scientists gave me and punched in some information about our normal world, but then some other things I thought would be cool, like ancient Roman Mythology. I really liked that section in school. And Medieval kingdoms and added some sort of danger…” “So wait, let me see if I am getting this right.” Said a very serious Ryōtarō, “You took a highly advanced and brand new scientific code that is meant to find alternate universes and changed it into a world seed that will create a random virtual world that has whatever basic parameters that you want it to have?” “Pretty much. *gulp* Is that ok?” “Ok, that’s awesome!!” Exclaimed Kazuto, “Why haven’t you tried it yet?” “Because I haven’t had a server to test it on… also… because I am afraid of looking like an idiot when it doesn’t work…” Timidly replied Naga. “Can we try it tomorrow?” Asked a wide eyed Keiko. “If he gives me the code I can add it to our server, and cut that section off of the main grid.” Said Andrew, “The café tends to be light enough for my wife to tend to on her own, I can monitor your progress from here and try to manually fix anything or pull you guys out if things look bad. Do you have the code on you?” “Ya, here.” He said as he handed the barkeeper the flash drive. “It should be in the folder titled Test_1 in the worlds folder.” “Cool, I will upload it tonight. And tomorrow you guys can try it out. But first I am sorry, but it is really getting late and I gotta close up.” A round of approval and confirmation was given from the group of friends as they slowly got up said their goodbyes and left for their homes excited about the new worlds and new adventures they hoped to be having tomorrow. The next day The gang had gathered in the upstairs room of the Dicey Café getting ready to dive into the virtual world for an exciting adventure into an unknown territory. Naga was visibly nervous. Ryōtarō stood by Sugu glaring at her in an attempt to get her to cheer up the shaking boy, at which she glared guiltily back until she finally gave in and went over to comfort him, putting a hand on his shoulder and talking quietly to him. Rika, Asuna, and Keiko stood nearby debating whether or not Rika should bring Pina. Kazuto stood on the other side of Ryōtarō smiling to himself observing the group waiting for Andrew to show up and give them the all clear. Everyone was completely oblivious to Naga’s nervousness. After several long minutes of waiting Andrew came up the stairs with and told them that the code had been added to their server and should show up as a door that only they can open. “I tried to add it near to your position, but because you were in the middle of town I went for the next best thing… The Fields of Peace on the 18th level of the dungeon. Sorry about that.” “Na, it’s all good.” Said Ryōtarō, “Let’s get this show on the road!” Cheered Ryōtarō. With some light cheering everyone lied down in their designated bed and slipped on their respective NerveGear or AmuSphere and logged on. *^~~~~~~~~~^* After getting out of bed, meeting in the lobby of the Inn, and briefing Yui on what was going on they ventured to the center of town where they could teleport to a village close to the Fields of Peace. After teleporting to Caragferkas they ventured west to the Fields of Peace. The leaves were beginning to show their fall colors and there was a slight bite to the wind. Sugu was in awe at the beauty of the virtual world, and commented as such. “Ya,” replied Kirito “this place may have been a prison for us for two years, but it was and still is very beautiful.” He laughed, “I remember teaching Asuma that important lesson.” Asuma smiled moving closer to Kazuto. “And I am very happy I listened to you.” “Well I personally like spring better in Sword Art Online.” Commented Lizbeth. Turning Lyfa asked, “Why? Is there something special about it?” “No no. I just enjoy the life, artificial it may be. I always enjoyed that even in a place so bleak and dark there was always life and new beauty. So many good smells.” Conversation continued in that manner until it was broken by the appearance of a large door on top of a rolling hill. “This must be the portal… It is strange, I have no idea what this is, and the programing is very complex. I feel so much life and energy on the other side.” Yui said while touching the golden door frame. The door stood ten feet tall. Rounded at the top with a golden frame. The door was etched with colorful depictions of what appeared to be small horses dragons griffons, unicorns and pegusi with a large depiction of a dark blue horse creature with a horn and wings on the left standing in front of what appeared to be the moon and a similar depiction of a white horse creature on the right shadowed by the sun. “Apparently whatever world you have created it is called Equestria. But I do not know any more about it than that. I can probably find out more when we are inside the program.” “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” Said Kirito. Yui pushed open the double door and through the door all that could be seen was a bright light. The party looked at each other with a smile and a not before they walked through the portal. *^~~~~~~~~~^* “Ok, so now you guys are going through the door. No problems… Wait, what is this? This makes no sense? Where is all this information coming from?” A very confused and slightly worried Andrew asked the air as he monitored the surprisingly high amount of data from such a small world seed. “Well kid…” he said leaning back in his chair, “let’s see what you have made huh?” *^~~~~~~~~~^* The first Kirito noticed was the high ceilings. Huge gothic arches similar to the grand gothic cathedrals of ancient Europe. The second thing he noticed were the beautifully detailed stained glass windows showing very artistic depictions of what he guessed were supposed to be backstory to their quest. The third and probably most important thing he noticed was a very perturbed looking horned and winged horse creature sitting on what appeared to be a thrown flanked by two smaller armored unicorns with shocked looks on their face, and another regular horse (naked he noticed) looking completely shocked sitting in front of the larger white creature. The rest of the party stood by him admiring the new world until Yui broke the silence with a disturbing fact. “Daddy? I’m scared. I don’t know where we are, and I am worried… This isn’t in game… There are no programs here… No code.” Yui said with a very scared expression on her face. “Mommy, hold me!” The group stood there in shock as the white creature on the thrown broke the ice. “As interesting as that fact is… I have no idea what that means.” She spoke with a feminine voice, rich in grandeur. She stepped down from her throne and walked towards the group, keeping more poise than Kirito thought a horse could ever pull off. She stopped and continued when she got close enough to look down on the group. “But I am more curious in who you are, what you are, and how you managed to get here.” Author's Note Wow, my first fic... This was an idea that I had in my head and just had to write down, I hope someone enjoys it... if not, I don't blame you guys! I do not think of myself as a good writer! XD Meetings and ToursChapter 2 The room was silent as the party took a moment to comprehend the questions. Kirito looked up at the white creature with an awkward grin as he stuttered out: “Um… well… you see… we are… um… mhm…” With a huge grin Klein put a hand on Kirito’s chest stopping his panicked stuttering. “I got this.” He said with a grin as he turned to the now smirking white creature on the thrown. “HELLO ALIEN CREATURE.” He said loudly, slowly and with a huge smile. “WE CREATURES,” with a gesture to his friends, “ARE HUMANS… HHHUUUMMMAAANNNSSS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” With a chuckle the white creature got off her throne gesturing to her disgruntled guards with a wing in attempt to calm them. With cultured speech it replied “I do in fact understand what you are saying, though I am slightly curious why you are speaking so loudly and so slowly. Is it a cultural thing to speak to others you are trying to impress? But anyway I would like to request that you take off your swords and weapons, they seem to be disturbing to my guards and I would very much like to calm them. Plus there is no need to worry here. From wherever difficulty you have come from you should now know that you can find safety here in these walls and that there is no need for swords or weapons of any kind.” The white horse focused intently, “Can you understand that?” “Yes maam,” replied Asuna as the party went into their inventory un-equipping their weapons, “I apologize for my friend here,” gesturing to Klein, “he can be a bit dense sometimes. My name is Asuna, this is my boyfriend Kirito, our daughter Yui, his younger sister Lyfa, Silica, Lizbeth, Recon, and the rude one you already met Klein.” At which they all waved when their name was called, except for Klein who crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “We are humans, but what you see here are our avatar forms computer generated in a virtual world which we were exploring. This was supposed to be a new world that Recon over there designed…” Asuna took a second to quickly look at her surroundings, “And apparently he accidentally succeeded in creating a gateway to another world. I apologize for any inconvenience.” She finished with a bow, which the rest of the team mirrored. “Interesting, very interesting indeed. Well I should be the first to welcome you travelers to my world and kingdom. Welcome to the planet Equis, and my kingdom Equestria. You are currently in my thrown room in my palace in the capital city of Canterlot.” She turned back from the group and took several steps towards her throne gesturing to the room with her wings. When she was a good distance away she turned back to them and stood tall and as regal as a horse possibly could. “My name is Princess Celestia and I rule over Equestria with my younger sister Luna.” She paused, possibly for dramatic effect, “I am also guardian of the day for it is my job to make sure the sun rises and sets every day where. Similarly my sister is guardian of the night making sure the moon rises and sets every night.” She continued when she noticed some curious faces looking around the Throne Room. “She tends to be nocturnal,” she explained, “so she cannot be here with us right now. But I am sure she would love to meet you.” Celestia said with a kind smile. And with a frown she added, “Now as informative as what you said to me earlier was… I only understood about less than half of it, would you mind clarifying it for an old mare?” “I can I can I can I can,” said Silica jumping up and down waving her hand in the air excitedly, “Ok, so do you know what a computer is.” To which Celestia shook her head. “Electricity.” Celestia nodded. “Alrighty, how about a television… calculator?” “We have calculators, but I do not know what a television is.” Silica groaned sitting down getting ready to explain the mysteries of technology to one so underprivileged. “Alright, calculators have screens right” nod “and they have programming and stuff right?” Another nod, “televisions are big screens that show shows and movies… Kinda like picture books but with motion,” Silicia’s eyes lit up, “oh oh oh, and you can also record people doing stuff and show them on a television.” She took a deep breath, “ Alright, well a computer has a television on it so it can show stuff. And it also has lots of very strong calculator parts so you can tell it stuff and it can figure out other stuff with it. Understand so far?” Chuckling Celestia nodded once again. “Alright, WELL you can play games and do things that are fun on computers, and using the internet… I am NOT gunna explain that…” Everyone chuckled. “You can contact friends and play games with them. And so one type of game is done by putting a helmet on your head that connects your brain with the computer so you can actually BE in the game instead of just looking at it!!” Silica stood beaming like she had just uncovered the mystery of life. “I still do not fully understand, but I think I get it enough. It is like a controlled dream where you can contact others and do whatever you want to?” Celestia inquired. “That sounds like a pretty good description.” Replied Lyfa after after thinking for a minute. “Mine was better” huffed Silica receiving a chuckle and a pat on the head from Klein, who then received a bite from Pina. As Klein grimaced nursing his hand Celestia turned to Kirito and Asuna who were still trying to calm a shaking Yui. “Is she alright?” Celestia asked with concern, “ And I also have to ask, if it is alright, how old are you that you would have a daughter so old?” Putting a comforting arm around Yui Kirito replied, “I hope she will be. And it is alright. Yui isn’t actually our physical daughter. We found her lost in the woods in game with no memory of who or where she was and took her in hoping to find her parents. When she finally remembered who she was she told us that she was a program in the game that went rogue.” Celestia looked a bit confused again but Kirito quickly continued, “when she couldn’t do as she was programmed, help others.” He paused to give Yui a quick, reassuring hug, “It’s a long story but in a nutshell, we were stuck in a game where the only way to leave was to win, and if you lost you died in the real world instead of starting the game over.” Celestia gasped placing a hoof over her mouth. “It’s alright, everyone here, except Recon and Lyfa were in that game and we got out. Plus, I met Asuna there, so it wasn’t all bad.” “That, and you were the one to beat the game.” Commented Klien with a smile. “Eh, that too. But anyway, Yui decided that we are her parents because we cared about her so much. And we are fine with that. She is probably like this because this is the first time she has ever been out of the virtual world.” Celestia looked at Yui with compassion, “That must be quite a shock to her. If there is anything I could do, let me know.” “Thank you.” Replied Yui quietly. “I’ll be alright. I just need to adjust. I feel like my data is falling apart with no regular lines or codes to cling to.” She shivered and closed her eyes. After a few seconds “There is this strange energy flowing around that I might be able to pin myself to.” “Ah,” Celestia replied with a smile, “those would be the natural magical leylines of this world. There are many different magical creatures in this world, several of which use the leylines already, why don’t you try and pin yourself to that.” “Thank you, ok, ill try…” Scrunching up her eyes in concentration Yui glowed softly and started to fade away, much to the unhappiness of her parents. But then she became completely visible again, stopped shaking and looked forward confidently. “It worked!” She cheered. “I pinned my avatar to the leylines, and wait, give me a minute.” Concentrating again the others started to disappear, much to their unhappiness. But then, like Yui, they became visible again and felt more whole. “Alright. All of our avatars are now completely tangible in this world.” “What do you mean by that?” Asked Lyfa. “Well, near to the doorway there is data leaking out, doing no harm to the surrounding area, but keeping us actually physically here. Now that I have locked our avatars onto the leylines of the world we can move as far away from the doorway and we will still be able to function as we could in game and move around freely in this world.” This was met by a round of ohs, cools, and wows. “I still feel slightly uncomfortable tho… we aren’t in a computer, and I cannot find out as much about the world as I normally could.” Yui said slipping back into pixy form and flying up to Kirito’s pocket. Celestia blinked several times trying to understand what just happened. She decided to put that in the to be figured out later section of her mind along with how to solve a rubix cube, why politics are as crazy as they are, whether or not she likes bananas, and most of what Pinkie Pie does.* “Well, there is always the royal library.” Said Celestia thoughtfully. “I can make arrangements for you to visit it tonight, most likely with my sister as a guide and chaperone.” “Oh thank you Princess!” Yui cheered. “Thank you.” Said Asuna with a smile. “Looks like you cheered our little girl right up.” “Hey princess,” Lizbeth spurted out. As Celestia turned to look at the girl she became sheepish toying the ground with her foot, “um, with all these questions you are asking us, I was wondering if you could answer some of our questions, well… my questions.” “Of course, what would you like to know?” “Oh well, first, what are you? Second, why are your guards not like you? Third, why was that other pony also not like you? Fourth, what is this world like? And um, fifth, is there something for us to do here?” Celestia chuckled at the tirade of questions. “Well, I am what is called an Alicorn. One of the four types of ponies here in Equestria.” She gestured a hoof towards one of the stained glass windows depicting three different types of ponies dancing around one larger pony. “Earth ponies,” gesturing towards the bottom plain pony in the window, “like the representative of the Appolusan Farmers Union. Unicorns,” gesturing first to the depiction of a unicorn in the window and then to her gaurds, “like my personal guard. And Pegusi” Gesturing to the pegusi in the window, “of which you have yet to see.” She turned back to the group. “This world is a fairly peaceful world, although there are exceptions. We have forests with dangerous beasts, safe forests, fields mountain ranges, deserts, several large cities, but mostly small villages. And for something to do, well,” one of the corulers of the land put a hoof up to her chin to think, “what do you want to do?” “Oh um, I don’t know…” Lizbeth replied quietly, “Thanks for answering my questions though.” “Of course. Any other questions?” “Where exactly are we? Like is there a regular looking-out-and-seeing-things window around here?” Asked Silica with wide eyes. “Of course, come follow me. Post It,” she said loudly with authority. After a second a large door the party had not noticed behind them opened and a female unicorn wearing small square glasses and a serious expression came in, “would you please announce that open court has ended for the day and please file the citizens requests and concerns for me to look at later tonight?” “Yes mam.” She replied not even flinching at the new addition of a huge door in the middle of the usually empty hall and the eight strange beings standing there. “Shall I tell them that a very important matter to the state has come up.” A half nod and a look. “Kindly,” a smile and a nod, “and shall I have my assistances and I record their petitions?” Another nod, at which a bow was given in response. “My princess.” “Good luck Mrs. It, you are going to need it.” With a roll of her eyes Post It turned to the door, “It is my job. Good luck with this… whatever this is.” “I hope this does go well.” The princess replied as the door closed. “Ok my little adventurers, shall I show you the city?” Nods in response the party followed her out of the Hall, down a long hallway to a round balcony displaying a beautiful panorama of a medieval styled city. In the distance forests and plains could be seen dotted with small towns. Railroads stretching between towns originating from Canterlot spanned the countryside. In the distance and here and there were mountains. “Welcome to Equestria.” Celestia said, pride very apparent in her voice. “My little ponies have come very far in the last two thousand years I have been on the thrown.” “Wait, two thousand years?!” Exclaimed Recon. “Yes, immortality does that…” She said with a sigh, “So many friends come and gone, so many heart breaks… But it is the unexpected that really give life to it all.” Another sigh. “Oh well, you don’t want to be listening to the rantings of an old mare do you? I think not. Let us go in, I believe it is nearing dinner time, which means Luna is probably up for her breakfast. I know she will be excited to meet you.” The group turned back inside the building continuing along the long corridor. As they walked they marveled at the tapestries, statues, and beautiful stained glass windows littering the palace. Celestia pointed out many of them telling stories sometimes months and sometimes years past. The amount of information and the thoughts and experiences that the Princess had experienced kept the group captivated. “Hey Princess, I have a question.” Said Yui. “Yes my child?” “Where are your parents? I mean, if you are a princess, aren’t your parents the king and queen?” Celestia smile slowly faded away with that question and she became silent. Yui saw a single tear trace down her neck and immediately flew up to her neck giving the mare a huge hug. “I’m sorry, forget I asked.” “No child. It is alright, but I am afraid that is a story for another day, another time.” Said Celestia wistfully and with a small smile she followed with, “Ah, it looks like we are here, the royal dining hall. I do not know what you eat, but we have had many different dignitaries from many different species over the years so I am sure that our cooks can make something that will please you all. I will request that the special menus are brought out for you all, and if there is nothing on the menus that you would like, please be sure to request and my cooks will do the best they can.” Pushing the doors open with a touch of magic the party was greeted by a long dining hall. The opposing end of the dining hall had three sets of doors smaller than the one they had just come through. The side walls were tall cut two thirds of the way up by a trim from which hung many different objects. The lower two thirds of the walls had more tall and thin stained glass windows showing depictions of different creatures performing magic, feats of strength, or with some sort of book and writing utensil. The top third was made of a long narrow window from which outside light shined in. In the middle of the room sat a large mahogany table with seven chairs around the middle. At the closest end there sat a plush golden pillow. At the farther end sat what must have been the other princess, obviously in the middle of breakfast. A piece of half eaten toast, a pile of cut and partially eaten pancakes with syrup, eggs, a mostly empty glass of what appeared to be orange juice, and a cup of what appeared to be coffee or tea sat in front of the princess who was currently hidden from view behind a newspaper. It took some of the group a moment to notice the magical energies holding the paper up. “So sister,”commented Celestia wryly, “Have you gotten to the comics yet? The escapades of Maremaduke were quite humorous today.” “Nay sister.” Huffed a female voice from behind the newspaper. It shifted slightly as a page turned, “We art currently reading a disturbing piece of news about some sort of strange traveling fat that can be gained by eating too much grains, trans fat I believe they called it...” She said pulling the newspaper down to give her sister a half lidded glare. The mare at the other end of the tale was very similar, yet almost a polar opposite of her sister. She had a dark blue coat with a wispy wavy purple mane; in said main were what seemed to be hundreds of tiny stars. She had a long horn sprouting from her forehead, leading Kirito to think that she was a unicorn, until she stood up and he could see her large wings. She was thin and larger than the other ponies that they had seen, but not as large as Celestia. Kirito noticed that she was not wearing a tiara or a regalia or horseshoes like Celestia was. “Tia,” she called walking over to the group, “Why did you not warn me that we would be having visitors, We… I would have gotten dressed…” She said with a blush as she joined the group. “Sorry sister, I did not know we would be having guests until just a few hours ago.” Reaching out her neck she nuzzled her sister. “Are you done breakfast? I was hoping to introduce you to everyone.” “Nay sister, I would love to meet these strange creatures. Who and what art thou?” “Well,” said Klein taking a step forward in an attempt to redeem himself from earlier, “I am Klein, these two love birds are Kirito and Asuna, those two kids are Recon and Lyfa, and these lovely ladies are Silica and Lizbeth, oh and that is Yui, and the dragon is Pina.” He said gesturing to each in turn at which each bowed to their name. “We are humans from the planet Earth. But what you see here are our avatars.” “It is very nice to meet you, I am Princess Luna… And I am sorry, but I have never heard of Earth, Humans, or Avatars.” She replied shooting her older sister a confused look. “They are creatures from a different world in another universe.” Recognition and amazement dawned on Luna’s face. “And avatars are similar to shadow projections, only they are much fuller conversions where their actual bodies are lying asleep in their own world. And no, before you ask they are only adolescents and children, teenagers who got here by accident. They do know how to get back, but I thought I would show them around a bit since they seem friendly and can leave their avatars here when they need to go back to their home world.” “Facinating,” Luna breathed a gleam in her eye, “I cannot wait to get to know you all!” A yellow earth pony with a chef’s chief’s hat mark on his hindquarters walked into the room holding seven menus in his mouth. Placing them on the table he gave them an appraising look towards the new creatures and princesses before requesting that they all take their seats so that he could take their orders. And so they sat. Luna on her end and Celestia on her end. On one side of the table sat Lyfa, Kirito, and Asuna and on the opposite side sat Recon, Klein, Lisbeth, and Silica. Pina sat on Silica’s head and Yui sat on the table in between Asuna and Kirito. As the party requested simple garden salads from the chief (an unspoken message sent around that it would be impolite to eat meat in from of the herbivore Goddesses) conversation started in relation to their current predicament. With the gang’s help Celestia filled in Luna with all that had been happening that morning. When the salads arrived the topic of conversation moved onto more pressing topics. Looking up from her salad the so far quiet Lizbeth asked: “Um I need to get going soon, it is getting late and I still have some chores around the house.” “Oh ya, shoot I was going to meet my boyfriend in half an hour!!” Exclaimed Silica jumping up from the table. “You have a boyfriend?” Questioned Asuna. “Well, soon it will be had… He only likes me for my looks, ugh, be happy you haven’t met him he has been such a jerk to all my friends.” “Then why do you want to meet him tonight?” Inquired Luna. “Well to dump him of course!” Said Silica, at which many an eye was raised. “What, you think I was going to dump him on the phone? No sir, not me. I am an honorable girl, if you date me; you get dumped to the face.” A round of blank stares was given in reply to that comment. “Well, don’t log out just yet. We should probably all leave as a group.” Said Lizbeth. “Hey Yui, should there be any sort of problem when we log out being that we are in a physical world instead of the virtual world?” Yui hovered a bit off the table thinking. “Well, I don’t believe so… Your avatars should just enter a dream-like state until you log back in again. So we should probably find some beds for you guys to sleep in to log out…” “You can always stay in the guest chambers.” Offered Celestia with a smile. “We have no guests currently and room enough to house fifteen griffons comfortably. If you wish to leave now I shall lead you.” “I’m coming too!” Exclaimed Luna hopping up from her seat. “Griffons?” Klein commented with a whistle. Following Celestia’s lead the group stood and walked out a door opposite of the door they entered on and found themselves in a much more homely hallway. The hallway had red plush carpet with an intricate pattern of lines and squiggles. There were curtains with tassels on the much smaller windows and the lamps were similar to those one would find around a home. After several minutes of walking Celestia stopped at a door, opening it and gesturing with a wing for the group to enter. The room was similar to a living room with a small fireplace, a table and several couches stationed around it. To the right was a large bay window, and to the left was a small modest kitchen with all the typical kitchen appliances and a table and a small door. On the opposite end of the room were six doors. “I hope you will find these rooms able to accommodate you. Through those five doors are bedrooms two beds per room, that room,” she said gesturing to the sixth door on the opposite wall, “is the bathroom. Over there is the kitchen, and that is a pantry stocked of course. If you need anything pull this rope,” tugging lightly at a rope near the entrance, “And a servant should be here shortly to assist you. Is there anything else I am forgetting?” “You are much to kind” Said Asuna with a curtsy, “this is perfect, thank you.” “Yes, thanks.” Chorused the rest of the party as they made their way to the bedrooms. Yui quickly flew over to Asuna and Kirito and they talked for several seconds before she flew back to the princesses. After whispering in Kirito’s ear for a second Asuna walked over to Lyfa and offered to share a room with her, at which she accepted and they entered the second room in. Klein put a hand on Recon’s shoulder and led him to the third room. The last two girls and pina entered the last room before the bathroom. Kirito shrugged and went into the first room. ...Several minutes later outside the living room-ish quarter place thingy ya... “Aren’t you going to leave your avatar too child?” Asked Luna to Yui hovering between her and her sister as the last bedroom door closed. “No,” replied Yui, “I am an artificial life form remember, this is my ‘real’ body. I was actually wondering though, um, you mentioned that there is a library around here," she blushed and looked down, "and I would very much like to learn as much about the new world as possible before they return tomorrow.” “Yes there is.” Replied Celestia, “Luna, do you mind taking her there and watching over her, it is late and I need to lower the sun and go to bed.” “Of course Tia.” Luna said as they left the living room and shut the door. * Really dowdlekid, really? you are going to make the tipical Pinkie Pie jokes? Sigh, and I thought you were better than that. PINKIE!! HOW'D YOU GET HERE!! I specifically said I would not do these kind of cheep jokes! Psh, I'm Pinkie Pie, I do what I want! I'm my own mare! Oh, and your fourth wall is slightly cracked around the cracked place over there, might want to fix it... Sigh, sure, just leave before this joke gets too long winded... Okie dokie lokie! See you readers in chapter 6, if this idiot actually writes that far... Ha ha ha, leave Pinkie... Author's Note This chapter has not been proofread... so expect changes eventually (whenever my proofreaders get back to me) EDIT: This chapter has NOW BEEN PROOFREAD!!!! YAY HOORAY!!! it still sucks, I know... but now it sucks less!!??? Anyway, not all that much changed, so don't feel like you NEED need to read it again... why you read it in the first place is beyond me... Also, helpful criticism would be nice. :D Also Also Wit I plan on writing only 5 chapters (plus the exposition) unless I actually have people enjoying this story... then I will write more... and boy do I have more ideas to write... but writing takes so much time!! and I suck at writing... gurr... anyway if you do, in fact, for some strange reason, like this story, where it is going and want more... let me know! (I doubt anyone will though... meh, ideas in my head had to come out!) Preparations (Unedited)Chapter 3 Silence. Kazuto sat up in bed and took off his Nerve-Tech helmet. He stared blankly forward, not paying any attention to his surroundings. Millions of questions swam through his head like schools of tiny fish. ‘What does this mean?’ ‘Where did we go?’ ‘How did we get there?’ ‘Was that all REAL real?’ ‘Should we go back?’ ‘Should we tell someone?’ His musings were shattered by the sound of stomping feet running up the stairs. The door slammed open and a worried, and slightly out of breath, Andrew stood panting in the doorway. Worry was very apparent in his eyes as he yelled out: “What the HELL happened?!? Are you guys ok?!?! What was in that world?!?” As he was yelling others sat up, or turned to look at him. He glanced around the room at all the slightly glazed expressions. “Wait, did the code do something to your brains? Oh this is not good if it-“ Kazuto cut him off with a raised hand. He was cut off by Rika, “we are fine Andrew.” “Just in shock.” Added a dazed Sugu. “Well…” Said a less worried, but still confused Andrew. “What happened?” “We went to a different world.” Said a shocked Naga. “I can’t believe it, we went to a different world. I feel numb, like all I know is a lie, like hundreds of years of teachings and knowledge passed down from generation to generation is wrong. Like, like… like something huge happened…” The silence was palpable. Everyone shared a look of agreement. Andrew still looked confused, as none of his questions had been answered yet. As he was about to comment Ryoutarou cut him off. “I understand what you are saying, but I disagree.” He propped himself up against his bedframe as he turned to look at Naga. “I mean, sure we just went to a whole different world where there are people just like us… okay maybe not just like us… more like nothing like us at all… but you know what I mean... anyway…” He shook his head in an attempt to get his thoughts back on track. “Sure this is potentially Earth shattering, sure it might change your worldview a bit… But let’s try and think about it differently. This world existing on a whole nother relm… It really makes you wonder what is out there, but not doubt everything.” Naga blinked and Ryoutarou sighed. “I am not so good at philosophizing… Heh,” he chuckled, “even I feel a bit messed up. And sure, our world view has been expanded a bit, okay a lot, but that doesn’t mean everything you know is wrong.” “Ya,” chimed in Rika, “I mean, talking ponies and magic actually being real is a bit weird, but I am sure we seem weird to them.” With a smile she stood up and stretched. “Well I’m going downstairs I need a drink!” “I second that,” added Ryoutarou while jumping out of bed. As they brushed past Andrew he asked, “Wait, wasn’t that just a game? Okay yeah, I saw some weird readings on this end, and it looked like you guys died, like died in the real world died for a couple of minutes, but it was it that strange of a world?” Andrew scratched his head, “wait, were there already detailed NPC’s already in game? That’s kind of -” “No, that was no game.” Interrupted Kazuto. “That was real.” “Real? Well sure, the game seemed real but-“ “Real real.” “Like?” “Really really real, like real real. Like as real as my toes real.” Supplied Ayano, stilly lying on her bed, with big eyes gesturing wildly with her hands. Quickly sitting up she beamed at Naga and with a nod of her head she added, “Our personal genius here actually successfully created a portal to an alternate universe.” “Alternate Universe. You mean that thing that those guys on TV have been working on for months?” A nod. “You mean that code that you based your code off of?” Another nod from Ayano. “You guys actually did it… You were the first humans in an alternate universe… How was it?” It was a simple benign question that did it. A simple question that could be asked about a great many things: ‘how was it?’ One could ask that about the first day of school, a day at the fair, a trip to the mall, a new movie, or anything. It was the simplicity of the question that seemed to snap most of the rest of them out of their stupor. Kazuto stood, stretched, and looked over at the rest of his friends, for the first time really seeing them since they had left Equestria. Ryoutarou had left with Rika already, Naga was still sitting up straight in bed still glass eyed. Sugu had stood up and was preparing to go downstairs also. Ayano had sat down next to Naga and was proceeding to poke him in the shoulder in an attempt to get a responce. And finally Asuna had yet to do anything and was still lying down in the bed next to him. “It was… Interesting. How about you go down, we will be with you in a moment.” Replied Kazuto. Grabbing Andrew by the upper arm Sugu started dragging him towards the stairs, “come on then, there are thirsty people downstairs, I know I am one of them. We will ‘de-breif,’” adding air quotes with her fingers, “when everyone has had something in them and we are all together.” “Ya, okay, that makes sense. Don’t stay up here too long.” And with that the two of them walked down the stairs. He turned to the bed next to his. “Hey Asuna, you alright?” Asked a slightly worried Kazuto, he remembered the last time she did not get up after visiting a virtual world and deep down he always worried whenever she entered FullDive that she would not come back. He calmed as he saw her turn her head towards him. Her hazel eyes looked into his as she took a deep breath and sighed. Slowly she sat up moving her hands to her head. She lifted the helmet off her head and placed it down beside where she sat. Letting out another sigh she turned saying, “I’m fine, just taking it all in. “It’s kind of sobering, realizing that you are not alone, we are not alone. I really don’t know what to think. I think I am going to be fine,” she added giving him one of her trademark smiles, “I just needed some time to lie and think.” Kazuto smiled back at her and moved his hand to hold her’s. Sadly their touching moment together lasted all of 3 seconds before a very girly cry from across the room grabbed their attention. On the other side of the room Ayano had finally gotten a response from Naga after she stuck her finger into her mouth and then into his ear. He shrieked, in a very girly manner, as he jumped off of the bed and started rubbing his ear. “What was that for?!?!?” He yelled. “Well, you seemed quite out of it, and so I thought I would poke you. When that didn’t work I had to resort to more extreme tactics.” She replied a glint in her eye. “Extreme tactics?” “Yes, not the most extreme, but still on the extreme side of the things I could have done.” She stopped suddenly with a completely blank expression. She then blinked twice, and slowly smiled a big creepy (bordering on psychotic) smile at Naga. In response the boy took several tentative steps back and held up his hands in a defensive position. “Well,” he chuckled hesitantly, “I’m up now, so you don’t need to use your more, um, eh he um, ya well bye.” And with that he bolted out the room and down the stairs. “Wait up! I still had several more methods to try! Naga, get back here!!” And she too ran out the room and down the stairs. The entire time Kazuto and Asuna sat staring at the strange display. Slowly Kazuto turned back to his girlfriend a thin smile on both of their faces. “This could be interesting,” he said as he started chuckling. “Mhm,” she replied with a giggle. “Should we join them?” “I guess we ought to.” The both stood, stretched, shared a kiss, and then started walking toward the stairs hand in hand to join their friends. “Hey,” said Asuna tugging against Kazuto’s hand stopping both of them. Worry apparent in her eyes she asked, “Do you think Yui will be alright?” Kazuto put his other hand to his chin thinking for a moment. On one had this was a strange new place for all of them, especially for Yui. She was no longer in a computer or any sort of device, true, she was still in his Nerve-Gear but he didn’t know if being in a physical place would change anything. Then there was the fact that they were leaving her all alone, probably defenseless, in a strange place with strange creatures of unknown power and unknown intent. But, on the other hand they seemed nice and peaceful. They appeared out of nowhere right in front of one of the leaders of the nation and she did not seem to mind. Plus she dropped everything to give them a tour, and even a meal with her co-ruler/sister. With all that in mind Kazuto looked Asuna in the eye and said, “I am sure she will be fine.” After searching his eyes for any sign of doubt she smiled, squeezed his hand and they both continued downstairs. *^~~~~~~~~~^* In a certain castle in a certain world in a certain universe an alicorn stood on a platform jutting off of the westernmost tower. She stood still as a stone gazing at the sun. As she gazed at the sun, her sun, she thought of the visitors. She worried about the future of her ponies. She worried about unseen dangers and dangers not thought of before. She pondered the now proven existence of other universes and worlds. She sighed as she stared lovingly at the sun, her sun, always a beacon of hope unwavering steady and strong. “Well old friend,” she started, “We have seen many things in our long life. We will see many more. Wonderful things, horrible things, things nopony should ever have to see. But we have. And we carry on. Ignorance truly is bliss isn’t it?” She looked down sadness in her eyes. The world seemed heavier for a moment longer, but only for a moment. As she looked back up she stated resolutely, “But ignorance in the face of danger is no shield. And we will continue to carry on because that is what we do. We are a beacon of hope. We are the protector. We are the defender. I fear and yet I do not fear these humans. I fear what they bring and what they mean, but not who they are. I saw them, I looked into who they are. They are many things, many strange and wonderful things, but they mean us no harm. At least they seem to not mean to harm us. No, I fear for my dear Equestria. I fear what outside forces will follow them through the rift. “This rift will not be the end of it. Others will follow. The good, the bad, the indifferent. There is nothing to do now.” She sighed, “I could attempt to strengthen the fabric, but I doubt even I could strengthen it enough.” She shook her head a glint in her eyes. Her heart swelled with courage and pride. Her mind filled with hopes and dreams. “But why should I? This is our opportunity. My little ponies will show their strength again as they have before again and again! Our visitors are great opportunities to learn. We can watch them, befriend them, and learn about them. They can in turn watch us, befriend us, and learn from us. From there we can meet their friends and do the same. And if we find evil out there we will call upon our friends and help them. And if they find evil and call upon us we will come to their aid. This is not the time for cowardice this is not the time for timidry, this is the time to show the multiverse what ponies are made of, this is the time to show that the powers of friendship and harmony transcend all divisions.” With a deep breath she smiled the first true smile she had had in the last hour. “Thank you old friend I needed this. Good night.” And with that her horn glowed a golden yellow and she dipped her head down helping the sun along its path starting the night. *^~~~~~~~~~^* In a different part of the castle a strange pair moved through a corridor. On the left was the other half of the diarchy, an alicorn colored in dark blues and purples and blacks. She trotted through the halls at a gentle pace taking in the dusk. On the right was a pixie, a small humanoid creature no bigger than a hoof. She fluttered, almost floating, on thin translucent wings at eye level with the alicorn up now, down now, around her head now. They moved down the hall until the alicorn gestured with a wing for the pixie to turn left out an eastern facing platform jutting from the castle. “Can you wait a minute, I need to raise the moon.” “Of course Princess. You are the one guiding me anyway, can’t really go anywhere without you.” The pixie giggled. “Luna, Yui, please call me Luna. This should only be a minute.” Yui floated by the door just inside the building as Luna walked to the center of the platform. She felt the sun preparing to set. ‘Tia sure is taking a while today’ she thought as she waited. After several minutes she felt the sun beginning to set. “Finally,” she muttered under her breath, ‘I wonder what the delay was.’ She then closed her eyes focusing all her energy and being on the moon hiding under the horizon. With a glow from her horn and strong jump she lifted the moon from its resting place officially beginning the night. She spread her wings as she floated back down to the platform. The stars started waking up, twinkling as their way of saying hello to the moon. Their mistress took a deep breath opening her eyes. She looked up at the sky tisking softly. Closing her eyes again her horn glowed as the stars shifted slightly to their correct positioning. She opened her eyes after a few minutes. And checked again to make sure the sky was just right. After nodding to herself she turned back to a wide eyed Yui. “Wow,” whispered Yui, “That was amazing.” “Twas nothing.” She responded with a proud smile. “I do this every night. But I am pleased when I find that my night pleases others.” “Well it was unlike anything I have ever seen! And the way the lines moved, just wow!” Luna reentered the castle proper continuing to trot down the hall toward the library and Yui followed. “What do you mean child when you say ‘the lines’?” “Um, I guess the leylines? At least I think that is what Princess Celestia called them. Can’t you see them?” Luna shook her head. “Oh, sorry, it must be because of what I am. Like the programs and lines of code in virtual world I can see the leylines and magic in this world if I concentrate hard enough... Unless the magic is strong, then they are easily seen.” “Oh! You have magic sight. That is a rare gift indeed. I know only of several unicorns that have that ability. I believe I only know of one unicorn this age that has it. She is Tia’s student, and I am sure you will meet her eventually.” With a coy smile she added, “And she is a good friend of mine.” “Oh,” Yui asked with raised brow, “A ‘special’ friend?” Luna hopped and smiled. “Very very special! She and her friends saved us from our self when we had fallen, and then again when no other pony would accept us she gave us friendship and tried her hardest to get us accepted into the community!” Yui looked at Luna with that look that girls give each other when they say something, but deep down they mean a whole lot more (you know what I am talking about). They both stopped and Luna looked at Yui with a confused expression. After a minute her eyes lit up in recognition, “Oh you mean like mate,” she shook her head, “No, Sparkle is our friend, purely. We would want nothing more.” Yui floated in front of Luna looking deep into her eyes. “Hmmm, well that’s depressing.” She said as she floated back beside the princess of the night pouting a little. “I really wanted to play matchmaker.” “Why is that child?” Luna asked as they took a right down a different, yet similar hallway. “Well you see, I was originally a pretty decent artificial intelligence made to check up and monitor the mental health of the players in Sword Art Online and to council them if they needed it. I was programmed with the ability to mimic emotion to help relate to the players. But when Sword Art Online went online,” Luna gave the girl a puzzled look, “The game turned on, started, you know…” Luna shrugged and gestured with a hoof for the girl to continue, “well anyway, when the game started and the players joined, and I was told I could not perform my job. “Now, I wasn’t turned off or destroyed, I still existed in the game, and I still monitored the mental health of all the players. But I could not help them.” Tears welled up in Yui’s eyes. “It drove me insane. The players were stuck in the game unable to leave, unable to see their loved ones unless they were also in the game. And all around them there were players dying.” She hiccupped and Luna offered a handkerchief she summoned out of thin air. Yui blew her artificial nose on the magically summoned handkerchief which covered it with artificial boogers, snot, and tears. “Why would they play this game in the first place if they could die? We, I, think it is quite foolish of them. Were they tricked?” “Well, dying is part of many games. But if you die in these games it does not hurt, you do not die in real life, and you get to become alive again after a certain penalty time. That is how it was supposed to be in Sword Art Online, but for some reason the man who created the game set the pain levels much higher than they were supposed to be and he locked the game so the players could not leave and he had the game change the Nerve-Gear so that it would kill the players if they died in the game.” Luna looked at the small girl horrified that such a thing could happen. “Hundreds died.” Sniffed Yui, “And many took their own lives because of it. And I was going mad I could not do anything, I could not do what I was made to do. But then I saw them. I saw my parents. Kirito and Asuna were two bright lights in a world so full of darkness and fear. They had hope, they had happiness, they had love. I disconnected myself, losing my memory because I wanted to meet them. They found me lost in the woods, took me in, and when I mistakenly called them Mommy and Daddy they did not complain.” Yui smiled, “I eventually regained my memories and was almost destroyed by the system because I was seen as a rogue program.” “I don’t even want to know what that means, but please continue. I have been following your story so far. So I take it they saved you?” The pair excited the castle proper and were now walking down the path toward the Royal Canterlot Archives. Along the path were beautiful topiaries of ponies and different creatures in a plethora of poses, they shook slightly in the light breeze. The stars twinkled off the wet shiny leaves. But all this beauty was lost on the pair. One deep in recollection, the other enraptured with the story. “Yes they did. Daddy downloaded me into his Nerve-Gear, um its kinda like...” “Again I don’t know what that means, but continue anyway.” “Um, well he made a copy of me and hid me away, but both are still me, so if something happens to this me, I will still have the Nerve-Gear to turn back to, so I will be ok. Make sense?” “A soulstone, got it. Continue! This story pleases us!” Yui giggled at the princess’s proclamation, “Well he saved me, and by now I had become self-aware. They still let me call them Mommy and Daddy and treat me as if I am their daughter.” Yui stopped and stared into space. Luna stopped also and turned to look at the floating girl. “Wait, why did we start this conversation…” Yui questioned. “You said you want to play matchmaker…” “OH YA! Um well because of my empathy programming and want to help others with their mental health, love is a big part of mental health… So I really want to play matchmaker!” Luna chuckled as they came to the doors of the Royal Canterlot Archives. “Well if I ever feel the need of a mate you will be the first on our contact list for help. And look, here we are, the Royal Canterlot Archives. The big library.” With that Luna grabbed the door handle with her magic and pulled it open. Yui’s eyes went wide with the amount of books and information contained within. “Wow!” “Yes wow indeed little one. Where would you like to start first?” The pixie put a small hand to her chin as she thought. “History, then geography, then Flora and Fauna. I want to know all about this world!!” Luna chucked, “That is quite a lot in a night, but let us see what we can get started on shall we? History is this way.” They quietly walked down to the third alcove on the right. Yui looked up at the books with a determined look on her face. Luna started trotting toward the fifth stack and started walking down it pulling books out here and there with her magic. After a few seconds the princess looked behind to see that the pixie was still standing by the door thinking. Luna shrugged and walked back to her new friend holding seven books in her magical grasp. “I picked out some books giving a general history of Equestria from ancient times to today.” Yui’s posture remained unchanged, “Um, Yui, you here?” With a continued lack of response the princess lifted up a hoof to the pixie poking her in the belly, very gently mind you. The desired effect was had as Yui snapped out of her trance and looked at the princess. Well, not the princess, but the books floating in her magical grasp. “Telekinetics right? That is a telekinetic spell you are performing right now right?” “Um, this is true. Doth it matter?” Yui concentrated, looking at the change in leylines the mana flow from Luna. She smiled “Let me try something, drop a book.” Luna did as she was told and the book dropped to the floor. Yui stared at the book for a few seconds. Nothing happened. Yui shook her head, Luna tilted her head. “Come on,” the pixie muttered, “work. AHA!!” Yui shouted as grey glow surrounded the book and Yui’s hands. Luna gasped in amazement as Yui brought the book up to her face and started turning pages with her magic. Yui exerted almost no effort and levitated the book with the grace of a professional. “I looked back at what you did to the books and recreated it. Simple really. Hey, random question, but is there a copy spell? A spell that completely copies something?” “Um yes there is. It is pretty advanced though.” “Could you please show me? Demonstrate on the book.” Luna saw the determination in Yui’s eyes, shrugged her wings, and prepared the spell. With a burst of magic and a grunt of effort Luna created an exact duplicate of the book. Luna grinned up at Yui who hovered in midair glowing slightly. Slowly the girl increased in size and her wings disappeared. When her transformation was finished she stood a head above Luna’s torso. She cracked her knuckles and her head, “I am not going to lie, this is going to be difficult. But don’t worry I will try these books first.” Before the princess could reply Yui’s hands started glowing as she weaved them in and out of each other making complicated signs, pushing and pulling them like a conductor. After a few grunts and groans Yui’s face gained a triumphant look and she smiled a big smile at the princess, “Found it!” “Found what?” Luna’s question was answered by the other nine books becoming eighteen books surrounded by very fancy magic circles. Yui then picked up the ten copies with her magic and brought them to herself hovering in a circle around her dancing softly. The glow became much stronger as the books seemed to dissolve into letters and numbers and flowed like water down a slope into Yui’s body. When the copies were gone Yui turned to Luna “Thank you, that will save us a lot of time. Are there any other books about history I should know as background information about this world? Just basic stuff, I don’t need to know all the boring details.” The princess of the night did not respond, she was too busy being stunned by the simple display of power by one seeming so young. ‘No’ she corrected herself ‘she is not young, she is not even alive. She is a construct. A kind, naïve and good natured construct, but a construct still.’ She shook her head looking at the innocent artificial life in front of her. She smiled, “That will speed things up a great deal. No, I believe that will be all the history that you will need. Do you know all the information in those books now?” “Yes and no. See it’s all in here so I can retrieve any information at a moment’s notice, but I don’t know know it. Understand?” “Yes, no, sort of. It doesn’t mater lets continue with Geography, then we can do Flora and Fauna, and” adding as an afterthought, “you should probably have some books on magic.” “Sounds good.” Skipping next to the princess she pointed back toward the main section of the library loudly proclaiming, “Lead on princess!” Luna raised an eyebrow at Yui, causing the girl to blush. ‘She is still just a child.’ The princess of the night thought with a smile. “Right, onward to Geography.” End Chapter Author's Note So first round of tests have finally passed here... urgh, fun For all of you who (for some strange reason) actually like this fic have this chapter earlier than planned (my people who proofread/edit/tell-me-my-story-is-awful-and-I-need-to-fix-everything have yet to get back to me). Thanks for the feedback so far! A Change of Clothes (Unedited)Chapter 3 “Dong, dong, dong,” softly chimed the clock behind the bar. The bartender gave it a glance as he stood behind the bar polishing the glasses. His gaze lazily scanned the café taking note of the fullness of each patron’s glass. There were only four groups in the café, not surprising for a Friday at three. Near the door sat a young couple, obviously on a date apparent from the single milkshake glass with two straws. Bits and pieces of their heated conversation about proper bathroom educate drifted to the tender. Our bartender considered walking up to the table, just to make sure that everything was alright, but the couple were regulars, and he remembered having these types of conversations with his wife early in their relationship. ‘Keep tabs on them in case it gets too heated, but for now, let them be,’ Andrew the bartender thought. In the corner sat three businessmen in full suits with briefcases drinking coffee, chatting, and laughing casually; obviously on break. ‘Nothing special here, maybe I can interest them in a refill in a couple of minutes,’ mused Andrew. At the bar sat Ryoutarou sipping a cheap green tea. And at the last occupied table, the one near the stairs, sat Naga and Sugu. “I can’t wait to go back!” Exclaimed Naga. “I realized that after you told me for the tenth time,” retorted Sugu, “Gosh Naga! It’s all you’ve talked about all flipping day, you could talk about something else you know. There are tons of other things out there to talk about.” “But why would I want to talk about something else?” Replied the oblivious as always Naga, oblivious this time to Sugu’s annoyance. “There is nothing else that could possibly be as cool as an alternate world! And I discovered it ME! Who said I would never amount to anything? Because they are wrong. Wrong Wrong WRONG YOU HEAR ME!! Hahahaha! Me, a great discoverer. Just think! One day I will be in history books! All the medals! Scientists from all over the world will look up to me…” As Naga continued to fantasize about his eventual fame and glory Sugu realized that her head was missing a very important meeting with her hands on the table. Sugu’s (slightly) painful grunt went unsurprisingly unnoticed by Naga sat caddy-cornered on her left. ‘I wish he would talk about something else,’ thought Sugu, ‘I mean, sure, it is kinda cool that he found a way to get to other worlds.’ She rapidly shook her head back and forth in her hands, ‘but he doesn’t need to be an ass about it!’ “Look it was an accident and we both know it.” She spat at Naga looking up from her position on the table, fire in her eyes. “And now I want you to drop it. You are annoying and I don’t even know why I hang out with you anymore. Your voice grates on my nerves. So for the sake of my nerves, SHUT UP!!” She stood above Naga fists clenched glaring her full force into his eyes in an attempt to melt him. “That was a little harsh sis,” came Kazuto voice from behind and to the right. Sugu immediately spun around and blushed heavily as she looked sheepishly down and to the side. “Sorry brother, I should not have said such mean things.” She clenched her hands again and looked him in the eyes. “But that doesn’t let him be an annoying jerk!” “Sugu!” Snapped Kazuto, “Do not speak ill of your teammates. Look at Naga, does he look okay?” Looking back at Naga, it was very apparent that he was about to wet himself. That is, if he hadn’t already. “No. Now apologize, I will not have my party members starting an adventure in this state. Especially an adventure this important!” She again looked down and to the side. Then she huffed. Then she looked back up with a little frown. “Fine, I will apologize.” She turned to Naga, “I am sorry I yelled at you.” “Well I shouldn’t have-” Naga started while rubbing the back of his head. “Don’t, I don’t want to hear it.” She said with a wave of her hand. “Just leave it, it never happened.” She plopped back down in her chair, folded her arms and glanced around the café with as much angsty dignity she could muster. While that little back and forth was happening Kazuto walked over to the bar to join Asuna, Rika, and Ayano. They had entered as a group several minutes before and had caught the end of the conversation. Andrew had already left to go back upstairs to set up the logging in room. “What is up with them?” Asked Rika. “Naga wants Sugu’s body is what’s up.” Replied Ryoutarou before Kazuto could. “Really!?!” Exclaimed Rika looking towards Kazuto. “Well… I wouldn’t put it like that… But, um, ya, it’s pretty obvious. Unfortunately she doesn’t exactly believe it when I tell her… and I don’t think she would return the affection if she did realize it…” Said Kazuto with a sheepish expression. “I like him and all, but I don’t think he has any idea about what to do around girls…” Ayano looked aghast and held her hands to her mouth, “OH NO! Guys we have to do something! We’ve got to help him!” She lowered her hands and looked out to space with a determined expression. “I too have noticed his affection for your sister. And as a member of the fairer sex I will help him get his woman!” She proclaimed as she clenched her fist in a grandiose fashion. “No you won’t.” Sighed Ryoutarou, “Look, I get that you want to help the guy, but this is a man’s job. A bro is needed to help another bro when the lady of his affection is not returning his affection… Especially if it is his own fault…” He leveled a finger at the energetic girl, “You can do what you want with Sugu, but stay away from Naga. I’ll take care of him, teach him the ways of wooing a woman. Her heart will be putty in his hands by the time I am done.” He finished with a thumb’s up and a large grin. “This otta be good.” Sighed Kazuto, “Everyone, just don’t do anything stupid. I know you guys want to do something stupid, but don’t. This is on them, I am not going to do anything, and neither can you.” “Oh but come on, it will be fun! We can all play matchmaker! You have to admit they would make a good couple!” Said Rika. “No.” Said Kazuto strongly and closed his eyes. When he opened them he was met with two sets of puppy dog eyes from Rika and Ayano. He tried to keep his eyes strong and stubborn, but his façade soon cracked when he turned to his left and saw a set of equally strong and stubborn eyes from Asuna. “Fine,” he huffed, “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when this blows up in your face.” As the girls were about to jump right to their matchmaking he quickly added, “But keep it discrete! And on your free time, I don’t want this to be any bigger than it needs to be. We have got enough stuff on our plate as it is.” He felt a peck on his cheek and looked over to Asuna. He did not catch the angry look from Rika, or the pitying look from Ayano. She gave him a hug, which he returned. “It’s not a big deal Kirito. Just let them have their fun.” Asuna said. “Ya, but it is going to get annoying, I can just feel it.” He replied. “Well don’t let it bother you, easy as that. Plus we have our own things to worry about.” She said with a wink. “Ya, ya, you are right.” He replied with a blush. All future conversation was cut off by Andrew ‘s call from the top of the stairs. “Hey guys! The room’s ready.” The bartender then started walking down the stairs back to his usual place behind the bar. “Your stuff should be in their usual places. I already got the server running, so just log in when you are ready. It is supposed to be busy later, so I need to take care of the bar today instead of monitoring the computer, so try not to do anything really stupid while you are adventuring in your crazy alternate world.” “Thanks man.” Said Ryoutarou. “Alright guys, let’s go!” With that the group stood and walked to the stairs ready for an especially interesting adventure. *^~~~~~~~~~^* Kirito opened his eyes. He blinked several times to try and register what he saw. It was obvious something had gone wrong. The entire world around him was white, blinding white. Kirito looked down to see that he wasn’t actually standing on anything, he was floating. Oh, and his body was decently translucent. He would have been concerned, but he had done so many strange things lately it almost seemed like it was an expected daily occurrence. “Well this is odd,” Kirito commented looking at his hand, “I wonder if something went wrong.” Kirito motioned for the menu screen in an attempt to trouble shoot, strangely all options were unable to be clicked. A single bead of sweat would have run down his forehead, if the computer program had a script for stress. The boy was starting to freak out. ‘What if he got stuck in here forever? Was this another SAO incident? What about his friends? What about Asuna?’ He put his hand on his chest in an attempt to calm down. ‘Nothing had gone bad wrong, just empty wrong. Empty isn’t bad, empty is just empty, and can probably be fixed. Maybe something just had not loaded yet?’ Yui’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Hello? Hellooooo? Daddy? Daddy!?! Are you there? Can you hear me yet?” Slowly Yui’s human form appeared in front of Kirito. Kirito let out an relieved sigh and smiled at his adopted daughter. “Yui, boy am I happy to see you.” Yui made a happy sound that sounded strangely like a squeaky duck, almost a squee-like sound, and floated into his outstretched arms and gave him a hug. “Hey, um, do you know what is going on here? It seems like there is a bug in the system…” Yui giggled and floated backward a bit, “Oh, no! There is no bug, unless you mean me.” She blushed. “I wrote a new code for when you guys came back into Equestria. I did a ton of studying last night, and found out all about some very interesting things about this world.” She giggled and tilted her head to the side, “But we can discuss that later. First we need a way to blend in.” “Blend in, ok sounds good. Wait, does that mean we need to make new avatars?” Kirito said with a frown, “and I was getting attached to this one too… Wait, what about our stats? And what happens when we come back to the regular virtual worlds? Will we still use our pony avatars?” “Um… yes?” Yui replied shackily. “You will need new avatars, but you should be able to access your old avatars whenever you please.” She gained some confidence and continued, “You should be able to keep all your skills from your other avatar and transfer them to your new avatar.” Kirito scratched his chin. “Ok, sounds alright with me. And this is so that the natives aren’t startled or worried or anything right?” “Yup!” “Well I guess that is good…” He paused, “Will this white screen start every time I try to get into Equestria?” “Nope, just this one time. Kinda like a ‘new load file’ screen.” She waved her hand and screens covered in constantly changing data appeared all around her. “Ok daddy, here is how this is going to work. I created a program that will look into your soul, take into account your personality, play type, and other attributes to create a character for you. If you don’t like it we can customize the model from there.” Kirito sat in the air and started scratching his chin. “Ok, what do I need to do?” Yui then proceeded to pull and push translucent screens around. “It is simple really, walk over here after I set up the sensory platform.” She then threw a translucent screen on the floor in between them. When the screen landed flat on thin air she gestured for him to walk forward. “Yui, there isn’t a floor here…” He said with a role of his eyes, “How am I supposed to walk forward?” “OH wait!” Yui pulled over several screens and started frantically typing at them. With a grin and a wave of her now glowing purple hand a simple cobblestone floor appeared beneath both of them. In the distance he could see what appeared to be really blocky trees and grass. As Kirito stood he floated gently down to the floor until he was standing on it. Yui still hovered surrounded by the screens reading off different data. And the sensory pad from before now laid on the floor between them. Kirito took several steps forward until he was standing in the center of the pad. “Now what?” He asked. Yui looked up with a grin. “Now the magic happens!” With a bright flash of light Kirito’s world faded away. When it returned he was standing much lower than he remembered. He blinked several times to get the spots out of his eyes. “Dawwwww,” cooed Yui, “You’re soooooooo cute daddy!!” Yui held her hands up to her face and gave her father a large grin. “I wonder if mommy came out this cute?” Kirito looked down at himself and saw two hooves covered in grey fur. Swinging his head around, he saw that his hair/mane was black in color, as was his tail. He saw that the rest of his body was covered in similarly colored grey fur, and he had some sort of mark on his rear of two crossed swords. He looked back to Yui several questions on his tongue. “Apparently according to my soul I am a pony. What kind?” “Earth pony. Here, let me make you a mirror…” Yui started pulling several screens together. “And remind me what this mark is?” “That is your cutie mark!” She sad bringing a large screen toward the Kirito pony. “It shows what your special talent is. All ponies have them.” “Oh, that’s convenient.” Kirito commented off-handedly, he was a little distracted by his reflection. Staring back at him was a grey plain pony with a black main and tail hanging unkempt on his head and back. His eyes were green and his cutie mark looked just like his old swords from the first time he played Sword Art Online (which he had conveniently recreated in their most recent play through). Kirito turned in a circle looking himself all over in the mirror. “I like it.” “Oh good I do too!” Yui exclaimed. She snapped her fingers and all around her the screens disappeared. “The others hopefully are having as easy a time as we did.” Kirito took several steps forward and started trotting around Yui. He smiled, “I could really come to enjoy this. Why is walking like this so easy?” “The process to create this avatar installed a driver in your brain to make walking like an equine easier.” “Ok,” he responded trotting up to her side. He nuzzled Yui’s side. She giggled and started petting her father’s head. “Most girls want a pet pony,” she giggled again, “but I’m lucky, my daddy is a pony!” He snickered, “This is true. Hey, I was wondering, but where are the others?” “Oh, they are doing the same thing we are. I made copies of myself for helping each one of you create a new avatar.” Kirito gave her a surprised look. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m still me. I just have multiple ‘me’s and after this is done I will pull all the ‘me’s back together. It feels really weird to do this…” She shuttered, “I don’t think I will ever do this again if I can help it.” Kirito smiled at his daughter. And nuzzled her side again, getting a giggle in response. “Well, let’s get going we don’t want to keep mommy and the others waiting.” Kirito said softly. Yui swiped a hand across space bringing up a screen asking if they would like to leave avatar creation. “I am going to meet up with the other copies of me, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see me initially after coming into Equestria.” Yui stated, “tap the ‘Yes’ button when you are ready to leave.” And with that she faded out. Kirito chuckled, ‘My daughter is a sentient computer program. I am now a pony avatar in a real world of ponies.’ He shook his head, ‘my life is crazy , but at least it is interesting.’ With that he touched the ‘Yes’ button on the screen in front of him and was blinded again by a bright light. *^~~~~~~~~~^* The room was the same as when he left it. He laid in bed staring at the plain white ceiling. Turning to his right he saw the ornate mahogany bureau that he recognized from last night. Kirito slipped his hooves out of bed and stood on the ground. He stretched and shook his tail. He then proceeded to check himself out again in the mirror. “I could learn to like this…” He commented under his breath. He looked towards the door leading out to the communal room. “Well, let’s see what the others look like.” Kirito walked to the door and became very confused. There was a door knob, how was he supposed to deal with this? “Um… Door knob… Okay… Let’s see…” He touched the knob with his fore-hoof. “Okay now turn?” And like magic the knob turned as his hoof turned. “Weird, but useful!” Kirito walked out of his room and into the common area. Immediately he saw a (presumably) male griffon wearing Klein’s signature red headband lounging on the couch admiring his claws. There were no other creatures around. “Klein?” Kirito asked, “that you?” The griffon turned to the grey pony with a smile. “Kirito?” The pony nodded, “KIRITO! Buddy! It’s great to see you! You’re a pony?” The pony nodded. “Not as cool as a griffon, but I think it fits you.” The grey pony trotted over to the sofa and sat next to the griffon. “So, do you know what anyone else is?” The griffon shook his head. “Nah, none of the girls have shown up yet, and apparently we didn’t show up in the beds until Yui finished helping with our avatars.” Klein paused, “I wonder what they are going to be?” The two creatures sat in silence for several minutes trying to determine what the rest of their friends would end up being/looking like. There was a creak from behind them. Turning they heard the voices of Asuna and Lyfa as the two girls left their room. Klein whistled and Kirito’s jaw dropped to the floor. Standing before them were two ponies, a white unicorn and a green pegasus. The unicorn was white with a golden mane and tail, the main was tied up in Asuna’s tipical braid, and her cutie mark was of a bubbling pot of some sort of stew. The pegasus was green with a yellow mane and tail, and a cutie mark of a red health potion. Both males only had eyes for Asuna though. The girls were in some heated debate about something obviously important to the female sex, but not the male one and did not notice the two males ogling them. “Hey Kirito,” Klein whispered. “Yeah?” “As a bro, I will never attempt to steal another bro’s girl… Or mess with another bro’s girl… Or even think about looking at another bro’s girl… But damn…” He whistled again. “I know.” Kirito smiled and met Klien’s eyes and in that instant the man code was reforged between the two males. A nod of understanding and both males jumped off the sofa and turned back to the girls. Both females had noticed the males by now and started trotting towards them. “Hey! Um, guys?” said a smiling Lyfa, “Um…” her smile fell, “screw it. Which ones are you two?” “Well Lyfa,” responded Klein, “meet the new and improved Klein!” He gestured toward himself, “and the adorably fluffy Kirito!” He gave Kirito a one armed hug, “I’m sure you will appreciate him like this Asuna.” When Klein let go, Kirito staggered around comically. The white unicorn smirked as she walked up to Kirto and nuzzled his neck. “I could learn to like this.” She commented. Lyfa harrumphed behind Asuna and Klein chuckled in response. “OH MY GOD! YOU ARE YOU A DRAGON?!?!?!?” Lisbeth’s voice came through the door of their room. “WHY ARE YOU A DRAGON!!!!” “I KNOW ISN’T THIS AWESOME!!!?!!?!!” Silicia’s voice sounded through their door. “I have a feeling Silicia is a dragon.” Comented Klein with almost no emotion. By almost, I mean there was a hint of jealousy. “I wonder what she looks like.” The door to the girl’s room busted open and a purple dragon came running out. The dragon was grinning with a smile so wide it should not have fit on her face. On her head was a smaller dragon (Pina). Her face had many horns on it. She had blue eyes. She had wings. She was the size of a pony. She pranced over to her friends and blew a puff of smoke at them. “Hey guys, guess what?!?” Said a very excited dragon with Silicia’s voice. “You’re a dragon?” Asked Klein. Silicia started bouncing in place. “YES YES YES YES YES!!!” A thin female griffon walked out of the room and surveyed the scene. She sighed, “hey guys, I take it you figured out which of us is which?” Those not laughing at Silicia’s antics nodded. “Ok, um let me guess… Kirito and Asuna,” she pointed at the grey pony and white unicorn with a claw, “Klein,” she pointed at the other griffon, “and Lyfa. Did I get them all right?” “Yeah, very good. How did you know?” Kirito asked. The female griffon waved a claw as she closed the distance and joined the circle. “Oh, I know you guys by now.” Klein’s door opened before anyone could comment. Out came a strange bug thing. It had a black exoskeleton, red insectoid eyes, green dragonfly like wings, fangs, a crooked horn, and green fins for its mane and tail. None of the creatures talked as they stared at each other. Yui flew out from behind the unicorn in pixie form and sat on Kirito’s head. That broke everyone out of their shock. “Well… This is unexpected…” Lyfa commented. “Woah,” Silica added, “I did not expect that.” “Dude?” Klein asked. Recon opened his mouth, but was cut off by Yui, “He put all his points into dark and destructive magic. This is the body that was generated… And also because…” She stopped when she saw Recon rapidly shaking his head. She sighed, “nevermind, no other reason. Anyway,” she flew over to Recon, “This is called a changeling. They can change shape and form. They use dark magic and can fly. And they eat love, affection, and other ‘happy emotions.’ Don’t worry, unless he does something stupid he can just live by absorbing the ‘happy emotions’ around us.” She flew back to her father’s head. There was a part in the circle between Silicia and Lizbeth where Recon joined the group. Everyone started looking over their new bodies and commented about wingspan, hoof strength, horn size, and other physical attributes. After half an hour the clock on the table rang 6’oclock. Yui jumped up excitedly. “Oh, the princesses wanted to meet you all in your new bodies when you are ready.” Everyone looked at each other, and a silent confirmation went around. “Okay, if we are ready, I will lead us back to the dining hall.” Yui flew over to the doors and opened them. “Lets get this show on the road!” Shouted Klein. This looks like it is going to be an interesting adventure… End Chapter Author's Note YAY I STILL EXIST!!! Have a chapter!! I don't know if this is any good, if anyone wants to tell me what I did wrong, feel free! EXPOSITION!!If you have never seen Sword Art Online, have a chapter of exposition! If you have seen Sword Art Online then feel free to skip this chapter, also, if you do not want spoilers skip this chapter. With the single note that I have not read the books and I will not be using any information from them in this story. This story begins several months after the Second Season of Sword Art Online. Sword Art Online is a virtual reality MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) made of 100 levels of dungeon and the world surrounding it. Virtual reality games are games that the player plays by wearing a helmet that put his or her conscience into the game in order to give the player a virtual body to act in the world. To beat this game a player had to beat all 100 levels. This would not have been that bad, if it weren’t for the slight ‘problem’ with the game… once logged in you could not log out… until someone won the game, or the player died, which would cause the helmet to fry their brain and kill them. Luckily our hero Kirigaya Kazuto, who goes by Kirito in game, beat the game at level 75 by finding the original creator of the game and defeating him in battle. Sadly by the time the game was beaten 4,000 people had already died and the remaining 6,000 had lost over 2 years in the game. After that game Kirito moved to a game his younger sister/cousin Suguha Kirigaya and her friend from school Nagata Shinichi played to save his girlfriend Asuna from captivity in the game. The game was ALFheim Online. When Kirito saved Asuna he found that ALFheim was a front for mind controlling technologies and tested on the players. When the world found out the virtual gaming industry fell. Luckily the gaming community did not want to die, so they created their own independent servers all over the world. These servers used maps from the old games, and created their own maps. These servers became integrated and could then link up the different virtual worlds and players could transfer their characters created from classes and stats in one world and literally walk, hop, fly, or ride a vehicle to another. And without further ado… The Story!! Author's Note This is my first ever story ever, expect it to suck... :D GO PONIES!!!
Every Adventure has a BeginningChapter 1 Thousands of tiny flakes sparkled as they drifted through the air. The scene was beautiful, and serene. The only sound to be heard was what seemed to be the sound of millions of tiny bells ringing in the breeze. The calm seemed to last forever… In reality it was about three seconds. With the tell-tale electronic ring a gigantic ‘Congratulations’ sign appeared over where the beast use to stand as the group burst into ecstatic cheering. “We did it!” Yelled out Recon while falling to his knees, “I thought we were done for!” Jumping back up the energetic Sylph flew over to Lyfa, a whole five feet away, throwing his arms around her “I was so worried when you went-.“ He came up short on account of Lyfa’s hand being shoved into his face. Lyfa and Recon, whose real names are Suguha Kirigaya and Nagata Shinichi, were currently playing their characters ALFheim Online, Slyphs are a fairy race denoted by green and known for their wind magic and speed. A very exasperated Lyfa held her admirer away with one hand saying “I know, I know it was stupid of me to charge in there… But I couldn’t let Asuna hog all the glory again.” Floating back a foot Recon gave Leafa a very confused look. “What are you talking about? Asuna is one of the most humble people Iv’e ever met, especially around your brother.” A very oblivious Recon stated, receiving a glare for his blunder. “I know,” fumed Lyfa, “she’s so perfect with her perfect hair, and her perfect smile, and her perfect cooking, and her perfect swordsmanship, and her perfect-“ “Still sore from when she saved your behind on floor 54,” cut in a voice from behind the duo, “I remember you oh so boldly jumped into an obvious mimic trap just to get that golden tiara, which ended up only having a basic speed buff.” Purred a very enticing Cait Sith, “I seem to remember you saying something about it being a very high level item that should make your base movement skill so high that we wouldn’t be able to see you when you are walking down the hall.” This is the lord of the Cait Siths, a species of cat like people from ALFheim Online who specialize in beast training, Alicia Rue. She has been joining the party from time to time with her 7 player dragoon guard in their dungeon crawling. “Ya, and didn’t the room not only end up being a teleport trap, but also home to about ten invisi-spiders?” Chucked a very amused swordsman. “And wasn’t – .“ “SHUT IT KLEIN!” Snapped Lyfa turning to the katana wielding rogue. This is Klein, Tsuboi Ryoutarou in real life, he met Kirito on the first day of SAO and they ran into each other from time to time over their time in SAO. He still uses his avatar from the original SAO, a normal human that looks eerily similar to his real world body only with fairy wings. “Yes Asuna saves my but from time to time, and YES I made a mistake going for that tiara… although it does match my cape of the swift wind quite nicely” Lyfa added while admiring herself “You too Alicia, I do not care that you are in charge of an entire species, WHY-“ “Alright, we get it” chuckled Klein putting an arm on Lyfa’s shoulder, silencing her “let’s check on our fearless leaders and see where we stand from here. HEY KIRITO, ASUNA!! WHATS THE PLAN?” And adding as an afterthought, “HEY WHO KILLED THE BEAST ANYWAY?” Across the room Kirito and Asuna sat on the floor leaning their backs against each other for support trying to catch their breath. Kirito, Sugu’s (Lyfa’s) older brother, hero of SAO, and boyfriend to Asuna, was a black clothed Spriggan avatar of Kirigaya Kazuto. Asuna is the Undine avatar of Asuna Yuki and Kazuto’s girlfriend in real life. On Kirito’s shoulder sat the navigation pixie Yui, a rogue program from the original SAO game who became close to Kirito and Asuna during the original game and considers them her parents. “These dungeon bosses seem much easier now that we aren’t actually fighting for our lives.” Chuckled the black robed Spriggan. “Ya, and it’s almost like we have a party of people we actually trust and know to be good players or something.” Replied his in game wife and real life girlfriend, “Still, I’m glad we didn’t lose anyone.” “Yeah, the death timer would have been annoying.” Added Yui. “The death timer would have been annoying. Oh, and,” Kirito echoed, and then as he turned to Klein across the room “,EVERYONE GATHER AT THE PORTAL TO THE NEXT LEVEL… AND I BELIEVE LIZ KILLED THE BEAST, BUT I AM NOT SURE... LIZ?” Standing a few yards away were two girls and a small dragon. The girls were Lizbeth and Silica, in real life Ayano Keiko and Shinozaki Rika, two of the original SAO players. The dragon, Pina, is a pet of Silica in game, and has a main ‘attack’ of a health breath. “YA I KILLED IT… broke a perfectly good mace on it… but YA I KILLED IT.” Replied a slightly disgruntled blacksmith, “thanks for supporting me Silica, without Pina I don’t know what I would have done.” “Hey, no biggy, it’s what I do” Replied the younger girl “besides, it feels good to do more than just be the mascot for once.” She looked over to see that everyone was moving toward the portal gate to the next level of the dungeon and motioned to Liz to show that they should join. As the group gathered at the portal gate the quite banter died down till at last there was silence as Kirito opened the gate. “Now everyone,” He said turning to the group of about 30, “I know some of you are high enough level to take on about half of the 67th floor in pairs or as solo players, but I know that I have an exciting meeting with my pillow in an hour and would like to go home, so I am teleporting back to the inn at level 50 and logging out… It never gets old to log out.” He said with a smile, getting a smile and a nod from a good third of the group. “Whenever you guys are ready to tackle the next boss contact the rest and we shall talk strategy.” A round of ‘ya’s and nods confirmed the deadline. “Alright, see you on the other side.” And with that he pulled out his blue teleport crystal and teleported back to the lobby of the inn. Turning to go up the stairs he was not surprised to see that most of his party had joined him. Doing a quick head count he found that they were all there: Leafa, Reon, Asuna, Klein, Lizbeth, and Silica. With a smile he walked up the stairs to his and Asuna’s room opening the door for her and receiving a smile in return from her. As he turned around the back of his head received quite a strong glare from both Lizbeth and Lyfa. Sadly the back of his head was not all that receptive to glares. As the girls sighed Klein walked past laughing full-heartedly at their expense. As Kirito closed his own door and walked to the bed and then flopped down next to Asuna on the bed. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheak before they both logged out. *^~~~~~~~~~^* The café was calm as the team quietly celebrated another victory over yet another dungeon boss with a round of drinks (mostly tea). Smiles and stories were shared as the team sat back and relaxed after another hard day of dungeon crawling. Ryōtarō, Kazuto, and Asuna sat at one small table near the bar sharing a plate of nachos while Naga, Sugu, Rika and Keiko sat at another table nearby the one male at the table beaming at a fuming Sugu while the other two girls laughed at her expense. “I saw that quick well-placed mace attack that you used to finish off the boss, nice work Rika, though why you went with the extra sharpness mace instead of the heavier mace is beyond me.” Commented the happy owner of Dicey Café. Said owner was a large tall bald black man named Andrew Gilber Mills. He was one of the original players of SAO and went by Agil in game where he became good friends of the Kazuto and the group. He owned and worked the café along with his wife. Turning to the bartender “I wanted to try out my new mace.” Retorted a disgruntled Rika, “Besides, how was I supposed to know that Gantruna had an armor level of 38? If it was below 30 the sharpness would have cut through the armor and done extra damage of up to 300!!” “Well you would have known if you read the guidebook.” Commented Ryōtarō casually from the other table. “I did read the book.” She huffed “but there were no actual stats on the armor for Gantruna. I guess I am just not as good a smith as I thought.” She said looking down and sighing. “Hey hey hey,” he franticly said trying to cheer her up, “I didn’t mean to put you down! You still fought great, it is just something to think about next time.” Turning to her friend, Keiko added “Ya Rika, you couldn’t have known. And if anything it is my fault for being a poor support and not having all the stats on me… Ah ah ah.” She added holding up a hand cutting off Rika’s obvious denial, “If I want to be a great support I need to know everything about every battle and make sure you know exactly what you are doing and are at your most prepared at all times.” Smiling at Keiko, Sugu asked “where do you get all that information anyway? You always seem to know exactly which weapons we should use and are always ready with a health potion, crystal, or the right status effect crystal.” Blushing Keiko replied with a smile “well I memorized the guidebook, plus I talk to Yui on the downtime. That and I just try to stay stocked in general.” “Hey guys, have you seen this?” Asked Kazuto gesturing toward the television hanging on the wall. “And with us here we have Professor Karamazato Azimeo, the leading researcher in the exciting new world of Alternate Dimensions, Professor Azimeo.” Gestured a lovely young reporter woman toward a well-built elderly man standing on her left. “Thank you Amaya, and you are only partially correct. The correct term is Alternate Universe, because if it was Dimention it would me a method of moving, which is not what my research is about.” He laughed jollily, “ No, what my colleagues and I are researching right now in this very building are methods of seeing, and hopefully one day contacting and traveling to alternate worlds. Worlds where physics is different from ours, worlds with people completely different from us, worlds beyond my or your wildest imagination.” With a gleam in his eye he continued “Think of the advances for our people, for our race! And think of what we could do! We could travel and settle on other worlds we could form trade agreements with other cultures for their sciences and maths, goods and services, and ideaologies philosophies and religions completely different from our own!! It boggles the mind… Why…” Tuning out old man’s energetic theories and tech mumbo jumbo the group turned exasperated looks to Kazuto. “Really brother? Alternate Universes, parallel dimensions, other worlds? I know we live in a virtual fantasy world most every day, but even you must realize that this is a silly childish pipe dream.” “Ya, it’s all still theory anyway. I have heard they still haven’t gotten anywhere near a working prototype yet.” Said Ryōtarō, “Tell him Asuna, never gunna happen.” He said with conviction “Well, it is a nice idea.” Asuna contributed while leaning on her boyfriend, Kazuto. “But I agree, it will probably never happen. And even when it does there is going to be such a horrible political and public backlash that I don’t think would make the research be anywhere near worth it.” Nods and ‘Yeah’s were given by all in agreement to Asuna’s comment. Kazuto harrumphed and crossed his arms with a small smile “True, but it would still be cool to go to a completely different world with actual people there, not just AI and to see things that a human could never have imagined…” “You know, they did have some interesting codes in their viewing machines you have to admit.” Naga commented out loud to which the group gave a collective huh. “What do you mean by that?” Asked Keiko. “Well, my father is actually working on this project… not a high ranking official of course… but he does get to do some basic code crunching, and I was allowed to have a look at it. It doesn’t work right now so they saw no harm in a kid like me taking a copy to play with at home...” Naga ended awkwardly with a bashful look on his face. “Well” Sugu said poking him in the shoulder “What was so interesting about the code?” With all eyes on Naga he started to explain, “the code takes several very advanced number generating algorithms and details about our world to try and find other worlds.” With a gleam in his eye he continued “They do not know what they are doing, or what they are looking for or anything yet, so they are just punching numbers and figures into the code hoping to get some sort of sequence of figures that correlates to an ‘alternate universe.’ So far they have found several possibilities for worlds, but there is still no way to view these worlds besides sheets of papers with millions of numbers on it that the lower level scientists, like my dad, are currently trying to make heads or tails of.” “Wow, that’s kind of cool.” “Interesting.” “I wonder if you could plug in a code to find a world completely filled with Egg Rolls…” Rika trailed off dreamily looking off into the distance. She quickly noticed the silence and when she refocused she noticed everyone giving her an odd look, “Oh come on I like egg rolls!! And I know you guys want all want some sort of odd thing in a different world.” As the group became lost in thought Naga continued “So anyway, I took the code and tried to make a virtual world from it. But I am not sure if it works yet…” He quietly added when the room when silent again. “Please continue.” Requested the bald barkeeper. “Um, ok, well, um I haven’t tested the world out yet, so I have no idea what it will do, but I took the random number generators from the alternate universe world code that the scientists gave me and punched in some information about our normal world, but then some other things I thought would be cool, like ancient Roman Mythology. I really liked that section in school. And Medieval kingdoms and added some sort of danger…” “So wait, let me see if I am getting this right.” Said a very serious Ryōtarō, “You took a highly advanced and brand new scientific code that is meant to find alternate universes and changed it into a world seed that will create a random virtual world that has whatever basic parameters that you want it to have?” “Pretty much. *gulp* Is that ok?” “Ok, that’s awesome!!” Exclaimed Kazuto, “Why haven’t you tried it yet?” “Because I haven’t had a server to test it on… also… because I am afraid of looking like an idiot when it doesn’t work…” Timidly replied Naga. “Can we try it tomorrow?” Asked a wide eyed Keiko. “If he gives me the code I can add it to our server, and cut that section off of the main grid.” Said Andrew, “The café tends to be light enough for my wife to tend to on her own, I can monitor your progress from here and try to manually fix anything or pull you guys out if things look bad. Do you have the code on you?” “Ya, here.” He said as he handed the barkeeper the flash drive. “It should be in the folder titled Test_1 in the worlds folder.” “Cool, I will upload it tonight. And tomorrow you guys can try it out. But first I am sorry, but it is really getting late and I gotta close up.” A round of approval and confirmation was given from the group of friends as they slowly got up said their goodbyes and left for their homes excited about the new worlds and new adventures they hoped to be having tomorrow. The next day The gang had gathered in the upstairs room of the Dicey Café getting ready to dive into the virtual world for an exciting adventure into an unknown territory. Naga was visibly nervous. Ryōtarō stood by Sugu glaring at her in an attempt to get her to cheer up the shaking boy, at which she glared guiltily back until she finally gave in and went over to comfort him, putting a hand on his shoulder and talking quietly to him. Rika, Asuna, and Keiko stood nearby debating whether or not Rika should bring Pina. Kazuto stood on the other side of Ryōtarō smiling to himself observing the group waiting for Andrew to show up and give them the all clear. Everyone was completely oblivious to Naga’s nervousness. After several long minutes of waiting Andrew came up the stairs with and told them that the code had been added to their server and should show up as a door that only they can open. “I tried to add it near to your position, but because you were in the middle of town I went for the next best thing… The Fields of Peace on the 18th level of the dungeon. Sorry about that.” “Na, it’s all good.” Said Ryōtarō, “Let’s get this show on the road!” Cheered Ryōtarō. With some light cheering everyone lied down in their designated bed and slipped on their respective NerveGear or AmuSphere and logged on. *^~~~~~~~~~^* After getting out of bed, meeting in the lobby of the Inn, and briefing Yui on what was going on they ventured to the center of town where they could teleport to a village close to the Fields of Peace. After teleporting to Caragferkas they ventured west to the Fields of Peace. The leaves were beginning to show their fall colors and there was a slight bite to the wind. Sugu was in awe at the beauty of the virtual world, and commented as such. “Ya,” replied Kirito “this place may have been a prison for us for two years, but it was and still is very beautiful.” He laughed, “I remember teaching Asuma that important lesson.” Asuma smiled moving closer to Kazuto. “And I am very happy I listened to you.” “Well I personally like spring better in Sword Art Online.” Commented Lizbeth. Turning Lyfa asked, “Why? Is there something special about it?” “No no. I just enjoy the life, artificial it may be. I always enjoyed that even in a place so bleak and dark there was always life and new beauty. So many good smells.” Conversation continued in that manner until it was broken by the appearance of a large door on top of a rolling hill. “This must be the portal… It is strange, I have no idea what this is, and the programing is very complex. I feel so much life and energy on the other side.” Yui said while touching the golden door frame. The door stood ten feet tall. Rounded at the top with a golden frame. The door was etched with colorful depictions of what appeared to be small horses dragons griffons, unicorns and pegusi with a large depiction of a dark blue horse creature with a horn and wings on the left standing in front of what appeared to be the moon and a similar depiction of a white horse creature on the right shadowed by the sun. “Apparently whatever world you have created it is called Equestria. But I do not know any more about it than that. I can probably find out more when we are inside the program.” “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” Said Kirito. Yui pushed open the double door and through the door all that could be seen was a bright light. The party looked at each other with a smile and a not before they walked through the portal. *^~~~~~~~~~^* “Ok, so now you guys are going through the door. No problems… Wait, what is this? This makes no sense? Where is all this information coming from?” A very confused and slightly worried Andrew asked the air as he monitored the surprisingly high amount of data from such a small world seed. “Well kid…” he said leaning back in his chair, “let’s see what you have made huh?” *^~~~~~~~~~^* The first Kirito noticed was the high ceilings. Huge gothic arches similar to the grand gothic cathedrals of ancient Europe. The second thing he noticed were the beautifully detailed stained glass windows showing very artistic depictions of what he guessed were supposed to be backstory to their quest. The third and probably most important thing he noticed was a very perturbed looking horned and winged horse creature sitting on what appeared to be a thrown flanked by two smaller armored unicorns with shocked looks on their face, and another regular horse (naked he noticed) looking completely shocked sitting in front of the larger white creature. The rest of the party stood by him admiring the new world until Yui broke the silence with a disturbing fact. “Daddy? I’m scared. I don’t know where we are, and I am worried… This isn’t in game… There are no programs here… No code.” Yui said with a very scared expression on her face. “Mommy, hold me!” The group stood there in shock as the white creature on the thrown broke the ice. “As interesting as that fact is… I have no idea what that means.” She spoke with a feminine voice, rich in grandeur. She stepped down from her throne and walked towards the group, keeping more poise than Kirito thought a horse could ever pull off. She stopped and continued when she got close enough to look down on the group. “But I am more curious in who you are, what you are, and how you managed to get here.” Author's Note Wow, my first fic... This was an idea that I had in my head and just had to write down, I hope someone enjoys it... if not, I don't blame you guys! I do not think of myself as a good writer! XD
Meetings and ToursChapter 2 The room was silent as the party took a moment to comprehend the questions. Kirito looked up at the white creature with an awkward grin as he stuttered out: “Um… well… you see… we are… um… mhm…” With a huge grin Klein put a hand on Kirito’s chest stopping his panicked stuttering. “I got this.” He said with a grin as he turned to the now smirking white creature on the thrown. “HELLO ALIEN CREATURE.” He said loudly, slowly and with a huge smile. “WE CREATURES,” with a gesture to his friends, “ARE HUMANS… HHHUUUMMMAAANNNSSS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” With a chuckle the white creature got off her throne gesturing to her disgruntled guards with a wing in attempt to calm them. With cultured speech it replied “I do in fact understand what you are saying, though I am slightly curious why you are speaking so loudly and so slowly. Is it a cultural thing to speak to others you are trying to impress? But anyway I would like to request that you take off your swords and weapons, they seem to be disturbing to my guards and I would very much like to calm them. Plus there is no need to worry here. From wherever difficulty you have come from you should now know that you can find safety here in these walls and that there is no need for swords or weapons of any kind.” The white horse focused intently, “Can you understand that?” “Yes maam,” replied Asuna as the party went into their inventory un-equipping their weapons, “I apologize for my friend here,” gesturing to Klein, “he can be a bit dense sometimes. My name is Asuna, this is my boyfriend Kirito, our daughter Yui, his younger sister Lyfa, Silica, Lizbeth, Recon, and the rude one you already met Klein.” At which they all waved when their name was called, except for Klein who crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “We are humans, but what you see here are our avatar forms computer generated in a virtual world which we were exploring. This was supposed to be a new world that Recon over there designed…” Asuna took a second to quickly look at her surroundings, “And apparently he accidentally succeeded in creating a gateway to another world. I apologize for any inconvenience.” She finished with a bow, which the rest of the team mirrored. “Interesting, very interesting indeed. Well I should be the first to welcome you travelers to my world and kingdom. Welcome to the planet Equis, and my kingdom Equestria. You are currently in my thrown room in my palace in the capital city of Canterlot.” She turned back from the group and took several steps towards her throne gesturing to the room with her wings. When she was a good distance away she turned back to them and stood tall and as regal as a horse possibly could. “My name is Princess Celestia and I rule over Equestria with my younger sister Luna.” She paused, possibly for dramatic effect, “I am also guardian of the day for it is my job to make sure the sun rises and sets every day where. Similarly my sister is guardian of the night making sure the moon rises and sets every night.” She continued when she noticed some curious faces looking around the Throne Room. “She tends to be nocturnal,” she explained, “so she cannot be here with us right now. But I am sure she would love to meet you.” Celestia said with a kind smile. And with a frown she added, “Now as informative as what you said to me earlier was… I only understood about less than half of it, would you mind clarifying it for an old mare?” “I can I can I can I can,” said Silica jumping up and down waving her hand in the air excitedly, “Ok, so do you know what a computer is.” To which Celestia shook her head. “Electricity.” Celestia nodded. “Alrighty, how about a television… calculator?” “We have calculators, but I do not know what a television is.” Silica groaned sitting down getting ready to explain the mysteries of technology to one so underprivileged. “Alright, calculators have screens right” nod “and they have programming and stuff right?” Another nod, “televisions are big screens that show shows and movies… Kinda like picture books but with motion,” Silicia’s eyes lit up, “oh oh oh, and you can also record people doing stuff and show them on a television.” She took a deep breath, “ Alright, well a computer has a television on it so it can show stuff. And it also has lots of very strong calculator parts so you can tell it stuff and it can figure out other stuff with it. Understand so far?” Chuckling Celestia nodded once again. “Alright, WELL you can play games and do things that are fun on computers, and using the internet… I am NOT gunna explain that…” Everyone chuckled. “You can contact friends and play games with them. And so one type of game is done by putting a helmet on your head that connects your brain with the computer so you can actually BE in the game instead of just looking at it!!” Silica stood beaming like she had just uncovered the mystery of life. “I still do not fully understand, but I think I get it enough. It is like a controlled dream where you can contact others and do whatever you want to?” Celestia inquired. “That sounds like a pretty good description.” Replied Lyfa after after thinking for a minute. “Mine was better” huffed Silica receiving a chuckle and a pat on the head from Klein, who then received a bite from Pina. As Klein grimaced nursing his hand Celestia turned to Kirito and Asuna who were still trying to calm a shaking Yui. “Is she alright?” Celestia asked with concern, “ And I also have to ask, if it is alright, how old are you that you would have a daughter so old?” Putting a comforting arm around Yui Kirito replied, “I hope she will be. And it is alright. Yui isn’t actually our physical daughter. We found her lost in the woods in game with no memory of who or where she was and took her in hoping to find her parents. When she finally remembered who she was she told us that she was a program in the game that went rogue.” Celestia looked a bit confused again but Kirito quickly continued, “when she couldn’t do as she was programmed, help others.” He paused to give Yui a quick, reassuring hug, “It’s a long story but in a nutshell, we were stuck in a game where the only way to leave was to win, and if you lost you died in the real world instead of starting the game over.” Celestia gasped placing a hoof over her mouth. “It’s alright, everyone here, except Recon and Lyfa were in that game and we got out. Plus, I met Asuna there, so it wasn’t all bad.” “That, and you were the one to beat the game.” Commented Klien with a smile. “Eh, that too. But anyway, Yui decided that we are her parents because we cared about her so much. And we are fine with that. She is probably like this because this is the first time she has ever been out of the virtual world.” Celestia looked at Yui with compassion, “That must be quite a shock to her. If there is anything I could do, let me know.” “Thank you.” Replied Yui quietly. “I’ll be alright. I just need to adjust. I feel like my data is falling apart with no regular lines or codes to cling to.” She shivered and closed her eyes. After a few seconds “There is this strange energy flowing around that I might be able to pin myself to.” “Ah,” Celestia replied with a smile, “those would be the natural magical leylines of this world. There are many different magical creatures in this world, several of which use the leylines already, why don’t you try and pin yourself to that.” “Thank you, ok, ill try…” Scrunching up her eyes in concentration Yui glowed softly and started to fade away, much to the unhappiness of her parents. But then she became completely visible again, stopped shaking and looked forward confidently. “It worked!” She cheered. “I pinned my avatar to the leylines, and wait, give me a minute.” Concentrating again the others started to disappear, much to their unhappiness. But then, like Yui, they became visible again and felt more whole. “Alright. All of our avatars are now completely tangible in this world.” “What do you mean by that?” Asked Lyfa. “Well, near to the doorway there is data leaking out, doing no harm to the surrounding area, but keeping us actually physically here. Now that I have locked our avatars onto the leylines of the world we can move as far away from the doorway and we will still be able to function as we could in game and move around freely in this world.” This was met by a round of ohs, cools, and wows. “I still feel slightly uncomfortable tho… we aren’t in a computer, and I cannot find out as much about the world as I normally could.” Yui said slipping back into pixy form and flying up to Kirito’s pocket. Celestia blinked several times trying to understand what just happened. She decided to put that in the to be figured out later section of her mind along with how to solve a rubix cube, why politics are as crazy as they are, whether or not she likes bananas, and most of what Pinkie Pie does.* “Well, there is always the royal library.” Said Celestia thoughtfully. “I can make arrangements for you to visit it tonight, most likely with my sister as a guide and chaperone.” “Oh thank you Princess!” Yui cheered. “Thank you.” Said Asuna with a smile. “Looks like you cheered our little girl right up.” “Hey princess,” Lizbeth spurted out. As Celestia turned to look at the girl she became sheepish toying the ground with her foot, “um, with all these questions you are asking us, I was wondering if you could answer some of our questions, well… my questions.” “Of course, what would you like to know?” “Oh well, first, what are you? Second, why are your guards not like you? Third, why was that other pony also not like you? Fourth, what is this world like? And um, fifth, is there something for us to do here?” Celestia chuckled at the tirade of questions. “Well, I am what is called an Alicorn. One of the four types of ponies here in Equestria.” She gestured a hoof towards one of the stained glass windows depicting three different types of ponies dancing around one larger pony. “Earth ponies,” gesturing towards the bottom plain pony in the window, “like the representative of the Appolusan Farmers Union. Unicorns,” gesturing first to the depiction of a unicorn in the window and then to her gaurds, “like my personal guard. And Pegusi” Gesturing to the pegusi in the window, “of which you have yet to see.” She turned back to the group. “This world is a fairly peaceful world, although there are exceptions. We have forests with dangerous beasts, safe forests, fields mountain ranges, deserts, several large cities, but mostly small villages. And for something to do, well,” one of the corulers of the land put a hoof up to her chin to think, “what do you want to do?” “Oh um, I don’t know…” Lizbeth replied quietly, “Thanks for answering my questions though.” “Of course. Any other questions?” “Where exactly are we? Like is there a regular looking-out-and-seeing-things window around here?” Asked Silica with wide eyes. “Of course, come follow me. Post It,” she said loudly with authority. After a second a large door the party had not noticed behind them opened and a female unicorn wearing small square glasses and a serious expression came in, “would you please announce that open court has ended for the day and please file the citizens requests and concerns for me to look at later tonight?” “Yes mam.” She replied not even flinching at the new addition of a huge door in the middle of the usually empty hall and the eight strange beings standing there. “Shall I tell them that a very important matter to the state has come up.” A half nod and a look. “Kindly,” a smile and a nod, “and shall I have my assistances and I record their petitions?” Another nod, at which a bow was given in response. “My princess.” “Good luck Mrs. It, you are going to need it.” With a roll of her eyes Post It turned to the door, “It is my job. Good luck with this… whatever this is.” “I hope this does go well.” The princess replied as the door closed. “Ok my little adventurers, shall I show you the city?” Nods in response the party followed her out of the Hall, down a long hallway to a round balcony displaying a beautiful panorama of a medieval styled city. In the distance forests and plains could be seen dotted with small towns. Railroads stretching between towns originating from Canterlot spanned the countryside. In the distance and here and there were mountains. “Welcome to Equestria.” Celestia said, pride very apparent in her voice. “My little ponies have come very far in the last two thousand years I have been on the thrown.” “Wait, two thousand years?!” Exclaimed Recon. “Yes, immortality does that…” She said with a sigh, “So many friends come and gone, so many heart breaks… But it is the unexpected that really give life to it all.” Another sigh. “Oh well, you don’t want to be listening to the rantings of an old mare do you? I think not. Let us go in, I believe it is nearing dinner time, which means Luna is probably up for her breakfast. I know she will be excited to meet you.” The group turned back inside the building continuing along the long corridor. As they walked they marveled at the tapestries, statues, and beautiful stained glass windows littering the palace. Celestia pointed out many of them telling stories sometimes months and sometimes years past. The amount of information and the thoughts and experiences that the Princess had experienced kept the group captivated. “Hey Princess, I have a question.” Said Yui. “Yes my child?” “Where are your parents? I mean, if you are a princess, aren’t your parents the king and queen?” Celestia smile slowly faded away with that question and she became silent. Yui saw a single tear trace down her neck and immediately flew up to her neck giving the mare a huge hug. “I’m sorry, forget I asked.” “No child. It is alright, but I am afraid that is a story for another day, another time.” Said Celestia wistfully and with a small smile she followed with, “Ah, it looks like we are here, the royal dining hall. I do not know what you eat, but we have had many different dignitaries from many different species over the years so I am sure that our cooks can make something that will please you all. I will request that the special menus are brought out for you all, and if there is nothing on the menus that you would like, please be sure to request and my cooks will do the best they can.” Pushing the doors open with a touch of magic the party was greeted by a long dining hall. The opposing end of the dining hall had three sets of doors smaller than the one they had just come through. The side walls were tall cut two thirds of the way up by a trim from which hung many different objects. The lower two thirds of the walls had more tall and thin stained glass windows showing depictions of different creatures performing magic, feats of strength, or with some sort of book and writing utensil. The top third was made of a long narrow window from which outside light shined in. In the middle of the room sat a large mahogany table with seven chairs around the middle. At the closest end there sat a plush golden pillow. At the farther end sat what must have been the other princess, obviously in the middle of breakfast. A piece of half eaten toast, a pile of cut and partially eaten pancakes with syrup, eggs, a mostly empty glass of what appeared to be orange juice, and a cup of what appeared to be coffee or tea sat in front of the princess who was currently hidden from view behind a newspaper. It took some of the group a moment to notice the magical energies holding the paper up. “So sister,”commented Celestia wryly, “Have you gotten to the comics yet? The escapades of Maremaduke were quite humorous today.” “Nay sister.” Huffed a female voice from behind the newspaper. It shifted slightly as a page turned, “We art currently reading a disturbing piece of news about some sort of strange traveling fat that can be gained by eating too much grains, trans fat I believe they called it...” She said pulling the newspaper down to give her sister a half lidded glare. The mare at the other end of the tale was very similar, yet almost a polar opposite of her sister. She had a dark blue coat with a wispy wavy purple mane; in said main were what seemed to be hundreds of tiny stars. She had a long horn sprouting from her forehead, leading Kirito to think that she was a unicorn, until she stood up and he could see her large wings. She was thin and larger than the other ponies that they had seen, but not as large as Celestia. Kirito noticed that she was not wearing a tiara or a regalia or horseshoes like Celestia was. “Tia,” she called walking over to the group, “Why did you not warn me that we would be having visitors, We… I would have gotten dressed…” She said with a blush as she joined the group. “Sorry sister, I did not know we would be having guests until just a few hours ago.” Reaching out her neck she nuzzled her sister. “Are you done breakfast? I was hoping to introduce you to everyone.” “Nay sister, I would love to meet these strange creatures. Who and what art thou?” “Well,” said Klein taking a step forward in an attempt to redeem himself from earlier, “I am Klein, these two love birds are Kirito and Asuna, those two kids are Recon and Lyfa, and these lovely ladies are Silica and Lizbeth, oh and that is Yui, and the dragon is Pina.” He said gesturing to each in turn at which each bowed to their name. “We are humans from the planet Earth. But what you see here are our avatars.” “It is very nice to meet you, I am Princess Luna… And I am sorry, but I have never heard of Earth, Humans, or Avatars.” She replied shooting her older sister a confused look. “They are creatures from a different world in another universe.” Recognition and amazement dawned on Luna’s face. “And avatars are similar to shadow projections, only they are much fuller conversions where their actual bodies are lying asleep in their own world. And no, before you ask they are only adolescents and children, teenagers who got here by accident. They do know how to get back, but I thought I would show them around a bit since they seem friendly and can leave their avatars here when they need to go back to their home world.” “Facinating,” Luna breathed a gleam in her eye, “I cannot wait to get to know you all!” A yellow earth pony with a chef’s chief’s hat mark on his hindquarters walked into the room holding seven menus in his mouth. Placing them on the table he gave them an appraising look towards the new creatures and princesses before requesting that they all take their seats so that he could take their orders. And so they sat. Luna on her end and Celestia on her end. On one side of the table sat Lyfa, Kirito, and Asuna and on the opposite side sat Recon, Klein, Lisbeth, and Silica. Pina sat on Silica’s head and Yui sat on the table in between Asuna and Kirito. As the party requested simple garden salads from the chief (an unspoken message sent around that it would be impolite to eat meat in from of the herbivore Goddesses) conversation started in relation to their current predicament. With the gang’s help Celestia filled in Luna with all that had been happening that morning. When the salads arrived the topic of conversation moved onto more pressing topics. Looking up from her salad the so far quiet Lizbeth asked: “Um I need to get going soon, it is getting late and I still have some chores around the house.” “Oh ya, shoot I was going to meet my boyfriend in half an hour!!” Exclaimed Silica jumping up from the table. “You have a boyfriend?” Questioned Asuna. “Well, soon it will be had… He only likes me for my looks, ugh, be happy you haven’t met him he has been such a jerk to all my friends.” “Then why do you want to meet him tonight?” Inquired Luna. “Well to dump him of course!” Said Silica, at which many an eye was raised. “What, you think I was going to dump him on the phone? No sir, not me. I am an honorable girl, if you date me; you get dumped to the face.” A round of blank stares was given in reply to that comment. “Well, don’t log out just yet. We should probably all leave as a group.” Said Lizbeth. “Hey Yui, should there be any sort of problem when we log out being that we are in a physical world instead of the virtual world?” Yui hovered a bit off the table thinking. “Well, I don’t believe so… Your avatars should just enter a dream-like state until you log back in again. So we should probably find some beds for you guys to sleep in to log out…” “You can always stay in the guest chambers.” Offered Celestia with a smile. “We have no guests currently and room enough to house fifteen griffons comfortably. If you wish to leave now I shall lead you.” “I’m coming too!” Exclaimed Luna hopping up from her seat. “Griffons?” Klein commented with a whistle. Following Celestia’s lead the group stood and walked out a door opposite of the door they entered on and found themselves in a much more homely hallway. The hallway had red plush carpet with an intricate pattern of lines and squiggles. There were curtains with tassels on the much smaller windows and the lamps were similar to those one would find around a home. After several minutes of walking Celestia stopped at a door, opening it and gesturing with a wing for the group to enter. The room was similar to a living room with a small fireplace, a table and several couches stationed around it. To the right was a large bay window, and to the left was a small modest kitchen with all the typical kitchen appliances and a table and a small door. On the opposite end of the room were six doors. “I hope you will find these rooms able to accommodate you. Through those five doors are bedrooms two beds per room, that room,” she said gesturing to the sixth door on the opposite wall, “is the bathroom. Over there is the kitchen, and that is a pantry stocked of course. If you need anything pull this rope,” tugging lightly at a rope near the entrance, “And a servant should be here shortly to assist you. Is there anything else I am forgetting?” “You are much to kind” Said Asuna with a curtsy, “this is perfect, thank you.” “Yes, thanks.” Chorused the rest of the party as they made their way to the bedrooms. Yui quickly flew over to Asuna and Kirito and they talked for several seconds before she flew back to the princesses. After whispering in Kirito’s ear for a second Asuna walked over to Lyfa and offered to share a room with her, at which she accepted and they entered the second room in. Klein put a hand on Recon’s shoulder and led him to the third room. The last two girls and pina entered the last room before the bathroom. Kirito shrugged and went into the first room. ...Several minutes later outside the living room-ish quarter place thingy ya... “Aren’t you going to leave your avatar too child?” Asked Luna to Yui hovering between her and her sister as the last bedroom door closed. “No,” replied Yui, “I am an artificial life form remember, this is my ‘real’ body. I was actually wondering though, um, you mentioned that there is a library around here," she blushed and looked down, "and I would very much like to learn as much about the new world as possible before they return tomorrow.” “Yes there is.” Replied Celestia, “Luna, do you mind taking her there and watching over her, it is late and I need to lower the sun and go to bed.” “Of course Tia.” Luna said as they left the living room and shut the door. * Really dowdlekid, really? you are going to make the tipical Pinkie Pie jokes? Sigh, and I thought you were better than that. PINKIE!! HOW'D YOU GET HERE!! I specifically said I would not do these kind of cheep jokes! Psh, I'm Pinkie Pie, I do what I want! I'm my own mare! Oh, and your fourth wall is slightly cracked around the cracked place over there, might want to fix it... Sigh, sure, just leave before this joke gets too long winded... Okie dokie lokie! See you readers in chapter 6, if this idiot actually writes that far... Ha ha ha, leave Pinkie... Author's Note This chapter has not been proofread... so expect changes eventually (whenever my proofreaders get back to me) EDIT: This chapter has NOW BEEN PROOFREAD!!!! YAY HOORAY!!! it still sucks, I know... but now it sucks less!!??? Anyway, not all that much changed, so don't feel like you NEED need to read it again... why you read it in the first place is beyond me... Also, helpful criticism would be nice. :D Also Also Wit I plan on writing only 5 chapters (plus the exposition) unless I actually have people enjoying this story... then I will write more... and boy do I have more ideas to write... but writing takes so much time!! and I suck at writing... gurr... anyway if you do, in fact, for some strange reason, like this story, where it is going and want more... let me know! (I doubt anyone will though... meh, ideas in my head had to come out!)
Preparations (Unedited)Chapter 3 Silence. Kazuto sat up in bed and took off his Nerve-Tech helmet. He stared blankly forward, not paying any attention to his surroundings. Millions of questions swam through his head like schools of tiny fish. ‘What does this mean?’ ‘Where did we go?’ ‘How did we get there?’ ‘Was that all REAL real?’ ‘Should we go back?’ ‘Should we tell someone?’ His musings were shattered by the sound of stomping feet running up the stairs. The door slammed open and a worried, and slightly out of breath, Andrew stood panting in the doorway. Worry was very apparent in his eyes as he yelled out: “What the HELL happened?!? Are you guys ok?!?! What was in that world?!?” As he was yelling others sat up, or turned to look at him. He glanced around the room at all the slightly glazed expressions. “Wait, did the code do something to your brains? Oh this is not good if it-“ Kazuto cut him off with a raised hand. He was cut off by Rika, “we are fine Andrew.” “Just in shock.” Added a dazed Sugu. “Well…” Said a less worried, but still confused Andrew. “What happened?” “We went to a different world.” Said a shocked Naga. “I can’t believe it, we went to a different world. I feel numb, like all I know is a lie, like hundreds of years of teachings and knowledge passed down from generation to generation is wrong. Like, like… like something huge happened…” The silence was palpable. Everyone shared a look of agreement. Andrew still looked confused, as none of his questions had been answered yet. As he was about to comment Ryoutarou cut him off. “I understand what you are saying, but I disagree.” He propped himself up against his bedframe as he turned to look at Naga. “I mean, sure we just went to a whole different world where there are people just like us… okay maybe not just like us… more like nothing like us at all… but you know what I mean... anyway…” He shook his head in an attempt to get his thoughts back on track. “Sure this is potentially Earth shattering, sure it might change your worldview a bit… But let’s try and think about it differently. This world existing on a whole nother relm… It really makes you wonder what is out there, but not doubt everything.” Naga blinked and Ryoutarou sighed. “I am not so good at philosophizing… Heh,” he chuckled, “even I feel a bit messed up. And sure, our world view has been expanded a bit, okay a lot, but that doesn’t mean everything you know is wrong.” “Ya,” chimed in Rika, “I mean, talking ponies and magic actually being real is a bit weird, but I am sure we seem weird to them.” With a smile she stood up and stretched. “Well I’m going downstairs I need a drink!” “I second that,” added Ryoutarou while jumping out of bed. As they brushed past Andrew he asked, “Wait, wasn’t that just a game? Okay yeah, I saw some weird readings on this end, and it looked like you guys died, like died in the real world died for a couple of minutes, but it was it that strange of a world?” Andrew scratched his head, “wait, were there already detailed NPC’s already in game? That’s kind of -” “No, that was no game.” Interrupted Kazuto. “That was real.” “Real? Well sure, the game seemed real but-“ “Real real.” “Like?” “Really really real, like real real. Like as real as my toes real.” Supplied Ayano, stilly lying on her bed, with big eyes gesturing wildly with her hands. Quickly sitting up she beamed at Naga and with a nod of her head she added, “Our personal genius here actually successfully created a portal to an alternate universe.” “Alternate Universe. You mean that thing that those guys on TV have been working on for months?” A nod. “You mean that code that you based your code off of?” Another nod from Ayano. “You guys actually did it… You were the first humans in an alternate universe… How was it?” It was a simple benign question that did it. A simple question that could be asked about a great many things: ‘how was it?’ One could ask that about the first day of school, a day at the fair, a trip to the mall, a new movie, or anything. It was the simplicity of the question that seemed to snap most of the rest of them out of their stupor. Kazuto stood, stretched, and looked over at the rest of his friends, for the first time really seeing them since they had left Equestria. Ryoutarou had left with Rika already, Naga was still sitting up straight in bed still glass eyed. Sugu had stood up and was preparing to go downstairs also. Ayano had sat down next to Naga and was proceeding to poke him in the shoulder in an attempt to get a responce. And finally Asuna had yet to do anything and was still lying down in the bed next to him. “It was… Interesting. How about you go down, we will be with you in a moment.” Replied Kazuto. Grabbing Andrew by the upper arm Sugu started dragging him towards the stairs, “come on then, there are thirsty people downstairs, I know I am one of them. We will ‘de-breif,’” adding air quotes with her fingers, “when everyone has had something in them and we are all together.” “Ya, okay, that makes sense. Don’t stay up here too long.” And with that the two of them walked down the stairs. He turned to the bed next to his. “Hey Asuna, you alright?” Asked a slightly worried Kazuto, he remembered the last time she did not get up after visiting a virtual world and deep down he always worried whenever she entered FullDive that she would not come back. He calmed as he saw her turn her head towards him. Her hazel eyes looked into his as she took a deep breath and sighed. Slowly she sat up moving her hands to her head. She lifted the helmet off her head and placed it down beside where she sat. Letting out another sigh she turned saying, “I’m fine, just taking it all in. “It’s kind of sobering, realizing that you are not alone, we are not alone. I really don’t know what to think. I think I am going to be fine,” she added giving him one of her trademark smiles, “I just needed some time to lie and think.” Kazuto smiled back at her and moved his hand to hold her’s. Sadly their touching moment together lasted all of 3 seconds before a very girly cry from across the room grabbed their attention. On the other side of the room Ayano had finally gotten a response from Naga after she stuck her finger into her mouth and then into his ear. He shrieked, in a very girly manner, as he jumped off of the bed and started rubbing his ear. “What was that for?!?!?” He yelled. “Well, you seemed quite out of it, and so I thought I would poke you. When that didn’t work I had to resort to more extreme tactics.” She replied a glint in her eye. “Extreme tactics?” “Yes, not the most extreme, but still on the extreme side of the things I could have done.” She stopped suddenly with a completely blank expression. She then blinked twice, and slowly smiled a big creepy (bordering on psychotic) smile at Naga. In response the boy took several tentative steps back and held up his hands in a defensive position. “Well,” he chuckled hesitantly, “I’m up now, so you don’t need to use your more, um, eh he um, ya well bye.” And with that he bolted out the room and down the stairs. “Wait up! I still had several more methods to try! Naga, get back here!!” And she too ran out the room and down the stairs. The entire time Kazuto and Asuna sat staring at the strange display. Slowly Kazuto turned back to his girlfriend a thin smile on both of their faces. “This could be interesting,” he said as he started chuckling. “Mhm,” she replied with a giggle. “Should we join them?” “I guess we ought to.” The both stood, stretched, shared a kiss, and then started walking toward the stairs hand in hand to join their friends. “Hey,” said Asuna tugging against Kazuto’s hand stopping both of them. Worry apparent in her eyes she asked, “Do you think Yui will be alright?” Kazuto put his other hand to his chin thinking for a moment. On one had this was a strange new place for all of them, especially for Yui. She was no longer in a computer or any sort of device, true, she was still in his Nerve-Gear but he didn’t know if being in a physical place would change anything. Then there was the fact that they were leaving her all alone, probably defenseless, in a strange place with strange creatures of unknown power and unknown intent. But, on the other hand they seemed nice and peaceful. They appeared out of nowhere right in front of one of the leaders of the nation and she did not seem to mind. Plus she dropped everything to give them a tour, and even a meal with her co-ruler/sister. With all that in mind Kazuto looked Asuna in the eye and said, “I am sure she will be fine.” After searching his eyes for any sign of doubt she smiled, squeezed his hand and they both continued downstairs. *^~~~~~~~~~^* In a certain castle in a certain world in a certain universe an alicorn stood on a platform jutting off of the westernmost tower. She stood still as a stone gazing at the sun. As she gazed at the sun, her sun, she thought of the visitors. She worried about the future of her ponies. She worried about unseen dangers and dangers not thought of before. She pondered the now proven existence of other universes and worlds. She sighed as she stared lovingly at the sun, her sun, always a beacon of hope unwavering steady and strong. “Well old friend,” she started, “We have seen many things in our long life. We will see many more. Wonderful things, horrible things, things nopony should ever have to see. But we have. And we carry on. Ignorance truly is bliss isn’t it?” She looked down sadness in her eyes. The world seemed heavier for a moment longer, but only for a moment. As she looked back up she stated resolutely, “But ignorance in the face of danger is no shield. And we will continue to carry on because that is what we do. We are a beacon of hope. We are the protector. We are the defender. I fear and yet I do not fear these humans. I fear what they bring and what they mean, but not who they are. I saw them, I looked into who they are. They are many things, many strange and wonderful things, but they mean us no harm. At least they seem to not mean to harm us. No, I fear for my dear Equestria. I fear what outside forces will follow them through the rift. “This rift will not be the end of it. Others will follow. The good, the bad, the indifferent. There is nothing to do now.” She sighed, “I could attempt to strengthen the fabric, but I doubt even I could strengthen it enough.” She shook her head a glint in her eyes. Her heart swelled with courage and pride. Her mind filled with hopes and dreams. “But why should I? This is our opportunity. My little ponies will show their strength again as they have before again and again! Our visitors are great opportunities to learn. We can watch them, befriend them, and learn about them. They can in turn watch us, befriend us, and learn from us. From there we can meet their friends and do the same. And if we find evil out there we will call upon our friends and help them. And if they find evil and call upon us we will come to their aid. This is not the time for cowardice this is not the time for timidry, this is the time to show the multiverse what ponies are made of, this is the time to show that the powers of friendship and harmony transcend all divisions.” With a deep breath she smiled the first true smile she had had in the last hour. “Thank you old friend I needed this. Good night.” And with that her horn glowed a golden yellow and she dipped her head down helping the sun along its path starting the night. *^~~~~~~~~~^* In a different part of the castle a strange pair moved through a corridor. On the left was the other half of the diarchy, an alicorn colored in dark blues and purples and blacks. She trotted through the halls at a gentle pace taking in the dusk. On the right was a pixie, a small humanoid creature no bigger than a hoof. She fluttered, almost floating, on thin translucent wings at eye level with the alicorn up now, down now, around her head now. They moved down the hall until the alicorn gestured with a wing for the pixie to turn left out an eastern facing platform jutting from the castle. “Can you wait a minute, I need to raise the moon.” “Of course Princess. You are the one guiding me anyway, can’t really go anywhere without you.” The pixie giggled. “Luna, Yui, please call me Luna. This should only be a minute.” Yui floated by the door just inside the building as Luna walked to the center of the platform. She felt the sun preparing to set. ‘Tia sure is taking a while today’ she thought as she waited. After several minutes she felt the sun beginning to set. “Finally,” she muttered under her breath, ‘I wonder what the delay was.’ She then closed her eyes focusing all her energy and being on the moon hiding under the horizon. With a glow from her horn and strong jump she lifted the moon from its resting place officially beginning the night. She spread her wings as she floated back down to the platform. The stars started waking up, twinkling as their way of saying hello to the moon. Their mistress took a deep breath opening her eyes. She looked up at the sky tisking softly. Closing her eyes again her horn glowed as the stars shifted slightly to their correct positioning. She opened her eyes after a few minutes. And checked again to make sure the sky was just right. After nodding to herself she turned back to a wide eyed Yui. “Wow,” whispered Yui, “That was amazing.” “Twas nothing.” She responded with a proud smile. “I do this every night. But I am pleased when I find that my night pleases others.” “Well it was unlike anything I have ever seen! And the way the lines moved, just wow!” Luna reentered the castle proper continuing to trot down the hall toward the library and Yui followed. “What do you mean child when you say ‘the lines’?” “Um, I guess the leylines? At least I think that is what Princess Celestia called them. Can’t you see them?” Luna shook her head. “Oh, sorry, it must be because of what I am. Like the programs and lines of code in virtual world I can see the leylines and magic in this world if I concentrate hard enough... Unless the magic is strong, then they are easily seen.” “Oh! You have magic sight. That is a rare gift indeed. I know only of several unicorns that have that ability. I believe I only know of one unicorn this age that has it. She is Tia’s student, and I am sure you will meet her eventually.” With a coy smile she added, “And she is a good friend of mine.” “Oh,” Yui asked with raised brow, “A ‘special’ friend?” Luna hopped and smiled. “Very very special! She and her friends saved us from our self when we had fallen, and then again when no other pony would accept us she gave us friendship and tried her hardest to get us accepted into the community!” Yui looked at Luna with that look that girls give each other when they say something, but deep down they mean a whole lot more (you know what I am talking about). They both stopped and Luna looked at Yui with a confused expression. After a minute her eyes lit up in recognition, “Oh you mean like mate,” she shook her head, “No, Sparkle is our friend, purely. We would want nothing more.” Yui floated in front of Luna looking deep into her eyes. “Hmmm, well that’s depressing.” She said as she floated back beside the princess of the night pouting a little. “I really wanted to play matchmaker.” “Why is that child?” Luna asked as they took a right down a different, yet similar hallway. “Well you see, I was originally a pretty decent artificial intelligence made to check up and monitor the mental health of the players in Sword Art Online and to council them if they needed it. I was programmed with the ability to mimic emotion to help relate to the players. But when Sword Art Online went online,” Luna gave the girl a puzzled look, “The game turned on, started, you know…” Luna shrugged and gestured with a hoof for the girl to continue, “well anyway, when the game started and the players joined, and I was told I could not perform my job. “Now, I wasn’t turned off or destroyed, I still existed in the game, and I still monitored the mental health of all the players. But I could not help them.” Tears welled up in Yui’s eyes. “It drove me insane. The players were stuck in the game unable to leave, unable to see their loved ones unless they were also in the game. And all around them there were players dying.” She hiccupped and Luna offered a handkerchief she summoned out of thin air. Yui blew her artificial nose on the magically summoned handkerchief which covered it with artificial boogers, snot, and tears. “Why would they play this game in the first place if they could die? We, I, think it is quite foolish of them. Were they tricked?” “Well, dying is part of many games. But if you die in these games it does not hurt, you do not die in real life, and you get to become alive again after a certain penalty time. That is how it was supposed to be in Sword Art Online, but for some reason the man who created the game set the pain levels much higher than they were supposed to be and he locked the game so the players could not leave and he had the game change the Nerve-Gear so that it would kill the players if they died in the game.” Luna looked at the small girl horrified that such a thing could happen. “Hundreds died.” Sniffed Yui, “And many took their own lives because of it. And I was going mad I could not do anything, I could not do what I was made to do. But then I saw them. I saw my parents. Kirito and Asuna were two bright lights in a world so full of darkness and fear. They had hope, they had happiness, they had love. I disconnected myself, losing my memory because I wanted to meet them. They found me lost in the woods, took me in, and when I mistakenly called them Mommy and Daddy they did not complain.” Yui smiled, “I eventually regained my memories and was almost destroyed by the system because I was seen as a rogue program.” “I don’t even want to know what that means, but please continue. I have been following your story so far. So I take it they saved you?” The pair excited the castle proper and were now walking down the path toward the Royal Canterlot Archives. Along the path were beautiful topiaries of ponies and different creatures in a plethora of poses, they shook slightly in the light breeze. The stars twinkled off the wet shiny leaves. But all this beauty was lost on the pair. One deep in recollection, the other enraptured with the story. “Yes they did. Daddy downloaded me into his Nerve-Gear, um its kinda like...” “Again I don’t know what that means, but continue anyway.” “Um, well he made a copy of me and hid me away, but both are still me, so if something happens to this me, I will still have the Nerve-Gear to turn back to, so I will be ok. Make sense?” “A soulstone, got it. Continue! This story pleases us!” Yui giggled at the princess’s proclamation, “Well he saved me, and by now I had become self-aware. They still let me call them Mommy and Daddy and treat me as if I am their daughter.” Yui stopped and stared into space. Luna stopped also and turned to look at the floating girl. “Wait, why did we start this conversation…” Yui questioned. “You said you want to play matchmaker…” “OH YA! Um well because of my empathy programming and want to help others with their mental health, love is a big part of mental health… So I really want to play matchmaker!” Luna chuckled as they came to the doors of the Royal Canterlot Archives. “Well if I ever feel the need of a mate you will be the first on our contact list for help. And look, here we are, the Royal Canterlot Archives. The big library.” With that Luna grabbed the door handle with her magic and pulled it open. Yui’s eyes went wide with the amount of books and information contained within. “Wow!” “Yes wow indeed little one. Where would you like to start first?” The pixie put a small hand to her chin as she thought. “History, then geography, then Flora and Fauna. I want to know all about this world!!” Luna chucked, “That is quite a lot in a night, but let us see what we can get started on shall we? History is this way.” They quietly walked down to the third alcove on the right. Yui looked up at the books with a determined look on her face. Luna started trotting toward the fifth stack and started walking down it pulling books out here and there with her magic. After a few seconds the princess looked behind to see that the pixie was still standing by the door thinking. Luna shrugged and walked back to her new friend holding seven books in her magical grasp. “I picked out some books giving a general history of Equestria from ancient times to today.” Yui’s posture remained unchanged, “Um, Yui, you here?” With a continued lack of response the princess lifted up a hoof to the pixie poking her in the belly, very gently mind you. The desired effect was had as Yui snapped out of her trance and looked at the princess. Well, not the princess, but the books floating in her magical grasp. “Telekinetics right? That is a telekinetic spell you are performing right now right?” “Um, this is true. Doth it matter?” Yui concentrated, looking at the change in leylines the mana flow from Luna. She smiled “Let me try something, drop a book.” Luna did as she was told and the book dropped to the floor. Yui stared at the book for a few seconds. Nothing happened. Yui shook her head, Luna tilted her head. “Come on,” the pixie muttered, “work. AHA!!” Yui shouted as grey glow surrounded the book and Yui’s hands. Luna gasped in amazement as Yui brought the book up to her face and started turning pages with her magic. Yui exerted almost no effort and levitated the book with the grace of a professional. “I looked back at what you did to the books and recreated it. Simple really. Hey, random question, but is there a copy spell? A spell that completely copies something?” “Um yes there is. It is pretty advanced though.” “Could you please show me? Demonstrate on the book.” Luna saw the determination in Yui’s eyes, shrugged her wings, and prepared the spell. With a burst of magic and a grunt of effort Luna created an exact duplicate of the book. Luna grinned up at Yui who hovered in midair glowing slightly. Slowly the girl increased in size and her wings disappeared. When her transformation was finished she stood a head above Luna’s torso. She cracked her knuckles and her head, “I am not going to lie, this is going to be difficult. But don’t worry I will try these books first.” Before the princess could reply Yui’s hands started glowing as she weaved them in and out of each other making complicated signs, pushing and pulling them like a conductor. After a few grunts and groans Yui’s face gained a triumphant look and she smiled a big smile at the princess, “Found it!” “Found what?” Luna’s question was answered by the other nine books becoming eighteen books surrounded by very fancy magic circles. Yui then picked up the ten copies with her magic and brought them to herself hovering in a circle around her dancing softly. The glow became much stronger as the books seemed to dissolve into letters and numbers and flowed like water down a slope into Yui’s body. When the copies were gone Yui turned to Luna “Thank you, that will save us a lot of time. Are there any other books about history I should know as background information about this world? Just basic stuff, I don’t need to know all the boring details.” The princess of the night did not respond, she was too busy being stunned by the simple display of power by one seeming so young. ‘No’ she corrected herself ‘she is not young, she is not even alive. She is a construct. A kind, naïve and good natured construct, but a construct still.’ She shook her head looking at the innocent artificial life in front of her. She smiled, “That will speed things up a great deal. No, I believe that will be all the history that you will need. Do you know all the information in those books now?” “Yes and no. See it’s all in here so I can retrieve any information at a moment’s notice, but I don’t know know it. Understand?” “Yes, no, sort of. It doesn’t mater lets continue with Geography, then we can do Flora and Fauna, and” adding as an afterthought, “you should probably have some books on magic.” “Sounds good.” Skipping next to the princess she pointed back toward the main section of the library loudly proclaiming, “Lead on princess!” Luna raised an eyebrow at Yui, causing the girl to blush. ‘She is still just a child.’ The princess of the night thought with a smile. “Right, onward to Geography.” End Chapter Author's Note So first round of tests have finally passed here... urgh, fun For all of you who (for some strange reason) actually like this fic have this chapter earlier than planned (my people who proofread/edit/tell-me-my-story-is-awful-and-I-need-to-fix-everything have yet to get back to me). Thanks for the feedback so far!
A Change of Clothes (Unedited)Chapter 3 “Dong, dong, dong,” softly chimed the clock behind the bar. The bartender gave it a glance as he stood behind the bar polishing the glasses. His gaze lazily scanned the café taking note of the fullness of each patron’s glass. There were only four groups in the café, not surprising for a Friday at three. Near the door sat a young couple, obviously on a date apparent from the single milkshake glass with two straws. Bits and pieces of their heated conversation about proper bathroom educate drifted to the tender. Our bartender considered walking up to the table, just to make sure that everything was alright, but the couple were regulars, and he remembered having these types of conversations with his wife early in their relationship. ‘Keep tabs on them in case it gets too heated, but for now, let them be,’ Andrew the bartender thought. In the corner sat three businessmen in full suits with briefcases drinking coffee, chatting, and laughing casually; obviously on break. ‘Nothing special here, maybe I can interest them in a refill in a couple of minutes,’ mused Andrew. At the bar sat Ryoutarou sipping a cheap green tea. And at the last occupied table, the one near the stairs, sat Naga and Sugu. “I can’t wait to go back!” Exclaimed Naga. “I realized that after you told me for the tenth time,” retorted Sugu, “Gosh Naga! It’s all you’ve talked about all flipping day, you could talk about something else you know. There are tons of other things out there to talk about.” “But why would I want to talk about something else?” Replied the oblivious as always Naga, oblivious this time to Sugu’s annoyance. “There is nothing else that could possibly be as cool as an alternate world! And I discovered it ME! Who said I would never amount to anything? Because they are wrong. Wrong Wrong WRONG YOU HEAR ME!! Hahahaha! Me, a great discoverer. Just think! One day I will be in history books! All the medals! Scientists from all over the world will look up to me…” As Naga continued to fantasize about his eventual fame and glory Sugu realized that her head was missing a very important meeting with her hands on the table. Sugu’s (slightly) painful grunt went unsurprisingly unnoticed by Naga sat caddy-cornered on her left. ‘I wish he would talk about something else,’ thought Sugu, ‘I mean, sure, it is kinda cool that he found a way to get to other worlds.’ She rapidly shook her head back and forth in her hands, ‘but he doesn’t need to be an ass about it!’ “Look it was an accident and we both know it.” She spat at Naga looking up from her position on the table, fire in her eyes. “And now I want you to drop it. You are annoying and I don’t even know why I hang out with you anymore. Your voice grates on my nerves. So for the sake of my nerves, SHUT UP!!” She stood above Naga fists clenched glaring her full force into his eyes in an attempt to melt him. “That was a little harsh sis,” came Kazuto voice from behind and to the right. Sugu immediately spun around and blushed heavily as she looked sheepishly down and to the side. “Sorry brother, I should not have said such mean things.” She clenched her hands again and looked him in the eyes. “But that doesn’t let him be an annoying jerk!” “Sugu!” Snapped Kazuto, “Do not speak ill of your teammates. Look at Naga, does he look okay?” Looking back at Naga, it was very apparent that he was about to wet himself. That is, if he hadn’t already. “No. Now apologize, I will not have my party members starting an adventure in this state. Especially an adventure this important!” She again looked down and to the side. Then she huffed. Then she looked back up with a little frown. “Fine, I will apologize.” She turned to Naga, “I am sorry I yelled at you.” “Well I shouldn’t have-” Naga started while rubbing the back of his head. “Don’t, I don’t want to hear it.” She said with a wave of her hand. “Just leave it, it never happened.” She plopped back down in her chair, folded her arms and glanced around the café with as much angsty dignity she could muster. While that little back and forth was happening Kazuto walked over to the bar to join Asuna, Rika, and Ayano. They had entered as a group several minutes before and had caught the end of the conversation. Andrew had already left to go back upstairs to set up the logging in room. “What is up with them?” Asked Rika. “Naga wants Sugu’s body is what’s up.” Replied Ryoutarou before Kazuto could. “Really!?!” Exclaimed Rika looking towards Kazuto. “Well… I wouldn’t put it like that… But, um, ya, it’s pretty obvious. Unfortunately she doesn’t exactly believe it when I tell her… and I don’t think she would return the affection if she did realize it…” Said Kazuto with a sheepish expression. “I like him and all, but I don’t think he has any idea about what to do around girls…” Ayano looked aghast and held her hands to her mouth, “OH NO! Guys we have to do something! We’ve got to help him!” She lowered her hands and looked out to space with a determined expression. “I too have noticed his affection for your sister. And as a member of the fairer sex I will help him get his woman!” She proclaimed as she clenched her fist in a grandiose fashion. “No you won’t.” Sighed Ryoutarou, “Look, I get that you want to help the guy, but this is a man’s job. A bro is needed to help another bro when the lady of his affection is not returning his affection… Especially if it is his own fault…” He leveled a finger at the energetic girl, “You can do what you want with Sugu, but stay away from Naga. I’ll take care of him, teach him the ways of wooing a woman. Her heart will be putty in his hands by the time I am done.” He finished with a thumb’s up and a large grin. “This otta be good.” Sighed Kazuto, “Everyone, just don’t do anything stupid. I know you guys want to do something stupid, but don’t. This is on them, I am not going to do anything, and neither can you.” “Oh but come on, it will be fun! We can all play matchmaker! You have to admit they would make a good couple!” Said Rika. “No.” Said Kazuto strongly and closed his eyes. When he opened them he was met with two sets of puppy dog eyes from Rika and Ayano. He tried to keep his eyes strong and stubborn, but his façade soon cracked when he turned to his left and saw a set of equally strong and stubborn eyes from Asuna. “Fine,” he huffed, “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when this blows up in your face.” As the girls were about to jump right to their matchmaking he quickly added, “But keep it discrete! And on your free time, I don’t want this to be any bigger than it needs to be. We have got enough stuff on our plate as it is.” He felt a peck on his cheek and looked over to Asuna. He did not catch the angry look from Rika, or the pitying look from Ayano. She gave him a hug, which he returned. “It’s not a big deal Kirito. Just let them have their fun.” Asuna said. “Ya, but it is going to get annoying, I can just feel it.” He replied. “Well don’t let it bother you, easy as that. Plus we have our own things to worry about.” She said with a wink. “Ya, ya, you are right.” He replied with a blush. All future conversation was cut off by Andrew ‘s call from the top of the stairs. “Hey guys! The room’s ready.” The bartender then started walking down the stairs back to his usual place behind the bar. “Your stuff should be in their usual places. I already got the server running, so just log in when you are ready. It is supposed to be busy later, so I need to take care of the bar today instead of monitoring the computer, so try not to do anything really stupid while you are adventuring in your crazy alternate world.” “Thanks man.” Said Ryoutarou. “Alright guys, let’s go!” With that the group stood and walked to the stairs ready for an especially interesting adventure. *^~~~~~~~~~^* Kirito opened his eyes. He blinked several times to try and register what he saw. It was obvious something had gone wrong. The entire world around him was white, blinding white. Kirito looked down to see that he wasn’t actually standing on anything, he was floating. Oh, and his body was decently translucent. He would have been concerned, but he had done so many strange things lately it almost seemed like it was an expected daily occurrence. “Well this is odd,” Kirito commented looking at his hand, “I wonder if something went wrong.” Kirito motioned for the menu screen in an attempt to trouble shoot, strangely all options were unable to be clicked. A single bead of sweat would have run down his forehead, if the computer program had a script for stress. The boy was starting to freak out. ‘What if he got stuck in here forever? Was this another SAO incident? What about his friends? What about Asuna?’ He put his hand on his chest in an attempt to calm down. ‘Nothing had gone bad wrong, just empty wrong. Empty isn’t bad, empty is just empty, and can probably be fixed. Maybe something just had not loaded yet?’ Yui’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Hello? Hellooooo? Daddy? Daddy!?! Are you there? Can you hear me yet?” Slowly Yui’s human form appeared in front of Kirito. Kirito let out an relieved sigh and smiled at his adopted daughter. “Yui, boy am I happy to see you.” Yui made a happy sound that sounded strangely like a squeaky duck, almost a squee-like sound, and floated into his outstretched arms and gave him a hug. “Hey, um, do you know what is going on here? It seems like there is a bug in the system…” Yui giggled and floated backward a bit, “Oh, no! There is no bug, unless you mean me.” She blushed. “I wrote a new code for when you guys came back into Equestria. I did a ton of studying last night, and found out all about some very interesting things about this world.” She giggled and tilted her head to the side, “But we can discuss that later. First we need a way to blend in.” “Blend in, ok sounds good. Wait, does that mean we need to make new avatars?” Kirito said with a frown, “and I was getting attached to this one too… Wait, what about our stats? And what happens when we come back to the regular virtual worlds? Will we still use our pony avatars?” “Um… yes?” Yui replied shackily. “You will need new avatars, but you should be able to access your old avatars whenever you please.” She gained some confidence and continued, “You should be able to keep all your skills from your other avatar and transfer them to your new avatar.” Kirito scratched his chin. “Ok, sounds alright with me. And this is so that the natives aren’t startled or worried or anything right?” “Yup!” “Well I guess that is good…” He paused, “Will this white screen start every time I try to get into Equestria?” “Nope, just this one time. Kinda like a ‘new load file’ screen.” She waved her hand and screens covered in constantly changing data appeared all around her. “Ok daddy, here is how this is going to work. I created a program that will look into your soul, take into account your personality, play type, and other attributes to create a character for you. If you don’t like it we can customize the model from there.” Kirito sat in the air and started scratching his chin. “Ok, what do I need to do?” Yui then proceeded to pull and push translucent screens around. “It is simple really, walk over here after I set up the sensory platform.” She then threw a translucent screen on the floor in between them. When the screen landed flat on thin air she gestured for him to walk forward. “Yui, there isn’t a floor here…” He said with a role of his eyes, “How am I supposed to walk forward?” “OH wait!” Yui pulled over several screens and started frantically typing at them. With a grin and a wave of her now glowing purple hand a simple cobblestone floor appeared beneath both of them. In the distance he could see what appeared to be really blocky trees and grass. As Kirito stood he floated gently down to the floor until he was standing on it. Yui still hovered surrounded by the screens reading off different data. And the sensory pad from before now laid on the floor between them. Kirito took several steps forward until he was standing in the center of the pad. “Now what?” He asked. Yui looked up with a grin. “Now the magic happens!” With a bright flash of light Kirito’s world faded away. When it returned he was standing much lower than he remembered. He blinked several times to get the spots out of his eyes. “Dawwwww,” cooed Yui, “You’re soooooooo cute daddy!!” Yui held her hands up to her face and gave her father a large grin. “I wonder if mommy came out this cute?” Kirito looked down at himself and saw two hooves covered in grey fur. Swinging his head around, he saw that his hair/mane was black in color, as was his tail. He saw that the rest of his body was covered in similarly colored grey fur, and he had some sort of mark on his rear of two crossed swords. He looked back to Yui several questions on his tongue. “Apparently according to my soul I am a pony. What kind?” “Earth pony. Here, let me make you a mirror…” Yui started pulling several screens together. “And remind me what this mark is?” “That is your cutie mark!” She sad bringing a large screen toward the Kirito pony. “It shows what your special talent is. All ponies have them.” “Oh, that’s convenient.” Kirito commented off-handedly, he was a little distracted by his reflection. Staring back at him was a grey plain pony with a black main and tail hanging unkempt on his head and back. His eyes were green and his cutie mark looked just like his old swords from the first time he played Sword Art Online (which he had conveniently recreated in their most recent play through). Kirito turned in a circle looking himself all over in the mirror. “I like it.” “Oh good I do too!” Yui exclaimed. She snapped her fingers and all around her the screens disappeared. “The others hopefully are having as easy a time as we did.” Kirito took several steps forward and started trotting around Yui. He smiled, “I could really come to enjoy this. Why is walking like this so easy?” “The process to create this avatar installed a driver in your brain to make walking like an equine easier.” “Ok,” he responded trotting up to her side. He nuzzled Yui’s side. She giggled and started petting her father’s head. “Most girls want a pet pony,” she giggled again, “but I’m lucky, my daddy is a pony!” He snickered, “This is true. Hey, I was wondering, but where are the others?” “Oh, they are doing the same thing we are. I made copies of myself for helping each one of you create a new avatar.” Kirito gave her a surprised look. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m still me. I just have multiple ‘me’s and after this is done I will pull all the ‘me’s back together. It feels really weird to do this…” She shuttered, “I don’t think I will ever do this again if I can help it.” Kirito smiled at his daughter. And nuzzled her side again, getting a giggle in response. “Well, let’s get going we don’t want to keep mommy and the others waiting.” Kirito said softly. Yui swiped a hand across space bringing up a screen asking if they would like to leave avatar creation. “I am going to meet up with the other copies of me, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see me initially after coming into Equestria.” Yui stated, “tap the ‘Yes’ button when you are ready to leave.” And with that she faded out. Kirito chuckled, ‘My daughter is a sentient computer program. I am now a pony avatar in a real world of ponies.’ He shook his head, ‘my life is crazy , but at least it is interesting.’ With that he touched the ‘Yes’ button on the screen in front of him and was blinded again by a bright light. *^~~~~~~~~~^* The room was the same as when he left it. He laid in bed staring at the plain white ceiling. Turning to his right he saw the ornate mahogany bureau that he recognized from last night. Kirito slipped his hooves out of bed and stood on the ground. He stretched and shook his tail. He then proceeded to check himself out again in the mirror. “I could learn to like this…” He commented under his breath. He looked towards the door leading out to the communal room. “Well, let’s see what the others look like.” Kirito walked to the door and became very confused. There was a door knob, how was he supposed to deal with this? “Um… Door knob… Okay… Let’s see…” He touched the knob with his fore-hoof. “Okay now turn?” And like magic the knob turned as his hoof turned. “Weird, but useful!” Kirito walked out of his room and into the common area. Immediately he saw a (presumably) male griffon wearing Klein’s signature red headband lounging on the couch admiring his claws. There were no other creatures around. “Klein?” Kirito asked, “that you?” The griffon turned to the grey pony with a smile. “Kirito?” The pony nodded, “KIRITO! Buddy! It’s great to see you! You’re a pony?” The pony nodded. “Not as cool as a griffon, but I think it fits you.” The grey pony trotted over to the sofa and sat next to the griffon. “So, do you know what anyone else is?” The griffon shook his head. “Nah, none of the girls have shown up yet, and apparently we didn’t show up in the beds until Yui finished helping with our avatars.” Klein paused, “I wonder what they are going to be?” The two creatures sat in silence for several minutes trying to determine what the rest of their friends would end up being/looking like. There was a creak from behind them. Turning they heard the voices of Asuna and Lyfa as the two girls left their room. Klein whistled and Kirito’s jaw dropped to the floor. Standing before them were two ponies, a white unicorn and a green pegasus. The unicorn was white with a golden mane and tail, the main was tied up in Asuna’s tipical braid, and her cutie mark was of a bubbling pot of some sort of stew. The pegasus was green with a yellow mane and tail, and a cutie mark of a red health potion. Both males only had eyes for Asuna though. The girls were in some heated debate about something obviously important to the female sex, but not the male one and did not notice the two males ogling them. “Hey Kirito,” Klein whispered. “Yeah?” “As a bro, I will never attempt to steal another bro’s girl… Or mess with another bro’s girl… Or even think about looking at another bro’s girl… But damn…” He whistled again. “I know.” Kirito smiled and met Klien’s eyes and in that instant the man code was reforged between the two males. A nod of understanding and both males jumped off the sofa and turned back to the girls. Both females had noticed the males by now and started trotting towards them. “Hey! Um, guys?” said a smiling Lyfa, “Um…” her smile fell, “screw it. Which ones are you two?” “Well Lyfa,” responded Klein, “meet the new and improved Klein!” He gestured toward himself, “and the adorably fluffy Kirito!” He gave Kirito a one armed hug, “I’m sure you will appreciate him like this Asuna.” When Klein let go, Kirito staggered around comically. The white unicorn smirked as she walked up to Kirto and nuzzled his neck. “I could learn to like this.” She commented. Lyfa harrumphed behind Asuna and Klein chuckled in response. “OH MY GOD! YOU ARE YOU A DRAGON?!?!?!?” Lisbeth’s voice came through the door of their room. “WHY ARE YOU A DRAGON!!!!” “I KNOW ISN’T THIS AWESOME!!!?!!?!!” Silicia’s voice sounded through their door. “I have a feeling Silicia is a dragon.” Comented Klein with almost no emotion. By almost, I mean there was a hint of jealousy. “I wonder what she looks like.” The door to the girl’s room busted open and a purple dragon came running out. The dragon was grinning with a smile so wide it should not have fit on her face. On her head was a smaller dragon (Pina). Her face had many horns on it. She had blue eyes. She had wings. She was the size of a pony. She pranced over to her friends and blew a puff of smoke at them. “Hey guys, guess what?!?” Said a very excited dragon with Silicia’s voice. “You’re a dragon?” Asked Klein. Silicia started bouncing in place. “YES YES YES YES YES!!!” A thin female griffon walked out of the room and surveyed the scene. She sighed, “hey guys, I take it you figured out which of us is which?” Those not laughing at Silicia’s antics nodded. “Ok, um let me guess… Kirito and Asuna,” she pointed at the grey pony and white unicorn with a claw, “Klein,” she pointed at the other griffon, “and Lyfa. Did I get them all right?” “Yeah, very good. How did you know?” Kirito asked. The female griffon waved a claw as she closed the distance and joined the circle. “Oh, I know you guys by now.” Klein’s door opened before anyone could comment. Out came a strange bug thing. It had a black exoskeleton, red insectoid eyes, green dragonfly like wings, fangs, a crooked horn, and green fins for its mane and tail. None of the creatures talked as they stared at each other. Yui flew out from behind the unicorn in pixie form and sat on Kirito’s head. That broke everyone out of their shock. “Well… This is unexpected…” Lyfa commented. “Woah,” Silica added, “I did not expect that.” “Dude?” Klein asked. Recon opened his mouth, but was cut off by Yui, “He put all his points into dark and destructive magic. This is the body that was generated… And also because…” She stopped when she saw Recon rapidly shaking his head. She sighed, “nevermind, no other reason. Anyway,” she flew over to Recon, “This is called a changeling. They can change shape and form. They use dark magic and can fly. And they eat love, affection, and other ‘happy emotions.’ Don’t worry, unless he does something stupid he can just live by absorbing the ‘happy emotions’ around us.” She flew back to her father’s head. There was a part in the circle between Silicia and Lizbeth where Recon joined the group. Everyone started looking over their new bodies and commented about wingspan, hoof strength, horn size, and other physical attributes. After half an hour the clock on the table rang 6’oclock. Yui jumped up excitedly. “Oh, the princesses wanted to meet you all in your new bodies when you are ready.” Everyone looked at each other, and a silent confirmation went around. “Okay, if we are ready, I will lead us back to the dining hall.” Yui flew over to the doors and opened them. “Lets get this show on the road!” Shouted Klein. This looks like it is going to be an interesting adventure… End Chapter Author's Note YAY I STILL EXIST!!! Have a chapter!! I don't know if this is any good, if anyone wants to tell me what I did wrong, feel free!
EXPOSITION!!If you have never seen Sword Art Online, have a chapter of exposition! If you have seen Sword Art Online then feel free to skip this chapter, also, if you do not want spoilers skip this chapter. With the single note that I have not read the books and I will not be using any information from them in this story. This story begins several months after the Second Season of Sword Art Online. Sword Art Online is a virtual reality MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) made of 100 levels of dungeon and the world surrounding it. Virtual reality games are games that the player plays by wearing a helmet that put his or her conscience into the game in order to give the player a virtual body to act in the world. To beat this game a player had to beat all 100 levels. This would not have been that bad, if it weren’t for the slight ‘problem’ with the game… once logged in you could not log out… until someone won the game, or the player died, which would cause the helmet to fry their brain and kill them. Luckily our hero Kirigaya Kazuto, who goes by Kirito in game, beat the game at level 75 by finding the original creator of the game and defeating him in battle. Sadly by the time the game was beaten 4,000 people had already died and the remaining 6,000 had lost over 2 years in the game. After that game Kirito moved to a game his younger sister/cousin Suguha Kirigaya and her friend from school Nagata Shinichi played to save his girlfriend Asuna from captivity in the game. The game was ALFheim Online. When Kirito saved Asuna he found that ALFheim was a front for mind controlling technologies and tested on the players. When the world found out the virtual gaming industry fell. Luckily the gaming community did not want to die, so they created their own independent servers all over the world. These servers used maps from the old games, and created their own maps. These servers became integrated and could then link up the different virtual worlds and players could transfer their characters created from classes and stats in one world and literally walk, hop, fly, or ride a vehicle to another. And without further ado… The Story!! Author's Note This is my first ever story ever, expect it to suck... :D GO PONIES!!!
