Title: Victory or Death.

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: General for 40K and SAO

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40K or Sword Art Online.

Summary: Four Hundred Thousand players log into the much anticipated Warhammer 40K Apocalypse Online, only to find themselves trapped inside with no way out. 40K SAO crossover.

"Alright, I have with me a spokesperson from Games Workshop in regards to their latest product. Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse Online, or more commonly referred to as WAO. Now WAO is the first major game for the new Full Dive technology, so for all our viewers out there who have been living under a rock for the last year, tell us what it is about." The reporter said.

"Well, as anyone who has ever played Warhammer 40K knows, 'in the grim darkness of the future, there is only War!'. This is not just a tag line but the whole philosophy behind the game, and this has translated over into WAO." The Games Workshop representative replied. "As most people know, there are three playable factions. The Imperium, the vastness of humanity; The Eldar, an ancient but fading race of technologically advanced aliens; and Chaos, humans who have fallen under the sway of the Ruinous Powers. We have just finished a six month beta test with forty thousand volunteers, and now we are doing the world wide first release of four hundred thousand copies, ninety-nine per cent of which were sold in pre-order."

"Now there has been much debate, and a fair bit out outrage, that the games two most iconic forces, the Space Marines and the Chaos Space Marines, are not playable races and, rumour has it, do not appear in the game at all. What do you have to say to the critics about this?" the reporter asked.

"It was a tough call for Games Workshop, and our partners, when we were developing the game not to have Space Marines or Chaos Marines as playable characters. In fact the debate was almost as long and bloody as the game in regards to which races the player should be able to choose as everyone has their own favourites. In the end it was decided to leave the Marines out for the purposes of having a fair and balanced game. Given the relative rareness of Space Marines in the game's Lore, there being approximately one Space Marine for every planet in the Iperium, and the massive martial discrepancy between a Space Marine and, for example, an Imperial Guardsman, even the presence of a single Space Marine or Chaos Marine Player in a battle would basically guarantee victory for that side." The representative replied.

"Well you heard it here, folks." The reporter said, turning away from the representative to look directly into the camera. "Love or hate their decision, but it looks like the developers were more concerned with having a fair and enjoyable gaming experience for their players than going for the wow factor of having a chance to play as a Space Marine."

Jennifer Smith looked up at the clock display in the top left corner of her NERV Gear. She had been waiting for this moment for over a year, ever since she had first heard about WAO. She live in London, the home country of Warhammer 40K, and she had grown up playing against her father. He had been an avid Tau player while she had been a great Imperial player, mostly her Imperial Guards, where her favourite units were her Elite Storm Troopers, but she would also, on a regular basis, bring out her Sisters of Battle, the only pure female force in the game, despite their tumultuous history of radically changing Codex's and their expensive metal models.

The clock ticked over to one pm and she called out 'Link Start' and watched the stream of colours and then the checks of all senses going to 'OK'. She logged into the system and came to the character creation 'screen'. Floating in front of her was three figures in order to choose her race. To the left was a solid and martial looking human, in the middle was the slightly taller and fine featured Eldar while to the right was a ragged, stooped man with a chaos symbol carved into his chest, with 'Imperium', 'Eldar' and 'Chaos' floating over their heads. Without hesitation she reached out and touched the imperial human figure to choose her race.

The figures disappeared and were replaced with three different human figures. One the left the figure was cloaked in a long, hooded red robe with the title 'Mechanicum' above it. The middle figure was dressed in fatigues, with a set of body armour, helmet and holding a Lasrifle, and was labelled 'Imperial Guard'. The figure on the right was dressed in black slacks, black shirt and a red trimmed black coat and was labelled 'Scholar Progenium'. Again without hesitation she selects the 'Scholar Progenium', the training school for the Storm Troopers, the Sisters of Battle and the Imperial Commissars. The figures again disappeared and were replaced with two figures dressed in the Scholar Progenium uniform. With some hesitation, she finally selected the male figure, with the logic that while many of the male players will probably select female avatars, the male avatars would be more respected. That and she wanted to play as a Storm Trooper and only male characters could be Storm Troopers.

After manipulating her avatar's looks, making it look like a slightly taller than average, plain but competent looked man with a slightly stocky build, it was time to enter a player name. She quickly typed in 'Jenith', a simple but androgynous name. Finishing the character creation, 'Jenith' finally entered the game. When the light faded, Jenith was standing in a large, slightly Spartan Gothic style building. Around her people were appearing in columns of white light. As was typical of gamers, most of the male and female avatars appearing around the room were un-naturally beautiful, so Jenith was actually remarkable due to 'his' normal appearance. Next to Jenith appeared a new avatar that was an average looking female, with mousy brown shoulder length hair.

"Hello." The female avatar said. "I'm Neoth."

"Jenith." Jenith replied, holding out his hand for Neoth the shake.

Neoth's handshake was a bit too aggressive, confirming Jenith's suspicion that 'she' was male in the real world.

"Looks like that NPC over by the door is a quest giver. Let's go see what the starting quest is." Jenith said, before heading over to the quest giver with Neoth following a step behind.

"This is the hallowed halls of Scholam Cadmian." The quest giver began when they stood in front of him. "The Fortress world of Cadmian had had the honour of hosting this Scholam for the last three hundred years and all graduates are expected to uphold the finest traditions of the Institution. Your first step along the path to graduation is to report to the Arms Master and gain basic proficiency in the weapons you may be called upon to use in service to the Emperor, should you prove worthy and not a total waste of our time. Well, what are you waiting for, get a move on."

A popup appeared in Jenith's vision showing 'Report to the Arms Master' as an active quest.

With a nod at each other, the pair left the receiving hall to search out the Arms Master.

Jenith blocked the blow and retaliated with a side slice that Neoth blocked. They took a step away from each other, letting their guards down. The Arms Master was walked down the isles between the sparing rings, watching the players spar with blunted blades.

"Time." The Arms Master called and the other players also stopped.

It had been four hours since Jenith had logged in and it seemed that both Jenith and Neoth were slightly ahead of the curve. With the vast military bent of the game and full immersion nature, the game designers had determined that it was necessary that the players undergo training rather than just being thrown into combat. So far all the Scholar Progenium players had been training with basic blunted swords, with Jenith having levelled up to level two and a third of the way to level three. Soon would come the time for firearms training.

The Arms Master was turning to face the players when suddenly he froze and Jenith's vision was covered in white and when the white faded it revealed the receiving hall. Neoth appeared to Jenith's left, looking as confused as Jenith felt. All the players in the room looked up when a black robed figure appeared in floating near the ceiling.

"Welcome players, to my world." The figure said. "My name is Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of the NERV Gear and a principal designer of Warhammer 40K Apocalypse Online. Now as many of you may have noticed, the logout button is missing from your main menu. This is not an error, this is how WAO was designed. There is now only one way to exit WAO. On a distant world, there is an ancient shrine, protected by a ravenous horde of Tyranids. Once this shrine is destroyed, then every single player will be logged out of the system. There is one other thing that you need to know. Should a players HP bar reduce to zero, or if any attempt to remove the NERV Gear by anyone on the outside, then a massive electromagnetic pulse will destroy the player's brain."

Jenith looked across at Neoth, who had a look of terror on her face.

"This information has been relayed to every government and news agency in the world." Kayaba continued. "Despite my warning, over twelve thousand, four hundred and nineteen of the four hundred thousand players have now been permanently deleted from the system, and the real world. Given the nature of WAO, it is only fair that all players have an equal chance at survival, which is why all classes have an initial risk free training faze. There is one other thing. I have deposited an item in the inventory of every single player. Please look at it now."

Jenith looked into the inventory and saw the new item was a mirror. Taking it out it showed the reflection of the avatar she had selected. As second later a glow enveloped the avatar and when the glow faded she was looking at her real face. Next to her, Neoth had turned from a cute if plain female player into an average looking, if slightly short, man in his early twenties with the same mousy brown hair of his avatar in a short cut.

"Good luck on clearing the game." Kayaba said before the floating figure disappeared.

Jenith took a look across at Neoth, who still looked scared.

"Come on, let's get back to the training room." Jenith replied.

"Alright, Jenith." Neoth replied.

"Just call me Jen." She replied with a smile.

"Neo." He smiled back as they took off running past the still stunned players.

Kilith smiled as he watched the figure fade in the large pit where he and a bunch of other Chaos Cultist players were standing. He was large, even after the mirror reset, with his a chaos undivided symbol carved on his chest. Kilith did not care about the potential death thing, he was a mercenary in real life, and well paid for it. All he cared about at the moment was getting back to the training quest he had been on before the announcement.

He did not bother with the narrow paths out of the pit, simply climbing up the rough hewn walls, that seemed to glisten with blood. Once out onto the decaying street he pulled out the spiked mace from his back and held it comfortably in his left hand as he stalked through the wreckage of the vehicles and broken bits of buildings looking for the civilian NPC that he was to kill. He had gotten sight of her just before he had been transported to the pit for the announcement. She had been kind of cute, for a slightly emaciated street kid. Oh yes, he was going to have fun with this.

TBC…