Think of this as an act of stupidity brought on by an unoriginal idea taking form in an average mind – that is, mine. Suffice it to say, inspiration struck me at a very unfortunate time and I acted on impulse, giving birth to… well, this…

Ladies, gentlemen, and others, what you will be seeing today is a fanfiction crossover between Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online and Monty Oums' RWBY. I give you: Remnant Online. Enjoy if you can. If you can't, I apologize.

REMNANT ONLINE

The Nerve Gear OS boot up jingle resounded from every direction, followed a clear and polite alto voice welcoming her to the start menu. All around her was complete darkness, with the only source of light being the single holographic screen the size of a small tablet floating in front of her. It showed the title of the single game installed on the system: Remnant Online. Without any hesitation, she lightly tapped the screen with her hand.

A larger screen appeared some meters in front of her along with a floating keyboard conveniently placed an arms' length away. Enter username and password, it said. She smiled as she typed in her online handle, [Crescent Rose], followed by her password. With an excited rubbing of her palms, she tapped the enter key and logged in.

Next came the character creation screen, as she had expected. What she did not expect however, was the prompt that immediately popped up the moment the character creation screen appeared. You have an existing character profile from the beta. Would you like to use that character as a template? Y / N

She thought about it for a bit. Character creation would take her some time to finish due to how overwhelming the level of customization was. She wanted to play the game as soon as possible, so she decided to simply answer yes to the prompt.

Before her stood a 3D render of her character, a tall, dashing young man in red who looked no older than twenty five. His eyes were a fierce yet gentle silver; his face, stoic, yet kind. She had spent hours during the beta trying to get him to look exactly that way she wanted. After all, if she was going to be wearing his face, it might as well be a face she thought looked good.

Happy that her character still looked just as handsome as in the beta, she tapped the accept button, eager to jump into the game.

And jump into it she did. Her sensations came to her as naturally as one waking up from a good night's sleep. She opened her eyes and suddenly she was in another world. The sights; the sounds; the smells. She soaked up as much as she could of the world of Remnant. She almost didn't believe it was all virtual – it felt so real. Full-drive technology was amazing.

She looked around giddily. All around her were hundreds of other beautiful people holding weapons who were similarly taking in the sights and sounds of the world there were just dropped into. Had she been put in the same situation in real life, she would have ran away as fast as she could and found a hole in the ground to hide in. But no, she was in a video game, and the beautiful people surrounding her were players just like her. She was with her kind. She felt like she belonged

She laughed. She had been in Remnant for five minutes and already she was getting emotional. With an amused shake of her head, she ran off in search for the nearest merchant store. She had 500 lien's worth of starting money and she wanted to use it to buy some better weapons and armor. She knew a great place to grind levels this early in the game but in no way was she willing to go there with just the starting equipment.

REMNANT ONLINE

It had been an hour she had begun playing and in that time, she had grown to level 3, unlocked the use of her second skill slot, and was half way done mastering of one of the basic sword techniques. Feeling somewhat tired yet quite pleased with her progress, she decided to sit down for a couple of minutes and assign the points she acquired to her desired stats and also what skills to put in her skill slots.

Having leveled up twice, she was awarded a total of ten points. A good fraction of her points she assigned to agility while the rest she distributed evenly to the rest of her stats.

As for her skills, being only level 3 restricted her options somewhat, though she still had a large number to choose from. There were six mutually exclusive skills that involved elemental affinity, a few skills that granted her secondary abilities like item crafting or beast taming, some utility skills that had several uses in and out of combat, and several combat skills that let her use certain weapons like throwing knives or bows. She thought for a bit before she selected the Nimble Feet utility skill which gave her bonus agility as well as grant her increased movement speed outside of combat.

She pressed accept and jumped to her feet, eager to see how assigning her stat points and skills changed her. She hopped in place from one foot to the other, testing her legs. She felt lighter. It was amazing how something as little as changes in stats could affect her body in this world. She already knew she was faster without needing to test it.

Quite pleased with this knowledge, she took one step backwards relaxing her body as she did so only to immediately tense back up, shooting forward in a sprint. She let out a cry of exhilaration as she neared the boundary of the [Town of Beginnings]. It's one thing to test her newly acquired stat changes inside a town. It was another thing testing it out on an enemy. Oh this was going to be fun.

"Hey, excuse me!? Could I have a – WHOA!"

The words barely even registered to her. All she saw was a blonde girl wearing starter armor suddenly jump into her line of trajectory. Rose veered hard left to avoid a collision, and thankfully the blonde sidestepped in the correct direction. They missed each other by a generous margin, something Rose was quite grateful for. At her current speed, any straight collision would result in light to medium damage to both parties. Sure, they were in a [Safe Zone] so they wouldn't receive damage either way, but a collision like the one they avoided would still hurt.

As Rose skidded to a stop, and looked back at the girl a short distance behind her. She was looking at Rose with concentration, most likely trying to bring up Rose's status screen. Rose didn't blame her for having difficulty. For most MMOs, all she had to do was hover her mouse over anything and click to make a status screen appear. For a game like Remnant, set in virtual reality where you had no mouse, a bit more effort was required to bring it up.

The [focus system] – the game's solution to the lack of mouse – was a little weird at times. All she had to do to target something was to look directly at it. More than that usually required the player to do something, not exactly difficult but rather, unintuitive. To bring up the status screen of another player, all they need do was look at the floating cursor above the target player's head. The game would automatically bring up the person's screen. The game, however, didn't tell any of the players – it was in the manual but nobody really read it. Other than that, the act was quick, simple, and very easy.

Looking at the green cursor floating above blond girl, Rose checked her status. Crocea Mors Lv 1, the screen said. A smirk appeared on Ruby's mouth as it finally dawned on her what the blonde girl was.

Rose walked to the girl and asked politely. "Are you new to the game."

She blinked in confusion. The voice that came out of her mouth was not her own. It was a deep yet smooth baritone of a man. Why was that? Then she remembered, yes, she was roleplaying as a man. Of course she'd sound different. She made it that way when she made her character.

"Yeah, I'm kinda new…" Crocea continued staring with ever increasing intensity at Rose. Eventually she gave up "Help, how do I bring up your status screen?"

Rose giggled. "Focus on the green cursor above my head"

The girl blinked, looking vaguely above Rose's face. "It would have been so much easier if they just told us that…" She said with a sigh. "So… uh… Crescent Rose…"

"Call me Rose."

"Right. So, Rose… could you help me out? I've played MMOs before but this is completely different to what I'm used to…"

Rose thought for a bit. She believed that Crocea Mors wasn't ignorant of online game mechanics – she said she played online games before and Rose didn't have any reason not to believe her. But, while she knew the general mechanics and terminologies found in most MMOs, she knew nothing of the ones unique to Remnant – and that kind of ignorance was relatively easy to fix. Besides, helping her would probably make her first day with the game more enjoyable. Rose had decided.

"Okay then, Crocea Mors. We can party for a bit so I can teach you how to play"

With a two finger swipe downward with her left hand, Rose began navigating her menu until she found the option she was looking for. Add players to party: Select a player… her screen said. She looked at Crocea's cursor. Add [Crocea Mors] to party? Y / N. She tapped on the yes icon. Awaiting player's response… [Crocea Mors] has now been added to your party

Rose looked at Crocea Mors and smiled. "Alright, you're gonna need better weapons and armor we can go back into town and–"

"No need." Crocea flicked her left hand downward and began equipping her stuff. A wooden kite shield materialized on her back and bronze short sword was sheathed to her belt. Rose had to admit that her choice of equipment was a bit unorthodox that early in the game – shields didn't become truly effective until they gained access to level five equpment. But hey, each to their own. Rose wasn't going to judge

"Well, in that case, let's go deal with some low level mobs" Rose said with a grin before breaking into a run. "Try to keep up!"

Crocea Mors called out from behind her, voice growing fainter and fainter as Rose kept running "Wait, I put most of my starting stat points to defense! I can't run that fast yet!"

REMNANT ONLINE

In the fields outside of [The Town of Beginnings], Crescent Rose was teaching Crocea Mors how to fight. Rather, Crocea was fighting a mob and Rose was coaching.

"No, don't just swing randomly. Use a sword tech!" Rose ordered.

Crocea sidestepped a charge from [Wild Boar] she was fighting, swinging her sword in an attempt to activate a sword technique. "I'm trying but I can't get it to work! Help me!"

Rose grit her teeth, her fist clenched in front of her mouth as she watch Crocea flail around, trying to hit the level 1 mob. She was pretty good at detecting enemy patterns and was able to consistently dodge the enemy's attacks after only getting hit twice. However, actual sword play was obviously not her strong suit. While her hit points weren't going down, all her dodging would eventually tire her out. Unless she actually hit the enemy, she was going to lose eventually – which would be pathetic, since her enemy was a level 1 mob that was supposed to be fairly easy to defeat.

Rose took a step closer to the battle and readied her stance. "Okay, switch with me, Crocea. I need to show you how to use a sword tech."

Crocea jumped back and Rose lunged forward, preparing for a horizontal slice with her short sword. As she began the motion of the slash, the [System Assist] recognized the action to be the trigger for a sword technique and took over from there. With the sword technique [Horizontal] activated, Rose shot forward in a straight line, cutting through the [Wild Boar] in one fluid motion, reducing it's health from near full to a little less than half. She stood there, locked in the attack animation for only a fraction of a second before standing up and smiling at Crocea.

"That is how you use a sword technique. You need to position your body and move in a certain way to activate a sword technique. The [System Assist] will take over from there. Try it now"

Crocea nodded before stepping forward as attacking the enemy once more.

Rose backed away once Crocea got the mob's attention. She watched as the blonde swordswoman tried to replicate the sword technique Rose showed her. Interestingly enough, after a few attempts, she did activate a technique, but with her shield instead of her sword. Crocea charged at the [Wild Boar] and slammed her shield into it, lowering its health until less than a quarter remained.

"I… just… What just happened…?" Crocea asked, looking to Rose in confusion.

"You hit the enemy with a sword tech! It's almost dead, keep going!" Rose said with much enthusiasm.

Crocea nodded once before once again charging the boar, this time successfully activating the [Horizontal] technique using her sword. The mob exploded in a flash of pixels and polygons.

"That was awesome!"

Rose giggled. "Not really. That boar was one of the lowest tiers of enemies. The same level as slimes in most other games"

The proud look on Crocea's face soon fell. "What, seriously?" He looked at the small amount of lien and boar meat the mod dropped. "This was a noob monster? How am I supposed to level up if taking down the easiest enemy in the game is so hard? It's not fair!"

Rose gave her an a reassuring smile. "Hey, practice makes perfect. Just keep at it and you'll get the hang of it eventually" With those words of encouragement she began walking further into the fields, gesturing for Crocea to follow. "C'mon. At your current level, it shouldn't take that many battles for you to level up. Let's fight some more mobs and see if we can get you to level two before the hour ends"

REMNANT ONLINE

After maybe two hours of grinding, Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors had grown to level 7 and 6 respectively; Rose unlocked her third skill slot, Crocea unlocked her second; and Crocea received a [Boar Hide Cloak], a relatively rare item dropped by the area boss, a named mob called [The Alpha Boar].

"You're seriously just gonna sell it? It's got great stats considering how early in the game it is," Rose argued.

"I'm not gonna use it," Crocea said adamantly. "It looks terrible. I can't bring myself to use it. Why don't you use it?"

Rose shook her head. "Nah, I've got my eyes on a different cloak. But I won't get it for a while though" Crocea looked at her in confusion before simply nodding. Rose smiled in amusement.

Their trek back to the [Town of Beginnings] was walked in relative silence for some time, which Rose was completely okay with. In the distance there were faint sounds of swords clashing and friends shouting, but Rose payed them no mind. The fields outside the town were vast and looked beautiful in the orange light of the sunset. With a view like that, she didn't need to talk, nor to listen. She could just take in the sights and she would be happy.

Of course, Crocea wasn't exactly like Rose. She seemed quite awkward just walking in silence. While watching how stiffly she was walking was somewhat entertaining, Rose did hope that Crocea would just relax, or at least try to start a conversation.

Rose sighed. She felt sorry enough for the girl that she'd feel cruel if she didn't break the tension – so she did.

"I bet you think Rose is a pretty weird name for guy, huh?"

Crocea shook her head vigorously, looking very grateful that Rose had started a conversation. "No, not at all. In this other game I've played, I've met another player who was also named Rose. He was part of a national tournament and made to the quarter finals. He's one of the best players I've seen. As for you, I can tell you're a beta tester. That's the only way you can be as good at this game as you are at launch day. As far as I'm concerned, players named Rose are pros you don't mess with"

Rose chuckled, genuinely flattered by her words.

"Well, can you keep a secret? I'm not actually a guy"

"Prove it!" Crocea declared in as challenging a manner as her shaky soprano voice could muster.

"Is it really that hard to believe?" Rose asked skeptically. "Besides, why should I?"

Crocea blinked, then looked away awkwardly. "Huh… well, I guess you're right…" She turned back and looked at Rose curiously. "But still, why'd you choose to play as a guy?"

"Because I can?" Rose said casually. "I'm playing this game to escape reality. Playing as a guy just adds another layer between me in real life and me in game"

Crocea looked down thoughtfully. After a few moments, she chuckled. "Okay. I can respect that…" she said softly

With that, they walk in relative silence once more. Rose smiled, happy that Crocea had grown more comfortable just walking with her.

Crocea stopped and blinked "Huh, look at the time…" She muttered. "It's already five. I've got to have dinner with my family," she said, already bringing up her menu. "Will I see you later, Rose?"

Rose smirked. "I'll be in the town of beginnings until seven," she said. "After that, I'm logging out for a bit to grab a bite then I'm jumping straight back in. I plan to get to level 10 later tonight then I'm booking it for the next town in this area."

"Alright, wait up for me okay? I'll only be gone for a few minutes." Crocea began scrolling. "I think I found a glitch…" she suddenly whispered.

Rose looked at her with concern. "What's wrong?"

"There's no log-out button…"

"What?" Rose tilted her head skeptically. She flicked her left fingers downward and began scrolling her own menu. "That's not right, it should be at the very bottom of the…" It wasn't there.

A certain feeling of dread welled up inside Rose. "We should go find a GM. We need to report this glitch," she said anxiously before quickening her pace towards the [Town of Beginnings]. Crocea nodded nervously, and started running to keep up.

I have a bad feeling about this… she thought.

REMNANT ONLINE

It had been three hours since Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors found out that they couldn't log out. They had arrived at the starting city and began looking for a GM to talk to. They haven't found one yet.

As the two wandered the town, they became increasingly anxious by their discovered glitch. Just looking around, they could tell that a lot of people had tried to log out but were similarly unable to because of the concerning lack of a log-out button. They even encountered several people experiencing severe panic attacks by the button's absence.

"Okay, earlier, I was worried. Now, I'm terrified." Crocea said, sounding completely shaken by the events taking place. She press her hands to her face. "This is insane…"

Rose looked at the blonde with a certain amount of pity. The situation they were in was terrible, she had to admit. They were cut off from reality – all their friends and family – everything from the outside world. She could understand how something like that could break someone.

But did she really? She could guess and her guess would probably be correct… but no, she didn't truly understand. Part of her felt… relieved. Part of her felt happy that she was trapped in a video game with no escape. Remnant was amazing. It was a world where she knew where she was going and what she was doing. It was a world she actually wanted to live in.

So no, she didn't understand. Thus, she couldn't empathize with Crocea. But that didn't mean she couldn't be there for her.

"Hey, look…" Rose began. "I know things are a little crazy right now, but I'd like you to know I'll be with you. We'll get through this." She smiled reassuringly.

Crocea looked up at her looking teary eyed but somewhat more hopeful. A single tear slid down her cheek before she awkwardly began rubbing her eyes.

Rose chuckled. "It's okay to cry, you know"

"I know…" Crocea said, more tears forming in her eyes. "I can't help it. I'm a guy in real life. I'm not used to this…" She sobbed, desperately trying to stop herself from crying.

Rose shook her head. Should have know he'd be a guy. She thought wryly. Yet, even as she thought that, she pulled him into an embrace. "There there" She whispered softly. She closed her eyes and let the boy's sobs slowly fade into relaxed breathing.

Rose slowly pulled away from the hug, suddenly noticing that Crocea had grown taller… and he was no longer a girl… and he sort of looked familiar…

"Jaune…?" Rose asked, noting how her voice was suddenly much higher pitched.

"Ruby…?" Crocea asked, looking just as surprised as Rose.

Crescent Rose was no longer the tall handsome man she had created to be her character but the little girl that she was in real life. Similarly, Crocea Mors no longer looked like her character but instead looked like the person playing her in real life.

And Rose knew who he was. Crocea Mors, the adorably awkward newbie she had been teaching all day was her classmate in school and one of her best friends… And she had just hugged him.

Oh man, he's totally gonna get the wrong idea about this isn't he…?

Crocea smiled kindly. "It's good to see that you're as nice in-game as you are IRL, Ruby…" He said. "Thanks…"

Well… Rose blinked in surprised. She smiled as well. Maybe not… I guess I picked my friends well…

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Rose looked at Crocea seriously. "No IRL names!" She yelled angrily. "Even though I'm probably wearing my real face right now, we're still in game. We will continue to use our user names when talking to each other." She ordered.

"Even when we're alone?" Crocea asked curiously. Rose gave her a look. He smiled awkwardly in an admission of defeat. "… Yes, we will continue to use our user names when talking to each other…"

Rose smiled. "Glad we've come to an understanding" She said, running toward a nearby NPC shop. "But still how did this happen?" She asked, wondering aloud.

Crocea thought for a bit. "Remember those calibration tests we had to do when we first used the Nerve Gear? We had to touch ourselves all over."

Rose shivered. For the system calibration test, she had to touch literally ever inch on her body – even those hard to reach spots on her back… among other things. It was perhaps the most awkward OS installation procedure she had ever performed.

Crocea shivered as well. "Yeah, that was a hell of an experience. But anyway, the system probably used all that tactile data to make a 3D model of our bodies. That's why we look like… well, like ourselves right now."

Rose nodded. It was a very probably theory, but it didn't answer her question. "Crocea, that's not what I meant." She rubbed her chin, thinking of clearer way to say it. "Erm… What I really wanna know is why. How come all this craziness is happening?"

Crocea frowned and looked up at the sky. Rose looked up as well, noting how Remnant's moon was half shattered. "I somehow get the feeling that we aren't at all likely to find out the exact reason this is all happening"

"If this happened to everyone, there'd be mass panic." Rose scowled at the realization. "I don't want to be here once it starts…" She turned to Crocea. "We need to leave town. Now" She said before walking quickly to the city gate.

The boy blinked, confused for a few seconds. "What?" He broke into a run to catch up. "Rose, wait up. Where are we going?"

"The next town over. It's the smart thing it do." She said. When she received a questioning look from the blond, she looked away in annoyance. "I'm scared, okay? I have a feeling something bad's gonna happen. And when it does, I wanna be as far away from here as possible…"

Crocea nodded. "Okay, let's go." He then added, "But try to be a bit more considerate. My agility stat isn't as high as yours. I can't keep up with the pace."

With that, the two players left the [Town of Beginnings] and began their journey to the north, where the next town awaited them.

REMNANT ONLINE

Well,how did you like the first chapter? Tell me in a review if you want. They're much appreciated.

So, I made a few changes to SAO.
First, no announcement to start everyone off. Just a lot of distressing inexplicable glitches happening to literally everyone in game. The tone for the first few days of this incident will be similar to Log Horizon's in that everyone will be all panicked and confused because they're all still coming to terms with things (I feel like I just committed some sort of heresy by saying the title of that show…)
Second, sword skills are called sword techniques in this story. I took a page from the books of FF author, Catsy with this one. [Cooking] and [Blacksmithing] is called a skill in the original SAO. Sword skills like [Linear] and [Starburst Stream] are also called skills by the characters. The change is simply to avoid confusion.
Third is about floors. As you may or may not know, the world of Remnant is where RWBY is set in. Unlike in SAO where the story is set in the floating castle of Aincrad, Remnant doesn't have floors. Instead, think of something like what happened in Sonic Unleashed where the entire world was split into multiple pieces. Every area in the world of remnant is now a floating piece with a giant abyss acting as the invisible wall that separates them from each other. Everything else about floors stay the same. You still get to the next area by clearing the dungeon, beating the area boss, and activating the warp gate. Plus, there are still 100 areas.

Anyway, that was fun and now I have too many stories to finish. This is just as bad an idea now as when I started…

Hopefully I can finish this. I think I've already thought of an ending.