Aincrad. Nearly a month after the events of the Black Day. Floor 1 Amphitheater.

A single girl clad in a red hood sat in the farthest row from everyone as she watched them debate a strategy to attack the Floor 1 boss, lead by a man with blue hair, shield and sword known as Diabel. She knew only one thing. She wasn't supposed to be here at all. She remembered it all too clearly. That Kayaba guy, in a strange red hood of a game master mentioned it. This place was the Castle Aincrad, an MMORPG they'd have to clear. A wild concept, to be considered easy, though. Ruby'd played plenty of MMORPG games in her life, but nothing of this sort. Super-enhanced Virtual Reality. it was like those devices she saw, but jumped up on STEROIDS. Everything looked incredibly real... Only thing was the HUD showing her health and another blue banner(Presumably her Aura) in the top-left corner, as well as her name. She, of course, knew 2000 people had died.

She watched two people ahead of her, a guy with black hair and a girl(Possibly) also clad in a brown overcoat. Ruby pulled on her red coat to hide her weapon... The girl had somehow started this game with level 85. A bit unfair if you asked her. Anyways, going on, her silver eyes scanned the meeting place. A small amphitheater just outside the Dungeon that houses the Boss Room, in the tower, a massive ivory structure behind it. Behind it was a small village in which all players that were part of the raiding party rested in. She watched a small man with spiky ginger hair jump in front of the crowd and start spewing stuff about the 'Beta Testers' of the game, some 1000 people, before a big black man stood up and walked toward him.

"And who the hell are you?" Asked the little man in spite. Some Kibo... Kibeh... Kebab... Kibao! That was it. Ruby chuckled, but the big man continued his monologue. "I am known by many names. Mountain Slayer. Thunder Lion. The Chocolate Ax. But you?" He glared at Kibao "You may call me... 'Tiffany'." And the way he said it... He said it with such high frickin' confidence that it made him seem actually terrifying by some manner.

Ruby snorted, before covering her mouth. She wasn't trying to attract attention to herself, but she still got a glance from the girl in the overcoat. She waved it off, then looked back toward Kibao and 'Tiffany', talking. She was ready to burst as she heard the latest exchange. "T-Tiffany, huh? Sounds like a very masculine name..." Stuttered Kibao out of fear. Tiff nodded, then said "Shouldn't be. It's a woman's name."

Kibao backed off, then said "M'kay... I don't know how to talk to you." To which Tiff smirked and nodded, then said "Good, then you can shut up and listen. Does everyone here have this book in their inventory?" and finished off by pulling out a small booklet. The Guide to surviving the first few floors of Aincrad. It was of course put together by the Beta Testers... Ruby skimmed it early on, but, y'know... She was not too keen on reading this kind of stuff. A lot of answers came positive, but there was this one guy who said 'no' then immediately corrected himself. Ruby planted a palm on her face, then sighed.

"This book is full of tips and strategies on how to survive this game. Put together, by the beta testers." Tiff said, placing a hand on the book. "Everyone read it, yet some still died. The Beta Testers did everything they could."

A flurry of excuses came in the form of "Actually... I didn't read it.", "Yeah, I didn't read it either." and "I skimmed it..." Things which made Ruby all the more scared for this little party of 20-30 people about to fight. She rolled her eyes. If the people of Beacon were this unprepared for a mission ever, Beacon, Vale and probably Remnant as a whole would be SCREWED.

"What? None of you people read it!?" Tiff demanded, shocked at the idiocy himself "This is literally a matter of LIFE AND DEATH!" And some guy said "Well, dude, it's like 80 pages."

"Oh, for God's sake..." Ruby muttered to herself, sighing as she pinched her brow. She watched people yell at each-other a bit more, specifically about the 2000 dead people currently in Aincrad's virtual tombs, AKA DEAD TO RIGHTS and their bodies gone into thin air, then he heard "I am so done talking with you people." from Tiffany. The man sat down.

Diabel sighed, happily, then continued "Right. As mr. Thunder Chocolate has been saying, this book" he raised the guide up "has many useful details and strategies to surviving this game. Especially about the first boss, Illfang the Kobold Lord. Here, I'll start reading..." He opened the book "So, as you enter the boss room, he's gonna send wave after wave of disposable minions at you..." He raised his brows, a bit confused "And you must answer in kind?" to which a guy asked "Uhh... Wat?" Diabel merely continued "Send the weakest players first. Good rule of thumb:If a player asks you for gold two seconds after you've met, Front Lines." To which Kibao snorted and said "Hah, serves them right." And Diabel continued "If he hijacks conversations to rant about his political views, FRONT LINES." And Kibao swallowed, then said "Aw, shit...". Onward "If they ask female players for pics of their boobs, FRONT LINES." And a pair of guys booed, while Ruby was giggling incessantly.

"Now, now, guys." Diabel settled calmly "I think there are some fair points being made here. Now, this goes on to say that when Illfang's health goes into the red He will switch from his ax and buckler to something called a TALWAR. At that point we should initiate a strategy called 'The Final Solution' AAAAND~ I'm gonna stop reading here!" In surprise, he continued in a quiet mutter "Jesus, who wrote this thing..."

Ruby heard a quiet chuckle from the guy ahead and looked on, confused. The talk continued for a bit more, before the people decided on the ideas of how to take on the boss. Some random guy suggested continuing with this 'Final Solution'. He had a thick accent, probably Atlesia-... Wait, Atlesians aren't around so nevermind that. She watched people finally group up, then sighed and wanted to stand up, before the other girl in the brown hood/overcoat turned to her and waved her toward her and the black-haired kid, who had closed in. She nodded, sweating a bit, then walked down toward them and sat down.

The girl in the hood extended her hand toward her and said "Hi. I'm Asuna."

Ruby nodded, then answered "I'm Ruby." And she shook her hand. She glanced toward the other boy, then said "Hello." And he nodded and said "Sup."

"Ignore him. He's a bit rude." Asuna said, to which Ruby shrugged and said "So?"

"Name's Kirito, by the way." The black-haired boy interrupted, glaring at Asuna. "You should've let me finish." To which she shrugged and said "Right..."

"So... Why aren't you two with the other players?" Ruby asked, crossing her arms.

"I don't much care to go down there and talk with those mouth-breathing Neckbeards who think 'AYY LMAO' is how French people laugh." Kirito answered, crossing his arms. In the background, a voice yelled happily "Ah, that's so Le Mao!" making both Kirito and Ruby shudder. He continued "And Asuna over here doesn't know how to open her menu." TO which Ruby's eyes widened. She asked "How in the good lord's name have you been living FOR SO LONG?!"

"Not the point..." Asuna snarled, then looked to Ruby and said "What about you? Why not join them?" with a bit of worry.

"Let's say I'm... Looking for some friends that I'd party with. Not a bunch of guys like them." She pointed at the group. "They're probably also here, but I haven't found'em for the past month... I pray I'll find'em soon."

Kirito nodded, then said "Cool story." And he stood up "Well, come on... Time to rest for a bit."

Ruby sighed, hearing people complain about this, then rolled her eyes.

Floor 1 Dungeon boss room. 7:20 PM.

Ruby sighed, planting the sword she'd bought back in the town into the stone floor. She wouldn't risk using Crescent Rose here, especially since it came with her in this world. She'd probably be a target for any player thinking themselves as high-level bandits. Well, that and she still didn't have a high enough level for it. She'd started at level 85, yes! Which was a big head-start in front of everyone, but she'd need level 100 to deal with carrying Crescent Rose... Of course, considering the farming, she was at the whopping level 90 out of 100... So that'd take some sweet-ass time to get to.

Before they got in, she heard people complaining about the stairs, peeing themselves, some even retching. Gross... She sighed, the heard Diabel mention a break, so she took a seat beside the door, blade sheathed by her hip, and started eating a piece of bread she'd also bought back at the village.

She also started with the stupidly, insanely, retardedly, JUST PLAIN IDIOTICALLY high amount of 210.000.000 COL, the money of this place. Girl had a small fortune in her bag, but she'd rather not waste it right now. She watched Asuna come toward her and take a seat. The two girls smiled at each-other, then Ruby nodded and asked, to break the ice "So, how long you reckon we're gonna be holding out?"

"About... An hour." The girl answered, drawing her Rapier and examining it. "Considering all the people here are basically the laziest bunch ever conceived by humanity... Well, all of them except us, Diabel, Chocolate Rain and, sadly, Kirit-asshole, we're gonna be here a while." She looked to Ruby "What's your story? What're you doing in SAO? This place is usually filled with people with social anxiety or some random shit like that."

"Speaks volumes about you, then." Ruby murmured, looking about. Asuna snarled "That was uncalled for..."

"Sorry... Just, living in this place for a month has me going crazy." Ruby said, looking down the edge of her blade. "I'm not usually one with Snark remarks. I'm just a massive weapon geek if anything."

"Oh, cool." Asuna said, a quick personality change. Ruby nodded, then asked "So how come you don't know HOW to open your menu?"

"Don't start with me on that!" Asuna snapped back "Kirito's been on my case with it ever since I told him about it!"

Ruby chuckled, then said "Well... You know what they say. Live and learn. You'll probably learn how the damn thing works pretty soon."

"Hey." Asuna said, looking to Ruby "I got an idea... How about you help me?"

Ruby immediately scrambled for an answer and said "N-No, sorry, I can't! It's... I've got something that bugs out my menu at times. Even I can't open it, or worse, close it then and I'd rather not risk it before a battle." And Asuna sighed, nodded and said "Alright... Maybe when you get it fixed?" To which Ruby smiled, relieved as hell she didn't have to reveal her level to anyone, nodded and said "Aye. Will do."

And with that, the two kept chatting as nearly an hour passed. Ruby stood up, drew her blade from the sheath, then walked beside Diabel, pushing the door open before he could whine. She twirled the sword and took a combat stance as the Boss Room, a room with a high ceiling and tall columns, lit up in multiple colors. Ahead, she saw it. A Massive, fat, red, humanoid creature, with an ax and shield. Beside it, spawned dozens of drones... One of which Ruby noticed had an error. She chuckled "Nice work Kayaba." then took her stance beside Diabel as every idiot and their mother rushed in, attacking enemy units at random.

She heard Diabel issue orders and grinned upon hearing something else "SQUAD F, STOP PLAYING FUCKING BEJEWELED!", but saw a group of Kobold Sentinels rushing her. She twirled her sword, then sent a right-bearing slash across one's chest, before it even had time to defend. She nodded to Diabel, then moved with Kirito and Asuna to help some Squad F. The girl jumped up high and pounced on the enemy first, bringing a blade to bear on the second Sentinel guard and cutting its head clean off. She duly stabbed another one right through its grated mask, sending it tumbling to the floor, then she watched Asuna strike one, right through the chest, with her rapier and smiled... Theeen~ the smile vanished when she thought XP meant a disease.

Ruby sighed, rushed ahead and parried a strike from the boss, then continued knocking out Sentinels, under the gazes of everyone. She was cutting them down left and right, with a stab to the left, right into one's chest and a slash clean across the other, vivisecting it. She gasped as the boss raised a hand to attack her coat, then she pressed on it, removed it, putting it back to her inventory, then dodged and parried the strike from the thing's ax. Everyone gasped upon sighting the young girl, with short hair that went from black at the top, to red at the tips, and silver eyes. She also had a combat skirt, with a basic piece of armor plating over her chest, which was standing out somewhat. On her back was also the boxy Crescent Rose, currently in idle mode.

"Crap..." She swore behind her breath, then she sliced the bastard with one direct strike from her sword, sending him reeling and dropping his last HP Bar to the red. She swiveled around, then dashed back beside Tiff, nodding. She saw it and froze... The bastard drew a Nodachi, not a Talwar. She stepped up toward Diabel, who charged ahead, then yelled "DIABEL, STOP, THAT'S NOT A TALWAR, IT'S A NODACHI!"

"WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?" Yelled the boy back, readying his blade, which was already powered by a golden Sword Skill. Kirito started yelling "WELL, THE TALWAR ORIGINATED IN INDIA AND THE NODACHI ORIGINATED IN JAPAN AND, WHILE THE FORMER WAS PREFERRED BY CAVALRY FOR RUNNING DOWN TARGETS, THE LATTER WAS USED FOR DICK MEASURING AND-"

"THE POINT HE'S TRYING TO GET TO IS, NODACHI IS LONGER, THUS MORE DAMAGE AND REACH!" Ruby yelled, stepping ahead of the party, blade drawn and eyes fixated on the blade the creature raised toward him. Illfang really had a hancoring for killing people nowadays. She saw that, as it roared, two guys got a rare item. More of a joke which made her laugh. 'Soiled Pants'. She grinned.

Diabel looked toward the Nodachi coming down on him, eyes wide "Oh, Fu-" And he grunted in pain, taking a slice straight to the chest. He got sent flying back behind the allied lines, to which Kirito and Ruby rushed back to him, Ruby sheathing her blade. She dashed to his side, then looked to Kirito helping him. She knelt beside the two, then said "Sorry about not warning you earlier..." with a bit of sorrow. Diabel nodded, then said "It... Could be worse..."

"Really?" Ruby deadpanned, raising her brow. "Worse than dying?"

"Well... Touche..." The boy coughed ,then looked to Kirito "Why ramble on about a sword?"

"Eh... I like to think of myself as a teacher." The boy shrugged nonchalantly, pulling out a healing potion and handing it to Diabel "Go on, drink this." and the blue-haired boy pushed it away, then said "No... I'm done... You are to lead them now..." He looked to both him and Ruby "Both of you... Maybe... If things were different..." And he started to fade. "You think you could've been my friend?" Kirito then asked, and Diabel answered "Unlikely...", then vanished.

"Well..." Kirito sighed "Fuck you too!"

Ruby stood up, grabbed him by the arm and threw him back to his feet, then said "Get yourself fighting, Kirito!" And she looked to Asuna joining them. "I'm taking left and distracting this big hunk of red! You two take it on via switching attacks!" And the two nodded "Copy that!" before Kirito asked "Wait, who made you Leader?!" Ruby, of course, dashing ahead before he had a chance to finish. She pushed herself ahead, then propelled herself into the air utilizing her feet as the creature raised its sword to attack her. She watched the blade coming for her, kicked it aside, then struck at the throat of the damn thing.

"SWITCH!" She yelled and watched Kirito and Asuna charge in. Asuna pummeled and poked it with dead-on strikes from her rapier and Kirito brought his sword to bear down on the creature. Deep red cuts appeared on its body as all three brought their weapons to bear on it. Ruby smirked, then cut clean across its arm and backed off, then yelled "KIRITO, ASUNA, FINISH IT!"

Kirito smirked "I'm getting the last hit in! He's mine!"

"No!" Asuna yelled, throwing several stabs at the creature "HE'S MINE!" And she hit it hard once, dropping its health some more. Kirito growled, then yelled "NO! IT'S! MINE!" And he brought another strike to bear, effectively throwing it upward and vivisecting the creature. It shattered into the night and the brightness of the room fell quite quickly, as Kirito fell to his knees where Illfang used to be, with a pop-up in front of him. Ruby smiled, set her red hood back on, then watched Kirito stand up and look to Tiff, who smiled and said "You did it, Kirito. You and your friends cleared this floor. I and these men would follow you into hell and back. You may want to say something to your people."

Ruby smiled as Kirito stood up, then nodded and said "I always knew this day would come. Fellow gamers. We have travelled far and up many stairs to get to this point, fighting side by side, noob and leet alike. I'd like to take a moment to say that I couldn't have done it without the help of each and every one of you ..." And then... Things took a turn for the worst. "'Course, I'm not a liar so I ain't gonna say that's all true..."

"Ohshit..." Tiff started.

"I mean, really, I could've done this whole boss fight thing myself, but to be fair, I guess you did absorb a bit of damage for me which was nice." He had a wide, devilish grin on his face "You were an adequate meat shield and no one could ever take that away from you. " To which "Fuck! fuck! Shut up!" Tiff yelled in discontent, but Kirito continued "So for those of you who came in late and that one guy playing Bejeweled back there, shoot for the stars..." and he accessed his menu, setting his coat on "It'll make it all the more fun for me to knock you down."

"You're not better than us!" Said a poor kid from the background. Kirito smirked widely, then said "My sweet-ass coat begs to differ." so snarkly, so smugly, Ruby could only help but cringe at that after setting her own hood back onto her head and, to that, the guy answered "Fuck, he got us there!" and Kirito walked away. Ruby and Asuna ran toward him and the ginger-haired Asuna yelled "Kirito, wait!" As they got up the stairs.

"What?" Kirito asked, smugly, looking at them.

"I want half." Asuna blurted out, grinning.

"Excuse me, what?" Kirito asked, looking back at the girl, clearly confused at this.

"I want my half of the coat. I helped you win, didn't I?" She rhetorically asked, crossing her arms. Ruby tilted an eyebrow, then said "SERIOUSLY. THAT'S IT? NOT GONNA ASK HIM ABOUT HIS LITTLE SPEECH BACK THERE?" with quite a bit of shock, pointing back at the crowd. Asuna shrugged and said "Beh. Plebs." And she looked to Kirito "I did half the work, I should get half the coat."

Ruby was basically screaming internally at this, before Kirito shot back "No! This isn't fabric I can cut! It's a bunch of ones and zeroes!" quite oddly. Ruby sighed, rubbing her forehead as Asuna responded "Then I want the ones!" And Kirito "Fuck you, I want the ones!" And he sighed "Ugh, I'm not having this argument! I'm dissol... Wait I can't. Fuck that, I'm dropping out of this party." He ran his hand over the menu and dissolved the party formed between him, Ruby and her. Well, at least he quit, not dissolved it.

"Kirito," Asuna barked angrily at the boy, taking another step up "If you walk away with half my coat, I'll make your life a LIVING HELL!"

Kirito sighed, not looking back, then said "Fine, I'll give you the coat." His grin widened "You'll just have to send me a trade request."

"Uhh, what?" Asuna asked, raising an eyebrow. Kirito gave the killing blow right there "Oh, it's easy... You just have to open your menu." And he walked away, laughing maniacally, to which Asuna yelled "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" And Ruby groaned, rolling her eyes, at the stupid sight before her. Kirito walked through the gate. Ruby looked to Asuna, then said "Thanks for everything, Asuna. If it's any comfort, I managed to snatch this in an attack." with a smile, as she threw Asuna a stronger rapier. "I'm sorry... But I dread of leaving that guy alone." She tilted her head toward the door, effectively motioning at a now-gone Kirito. "But, here. You move your hand down like this..." Ruby inadvertently opened her menu, without showing her level and she sent Asuna a friend request, then smiled "There. Now you can track my progress."

Asuna ran her hand down through the air, opening her menu with a smile, then she clicked the message and opened the window, accepting Ruby's friend request. She nodded, then said "Thanks..." She checked Ruby's nickname and started laughing as the name was also written in fucking BOLD ITALICS "xXx_R053_R34P3R_xXx! JESUS CHRIST, HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT BEFORE?!" and she continued laughing... To which Ruby rolled her eyes. She was gonna have Kayaba's head for writing her name in 1337, or LEET SPEECH... But for now... She'd have to just find Kirito and yank that pole out from his behind... At least that was the plan. She nodded to Asuna with a smile, then started walking away, all whilst thinking to herself.

"This is gonna be a looooong~ game..."

AN:ALRIGHT, SO, I HAVE TWO RWBY/ABRIDGED!SAO STORIES IN THE PREPPING. THIS ONE AND ANOTHER ONE WHICH TAKES THE ABRIDGED!SAO CREW PLUS 4(Phillia, Strea, Sinon and Leafa from Hollow Fragment) INTO THE RWBYVERSE. This is gonna be fun, seeing Ruby trying to figure out her shit while working with mr. Asshole Kirito and his idiotically crazy life and, well, jackass personality per se... So, Ruby's stats per this game, right now.

Ruby Rose

Nickname in-game:xXx_R053_R34P3R_xXx(Hahahaha~! Kayaba u joker)

Current Level:90(Via glitch in the system. Unidentifiable, thus unfixable. She can still level up)

Stats: AGI 765/1000

STR 565/1000

HP 22000/22000

CSM(Charisma) 665/1000

Everything else is pretty high level, if not maxed out.

'Till next time...

TOODLES~! :D

P.S. Don't worry. Ruby will have a flashback of winding up in Aincrad within the next chapter. I don't plan to leave plot-holes here, SO DON'T START YELLING AT ME ABOUT LOST POTENTIAL OR SOMETHING. Thanks.