Chapter I – New Arrival:

Kirito dismounted his motorcycle in front of the Dicey Cafe and slung his helmet under his arm. Even a good distance from the door he could hear the sounds of a party in full swing coming from inside. It had never been his kind of scene, but he had promised to attend. He unzipped his leather jacket, took a deep breath and made his way inside.

Agil's little cafe was packed far more than usual for the evening; so much so that Kirito had to squeeze past a couple of Fuurinkazan members just to reach the table that Asuna and Sinon were saving for him.

"Hey Kirito, what took you so long?" Asuna asked, with a welcoming smile.

"Well I wasn't exactly expecting to wade through a mosh pit. I had no idea Agil was inviting so many people." Kirito took off his leather jacket and stored his helmet under the table before sitting down. He couldn't help keeping a smile from his face as he did so, Asuna was wearing a light pink t-shirt that he was quite fond of.

"He said everyone he had ever been in a party with and their guests." Asuna reminded him. "Some couldn't make it, but everyone tried, he's the kind of guy you just want to turn up for."

"True, he certainly rolled a lot higher on his Charisma than most."

"It's a learned skill, you should try it sometime." Asuna jibed with a chuckle.

Kirito rolled his eyes and squeezed her hand affectionately. "Have you two been waiting long?" he asked.

"Not too long," she replied. "The place filled up quickly. Did you want something to drink?"

"I was thinking about it, not too sure yet. Sinon, you want anything?"

When no reply came he finally looked over to the young woman who was sharing the table with them. She was wearing a simple buttoned white shirt and was busy staring blankly into the crowd.

"Uhh, you okay over there Sinon?" Kazuto asked, finally noticing that she wasn't participating in the conversation.

"Oh," she said snapping out of her reverie. "Sorry... I was just thinking of how few people I actually know here. I mean... I appreciate you both bringing me as your guest and all, but this seems kinda like an SAO survivor thing, doesn't it?"

"It's a celebration," Asuna reminded her. "Not just of escaping SAO but of the lives we lead and the futures we've forged beyond. You're our friend Shino, you're part of that future now."

Sinon's slightly glum look slowly changed to a soft smile. "Thanks," she said.

"So do either of you know when..." Kirito was cut off by the room falling silent and Agil pushed his way into the main bar area from one of the doors in the back.

For a moment Kazuto caught a brief glimpse of a woman in the back who must have been Agil's wife. He had never met her himself, and Agil had always said that she wasn't much if a people person offline.

Agil wore the same white dress shirt he'd seem him in many a night at the cafe, however he did have something he had certainly never seen him with before. In one burly arm, Agil held the reason he had called them all together. A baby boy that looked to be no more than two months old and had a rather confused look on his face.

"I would like to officially introduce you all to Terrance William Mills." he announced, then added with a smile. "Your future raid leader."

A chorus of laughs and chuckles echoed through the bar as everyone careened their necks to get a look at Agil's son. Before Kirito had even realized she'd moved, Asuna was standing on her seat looking over everyone's heads to see the baby.

"Oh he's so cute!" she squeaked.

Agil cleared his throat to quite the remaining chuckles. "Look, I wanted to bring you all under one roof to tell you how much you've all meant to me. We may not have always gotten along, or seen eye to eye, but at one point we were all party members, our lives all depended upon one another. I wouldn't be here, and neither would Terrance, if it hadn't been for each and every one of you. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you all."

The room was instantly filled with embarrassed smiles and murmured thanks. In SAO they may have all been confident warriors, but that only stuck with a handful of them in the real world. However once Agil continued with "First round's on the house." the erupting cheers were enough to get Terrance to start crying.

Agil quickly moved into the back room to calm his son down while a couple members of his former guild, The Bro Squad, manned the bar.

"Let's go." Asuna exclaimed, grabbing Kirito by the arm. "And don't forget the gifts, I stashed them under the table." she reminded.

Kazuto quickly grabbed the gifts she had sequestered away before being dragged through the crowd by his girlfriend with Sinon following close behind. They bumped into a couple people, but still managed to make it through the crowd relatively easily. Without waiting for an invitation, Asuna dragged them into the back room.

"Oh, hey guys." Agil greeted them, coming back around a corner. "Kathy just took Terrance upstairs, there was a bit too much excitement for the little guy; it's almost his bed time anyway."

"Aww, I was hoping to give him our gifts to him in person." Asuna pouted.

"Gifts? You guys didn't have to-"

"But we wanted to." Asuna insisted, perking right back up. "Go on" she said, pushing Kirito to the front.

"Here you go... congratulations." Kirito said awkwardly while holding out a long wrapped parcel.

Agil took a few moments to tear off the wrapping paper before chucking. "Where on earth did you find this?" he asked. In his hands he held a long axe made of some kind of sturdy foam, durable enough to withstand a child's punishment but light enough for them to play with. It also looked remarkably like the axe Agil had used on the first couple floors of SAO.

"You do enough searching online and you can find pretty much anything." Kirito replied.

"Thanks man." Agil said and held out his fist.

Kazuto gave it a quick bump and stepped aside for Asuna. Her smile lit up the room as she presented her present to Agil.

Agil gently removed the stylish bow in the middle and carefully took apart the immaculately folded wrapping paper to reveal what seemed at first to be an average forest green baby's onesy. Once Agil unfolded it however he saw emblazoned upon the front the words Bro Squad the name of Agil old SAO guild.

"I know the guild was just for you and your friends, but I figured you'd make an exception for your son." she said.

"Of course." Agil said with a warm smile before giving Asuna a big bear hug. "Thanks."

Sinon stood at the back nervously shifting a little back and forth. "Uhh, I didn't know anything about you in SAO so I couldn't really be part of the theme, but I did get you this... I hope he likes it." She held out a small wrapped package with both hands.

"Thanks Asada." Agil said and opened the small package.

Inside was what looked like an old NES controller from way back in the day, however when he touched it, Agil noticed it was made of rubber, or something similar. The underside was textured bumpy and the controller buttons and pads jutted out a bit, but were non-functional.

"The person who sold it to me said it was a great teething toy for when he gets to that age."

"These are all great," Agril said with a jovial smile. "Thank you all. I'm going to take these upstairs, you three go enjoy the party."

"We'll do that." Kirito replied. "And Agil," he said as the big man turned to leave. "Contratz man."

The party went on for several hours. Silica and the youngest members were the first to head out, followed by most of the people who had work or go to school the next day. Eventually only a fraction of the riotous SAO survivors remained.

Liz and Sinon sat at the bar talking shop with Agil about how the crafting systems varied between SAO, ALO, and GGO. Klein and the other Fuurinkazan members had gotten more than a little tipsy and were trying in vain to impress the few remaining women at the party. All the while Kirito and Asuna quietly sat beside each other at their little table, both nursing a half finished drink and simply enjoying each others company.

Just as Kirito brought his glass to his mouth and took a sip, Asuna very casually asked a simple question.

"So... do you ever think of having kids?"

It took all Kazuto's self control not to spray his drink across the table, but he still couldn't prevent a rather excessive coughing fit that ended with him face down on the table gasping for air.

When he finally recovered, he looked up at his girlfriend who was trying with all her might not to explode with laughter. "You waited until I took a drink on purpose, didn't you?" he asked.

Asuna slowly calmed down until all that remained was a sly smirk. "Maybe," she admitted, "but the question still stands."

"Honestly, since we have Yui, I haven't really thought about it much."

"I love Yui too, but she was already so developed when we took her in. Eventually I'd like to try it from scratch you know... what do you think?"

Asuna nervously rubbed her hands together as she waited for Kirito's reply. She had clearly been thinking about this for some time. Since they found out about Agil's son at least, perhaps even before then? It's not like he was against having a family, but he just never thought it would become a topic of conversation so soon.

"One day." He eventually said. "There's so much going on here and now, I don't think we're ready for something like that yet... I don't think we will be for a while."

Asuna bumped him affectionately with her shoulder. "That's what I meant silly, I wasn't saying I wanted one now." she couldn't help but let out a brief chuckle. "You looked like you were going to have a heart attack."

"Well I-"

Kirito was cut off mid sentence when the front doors to the cafe swung wide and in walked a clean cut man in a sharp black suit. He looked to be middle aged, had short black hair, was average build with average height; his most discerning feature was perhaps that there was in fact nothing about him that really stood out at all. His brown eyes scanned the now quiet room until they locked onto Kirito.

"Oh no, not again." Asuna said and shot up from her chair to face down the suit. "Look here!" she shouted pointing an accusatory finger at him, "I don't know who the hell you are with this time and I don't care, we've had enough of all this crap! Kirito's still recovering from the last debacle that Kikuoka put him through. If you're after him, you're bringing all of us along this time!"

"Asuna Yuuki I presume?" the man asked.

"Yeah."

"My name is Dai Nishiyama, special agent with the Japanese department of Cyber-defence, and I have no direct association with Seijirou Kikuoka." He said matter of factly, briefly flashing a badge. "I am glad you are so interested in assisting however, because I came to see you as well."

Asuna was taken aback for a moment, usually these suits showed up to whisk Kirito away to who knew where to do God knows what while the rest of them were all kept in the dark.

"And not just the two of you," he continued. "Ryoutarou Tsuboi..."

Klein stepped out from his guild mates still a little on the drunk side. "Wait, you want me too?" he asked pointing to himself.

"Andrew Mills..." the man continued.

Agil stepped out from behind the bar. "Okay, what's this all about?" he asked.

"Rika Shinozaki..."

Liz nearly fell off her chair in surprise. "Wait what?!" she exclaimed "Why me?"

"And Shnio Asada."

"Me? But I'm not even an SAO survivor."

Kirito stepped up beside Asuna in the midst of everyone's questions to get a good look at this man.

"And of course, Kazuto Kirigaya, the famous Kirito who cleared SAO." he finished.

"Not alone," He replied. "Though judging by the people you've singled out, you already knew that."

"Very much so," he replied. "I've followed all of you closely since the liberation of Aincrad, all the way through the kidnapping scandal that followed, the subsequent Death Gun incident and beyond."

Agent Nishiyama stood nearly a head taller than Kirito, but the young man did a good job of staring him down regardless. "I think it's time you answered their questions," he said. "What's this all about?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer that here" he stated. "However I can say that is a matter to which you are all intimately familiar, and that I would like to put you all on retainer for the foreseeable future." He pushed the door open to reveal a limousine waiting outside. "If you'd all come with me, we can discus the terms of the contract at my office."

"Give us a minute to talk this over." Kirito said, before everyone grouped up for a makeshift huddle as far away from Agent Nishiyama as they could without being too obvious about it.

"This guy gives me the creeps." Liz insisted. "How do we know he's not trying to do something crazy like kidnap us or something?"

"If he were going to do that, why would he come to us in front of so many witnesses?" Asuna asked.

"To make is seem less suspicious." Liz insisted.

"He didn't need to." Kirito said causing everyone to look to him. "He knew our names and faces, since he works for the government, chances are he also knows stuff like where we live and who our families are. If he'd wanted to dome something shady, he could have done it in a much easier way. He's trying to make us think he's not a threat, weather that's true or not."

"We can at least hear the guy out." Klein stated. "We can always just say no and split later."

"If it's that easy," Agil noted. "He's being purposefully vague, he's obviously hiding something."

"What do you think Sinon?" Kirito asked. "You haven't said your piece yet."

Sinon was silent for a few moments before she finally spoke. "On the battlefield, a lack of information can be deadly. We don't know anything about this guy or who he works for, but he knows a lot about us. If he's someone we can trust or not isn't the issue, it's that he's someone we need to know more about."

"Well put." Asuna said. "All in favour?"

A quiet chorus of assents responded and the decision was made.

Kirito turned around to face the mysterious agent who had come to see them. Flanked by the friends whom he had faced death with time and time again he uttered the simple words. "Okay, we're in."

Thank you all for taking the time to read my new story, I hope you're enjoying it so far. I currently plan to release a new chapter at the start of each month. If I get far enough ahead though, I'll post an extra one here or there.

If you have any comments or constructive criticisms, please let me know, I'd be happy to hear them. :)

Until next time.

-Tawnis