Floor 35: March 14th, 2024

"Hey, man, have you heard?" one player asked me. "There's this crazy guy going around killing PKers."

I frowned. "Sounds a bit ironic, don't you think? A Player Killer Killer." I snorted. "And how does he even find the PKers?" Outlaw players were, for fairly obvious reasons, pretty hard to find. "Seems like a hard sell to me."

The player I was talking to looked around furtively, as if he'd somehow summon the guy by mentioning him. "No, it's legit. The guy's called the Fallen Angel. Rumor has it he used to be part of one of the bigger guilds, a real big-shot. Then something happened and he started killing. According to the rumors, he's got these four green players called the Four Horsemen that go into town, buy information and supplies, and then the five of them hunt down and kill any PKers."

I nodded. "He uses Lures, huh." A common tactic; the green players acted as the orange's proxies, since being orange meant you couldn't enter a town. "Are you worried about him?"

"Nah," the player said with a wave. "I mean, I'm green. Just a blacksmith. Sure, he might be going after PKers, but that's like half the people here. If he was here, he probably wouldn't attack."

Oh, right. I haven't mentioned where I was.

I was at a monthly gathering of orange players; the criminal scum of this world. This world, of course, being Aincrad. I had been one of the 10,000 that managed to snag a copy of Sword Art Online, one of the most anticipated games this side of the decade. My girlfriend had managed to get another one, and we FullDove into the game together, fully intending to have a great time. I'd even asked a classmate to take notes for me during the week I was going to skip classes.

If you're going to game hard, game hard.

Anyway, the two of us turned on the game and adventured for a couple hours. Until everything changed. Turned out this game was a gigantic mouse trap and the 10,000 players were the poor little mice. Akihiko Kayaba, the crazy guy that made this game, had planned everything; we couldn't log out of Sword Art Online until we beat all hundred floors. The kicker was, if you died in the game you died in real life.

So the game had this nice little system of telling you who was a player and who wasn't. Every player had a cursor above their heads - so did every enemy, but that's not really all that important. Player cursors came in two different colors, green and orange. Green meant you were a sterling, upstanding citizen of the world of Aincrad, while orange meant that you were a no-good, rotten, piece of scum that deserved to be wiped out. Attacking or killing an orange player wasn't considered a crime, so the oh-so-virtuous green players didn't become orange themselves for murdering the poor bastard.

Fine, maybe I'm a bit bitter about the whole thing. So sue me.

Anyway, orange players didn't have most of the rights that green players did, like being able to go into towns, so merchants and blacksmiths looking to make a quick profit threw together this little meeting every month. It always took place on a different floor each time, so that the players stuck on different floors didn't have to travel too far to restock. I had managed to stumble into the meeting while exploring, and was promptly threatened with death if I ever mentioned it to the big floor-clearing guilds.

They - the guilds, I mean - had this thing about orange players, you know? If they caught an orange guy in the open, his lifespan was usually counted in minutes.

So I promised not to tell and they let me wander around, the players eyeing me the whole time. I didn't mind; it was in their nature to be untrustworthy. But this one heavier guy decided to throw caution to the wind and started a conversation with me, and here we are.

"Too many people willing to beat the crap out of him, I guess," I said with a laugh. "Yeah, only an idiot would attack this place. If he could even find it."

My companion chuckled. "Yeah. This meeting's pretty much word of mouth. The merchants decide where it's gonna be, they spread it to their contacts, their contacts spread it to their contacts, and everyone keeps quiet about the whole deal."

We were wandering a bit during our conversation, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My brown hair fell haphazardly over my face, and I quickly looked away; that wasn't the look I had chosen for myself. Kayaba had included a 'gift', to use his words, for everyone in the game that changed their appearance to match their real-world appearance. Some computer wizardry with the NerveGear helmet or something. Everything from my brown hair and grey eyes to the scar on my left hand from when I was a kid had been copied over. That meant, of course, that the grey sleeveless shirt I was wearing didn't really flatter me, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

I liked my black pants, though. They were nice.

"So, the Four Horsemen, and they're lead by the Fallen Angel, huh?" I mumbled to myself. "Sounds...neat, I guess."

"The Horsemen showed up a while after he started getting around," the guy said. "He left one Lure alive just so she could spread the tale and everything. From what I can tell, the guy's a psycho; he killed everyone there himself, even when they had surrendered."

I shrugged. "Whatever gets him his jollies, I guess. I think I'll be safe, though."

"Meh, whatever. Not like it pays to care about people in this death game."

I grinned. "Heh, you've got a point." I chuckled. "You know, this meeting thing isn't so bad. You mind giving me a shout when the next one pops up?"

He shrugged. "Whatever." I took that to be a yes.

"I'm gonna go buy a few things before I leave. No sense in wasting a perfectly good opportunity, right?"

"Check me out if you want your gear upgraded." He swiped open his menu and offered a friend request. After a moment's hesitation, I accepted. The guy - Lucien, according to the game menu - didn't even glance at my name; it seemed like he took his stance on not caring about others pretty seriously. "Better get back to my stall. Some orange's probably waiting to get their sword upgraded."

I waved as he left. "Later." I wandered away, following a small slow-flowing river. I kicked a rock or two around, seeing how long I could keep it in front of me. All in all, the picture of a nonchalant player with not a care in the world.

What a joke. I just didn't want to be around when he finally looked at my name.

After I put enough distance between me and the orange gathering, I swiped open my menu and tapped a few buttons. The cloak I had deliberately avoided wearing fell around my shoulders, and I swapped the sword strapped to my back for a long trident. I had to avoid wearing them; everyone there would have recognized me immediately. "Come on out," I called out. "I know you're there." Immediately, four players appeared, their forms shimmering into existence as they turned off their «Hiding» skills. I walked toward one of them. "Thanks for letting me borrow the sword and shield, Uri." I swiped open my menu and traded them the two weapons I had used for a disguise. "Well, looks like I'm in," I said.

Another figure stirred. "You should probably take one of us with you next time, Boss," they said.

I sighed. "Fine, one of you can come along. But only one, and it has to be the same one every month, alright?" I looked around at the four players surrounding me. "We were risking a hell of a lot just wandering into their midst like that. Even though you guys were hidden, if they found you we'd all be dead right now."

The same figure shrugged. "We'll decide in time for the next one. Just so long as you have someone there who knows how to fight with the weapon they have equipped."

I glared at them. "Look, it was hard enough not swearing at every one of those gods-forsaken murdering bastards, okay? I don't need to have the additional problem of explaining why my weapon of choice happens to match the one used exclusively by the Fallen Angel." I sniffed. "I thought my approach would work, and it did. So there."

One of the other figures shrugged. "I liked the line about you having nothing to fear, but I thought we were gonna get in trouble when you friended that guy. What were you thinking, Boss?"

"That we needed an in, and that now we have one." I replied. "Besides, he's right. He's just a blacksmith, after all." My eyes gleamed. "He's got nothing to fear from me."

Oh yeah, that's right. I should have mentioned.

I'm the Fallen Angel.

Heya.

Stuff about this story:

-First person point of view. It's also going to be pretty in a pretty informal tone of voice; just think of it like he's telling you a story.

-It's not part of the 'Nightblade' universe.

-This is not a self-insert.

-This one's gonna be more OC-centric, with canon characters playing relatively limited roles – with only occasional exceptions.

Hope y'all enjoy! I'm going to be having plenty of fun writing this one.

Remember, leaving a review is good manners - if you didn't like it, tell me why and I can do better; if you did like it, tell me why and I can do more of that.