Aincrad's Dragon King

Chapter 3

-Kirito-

Head held high he strode into Tolbana for the conference about how to best handle the boss. On his shoulder rested Alduin, in his child form, while two new pieces of gear adorned his body. Alduin had managed to gain enough levels to increase his size and he found that whenever Alduin 'grew' he shed his old scales and hide which became Smithing materials. He had given them to Argo who in turn took them to a rising smith named Lisbeth. The materials had resulted in a new hooded cloak with scales on it to act as extra armor, a facemask, and a bow.

Next to him walked Klein and the redhead's five friends from the real world, all of whom had managed to discover his identity three days before. It had started when, in his 'Dragon King' Persona he had run into Klein who was on his friend list. This feature allowed Klein to see his Character handle even with it normally hidden and the man's shocked exclamation was heard by the other five players but thankfully nobody else. Now the six players had started to refer to themselves as the 'Sons of the Dragon' much to his ire, and Argo's amusement at the idiots' attempt to start a small cult…which was sadly succeeding.

"You six had better behave." He ordered his team, the six man-children trying, and failing, to send him innocent expressions as the large crowd made a hasty path to get out of the way of one of the most well known players in Aincrad.

"I have no idea what you mean your Majesty." Klein said with a smirk as he had to resist setting Alduin on the fool.

"We're here." The deep voice of Dale, the largest member of the group, spoke up as they all noticed the amphitheater and took seats up near the top, ignoring the looks they were getting. Over the next hour a couple dozen other players trickled into the area, including two players he recognized from the Beta who went by Agil and Diavel.

Shortly after his arrival, the blue haired Diavel clapped his hands to get everyone's attention "Alright," the apparent knight called out "now that everyone's here let's get this meeting started. First, I want to thank everyone for coming, good to see you. My name's Diavel and in this game," Diavel slammed a fist to his breastplate "the job I rolled is Knight!" This, understandably, got a lot of amused reactions from the gathered players since, as one player pointed out, there was no job system in SAO. "Listen, do you guys want to hear this or not?" Diavel called out, having likely only said the stupid job line to break any tension.

Once everyone calmed down any geniality left Diavel's face as the man became serious, "Anyway here's the deal, my party finally found the boss room this morning." At that everyone started whispering to each other in shock at the news and he couldn't blame them. There were a dozen towers that appeared to lead up to floor two and only one held the boss room, many had started to think that the boss room didn't exist at all.

"I see I have your attention." Diavel said with a nod, "We are all here because we're the most capable players in Aincrad right now, the ones who have the best chance of surviving this fight. We need to win it, not only to get one step closer to getting our freedom but to show everyone in the Town of Beginnings that we can and will beat this game!" there were no cheers to this speech, no applause, no cries of agreement or whistles of excitement. There was nothing but stone like expressions nodding in agreement, it may have started as a game but this was now a fight for survival.

"Now this fight won't be like any normal battle you've had so far," Diavel continued "it's going to have to be a raid group made up of multiple parties so I want everyone to split up into groups of around six." Everyone began moving around, the ones who came solo finding groups to let them join as, after a lot of moving around and bickering, the raid parties were assembled. "Alright, looks like everyone's teamed up. Now then-"

"Hold on a second!" a new voice yelled out, cutting off Diavel as someone new jumped down the seats and to the arena pit "My name's Kibaou, and I got something I want to get off my chest." With all eyes on him this Kibaou didn't seem fazed in the least, "We all know about the two thousand people who died so far yeah? Well some of you need to apologize to em right now!"

Offended and angry whispers met this exclamation "Kibaou," Diavel said slowly, "I think I know who you're talking about. You mean the ex-beta testers right?"

"Of course I mean them!" Kibaou snapped "On the day this stupid ass game started they all up and vanished! They took all the easy quests and all the good hunting spots while leaving the rest of us nothing! They were the only ones getting stronger in this hellhole! Why I bet there's some of them here right now!"

As his listened, he slowly began to rise, even as Kibaou's rant continued "I say we make them give up all their col and their loot to us after apologizing! They can't expect the party to trust them if they don't trust us."

He didn't give the idiot any more time to speak before ordering coldly, "Alduin, shut up that buffoon." As his dragon roared and went from the size of a chiwawa to the larger than a Rottweiler, leaping down and growling at a startled Kibaou. "You have got to be one of the most incompetent men I have ever had the misfortune to meet." He said coldly behind his mask, his words carrying to the assembled dungeon raid group and a civilian crowd that had been drawn to the shouting.

"What?!" Kibaou yelled enraged, the oaf's hand twitching to the handle of his sword.

"You heard me." Kirito growled angrily before pulling out a small brown booklet from his belt pouch "Do you have one of these? Know what it is?"

"It's a guidebook," Kibaou snapped "so what?"

"The point is that it wasn't made by Kayaba, it was made and distributed by the ex Beta testers." Agil spoke up, coming to his aide.

"Plus Kayaba made changes to this world from the Beta, something that was discovered day one. If anything the party shouldn't trust you. Someone who tries to sow dissent and is filled with nothing but greed as you try to get the loot and col others worked hard for." Others soon began shouting their agreement as Kibaou snarled but was forced to slink off, tail tucked, to avoid further humiliation.

"It's good to have you on our side Dragon King." Diavel said with a grateful nod as the blue haired man walked over to him and Agil.

"My warriors and I shall lend our strength to this venture." He swore "By claw and fire, or by sword and arrow this beast will fall." He said seriously, having learned by how people reacted to Alduin that hope was a necessity. Seeing three powerful players all allied to beat this game was definetly going to be a source of hope.

So the parties were divided up into their tasks. Agil was given command over the parties meant to take out the boss' minions, the cobold sentinels, to keep them off the backs of the group fighting the boss itself. That section was divided into two divisions, one under the command of Diavel and one led by himself.

"I still can't believe you two stuck that asshole with me." Agil groaned as the three of them finished up their plans, the other clearers having gone off to resupply on their weapons and items for the fight the next day.

"Kibaou has shown fear of two things Agil." He said with an uncaring shrug "One is Alduin and I don't want my familiar getting indigestions. The second is you given that you tower over him and have an axe bigger than most monsters on this floor."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Agil grumbled "Just make sure those priests of yours are ready for the fight tomorrow."

"Priests?" he asked confused.

"That party you came in with," Diavel elaborated, "while we went out to get some food earlier we found them apparently starting a religion focused on you and your dragon."

Groaning he slammed his head onto the table, "I'm going to kill them." He grumbled.