Today was the official launch date of Sword Art Online. I've been playing for awhile now as a beta tester. Honestly I've become a bit addicted to it. I've accomplished so much in the time I was a beta and I believed that it would take me no time at all to get back up to the level I had.

Everyone will log on at one o'clock when the game officially starts and I will be logging on at one-fifteen, because I'm sure the servers will be crammed. That will give me some time to eat a snack before I go in. As I was walking to the kitchen I saw my younger brother make his way to his room, probably to log on now. He was also a beta tester and he was just as addicted to the game as I was.

"We're meeting up at five-thirty in the Town of Beginnings and then going on a dungeon raid right?" I asked him.

"Yup, don't be late." He replied continuing to his room. I may not be good at keeping track of time, but there is no way I will be late. I want to level up as soon as possible.

Once I finished my strawberries and cream I went to mine and Suguha's room to log in. I put the nervegear on my head and did all of the calibrations. Then I laid down on my bed ready to fully dive into Aincrad. I'm ready to game. "Link Start." I said.

I opened my eyes to see I spawned in a field outside of the Town of Beginnings. There was a pack of four wolves stalking towards me. I might as well level up while I wait for five-thirty to roll around. I equipped my standard sword seeing as all of my equipment was taken from me, as to be expected. Everything was restarted except for my character profile. I can work with that.

I fully turned towards the wolves and charged at them with my sword raised activating my sword skill. I easily sliced through two wolves. The other two I will have to be a bit faster for in close proximity. The remaining two wolves skidded to a stop and started to surround me. I swiped my sword at one and spun to get the other. Then switched back to the first for the kill blow and just like that the last wolf had all of my attention. All it took was one more hit and that one was killed too.

The congratulations icon appeared and I collected my xp, level two already. Those wolves were level five, so it's no surprise. I set out to kill more of the surrounding creatures, hopefully I can get to level fifteen before I log off tonight.

Five-thirty came, so I sheathed my sword and was about to teleport to the Town of Beginnings when I teleported on my own. I didn't click teleport… All around me people were teleporting here. I can only think of this as being a forced teleport, I wonder what the reason for this could be?

A warning icon light up in the sky and multiplied. It looked like blood was leaking through each of the icons. The liquid came together and created the Game Master. It looks like someone is going to explain.

"Attention players, welcome to my world." He started. "My name is Akihiko Kayaba and at this moment I am in control of this world." Huh, I don't understand. Akihiko created this game, but why is he still able to control it? That isn't fair, he could change certain aspects of the game as we are playing.

"I am sure most of you have noticed you all have an item missing from your main menu, the logout button." I quickly brought up my menu to check and saw that he was right, there is no main menu. I guess something was bound to go wrong with all of these people on the server. Akihiko continued, "Let me assure you this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect in the game. This is how Sword Art Online was meant to be." He trapped us in here…. There is no other way to logout without going through the main menu!

"You can not log yourselves out of SAO and no one from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the Nervegear from your head. If anyone tries to do so a transmitter from inside the Nervegear will transmit a microwave signal to your skull, destroying your brain and ending your life. Despite my warning the families and friends of some of the players have attempted to remove the Nervegear and unfortunate decision to say the least. So the game now has two hundred- thirteen less players than when it began. They have been deleted from both Aincrad and the real world." That's a lot of people for the game having only been online for a couple of hours.

A bunch of media clips appeared around him. "As you can see I have round the clock coverage of everything including the deaths. It is safe to assume the odds of the Nervegear being removed are minimal at best. I hope this brings you little comfort as you try to clear the game." One of the clips had my mom trying to comfort a crying Suguha. Poor them it looks like mom lost two kids to this game…

"It's important that you remember the following; there is no longer anyway to revive someone within the game, if your hp drops to zero will be deleted from the system forever and the Nervegear will simultaneously destroy your brain. Right now you are on floor one, the lowest floor of Aincrad. If you can enter the dungeon and defeat the boss you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on floor one-hundred and you will clear the game. Last but not least I have placed a little present in the item storage of every player. Please have a look."

I opened my item storage and found that this mystery item is a mirror. What could be so special about a mirror? Might as well find out. I equipped it and analyzed it, seems to be a regular mirror. Wait a minute! That's my real face and not my avatars! I was blinded by a bright blue light and that caused me to drop my mirror.

When the light faded my hair was longer, so I grabbed it to bring it closer to my face. It was my original hair color of pale blue instead of my avatars black. My hair was also in a high ponytail and it flowed down to my waist. There was also a little braid hanging from each side of my face how I normally wear it. If my hair is like it is IRL then it should be safe to assume my eyes are gray like how they should be.

"Right now you are probably wondering why. Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and Nervegear do this? Ultimately my goal was a simple one, the reason why I created Sword Art Online was so that I could control a world of my design. As you can see I have achieved my goal. This marks the end of the tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players I wish you the best of luck." With that he started to disappear and the warning icons left the sky. That was when the panic started.

I feel like I should be panicking too, but right now I'm not. The only thing on my mind at this moment is that I should find my brother, we can protect each other. Right now that is all we can do really. It will take some time to get to the one-hundredth floor, so surviving until then is my top priority. If I can't make it home I'll make sure my brother does. It's part of being a big sister, I need to protect him. Though he is very intelligent for his age and I can see him doing fine on his own I don't think I'll allow him to do that.

Looking around at the chaos around me I tried to locate him. Knowing him he would have moved on to the next village to get a head start on collecting money and xp this wouldn't be his first mmorpg. I think I see him on the other side of the plaza dragging a red-headed man. I tried to cut across to them as fast as I could without alerting other people that I'm leaving in a hurry. I was successful.

I started running down the street and passed the red-head who was going back to the plaza. I couldn't see my brother anywhere, but he can't be too far. I started running even faster to try and catch up with him. If I saw him over here then I know exactly which town he is going to next. Eventually I'll run into him and I did. He wasn't too far out of the town.

"Kirito!" I shouted still running after him.

He stopped abruptly and turned to me, "You're here?!" He exclaimed. "I was hoping that you forgot to meet me and didn't login."

"No, I'm here." I stated. "I'm going with you."

"Right, then let's hurry before others start to come." I nodded my head in agreement and we started running to the next town together. We saw a wolf and we each pulled out our swords. I used both hands for a power strike and Kirito only used one for a quick one as we passed the wolf, killing it.

I think that we will go far in this game. I bet at some point people will remember our names. We will become hero's, Kirito and Nieriel. I wouldn't mind that. I think I'll like being a hero. I smiled to myself at the thought.