"Eh it's no use, there's not much of a point to deciding my team when I don't know how much has changed from the beta," Kirigaya Kazuto mumbled to himself as he stifled a yawn. With his left hand, Kirito swept some loose hair from his eyes and caught his reflection on the computer screen as he did. Staring back at him was a 14-year-old boy with slightly long black hair and delicate features that sometimes got him confused for a girl. There was a tint of red to his jet-black eyes from staring at the monitor for too long, and Kazuto absently rubbed the inner corners of them with his left thumb and index finger as he automatically clicked the X at the top right corner of his browser. Blinking away his drowsiness, he noticed the window that said "Do you want to close all tabs?" and briefly glanced at his open tabs of Pokémon Showdown and Bulbapedia before determining it was nothing of importance and selecting the option to close them all. The time was 12:30 and he needed to get a few things done in the next 30 minutes. His stomach grumbled as he got up and went downstairs to get some food. As he came to the base of the stairs he nearly stumbled into his younger sister, well technically his cousin, not that it really mattered to him as he kept telling himself.

"Kazuto, there you are! I was about to call you down for lunch, are you hungry?"

"Oh great, I'm starving actually let's eat."

"I figured, it's crazy how much you can eat even though you sit behind a computer screen all day" Suguha teased as she stuck her tongue out at him.

Kirito feigned a pained expression as he lightly bumped her arm with his fist.

"Hey it's not like I'm inside all the time."

"Oh yeah right, if not for school and your Pokémon tournaments I doubt you would see the sun at all!"

While she had said it jokingly, Kazuto recognized that her words were for the most part true. He had always been into computers, and after finding out the truth about his family, that his 'parents' were actually his aunt and uncle, he had spent more and more time indoors. While he still loved his aunt and uncle, finding out that his parents died in a car crash had made him try to distance himself from them. This wasn't without its share of consequences, as he realized when his grandfather had beaten him when he had declared that he wanted to quit kendo. Only Suguha's insistence that she would practice enough for the both of them had stopped his grandfather from continuing. Nevertheless, Kazuto had grown further from his cousin as he receded deeper into the world of online gaming.

Pokémon was not the only game that Kazuto played, but it had been his favorite, and after playing all of the games he began to enjoy battling other people more. While sticking to online battles at first, he had formed a team and quickly risen up the leaderboards; he seemed to have a natural knack for it. Content with playing MMO's and battling others online, it had been another game that convinced him to attend a tournament in person. Competing in a series of local tournaments, Kazuto ended up placing first in the circuit and obtained some prize money along with what he had really wanted: access to the beta of Pokémon World Online, or POW as it had been nicknamed for whatever reason. The nickname had become so popular that the developers joked about changing the game's official name.

Surprisingly, it had been Kazuto's tournaments that had helped to fix his relationship with his cousin. Their dad was often out of town on long business trips and their mom worked late, so they offered to pay for him to go to his tournaments. If he would take his sister to practice and help with the household chores that is. True to his word, he had done his best to help out his sister before heading to his room every day and he had to admit that he was impressed by the vigor she displayed when practicing kendo. He had originally thought that she only kept up kendo in order to appease his grandpa but he was beginning to think that she actually enjoyed it. However, despite this, he would often be nagged by the thought that he wasn't really being a good big brother if he was only being nice to Sugu because of his parents will. The fact that she was actually just his cousin popped into his head again but he dismissed it as best he could. Looking over at his sister, he noticed her short, dark-black hair bobbing a bit as she leaned over to check her phone and her grey eyes that had the tiniest tint of blue. While she didn't look that much different from him, it was clear from their facial structures that they weren't siblings. Or maybe that was just confirmation bias at play, it was tough for him to be sure.

Kazuto had been daydreaming as he ate and soon realized he was hitting the bottom of an empty bowl with his spoon. With a start, he looked down at his bowl with his mouth open and Suguha giggled across the table as she asked him if he wanted seconds.

"N-no I'm fine" Kirito stammered as he rushed to put his plate in the sink. "I have to hurry and shower before my game starts. I don't want to fall behind in my training."

Suguha sighed, "You're gonna be playing that game all day aren't you, even though you played the beta non-stop. Can we at least go somewhere for dinner tonight? Mom isn't going to be home till late and we have nothing in the fridge."

"Sure thing, I know I'm going to be busy with the game a lot for the next few weeks but I'll make sure to make time for you alright? You mean a lot to me Sugu."

Suguha nodded and Kazuto thought he saw the slightest tinge of red in her cheeks as she quickly buried her head in his chest and gave him a hug. He shrugged and hugged her back before patting her head a few times and quickly scampering up the stairs. He took a very brief shower and tossed on some boxers and a black t-shirt. Returning to his room, he found his NerveGear where he had left it on the dresser. After seeing that the clock read 12:58, he got comfortable in his bed before putting the dark blue helmet on top of his head.

The NerveGear consisted of a streamlined helmet that had a long pad on the back from which a wire connected to a power source. On the inside, it had an internal memory unit for storage and an internal battery that Kazuto recalled accounted for 30% of the weight of the NerveGear from an interview with the designer, Kayaba Akihiko. In many ways, the man was his role model. The man shared his passion for Pokémon, but rather than settling for the currently available technology, he had created an entirely new gaming system capable of recreating a true virtual world. When Kazuto first entered the beta, he had been awed by the amount of detail present in it. You could tell that it wasn't the real world, but for all intents and purposes, he felt just as alive in the game as he did in real life. Even better, he had finally been able to interact with Pokémon as a 'real' trainer would. POW wasn't the same as the Pokémon game or anime since the player fought alongside their Pokémon. It had been a dream come true for him either way though and he was determined to be the very best in the full release of the game. Right as the internal game clock ticked to 1:00, Kirito spoke clearly, "Link Start", and his consciousness was transferred from the real world to a virtual one for what was destined to be the most important dive of his life, unbeknownst to him.

Decided to come back and change up my original A/N since a lot has changed in my plans for this fic. Originally I planned to skip the GGO arc, but now I have ideas for all of the major arcs and especially for Alicization, which won't be coming for a while though since this fic is turning out to be longer than I'd planned. The first 4 chapters are mostly setup for the rest of the story and are pretty short but I'd recommend reading them anyways. After that, every chapter gets longer and more action packed. As far as the cast of this story goes, all of the original SAO characters and some of the game characters will play big roles, but playing the games isn't really necessary before reading this fic imo. I'd definitely recommend reading SAO Progressive first though and having at least a basic understanding of Pokémon. I do try to explain what each move does and describe the individual Pokemon whenever I can. The Aincrad portion of this fic will be based on Gen 5 Pokemon games and will especially focus on Gen's 1-3 which I'm more familiar with. Fairy Dance will be Gen 6 and have mega evolutions and Fairy-typing and whatnot while Alicization will be Gen 7. I thought this would make it more interesting overall since I'd have new ways to write battles in each arc while introducing new Pokemon, and I'll be doing something a bit different for GGO.

Anyways, this is my first fan-fic so feel free to critique my writing or the plot. I'm always happy to read and respond to any PM's or reviews. I hope you enjoy the rest of the fic! Oh, and the romance in this story will be most similar to the SAO games in case that makes a difference in deciding to read it or not.