Sword Art Online: The Crystal Swordsman

Initial Encounter

The loud roar of the engine rumbled the car as I shifted into a higher gear. Bass heavy Dubstep rocked the car like an earthquake. I shifted up and listened to the Wolf howl as I accelerated on the highway. I swerved in and out of traffic smoothly in order to get quickly onto the next exit. Once off, I followed my route until I arrived at a familiar abandoned building. I parked the car and stepped out to look up at the wooden scaffolding's and partial concrete levels of the structure. The building was large but unlike before, piles of wood and cinder blocks didn't rid the ground. I had to find a new way up in order to access what I needed.

"Alright... new plan." I scanned around the facility to find one scaffolding along the outside.

"Found you." I smirked and rushed towards it.

I got a running start and leaped up to catch myself on a bar. I quickly swung back and forth until I gained enough momentum to gap to the next one. Bar after bar, I swung, flicked and caught myself on the next. All was going smoothly until I heard footsteps overhead. I froze and hung for a moment.

"I've retrieved the data, master." A voice spoke.

"Excellent. Now bring it to me." The master spoke thru a handheld speaker.

"As you wish." The voice agreed and continued walking.

Who was that? And who were they talking to? I waited until the coast was clear and found a way to climb up onto the second floor. I peeked each corner to be sure no one was around and made my way to many rows of glass cases. I passed many dusty rows until I found one that had been tampered with. I approached and quietly opened the case to reveal running computer servers and drives. I pressed my palm against it all and sent my glowing purple circuitry into it. I shut my eyes and searched for a moment, partially numbing my surroundings until I finally stumbled across it. I opened my eyes fast and took my palm away. Then, peeked around the side of the drive. Right there was a foreign rig leeching on the one server drive. I grabbed it and yanked it off analyzing it in both my hands. I raised it up to the light curiously and chuckled slightly at my discovery.

"You're coming with me." I stuffed it in my leather jacket and returned for my car.

Upon arriving back at my garage, I placed the drive down on one of my play test computers and plugged USB cables into it to read its data. I was able to easily maneuver thru it's files and notes but the more I used it, the looser the connection became. I started to notice glitching and blacked out parts of the window until it tried to spread to my desktop. I rapidly unplugged it and analyzed the cable only to find it slightly red and steaming.

"Toxic!" I yelled.

"Yeah?" He replied.

"I need you. Improvised device with a virus unlike any I've ever seen. It nearly fried one hard drive so please, use caution." I suggested.

"Yeah right. Step aside rookie." Toxic pushed past me to the keyboard and mouse.

He analyzed the USB cord, blew on it and put it back into the device. He opened an HTML window as well as the files notes and got to work as fast as he could. The window started to glitch and pixelate again the more he tried to use it.

"It seems to be time sensitive." I analyzed closer.

"Yeah no shit, K. It's trying to lock me out faster than I can hack it." Toxic was frustrated and my remarks weren't helping.

"You're close." I watched as he worked.

"Damn right I am, but I'm losing it." Toxic typed faster as more glitching entered the entire screen.