8 Boss Fight

Today is the day of the Boss fight, looking around the tense atmosphere is palpable, but I guess that's a given, one wrong step and we're all dead, you'd need nerves of steel to not be nervous in this situation

Kirito was walking in front next to Asuna while me and Onyx followed behind, after doing it all the time following behind him had already become an ingrained habit

Not that I'm complaining, you can count on Kirito to blow right through an enemy line, just don't expect him to look out for himself when he's doing it, the guy pretty much goes berserk while fighting sometimes

I shook my head with a wry smile, that's also why we need to follow behind, to ensure the ones he leaves behind don't come stab him in the back while he's fighting others

I chuckle to myself, you can't go wrong following the protagonist

Up front Kirito started talking

"Let's review the plan. We loners are to target the guard mobs called Ruin Kobold Sentinels."

Asuna nodded "I know"

We nodded as well when he looked to us

Right. We got assigned to deal with the minions, which, while it is the logical thing to do, also gave insights into Diavel's plan or more accurately, what he wanted

It was kind of obvious when I understood, it all fell into place like pieces of a puzzle, and besides I just had to think of why he died in the anime

To get the last hit bonus

Going from there you just have to connect the pieces, he probably knew us from the beta since we were one of the strongest, or well, Kirito was

Kirito's name probably got around somewhat in the beta and Diavel remembered it, as such, he probably thought that we'd want to go for the Last Hit Bonus, which we weren't honestly, it's too risky so we had already dismissed that plan of action

But Diavel didn't, so he tried to weaken Kirito by buying his Anneal Blade before announcing that he had found the boss room, which didn't work since Kirito didn't sell it

Seeing that Kirito wasn't gonna sell it he went to a more extreme method and led Kibaou to make his rant, he probably didn't say it outright just making allusions to it and giving hints that led Kibaou to doing it, the final objective of this was to guilt trip Kirito into giving his Anneal Blade somehow, I'm honestly not sure myself

This also didn't work, because Agil came in and defended the beta testers, and quite well at that, leaving no room for argument from Kibaou

And because all this didn't work, he ended up putting our party, which, by the way, is one of the more high leveled ones and one of the biggest damage dealers, in the rear, dealing with minions

If we follow through with the anime timeline, Diavel goes in for the kill and gets wrecked cause the boss is using a different weapon from the beta, when Kirito goes to help and give him a health potion, he denies it and dies in Kirito's arms

This is probably something the anime changed, since after your health reaches zero health potions don't do anything, and players only take at most ten seconds after they run out of health to turn into polygons, I think this was Kayaba's sick way of letting players say their last words

So, if we don't take the anime's timeline which seems to be different from this one for "reasons", Diavel ends up being a minor "Villain" whose plan went wrong at every turn of the way, and ends up dying because of his greed

Concluding, what I remember from the anime can be wrong

Ain't that a doozy

I held back the urge to sigh and continued to listen to Kirito

"I'll deflect their poleaxes with a sword skill, so you switch in at that moment" He then looked back at us "You two just do the usual"

I gave him a knowing smirk with a raised eyebrow but nodded all the same, Onyx beside me also gave him a knowing grin, Kirito responded with a sour look

That lasted for a moment until Asuna said "Switch?"

To which we all froze

Kirito asked incredulously "C-Could this be your first time in a party?"

She nodded like it was normal "Yes"

Onyx just did his best fish impression and I had my jaw hanging

She's suicidal I tell you!

How the hell do you go a month without partying with anyone?!

======

After a couple of hours of going through the labyrinth with were finally at the boss room

Diavel went up front to do a speech before we went in

"Listen up, everyone. I have just one thing to say. Let's win!"

That's... way too short for a speech... but sure

"Let's go!!"

With that he opened the door

Inside, the boss room was almost pitch black, but at the end of the room I could manage to see the boss sitting on a throne

As we all got in, Illfang stood up and the room lit up, he then summoned a couple minions before running towards us with them

Diavel started shouting orders to the various teams, our team's orders were pretty simple

Keeping the sentinels away from them

Two other teams got the same orders

So we did just that

Kirito coordinated with Asuna, using sword skills to parry the sentinels attacks creating a gap which she could use to take them out with little to no risk

Meanwhile me and Onyx constantly circled around the two of them, keeping the other sentinels busy while they killed the ones they were dealing with, when they were almost done we threw another their way

Using Gemini to share my awareness with Onyx and his with mine we created a mental image of where our enemies were, essentially controlling a mobile little circle in the battlefield

We continued to deal with the sentinels in a systematic manner this way while the main force whittled down Illfang's health

I was still pondering whether to interfere in Diavel's fate when the silent system sent out a notification

[New Mission!]

[Diavel's Greed]

[Description: You have figured figured out the sequence of events that led to Diavel's death and are reaching the dividing point between his life and death, why not take a leap into the dark and see what happens if you save him?]

[Objective: Save Diavel]

[Reward: 20 gp, 3 SAO SP]

The sudden notification almost managed to break the rhythm we had built up in our improvised formation, luckily I snapped out of it just in time as sentinels attack came my way, stepping to the side and sending a quick sword slash its way and continued circling leaving it for Onyx to finish it off

Glancing at Onyx it seemed that he also faltered for a bit but he didn't have any sentinels close to him so he got away scott free

(A/N: I decided to change Gemini's telepathy to {} so that it isn't confused with thoughts)

{What do you think?}

I saw Onyx glance at me from the corner of my eye

{No reason not to do it, the reward is good, almost too good, but we need it, those 3 SP will give us one hell of a jump in our abilities, though we still don't know what to do with the gp}

I hummed in agreement

The gateway points, according to the system could buy anything we wanted, at an appropriate price

Taking this into account we had decided to save any points we got in order to buy an ability in the future, the only problem was how expensive it was, still though, good things come to those who wait

{Let's take a leap of faith then?}

He nodded

{Let's take a leap of faith}

After confirming our course of action I started making a plan in my head

Glancing at the boss I could see that the main force already brought its health down to half, if it went according to the beta it should switch weapons when it's down to its last health bar so still have a bit of time, no point in rushing things

According to what I already deduced, Diavel wants the last hit bonus item, which, if I remember correctly was the coat Kirito used to make people recognize him as a Beater so that he could focus the hate the players had for the beta testers on him

Taking this into account... I can't change much...

Someone has to get the stigma of Beater or else beta testers will still get all the hate, so I can't change that, the three of us will have to take on the role so we also don't need to hide that we are beta testers when we act

So... as cliche as it is, we'll have to save Diavel at the last moment, this way he'll be stunned due to almost dying and grateful for saving him afterwards so he won't become our enemy in the future, hell maybe he will be a future ally, or so I hope

After saving we will have to kill the boss and one of us has to get the coat, to use as a symbol of the Beaters, though it's not necessary, it would be ideal

Alright now I have an outline of what we should do, as for the rest we'll just have to roll with the blows

Glancing towards the boss I could see that it was almost time, we just had a couple minutes left, so I turned to Kirito

"Hey, Kirito! As I take it we don't want anyone else to die, right?"

Kirito looked at me startled at why I said that but nodded anyway

"Good, there's an idiot who will probably get himself killed if we do nothing." I nodded towards the boss "When the boss is down to one health bar and he starts to switch weapons we start running towards it, if we're fast enough we should be able to save"

His expression took on a determined look and nodded, Asuna kept silent but her eyes below the hood also looked determined, as for Onyx I had already informed him through Gemini

Even though I already knew the answer I looked towards Asuna and asked anyway

"Are you sure you want to follow us? We're taking a risk here"

She didn't speak but nodded firmly, it was clear she had already made up her mind

"Thanks, that helps a lot"

I looked towards the boss

"Start getting ready then, we'll have to fight the boss"