Introduction: I think I'd like to start by apologizing to any of my regular readers who might be seeing this for once again stopping work on my current Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL story, The Millennium Tournament. I'm not putting that story on hiatus again, but merely taking a short break from it because I'm currently stuck in the next duel. So until I get unstuck, I've decided to start work on this little side project. Another thing I'd like to point out to my regulars is that this SAO story you're about to read is not in any way connected to my Yu-Gi-Oh! Online series, i.e. Monster World Online and its sequels. That series is still on hiatus, and there's still a poll going on my profile asking whether or not I should just reboot that series (poll will be closed by January 31st, 2016).

As for this little story, I got the idea for it this past summer and even started developing an outline for it. I was stuck on the story's development until only last week when I decided to eliminate what was originally the story's main plot line and start over from scratch. The inspiration for this tale came from the Calibur arc of the SAO II anime, but I'm not going to say any more on that at the moment since any further elaboration would spoil some of this story's major twists. So I'll shut up for now and get on with the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, nor do I own the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Chapter 1: Mound of Terror

It was just after school as Suguha Kirigaya waited at a stoplight on her way home. The light finally turned green after what almost seemed like five minutes, and as the dark-haired girl made it across the street, she spied a familiar face sitting at a small round table outside a little sidewalk café with her nose buried in a book. The person in question was a young woman with short dark hair wearing glasses, along with a school uniform that had a black jacket and tie. Suguha recognized the young woman as her friend, Shino Asada. Seeing that she was in no big hurry to get home, Suguha decided to go over and say hello.

"I sure didn't expect to see you on the way home." Sugu spoke after walking up to the table, causing Shino to look up from her book.

"Oh, hi." Shino responded after seeing who it was. "I'm meeting Rika here in a bit. You're welcome to sit down though."

"Thanks." Suguha replied as she took the chair across from her and sat down. "So what're you reading?"

"It's a book of stories by an American horror writer named H.P. Lovecraft." Shino answered. "I checked it out from my school's library this afternoon. The story I'm on right now is one called The Mound."

"Oh yeah. I read online that they're adapting that story into a movie being made here in Japan." Suguha recalled.

"Yeah. That's why I decided to check this book out." Shino replied. "I thought it'd be more interesting to read the original story before seeing the movie."

"I didn't really peg you for someone who was into horror, Shino." A familiar voice cut in.

Suguha and Shino looked, and standing next to their table was a young woman with short brown hair wearing a sweater over her school uniform. The two recognized the girl as their friend, Rika Shinozaki.

"How long have you been listening in?" Shino asked Rika with a smirk.

"Oh, I just caught the tail end of what you two were talking about." Rika replied as she sat down at the other available chair. "Hi Suguha."

"Well, since we're both here, I guess we should get down to business." Shino decided as she shut her book.

"What're you two here to talk about anyway?" Suguha asked.

"It's no big secret, really. Shino and I decided to meet in person to talk about raiding that new underground dungeon that showed up in ALO about five weeks ago." Rika explained.

"Oh right. The one under that big mound that suddenly seemed to appear in Imp territory." Suguha recalled. "It's kind of weird that the admins never made an announcement about that update."

"Tell me about it." Rika agreed. "Either way though, from what I've heard there are supposed to be some really high-level monsters in that dungeon. Not to mention some extremely rare items, though that's just a rumor. Because of the monsters, nobody's really been able to go down there and look around."

"From what little I've heard, the dungeon seems to be based on The Mound, that story I'm in the middle of reading." Shino revealed. "That's the other reason I decided to check out this book. I thought reading the story might give us a better idea of what we might run into down there."

"Do you think the admins decided to update the game with that dungeon to promote the movie?" Suguha asked.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Rika replied. "Whatever the reason though, Shino and I are thinking of raiding the dungeon later tonight. You're welcome to join us, Suguha."

"Sure, it sounds fun." Suguha agreed. "Plus there hasn't been much to do in ALO since my brother got so busy."

"Yeah, it seems like we hardly see Kirito or Asuna in ALO these days." Shino observed.

"Kazuto's been really busy with his studies lately." Suguha explained. "And when he hasn't been busy with that, he's been spending all his time level grinding in New Aincrad."

"It's the same story with Asuna." Rika added. "When she's not throwing herself into her school work, she's been in ALO grinding her levels like crazy."

"Come to think of it, we haven't been seeing Klein or Agil in the game much either." Shino recalled. "I wonder if they've been trying to raise their levels too."

"Probably. It's all because the admins did that big update a few months ago and unlocked Floors 71 through 80 in New Aincrad. Ever since then, they've been pushing themselves hard in the game to get ready to fight the boss on Floor 75."

"What's the big deal about the boss on that floor?" Shino asked.

"Floor 75 is the last one that was cleared before SAO ended." Rika explained.

"I thought the original version of Aincrad from SAO had a hundred floors." Shino recalled.

"It did. But right after that boss fight on Floor 75, Kirito figured out Akihiko Kayaba's identity in the game and challenged him to a battle right then and there." Rika replied. "Once Kayaba was defeated, SAO ended and nobody had the chance to see what was on the floor above."

"Kazuto really wants to see what's on Floor 76." Suguha admitted. "That's why he's been training so hard in the game lately."

"I wasn't there during that battle, but I heard that the boss on Floor 75 in SAO was really tough." Rika recalled. "Which means that the boss of that floor in New Aincrad is even tougher. It's not surprising that most of the top players in ALO have been training like mad lately to get ready to fight it."

"If things hadn't got so busy for me at school, I would've been training right alongside Kazuto." Suguha admitted.

"I know what you mean. Things kinda got hectic for me at school too." Shino revealed. "Say Rika, why haven't you been training to fight that boss in New Aincrad?"

"Well, I gotta admit that as an SAO survivor I'm pretty curious about what's on Floor 76. But I think I'd rather sit that boss fight out." Rika replied. "That battle's more important to Kirito and Asuna than it is to me. Besides, just think of all the rare weapons material that might be waiting down in that new dungeon."

"In that case, what time should we meet up tonight for the raid?" Shino asked.

"How 'bout 7:00?" Suguha suggested.

"Works for me." Shino agreed.

"Okay then. We'll meet up at that mound at 7:00." Rika decided.

As soon as she had finished dinner, Suguha went up to her room and logged into the virtual game of ALfhime Online. After traveling through a tunnel of light, she emerged in the game as her blonde alter ego, Leafa. Leafa quickly took off into the starry night sky with her transparent green wings and headed straight for Imp territory. Within a few minutes, the blonde fairy spotted the large flat-topped mound that hid the strange subterranean dungeon that she and her friends had been discussing earlier that afternoon. Leafa couldn't deny the strange haunting quality that the mound seemed to have. It was quite vast, and the grey stone that it seemed to be made from was colored black by the night sky. Leafa felt that the landmark could be some kind of tomb.

As Leafa headed down towards the mound's base, she spotted a pair of familiar figures waiting on the ground for her. One of them was Rika's pink-haired alter ego in ALO, Lisbeth the blacksmith. The other figure was a young woman with short blue hair, cat ears and a tail who Leafa recognized as Shino's avatar, the fairy archer known as Sinon.

"Guess we're finally all here." Lisbeth observed as Leafa made her landing.

"Sorry I'm a little bit late." Leafa told them.

"No big deal. Let's see what's inside this thing." Lisbeth decided.

In a few moments, the three fairy players took back off into the air and landed on the top of the mound. A few feet away from where they landed they found a square opening in the ground that revealed a set of stone steps that went down into the earth. After passing down the steps, the trio entered a long square cut corridor that seemed to stretch on into infinity. As soon as Leafa cast a spell that allowed them all to see in the dark, the three of them headed off into the unknown.

"You know, I'm kinda surprised that Silica didn't want to come with us." Leafa remarked.

"I invited her along this morning at school, but the second I mentioned that this place was probably based on a horror movie, she said no." Lisbeth revealed. "It's probably just as well. The poor girl would be scared stiff walking down a long tunnel like this."

"I'm a little spooked by this place too, to be honest." Sinon admitted. "It's probably because I finished reading that story right before I logged in."

"Was it really that scary?" Leafa asked.

"It was kinda creepy, but it's not like I'll have nightmares from it." Sinon answered. "Of course only reading about it is one thing. To actually experience something like it is…"

Lisbeth stopped and held up her hand to silence them. "I hear something coming."

The three remained rooted in the spot they were standing and listened to the darkness. Sure enough, they all heard the sound of footsteps coming towards them. At first, the only thing they could see was a floating blue flame in the distance. As the flame came closer, the trio saw that the flame was attached to the body of a woman with chalk-white skin and was taking the place of the woman's head. The headless woman had a piece of low-cut armor made of a strange black metal covering her breasts, and around her waist was a very short skirt made of a tattered black cloth. In her right hand, the woman held a sword made of the same black metal, and in her left she held a round black shield.

"Okay, that thing is freaky!" Lisbeth declared.

Suddenly the headless woman stopped walking and charged directly at the three girls. As Leafa and Lisbeth stood frozen and watched the creature, two arrows suddenly flew through the air and struck it in the torso. The thing stopped its charge upon being hit and its HP gauge took a slight drop. It took Lisbeth and Leafa a moment to realize that Sinon had just fired her bow.

"I'll hit the thing from here." Sinon told her as she strung another arrow. "You two rush it and keep it busy."

Leafa and Lisbeth nodded and charged at the headless woman before it could fully recover. When the came in range, the headless woman swung her sword at Lisbeth. The pink-hair blacksmith twisted her body and just barely avoided being cut by the blade, and a split second later she hit the thing in the side of its torso with her mace. At the same time, Leafa slashed the headless woman in the back with her katana. As the creature turned around to take a slash at the blonde fairy, one of Sinon's arrows struck the thing in the shoulder.

The headless woman's HP gauge dropped significantly with all those hits, but it still had a little more than half a gauge left. Lisbeth and Leafa both jumped a step back as the thing recovered and slashed her sword at them again.

"Man! This thing's tough!" Lisbeth declared. "No wonder so many players have had trouble coming down here."

"Sinon! You think you have enough arrows?" Leafa asked.

"We should be good for a while!" Sinon told them. "But we should probably finish this fight soon!"

"Then let's trash her!" Lisbeth declared. "Leafa! Keep that thing busy for a minute! I don't think my current weapon is going to cut it!"

"Right!" Leafa replied before charging back into battle.

After being struck by another one of Sinon's arrows, the headless woman recovered and took a swing at Leafa with her sword. Leafa blocked the attack with her own blade and slashed the thing across the chest. The headless woman recovered and managed to slash Leafa across her left shoulder, taking a small chunk off her HP. The blonde fairy jumped back to avoid another strike from the creature's sword. Suddenly Lisbeth charged at the monster with a large gold hammer in her hand and struck the monster in its side.

A massive spark of electricity went off when the head of the hammer impacted the monster's side. The headless woman was nearly knocked off her feet upon being hit by the hammer and her HP gauge dipped into the mid yellow zone. Sinon hit the creature in the front of the torso with two more arrows, dropping its HP even further. After Lisbeth struck the headless woman again with her gold hammer, the creature's gauge went down into the red and she fell to one knee. With two hits from Leafa's sword, the headless woman's HP gauge dropped to zero and it shattered into blue polygons. A holographic screen appeared in front of everyone and informed them of the experience points they earned from the battle.

"Wow! And that was just a random monster encounter." Lisbeth remarked. "This dungeon's not for wimps."

"No kidding." Leafa agreed as she sheathed her sword. "I can't believe you actually brought out Mjolnir for that fight."

"Neither can I." Lisbeth admitted. "I sure am glad Klein made me promise not to melt this thing down for material when he gave it to me."

"Well if anything, this battle just proves that this dungeon is based on that story, The Mound." Sinon spoke.

"You mean a monster like that was in the story?" Leafa asked.

"Yeah. It acted as the guard to the entrance into the mound during the night." Sinon answered. "Actually in the story, the woman used to be a person until the people that lived under the mound did stuff to her."

"What kind of stuff?" Lisbeth asked.

"I'm not sure I want to know." Leafa told them.

"So, shall we keep going further or turn back?" Sinon asked them.

"I say we keep going." Lisbeth voted. "I mean we've come this far, right?"

"I can keep going." Leafa told them.

"I can too." Sinon replied.

"Okay then. Let's keep moving." Lisbeth decided.

The trio pressed on further into the dark corridor in silence. They continued straight for several minutes until the passage took a downward slope that led them deeper into the earth. Before long, Leafa and the others came to a large rectangular chamber that was filled with a strange mist. As soon as the trio entered the large room, the mist began to clear and the chamber became filled with familiar blue flames. In moments, the three were confronted by a hoard of at least forty headless women like the one they had fought not long after entering the mound.

"Oh crap!" Lisbeth cursed. "There are more of these things?"

"And in a hoard too!" Leafa observed. "This is gonna be messy!"

"There's no going back now!" Sinon pointed out as she prepared to fire another arrow. "Let's just take out as many as we can!"

As the headless creatures began to advance on the trio, Sinon fired an arrow at one of the headless women at the front of the hoard. Leafa and Lisbeth then charged in and attacked two others. Lisbeth struck two of the undead things with her hammer, only for a third to slash her across the back with its sword. Leafa meanwhile managed to slash three of the creatures with her own blade, but took another hit from a fourth that charged at her from the right. Sinon continued to fire her arrows, aiming at the creatures that Lisbeth and Leafa had already damaged.

The battle raged on for many minutes. Between them, Lisbeth and Leafa had managed to destroy eight of the headless women, with Sinon finishing off five of the creatures they had weakened. Yet at the same time, Leafa and Lisbeth had taken several hits and Sinon was starting to run low on arrows. As Leafa delivered the final blow to another headless monster, a fast moving object charged at her from her left and rammed into her. The impact hurled Leafa into the wall of the stone chamber and took her HP into the red zone.

As Leafa sat up, she saw the creature that had rammed into her. It was a headless man with chalk-white skin, wearing black armor like that of a Roman gladiator on his torso. Like the other creatures in the chamber, the thing had a blue flame in place of a head, as well as two smaller blue flames where its arms should be. As Leafa stood back up, the thing looked as though it was ready to charge at her again. A concerned Sinon and Lisbeth noticed what had happened and called out Leafa's name.

Suddenly a gold shape darted through the entrance past Sinon and charged at the monster Leafa was doing battle with. The shape turned out to be a warrior clad in a long gold coat and wielding a gold sword in each hand. In seconds, the warrior delivered several powerful strokes of his blades to the headless thing, bringing its HP to zero and causing it to shatter apart.

"Are you okay, dear lady?" the warrior asked in a refined English accent. Leafa couldn't help but find the voice to be very familiar.

"Um, yeah. I think so." The blonde fairy answered.

"Excellent. It seems that I arrived not a moment too soon." The stranger replied. "Please stay back and leave the rest to me. You've taken far too much damage in this battle to continue."

Before Leafa could respond, the stranger charged into the hoard of headless women and began hacking away at them with his twin blades. After Lisbeth finished off two more of the creatures, she paused to look at the gold stranger taking on the rest of the hoard. Sinon had stopped firing to look on as well. The remaining headless women began to converge on the stranger, seeming to forget about the three girls.

"Damn! This is getting a little out of hand!" the stranger declared. "Pardon me, ladies! But if you would indulge me for a moment, I need you all to fall back to the entrance! What I'm about to do might cause you harm if you remain in the chamber!"

Leafa and Lisbeth looked to each other across the room and nodded before quickly heading over to the entryway where Sinon was still watching. Soon after, the gold stranger chanted a spell that Leafa and the others had not seen before in ALO. Suddenly the entire chamber became filled with a blinding flash of gold lighting. When the light cleared, the stranger stood in place, breathing heavily. Meanwhile, the headless women were all on one knee with their HP gauges in the red.

"No way! Since when is there a field area attack spell like that in ALO?" an awestruck Lisbeth asked.

"I'm now unable to act for the next sixty seconds because of the spell I just cast!" the stranger told them. "I strongly suggest that you act now to finish them off!"

"He's right!" Sinon told the other two as she readied another arrow. "We have to end this now!"

As Sinon fired her arrow, Leafa and Lisbeth charged back into battle. The arrow struck one of the headless women and shattered it to polygons on impact. Lisbeth and Leafa destroyed seven more in a matter of seconds. Just as the remaining monsters got back to their feet, the stranger recovered and finished them off with several sword strikes of his own. In moments, the chamber was left completely empty of monsters. With the threat gone, the stranger in gold sheathed his swords in the two gold scabbards crossed over his back.

"Um, excuse me." Leafa spoke. "I don't know who you are, but thank you for your help."

"Think nothing of it." The stranger replied. "After all, it would've been unacceptable for me to simply stand by and let three fair maidens like yourselves be slaughtered."

As soon as the stranger turned around to face them, Leafa and the others were completely stunned. Now that the dust, the three were able to get a very good look at the gold swordsman. He had slightly long blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail and very striking emerald eyes. Under the long gold coat he wore, the stranger had on a piece of gold armor over a green shirt. The rest of his outfit consisted of a pair of long gold pants gold boots, along with a pair of fingerless gold gloves on his hands. But the thing about the stranger that really struck Leafa and the others was that his face looked exactly like Kirito's. Even his voice, despite the accent, sounded exactly like Kirito's.

"No way!" Sinon exclaimed. "Is that you Kirito?"

"What's with the new look?" Lisbeth asked him. "Are you trying out a new character or something?"

"If you did, it looks like you decided to play as a sylph." Leafa observed. "Is this because of the sylph character that Asuna created for herself?"

The stranger looked at the three with a quizzical expression. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you three have me confused with someone else. I go by the name, Donis in this world. I know nothing of this Kirito you speak of."

"C'mon. Is this some kind of joke or something?" Lisbeth asked. "If that really is you, Kirito you're taking this new character of yours way too extreme."

"Maybe it really isn't him. It's not like my brother to take an online persona that far." Leafa told them.

"I don't know. He really played up that act of pretending to be a girl player in GGO when I first met him." Sinon pointed out. "I wouldn't be all that surprised if he decided to let off some steam by playing some weird joke like this on us."

After pondering the situation for a brief moment, Leafa brought up her menu screen and accessed her friend list. She looked up Kirito on the list and saw that his current location was on one of the upper floors of New Aincrad.

"According to my friend list, Kazuto is level grinding in New Aincrad right now." Leafa told the others.

"If that's true, then this guy can't be Kirito." Sinon realized.

"We're sorry about the mix-up." Lisbeth told Donis. "You just look exactly like a friend of ours."

"It's quite all right." Donis assured them. "That's a rather odd coincidence that I'd have the same appearance as your friend."

"You have no idea." Sinon told him. "You even use two one-handed swords just like he does."

"Is that so?" Donis replied. "I would be quite interested to meet this friend of yours."

"You said your name was Donis, right?" Leafa asked. "I'm Leafa. Thanks again for coming to our rescue."

"And I'm Lisbeth." The pink-haired blacksmith informed Donis. "But you can call me Liz."

"I'm Sinon." The fairy archer told him.

"It's a true pleasure to make the acquaintance of such lovely young ladies." Donis replied.

Leafa and the others all blushed a bit at the comment. They couldn't help but find the Kirito lookalike to be quite charming, much more so than the genuine article.

"So, um Donis. Are you very familiar with this dungeon?" Leafa asked.

"I've actually been exploring this place almost since the day it first appeared." Donis revealed. "In fact I was just on my way to so some more exploring of what lies beyond this chamber when I ran across you. It's rather lucky that I did too, as that was the worst hoard of those headless beasts that I have ever seen down here."

"You've encountered hoards of those things before?" Sinon asked.

"Yes, but they usually consisted of only ten or fifteen of the wretched things at most." Donis revealed. "Of course this is my first time coming down here at night, so I have to wonder if perhaps those creatures are more active during the nighttime hours."

"That wouldn't surprise me." Sinon responded. "In the story this dungeon seems to be based on, the headless woman only came out to guard the entrance into the mound at night."

"Say Donis, would you be interested in joining our party?" Lisbeth asked. "We sure could use a guide in a place like this."

"I would be honored." Donis agreed.

Lisbeth smiled and sent a party invitation to Donis. The gold fairy pressed the accept button on his holographic screen, and in less than a second his HP gauge appeared to Leafa and the others beneath their own.

"Before we proceed any further, I should probably do something about your current state." Donis decided.

With that, the Kirito lookalike cast another spell and Leafa and the others began to glow with a gold aura. In moments, their HP went up to a hundred percent.

"Thanks for that." Leafa told him.

Donis smiled and walked up to the blonde fairy. "It was no trouble at all, dear lady."

The Kirito lookalike then kneeled down and kissed Leafa's hand. A deep blush quickly appeared on Leafa's face.

"Why don't we go on ahead?" Sinon suggested.

"Quite right." Donis agreed as he rose back to his feet. "I can assure you all that the world you are about to see is filled with wonders beyond all imagination."

The trio followed Donis through the archway at the other side of the chamber. What they saw beyond that entryway was a world that they were unprepared for.

Author's Note: As I'm sure many reading have figured out, there are going to be a few things from the works of H.P. Lovecraft showing up in this story. Originally, the main plot of this story was going to involve Asuna and Kirito taking on Lovecraft's iconic deity, Cthulhu. But after giving it a lot of thought, I decided that plot was too weak compared to the storyline with Donis. So I decided to cut the Cthulhu storyline and expand the one with Donis.

Please review and let me know what you think.