Chapter 7 – The Compatible Form

"E-Ellen…?" Norie asked as she slowly crept up to the girl sleeping with her back to Norie. That pink hair, that cream bonnet, that loud snoring. It was definitely the Spirit Ellen Norie thought to herself. But how? How did she… How is she still here?

Kneeling down next to Ellen, Norie was about to shake her lightly on the shoulder before

"Graaaaa!"

"Wha-?!" Norie shrieked out of surprise as the girl had suddenly turned around and screamed with a familiar mask on her head. Quickly backing up from Ellen still on her bottom, Norie began to hear laughing.

"Hahahahaha! Whoo! You should have seen the look on your face! Haha!" Ellen began to laugh as she pulled the mask up from her face, pointing at Norie.

"Ellen…." Norie murmured actually gladly, seeing that her companion hadn't changed a bit. Seeing that Ellen began to wipe the tears from her laughter, Norie began to say, "Ellen, it's me, Norie"

Tilting her head out of confusion with her raised eyebrows, she asked, "Norie…?" It seemed as if Ellen had never heard that name before.

Norie gasped inside her mind, could Ellen's memory have been erased as a result of SAO?

"Hahahaha! Don't make me laugh! You're not Norie!" Ellen started to laugh as she pointed at Norie again.

"Ah…" Norie began to get a bit annoyed as she dropped her fist on Ellen's head and rubbed her knuckles on the girls small head.

"Ahh! Ow, ow! Ah! Okay, hi Norie! It's been a long hasn't it huh! Glad to be back!" Ellen said trying to stop the small dose of pain on her head. Still trying to recuperate from Norie's attack, Ellen suddenly found herself being hugged tightly.

"I missed you" Norie said, sentimentally hugging Ellen tighter.

"If you hug me tighter, I think you'll miss me in a few minutes" Ellen said as she began to smile, "But, I missed you too Norie"

ooo

"Ellen, can you explain…?" Norie said as looked up at the moon from the tree trunk she was sitting at earlier.

"Mmmh…" Ellen paused before her stomach began to growl. "Do you have anything to eat? It's been a long time and I'm starving"

Norie sighed with slight sarcasm, "Here, I was eating a muffin earlier, but you can have it" she said holding her partially eaten muffin to Ellen.

"Thanks!" Ellen said happily devouring it, "I'm still hungry though" she said smiling with her tongue out. "But oh well, I guess I can wait a bit." Pausing a moment, she began to kick her feet in the air looking down at her own reflection at the lake.

"Ellen…"

"Honestly, I don't know what happened" Ellen said looking at Norie, "After I disappeared, I thought I was done for, but next thing I knew, I was sleeping. I tried to wake myself up, but it was such a good sleep, I couldn't. Then, when you logged in, I had suddenly felt the urge to be able to wake up." Smiling as she held the old mask up, "It looks l like you've been doing good haven't you?"

Norie smiled swiping the mask from Ellen, "I've been doing great" She said rubbing Ellen on the head.

"But you look so different!" Ellen noted as she tugged on Norie's tails. "You've got pointy ears too!"

"Alright alright, enough about me looking different" Norie replied swatting Ellen's hands away from her head. "What about you? This is a different game after all. Are you sure you can take this form?"

"That's the part I'm not sure about." Ellen said opening up her own menu. Norie gasped with slight surprise. She had never seen Ellen interact with the game before. "Hmm?" Ellen slyly smiled at Norie, "I never had to use this because Cardinal knew of my existence in SAO, but I'm not too sure about the Cardinal in this game. It's more up to date. There's more of a chance that he might mistake me for a virus"

After a few more minutes of sliding and tapping her finger across her virtual console, "Hmph!" Ellen puffed her cheeks in slight frustration.

"What happened?"

"Cardinal's being mean" Ellen complained, "He says I can't maintain this form or else he'll keep bugging me"

"Eh…." Norie didn't really know what to say. "So what will you do now?"

Ellen sighed, "There's another AI entity that has a compatible form for me. It's called a Navigation Pixie" She said pressing her screen. "Just watch and see"

Ellen stood up with her arms outstretched as her body began to shine in a bright light. She then began to shrink and shrink until she was about 10 centimeters in height. Then, the light faded and Ellen stood there, glaring at her new form.

"Eh…?" Norie lowered her head down to get a better look. She wore a pale pink mini-dress that looked as if it were made out of flower petals, with two translucent wings stretching out from her back.

Ellen had a rather unamused expression on her face, "I don't like it! It's too… simple" she said looking at her new features. Her hair was a little bit longer than her usual pink bob down to her shoulders, with a flowery hair accessory on the right side of her head. Her feet were bare and she wore a bangle around both ankles.

"It's a nice change at least" Norie chuckled as she sat cross legged, "Well, now I guess I'll have to buy you less treats since your stomach is smaller now huh?"

"I dunno" Ellen said flying up to Norie's shoulder, "I still haven't had a proper breakfast" she implied as she elbowed Norie in the cheek with her tiny elbow.

"Okay okay. It was about time I got back to town anyway" Norie understood the joke as she stood up. Flexing her shoulders, she began to hover above the surface as accelerate upward to gain some height.

"Now you see the joy of flying?" Ellen asked as she followed up.

"I get what you were trying to convey"

"Finally you understand-?!" Ellen was going to say before a gust of wind left Ellen quite speechless. Norie had blasted off before saying "Catch up to me if you can!"

Gritting her teeth with a smile before setting off herself, "No fair! You started before me and you're bigger than me!"

Norie smiled before she began to laugh out loud. "It feels good to win against you once in a while!"

"Don't expect to get away with this!" Ellen managed to say as she quickly caught up to Norie and took refuge inside a pouch along her waist.

ooo

"Norie…." Ellen said as she peeked out of her new pouch home.

"What's up?" Norie asked as she descended to the ground.

"Erm… why are you landing?"

"Because my wings are at their limit" Norie replied as she rubbed the tip of her wings.

"Really?! So you can only fly for a limited amount of time?" Ellen replied with quite a surprise.

"I guess. I mean, the goal of this game is to get to the top of that tree over there" She pointed towards Yggdrasil. "The first race to reach the top will gain unlimited flight"

"Unlimited flight huh…." Ellen said flying up to the top of Norie's beret, lying down on her belly and kicking her feet up and down, "That doesn't seem fair."

"I know it doesn't seem fair, but it adds to the competition." Norie replied as she kept walking through the mountainside forest.

"Everyone deserves to know the joy of flying!" Ellen mumbled with her palms squishing her cheeks together.

About five minutes passed before Norie paused to open up her map to see how much further away they were from town. Quite far away by foot. "Ack, and I still have to wait for my wings" Norie said glancing down at them.

"Norie… I'm picking up other players" Ellen said taking off and floating in front of Norie.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm a navigation pixie, of course I know!" Ellen replied as she took step on Norie's shoulder. "They seem to be fighting. Sixteen players in total, there seems to be a mix between Imps, Sylph's, Cait Sith's, Spriggans and Salamanders. Should we go see?"

Pointing in the direction southwest towards the Salamander territory, "In that direction" Ellen said.

"If they're fighting, I'm in. Fighting monsters gets boring once in a while" Norie said as she shifted her bow in her hands.

"What happened to the sword?" Ellen asked poking Norie's bow, a little disappointed.

"It got boring. I'm trying something new for a change" Norie said before she began to run towards the direction Ellen pointed towards, "Besides, my cutlass broke, don't you remember?"

"Right… That was a nice sword too! It was comfy!"

ALO – Southwest Plains: Near border of Imp/Salamander Territory

"You're a Salamander for crying out loud! Why are you hanging out with them?" A male Salamander asked as he locked weapons with a female Salamander.

"I told you already! I'm in a party, I have no interest in your nation ideals!" The female responded back forcing him back with her spear.

"If you won't join us out of your own will, then we'll just have to drag you down with us!" One said swinging his sword back.

"Then bring it. We'll take all of you guys down!" A female Imp swordswoman said quickly preparing her stance before dashing forward.

Reacting as fast as he could, the first Salamander raised his sword to block the lunge. It worked, it successfully blocked the Imp's sword, but amidst his smiling success, the Imp quickly pulled backward and lunged once more, stabbing him in the chest. This was followed by a spin and slash across the stomach, and multiple slashes along his limbs.

Looking behind her, the Imp scanned the scene of their fight. Recently, she had met a small party of four. They were a mixed race party, so they seemed to be friends from school. What they were doing around in Imp territory, she didn't know. Did they seem suspicious? A little at first. But after a bit of chat, she found out that they were just a high school group of friends roaming around.

"You better watch my back Yata!" A silver haired Cait Sith male called out.

"Don't worry about it!" The blonde haired Sylph said in reply as he slammed the sheath of his sword against the head of one of the Salamanders they were fighting. "Hasegawa, you should tell Amaya to move quickly, we're a bit in a pinch here!"

"Y-You just ruined the plan!" The nervous black haired Spriggan said as she thinly appeared out of the dark and slashed a Salamander mage in the back. "I-I was doing fine" she murmured before hastily engaging combat with the other two mages.

"There wasn't a plan to begin with!" The red haired Salamander lancer replied to all the commotion

"I told you not to choose Salamanders Rika!" Hasegawa replied as his wolf companion pounced at the Salamander he was fighting from behind.

"Shut it!"

"They seem like such a lively bunch-"The Imp girl said before her mind refocused back onto the battle at hand. Currently, they were a group of five fighting against a Salamander group of ten. Since Salamanders were a combat specialty class, it proved to be about 15 people they were fighting against taking sheer ability into account.

Fighting back the blade of the commander of this squad, the Imp girl said out in a rather merciless tone, "You're invading Imp territory! Don't you know what that could do to both our races?" she asked

"You mean wage war?" The commander answered with a menacing smile. Jumping out of a blade lock, he began to laugh. "Think about it. Imp Salamander relations are at a neutral right now, but since it's so delicately neutral, I think the guys up top would want to find a bone to pick with you mountain dwellers. And since you lack numbers, it's another easy win for us! It'll be almost as easy as taking down the Sylph Lord"

Ignoring his speech, the small Imp girl lunged forward at his throat. Raising his own sword up to barely shift hers inches to the left, a bead of sweat rolled down his brow at the realization of how fast this girl was. Next thing he knew, he was barely keeping up with her swings and blows. The Imp downed her blade diagonally. Blocking it, but taking a hit to the shoulder, he jumped backward to maintain distance and defense.

Charging at him, the Imp swung her sword upward as he parried, and swiftly followed with a slash to the right, and a spin to slash in the same manner. He managed to stop the first upward swing, but the next two came so fast that the Salamander had no way of reacting fast enough.

"She's fast…. No matter. I may lack speed, but she lacks numbers" The Salamander said to himself as he looked at a comrade in the eye in the bushes nearby. Nodding in reply, his comrade quickly disappeared through the brush.

Grinning to himself, he held his sword out. "Is that all you go-"

"Ha!" The Imp girl yelled out as she dashed forward within the blink of an eye, impaling her sword into his neck with such force that caused him to be knocked back. At the rate of which his HP bar was dropping, he would lose all of it by the time he hit the ground.

"Oh well… hehe" It didn't matter too much to him. Eying to her right, he saw the shadow of his comrade ready to pounce from the brushes at the girl as he was falling.

"His eyes…!" The girl quickly realized as he was glaring to her left. She anticipated that someone was going to ambush her, and her assumption was right as she heard the ruffling of leaves. Spinning to her right, she swung her sword around to meet the ambusher face to face.

"What?!" The Salamander commander thought to himself. "How could she…?" Despite his plan crumbling to failure, he fell to the ground, disappearing into a red flame. Another Salamander took advantage of the Imp's distraction and raced up behind her while she locked blades at first with the ambusher.

The Imp took notice of this, but even she couldn't react fast enough. All of this took place in the timespan of a few seconds. At this current moment, she was still locking blades with the ambusher right when he jumped. The axe user was in the corner of her eye, but not matter how fast she could possibly react, even down to the millisecond range, she would get hit either way, so she braced herself.

Snap!

Her eyes widened. That was the sound of an arrow being fired. She heard it split through the air, and she caught a glimpse of it hitting the Salamander just before she was going to swing. Taking advantage of the momentary displacement, the Imp pushed back the ambushing Salamander and cut him down within three precise strokes.

Looking behind her to see what had happened to the axe wielding Salamander, the Imp was surprised to see another Imp locking weapons with her.

"It's okay if we kill them right?" The Imp asked her.

"Err… Yea! They'll just respawn back at their town" She called out in return.

"Alrighty then!" The newcomer had said bending a little bit before kicking the axe Salamander at the legs, causing her to trip. While mid-fall, the Salamander was suddenly kicked in the abdomen area; sent flying back.

Spinning and kneeling downward while pulling the string of her bow back with an arrow loaded, the new Imp smiled before releasing.

ooo

"Hey! Nice shot there!" The Imp said as she patted the new player on the shoulder. The fight was over and they emerged victorious. "I don't think we could have done it without you!"

"Hehe, thanks!" She replied as she began to laugh, "I hadn't fought like that in ages" Amidst her laughing, she introduced herself, "Ah, my name's Norie. This is my navigation pixie"

"N-Navigation Pixie?!" The blonde haired Sylph Yata asked with intense surprise.

"Yea"

"Wow, such a rare item. Where'd you get her?" The Salamander Rika asked peering over Yata to get a clearer look.

"Well, a friend of mine was taking a break from the game, so he didn't want to leave his pixie alone." Norie replied.

"D-does sh-she have a name?" The quiet Amaya asked.

"The names Ellen!" Ellen replied loudly and cheerfully as she saluted.

"Cssh..." The loner Hasegawa clicked his tongue, "We got quite the loudmouth here huh?"

"Hey!"

With everyone chatting and laughing after a battle, it certainly felt like home in Norie's mind; especially with no fear of anyone dying.

"Hey, I forgot to ask" Norie said turning to the Imp girl. She had ivory skin that gave her a sense of natural beauty, her dark purple hair gleamed in the sunlight. What amused Norie the most was her red headband. It was simple, yet effective in defining her character. Her red eyes stared with intent as she waited for Norie to ask her question. The large smile on her face anticipated a joy filled answer.

"What's your name?" Norie asked smiling back at the girls enthusiasm.

Smiling for a moment before moving her lips, the Imp girl replied, "Zekken! The names Zekken!"

A/N: Hello guys! Now that AP exams are over, I'll be much more focused on writing from here on forth. So expect more updates within the next few weeks! At last we get to find out who the mystery guest character is, and that is none other than Konno Yuki herself!

I've also published another Fanfiction for the anime called Shingeki no Kyojin (aka. Attack on Titan). Honestly, it's a really good show! If you guys liked SAO then you'll really like this! It's got me really hooked.

If you're already an avid fan of the show, drop in sometime and give my story a read!

Anyway, I hope this was a good chapter, a shorter one at that, but I should be back soon with another chapter to refocus back on Sachi. Otherwise, I'll see you guys next time!