[PP-F1]- Reunion

[Elyth 0]

(This title sounds weird. And I am back. And what happened here. And moving on.)

The Town of Beginning was sprawled out so peacefully, as far as the eye could see from Elyth's perch on the solitary mountain that bordered the edge of the floating castle of Aincrad. She had decided to come back here after weeks of doing nothing, just to check up on things. Heck, what was she doing those days? She didn't even remember. Oh well.

Elyth swung her arm around a nearby tree and stepped up next to it to get an even better view. And awesome it was. Until the sounds of combat slowly drifted into her ears, startling her and waking her up.

"Wa-?" She cried, letting go of the tree and tumbling down from her foothold, down a ramp of muddy granite, and into a spring-filled meadow. Correction. A spring-filled meadow combined with a lance wielding lady who looked as if the entire world was her enemy.

[Yang 0]

Sonata had just set off from the Town of Beginnings, after doing what she could there, which had mainly consisted of a whole lot of things that were way too long to fit into a single sentence. And now, she was scaling a mountain. Well, she had planned to come here, and fight monsters without anyone else around to bother her. People were especially complicated to deal with in comparison to the mobs that just charged at her in this game.

Sonata felt for her weapon. Thankfully it was still there. It was a lance, and next to it was her shield. Sighing, she hefted her foot up to another ledge and pushed up, precariously climbing up to...

[Yang 0]

It was a green meadow. Completely incomprehensibly... existing right at the top of a very steep mountain.

Well, Sonata thought, looking back at the drop that lead down to a set of winding stairs, crisscrossing the entirety of the mountain. At least I didn't have to climb that much.

She proceeded to look around at her immediate surroundings. A soft green carpet of grass framed by the dipping boughs of what seemed to be evergreen and birch trees were decorated with the occasional spot of pink, yellow, or blue against a green backdrop. The almost electronic sound of birds chirping began to reveal itself as Sonata flipped open her HUD. She had mapped most of this area already; getting back to town wasn't a problem, but she wasn't quite done exploring yet. There was still the very edge of Aincrad that she had to see for herself.

[Yang 0]

Suddenly, there was a rustling in the bushes. Sonata hurriedly flipped the HUD away from her face, and placed a hand on her lance.

A moment later, a strange creature that looked like the lovechild of a unicorn and a Venus fly-trap staggered out of the bushes.

Sonata looked on in awe, having never met anything of the sort before. Immediately, she took out her lance, and the green meadow suddenly looked like a nightmare.

The same creature that had just popped out of the bushes multiplied before Sonata's eyes. It seemed that at least two dozen of them popped out of the surrounding foliage in response to seeing a lance being aimed at their companion. Or relative.

[Elyth 0]

Elyth jumped, yelping as a strange unrecognizable creature with the body of a plant- Dionaea muscipula, if she remembered correctly- and a bushy horse-like tail with a spiral horn on its... head suddenly popping out of the ground next to her.

She looked back at the scary lady with the lance and noticed that the lance-wielder was now surrounded.

[Yang 0]

"Tch!" Sonata exclaimed, having located a human figure- a player- among the ranks of the unicorn/flytrap hybrids. Was the person a PKer? Or worse, was it a frail little girl needing help and stumbling smack dab into the middle of trouble?

It certainly looked like the latter. The girl had white hair and blue eyes, and looked disheveled and messy, as if she had just gotten out of bed one morning with extremely bad hair.

Sonata smacked herself in her mind. No stereotypes, no judging a book by its cover, she thought, reminding herself. Then she turned back to the situation at hand. She pointed her lance at the very first hybrid creature, and thrust forward, aiming to pierce at its head.

[Elyth 0]

The lady with the lance aimed the weapon at the mob's head, and... there went the unicorn horn. The other hybrids quickly assembled into what seemed to be an attack formation, and pointed their unicorn horns towards the woman.

Elyth got up, shaking out of her stupor, and unsheathed her sword, planning on finishing the mob right next to her. It had started poking Elyth with its dangerously sharp horns. The sword swiped the air.

[Yang 0]

Sonata watched out of the corner of her eye as the shaken girl got up and swiped at the mob, detaching its head and cutting its maws apart, only to have it drift away on the current of simulated wind as shiny particles. Smiling, she equipped her shield and went for the next target, or targets- the hybrids that had formed a wall of themselves- and barreled through their formation with the shield.

Sonata swung left and right, trying to defeat her enemies with the blunt impact of her lance. They attempted to target her with their measly little tusks, but they were no match for Sonata's lance.

[Elyth 0]

"Well... They aren't dying," Elyth remarked, watching the apparently berserk lady charge into the fray with an enormous lance and shield. "But they certainly are falling unconscious."

Indeed, all the monsters that the lady was charging at were entering a state of unconsciousness. They were also flying in all different directions due to the momentum of the lady's charge and the wild swinging of her lance. Perfect. Elyth would go into the fray and finish off the rest of them.

She ran up to one of the flying uni-flytraps and thrust her sword at its gaping mouth.

[Yang 0]

Ah, the girl missed, Sonata thought, looking back briefly. She had just knocked out all of the plants, and was now making sure that they stayed on the ground. Like proper unconscious organisms. In 9.8 Newtons of gravity, but that was an unnecessary thought. Sonata shook it out of her head.

The other girl was now commencing a campaign to impale all of the plant mobs on her sword like they were marshmallows, it seems. Perhaps Sonata would do the same.

[Elyth 0]

By the time the last sparkling pixels of fairy dust- Ahh, sorry, I meant unicorn residue- faded away into the gleaming sun, Elyth was feeling pretty tired. She looked over at the now not-so-scary-but-still-somewhat-scary lady, and opened her mouth to say something.

It came out as something like this:

"Uh, uhmmm, ahem. Hello? H-hi? Wh-what's you're name? Mine's... Elyth."

[Yang 0]

"Hmm? Are you talking to me?" Sonata questioned, not looking up from her lance, which she was now wiping blood off of.

[Elyth 0]

"Er... Yes," Elyth replied, fidgeting. This lady was the same as her sister- a straightfoward, determined person who would stop at nothing to reach her objective. The resemblance was uncanny.

[Yang 0]

"I am Sonata," Sonata said coolly.

[Elyth 0]

That.. that was short! Either this girl was extremely anti-social, or just didn't like talking.

Elyth sighed, deep in her mind. There were all types of people in this game world, wasn't there.

"Sooo, what brings you here?" Elyth asked, acting engaged.