While Allen faced Loki with Thor, Rebecca, and Wednesday stayed inside the virtual world, defeating other novice players. However, there was one more member of the team, a player dressed as Ghost, whose true identity wasn't that of an ordinary girl.
...
In a common house in Caldecott County, Mississippi, a despondent girl was sighing while staring at the screen. She had brown hair with white streaks at the front and green eyes. If not for her wearing pajamas at noon and her somewhat unkempt hair, she would have been a perfectly beautiful young girl.
"What a weird guy... though he was very handsome..."
The girl inadvertently slouched over her keyboard, her name is Anna Marie, a common seventeen-year-old girl, at least in the eyes of others. However, her fate was far from ordinary. In a possible future, she would be known as Rogue from the X-Men.
Anna Marie is a mutant, possessing one of the most dangerous and tormenting abilities. Her power is called Absorption. Upon physical contact with someone, she absorbs physical strength, vitality, and even mutant powers (temporarily). While this might not seem inherently bad, the catch is that if she touches someone long enough, that person dies.
She didn't wish for this power, considering it a curse. Constantly afraid, Marie knew that by touching someone, she could accidentally kill or severely injure them. Her discovery of these abilities in this universe happened while playing with a stray cat. She was horrified by what happened to the poor animal. If it had been a person, she might have already run away from home for fear of being arrested.
Unable to do anything, Marie locked herself in her room and refused to come out, no matter how much her mother tried to persuade her.
This is what Charles Xavier seeks to prevent, the suffering of young mutants with powers they don't understand and can't control.
Anna Marie couldn't control this ability and spent her days locked away. Her relationship with her father, Owen D' Acanto, worsened rapidly, although it was never good to begin with. However, her mother, Priscilla D' Acanto, was different; at least they didn't have a bad relationship.
Anna Marie was scared. She knew that mutants were objects of fear and hatred. She feared her parents' reaction when they discovered her ability and, worse, feared accidentally killing someone. Marie didn't want her relationship with her mother to end if they found out she was a mutant and dangerous.
She didn't drop out of school, but she didn't attend physically. She took her classes online, pretending to have social anxiety and fear of people. Initially, no one believed her, thinking someone was bullying her at school. However, after an investigation, they discovered that wasn't the case. Anna Marie was liked by her classmates and led a normal life. She was at a stage in her life where she should have been worrying about having fun, studying, and maybe having a boyfriend, not about potentially killing people by touching them.
Marie cursed her fate, her luck, and this power...
Her father, being a son of a b... forced her to undergo therapy, and she agreed. With that, Owen, her father, stopped pressuring her to attend regular classes.
A couple of months passed, and Anna Marie got bored of living on social networks and decided to play something online in her free time. She took on the nickname Rogue and started playing different games, including Warzone. There was a kind of pleasure in playing against other players and defeating them.
During that time, Rogue realized the harsh reality of a girl in an online game. When people know you're a girl, there are usually two types of reactions: toxic reactions and of guys urged by female love, neither of which is pleasant for most women. Of course, it's not always the case, but it's mostly that way, so once was enough for her, and she decided never to use voice chat to avoid it.
Two more months passed, and she became very skilled at playing games. However, one day she encountered the most peculiar group she had ever seen in her life, which threw her into the most surreal experience.
From Rogue's point of view, Allen blatantly hacked the game to use his real appearance in Warzone. Then there was the green-haired girl, Rebecca, who could perform impossible moves in the game, and on the other hand, there was Wednesday, who clearly shouldn't have been there.
Rogue considered disconnecting from the game when Allen started singing "A Thousand Miles"; everything was too absurd.
(A/N: In case it wasn't clear, Rogue is Ghost.)
Rogue stood up and walked slowly to her mirror, removed her pajamas, and stood in her underwear.
"Firm skin... my chest has grown a bit, well, I'm still developing... I should exercise more, the fat accumulates in the abdomen first."
The beautiful girl knelt with her hands on her face, embarrassed by what she was doing. Quickly, she put her pajamas back on and sat in her chair.
Rogue thought for a moment about Allen; it was inevitable since Allen was the boy she had the most contact with in six months.
Rogue observed the interaction between Allen, Rebecca, and Wednesday from a building, envious of their closeness but at the same time feeling that what she saw was ridiculous. Rebecca was juggling with her shotgun, something that shouldn't be possible with a character's movements.
"Is he a mutant? One capable of doing this?" Rogue knew who Allen was; it would be strange if she didn't know by this point. She had a certain envy of him because, unlike her, Allen could control his powers. "It's so unfair..."
At that moment, her PC screen lit up, and Rogue disappeared from her room. When she came to, she was standing on a building, the same building where her character was a moment ago.
She looked at her hands, they were her real hands, and she ran towards a mirror and saw herself wearing the same tactical clothes as the real Ghost and a skeleton mask, but it was Anna Marie underneath.
"What?!"
Before Rogue could have a panic attack, a message appeared on a holographic screen, informing her about a large-scale competition.
...
Rogue quickly got used to being inside the video game and even fighting alongside Allen and the girls.
The world changed, and they arrived at Fortnite. She believed she had seen it all but was continually surprised by how absurd Allen's powers were. Then Rogue felt a slight curiosity when she saw Allen's hands and hers.
Could she touch other people here?!
...
The following situation was quite amusing.
Ghost was now a Rogue, a girl, but that didn't matter much. What intrigued Allen was that she wasn't there to kill players alongside Wednesday and Rebecca but instead stayed close to him almost all the time.
What Allen didn't know was that far from thinking about shooting, there was something she desired more than anything else, and that was the wish to touch another person. She wanted to know if she could touch someone without killing them in this virtual world.
Rogue thought it would be easy to propose it to Allen since he, being such a powerful mutant, shouldn't die from touching her. However, she couldn't say it out of embarrassment. So Rogue's emerald eyes were fixed on Allen's hand, staying close to him while they played Fortnite.
Rogue was making Allen a bit uncomfortable, but he didn't say it out of politeness. It also affected her that it had been several months since she had been so close to a boy her age, and she didn't know what the right distance was to interact. Rogue's cheeks blushed under the skull mask as she glanced at Allen sideways for a long time.
Given her power, she resigned herself to the idea of not having a boyfriend; she didn't even have the mind to consider that. The more she thought about it, the more courage she lost, but still, Rogue wanted to touch his hand; she craved it madly.
Allen felt shivers.
...
During the picnic before Allen kissed Wednesday, he felt a chill again upon seeing the gaze of the girl dressed as Ghost. It was the same look he had felt on his back several months ago, only to discover it was MJ all along. It was a gaze with a strange obsessive desire mixed with a persistent longing to be close to him.
'Could she be a potential stalker?'
Allen felt a lot of pressure from those eyes and coughed. At the same time, the girl snapped out of the trance, embarrassed for staring at him for so long. She lowered her head and sat in silence, not daring to look at Allen again.
...
After Allen left feeling the emergency, she stayed in shock because she had seen him kiss Wednesday Addams, which was shocking to everyone.
Rogue remained that way until Rebecca approached and patted her on the back.
"Come on, I also felt cheated because Wednesday got the prize first," Rebecca whispered in her ear. "Don't worry, Ghost girl, Allen is the kind of straightforward womanizer who wouldn't let go of a pretty beauty like you. Just keep acting shy, and you'll see how he'll be eating out of your hand."
Rogue blushed like a tomato while screaming to distance herself from Rebecca and denying all those embarrassing accusations.
"That's not true!!"
Rebecca clasped her hands together and sighed dreamily. "Can't I recognize the face of a girl in love? Pfff hahaha," then she laughed at Rogue.
Rogue began to get annoyed with Rebecca and puffed her cheeks. Wednesday, on the other hand, didn't comment on the matter but added thoughtfully, "He's like a poisonous aphrodisiac, addictive and deadly..."
After that, the girl in black stood up, as if she had predicted, everything began to morph, ready for the next virtual world.
"Ohh, I hope the next world is about shooting!" Rebecca got excited.
"No, that would be too convenient," replied Wednesday.
The landscape quickly changed as everyone acquired swords, and their firearms disappeared. There were floating islands decorating the sky.
[Welcome to SAO...]
The system's voice sent shivers down the spines of the remaining players. Sword Art Online was born as a series of light novels that revolutionized its genre at the time.
The plot was quite interesting as it played with a possible future where people could enter video games whenever they wanted through special helmets.
The problem was that in one of those games that promised a colossal and wonderful world, many players got trapped. In the real world, their bodies were in an artificial coma, and the truly terrifying part was that if you died in the game, the helmet killed you in reality.
This caused enormous trauma to people because they were precisely inside a virtual world.
[I'm sorry to scare you; don't worry, it won't be like in SAO. When you die, you'll simply return to the real world.]
Rebecca wielded her sword without quite knowing what to do; she wasn't skilled with knives, much less swords. In the end, the girl shrugged and began run; wolves were visible in the distance.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Addams meticulously checked the edge and assumed a fencing posture, appearing like an expert. And indeed she was, as her father was a fencing champion in his time.
Rogue had played a few RPG games but had never wielded a sword like this, so she simply followed Wednesday in silence, trying not to be a hindrance.
"Ouch!" Rebecca screamed when a wolf bit her, and in revenge, she bit the wolf back.
Rogue was speechless at this. A group of wolves attacked Wednesday, but she barely moved as the wolves fell one by one due to her swift sword movements.
"Incredible..." Rogue murmured, looking at her small sword, almost like a knife. She gathered her courage and attacked a wolf.
Rebecca rose triumphantly, her clothes somewhat torn from the sleeves but with a wolf carcass behind her.
"In the end, you just have to kill, it doesn't matter if it's with weapons or your hands."
'You don't mean with teeth?!' thought Rogue incredulously, but she didn't say it.
Wednesday approached while carrying some items dropped by the wolves. Unlike the SAO players, they had a teleportation option to move to other floors if they wished. This was included because the players wouldn't stay inside SAO for too long before moving to another world.
===
(A/N: Three chapters ahead on patreon I will have the fourth in a few hours.)
Patreon.com/Mr_Aizen