EBO: Resume - Prologue

August 7th, 2026

A red and black motorcycle rides along the empty roads of a forest. Faint whirring can be heard as the bike makes its way down the path, no one to be seen for miles. Then, the path ascends to merge onto a freeway, where dozens upon dozens of vehicles drive along the virtual roads. The bike swiftly maneuvers its way through the lanes of the highway, approaching a group of black SUVs with a few motorcyclists surrounding them, all wearing black armor. Quietly, the bike maintains its speed and follows the envoy, where its rider equips to his waist a strange belt buckle. A silver band wraps around the rider’s waist, keeping the buckle in place as the rider grabs a cartridge from his pocket, and aims the cartridge at the SUVs ahead of him. He mimics the firing of a gun with this cartridge, pressing a button that causes an voice to proclaim “Sniping Specter!” out of nowhere. After transferring the cartridge to his right hand and spinning it around, our rider says one word before inserting the trinket into his belt buckle.

“Henshin,” The insertion of the object projects a spinning ring of pictures depicting a selection of chibi armors that gradually slows down. Our rider mimics firing a finger gun at the picture of a sinister-looking, skull-faced mask in black and white. Selecting this portrait results in the remaining profiles to bounce and fade away as the ring glows a dark red.

A bulky white armor envelops the rider, followed immediately by the rider flipping the lever on his belt buckle to the right while stating, “Daini Senjutsu.” The belt announces “Level Up!” as a screen is projected in front of the bike. Riding through the screen causes the bulky armor to eject in components, while the larger facemask of the previous armor instead rotates to become the back armor of our rider.

It’s here that the SUVs ahead notice they’re being tailed by someone. Henchmen roll down the windows on their cars in order to aim out the window and fire at the red-and-black biker. He slows down enough to avoid their projectiles, moving towards the left of the convoy and speeding up. Grabbing one of the motorcyclists’ weapons, the Sniping Specter aims the sub-machine gun in his hand at his enemy’s head, firing a few rounds. The enemy goes tumbling, bike and body, leaving a mess and causing an explosion. Our Specter moves forward, emptying the clip of his acquired gun into the side of an SUV before taking hold of the door and ripping it off the vehicle.

“Shoot the idiot!” One of the passengers of the SUV exclaims, trying to reach for a gun.

“Daisan Senjutsu,” the Specter announces as he activates a red cartridge that announces “Ifrit Slasher!”, closing the belt, inserting the new cartridge, and opening the belt once more. Two screens are projected, the one originally used in the level up and another screen showing flames and two swords crossed over each other. Passing through the screens causes a robotic figure to appear and attach itself to the Specter. A pair of revolvers are holstered on his thighs, red armor plating is equipped to his shoulders and chest, and a flame-like visor appears over his helmet.

“What are you waiting for, lose the guy!” Another passenger loads his gun and fires at the Ifrit Specter.

The Specter retaliates by using his revolver, firing straight at the heart of one of the passengers. Although slightly off, the projectile hits its target, leaving a hole in the passenger’s chest with smoke and the scent of burnt flesh wafting through the air. Two more trigger pulls on the other two passengers, and the back of this SUV is eliminated. He then aims at the front of the SUV, where the driver is. Another trigger pull, and a fireball melts through the hull of the car and through the head of the driver, leading to the crash of the vehicle.

“One down, two to go…” Specter notes, reloading his weapon single-handedly before holstering and maneuvering towards the others. Before the other car can get the chance to prepare itself, Specter fires his weapon into the side of the vehicle; shooting the tires, the driver, and any passengers unfortunate enough to be sitting close to the side where he’s attacking.

He rides away from the crashed car, to finish off the remaining SUV after reloading. Removing the red cartridge from his belt, he puts the cartridge into a slot on the revolver, and takes aim. Swirling red energy gathers around the gun in his hand, as he waits for his attack to charge. Cocking the hammer, the rider fires a massive fireball at the last vehicle as the announcement “Ifrit Burst Strike!” is heard. A massive explosion ensues, decimating the SUV and any of the nearby motorcycles.

“Mission complete,” Specter tells himself, finding the next exit on the freeway to take before returning to his base of operations. As he enters Shakariki City, he slows down to avoid hitting any civilians, player-controlled or not. Parking outside the front of a building, the Specter cancels his transformation by closing the belt’s lever and removing the cartridges.

“You took out the convoy, correct?” The Specter enters his business office, greeted by a man in a silver business suit.

“Yeah, it’s done.” The Specter takes a seat at his desk, putting his feet up on the table and reclining in his chair. “I’ll be taking my payment now.”

“Here,” The silver-suited man hands over a briefcase, which he opens to reveal stacks of bills. “400k Levs, right here.”

“That’s not what we agreed on,” Specter sits back up again.

“Sorry, I couldn’t get the full 500k from my associate.”

“... Alright then. I’ll take the 400k now. But I want that 100k by tomorrow, or else I start charging interest.”

“Understood, mister Hunter.” The silver-suited man left the money on Hunter’s desk, walking out the door without another word.

“That’s that…” Hunter said to no one in particular, getting up and closing the briefcase. “I need to get this converted. Gotta pay rent for the apartment somehow.”

Putting the briefcase in his inventory, Hunter left his building and got on his bike. Just before he could leave, a man and woman approached him. Both appeared to be around his age, and wore black and white clothing as if they were in uniform.

“Hello there,” Hunter gave them a slight nod before revving his bike up.

“Excuse us, Hunter. We need to talk to you about something.” The man said, holding up a badge. “I’m Hideo Yamamoto. My partner and I are with the HMP.”

“How can I help?” Hunter turned back to Hideo, intrigued.

“We’ve been sent a video from an unknown source, claiming some kind of terrorist attack. We’d like you to look into it and confirm the plausibility of the threat.”

“That so? Send it over, I’ll take a look after I take care of some things.”

“This is urgent, Hunter. Far more urgent than you think.”

“What could possibly be so bad about this one vi-”

“The video is threatening to trap players inside the game. But that’s just the surface. Our perpetrator is saying he’ll rewrite the code of the game. If we die here, we’ll die in reality.” The lady on Hideo’s right interrupted him. Hunter’s eyes widened upon hearing this.

“No… No, no no… That’s impossible… Only a Nexus Theory employee would have access to the code. What was that last part?”

“If we die, we lose our virtual and real lives.”

“Not again... ”

“Again? Are you implying… you were in the SAO incident?” Hideo asked.

“I survived the death game, yeah. Nexus Theory picked me up as a beta tester for EBO. They figured my skills in SAO would allow them to collect data that would be able to improve EBO much more than it would’ve had I not participated.”

“You’re a Beta tester?”

“Yeah. What’s your name?” Hunter asked the lady on Hideo’s right.

“I’m Kyoka Matsuzaki, pleasure to meet you.” Kyoka bowed to Hunter as she introduced herself.

“I need to see this video. Now.”

“Follow us.” Hideo got on his bike, as did the other two. They drove to their headquarters as Hunter followed. After arriving at the local station, they escorted Hunter to their special crimes division and showed him the video. A man in black and white with a skull mask glitched into view as he announced his plans.

“Players of Entity Burst Online. I am the Hades Incarnate, Genm, and I am here to deliver news to you. On August 14th, exactly one week from today, I will have access to your collective conscience. My friends have infiltrated Nexus Theory, and they will take control of the Omniversal VR Core. They will lock your consciences inside this game, and we will take over. The GMs within this game will lose their administrative privileges, and will be reduced to basic players. We give you one week to leave now, while you still can. Those of you who wish to stay, feel free to. But know that you will trapped for a long time, perhaps even years. What we are doing is simple: we are recreating the Death Game from two years ago. SAO is to be resumed. Most of you aren’t SAO survivors, but that doesn’t matter. Know that I, a former member of the player-killing Laughing Coffin, am resurrecting the conditions of SAO. Those who die here will die in reality. We will delete your consciences from the VR Core upon your virtual death, thereby rendering you brain-dead and a lifeless husk in reality. Of course, your feeble bodies will live on in reality, forever trapped in a vegetative state. Your parents and loved ones will worry, day after day, if you’ll wake up, only to be told that you will never exist in reality again. However, I will give you a way to escape. After the death game begins again, I will become more active. I will take over Hatena, dismantle its current government, and rule over you all. If you manage to kill me, access to the VR Core will be transferred to you, and you will have the power to do as you please with it. Free everyone, rule after me, it doesn’t matter. That power will be yours. Good luck.”

“That’s the video,” Kyoka exited the video player and awaited Hunter’s reaction.

“Laughing Coffin… survivor… hacker…” Hunter mumbled to himself.

“Is any of this valid?” Hideo asked.

“Everything checks out… They need one person inside Nexus Theory, to give them full access to the VR Core. From there, they can do as they please, lock everyone inside, delete the consciences of anyone currently connected, or just shut the entire core down now and cause a small-scale genocide.” Hunter laid everything out for them to understand.

“If that’s the case, then all we have to do is kill him, right?” Hideo questioned.

“No, it won’t be that simple. He was taunting us by saying that. He knows he has full control over all our minds, and he can do whatever he wants. Anyone who tries to fight him could just be simply deleted from the core and killed then and there. That’s what he’d do, as a former Laughing Coffin member.”

“So we can’t get close to him?”

“No, he won’t do that. He’ll let us get close. He’ll let us try and kill him as many times as possible. But he’s got a way to prevent himself from dying. Genm… I’ve heard that name before. He’s not wrong about being with LC, I’ve fought him before.”

“Back in SAO?”

“Yeah. He was called Hades Incarnate because of how he fought. He used this unique weapon that had a serrated blade, and he used it to torture people before they died. It was… horrible.” Hunter shudders, remembering the past he tried so hard to forget and move on from.

“You said he wanted us to try to kill him as much as possible. But how is he gonna prevent himself from dying? He’s still connected to the core. If he died, wouldn’t he be erased from the core too?”

“That’s what would happen if the deletion was on an automated setting. But he never specified if the system was manually operated or fully automatic. Knowing him, he wouldn’t want to be manually running the deletion system, he’d want it on auto.”

“If that’s the case, then how is he gonna stop himself from dying?”

“He can’t have copied his consciousness multiple times, he would’ve fried his brain copying it multiple times or even once.”

“Then how are we going to kill him?”

“We’ll have to figure that out ourselves…”

August 8th, 2026

A black and white figure stalks towards the bushes of the forest, another player lying on the ground in defeat. The black and white figure takes out another a cartridge, plugging it into device featuring a screen, an A button on the side of the screen with a double-barreled laser gun, and a B button with a syringe-like blade on the other side.

“W-who are you..?” The defeated player asks, terror evident in his voice.

“I. Am Hades Incarnate. I am the Game-Breaker.” The black and white figure presses both buttons on his device simultaneously, causing an ominous beeping to play from it. He points the syringe portion at the defeated, impaling and killing the poor fool. The deceased dissipates into a black and purple mist, which is then sucked into the syringe. Pressing the B button causes the mist within to be sucked into the screen, lighting it up with a black and white glow as sparks fly off the device. Removing the cartridge from the device, a black goo runs over it before solidifying into a white cartridge with black on it; its label shows “Scizor Hades X” in a purple scrawl. An evil chuckle escapes as the figure place a buckle on his waist, creating a band around it to form the base of a belt. Following that, he places the device on the buckle with the A button to his right and B to his left before inserting the new cartridge back in. The same ominous beeping plays before the man presses the button next to the slot, causing a blackened screen to be projected from the device.

“DANGER! DANGER! DEATH AWAKENED, SCIZOR HADES X~!” The device announces in a gravelly voice with klaxon alarms blaring in the background. Our figure tears through the projection and emerges, wearing skeletal armor, a mechanical device on his mask, and a cracked HP gauge on his chestplate.

“I am Satoshi Kuroto. I. Am. Genm.” Satoshi laughs maniacally to himself, having obtained the final item he needed to begin his plan. The Death Game is to resume.