Being seniors at Canterlot High has some advantages. For the fall semester, Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle won't actually be at CHS. Instead, the girls made it into a competitive foreign exchange program, which is sending them to Tokyo for the semester! Having taken Japanese as their foreign language credits, the girls joined the exchange program to open themselves up to a broader world.

Among the many experiences the exchange program exposed the girls to is the newest and hottest technology, the NerveGear, which brings virtual reality to a whole new level. Sword Art Online, also known as SAO, is the premier game soon to be released for the NerveGear. With their new friend, Ota Natsuki, they scored limited copies and get to be some of the 10,000 players to first experience Aincrad, but SAO is more than a game.

The girls are trapped, along with the other 10,000 players, by Akihiko Kayaba, the developer of the NerveGear and SAO. To get out, they must conquer Aincrad, floor by floor, until they beat the final boss in the Ruby Palace at it's summit. Then they all will be freed, however, if you die in the game, you die in real life.

The girls must band together with their new friend and face Aincrad, not just for themselves, but for all of the other players who can't take on such a challenge. After all they have been through, beating demons and sirens, a game should be easy, right?

EQG: Sword Art Online - Ruby Palace is not a sequel to EQG:SAO - Aincrad and, likewise, Ruby Palace is not a "rewrite". I chose to follow SOA Canon in Aincrad, placing the girls inside those events. Ruby Palace is a full crossover and Alt-U between EQG and SAO.

The Vignette Arcs are not required reading to follow the story, but they are recommended. The Pilot Episodes are the official start of the story.

Special Thanks to my editor, Void Runner and my beta reader, Cotton Sweet.
Artwork - Wing banners and page breaks are by Drytil.

Sword Art Online is created by Reki Kawahara.
My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro.

Sunset Shimmer fled from Equestria in search of the destiny that Celestia sought to deny to her. She dreamed of finding great glory and power in a strange new world. But she emerged on the other side of the mirror in a harsh cruel world beset by demons and troubled by division, conflict and racial animus: the world of Remnant.

Now, years later, Sunset has completed her studies at Canterlot Combat School and is ready to attend Beacon Academy. She hopes that in the more progressive Kingdom of Vale her appearance as a pony faunus will not be held against her the way it was in Atlas, and she can rise as high as her talents permit and seize with both hands the destiny she still yearns for.

Sunset finds herself assigned to lead three fellow freshman at the Huntsman Academy: Jaune Arc, who dreams of becoming a hero elevated above all others; Pyrrha Nikos, a peerless warrior who has everything that Sunset wants and hates everything about it; and Ruby Rose, a simpler and more honest soul who simply wants to save as many people as she can, and who might just light the way to their salvation.

Together they are Team SAPR, and together they are plunged into a world of mysteries, magic, allies and enemies, robot girls and Atlasian black ops experiments. It won't be easy, but if they can work together, teach Jaune how to fight and maybe learn to get along as friends along the way, then they might just save the world.

Original Cover Art by Mix-Up
Current Cover Art by MRK50
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