This is my first fanfiction. I have written some other original stories elsewhere before but I got hooked on RWBY and The Gamer quite early and only became aware of fanfiction recently. I became inspired to write a version of The Gamer that makes more sense since I hate the universe it is set in and I greatly enjoy the fighting elements of RWBY. Plus I wanted to pick something that was not already heavily defined like Bleach and Naruto. I know there are already a bunch of stories on RWBY and The Gamer but I thought i'd tackle my slice of remnant up in Atlas.
The Gamer Chronicles
Chapter 1
I stepped out of the tall domed building into the cold and felt the wind blow past me. Winters in Atlas were always so cold. I walked down the snow covered sidewalk back towards the dorms. Arriving at the entrance, I scanned my scroll to open the door. The dorms are a wide building that stretches on for ages. It houses every student that attends Atlas academy. Stepping into the building and its embracing warmth, I proceeded through the marble halls towards my team's dorm room passing other students as I go. I was new to Atlas academy having only been here a few weeks. I originally came from a small nomadic tribe located a distance from the outskirts of Atlas but overnight everything changed. One moment I was learning from my mother how to handle the necessary duties of one my age when Grimm descended in hordes unseen previously. Looking back now it was probably the rampant fear after half our warriors had fallen ill due to a disease running through the camp. With our warriors out of commission and new heights of emotions to draw the Grimm this was an inevitable conclusion. Still to Atlas credit and the reason my family now resides there they immediately sent aid. James Ironwood himself led a group of hunters and a sizeable group of robots to defeat the Grimm. While not enough to save everyone many were saved that would have otherwise been lost. Later on I discovered that the primary reason for them acting was because we had wandered too closely and summoned too many Grimm for them to ignore. That so many Grimm so close to the border would have undoubtedly sparked fear in Atlas and simply caused a repeat of the situation there. So Atlas superiors immediately had acted and eradicated all the Grimm there. While their motives were ulterior I am still grateful they saved who they did.
I lived with my mother for a time and we managed alright. She is a skilled hunter and offered her services to Atlas in order to provide for us. Oh and I forgot to mention she's a Faunus. None of her traits carried over to myself and visually you cannot tell I am part Faunus. The only oddity is that my eyes are a bit different and seem to have superior vision from the average human. My mother however, stands out like a sore thumb. She is a cat type Faunus and has enough traits to stand out in a crowd of Faunus. Considering my Father's absence from our lives since my birth it was challenging at first for us to survive. Thankfully Atlas did not discriminate due to a sudden shortage of hunters fighting off a horde of Grimm and then we had a place to stay in Atlas, a life, and food. We continued this life until I decided to become a Hunter. Really it was forced upon me rather than chosen as my semblance was quite unique and I felt doing anything else would be boring. I awoke to my aura while we fled the Grimm and nearly died three times. Then my semblance several years later as I retreated from the world for a while. Being the son of a Faunus that stood out so much was rough. Atlas was full of discrimination and people made sure to brand me as an outsider just because my mother was a Faunus even if I did not have the traits. It was a rough life and I made sure to avoid people who knew of me. Even still if you looked close enough at my eyes you felt something was wrong and it happened more times than I like to recall.
Arriving at the room I opened the door with a motion of my scroll. Seeing it was empty I sighed. I did not know how to treat my teammates. They did not know about my Faunus blood since I did not talk about my family or circumstances. My mother had cautioned me on this stating "The discrimination of Atlas is thick and deep. Young students are prone to behave how their parents tell them with regards to Faunus. In that case we will take advantage of this. Conceal your identity and tell no one of your blood until you cannot hide it any further or you obtain people you trust." And thus I did. It was really simple actually. I just didn't talk about my past ever. Who were my parents? I acted the part of the rebellious kid who wanted to abandon them and leave them behind forever. After a few days of this the questions stopped coming and I was glad. I needed to take a shower and remove all this tension. I had been training in the training room for the past couple hours. I had to say the best part of Atlas academy was they had an unlimited number of robots for you to pummel as you honed your skills. As I passed the bathroom mirror I paused to look at myself.
I'd call myself a pretty average guy physically maybe slightly tall around 6'1". I had brown hair, blue-green eyes and had plenty of muscles. One thing my mother had done before I applied was train me until I thought I would die twice over. But it had worked. I had lazed around until my Semblance awoke and when I realized how boring my life had suddenly become I told my mother everything. She responded with constant training to catch me up to my peers who had already spent years training. My gaze drifted upwards as I stared at what was above my head.
The Gamer
LV12 David Gale
I've been The Gamer for a few years. I knew from my video gaming experience that killing stuff raises my level and I immediately had wanted to do so… However my mother had different plans. When I told her about my development she immediately forbade me from killing anything to level up. Instead she had me exercising 18 hours a day to raise my stats. So after three and a half years of raising stats it turned out like this.
Name: David Gale
Class: The Gamer
Level: 12
HP: 8900
MP: 6600
STR: 99
VIT: 87
DEX: 72
INT: 62
WIS: 65
LUK: 0
Points: 55
MONEY: 2000 Lien
Despite exercising for 22,932 hours, yes I counted every hour of that torture, the stats would only go that high. Every ten levels the time required to raise them increased dramatically. Ultimately at the end my mom wanted my strength to hit 100 before I left and so after hundreds of hours on that stat alone we gave up and switched completely towards strategy after raising my other stats over 70. She drilled tactics, history and knowledge endlessly until my INT and WIS were over 50. Raising these over 50 gave me massive benefits towards controlling aura and directing its flow.
When I first looked at my Aura skill after I gained the Gamer, I was so mad.
[Awakened Aura (Passive & Active) LV1 EXP:0:00%]
Aura is the manifestation of one's soul. Your soul seems to be lacking though.
Aura is an ability that all those with a soul can use, at least with enough practice. A person with a strong Aura may radiate bright colors when using it.
Increases STR by 5%.
Increases DEX by 5%.
Increases VIT by 5%.
Increases VIT recovery rate by 5%.
Increases stamina recovery rate by 5%.
Enables the learning of beginner Aura techniques.
So what if I had lazed around for years after the horror at my village, was that really a reason to say my soul was lacking?! I sighed as I remembered. Feeling melancholy I took my shower getting rid of all the built up sweat.
Feeling rejuvenated I got out of the dresser and dressed. Just as I finished the door suddenly opened and in walked two members of my team.
The Stoic One
LV22 Jonathan Fisk
The Rascal
Lv20 Aaron Fisk
"David." Jon spoke solemny.
"Sup" I replied.
It was now just before dinner time so naturally my teammates were returning to the dorm to prepare for dinner.
Aaron nodded at me before him and Aaron moved over to their side of the room and changed for dinner. On free days like today you can wear whatever you wish but for meals you were expected to be in the dark grey standard uniform. As you can see our team's relationships were quite strained. We never practiced together and honestly it wasn't all my fault. The real problem was the girl on our team.
At this point the time for dinner began so I got up and prepared to leave. "Shall we walk together?" I voiced towards the brothers.
"Sure" They agreed.
As we strode down the hall towards the dining room I saw more and more students congregating. After a few minutes we arrived and stood in line to receive our food. One thing to say about academy food was that it was horrible. Some sort of military slop with vegetables on the side and a single piece of meat. They claimed it was nutritious but my observe skill told otherwise.
Observe
A Slop of Food
Contains all the necessary nutrients to survive but nothing more. Eat all your vegetables or you will regret it later on.
So naturally I ate my veggies even if they tasted like card board. While it probably did not matter to my gamer body I did not actually know how much my body had changed. I had heard some students were petitioning that they take over food duty in exchange for credits and when that failed they begged just to cook instead. It seems they were pretty desperate to eat anything else. As we were served our slop we moved towards our usual eating table and saw our final member already sitting there chowing down.
?
Serena Heartwing
LV?
She was strong that I could tell from a glance. How strong I did not know. I had seen her fighting against spider droids that were insanely strong at level 49 and beating them easily. It made me think her level was easily in the sixties but I couldn't be sure until I leveled up. Despite this Serena was about as friendly as you would expect. She thought we were useless, which we sort of were, and the student rejects. Now granted that I was level 12 was a decision rather than actual weakness and my stats would place me actually far, far stronger but I still did not compare to Serena. Maybe if I invested my 55 stat points remaining but my mother had cautioned that I not use those until I had a foe I couldn't beat and needed the boost. In the meantime she said to train just as hard and level my stats. So I did.
"Hello Serena" I spoke. She nodded to acknowledge my presence and returned to eating. And this was how all our meal times went. She arrived first ate quickly and left just as quickly. When she had complained about the team members she had received in front of us she was rebuked harshly and given no explanations. I found out later from hearing the other tables talk about her but she apparently came from a Faunus family somewhere back and it had tarnished her family's reputation as they had actively helped the White Fang during the war. So of course in this academic situation they placed her with random people with no history in Atlas. This was an especially bad year to join as most of the prominent hunter's kids were just entering Atlas and they would not tolerate her being teamed with them. So in the end she was stuck with us till she graduated and she was making it clear she wanted no part in this. Whenever our team exercises started she utilized her teleporting Semblance and popped over to the robots and brawled until they were disabled leaving us far behind. Her superior speed and power were so great that by the time we arrived she would have basically finished. But did this change anything when the professors saw this? Not at all. It seems Faunus prejudice ran way harder than I could have imagined considering what my mother had taught me. This was the actual main reason I was still 12 after a week considering the robots were generally 20 at the academy. And so we ate in silence and finished quickly. Serena left first to return to the room and then we followed shortly after. We settled into another tense night as Aaron and Jon chatted amongst themselves and occasionally brought me in but was quickly silenced whenever Serna glared at them for being too loud. Which was often.
Finally fed up with the atmosphere I turned off my light and went to sleep.
The next morning we had Grimm cleaning duty. Basically how it worked is every day a team would go out fight Grimm with a professor to monitor and give feedback when necessary and today was our day. The purpose they said was to gain real experience against Grimm and to practice unity. However for us and our first time it was nothing but a blur as Serena popped around obliterating Grimm while we stood dumb founded at her speed. That left a very black spot on our record as we were the laughing stock of the school. The Faunus girl who outstrips 3 men.
As we walked there I said "Jon. Aaron. Let's try and split off from Serena the moment we hit the ground and keep enough distance that we can actually make strides towards fighting against Grimm. Even if she is lightning fast if we are far enough we will not enter her zone of devastation."
"Agreed" the brother's replied. "But we will take the lead. I haven't been terribly impressed by your skills in class duels."
"Fine" I Grumbled. While it was true to be honest my previous opponents were the best in class the third best and the fifth best. With at least fifty students in our class everyone thought I was the absolute worst since I could be defeated so easily. Oh it burned too cause their levels were around forty and even one victory would have given me so many experience points.
We collectively moved to the pad that the transports were stored on and bored when the teacher arrived. We flew a short distance away to where the Grimm congregated in numbers manageable by students.
Once on the ground we separated leaving Serena to fight her horde alone as we began tackling the other Grimm as a team of three. It was fairly standard as Jon used a duel scimitar type style that had guns equipped in the hilt allowing him to also deal damage from a distance. Meanwhile Aaron used a spear that could stretch like a whip with a sharp point at the end. I'd seen him come out of the shower and saw the scars that showed how dangerous his weapon was.
Then there was myself. I used a Katana type blade that also had a gun on the hilt in case I needed to lay down distance damage. As we approached the Grimm 5 immediately charged us as more started circling. While I had not been leveling I still spared with my mother every day until my Sword mastery was over level 70. I could make a strike from any posture and in midair if necessary. The only reason I lost in the class room was because their speed was so outlandishly fast that I could not bring my 99 strength to bear. When I had compared my stats to others in class I clearly had the highest strength I could see outside the few whose levels were too high for me to see. Which is why I had been training my dexterity like mad the past few weeks raising it to 79.
Amusingly neither Aaron nor Jon had unlocked their semblance. I had wondered if this was the reason for their levels being at least 10-15 behind everyone else in the class but I did not know since I had not had a chance to check if everyone in class had a semblance unlocked. Naturally I kept quiet about my ability and was categorized like them.
At this point the five charging Beowolves split off two on each brother and one towards me. I scoffed at the unfairness of all that XP going towards them when I was desperate for XP after not being allowed to hunt for so long.
Then I sprinted forward taking a stance and ducking at the Beowolf leapt towards me. I flash my blade out executing a high speed slash using the skill Speed Slash that I had generated by performing the same movement over and over. It allowed me to strike with 200% greater speed as long as it started from the scabbard. It also dealt 200% more damage but since it could only be used in one on one fights as putting my sword back into the scabbard constantly posed a challenge it was a great opener. Like a flash my sword sliced through the air splitting cleanly through the Beowolf as collapsed being me and begin fading away.
You have leveled up!
I smiled evilly. THIS is what I have been waiting for! For four years I have trained and today I am taking my first steps towards becoming a full-fledged hunter.
Spying my teammates they were having equal success versus the beowolves but not instantly killing them like myself. But I did not have time to worry about them as the circling pack noticed their missing comrade five more beowolves veered towards me fangs snarling. I dove left before their encirclement took shape and attacked the left side viciously swiping downwards with my katana from the left as the beowolf howled at my sudden lunge. This was another skill I made up sword dash which basically just let me slash 100% faster with 100% more damage as I dashed 10-30 feet forward quickly. Originally this would have consumed mana far too quickly but now it was not a concern. These skills were so high leveled and my INT and WIS were grinded so high that I could swing sword dash about 200 times before needing to worry about my mana. Considering it was probably the most basic move any swordsman would learn I was not surprised as its growth and spam ability. In an instant my left slice cleanly moved through the beowolf like butter spinning my body towards the next wolf charging right behind him. At this moment I activated lunge which simply stabbed forward with a 150% bonus to attack strength. I closed the distance to the beowolf and stabbed hard watching it go limp as its HP dropped like a rock. Glancing right I noticed the three remaining beowolves dashing towards myself as I pulled my sword out and took a stance.
As soon as I took a stance I activated field which basically was created after years of sparing with my mother who was insanely faster than myself. It increased my senses and allowed me to detect anything that entered a few feet beyond my swords range. However it was only as fast as sensitive as my dexterity and never really allowed me to do more than block my mother's first hit. However, if I could handle a counterattack it boosted all counters by 200% damage. It was an active skill requiring MP a second drain but only reduced my total fighting time by about half when it was on which made.
Which the additional awareness flooding in I sensed the moment the beowolf entered my field and swiped at it instantly as I placed my right foot forward crouching towards the side of where it would have stuck. The sword instantly cleaved the beowolf in half as it crashed past me to the ground. Then the second beowolf entered my range on my right and I brought my sword back across his path as I dashed to the right of him. As I confirmed his HP hit zero I felt the final beowolf come into range. It had somehow circled to my right side making me groan in annoyance having gotten caught up too much in fighting.
However this did not concern me at all as I activated full swipe and spun like a rocket cleaving the approaching wolf in half. Basically this skill allowed me to spin in case I needed my sword on the other side of myself. It dealt 150% additional damage and of course cut everything along its path as well. With the final beowolf dropping to the group at my feet I glanced towards my teammates. They had been assaulted by an extra two wolves but were now finishing the final one. Then I glanced across the valley towards Serena. I could just barely follow her movements with my eyes as she popped from place to place stabbing beowolves and the occasional ursa minor lurking around the area. Feeling quite exhilarated I motioned towards the additional beowolves at the crest of the hill and my teammates and myself pressed forward clearing them and the additional dozen over the hill.
After we finished clearing the hill I heard a horrible crash from across the valley. As I sped up the hill to see what caused it I saw a huge ursa major slam on the ground where I presume Serena must have just been. Initially I was going to ignore the fight when something caught my eye as odd about it. Not only was it larger then usual but it had a title and a name.
He who eats life
Lv 63 Zagul
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