AN: So, I decided to create another fic about everyone's favourite male ninja (apart from Genji/Naruto/Sasuke/Itachi) Lie Ren gaining well, Gamer powers.
I wrote one about four months ago called Lotus' Game or something like that, and it somehow got deleted. Anyhow, I'm rewriting it with Volume 4/3's additions, which will be rather fascinating to dissect, and evaluate with the Gamer semblance. Note that if I get anything wrong with his backstory, I'll try and edit it. If it doesn't work with what I'm writing Ren as, don't expect me to change the entire story around that little fact.
Also, unlike other gamer fics, Ren does not play video games at all. So expect him to rely on other people to find out what the hell was going on with this strange addition to his arsenal. Spoiler alert.
The Players
Chapter I
Gamer
Lie Ren had started seeing numbers above peoples head, around about a month ago when he had first arrived at Beacon. He didn't know when or how it had happened, but he didn't plan on telling anybody about it. He didn't even know what the hell they signified, and wondered if it was some type of weird Semblance that he didn't even know how to use properly.
Meh. It hadn't exactly saved him when he had been forced to fight a King Tajitu. Not that he minded not using his Semblance, because that meant that he wouldn't grow dependant on it like Ruby or Weiss. Not that he was saying that they were bad fighters by any stretch of the imagination, but their Semblance usage in fights was nearly off the charts.
On the matter of fighting, after the Cardin situation was resolved, Jaune had started training with Pyrrha which had drastically improved his skill. It would take months before he was on par with them, but at least he was trying.
Because he was bored, and had a free period with Nora for once in one of her Dust classes for in her words, "Better dust usage, better explosions all round!", he resolved to seeing what the hell these numbers meant.
He looked over at a few third year students, and noticed that the numbers above their heads was in the areas around 50, whilst one of his classmates was at 20. It made him narrow his eyes in concentration, as he continued analyzing the seniors and his classmates, to check if his theory was correct.
He was eventually proven right, since nearly everyone of his seniors in the 50's range, whilst the second years were in the lower bowls of thirty, and the fourth years were in the badass 70's range.
There were even some people that merely had question marks above their names, that meant that they were far out of his reach.
One of the terms that he occasionally heard Jaune talk with Ruby about with, was video games, and that levels were essentially estimations of strength. So, the levels of his classmates were all at the very least, 10 levels apart.
God, using that analogy made him feel utterly stupid, but it did work.
So, his Semblance was to be able to analyze his opponents, and see if they were out of his range? That sounded like a good idea, but when he didn't even know his own level... That was a major problem that he should resolve as soon as possible.
"Ren?" Jaune's voice came out from behind him, stopping his contemplative thoughts right in their tracks. "You alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied, standing up from his position on the bench in the courtyard. "Finished your extra class with Pyrrha?"
"Er... Yes. It went alright." The leader of their team stumbled on his words, apparently not expecting the sudden turn of the conversation. "You do know that you've been staring at a wall for the last five minutes?"
"Yep. I did know." Ren replied, deciding if he should ask his leader a question that was indirectly about his Semblance. "Jaune. In your video games, how do you check the level of your character thingie?"
"It depends. And, in not all games, do you have a levelling up system." The knight replied, honestly. "But why do you want to know? You've never had an interest in video games before."
"..." Ren had not expected for Jaune of all things to be so perceptive. Then again, everyone had thought that this exact same person to lose against his first Ursa encounter. "Let's talk about this in private, alright?"
The blond simply nodded, and motioned to the ninja to show the way.
After ten minutes of trying to find some place private, the two boys decided that behind the school would be efficent enough, even if tons of couples met over there. Ren personally couldn't care less, but his leader seemed more against the idea.
Eventually, the two found someplace private, and the black-haired teenager merely sighed before motioning to Jaune to speak up, who looked like he wanted to say something.
"Is this the part that you tell me that you're gay?" The Arc got out, flushing red in embarrasment.
What? Is he serious?
"I-i don't find it weird..." The blond idiot continued.
Ren massaged his temple, and wondered what the hell had him thinking that his male friend was that perceptive? Perceptive, sure. But not... Aware, was probably the word that he was groping for.
"No, I'm not gay, alright... What even gave you that impression?" The non-gamer said, massaging his temple.
"It's... How the hell are you managing not to stare? Like, you barely even give some of the sexiest girls in our school any eyes at all!" Jaune cried out.
"...Maybe because I have Nora as my best friend?"
That made the Arc go, "Oh... Ohhhhh... I get it... So why did you bring me here?"
"I've discovered that my Semblance is some type of estimation of somebody's abilities, like those level things that you were talking with Ruby about-"
"Wait, you heard that?" The leader interrupted, looking half amazed, half worried.
"There was only a wall between me and you two..." The ninja deadpanned. "And you two are loud for some reason, when you talk to eachother."
"Dude, Nora says that you think that everyone's loud... Even Blake." It was now the Arc's turn to deadpan back.
"Nope. Haven't said a word about Blake, yet." He denied, before turning the conversation back to its original course. "Can we get back on track?"
"Yeah... If you could just describe it for me again, please." Jaune asked, his eyes turning serious for the first time since the conversation began.
"If you want. My Semblance seems to be some type of level estimation, similar to those video games that you play. For example, you Jaune, are level 9, and our classmates are in regions of level 20ish, from what I managed to gather from when I was 'staring at a wall', like you said earlier. So, would you have any clue how to check my own level?" Ren lectured, ignoring his friend's mutters 'am I that far behind?'.
"How about, you see if you have a stats page or something like that?"
That was an idea, Ren mused. It wasn't that far of a shot to think that he'd have his own statistics page or something like that. He concentrated, and when he opened his eyes, an image of himself in the corner of the window, and a list of stats such as WIS, LUK, among others.
His level was 22, which was decidedly average if he wanted to be confrontational about it.
"So? Did it work?"
"Yeah... In those games, is there things like INT, and DEX for example?" He asked, curiously.
"Yep. They determine how high-levelled or not you are. Can you tell me what it says?" Jaune inquired, looking like he was giddy in anticipation of... Something.
"Yeah... It says: Name: Lie Ren. Level 22. STR: 37 - DEX: 47 - VIT: 34 - INT: 46 - WIS: 42 - LUK: 40. HP: 750/750, AP: 1598/1600." He said, before Jaune grabbed him by the arm, and forcefully pulled him towards Beacon.
"What are you doing?" The ninja asked, not particularly caring since he could easily get out of Jaune's hold.
"We need to talk to the team about this... If my thought on what your Semblance is, it could be incredibly beneficial to us four." The knight replied, eventually letting go of the ninja's arm.
"Fine by me... But don't we have Professor Goodwitch, in just about ten minutes...?"
"Shit... We're going to be late!"
Jaune Arc had not expected his friend to have a Semblance that let him see the world as a video game... If his hypothesis was true.
Despite the fact that he wasn't that knowledgable about most things, he did notice things. He did know for example, that his shield was useful for blocking and for staggering an opponent.
But, what preoccupied him at the moment was the fact that him and Ren were about to be late! It wouldn't be the first time, but he didn't want to drag his friend down in the mud with him.
And, Ren was also slowing down so that they could keep the same pace, give or take. They eventually entered the room, with the two boys panting like they had run a a marathon.
"Mister Arc, and Mister Ren. Take your seats, please." Goodwitch ordered, who seemed to have decided to not punish them with a detention for some odd reason.
Jaune hastened to obey, his friend closing the door before following him to where Pyrrha and Nora were sitting. The two girls fixed the two of them with looks, asking where the hell they had been.
Ren shrugged, and started to sit down on the table next to the girls. The knight followed him hastily, and Goodwitch started her lesson anew, making it seem like nothing had happened.
Even for Jaune, this was strange. Normally, she had at least something to say about tardiness. It was more like Professor Port and Oobleck to make it seem like nothing happened.
"Today, we will be doing matches between teammates, so that any faults that are noticed by your teammate can be improved upon. For example... Miss Xiao Long overextends a punch, and for example, Miss Rose counters, which is normal from my understanding of it. After the match is finished, regardless of the result, both of the teammates involved can point out eachother's flaws. Two at a time, please, and both people have to consent for a match. Is this okay?" The professor lectured, before gazing at her class who seemed to enjoy the idea.
"Anyone have any questions?" She asked.
A wolf faunus raised his hand, and inquired, "Can classmates as well say their thoughts...?"
"If it doesn't become hate speech, then yes." Goodwitch answered, bluntly. "If racism or bullying gets involved in anyway shape or form with the comments, then they will have to fight me."
Now, that stilled anybody's ideas of doing anything of the sort, he noted as Cardin seemed to slump down.
Ren motioned for a team huddle to Jaune, which he motioned to Nora and Pyrrha.
"So, who's with who?" The knight asked all of them quietly.
"I reckon that it shouldn't be with partners, because of the potential biases that we can have." Ren said, before letting his head gently fall onto the desk.
"I have to agree with Ren there..." Pyrrha admitted reluctantly. "We all do have biases one another, and it can double as more team bonding."
"Yay! I'll be fighting Pyrhhhhaaa!" Nora exclaimed, intentionally dragging out the end of her name.
"I think that Pyrhha definitely needs a better nickname..." Ren commented, from his positon on the table.
"Yeah... I'll come up with one, during the fight, I promise Renny!"
"Quiet down, Miss Valkyrie!" Goodwitch barked out, before returning to refereeing a match between the wolf faunus and his partner.
"So, it's settled? Me vs Ren, and Nora vs Pyrrha?" Jaune asked, after a moment's pause.
"Yes/Yeah/Yep." The three of them agreed, with varying levels of sound.
After the wolf faunus' team had finished, Nora put her hand up and asked cheerily, "Me and Pyrrha now, please, Prof!"
The two had departed, and Jaune quickly whispered towards his friend, "What level are both Nora and Pyrrha?"
"Hmm... Nora is level 25, and Pyrrha is a whopping level 39." Ren replied, seeming unfazed by how freaking strong both of their partners were.
"What about team RWBY?" The knight continued.
"Well, Yang is level 28, Ruby is level 25, Blake is level 21, and Weiss is level 22." The ninja replied, before adding, "But to my understanding, for all we know, they could all be invested in maybe one or two stats that are both super high, but the others are about as strong as a non-aura enhanced extremely skilled person."
Jaune felt a bit hurt at how low his level was, compared to the numbers. It had been said, but he hadn't acutally realized how far behind he was. Now, he knew that he had a long way to go before he was as strong as his classmates. "And Miss Goodwitch?"
"I can't see her level. I have a cap at how high I can see levels, from what I observed earlier. There are some third years that are level 50 to 60, so the fourth years, I'm estimating are probably three times stronger then Pyrrha. So, essentially, everyone is a monster when they enter third year." Ren explained.
"So, how come in the Vytal Tournament, you only see one to second years?" Jaune asked. He had only head his father talking about this, but wanted a better explanation.
"That's because of the fact that when you enter third year, you study exams, and go on missions. They don't exactly have the liberty of going to tournaments." His friend explained, easily.
"Hey guys, it's your turn!" Nora exclaimed, despite the fact that she was sporting a massive bruise to the side of her face, that was already healing with the fantastic thing that was Aura.
Pyrrha also seemed battered, but in much better shape compared to Nora, since she didn't have any bruises apart from minor scratches. She did seem incredibly apologetic though.
"Let's go then, Ren." Jaune told his friend, before saying, "Miss Goodwitch, can me and Ren go as well?"
"Alright, but get your combat gear." The teacher said, nonchalantly despite the fact that she regarded him with a vague amount of concern.
Nevermind that, because he planned on doing his best... Even if it seemed pathetic in the end...
Ren readied his two weapons, and watched Jaune do the same, but with slightly more nervously then usual. Then again, it was the first time that the knight actually wanted to fight, ever since the whole CRDL fiasco.
Whilst he hoped that his leader didn't have the idea in his head that he wanted to win, but that was merely him drawing thoughts from Jaune's brain. He wasn't telepathic, for all he knew.
The ninja rushed forward, deciding that using the SMG part of his gun would be a dick move. Also, he did want to test how decent his sole male friend was at melee combat.
He struck with one of his blades towards the blond who blocked, rather well with his shield. But he quickly kicked the boy's knee which made hims stumble, and performed a palm strike towards the leader's jaw, sending him barreling into a wall.
He decided not to press the attack, and dissect Jaune's fighting style, to see if the blond could adapt. If he didn't, then Ren would have to teach him how to adapt.
The blue-eyed boy quickly rushed towards him, and Ren didn't move, until the last second. It was to see if the boy would either pull a Cardin, and try to overpower him.
The antique sword narrowly missed his arm, and he quickly palmed the poor guy on his ribs, that knocked the wind out of him, but didn't send him right towards the wall. Ren rushed him with his blade-guns, performing an overhead strike, that Jaune surprisingly had enough reflexes to block with his shield.
The blond then forced him back, and performed an arc with his sword. The ninja dodged by jumping backwards, but gave a small smile, which Jaune replied with a grin of his own. Honestly, he had been slower then he was, he would have probably gotten hit.
However, he wouldn't let the Arc become confident. He was dragging out the fight, as it was, and didn't want the anger of his classmates because they hadn't gotten their turn.
He sidestepped an overhead sword strike, and kicked the boy in the knee again, before unleashing an aura-enhanced palm strike, that was fast enough to go right past Jaune's attempt to shield himself with with well his shield, and land right against his jaw, sending him sprawling towards a wall.
Ren followed up with a kick, poised towards the downed blond's stomach who managed to once more block with his shield. He seemed to use his shield more and more, which was good for protecting against single attacks...
He backed off, waiting until his leader got up, before using for the first time in the fight the SMG parts of his guns, which clattered against the shield, and parts of the wall. He eventually ran towards the blond, and swept up his legs from under him, before unleashing another aura-enhanced palm strike towards the blond's stomach.
You have levelled up your Aura Strike skill by one!
The window completely stopped him in his tracks, as he looked on in a mixture of shock and... Glee. His Semblance had... Either evolved, or he hadn't either trained enough to make a message like this appear.
It distracted enough to let Jaune knock his face in with his shield, and follow it up with a sword strike to the torso, that forced him to roll to avoid the other myriad of attacks against his person.
He eventually decided to end the fight, just so he could see what the hell was going on with his strange as all hell Semblance. He bounded towards the Arc, who held up his shield valiantly before Ren fired a few stray shots right to Jaune's right, before leaping at the hole that it left in his guard when the boy turned to the sound of gunfire instinctively.
He once more swept the feet under the blond's feet, and uppercutted the boy in the stomach, before following up with an aura-enhanced palm to the face that sent him flying into the arena walls.
The alarm chimed, and the ninja quickly ran up to the boy, grabbing the rather beaten boy by the arm, taking him so that they could change his weapons... And so that he could apologize.
He had gone in way too hard on his leader, in his haste to make the boy stronger, and to make himself bigger. He'd accept any harsh comments from his classmates, because they were probably deserved.
His Semblance could wait for the moment.
"Oh crap... What hit me?" Jaune commented as he groggily awoke from his unconsciousness.
"It was me. I got way too overexcited about my Semblance, and forgot about your wellbeing." Ren said, before continuing after a vague pause, "So for that, I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted," the boy accepted readily. "I can also get excited... My sisters said I was always hyperactive when I was younger."
"I think that you forgot the bunny part," he retorted without any thought, nor malice behind his words.
"Oi! I'm telling you that I wasn't the bunny of the family!"
"If only your bunny pyjamas weren't the contrary of that statement."
After classes were over, Ren stood in front of his three teammates, noting Nora's overexcited look, Pyrrha's pensive one, and Jaune's anticipative one.
He started up by deciding of dropping the bombshell on both of his female teammates heads, by outright saying/specualting, "I think that my Semblance might be about living my life as a video game, with levels and stuff."
"Are you kidding me?" Nora asked, before staring into his eyes for a long agonizing ten seconds before muttering, "You're actually not... You aren't."
"I don't know anything about it myself, apart from the fact that I have skills that I only know one of, that I can see as far as level 72 give or take, and that I have a thing called stats... But, if what Jaune tells me is right about the matter, I should have quite a few more things to play with." He explained.
"Either this is the most elaborate prank ever or you're telling me the truth." Pyrrha put her two cents in. "But I personally believe you. Why would you go through this effort for a prank of all things?"
"Exactly. Renny isn't a prankster at all, he actually dislikes the thought of it!" The explosives experts added, a grin on her face.
"So, now that is out of the way," Jaune interrupted, relatively nervously. "We need to see if his Semblance can acutally help us develop as well... Because, this is technically a multiplayer game, since you say that people have levels as well, right?"
"Yes... But I suspect that it is also murked by stats, and my own perspective of the situation. I have always thought that third years, and fourth years should be much more skilled then us, so maybe my Semblance added a few levels to them, for example." Ren pointed out.
"And... We could all be NPC's to him?" Pyrrha voiced, drawing surprised looks from the entire team. She flushed. "What? I did get to play games, a tiny bit..."
The dark-haired boy shook his head, ignoring the fact that his perspective of Pyrrha had just been moved to a completely new place, and continued, "And before we experiment with that stuff, I reckon that I should at least discover what else it can do at the moment. Just to be on the safe side."
"Sure..." Jaune said reluctantly. "If you want..."
"Don't worry Jauney! Ren'll share the results with us all!" Nora quickly exclaimed.
"Since Jaune is probably the most knowledgable on games out of our team, I reckon that he should be a good place to start, on what type of abilities your Semblance could have." Pyrrha stated, her eyes growing interested at something or other.
"Since we've got three hours until all lights out, let's start now shall we?" Ren proposed, finding it incredibly easy now to speak to all of them, unlike barely a day ago when it was only Nora that he had felt entirely comfortable with.
"Alright." The blond leader said, before narrowing his eyes to concentrate.
Thirty seconds after, he smiled up to see that... Nora had nearly falled asleep, Pyrrha was trying her best to keep the hyper girl awake, and Ren was simply staring right at him. "God dammit! I was only concentrating for thirty seconds..."
"It was in fact five minutes." The ninja indicated, unhelpfully. "But I've discovered that I can now have the time on the corner of... What was it called again?"
"A HUD." The knight said, before elaborating at Ren's look of 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about'. "Heads-up display... Where you can see health, armor, et cetera."
"In my Semblance, I have a health and... Er, I guess Aura bar on the top-right, a map lookalike on the top left, and on the bottom, there's only the time."
"Sweet. That's a nice non clutter-filled HUD if I've ever seen one."
"Er... Guys, it might be three hours before lights out, but we're all exhausted. Let's do this as soon as we can tomorrow - it is a weekend." Pyrrha said, relatively sternly. At least, she was trying Ren mused, as he quickly changed, and went to bed.
It looked to be a good day tomorrow, for all that it was worth.
AN: Quick spoiler warning: renisactingsostrangeforsomereasonthatisrelatedtohissemblancethatmostpeopleknowalotabout.
Hehehe. I had to do the above at least once - acting like a bit of an idiot... Which I usually do on this thing.
Expect jokes here and there, since not every story is grim dark. Volume 4 doesn't seem that bad on the darkness front, despite many people claiming that they cried at various points.
I might be a heartless bastard, actually. Dunno.
Might have to check up with Doctor Junkrat for some therapy.