Torchwick lay down on the bed. He shook his head as he tried to come to grips with reality. His current situation, living a dating sim, just felt so impossible. He knew he was in hell because of how he lived, but he admitted he'd do it all again given the choice.

A prompt suddenly appeared in front of Torchwick. It took him by surprise and he bolted upright. It was a blue message box that filled the majority of his vision. Torchwick looked around the room and noted the message box moved with his movements. It read:

Would you like to play the tutorial?

-Yes

-No

Torchwick looked at the options and it didn't take him long to make a decision. He reached out a hand to tap "Yes." His hand simply passed through the option and nothing happened. He swatted at the option again to no avail.

"Yes I want – " Torchwick said.

"Welcome new player," a female voice began, interrupting Torchwick. "You have begun the tutorial. The purpose of this tutorial is to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of this game. What you do in the tutorial will not carry over to actual gameplay. Are you ready?"

Again a message box appeared in front of Torchwick. The options were:

-Yes

-No

"Yeah, I guess," Torchwick said.

Nothing happened. He sighed and tried to tap the "yes" option which still did nothing.

Torchwick corrected saying, "Yes."

"Excellent," the voice continued. "As you may be noticing, dialogue options will be limited at points in your play through. At these points you may only continue by repeating the provided dialogue options. Anything else you say will not be registered by the system or avatars. Outside such moments you are free to say whatever you want.

"This dating sim is very powerful and versatile. Your settings are Beacon and the town of Vale. This system allows open world exploration of your environments. Romantic encounters can occur at any time, of any day, in any place. It is up to you to find such encounters and capitalize them."

"You said open world?" Torchwick asked.

"To assist you in your romances," the voice said, ignoring the question, "we have provided you a small notebook. It will always exist in your front left pocket. Opening it is the only pause menu we will allow you. Inside you will find a data base of all the avatars you may romance. Until you encounter them in game their page in the notebook will remain blank. You are free to write any notes about each character on their page and the notes will save between play throughs.

"Here in Hell we do not take Romance lightly. To woo the hearts of these avatars you will need to get to know them, learn what they love, and win romance mini-games. Each avatar has a unique romance mini-game and the difficulty will of each encounter will increase as you progress along the affection tack. A successful play through is achieved when you win your first kiss with any romanceable avatar. Failure to do so in a years' time counts a failed play through.

"That said, do you have questions?" the voice finished.

"Yeah," Torchwick began. "You said open world, right?"

"Yes."

"How many romanceable girls are there?"

"There are thirteen romanceable female avatars."

"Is it possible to fail before the end of a year?"

"Yes."

"You said romance mini-games?"

"I did."

"The hell does that mean?"

"It's a game within a game."

"Wow, every part of hell is as sarcastic as I am," Torchwick said under his breath. "What kind of mini-games am I going to play? Bejeweled? Dust Crush?"

"The mini-game will depend on the avatar. It will reflect their personality, and knowing the avatar intimately may give you better odds of winning. Do you have any further questions?"

"Not really."

Torchwick's vision was filled with text. Massive cursive letters spelling "Day 1" appeared and slowly faded from view. Then the only door into the dorm opened. In walked three other people.

The one leading the three was a girl with a white shirt and pink skirt. She walked in and leapt onto the nearest bed which made her pink hair flail wildly. Behind her was a taller boy with long black hair wearing some green get-up Torchwick didn't know the name for. He paused in the doorway. Behind him was someone even a criminal Torchwick could name: Pyrrha Nikos.

"So, you're our new teammate?" Pyrrha asked.

Torchwick went to reply but the world somewhat faded. Three dialogue options scrolled into view. They read:

-I suppose I am

-Yeah, my name is Roman.

-New? What happened to the old one?

"Wow," Torchwick said. "I don't even get to introduce myself. Let's see here… I don't really care about the old teammate. I'm not some goody goody… Wow. I wouldn't say any of this. No choice then, 'I suppose I am.'"

"Yeah," Pyrrha continued. "Our old teammate, old leader, cheated his way into the school. He was – "

"Jesus I didn't pick the backstory option," Torchwick said.

"Excuse me?" Pyrrha asked, taken aback.

"Wait," Torchwick sat up, "You can hear me?"

There was a long silence before the other boy said, "We can all hear you."

"Aren't you a wise ass?," Torchwick returned.

"Does that make you the crazy one?" the girl asked.

"Listen here brat," Torchwick said turning to her.

"Wait," Pyrrha interjected. "Now, now, we don't need to start a fight. I think we're getting off on the wrong foot. I mean, we haven't even introduced ourselves. I'm Pyrrha Nikos."

There was a pause before the boy added, "I'm Lie Ren."

"I'm Nora," the girl said.

Torchwick sighed before saying, "I'm Torchwick."

"That doesn't start with an 'R'" Nora pointed out.

"Really?" Torchwick asked. "I hadn't noticed."

"Duh," Nora returned. "That isn't what I meant. Our team is Team Prune."

"Prune?" Torchwick asked.

"P-R-R-N," Ren spelled, "Prune."

"So," Nora continued, "What's your last name? The 'R' in our name."

Torchwick opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by dialogue options.

"I'm really starting to hate this game," Torchwick muttered as he read his options.

-It's Roman.

-Actually it's my first name, and it's Roman.

-Roman.

"These are literally all the same," Torchwick said. "Why do I even have to pick? 'It's Roman', how is that even an option."

"How is what an option?" Pyrrha asked.

Torchwick realized what he'd done. He'd said one of the options sarcastically but the stupid game had taken him seriously. This was shaping up to make him look like an insane person.

"Nothing," Torchwick said.

"I guess those are introductions," Ren said. "We should go. Class starts soon."

"Oh right," Pyrrha said. "Roman, the team has the same schedule so just follow us."

"Sure," Torchwick said, "and I'd rather you call me Torchwick."

The next four hours were spent in lectures given by Professor Port and Oobleck. Torchwick had nearly fallen asleep in Port's class, but the fact they were in the first row incentivized staying awake. He'd tuned out Oobleck's entire lecture and instead thought about Neo and whether or not she was still alive. Finally it was lunch, and after that was his last class of the day with Professor Goodwitch.

The lunch was nothing special. He had a choice of soup, mystery meat, or a sandwich. He chose the sandwich at Pyrrha's suggestion. The four of them sat at a table and Nora jumped into recounting her dream last night. Something about fighting a giant Ursa that turned into a pancake demon.

"Hey Pyrrha," someone said, taking a seat across from Torchwick at the table. "Is this your new teammate?"

He looked up and his face contorted into that of disgust. Across from him in her childish little hood was Little Red. She was looking at him with the biggest and dumbest grin on her face. The grin faded as she realized Torchwick was giving her a death stare. She looked over to Pyrrha hurriedly and lost the smile.

"Torchwick," Pyrrha hissed. "Play nice."

"You're not my boss," Torchwick replied.

"But I am your leader," she retorted. "This is Ruby, and she is a good friend"

"Neat, but she isn't my friend," Torchwick replied.

"Uh hehaha," Ruby forced a laugh. "Not super friendly huh? That's alright."

"Torchwick," Pyrrha said.

Torchwick was going to retort when his vision filled with dialogue options. He sighed as they became legible and he skimmed his options.

-Sorry Ruby.

-Sorry Pyrrha.

-No.

"Finally, an easy one," Torchwick said. "N- ... Wait. I'm supposed to be romancing these twerps. Almost forgot. No point in being nice to both of them if I don't have to. Let's see, 'Sorry Ruby.'"

"It's ok," Ruby said.

Three other people sat down at the table. Torchwick recognized each one of them: Ice Queen, Kitty Cat, and Blondie. Just looking at the four people across from him was a subtle reminder of the fact he was in hell; if he were in heaven he'd never see these faces again.

"So," Blondie began, "this is the new teammate. I'm Yang."

"Blake," Kitty Cat said.

"Weiss," Ice Queen added.

"Torchwick, Roman Torchwick," Torchwick replied.

"Mind if I call you Roman?" Yang asked.

"Greatly," Torchwick replied.

"Oh," Yang said with a smirk, "Do you not like Roman?"

"The last person who called me Roman was a massive bitch," Torchwick said.

"I called you Roman before we left the room," Pyrrha pointed out.

"Not you, the one before I came here," Torchwick corrected.

"Oh ho this is getting better," Yang said. "An old lover, an ex? Who was she?"

"Haha," Torchwick laughed genuinely, "My Oum there's no way we'd ever have anything like that. She'd sooner castrate me than consider a date."

"Castrate?" Ruby asked.

"I'm not going to explain that one," Torchwick suddenly very serious.

Ruby pulled out her scroll. After a quick search her face blushed a deep red.

"So you're that kind of guy?" Yang inferred.

"Yang!" Weiss, Pyrrha, Blake, Ren, and Ruby all said in unison.

"You read too much into that," Torchwick said.

"Stop that," a voice cried from behind them.

The group turned to see a rabbit faunus having her ears pulled on by a guy in armor. She was half bent over with the guy's hand firmly grasping her left ear. Her food had fallen from her tray. Torchwick could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

"See, I told you they were real," the guy said, giving the ears a yank.

Torchwick's vision filled with two choices:

-Intervene

-Ignore

"This is a romance game," Torchwick said, rising. "Not like I really care too much."

Torchwick made his way over to the bully and his compatriots. There were four of them and they all starred as Torchwick approached. The faunus girl took the slack in the bully's grip to free her ear. She stepped away from the guy but didn't move towards Torchwick.

"What're you looking at?" the bully asked, slowly rising from his seat.

He stood about the same height as Torchwick. His brown eyes looked into Torchwick's and screamed like the guy was ready to fight. Torchwick didn't even flinch; next to Cinder it was like he was starring an angry puppy down.

"Trust me Compensator," Torchwick said, gesturing to the guy's armor, "You know I'm here because you're being an ass."

"What was that?" the guy stepped in closer.

Oh Oum, Torchwick thought. He's really close. I'm still thinking about how this is romance game. Oum, this is one step away from being a weird romantic encounter. Step back kid.

"Going to grab a girl's ears, honestly how petty," Torchwick said. "It's like grabbing her hair and puffing your chest out. Maybe the armor doesn't compensate enough."

"I'll kill you," the guy hissed.

"I'll avenge him," a new voice said.

The bully turned around to see the new person. Behind him was a girl in very fashionable clothes and a black beret. She stood half a head shorter than the bully but gave off a vive ten times more threatening than the bully. Behind her was a seven foot behemoth with a sword just as big slung across his back.

"Holy…" the bully said, tilting his head up to meet the gaze of the behemoth.

"You should consider the effects of your actions," the behemoth said.

"I'm… I'm sorry," the bully said.

"Don't apologize to him," the woman said. "Apologize to Velvet."

"Who?" the bully asked.

With that the woman growled and kicked the bully in the shin. He fell down grabbing his leg and gripping like a small child. Torchwick was again presented with an option:

-Intervene

-Ignore

Torchwick chose to ignore. He wanted to see the bully get beaten up; more than that he didn't want to go toe to toe with either of the new arrivals.

"You," the woman said. "Thanks for stepping in, but we got this."

"What's your name?" the behemoth asked.

"I'm Torchwick," he replied.

"I'm Yatsuhashi, and this is Coco," the behemoth said.

Torchwick looked to Coco who was holding the bully by the collar and shaking him back and forth. She was asking him rhetorical questions and shaking more violently when he tried to answer. Yatsuhashi began to try to calm her down.

"You should get to class," Yatsuhashi said. "Underclassmen lunch is about to end soon."

"Okay," Torchwick said, backing away from the scene.

The next hour was theoretical battle strategies followed by two hours of applied sparring with Professor Goodwitch. Torchwick held back against his partner, who'd been a buddy of the bully from lunch, because the poor guy was so slow for Torchwick. Even in this world a freshman was a freshman, and unlike Little Red they didn't have the same drive or finesse in a fight. After all the classes Torchwick returned to his room, exhausted.

"Why do people choose to do this," Torchwick said. "I didn't go to school and, I mean, I only turned into a criminal mastermind."

"You, a criminal mastermind?" Nora asked.

"How long have you been here?" Torchwick asked, rolling to face her.

"I was here when you walked in," Nora said. "You really are crazy. And not like me crazy, but the bad kind of crazy."

"I really don't care what a twerp thinks of me," Torchwick said.

"Why are you an ass only in front of us?" Nora asked.

"What?"

"This morning you were an asshole. But the rest of the day you're a good guy. Now you're an asshole again. Is it split personality or are you an all for show kind of guy?"

"I'm a sarcastic asshole all the tie sweetheart, you're just not paying attention."

"Really?"

"That bully, I was an ass to him."

"Yeah, but while saving Velvet. Although she didn't really need it."

"With a seven foot bodyguard like that, she doesn't need to fight Grimm."

"Anyway," Nora changed topics, "if you keep this up I'm not going to force myself to be kind to you. If this attitude hurts Pyrrha, or Oum save you Ren, I will break your legs."

"Oh no" Torchwick moaned sarcastically. "Oh yeah."

Torchwick pulled out the notebook from his pocket. After a full day it was a good idea to check the list of people he needed to seduce to end this game. He began to flip through the pages. First page was Pyrrha and it her full name, age, and 'difficult to seduce' which had her listed as medium. The next page was Nora who was marked as insane difficulty. The next page caught Torchwick off guard; it was Ren with a difficulty of insane.

"Hey, omnipresent thing," Torchwick called.

"Yes?" a voice resonated all around Torchwick.

"Why is a guy on the list of people for me to woo?"

"We're very accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. Our developer decided to include the option of gay romances in the game."

"So, you're saying I have to romance guys and girls?"

"Yes," the voice said.

"So what's my incentive to romance every character anyway?"

"True," the voice hesitated, "Every time you romance each character once I'll remove a thousand play throughs from your to do list."

"Seriously?" Torchwick asked.

"But I mean Every. Character. Successfully." The voice reiterated.

"Deal," Torchwick said. "It's not like I wanted to seduce an of these kids anyway."

Torchwick went back to looking through is notebook. Ruby, medium; Weiss, hard; Blake, hard; Yang, medium; Velvet, easy; Coco, medium; blank page; Yatsuhashi, medium; quite a few blank pages; Port…

"Omnipresence!" Torchwick said.

"Yes, him too," the voice cut Torchwick off.

"You sick bastard!"