Feet First into Hell
I.
My eyes slowly fluttered open to an unfamiliar ceiling and an equally as unfamiliar room. Aside from a bed and a drawer, the room was completely empty, the walls painted a dull decaying white. It was about as spartan of a bedroom that I had ever come across, almost like someone had just recently moved in and hadn't bothered to buy any furnishings.
Slowly, I moved over towards the edge of the bed and found that my legs didn't quite reach the ground.
That was rather odd because while I wasn't exactly tall, I wasn't that short either and stood at a modest 5'9. Taking a good look at my legs, I found myself wearing a pair of pants that I don't ever recall owning, and even crazier was how short my legs looked. Before I could break out into a slight panic, a strange window reminiscent of those video game pop-ups appeared in front of me.
Welcome, Gamer!
You have been selected to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime experience! You have been chosen to participate as a player in Remnant: The Game, as Mercury Black! Complete quests and activities to grow stronger, shaping the world as you like!
What?
A dozen or so questions quickly ran through my mind, but another pop-up appeared in front of me, catching my attention before I could properly freak out.
You have been granted the abilities of The Gamer!
[New perk unlocked: Gamer's Body.]
[New perk unlocked: Gamer's Mind.]
[The Panic condition has been negated by Gamer's Mind]
I blinked at that as a strange wave of calmness suddenly flowed through me.
Gamer's Mind? What was that?
Another notification popped up as soon as the question appeared in my mind.
Gamer's Mind: Don't worry, this is all just a game! Keeps the mind calm and allows The Gamer to logically access any situation. Immune to mental disorders.
That was… rather useful.
It explained the initial panic attack that I was about to have all but disappearing. So, I now had the ability to remain calm in any situation. It would have been a nice ability to have back in my old life, but that was neither here nor there. I was now apparently Mercury Black from RWBY, and as a child no less, so it wasn't even the start of the show yet. I could now see the memories of his completely fucked up childhood and the kid wasn't even eight years old yet.
It sure explained why Mercury had grown up into such an asshole.
Wait… If I was now occupying Mercury's body, then where was Mercury? Did I just body jack a seven-year-old kid?
[The Guilty Conscience condition has been negated by Gamer's Mind]
Huh… I guess that explains why I didn't feel much of… anything at the thought of essentially killing someone and while that in itself should have been alarming, I was still feeling an almost serene sense of calmness.
The Gamer's Mind was one scary ability.
And what was that other ability? The Gamer's Body?
Gamer's Body: Don't worry, this is all just a game! A body that allows one to live as if they were in a video game!
That… didn't explain much.
Did that mean I had an HP bar now? Could I have extra lives? Could I save scum like I usually did in video games? The explanation gave me more questions than it did answers.
Unfortunately, with the door to my room suddenly slamming open, it seemed that I wouldn't have any more time to ponder.
The person that stood at the door had silver hair along with a matching beard that covered up the bottom portion of his face. He wore a red duster jacket and had a rather intimidating look in his eyes. Based on the uncanny resemblance the man seemed to bear to the Mercury Black that I remembered from the show and from my newly acquired memories, the man standing outside of my doorframe had to be none other than Marcus Black.
Mercury's, or rather, my abusive father.
Marcus Black
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Race: Human
Level: 50
Title: Famous Assassin (+50% Damage vs Humans and Faunus)
[By performing a new task, you have created the Observe skill]
So I could create new skills for myself by simply doing new activities? That was some useful information to file into the back of my head. The observe skill was a rather useful ability to have as well, I wonder if I could observe myself?
"It's time for training, boy."
Unfortunately, it seemed that I wouldn't have the chance to find out just yet since my father had other plans in mind.
My new father's steel-toed boot connected with my abdomen before I even had a chance to react. I was sent flying off to the side before my body finally connected with a tree and promptly slumped over. I had to fight back the urge to heave as I slowly forced myself up onto my knees.
Blood leaked out from my busted lip as I couldn't help but grimace a bit in pain.
-10 HP
[Your Resist(Physical) has increased by 1]
Judging from that HP notification that just popped up, I did in fact have an HP bar. I'm guessing that no matter what kind of injury I suffered, as long as my HP bar didn't hit zero, I wouldn't die. And apparently, even just getting my ass handed to me would benefit me in some way, if that second pop-up meant anything.
The Gamer sure was an overpowered ability to have.
"You're telegraphing your punches too much, boy." Marcus pointed out with an annoyed look on his face. "How many times do I have to tell you that? Now, attack me again, correctly this time."
A new window popped up in front of my eyes.
[Quest Unlocked: Training Day, Boy]
What's an assassin without a protégé? Marcus Black wants someone to take over the family business one day, which means training up his one and only son. Unfortunately for you, Marcus's training methods can be a tad brutal. Land a hit on Marcus during training! (Difficulty: Hard)
Success: +500 exp, Increased Reputation with Marcus Black, Unknown Reward?
Failure: Decreased Reputation with Marcus Black
I wiped away the blood dripping down my chin with the back of my hand.
So, my options were to either land a hit on a guy that apparently didn't even hold back against his seven-year-old son or get a beating disguised in the form of training. Yeah, those were some real swell options I had there.
I've only known Marcus for an hour or so and I already hated the man. I can definitely see how Mercury turned out the way he did with Marcus raising him. I'm honestly surprised Mercury didn't try to kill his old man earlier if this was how he got treated every day. Or maybe he did and just failed at it until he got stronger.
"If you're not going to attack, then I'll come to you, boy!" Marcus growled out as he rushed forward.
Marcus was quick, much quicker than me so I didn't stand a chance if I tried to have a fair fight with him. The guy was apparently level 50 and since I had just started the game, I'm guessing that I was still level 1. Yeah, if I didn't try to cheat, I don't think that I would be able to land a hit even if I had a million chances.
I grabbed a handful of dirt into my right hand before I finally got up and moved into a proper fighting stance from Mercury's memories. Marcus got close and threw a punch aimed at my face that I just barely managed to dodge in time. Instead of trying to punch back, I threw the handful of dirt in my right hand at his face. That seemed to catch him by surprise as he tried to snap his eyes shut in response.
That gave me the opening that I needed to launch a kick aimed at his ribs. Marcus still somehow managed to block my attack though, even with his eyes closed before he sent me rag-dolling onto the dirt again with a nasty uppercut. If I didn't have the Gamer's Body, that hit would have probably knocked me unconscious.
-10 HP
[Your Resist(Physical) has increased by 1]
[The Dazed condition has been negated by Gamer's Mind]
[By performing a new task, you have created the skill Dirty Fighting!]
[By performing a new task, you have created the skill Hand-to-Hand Combat!]
A bunch of new pop-ups appeared in front of me, but I just ignored them as I slowly got back up on my feet again.
I was a new player in the game, wasn't I? What kind of fucked up tutorial quest was this? How the hell was I supposed to land a hit on a guy that had like forty-plus levels on me? Wasn't this something that was beyond reasonable for a first quest?
"Dirty tricks like that might work against amateurs, boy," Marcus said as he slowly walked over towards me. "But against anyone with even an inkling of skill, you're going to have to do a lot better than that."
"... How the hell am I supposed to land a hit on you then?" I asked as I spit out some blood.
"That's for you to figure out, boy," Marcus replied with a sneer. "Now come on, attack me."
Damn it. This was just unfair.
Didn't I have any special skills or abilities I could use? I decided to use the observe ability on myself to see.
Mercury Black
Gender: Male
Age: 7
Race: Human
Level: 3
Title: None
HP: 80/100
MP: 50
STR: 10
VIT: 10
DEX: 8
CHA: 2
INT: 4
WIS: 4
LUK: 0
Perks:
Gamer's Mind
Gamer's Body
Skills:
Observation: 1
Damage Resistance(Physical): 2
Dirty Fighting: 1
Hand-to-Hand Combat: 1
Attribute Points: 0
Interestingly enough, I got a lot more information from observing myself than I did from observing Marcus. I guess once I raised the level of my observation skill some more, I would be able to gather more intel from others as well. Mercury's stats didn't seem to be too bad considering his level. As expected his physical attributes were quite good while his social and mental attributes lagged a bit behind. The zero value in luck was a little bit alarming, but I could just pump so more points into that stat later on.
As for skills, Dirty fighting was a new skill that I had just unlocked, so maybe that could be useful here?
Dirty Fighting: A chance to land a critical hit when employing underhanded tactics in a fight! Current crit chance: 1%
So, I had a one in a hundred chance of actually landing a good hit on Marcus.
Wonderful.
What about the other skill? Hand-to-Hand Combat?
Hand-to-Hand Combat: Increased damage when fighting hand-to-hand! Current bonus: 1%
Another passive skill that didn't do anything for me right now. They were definitely skills that would be strong in the future, but without higher levels in them, they were pretty useless.
I was pretty much screwed then, wasn't I?
Well, who knows, maybe I'd luck out here and land the 1% crit dream. The main character always found a way to overcome stacked odds, didn't they? And I was the main character in this game, wasn't I?
I had to be, with an overpowered ability like this, so I charged at him with another handful of dirt in my hands.
-10 HP
-10 HP
-10 HP
[Your Resist(Physical) has increased by 3]
[Time Limit has expired, Quest Failed: Training Day, Boy]
[Reputation with Marcus Black has decreased]
"Is that all you got, Boy?" Marcus sneered. "Pathetic. You'll never amount to anything at this rate."
[The Overwhelming Anger condition has been negated by Gamer's Mind]
I normally hated it when people talked down to me like that, but I guess the Gamer's Mind wouldn't even let me get angry about it.
With the way Marcus had kicked my ass, that couldn't have even been called a training session, it was straight-up child abuse more than anything. The Gamer's Body might have made it so that I wouldn't die unless my HP went to zero, but it didn't do anything about the pain and Marcus sure did a number on me. Interestingly enough, I didn't feel fatigued at all either, even after a beatdown like that, so that was probably another perk of the Gamer's Body.
Marcus didn't have anything else to say before he walked off, leaving me alone outside in the dirt.
That entire experience had been a colossal waste of time, with the only positive outcome being that I managed to get some levels into my physical resistance skill. Marcus didn't teach me shit, so how the hell could that be considered training? And Mercury had to deal with this asshole every day?
Yeah, there was no way in hell I was going to stay here with Marcus.
[Quest Unlocked: The Runaway]
Marcus is a terrible parent, so run away if you can! Just make sure to not get caught! (Difficulty: Hard)
Success: +1000 exp, Massive Decrease in Reputation with Marcus Black, Unknown Reward?
Failure: Death
Are you serious?
Marcus would kill me just for trying to run away? He'd kill his own son for something like that? What an absolute bastard. As enticing as the reward for completing that quest was, I didn't have a death wish either. The difficulty on the quest was rated as hard, just like the training one had been and that one had been all but impossible.
That meant that running away wasn't a viable option.
Which meant that I had to kill him, just like Mercury had done in the show. The only problem was that I was a seven-year-old right now and Marcus had forty-plus levels on me. The teenage Mercury might have been strong enough to kill Marcus, but I didn't stand a chance right now. I could try to kill him in his sleep, but I doubt that it would be that easy, otherwise Mercury would have done it a long time ago.
Maybe poison, but where would I find something deadly enough to kill someone with Aura?
[Quest Unlocked: Kinslayer]
Marcus is a terrible parent, so get rid of him for good! Just make sure to not mess it up! (Difficulty: Extreme)
Success: +9000 exp, Marcus Dies, Reputation Increased with the Huntsman Association, Unknown Reward?
Failure: Death
This quest had an even higher difficulty rating than the others and I still die if I fail...
I couldn't run away and I couldn't find a way to get rid of Marcus either, which meant that I was stuck here until the foreseeable future; at least until I could get strong enough to finish one of those quests. I was a seven-year-old stuck in a household with an abusive alcoholic for a father who also happened to be a professional murderer on the side.
Yeah, I could see why Mercury had a zero value in the luck stat now.
This was one fucked up starting point.
Author's Notes- I've always wanted to do one of these, so here's my own take into the Gamer-type stories. I chose Mercury because there's already a ton of gamer stories with Jaune already, so I figured I might as well do something different. Also, I rarely write stories in first-person, so everyone will have to bear with my struggles early on as I get used to it. Leave me a review if you want to see more! Or if you have any tips on how to improve the story!
Edit: Probably should have mentioned this earlier, but it slipped my mind. I'm using my own version of the Gamer system, so certain things will be different.