Guess Who's BACK? Back Again?

Probably not me, if I ever post this chapter. Welcome to my new fanfic! Which will admittedly probably die soon, but alas writer's block is a problem. Anyways, this new fanfiction is ANOTHER RWBY crossover! ( Because damnnit I only know the entirety of RWBY lore ) with the Gamer/S.T.A.L.K.E.R/Tiberium Wars! Is it going to be a mess? YOU BET YER ASS! SO STRAP IN FOR THIS CLUSTERFUCK OF A MESS AND LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!

Chapter 1 : Red Tiberium Dawn

Odd, it was a lot less painful then what I originally expected it to be. Of course, getting hit by a truck is by no means painless, but I suppose my adrenaline and apparently some sort of natural painkillers kicked in? I'm skeptical on the 'natural painkillers' thing since I had only learned it once and I don't remember where I learned it from… Probably the internet. Dammit, truck-kun. So, this is death? An abyss with nothing but enteral emptiness? Honestly, what a boring, boring death to be experiencing frankly… I suppose I could laugh at the Christians now with their idealistic vision of utopia, but I was slightly disappointed by the fact that I wasn't reincarnated as per Buddhist beliefs or even Isekai'd into another multiverse. That could've been fun, isekai'd into a new world and to meet new people, and perhaps even screw about, just as long as it wasn't 40K. I'd commit self-blamming at that point if I was ever alive in the 40K universe.

Whelp, might as well try to do something. I could still vaguely feel my 'Being' as it was, with limbs attached and everything and yet feeling so weightless. The first thing to do? Why of course, that would be to attempt opening my eyes! And so I did, and well…. I guess I was Isekai'd into something after all. I could see something in front of me before I looked down at myself, my body floating weightlessly and well, I was thankfully still wearing my suit. I looked back at what was floating in front of me and saw a simple white 'Screen' with text.

RWBY – Remnant Roleplay. [Gamers Allowed][Online Market][AI] | 8 Billion / -

[ Join Server? ][ Select Different Server ][ Stats ][ Settings ]

Now, I knew enough about being a gamer to understand server select, and I'll be damned if I were to get ripped off from getting any cool abilities or whatever. So, the first thing I did instead was check the Settings. As you would expect, there was generally some minor settings based on language ( Odd, to think that your starting language would be in 'Language' settings, there's even a 'Cockney' setting ) along with visuals which I had no idea how that would work, and-

[ Keep Previous Stats and Knowledge? [N] ]

[ Gamer Abilities [N] ]

Ah-ha! Finally, something to blame on my horrible existence in real life! Wait, I guess that would just be another server then? Man, why in the hell did I ever choose that server then? That previous server sucked! Big-time too, no fun mods or anything back in real-life! I quickly turned both settings to 'Yes' or 'Y', quickly hopping into my 'Stats' section of my 'Character' I suppose, odd to be thinking of myself as a 'Character' but I suppose everyone projected a bit of themselves into their own characters. The first thing that showed up was appearance and customization… Hell, yes! Finally, I could do away with my wimpy frame that everyone keeps nagging me about, hello American advertisement-worthy body- Wait, do I really want to change how I look? Maybe just some… tweaks would do, yeah… That ought to do it. So there I was, with a slightly changed body which admittedly while it was taking place, gave me a feeling of numbness as the changes took over. Now, onto the important stuff besides visuals…. The stats.

First thing's first, I will not go entirely into detail since it's rather boring in me trying to explain game mechanics, so I'll just give you a gist or overview of what I went through. First things first, for every game that I've ever played ( which was quite a few ), every hour of playtime would roughly translate to a year's worth of experience… Huh, I wonder what 4 thousand hours of Garry's mod would translate to? No matter, I had plenty of hours into other games to deal with, such as my favorite S.T.A.L.K.E.R Game series by GSC, XCOM 2, Warhammer Dawn of War ( the first and second respectively, the first being the base game and winter assault ), Company of Heros 1 and 2, Half-Life 2 and a few mods ( My favorite was Entropy : Zero, one where you play as a metrocop ), Starbound, RWBY : Grimm Eclipse, Left 4 Dead, Unturned, and so many many more. In the end, I was probably looking at some sort of Commander slash Rambo-type character in the end with an excessive habit for construction and survival.

Once I was done with that, I could move onto 'Perks' which were essentially abilities I could steal from video games and/or whatever I watched recently. In the end, I just chose the 'Custom Gamer' perk which allowed me to choose whatever system of gameplay I wanted, namely in this case I chose a combination of S.T.A.L.K.E.R HUD and generic Gamer powers with a dash of Command and Conquer abilities. Then came 'Inventory' which transferred to something similar to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R setting with simple 1x1 slots that could be filled up with items… Never let it be said I maximized whatever I could carry like the bandit I am, eventually choosing a S.T.A.L.K.E.R SSP-99M suit with a AKM Russian assault rifle and a few miscellaneous like an armor and weapon repair kit ( God, how much I hated repairing equipment from vendors, I always enjoyed Fallout NV's system of cobbling weapons or armor together to repair them ) along with a medical kit and a Svarog Detector. Hey, it's not like I'm going to be needing food anytime soon anyways unless it's for healing! And what if there's suddenly an appearance of anomalies and artifacts? I need those artifacts to pay for a majority of what I'll need anyways.

All of this didn't quite take up all of my inventory space thankfully and weighed practically nothing in my hands, so I still had a lot to work with in case I needed to do anything with my empty space. I only had six perks which I selected, two of which were typical standard 'Gamer' perks with that being Gamer's mind and body, and four new ones which I had selected, two of which oddly enough was new to me.

[ Jury-Rigging (Active) LV MAX ] -

Allows for Weapons and Armors to be repaired via Kits or Spare Weapons/Parts.

[ Creation (Active) LV MAX ] -

Allows for Weapon, Armor, and various other items to be created with materials. Effectiveness/Condition is based on Skill Level.

[ S.T.A.L.K.E.R's Spirit (Passive) LV MAX ] -

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Artifacts have higher chance of appearing as loot after every quest/mob killed.

[ Commander's MCV (One-Time) ] -

Spawns Player with a Tiberium Wars MCV.

Now that I was done selecting my 'loadout', which was heavily S.T.A.L.K.E.R leaning as opposed to every other game, I finally went back to the screen that took me to the servers. My finger hovered over slightly over the 'Join Server' button, taking a deep breath as I let my finger press against the 'Holographic' button. My vision faded to black, an immense grin on my face as I mentally blacked out. Wait, does this mean I'll forget-

Establishing Communications Uplink...

Establishing Field Control...

Welcome back, Commander.

Head… Hurts… Body… Sore. What the fuck did I do to deserve this? I groaned slightly in pain as I rubbed my eyes, my body desperately clinging for more sleep, 'Just five more minutes…'. God, who put these blankets on me? It feels like I'm being suffocated by- wait… these aren't blankets. I got up reluctantly, mostly due to my own body, as I looked down. No, this wasn't a blanket at all! I was wearing some sort of suit, looking out of a glass covering as I tried to take it off. Thankfully, it wasn't that hard to figure out but admittedly it took more time than I'd care to figure out about. I sucked in a deep breath, the top portion or at least the head covering was off of me, so I could breath non-recycled air… So then why did it still taste like iron?

I looked around, and frankly I was disturbed by what I saw. Around me were large terminals and screens, with an almost futuristic vibe going on and utilitarian in design. Nope, not my bedroom at all… Immediately, I could tell what had happened… Well no, not really but I had an outlandish guess at what happened. I'm the sort of person who likes to think they knew all about how the world worked and this, just basically made me throw all of my logical ideas I had learned out the metaphorical window. Something beeped, and instinctively I turned my head to see what it was. It was… Well, it looked ancient. Not really, but having something like a phone from the early 2000's was considered ancient by my standards… Looked like… a PDA?

I opened it up… and saw what basically confirmed my suspicions.

[ Main Quest – Where in the goddamn? ]

Establish a Refinery and Barracks

- ?

So, this is it then? I got isekai'd? Shit I really didn't think that I'd be turned into some god-awful fanfiction story… Now, I understand at this point most people would be panicking, pleading for whatever god to take them back to reality, or merely accept it. I am one of those people who merely accepts it… No, I embraced the fact. I stood and I laughed… I laughed because I had left behind a shitty existence, I had left behind those for which I had no care for save my friends, I had laughed because now I possess a power in which I did not have. So then, why did my chest tighten when I laughed?

'I… Left my friends behind'.

So… this was it then? Nobody to talk to, nobody to help me through my mistakes… Just me on my own… I turned around and looked to the bed and sat down, empty of any emotions save for some slight depression or what I assumed it was.

I can't say when I fell asleep, but when I woke up the next time I nearly had a panic attack but eventually recollected myself. So, this was it then? My new life as… what, a gamer? I cracked my neck, looking down at the PDA before I noticed something odd about it. It was like… Oh goddamnit, it's Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars on an Ipad. It also had a 'Stats' selection and 'Inventory' section… So, guess I don't have to do the whole mental-thinking then to get my stats- Hold up, an RTS and a FPS? This is going to be interesting. I pressed on a button labeled 'Manual Control' and immediately I could feel the second-closest thing to my soul being ripped apart from my body… It was neither a good nor bad feeling, much like everything I ate that came from the eastern hemisphere.

I can't exactly describe the experience, but the closest I could describe it was if Tiberium Wars was a sort of VR RTS game… Actually no- that was pretty much it. There was even a menu attached to my hand which had all the building options as I looked down, and eventually down to the map… So where was the goddamn Tiberium then? Normally, Tiberium would be in a fairly large pocket ( or small considering how much I harvested in a single game ) around a larger Tiberium crystal… But there was no Tiberium to be seen, much less anything except forest.

'Perhaps… I need to seed this world with Tiberium myself?'

I knew that much about the C&C lore, Scrim plants Tiberium crystals into planets, invades them, blah blah boring lore crap which I could care less to explain about. But this brought me to a highly disturbing conclusion… Again, I'd have to seed the world with Tiberium if I wanted to get anywhere. This was ultimately, a critical choice to make since while I could go out and explore, I'd be at the risk of being at myself and at my own mercy of anyone who brought more than a few people ( although I suspect I'd be able to take them on ). I quickly checked over my buildings, and sure enough were a few mission-specific buildings available to me to use… Such as the sonic field emitters or rather 'Sonic Repulser Fields' among other things. They took power however, but fortunately for me the Construction Yard already comes with 10 power, and such I redirected 8 of the available 10 in mind to form a hexagon-shaped barrier field to contain a new Tiberium Field. Of course, thankfully it still had a grid-building system so I didn't have to deal with god-awful collision boxes.

The Repulser Fields all costed 100$ each and I had 4000$ to start off with, so really I was alright to get both a Power Plant running and a Refinery. God forbid I accidentally seed an entire world with Tiberium because the power went out.

"Building"

Ah, there was the voice of the EVA… Or the Electronic Video Agent if you wanted to get specific about it. I waited as it queued up my first 'building', seemingly taking roughly 20 seconds each time.

"Construction Complete"

"New Construction Options"

Once I was done with creating my sanctuary for my Tiberium, I constructed a power plant before eventually and finally creating a refinery. I watched as a Harvester popped into existence, speaking a rather basic line as he came alive, "Let's get to that Tib-zone!"

I popped out of 'Commander's View' as I deemed it, going back to my usual body of real-life size. I stepped out of the MCV and it's utilitarian design before looking in awe at the Harvester, a grin on my face realizing I'm the first to look upon a real-life Tiberium Harvester… Wait, I forgot about the Tiberium. It was at this moment the Harvester reminded me over a radio, "Ah, Commander… Where is Tiberium? I detect no traces of Tiberium nearby."

I waved my hand at him in a dismissive manner, "No worries, there will be Tiberium soon. Might I ask though, could you step out for a moment?" I wanted to see if they were able to actually exit vehicles, or if they were just stuck inside the Harvester- Nope, he was coming out. The Harvester… or Engineer I suppose since he had a similar uniform came out of a side-door, stepping down from his vehicle. He… Was as expected, fairly normal for a soldier in any universe as I looked him up and down as I nodded at him with approval. "So then, can you do anything else besides harvesting Tiberium?"

"Sorry sir, I was only trained in Tiberium Collection and Handling… I mean, I do know a bit of mechanical repair, but that's mostly for my Harvester here."

I could've sworn this situation happened in another fanfiction I read… Damn shame it didn't get updated recently, but I suppose a good short story is better than nothing. "So… Just how long have you been uh… Around?" I did my best to sound militaristic, ultimately failing but I managed to keep a firm yet steady voice, "How long have you been deployed?" I watched as he started to count off his fingers, two fingers… Two years? Two months? Honestly, I could understand for how long GDI harvesters last-

"Two minutes sir."

"… What?"

"Two minutes sir. Honestly, I'm surprised my Harvester hasn't been blown to bits yet by Nod Motorcycles yet. Amazed I'm still alive for nearly three minutes now sir."

I blinked the confusion out of my eyes for a moment, regaining focus as I looked at him, "Of course…. Anyways, get back in your harvester, I'll have a task for you soon enough." I placed my suit's helmet back on, scratching my the back of my head through the suit as he went back into his Harvester. To address the first problem was that I was low on funds, which I could fix with Tiberium easily enough. However, said problem lead to another one being I do not know where I could get Tiberium… I had a slight idea however. I walked back to my MCV, looking around for anything that was related to Tiberium. I had to scrounge around a bit before I found something, a sealed chemical container with a hazardous logo on it. 'Bingo'. Of course, being my dumb-ass I nearly opened the damn thing out of curiosity, fortunately I was smart enough to realize what I was about to do and promptly called my hand back before I infected the entire damn MCV with Tiberium. I tucked the Tiberium container under my arm as I left the MCV, making sure my suit was fully on.

I had the container in my hands as I stood at the barrier of the Tiberium 'Sanctuary' as I'll refer it to from now on, pushing my hand through the barrier without much resistance. It felt like pushing your hand through easily ripped jelly, or something of the sort, really it was just an odd sensation that passed quickly. I looked back to the Harvester for a moment, "Hrm… Hey, mind if I ask for advice on Tiberium Harvesting? And what's your name by the way?"

"Name's Cole sir, Private Cole… And of course you can ask for advice, what is it?" He replied through his radio, sending it through my PDA's speakers.

"Theoretically, if I were to seed new ground with Tiberium. How fast would I have to run in order to NOT get contaminated by Tiberium?"

"Well sir, you'd wouldn't really need to run. Just make sure none of the Tiberum gets on you and you'll be fine."

"Thank you for the advice Cole…" I looked down at the container in my hand, entering the Tiberium Sanctuary as I took a deep breath. This is pretty terrifying honestly… Or it would've been if I was myself, instead I just felt a slightly odd and mildly scared feeling. Maybe I had Gamer's mind? I should've checked the darn stats already… I'll do that AFTER I deal with this though. Now, usually or almost all the time Tiberium killed whoever it came into contact with or breathed it. Seeing as how I was wearing a suit, I could breath perfectly fine without risk of Tiberium contamination. I just had to steady my shaking hands- No wait, I wasn't shaking either… So that's good too. Gingerly I started to take off the top of the rectangular container, looking inside to see a small Tiberium crystal inside of it. In the end I just tossed both it and the damned container into the middle of the ground, high-tailing it back outside the Repulser fields as I did NOT want to risk any sort of Tiberium contamination of any kind. Did I look stupid while doing it? Yes. Did I get any Tiberium contamination on me? Hopefully not.

I sighed slightly as I looked back, the Tiberium Crystal starting to take growth in the ground as I turned my head back around to face the Harvester, "Alright… Give it a few moments as it grows. Don't want to prematurely harvest a Tiberium field when it hasn't grown yet, got it?"

"Course sir, when would you want me to start harvesting it then?"

"Start harvesting it as soon as it's reached a sizable mass and it's licking at the fields, and be sure not to harvest the entirety of the field, we do want it to grow back slightly. Oh… And if you see ANY Tiberium growth outside the fields, tell me IMMEDIATELY. Alright?"

"You got it sir!"

I could see in the cockpit of the Harvester that the driver- Cole, sorry, pull out what looked like to be a magazine as he kicked his feet up. Obviously not military-standard, but I'll let it slide considering it's just the two of us for now in this… vast world. Wait, what world WAS I in anyways? If it's goddamn Warhammer, I'll blam myself before I let any goddamn Inquisitors get a hold of me. Thankfully, nothing bum-rushed me yet, I'd be screwed if that did happen to me since I have no proper defenses… Oh yeah, I should probably check my stats. I pulled out my PDA, looking over the stats and… 'Yep, certainly Isekai'd into a Gamer'. The stats were all there, if only in Fallout NV format, and for the most part but since I'm too lazy to tell you the stats to ya, I'm just going to say that my intelligence was… admittedly low. My luck on the other hand… Now that was something to behold, I could practically out-gamble anyone with those stats! Strength was only slightly higher than average, my Perception also slightly lower, but that was compensated by my Agility skill and my Luck skill. Neither of those skills I actually cared about in Fallout NV besides Intelligence and Perception. Thank god I don't have the Four-Eyes perk or I would've terminated my run right then and there. Speaking of Perks, I checked to see… Well, Gamer's mind and Body… and one additional one which were REALLY interesting to me. It was 'S.T.A.L.K.E.R's Spirit' and it allowed Artifacts to drop upon some NPC death… Cue the 'Why can I hold all these Artifacts' meme.

Finally, I looked at my Inventory and… Well, it was pretty-bare bones. It had a similar S.T.A.L.K.E.R's setup with bars and grid spaces and such, so not much to mention there. I did have an AKM though with ammunition which was oddly defined as 'Gunpowder - FMJ', so maybe there were other types of munition out there? Whatever, I also had two sets of Repair Kits, one armor and one Weapon, a Savrog Detector also from S.T.A.L.K.E.R, and finally a Combat Knife and Medical Kit. I pulled out my AKM by tapping on the screen… It wasn't that heavy thankfully, but I had never used a gun in my life before even if I wanted to desperately try it out… Whelp, good thing I knew enough about guns to how to shoot the damn things properly or not depending if video game knowledge helped enough.

In the end, as I held my AKM in my hands and cracked my neck ever so slightly, I looked into the deep forest as I raised my AKM to the sky. In the words of the almighty bandits of S.T.A.L.K.E.R and looters around the world, I shouted something to which would forever cement my identity to not only myself, but also to the world.

"AHH NUU! CHEEKI BREEKI, IVE DAMKE!"

And so my journey begins, the life of both a S.T.A.L.K.E.R and of partially a life as a bandit. I imagine it'll be filled with both wonders and terrors, but I was happy… Happy to be free of the constraints of society, happy to be a… free man. And so, there I stood with my AKM above my head, raising it one last time triumphantly before I let it hang at my side. The journey… of a Cheeki Breeki Bandit… Commander? Eh, specifics spemantics, who really gave a crap? I would soon, become the ultimate Cheeki Breeki Bandit. Now, if I only had a tolerance to vodka and was actually old enough. Whelp, time to go find wherever the hell I was.