1-2 Adjustments

"Okay… Charles looks like he's about to lose his mind, so how about we all take a step back and allow our, uh, guest to introduce itself."

Sure!
Behold my splendor!

Another blue screen appeared beside the first. It had no text, only a picture of the planet Earth.

"Looks like Earth to me…"

"I don't get—Oh! Gaia, you're Gaia, aren't you?"

"She is."

Yep.
The one, the only…
Magnanimous and Beautiful Mother of All Life!
And you, my Wondrous Soul…
Have been chosen to represent me in all things great!

The Milletian trio digested the rather campy message in front of them, ignoring the trumpeting fanfare that played out of nowhere. Lisa—or rather, Lysanna—chortled at how excitable the entity behind the blue screens seemed. She was willing to try associating with this Gaia, which was rather typical of Lysanna. Besides, representing an entity that gave out powers—according to Charles' memories of a certain piece of fiction—sounded pretty awesome. Lysanna was always up for more power.

Daichi, on the other hand, always seemed to live life completely out of his depth. It was like that in his first life, in his time as a part of the Milletian, and it was certainly like that at the moment. He always erred on the side of caution when it came down to it and was leery at being made a representative of someone that he didn't know about.

Then there was Charles, the one who absolutely hated coincidences because they often smelled like the interference of some higher power. Like right now. If he was counting correctly, then this would be the third time something fictitious in his memories turned out to be real through multiverse bullshit. The first was immediately after being reborn as the Milletian. Second was when the trio learned how to share memories with each other. Learning that Daichi came from the High School DxD universe definitely threw him for a loop. And of course, the third goes without saying.

As much as Charles wanted to bitch and moan about it, there was nothing he could do about it. Gaia, as far as he knew, was well beyond any deity back on Erinn. And that goes for the deities here in Daichi's world as well. Common sense told him that being belligerent towards someone that could intrude on their shared mindscape was typically a bad idea.

No choice but to grit my teeth and deal with it, he ultimately decided. Charles didn't like it and he would be instantly ready to protect his family if things went pear-shaped.

"I'm not going to entertain the idea that we have any choice in the matter, so how about we skip ahead to the why."

Hmm…
Would you believe me if I said that it was to save your life?

"Not really."

"Ignore him. He's just mad about reality. If we take what you said at face value, then something must have happened when our soul transferred from Erinn to here."

"I wonder why we're here anyway… Nice to be home and all but I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we're here and not on Erinn."

Something did happen.
You crossed the Dimensional Gap!
That place is perilous to anything ill equipped to its nature.
Even for such a Wondrous Soul like yourself.

"As for why we're here?"

I'm… Not sure.
Your Record doesn't show the reason.
It stopped after your latest death, and then started again when you arrived here.
How strange!
Something to look into I'm sure.

"Uh… Record?"

Yes, Record.
All of Life is under my purview.
Their experiences, their everything is recorded onto their souls.
And when they die, that knowledge is bequeathed to me.
And of course, I can take a peek into someone's Record while they're still alive.
Like what I'm doing with you!

"That's kind of creepy. So, you're like a super-voyeur then?"

Rude!
I am not a voyeur at all!
Even if… Even if it really sounds like it!

"Nah it's cool. We got used to having no privacy. Shared body and all that."

"Moving on. Can you explain how you've saved our life?"

I bonded you to me of course!
I'm pretty awesome y'know?
It was tricky healing the cracks in your soul, but I if I didn't…
You would have dissolved into non-existence.
So, praise me!

"Uh… Seriously?"

"I think she's serious. Uh… Who's a good girl? Yes, you are, yes you are…?"

"What the fuck are you doing Lysanna? She's a primordial manifestation of Life itself! Not a puppy!"

"Get off my ass, what was I supposed to say!"

"Not whatever you just did, that's for sure! What if she gets mad?"


Aww~
You really think I'm a good girl?
I'm so happy~!

"What."

"…I give up."

"Hah! Take that you suckers! This is a win for Lysanna!"

"Yeah, yeah. So, Gaia, what does it mean to be bonded to you? And how do we, ahem, represent you in all things great?"

I'm a good girl, good girl~
Mm? Oh!
I made an instruction manual for your new powers, y'know?
Just yell or think [HELP] and you'll get a nice handy guide on how to do stuff.
I could just explain it myself but I don't want seconds of labor to go to waste.
Which means you have to use it!
As for the whole Representing thing…
You can do whatever, really.

"Is… Is it okay to say something like that? That sounds irresponsible…"

It is what it is.
Do whatever you feel like, really.
Just have fun!

"Fun…? Hey guys, did we ever have fun as the Milletian?"

"Probably in the beginning maybe, before things started escalating into one world ending threat after the other. So, that was what… Decades ago for us?"

"Which means that we have decades of enjoyment to make up for! Where do we start, boys?"

[-]

Oh, come on! I thought I had it right this time… Maybe I need to pull in a different set of skills to make this work? Deep underground was a basement level that looked right at home with a mage's workshop. The walls were inundated with runic scriptures meant to reinforce them, as well as contain any magical mishaps. Several tables lined these walls and were either covered in artifacts and reagents or high precision machinery. An intricate transmutation circle was carved into the center of the room, lines filled with enchanted silver. And on top of this circle was an object that had a passing resemblance to a high-caliber sniper rifle. Passing, as in, it didn't look like the ideal rifle at all.

A tall, Caucasian male pondered over his latest failure. He stood tall at 6'4" and could be seen wearing a three-piece suit dyed completely black, perfectly tailored to fit his wiry frame. Curly auburn hair hid the creases in his forehead as he stared at the disproportioned object with gray eyes. This was Charles, having reconstructed—using an ability that is inherent to the Milletian race—Daichi's body into his preferred appearance. This would have been incredibly callous of him, if he had not already given the other two bodies of their own.

Two days ago, Charles used their Doppelganger skill to create additional bodies for his soulmates. Doppelganger was actually based on certain properties of the Soul Stream, in that the soul was used as a template to create a body. A regular Doppelganger back on Erinn was produced using spirit energy, a sort of energy that is freely given by a soul. Due to the unstable and transient nature of spirit energy, such clones would immediately dispel after delivering a hit. As the Milletian was in possession of a rather flexible soul, they could split themselves in three and used the two freed portions as stable anchors for the Doppelganger bodies. It allowed for trio a semblance of independence from one another, though there was a range limitation of about ten miles in radius before the souls 'snapped' back together.

Back to the workshop.

The workshop itself was a consequence of experimenting with the variant Gamer ability that they possessed. Levels, skills, and stats worked differently. There was no stat gaining through training or leveling skills, nor could you gain skills normally. The only way to gain stat points through this variant was to level up, which would then award six stat points to be divided into any of the six stats: Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Will.

These stats could be described as follows: Strength was the expression of physical force. Vitality was the counterpart to Strength, expressing physical endurance. Intelligence and Wisdom were the magical versions of Strength and Vitality, respectively. Intelligence had the additional benefit of increasing information recall, and Wisdom, decision making. Dexterity increased the flexibility and speed of both mind and body. Will, or Willpower, was a stat that corresponded to one's ability to impose their will onto the world. It's essentially charisma and local reality bending rolled into one.

In a normal game—or even normal Gamer ability—adding a stat point to any of the six above stats would be an incremental increase of overall strength. For the Milletian, however, one stat point is a force multiplier. For example, six points into Strength would multiply the Milletian's strength by six times.

Skills were tied to the Milletian's Level. Gaia, Mother of All Life, was an existence that held the collective knowledge, skills, and experiences of every single living being that has existed thus far. Limited access to the Library, as it's called, made up a significant portion of the skill system. With fifteen initial slots—plus one for each additional level—the Milletian could fill these slots with skills held within the Library. The gained skills could remain for any amount of time, and could be regained freely if returned for any reason.

In the words of Charles, "So we're basically a better Eidolon, great."

On the subject of Charles, it was with his five slots—the trio always shared equally amongst themselves—that he built several levels underneath casa Takahashi for the purposes of transforming the home into a veritable fortress hidden in a suburban area. Said slots were filled with different classes of Construction Magic that was pioneered by some German mage by the name of Walter Gropius.

Ten underground levels and an elevator made up the expanded basement of the Takahashi home. The first seven were empty, while the last three were used as lab spaces for Lysanna, Daichi, and Charles in that order. Lysanna used her space as a forge, Daichi's was for researching into the arcane, and Charles' was dedicated to pursuits in Alchemy and Engineering.

"Hey Daichi."

"Yeah?"

"Free to come down for a bit?"

"Sure, give me a moment."

A moment later Daichi appeared. Like Charles—as well as Lysanna—Daichi restructured his Doppelganger body to his ideal appearance. Said appearance was one mountain of a man. He took his youthful obesity turn it on its head by replacing all the fat with corded muscle. He wore an olive colored yukata that was open at the chest to display his testament to manliness across the world.

"Why do you—Ah. The Panoptes Rifle, right?" Daichi nodded towards the caricature of a sniper rifle on the floor, "What'd you fill your slots with again?"

"Transmutation, Design, Metallurgy, Miniaturization, and Arithmetic," Charles replied without missing a beat.

"Nothing analytical?" Charles shook his head, "Hah… You probably should've slotted one in then; you would have realized that the cores are interfering with the transmutation ritual. Hell, you could've realized that without an analytical skill slotted in."

"…You're right. Shortsightedness seriously sucks, I could've been done hours ago! Alright, hold on…" Daichi watched his soul-brother mercilessly kick away the failed Panoptes Rifle then went to gather the requisite materials for the contraption off a table. The Panoptes was a weapon designed by the both of them while they were on Erinn. When the Giants invented guns that used mana bullets, the two men wanted to one up them with an even better gun.

In essence, the Panoptes Sniper Rifle was an intent-based weapon that would release one-hundred bursts of mana in one shot. These bursts would divide themselves evenly based on the number of targets and persistently track them with tight turning radii. The body of the weapon was built from mithril, a magic-conductive material that is as robust as titanium even if drawn into a thin wire. Surprisingly, the mythical metal was endemic to both Erinn and here. Two cores of crystallized mana powered the weapon. One was used to empower the runes that gave an enhanced sensory suite to the user, the other, more expendable core was used as the ammo. One core per shot, this was the largest drawback of the weapon, but it's not like they couldn't just prepare thousands of mana cores beforehand.

"Okay, good to go!" Daichi was brought out of his reverie by a much more energetic Charles. The transmutation circle now had a block of mithril sitting atop of it. Floating above the circle was a suspended runic matrix that was responsible for the weapon's functions. The moment that the chassis was transmuted, the matrix would be grafted onto the weapon instantly. "Had to readjust the design slightly so that the core for the runes is also interchangeable… Alright, three, two, one—!"

Charles channeled a burst of mana into the circle. A flashflood of light ate up the entire room and was gone the next moment. In its place, the complete Panoptes Sniper Rifle sans mana cores.

Transmutation Production Success!
You have made the AA-Class Panoptes Sniper Rifle Mk. I!
A weapon of wholesale slaughter designed by men who have a little too much time and power on their hands…
Men.

"Shush Gaia, you wouldn't understand…" Daichi nodded alongside Charles, marveling at the beautiful weapon before them. Both ignored the message screen that had a text animation of rolling eyes on it.

"Charles… What do we name him?"

"I'm thinking… Simo."

"Sounds good, let's test him out. Like, right now."

"Yeah… But where?"

Boys, boys, boys.
I believe
I may have the solution.

Quest Alert — These Strays Ain't Goin' Home
A squad of Stray Devils are currently on their way to Kuoh from the south. The presence of two Heiresses and the general quality of the populace in Kuoh makes the location a tempting hunting ground for such groups of Strays. They'll arrive sometime in the evening. At least
try to show some mercy?

Reward: +1000 EXP, ?

"Hey guys, did you also get the quest?"

"Yeah, we got it because the Panoptes is finished and we're itching to test him out."

"Really? What are you lugs waiting for then? We gotta stake out to do!"

Rest in pieces, Strays.


A/N: Simo the Panoptes Sniper Rifle came out of nowhere. But he's here to stay. Gaia... Uh... Gaia might sometimes appear to be an idiot or wants to be told that she's a Good Girl, but let's not forget that she's also ageless and can be serious when it comes down to it. (Let's also not forget that she absolutely is a super-voyeur)

If you're familiar with Worm, then you already understand a good portion of how the Milletian's Gamer variant works. But I'll summarize it anyway: Skills can be 'assigned' to slots. There are a limited number of slots (15 to start) but grow in number as the Milletian levels. These slots can be shared between the trio. The Skills are 'pulled' from the Library, where the Records of all that has lived is stored (The Library is really a part of Gaia, but it's probably more convenient to thing of the two as separate things). These Skills are the crystallized essence of the knowledge and experience of an untold number of living beings as well as the means for the Milletian trio to emulate said knowledge and experience (What a mouthful).

The whole 'stats are a force multiplier' thing for the Milletian is hopefully a subtle enough way of me saying that Gaia is really, really strong. I'm still thinking of a way to work in stats for other characters (which is expressed in regular increments, and not multipliers) without making it a bloody chore to keep track of. We'll see.

Oh yeah. Two days have passed in this chapter... Uh, whole why they didn't go to school thing will be addressed next chapter. Unofficially, the reason is because they were learning how to have fun again. Take that as you will.

Now for reviews:

newtonian: This is a question that I knew was going to be asked, but now that I'm seeing it I don't know if my explanation will be good enough to satisfy readers. Basically, even in the old version, the trio existed in some form. In the old version, Lysanna 'died' after the battle with Macha, Daichi 'shattered' while going across the Dimensional Gap, and Charles was left with parts of his memory missing, particularly those of his time on Erinn. As I thought about how to make the story better (an eternal process and one that constantly plagues me, I suppose), I became upset with how I had these two characters whose repercussions on the story wouldn't make sense until miles down the road (this is especially true of Lysanna in the older version, not much so for Daichi). And so this time around I kept the trio whole. I'm not really happy with this answer (sorry) because it basically boils down to: I felt like it.

FinalKingdomHearts: Yep. I am indeed rewriting this story and I hope by now this has been made abundantly clear. Even so, I hope you find this revision enjoyable!

MKaius: I live for reviews like yours. And yes, Gaia is still here! You should probably tell her that she's a good girl and then pet her head (or... like a potted plant or something, that should work...).

Raven: Thanks! Hopefully I can maintain your curiosity for a little while longer.

To everyone else: Thank you for reading thus far and please review!