The Name of the Game

by literalsin

A man from Earth wakes up to find himself stuck in the body of a fictional teenage boy with an ability that turns his life into a video game and foreknowledge of events to come. What could possibly go wrong? A take on the RWBY/Gamer crossover niche with an SI twist, a focus on world and character building, and fleshing out some of the details RT missed. Rated 'M' for a reason.

8. Tools of the Trade

The Name of the Game

a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.

Arc 2: Hard Contact

Chapter 8: Tools of the Trade

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I left the twins in a tangled mass of limbs under the sheets as I walked across the bedroom floor and pulled my scroll from my pants to find out what the buzzing was about. Opening it, I found a notification waiting from the Underworld app, letting me know a job was available. Hitting the Accept button and receiving a quest notification at the same time—Item Delivery – Repeatable, Rewards: 1000 EXP, 1500L, Time Limit: 2 hours—I almost started pulling my clothes back on before I remembered my Semblance.

"Equip Stealth Set," I whispered, immediately springing up two inches as my clothes appeared around me and my boots provided a little extra height. Gathering my dirty clothes, I quickly tossed them into a hamper in the bathroom before leaving the bedroom. Looking around, I spotted three sets of keys by the door and snagged one. Testing it in the new locks and finding it worked, I left and locked up behind me before activating Invisibility and heading up to the roof. Setting a waypoint for my pickup, I took off roof hopping towards the bridge, where I would cross over into the Commercial District and then from there to my first stop.

Finding the place several minutes later, I dropped Invisibility and descended into the alley behind the storefront. Knocking on the back door, I waited a few moments before the door opened. Looking up, I found myself looking into a pair of hazel eyes set under dark hair, a set of mutton chops framing the man's face. Above his head, I caught his name as Tukson and his level as 29. "Package pickup," I said, holding out a hand.

"They keep getting younger," Tukson sighed, shaking his head as he handed me a trio of books wrapped in brown paper and twine. "And a good morning to you," he said by way of goodbye, closing the door to his shop.

Turning away from the door, I stashed the wrapped books in my side pouch and took to the roofs, reapplying Invisibility and setting a waypoint to my second destination. I was well under the time limit by the time I made it, dropping into another alley and letting Invisibility drop. I knocked and waited. It wasn't long before the door opened, and I had my first look at something I immediately knew I wanted but could never have.

The Red Witch

Cinder Fall

Level: 44

"Well, hello there," she drawled in greeting as our eyes met, looking down slightly from my height of 6'3" with the boots on, my red contacts meeting her liquid gold eyes evenly. "You're new. Did I scare off another one?"

Just to see what would happen, I activated Dating Mode as I handed over the books. "What do you mean?" I wondered, watching her mood slowly thaw.

Blinking, she eyed me up and down with suddenly narrowed eyes. "Now that is interesting," she murmured before answering my question with, "As for your question, you're the third runner I've gone through."

From what I knew of her character, Cinder was a bad, bad girl—however, she hadn't tried to kill me yet… and she was officially the second most beautiful woman I'd met on Remnant. The 'bad girl' thing held a lot of appeal, I suppose—along with that confident, sexy poise and drawl. With my package delivered and no money changing hands, I figured a moment or two of small talk couldn't hurt. "Well, I'm new to all of this, really," I admitted. "They're not on a rotation?"

She shook her head, setting her long, dark hair to shifting in ways that drew the eye. "No."

I shrugged. "Maybe you unnerve them. Beauty tends to do that, but beauty and power… well, many a man has been driven to his knees for such a thing."

A small, smug smile tugged at one corner of her lips and I noticed the meter over her head twitch upward a bit. Yeah, she liked having her ego stroked. "So they have."

"Then if I'm to be your delivery boy from now on, I suppose I should say 'till next time,'" I mused aloud before subvocalizing Invisibility. For a moment, her eyes tracked my position as I moved, before I dropped the charisma boost to my Aura and activated Aura Suppression—a skill I had taken the time to create on the way home from Candice's place earlier that night, which did exactly what it said on the tin and hid my active Aura from detection.

"Very interesting," she mused aloud before returning inside and closing the door behind her. Hearing the deadbolt click home, I made a Powered Leap up onto the roofs and started running. A moment later, my scroll buzzed and I got the quest completion notification. Taking out the scroll, I checked the notification there, which echoed the quest notification but let me know my money had been deposited into my Underworld account. A moment later, another notification popped up, asking me if I would like to take on another delivery. Agreeing, I went on to the next location.

Over the course of the next hour, I completed another nine jobs to finish out the set of ten required to progress Path of the Rogue (part III). I even got the dubious honor of meeting Roman Torchwick, at a small apartment complex it looked as though he and his underlings had taken over. Sadly, the payout for those deliveries was each half what the original had been—apparently, making deliveries to Cinder came with hazard pay. Still, it was an additional 6750L, which put me closer to making up for giving the twins 10kL to spend. Speaking of, I hadn't even checked out the new furnishings before leaving out again. Ah well, the level I'd gained for finishing that quest was worth it. Though, I hadn't gotten the equipment it had promised…

A quest has been created!

Path of the Rogue (part IV)

You have successfully completed your initiation period with the Underworld App. Follow the directions in the text for your reward.

Success: equipment, quest progression. Failure: termination of employment.

'What text message?' I wondered, even as my scroll buzzed. Taking it out, I found a message through the Underworld App from someone with the handle 'BlackPetal' with nothing but a street address and the word 'roof.' Feeding the information into my map, I followed the quest marker across the rooftops before coming to what looked like a business campus of some sort, in the center of which was an absolutely massive tower style skyscraper. Well, I say massive—it wouldn't have been out of place among some of the taller buildings of my old world, but was nowhere near the tallest. It was massive for Remnant, at any rate. Casing the exterior from a distance, I quickly realized there would be no slipping in and taking the elevator up—security was tight here and they had some sort of scanners on the elevators, and seeing how it looked particularly important I was leery of trying to create an Illusion Barrier and going in that way.

Making sure Invisibility was running, I ran across the campus and into the shadow of the building, stopping when I came to the nearest wall. 'Okay, Powered Leap is only going to get me so far here. I need some way of sticking to the wall… Well, it worked for Naruto,' I thought before holding a foot up and pressing it against the wall, then focusing on my Aura.

A skill has been created through a special action!

Surface Walking: Level 1. Active. Surface Walking grants the user the ability to walk or run on vertical, even inverted, surfaces as though they were level ground. Effect: stick to vertical or inverted surfaces and traverse them normally. Cost: 1MP/minute.

Grinning, I pulled up mana and used a Powered Leap to ascend the side of the building. The moment my momentum tapered off, I called on more mana and activated Surface Walking, running up the side of the building. With practice, I figured I could charge another Powered Leap in the air, stick to walls long enough to Leap, and repeat the process. Even running as I was, it didn't take long to make it to the top of the tower. Cresting the apex, I settled on the roof and looked around, immediately spotting my contact. 'BlackPetal,' as her name implied, wore a lot of black—all black. Black hair, black clothes. The only color visible aside from black was a white half-mask covering the upper portion of her face, above her nose, leaving her nose and lips exposed—along with the skin of her face, which was a pale white. Her lips, however, were of course painted black.

Moving silently behind her, I dropped Invisibility and Aura Suppression. She turned around immediately, one hand moving to a sword poking out over her right shoulder. When she saw me, she froze, hand still warily gripping her sword hilt. "You sure dress the part for someone calling themselves Black Petal," I pointed out.

Her hand lowered from her sword slowly. "And you do not dress the part for someone calling himself 'Shiro,'" she countered.

"I dress exactly the part of someone named 'Shiro,'" I denied. "It should be obvious by the fact that if even my name is an overt lie then tracking me down is going to be a bit difficult."

She hummed, then nodded. "There's logic there," she allowed. "I'm to be your 'mentor' for this job. It's supervisor, boss, and trainer all rolled into one until I give the green light for you to run completely solo."

"I thought the job was supposed to be completely solo and unsupervised," I asked, confused. Hei hadn't mentioned working under someone.

Shrugging, the woman moved closer. "It was, until someone fucked up and delivered the wrong package to the wrong address and wound up getting some poor girl killed. Now, we do OJT for a trial period of anywhere between a hundred jobs or a month worth of consecutive working days."

I mock shuddered. "Sounds like a real job."

"In a lot of ways, it is," the girl admitted.

When she went silent and seemed content to simply regard me and wait, likely in an attempt to be intentionally unnerving, I asked, "So, what are we meeting here for? Your message didn't specify. Also, 'Black Petal' is kind of a mouthful."

The woman laughed softly before reaching into a bag at her side and producing something I couldn't identify, then tossing it to me. The item in question looked like some sort of attachment that fit on the arm, with adjustable straps to allow it to fit over armor—a gauntlet or bracer, of sorts. Putting it on, I received a notification telling me I had received a Line Launcher and completed Path of the Rogue (part IV) and moved on to part V, which basically summed up exactly what she had told me about on the job training. "Well, 'Shiro,'" she emphasized my name with a bit of sarcasm there, "you're right. It's only a handle for messaging. As it happens, by complete coincidence and having absolutely nothing to do with my choice in clothing, I go by 'Kuro.' Which, I suppose, makes us a matching pair."

'Black,' which made sense. "So, what am I supposed to do with this thing?"

"There are three buttons on the grip," she began. I had found all three already but had been reluctant to try them until she explained its function. "Thumb button to fire, index button to ascend, middle button to descend. Release all three to release from whatever you're currently stuck to. It uses Dust and has a reservoir for two standard vials under the armored top there. Fill the left one with Electric Blue to power the winch, fill the right one with your propellant of choice. I prefer Gunmetal Gray in mine for higher line velocity and longer range, but then I don't use it as a weapon unless I have to, and if I do… well, let's just say mine has a stun-gun function and leave it at that. If you intend to, there are other Dust propellant types that may work better. It's already filled and ready for use."

"How much line are we talking here?" I asked, looking over the top of the thing. All the mechanisms for firing and spooling wire must be under the hood with the Dust reservoir, as only the tip of what looked like some sort of dart protruded visibly.

"It uses some storage tech to hold something like two klicks worth of monofilament line, along with replacement heads for when you break one. You can get replacements through the App's store, under supplies. You'll never fully deploy that much line at one time, however—or, at least, you shouldn't have to. I once got a klick worth of extension out of Gunmetal, but I have avoided repeating that stunt… Still, it's why I keep that color Dust in it."

I knew little about the functions of various colors of Dust, beyond what I had gathered from my own tinkering with it. I knew I had Gunmetal in the inventory I'd taken the other day, however, and I would take good advice when I heard it—more range and faster ability to hit your grappling target sounded like good things, especially if you were falling at the time. I could probably survive most falls, but if I didn't have to tank the damage then so much the better. Really, I needed to work out some sort of strategy for emergency landings at some point. But a full kilometer of extension? What had she been doing to warrant that much line?

"Tell me about this training thing?" I asked, putting aside playing with the line launcher for now.

Gesturing towards the eastern edge of the roof, she lead us over to the very edge and sat down, feet kicking off the side of the building in open air. Before us, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. "Here's how this is going to work. I start my nights around 8P.M.. You're going to meet me and shadow me on my runs at some point during the night—your choice when. The only times you get to accept jobs is when I'm with you and I'll be screening them to make sure you don't accept something stupid. I don't care if you do it every night, every other night, or one night a week. Just keep in mind, the sooner you get a handle on things, the sooner you get the training wheels off."

"Speaking of stupid jobs," I began turning to regard the woman beside me, "Ever come across a woman in red—"

"Avoid her," Kuro answered immediately. "She's trouble."

I chuckled quietly before admitting, "Too late. It was my first job."

I watched the masked woman visibly look me over for signs of damage before meeting my eyes. "Well. Shit. This is going to suck. You didn't run away and she didn't set you on fire. After the first three got spooked we kind of thought they'd blacklist her. But apparently not. Did she say anything to you?"

"Yeah," I answered slowly, drawing the word out. "She called me 'interesting.'"

Palming her face, the black-clad runner shook her head. "Well, you're fucked. She's your problem now."

"How do you even know all of that?" I asked, since as far as I knew all of this was supposed to be anonymous.

"We talk. There's a message board for employees. You really need to check it out. Here, let me…" she began, digging out her scroll. A few minutes later, she tilted it so I could see. "You're already news and you didn't even know it."

Reading over the thread, I hummed. Most of it was to the effect that the 'Red Witch' had been assigned a new runner, who she hadn't managed to set on fire or run off yet—naturally, they refused to name her specifically, but everyone was talking about the same Cinder Fall I'd met. There were even running bets on how many encounters I would last before she got bored and I wound up as flambe. "I kind of wish I'd known about this ahead of time," I lamented.

Still, what was done was done, and the pay was worth it. Besides, it gave me a chance to get close to Cinder and her operations and potentially pick up information I could use to throw a wrench in her plans. I wasn't sure what the outcome of those plans was supposed to be, but I knew it could be nothing good. Maybe, maybe she could be set on a different path. Or maybe I was kidding myself and some people were beyond redemption. I recalled her two accomplices were cold-blooded murderers, however, so there was every chance she and her band were already too far gone to be put off the path. And now that I thought about it, I should probably start digging up information on the White Fang and their goings on, along with Roman Torchwick and his crew. Roman was a big part of Cinder's Vale operations, from what I recalled—and while I knew where he hung his bowler hat now, it wouldn't hurt to have more info. I already had the twins in my pocket, and through them goings on around The Club and Hei—I'd have to ask them to keep an ear to the ground in the near future. If I was remembering my time-frame correctly, things were going to start heating up shortly.

The question, though, was what could I do? A frontal attack was right out, as was a direct assassination attempt on Cinder—even if I wanted to try cutting the head off this snake, and I didn't know that it was necessary yet. No, the level disparity between myself and Cinder was simply too great—and if she was anything to go by, Roman, Neopolitan, Adam Taurus, Mercury, Emerald… they were all outside my level range. For the moment. I would have to do recon and find out. I could make up the difference over time, but I may not have time. So, if I was going to step in and do something about this before they did something to screw up the new life I'd found myself in, I was going to need to cheat. I was a caster, after all—cheating was our bread and butter.

Maybe that was selfish—that my primary reason for wanting to stop them wasn't that they could hurt a lot of people, or kill others, but that their plans would inevitably ruin the things I had come to enjoy on Remnant… but I didn't honestly care. I had come to realize that I liked it here and I didn't want to go back to the hell I'd come from. I would, if it would mean giving Joan and the rest of the Arcs back their brother and son, but I wouldn't enjoy it and I couldn't say it would be an easy thing to do.

Until that day, if it ever came, I was going to enjoy everything I could about this life. Some of the things I'd seen and done so far in Remnant were so far from what I knew to be 'right' where I came from that, at times, I felt as if I was living some sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy. It was surreal and disorienting at times—I was a stranger in a stranger land and it was everything I could do to adapt without simply throwing my hands up, saying 'fuck it,' and calling it quits some days… and I hadn't been here a full week yet, so I was sure it would only get worse from here. Still, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Literally. I would not trade what I had here for an entire other world, full of people I had known, loved, hated, and everything in between. I would be damned before I would let someone else shit all over the place I was quickly coming to love…

'Too old to fuck around, too young to die. I'm done pissing into the wind.'

"You okay?" Kuro asked, bringing me back to the present. "You looked kind of scary there for a minute."

"Sorry," I sighed, shrugging. "Just… coming to some decisions about things. And this is one of them. I was kind of only doing this as a part time job to help pay for equipment…"

Beside me, the woman turned knowing eyes on me under her mask. "Hunter school is expensive—believe me, I understand."

"Good." Gesturing between us, I continued. "Between training and other stuff, I'm not sure how much time I'm going to be able to put towards this. So, how about this? Message me like you were intending to and, if I'm not otherwise occupied, I'll swing by and we can make a few runs a night."

"That's fine," Kuro agreed. "I don't care how often you do it. So long as you remain active, you're still technically 'employed,' so you'll still have access to a lot more than you would just being a buyer."

My scroll buzzed and I pulled it out, finding a text message from Joan.

'So… Jun's in school now… When do I get to see the new place?'

Sighing, I typed a quick reply, giving her the address and telling her I'd be there in half an hour or so. There was a chuckle from beside me and Kuro asked, "I recognize that kind of sigh. Girlfriend?"

"Hm?" I asked, looking up to see she had been reading my scroll through the mostly transparent screen. "Something like that."

The older girl chuckled before rolling backwards onto the roof and from there to her feet. "Duty calls, huh?"

"Yeah," I agreed mimicking her move. "Thanks, for this. The view was nice, too."

"I come here every morning, when I get done," she admitted. "Well, see you around."

I watched as she took a short run towards the edge of the roof, wondering if she was going to use her own line launcher. There were no other buildings on the campus at or near this height though… My eyes went a bit wide when she instead brought her hands to her side before stretching them out again, a narrow membrane of material stretching out under the arms and between the legs of her outfit and catching the air, allowing her to glide down safely. "Showoff," I muttered, shaking my head. I would be looking into getting one of those later, though.

Not to be outdone, I took my own run at the edge of the roof, charging Powered Leap. Instead of jumping up, however, I used Surface Walking to run over the side before Leaping, throwing me out from the side of the building. Calling up a Mana Shield, I tucked into a ball and rolled as I neared the ground to bleed off momentum—some instinctive synergy between Martial Arts Mastery and Recovery telling me how to do that—and hit the ground hard. Nearby, the ninja-dressed girl looked between me and the top of the building before shaking her head. "Showoff," she sighed, taking off running in one direction as I went in the other.

Half an hour of running, Leaping, and using my new line launcher to swing between buildings while under Aura Suppression and Invisibility, I circled the top of the apartment building to have a look over it out of paranoia before dropping down and entering by the roof—my path back had been anything but direct, so there was little chance I'd been followed, assuming someone could somehow track me invisible and with my aura suppressed. And if they could, I highly doubted I could do anything about it. Using the line launcher while roof hopping I found to level my DEX faster than anything I'd done so far, earning me not one but two points in the distance between the tower and the apartment—not to mention running off of and leveling Use Rope—and I made a note to check my skill books again later. I found Joan waiting outside my door at the end of the hall. She looked up as I approached and dropped my stealth abilities, quietly equipping one of my casual clothing sets in between one step and the next. "You looked… different," she mused aloud.

I rolled my eyes. "That's the point, sister dear," I snarked.

Raising an eyebrow, she let a small smirk cross her lips. "Don't tell me we're back to playing that game?" She paused a beat before going in for the kill, "Or does the taboo factor do it for you? The whole 'forbidden fruit' thing?"

Shooting her a knowing look as I unlocked the door, I riposted with, "No, that sounds more like you than me. Don't get me wrong, it's kinky and hot in a completely fucked up way that I somehow still enjoy despite the weirdness factor—but it seems to me that that's more your fetish than mine. After all, you're the one who fantasized about an incestuous relationship with your younger brother for years."

It was true, I did enjoy it. Despite being a madwoman, as I've stated before Joan is a functional kind of crazy—a very specific kind of functional crazy, at that. One I could live with and even enjoy. Even with the weirdness. Joan was less crazy than any three previous girlfriends I could name. Let's see, there was the woman who, after a few months of getting to know her, confessed she was possessed by a demon succubus and that she shouldn't be held responsible for the things she did while 'possessed.' Translation: "give me a free pass to cheat, please." No thank you. Before that, there was one who claimed to be a reincarnated dragon—that had lasted an entire year before she 'confessed' and then went on another six months while I tried to decide how best to deal with that particular revelation. Turned out, just leaving worked best. Then there was one who was really into her Wicca and by that point I had almost zero tolerance for bullshit, and she was getting really into the whole 'witch' thing and wanting to start a 'coven'… so I hit the door running.

Somehow I always seemed to either find the broken ones or draw the crazy out in them. Either way, compared to that, a woman whose only issue was being attracted to her brother and having a potentially fanatical loyalty thereto barely even charted as far as weird girlfriends went. Oh, it was all kinds of screwed up, I'll admit—but it was something I could live with, considering I didn't actually see her as a sister. I had thirty-odd years of experience in a whole other life telling me I wasn't related to this woman, regardless of whose body I happened to be stuck in, and that she was a healthy, beautiful, and enthusiastically willing member of the opposite sex and I was a damn fool if I turned her away. 'Worst case scenario, don't name any male children 'Joffrey' and we should be okay.'

Following me inside and depositing her handbag on a table by the door, she couldn't resist escalating our verbal sparring, "No? I suppose poor Jun will be disappointed you're not a sister-con then."

I palmed my face, locking the door and moving deeper into the apartment. "Don't remind me. That is not something I want to deal with. Ever. I am not into little girls."

The sudden, vulpine grin crossing her lips told me I'd walked into a trap. "So you're saying you prefer a more," she ran her hands down either side of her body, emphasizing her curves, "mature woman."

I had a counter to that, however. When someone throws out obvious bait like that, cut the line. "Sounds to me like you're just fishing for compliments."

"I thought you enjoyed stroking my ego," she pouted.

Rolling my eyes, I answered, "No, just other parts. So, what you do you think?" I asked, gesturing around the apartment. It wouldn't distract her from our little game for long, but it would give me time to prepare for round two—I wasn't entirely sure who won the first round, anyway.

She hummed, turning a critical eye on the apartment. "Nice. You've had help decorating."

"I didn't decorate," I denied. "It was probably the twins. Honestly, between work and grinding, I haven't been in much since I got it and when I have I've been… well, preoccupied."

She pointed at the circle of softly glowing white designs in the middle of the floor. "They help you with that, too?" When I nodded, she moved closer and examined it more critically. "It's good work. Pretty strong, too… I swear I've seen this layout before though," she hummed, studying it in thought.

The bedroom door clicked open and one of the twins walked out—Melanie, by the text over her head, and the sheer white nightie. Loosing a yawn, she threw me a wave before freezing like a deer in the head lights as her eyes tracked behind me, to the eldest Arc sister, whose gaze had been pulled from the bounded field inscribed on the floor to the twin across the room. "Well, well. What have we here? You didn't tell me you had guests, Jaune," Joan accused and I could hear the positively fox-like grin she had to be wearing in her voice.

"Eep!" Melanie squeaked, turning around and ducking back into the bedroom.

"Introduce us," Joan commanded, putting a hand on my shoulder and pushing me into the bedroom. The sound of the lock turning home in the door knob was somehow ominously louder than it should have been. The twins apparently thought so too, as they had abandoned the bed and were clearly trying to devise some way around us and out the door. I knew damn well that Joan hadn't meant introducing them in the platonic sense, either.

"You know," I began, turning to regard the Eldest Deadly Sister, "I see where you're going with this."

"Do you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Do tell."

I nodded. "I remember what you said last time. There are easier ways of getting the twins into bed than trying to chase them down."

Humming, she nodded and made a 'go on' gesture. "Be my guest."

Turning on the charisma, literally in my case, I locked eyes with the typically more submissive twin—and the one I knew to be far kinkier than her sister. "Miltiades," I began, her full name rolling off my tongue in that quietly commanding tone drawing a reaction she managed to suppress visibly to nothing but a twitch—too bad my Semblance gave her away. There was a way to phrase some things towards the twins to greater effect—there was a reason they claimed they didn't mind sharing, after all. Their situation was not all too terribly different from what Joan and I had, minus several variables and a considerable degree of mixed feelings on the matter. It hadn't taken long at all to figure that much out—despite their supposed thoughts on my and Joan's relationship. Unlike Joan and I, however, they weren't quite as honest with themselves—they tended to think of their twincest as less fornication and more mutual masturbation. Still, it was a highly exploitable vulnerability if used properly—specifically, in convincing them to try new and interesting things. It only took turning one of them to my side, and then she would convince the other—and the most vulnerable to suggestion when it came to bedroom acts was the normally more reserved twin.

"Yes, Jaune?" she asked, biting her lower lip and clearly having a good idea what was coming.

"Miltia, don't listen to him!" Melanie warned from the other side of the bed. "Whatever he says, it can't be worth betraying your only sister!"

I allowed a small smirk to cross my lips before countering, "Miltia, my sister feels that you two have been bad, so she's taken it upon herself to discipline you."

Miltia blinked, a blush beginning to dust her face and upper body, visible through her lingerie. "H-how so?"

"Well," I hummed, seemingly thinking it over before shooting Melanie a glance. Catching on, Miltia followed my gaze momentarily before I waved her closer. There were times when the best approach was to slowly work up to some goal, coaxing a woman's desire higher bit by bit and letting her imagination do most of the work for you. However, there were times where a more direct approach worked better. It depended in part on both the woman in question and her mood at the time. I was pretty sure I had the twins figured out, though, and at the moment the direct approach was called for. When she got close enough, I cupped a hand over her ear and whispered, "How does tying you and your sister up, spanking your little asses red, and then screwing both silly 'till you can't walk straight sound?"

Watching the mood meter over her head bury the needle in the red, I knew I'd won, even if her thighs rubbing together and the trail of moisture between them glistening in the dawn light coming in past the blinds hadn't confirmed that. "That sounds… nice," she allowed.

'She's fishing for more,' I realized. 'Miltia's the submissive twin, so what could she want… Oh. I know. She wants to be told to do it.'

"Miltiades."

"Y-yes?" she breathed, heart rate and breathing picking up at the tone of my voice. Charisma really wasn't a fair stat, at all, especially when I had played these kinds of games before. Yes, most of my previous girlfriends had been nuts—but it seemed that the level of kink raised proportionately to the level of crazy… And more than one had had daddy issues and were looking for someone to tell them what to do.

The sound of my open palm slapping her ass was loud in the otherwise silent room as the other two occupants watched, waiting to see how this played out—Melanie herself jumping slightly at the sound, as though it had been her receiving the swat. Miltia jumped slightly at the sting, gasping faintly. "Yes what?" I asked, wondering if she would do it, if she would voice what I was betting was running through her mind. Question was, was she that into it? Role playing games had always been entertaining and the submissive types tended to enjoy their wordplay, using titles ranging from 'sir' to…

"Yes, master," the submissive twin whispered, and through the sheer red nightie I could see her sudden blush went all the way down. Yeah, this one's level of kink was a bit higher than that of her twin. Still, it wasn't entirely unexpected, and now that she'd said it she would expect me to play the role—at least for the time being.

I gestured towards Melanie, drawing Miltia's attention from me to her twin. "Capture your sister for me and I'll let you help."

That sold it, as the girl gave a quiet affirmative and darted across the room after her twin. "Traitor! Sell out! Betrayer! What did he offer you?! I'll double it!" Melanie shrieked as she tried to counter her sister, while Miltia herded her into a corner.

Hands wrapped around me from behind and a head rested itself on my right shoulder. "That was… really good," Joan complimented, her voice hitting a tone my body recognized on a physical level as need. "Did you get that from Ninjas of Love? Volume… five, perhaps?" she asked, after a pause to remember which book it was from.

I shook my head. "Nope. That was all me," I denied, before asking, "Wait. That was in those books?"

"Mm… not verbatim, but very close," she allowed. "Still, if you didn't get it from a book, where did you learn to do that?"

I rolled my eyes. "A skill named 'Marital Arts' and an unfairly high charisma modifier." And more than one ex-girlfriend who had enjoyed the submissive role—though, never to the point of delving into truly weird stuff, aside from the would-be 'witch.' If one had asked me to walk her around on a leash or something, I might have had to say no. I couldn't exactly tell Joan that, though.

"Skill books are bullshit," Joan sighed. "Oh! Looks like your assistant won. Ready to go help me teach those two a lesson?"

I nodded. "Sure. Just be kind of gentle, would you? Don't break my twins. They've kind of grown on me."

Letting me go, Joan began kicking off her boots as she walked across the bedroom, turning to regard me with an affronted look. "Who, me? Why would I break your toys?"

"Firstly, they're not 'toys,'" I countered, following. "Secondly, I get the feeling you might have done that when we were kids, if I ever paid any of my 'toys' more attention than you."

The slightly taller blonde's eyes narrowed. "Pretty accurate guess, for someone who claims to have amnesia."

"And you're proving my point," I countered. "Now, are you going to argue as foreplay or get those pants off?"

"I can do both," she grinned, proceeding to do just that.

I took a moment to take in her toned legs and ass as her panties came off as well. Across from us, Melanie's mock struggles ceased for a moment as she and her sister took in the view. Noticing their eyes on her, Joan turned getting the rest of her clothes off into a short strip tease that left both twins wide-eyed and my pants feeling suddenly several sizes too small about the crotch area. "That… that is not fair," Melanie whimpered.

"At all," Miltia agreed quietly.

Joan preened under their combined gazes for a moment. "Yeah, I'm kind of awesome like that."

"Ego," I reminded as I moved past her towards the twins, giving her ass a smack in passing that caused her to jump in surprise. 'Yeah, canon Jaune definitely gets his mannerisms from her,' I mused.

Joan rolled her eyes as she followed. Reaching the twins, she stood before the captured Melanie, who gazed up into the taller woman's eyes in trepidation. The blonde smirked, reaching out and trailing her fingers down the side of white-clad twin's face, to her neck, before coming to a stop at the strap to her nightie. "I have to say, Jaune, you do have good taste." Taking hold of the strap, she pulled it down the shorter girl's shoulder before sliding her thumb under the edge of the nightie. A smirk tugged at Joan's lips and a moment later, there was a ripping sound and a startled squeak from Melanie as the night gown was forcibly ripped from her body. Melanie looked like she was about to protest, but Joan's hands coming up and cupping her small breasts stole the words, and breath, from her as she gasped quietly. "At least they know when not to mouth off."

Watching Joan attempting to goad the more outspoken twin into doing just that, I busied myself getting Miltia out of her own sleep wear, my hands dragging slowly up her flanks as I pulled the nightie up and over her head before discarding it. "M-master, may I.. um..." Miltia breathed, watching Joan molest her sister, unable to tear her gaze away.

"May you what?" I asked, reaching around and tweaking one of her nipples, drawing a squeak and ensuring I had her attention.

Biting her bottom lip, Miltia turned green eyes on me and admitted, "We have… toys." At my raised eyebrow, she lowered her gaze, blushing prettily as she quickly added, "I can get a few, if it pleases you."

Wanting to see just what she would come up with, I nodded. "Get them."

I wasn't entirely surprised that the twins had brought over at least a few of their personal items—I was beginning to suspect they would be spending their nights here for a while. Not quite at the level of moving in, but in that awkward relationship stage where one or the other involved tends to start sleeping over on a regular basis. What she returned with after digging through one of the dresser drawers off to the side of the bed, however, sent both my eyebrows towards my hairline. The pink thing I mostly ignored as I focused on the other object in her hand. "I'm not surprised at the fact that you two own toys, that was sort of expected. But a riding crop?"

Miltia had the decency to look sheepish, breaking character for a moment as she chuckled. "Well, it works for Glynda Goodwitch."

"Urk," a strangled sound drew our attention to where Joan had shifted her attention to us. The blonde's eyes had gone a bit wide as she glanced between the riding crop and the girl holding it. "Do not mention her name. Just… don't." She turned her gaze on me, suddenly adopting a serious look as she hastened to add, "Avoid her outside of class if you can manage it. You don't want to play her games, Jaune."

"Oh?" I asked, curiosity creeping up on me as I wondered what could draw a reaction like that out of the Eldest Deadly Sister.

"Just trust me," she rolled her eyes before reaching out and taking the riding crop from Miltia. "Give me that." Looking around, she hummed in thought as she asked, "Wouldn't happen to have a tie or something, would you? Something to use as rope."

Digging into my inventory, I produced a bundle of rope and handed it to Miltia. "Tie up your sister for me," I grinned and the girl nodded, beaming a smile and turning to Joan before asking, "How would mistress like her prisoner bound?"

"Enthusiastic, isn't she?" the blonde directed at me, before grinning down on Miltia before forcing Melanie's arms out in front of her body. By the time she was satisfied, Melanie was left bound at the arms and legs, holding herself up on her arms and knees from where she was bent over on the bed, leaving her completely exposed and helpless to do anything about it. What was interesting, however, was the fact that the rope wasn't just locking her limbs in place—it crisscrossed Melanie's body in a pattern I recognized, around the chest, over and under the breasts, and at the hips and crotch in a classic shibari pattern. The twins just kept surprising me.

Taking Miltia by the hand, I led her to the opposite side of the bed and pushed her down in front of her sister, so they were nearly face to face across the bed. "You're not going to try to get out of your punishment if I leave you untied, are you Miltia?"

"No, master! Please, punish me how you see fit," she begged, waving her ass in the air invitingly. After a moment of consideration, she added, "Though, you could, just to be safe and help me avoid the temptation…"

Rolling my eyes, I produced more rope and set about securing the girl so she wouldn't feel left out, but mostly because I knew she wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't a huge turn-on for her. Across the bed from us, Joan was slowly teasing Miltia, fingers stroking up and down her inner thighs, occasionally brushing over the smaller girl's outer lips without ever stroking her outright—and effectively driving Melanie wild, if her whimpering was anything to go by. Meeting her eyes, I raised my hand and brought it down on a smack on Miltia's ass. Across from me, Joan did the same with the riding crop, a sharp smack and a gasp announcing its contact with the other twin. "So, how many licks were you thinking, for bruising your ego?"

Joan's eyes narrowed as she sent me a mild glare. "If you're not careful, it'll be you getting spanked for being mouthy."

I met her eyes as she doled out another smack, doing the same to Miltia. "Sounds like that's something you want." A smirk crossed my lips as I asked, "Would you like to trade places with the twins? I could tie you down, bind up those large breasts of yours, maybe find a paddle…"

"I'd like to see you try," she challenged, punctuating it with another swat. "But by the look on your twin's face there, I don't think she can take much more. She looks like she's about to come just sitting there."

I hummed, leaning forward and taking in Miltia's face, flushed as it was. "Possibly," I agreed, reaching out to stroke her reddening ass.

"You're too gentle with them," Joan criticized quietly, reaching down and grabbing a handful of Melanie's hair at the back of her head and shaking her head a bit with one hand while she brought the other up to spread Melanie's outer lips, forcing two of her long fingers inside the smaller girl and beginning to pump them in and out quickly, drawing a quiet moan from Melanie's lips.

The lewd, wet sounds of Melanie's snatch being roughly finger fucked were quickly joined by more of the same as I mimicked Joan's pace with Miltia, who buried her face in the blankets and began shaking her head back and forth as I felt her begin contracting around my fingers pretty much the moment I started—that was all it took to push her over the edge, it seemed. I gave her no respite, no chance to recover, as I leaned in and began sucking and licking at her lips and clit, drawing a muffled squeal from her and stringing her orgasm along a bit longer. Across from me, Joan had traded pulling Melanie's hair for mauling her breasts, squeezing the girl's much smaller breast in her palm while using her fingers to pull, pinch, and roll the nipple. Much like her twin, Melanie had been near the end of her own resistance and was soon quivering in orgasm.

Joan hummed, looking around. "Didn't one of them have another toy?"

I gave Miltia one last teasing nip before pulling back, taking a moment to wipe her dew from my lips and lower jaw before leaning down and picking up the toy in question. The toy in question was neon pink and oddly shaped—one end looked mostly like a phallus, as one would expect from a sex toy, while the other end hooked upwards in a J-shape, the short end of the 'J' ending in a bulbous head. On the under side looked to be a flap which, when I pushed away the material, showed it to be an access port for a standard sized Dust container. 'So, Dust-powered vibrating strapless strap-on?' I wondered, shaking my head and tossing it to Joan along with the remote. Of course the people of Remnant would use Dust in every damn thing, including their sex toys.

"I don't have this model," the blonde mused aloud. Noticing me watching, she smirked and spread her legs enough to give me a good view as she spread her lips with the fingers of one hand and slowly slid the smaller end into herself, biting her bottom lip as her eyes went half-lidded. "It's not what I want, but it'll do for now," she sighed, shifting around a bit to settle it how she wanted it before moving into position behind Melanie. "Hurry up over there. I want to watch her face when she comes around your cock."

Opening my inventory long enough to equip a condom, I sent the elder blonde a smirk as I lined up behind Miltia and ran the head of my cock up and down her slit, collecting the girl's own juices for lube. Neither of the twins had quite regained their senses yet, so they weren't exactly expecting it when we both pushed our hips forward at the same time, each of us sliding hilt-deep into a twin. It didn't take much effort to synchronize our thrusts into a rhythm that worked as the regular, wet slap of our bodies meeting filled the bedroom, along with the gasps, moans, and sighs drawn from the twins. A faint buzzing sound started up and Melanie squeaked before collapsing forward against the bed, each new thrust from Joan now met with a quiet squeal. I met Joan's half-lidded, crystal blue eyes and grinned. "You're getting close, aren't you?"

"Mhmm," she voiced, nodding and visibly holding herself back.

I called up a little of my Aura, pulling on charisma as her eyes closed momentarily. "Let it go," I murmured, voice dipping into that tone I knew the twins enjoyed. "Come for me, Joan."

"Fuck," she hissed, reaching up and grabbing a fistful of Melanie's hair as she thrust harder, the twin in her hands loosing a loud, broken moan as the larger blonde pounded her cunt with a force that rocked the bed. Joan's eyes opened wide as she came, biting her lip to keep from screaming as she buried the toy into the twin in her arms, pushing Melanie the rest of the way over the edge. I had been getting close myself and with Melanie's orgasm setting off Miltia, I growled as I lost the last of my own self control as her tight, hot cunt convulsed around my cock, closing my eyes as the world temporarily whited-out.

I took a moment to regain my breath, releasing my grip on Miltia's hips and chuckling quietly as I noticed the visible hand prints there. Rubbing the girl's back, I looked over to find Joan bent over Melanie, who had been pushed down into the blankets, shuddering in aftershocks—or it could have been the vibrator still going, keeping her plateauing. Below her, Melanie pushed herself up as far as she could before meeting my eyes, her own glowing faintly green. Below me, Miltia had also stirred and turned to regard me with a matching set of faintly glowing eyes. "Again, master?" they synced, a smirk mirrored across their faces. A moment later, Miltia's hips ground back into me, drawing a groan from my throat and causing my cock to jump inside her. Across from her, Joan gasped as Melanie mirrored the motion.

The blonde looked up, taking a moment to observe the twins as Miltia locked eyes with her. "That's kind of freaky," she admitted, then groaned when Melanie thrust back against her again. "Mm, don't care though." Reaching down, she took hold of the bit of rope keeping the knots in place and gave it a yank, freeing the twin below her. She took a moment to help Melanie get the ropes the rest of the way off before rolling her over and pushing the girl down into the bed in the missionary position.

Unlike Melanie, Miltia's ropes didn't keep me from adjusting her legs and the girl enjoyed having them on anyway, so I left them where they were as I pushed her forward until she lay beside her sister, rolling her over onto her side and straddling one of her legs while I pushed the other up into her chest, which incidentally made her tighter around me and left me free to play with her clit. "You get used to it," I admitted, having seen the light show a time or two. I wasn't one hundred percent sure what was going on there, but I suspected the twins semblance was either close to activating or already had and they simply hadn't figured out how to use it. I could figure it out later, though. There were more enjoyable things at hand, after all. "You're next, by the way."

Across from me, Joan grinned. "Good. I was getting kind of jealous."

"Less talking," Melanie deadpanned.

Beside her, Miltia finished with, "More fucking."

Joan and I shared a look before a pair of slaps rang out close enough to be one sound, followed by the twins 'Eep!' at the simultaneous smack.

"So mouthy," Joan sighed. "You need to train them properly."

I hummed in agreement. "Any suggestions?"

A smirk stretched across her lips as she nodded. "Oh, yes. Many. Firstly…."

I grinned as Joan went into detail, the twins squirming under us as they listened in rapt attention. Somehow, I got the feeling that Joan's sexual education trumped my own—then again, as I'd noticed was becoming the trend, Remnant was full of perverts. I supposed I'd fit in fine here, after all.

---

The system has been updated! Would you like to view the Change Log?

'No. Not right now,' I groused, closing the window as I was roused from a very nice post-coital nap sandwiched between the lithe forms of the twins and the curvier, fuller form of the Eldest Deadly Sister. I really wished the system would update to the point where I no longer had biological functions sometimes. Then again, if it did that, I may one day stop being able to enjoy sex—or food. Nope, not worth the risk. I'll take (mostly) human biology and everything that comes with it, thanks. Besides, it already had a bad habit of trying to cockblock me at times. Seriously, nothing throws off your mood like skill point gains in the middle of the act—which it apparently liked to do, seeing as I seemed to gain points far quicker from sex than just about anything else, so far. I would almost accuse my Semblance of turning my life into an H-game or visual novel, except for the fact that, again, it seemed to try its best to troll me when it did that sort of thing. Well, there was Dating Mode, which pretty much did exactly that, but I wasn't going to give my Semblance the satisfaction of letting it count.

With a yawn and a stretch, I eased my way up out of the tangle of limbs and made my way into the bathroom to take care of necessities. When I finished and washed my hands, I brushed my teeth—because I couldn't stand bad breath, but mostly because I tasted like three different women and it was polite to brush your teeth after that—and checked my HUD, finding it to be nearly 3P.M.. I double checked that and resisted the urge to gawk. Six hours. We had been at it for six hours. Well, more like five and a half hours, and then a nap. How… 'Aura. It has to be. Candice at least had the excuse of not having been laid in a while, and even then we took breaks… These three took no breaks.'

The twins had given out first, first Melanie and then Miltia passing out before Joan and I decided a nap sounded good and followed their example once we'd finished our last round. Still, knowing she was a much higher level than me, I knew Joan could have outlasted us all. If stats were a thing, then the only reason I could keep up was the fact that my buffs and passive abilities allowed for a stamina regeneration that most physical tasks wouldn't outstrip—or would, at the very least, take much longer to drain than without. As I've said, sex done right is hard work. Fun, immensely rewarding, and entertaining… but still strenuous.

Approaching the bed, I leaned down and shook Joan's shoulder. "Hey," I whispered, slowly rousing her out of her nap.

"What?" she slurred, before asking, "What time is it?"

"Nearly three."

Her eyes snapped open and she rolled out of bed, immediately going for her clothes. "Damnit, Jaune," she groaned. "I'm going to be late and I'm not going to have time to take a shower."

"It'll be fine," I assured her, bending down to pick up her blouse, which I tossed to her the moment she had a free hand. "Jun's a big girl, she can take care of herself for five minutes. You'll only be a little late."

Hopping on one foot as she pulled on a boot, she whined, "But my shower. I'm going to smell like sex!"

"I saw a few supplies the twins got for themselves in the bathroom. There's bound to be perfume or body spray in there or something, maybe deodorant," I suggested.

Sighing in resignation, she got the other boot settled and made her way towards the bathroom. "It'll have to do."

"Stop acting like a big baby," I teased, "Admit it, you had fun."

"Yes. I did," the Eldest Deadly Sister agreed from inside the bathroom. "And now I have to leave and go back to being a mother to my sister…" she trailed off. A moment later, her voice was hesitant and held a combination of remorse and guilt as she added, "I didn't mean that like it sounded."

"I know."

She continued, either not having heard me or feeling the need to get it out. "I don't want you—any of you—to ever feel like you were a burden. You are not. You have all been an absolute joy. And I don't want to seem like I'm saying our parents are irresponsible for what they're doing. I see the need of it, and I see the reason in it—we're old enough to look after Jun, and you, and the others… It's just that, well…"

I left the bed and met her in the bathroom, having equipped a clean set of clothes, and pulled her into a hug. "You didn't sign up for this job. I know. It's okay. I'm sure it's been hell on your social life."

"What social life?" the blonde laughed quietly.

"Exactly what I meant," I agreed. "But you don't have to take care of me any more, and any time you want some stress relief, you can call me."

The taller girl nodded, squeezing me a bit tighter. "You're sure you can't just come home and we can be careful?"

Pulling back slightly, I met her blue eyes with my own and asked, "Do you honestly think we'd be able to keep our hands off each other in close proximity?"

Having the good grace to look sheepish, Joan shook her head. "I know, you're right. Still… Friday, my relief should get here. Would you mind if I maybe… stayed here a while? Just for a few days, before I go back in the field?"

I nodded. "It's fine. I'll get you a key made."

Beaming a smile, the blonde pulled me into a hug that audibly popped joints in my spine before Gamer's Body kicked in. "Okay. I'm late enough as it is. I have to go."

I walked her to the door and saw her out, where she pulled me into a quick kiss that threatened to turn into a much longer kiss had I not pulled away and ushered her on to pick up our sister. Closing the door, I made my way back into the bedroom. "How much of that were you listening to?"

"Family business is family business," Melanie answered, sitting up and stretching. I covered a leer forming on my lips with a hand as I eyed the red marks crisscrossing her torso, along with the hickey on her neck.

"Would you like us to leave, Friday? Maybe give you two some alone time over the weekend?" Miltia asked, mirroring her sister's stretch. Looking down, she eyed her own set of markings before shifting her gaze to her sister. "We're going to need to do something about that before work."

"Let me," I offered. Holding out a hand pointed at Miltia, I chanted, "Regen," then switched targets and did it again. Rope marks and hickies alike disappeared, likely hand prints as well. I was mildly disappointed—I supposed I liked the idea of marking the twins up a bit. "As for the weekend… Yeah, a day or two maybe. She needs some time to unwind. You don't mind?"

Melanie rolled her eyes, standing and making her way towards the shower. "We have a place of our own, you know?"

"Even if we really enjoy staying the night here," Miltia added. "Are you going out for work later?"

"Grinding," I answered, following them into the bathroom for a shower myself. I needed to eat at some point, too. "I have some things I need to take care of. Speaking of, there's something I need you two to keep an ear out for."

"Oh?" Melanie asked as I joined them under the spray—it was a tight squeeze, but the twins were small and we weren't shy about sharing space. "What are you after?"

Wondering how best to put it, I hummed in thought before beginning. "I met someone on the job last night. I have reason to suspect she's up to something and she doesn't seem like she's sitting at the kiddie table."

"Is she strong?" Miltia asked, and I rolled my eyes at where I suspected her thoughts had gone.

"Yeah. Level 44." The twins perked up in interest and I quickly moved to quash those hopes. "I highly doubt she's going to be interested in 'joining up,' as it were. In fact, you two keep well the hell away from her. I've been told she's trouble and I'm inclined to believe it."

"How are we supposed to steer clear of her if we don't even know who you're talking about?" Melanie argued.

Conceding the point, I answered. "About 5'11", pale complexion, black hair, gold eyes…"

"Red dress with orange-red Dust patterns?" Miltia asked, trading a glance with her sister.

"Yeah…" I drew the word out, eying the twins critically. "Why am I not surprised you've met her?"

The pair shrugged. "She comes to The Club occasionally, either to meet up with contacts or let off steam. She's a good dancer," Melanie answered.

"Drinks her bourbon neat, pretty much ignores everyone around her who she isn't there to see or who doesn't interest her, and no one interests her," Miltia continued. "Always leaves after she's had one or two and tends to intimidate anyone trying to hit on her."

Turning to look me in the eye, Melanie asked, "So, what's the big deal?"

"Other than being dangerous and powerful?" I asked, drawing a set of nods. "She rubs me the wrong way."

"Instinct, then?" Miltia asked, and I shrugged. It was the best I could give without thinking up a way to lie about something my Semblance had told me.

"Just keep an ear to the ground, let me know if anybody is planning anything." Seeing they looked skeptical, I sighed and phrased it a way they couldn't argue with. "If someone decides to, say, hit a Dust shop or raid a weapons' cache I could get in, steal it out from under them, and they would take the blame for it. Or, you know, just dupe the items."

Both twins took on a considering look before Melanie asked, "We'll be able to sell whatever you get, right?"

"Maybe," I hedged. "How about instead of selling it all, especially if it's something I could use, we split it into shares and you can sell your share for profit?"

"How large a share?" Miltia asked, apparently already running the numbers.

Thinking on it, I offered, "Ten percent."

"Each," Melanie countered.

Eh, what the hell? It wasn't like I had a personal stake in anything I took from somebody like Roman or the White Fang. I would mostly be stealing things off of them to slow them down. "Deal."

Surprisingly, we managed to make it out of the shower without going another round and I spent a few minutes after equipping clean clothes gathering laundry and throwing it in the apartment's washer. Taking a seat in my overstuffed chair, I opened up my inventory and dug out my skill books. The first I took out was Kung Pow, since I knew I had the requisite 20 DEX now. Devouring the book did… something. I did not gain a new skill, at least no outright. No, what it did do was bridge the knowledge I already had of my martial skills—Sword, Shield, and Martial Arts Mastery—and my knowledge of Firearms Mastery. Everything just sort of clicked, and suddenly I got how most of the characters of RWBY did the crazy shit they did combining guns and martial arts. It was like a hidden skill, really, in that I couldn't see it on my interface at all, but it was there nonetheless.

The other two that were close were Aura Examination and Aura Healing—both off by only one point of WIS. All it would take was a word and the push of a button and I could have them. The problem was, once I started down the path of adding points I may as well just go ahead and dump the rest, because trying to earn skill points after that would be just that much harder. That one point now could, potentially, cost me ten or more in the future as I was forced to rely on leveling to gain more points. 'No, it's not worth the hassle,' I decided.

Your wisdom has increased by 1!

I blinked, then blinked again before laughing. 'So, waiting was the wise choice after all.' Still, now I could learn those two books.

Aura Examination: Passive. Level: MAX. You have learned how to scan a patient for status effects by scanning their Aura for abnormalities. Effect: adds the ability to examine Aura for status effects to Observe.

Aura Healing: Active. Level 1. You have learned a skill to heal others of harm and remove their ailments through the use of your Aura. Effect: Without soul crystal: heals a patient for 200% of your INT modifier. With soul crystal: removes negative status effects, curses, heals damage to Aura. Add Dust crystals of different types to increase the effectiveness of Aura Healing. Cost: 20 MP, 1 Soul Crystal.

Well, I couldn't level Aura Healing any time soon, unless I got hurt or someone else did… I blinked once, twice, and a slow smile spread over my face. Hopping out of my chair, I hurried into the bedroom, where I found the twins getting ready for the night. "Hey girls, question…" Seeing I had their attention, I asked, "How busy would you say the hospital is? Or full? Do people get sick normally, or does Aura prevent that?"

The twins shared an amused look before Melanie began. "People get sick all the time. While Aura's pretty much a cure-all for Hunters…"

"Not everyone's a Hunter," Miltia pointed out. "Or even has an active Aura. Someone usually has to awaken your Aura, firstly. Secondly, most people don't have much in the way of Aura capacity."

Giving me a considering look, Melanie asked, "Why do you ask? You've got that look in your eye that says you've got a plan for something you probably shouldn't be doing."

"Who, me?" I asked, assuming my most innocent look. Neither twin was buying it at that point. "Okay, fine. I'm going to go down to the hospital later and spam my new skill for completely altruistic purposes, healing the sick and wounded—and if I just so happen to gain levels out of it, so much the better."

Two identical deadpan looks were their response and I shrugged shamelessly. Finally, Melanie asked, "So you're picking the most convenient and personally profitable method of putting your skills to good use?"

When I nodded, the pair broke into smiles and Miltia added, "We're so proud of you. Next thing you know, you'll actually be stealing stuff for fun and profit as opposed to necessity or to screw over someone else."

Rolling my eyes, I left the bedroom and made my way into the kitchen. Checking the refrigerator, I found the makings for sandwiches and quickly threw together a couple. The twins joined me a few minutes later, as I was finishing my own. "Sorry I didn't cook—it seems like I haven't really had a chance to be here much recently."

"It's fine," Miltia assured me. "We can cook."

"Besides, it's not like we live here full time," Melanie continued. "If that were the case, we might be upset, but we can fend for ourselves."

I shook my head. "Never said you couldn't. Everyone likes someone else to cook for them every now and then, though."

The twins' answer was non-committal, but I could tell they agreed and were mostly trying not to seem pushy or imposing—which was a refreshing change from what had become the norm for me in my old life, where pushy and imposing were standard operating procedures for nearly every woman I'd dated once they made it past the first week, growing progressively worse in a sort of slow creep over time. They still weren't quite sure how this thing was supposed to work and were stressing over it a bit, in places. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure myself. I was just kind of going with whatever worked at this point. It would likely take us a few weeks, at least, to figure that out and really adjust to each other—everything was still in that new phase. "Hey," I said, drawing their gazes up to meet mine. "Don't worry about it too much. I'm not going to kick you out or ditch you if you push boundaries a bit. The worst I'm likely to do is say 'no.' I expect the same out of you—if I suggest something that you don't like or that makes you uncomfortable, let me know. Okay?"

"Okay," the twins synced with a pair of relieved smiles. Miltia added, "You haven't yet, really."

Melanie sighed, nodding. "As much as I may protest… no, you haven't. We'll let you know if you do."

"What my sister is trying to say," Miltia smirked, "Is that she likes being pushed down, but she wants to put up a struggle first."

"Hey!" the white-clad sister protested, slapping her twin on the arm. "Don't go telling my secrets!"

"It's not really a secret," I deadpanned, earning a glare in return. "Well it's not."

"Don't you have some sickly to heal?" the girl pouted. "Go put bandages on orphans or something."

Standing, I threw a wave over my shoulder as I made for the door. "Yes, ma'am!"

"Smartass!"

Chuckling as the door closed behind me on her cursing, I equipped my stealth set and activated Invisibility before heading for the roof. My plans for the evening were simple. As it was only shortly after 4 P.M., I would head over to the hospital and get a feel for Aura Healing and try it with a few varieties of Dust. After that, I would go open up an Instant Dungeon and grind my other skills while farming soul crystals, then once I cleared an Instant Dungeon I would repeat the process. Getting the first ten or so levels shouldn't take long at all—it was just too bad I couldn't progress it like I could my buff skills. Aura, Reinforcement, Reflex, and Haste were all sitting pretty on an even level 20 after leaving them on constantly through running, fighting, even screwing.

Dumping points into a trait like INT or VIT can raise your HP by a bit—10 points of MP or HP per point of INT or VIT, plus what you got for your level—but the things that truly made RPG-style characters ridiculous at times were the passive bonuses. A system with no level cap to skills meant that I could level skills independently of my character level, making for some truly inflated stats for a 'low level' character. At level 14, after all the numbers were run through my passive and active bonuses from things like Aura, I had 8643 HP and 7271 MP. I had started with bonuses to INT, WIS, and CHA from the Outsider title, but passive and active bonuses to VIT had already surpassed my bonuses and those extra points to INT that had overinflated it for the first few levels. I regenerated almost as much HP as I had with my Aura active, at 7148 HP/minute of regen. With Meditation active, I could regenerate 22876 per minute at level 12 of Meditation.

It took running the numbers through a calculator twice before I accepted that what I was seeing was accurate, and like my stats the bonuses were stacking cumulatively after my other bonuses, as opposed to being added to my other bonuses. In other words, two passives, one for +100% and the other for +200% would not net +300% but rather ((X*100%)+X)=Y after the first and then ((Y*200%)+Y)=Z, where Z was the product after both bonuses were applied as opposed to ((X*300%)+X)=R Throw a 2 where the X is and solve for Y, Z, and R and you get entirely different outcomes: Z=12 and R=8. MP regen wasn't quite so bad, since Aura being active drained MP… while passively restoring it, which was still producing more than it was spending. Without Meditation, I could regen 1609 MP/minute—with Meditation on, that bumped up to 5149 MP/minute.

The math wasn't the issue, the real issue was the fact that I could create skills on pretty much an as needed basis at times, including passive skills—my Semblance cut out a lot of the middle steps to learning or creating a skill—the trade-off there being that I had to grind those skills up once I had them, because they weren't all that strong by themselves. A 100% bonus wasn't much, when you started off with a 10 in something. No, it was the cumulative effects that really did it—a 100% bonus here, a 150% there, slowly incrementing upwards as I leveled those skills.

I'd noticed, however, that with the last system update that the regen counts actually worked per second—so I was regenerating about 26 MP/second. I should go over that at some point and find out what else changed. Changing the way regen ticked was good for me, seeing as I didn't have to wait a full minute between ticks—if I was taking constant damage, or burning a constant stream of mana, then this would work to offset that. More though, if I took a sudden hit to my HP I wouldn't have to wait a full minute for it to tick back up and would be in less danger from a bleeding effect or 'fort save or die' situation since healing tended to negate those kinds of things.

This entire phenomena, with stacking bonuses and such turning an ordinarily weak character into a ridiculously strong character for its level was called 'power creep.' At low levels, it could be a real game changer depending on how soon a character got those abilities. At higher levels? I was almost afraid to look at Joan when I leveled Observe to the point where I'd be able to see all her character data—and she wasn't even the biggest fish in this pond, not even remotely. Qrow, Glynda, Ozpin… I already knew I'd be looking at levels labeled as '?' when I hit Beacon unless I was level 30 or higher. I suspected Glynda to be in the mid-70s or so. Ozpin? I had no idea. Likely 90+ considering he ran the school. That is, again, assuming level 100 as some sort of level cap. It could go up to 255 for all I know, or there may not be an end to it.

Coming in high from the next building over, I let my line spool out with a high drag on it as I approached the hospital, dropping altitude and speed before I released the line from its anchor point and reeled it in as I hit the ground. Watching the front, I waited a moment for someone else walking in and followed behind them so as to not trip any door sensors or raise notice by opening doors—people tended to take note when doors suddenly opened for no apparent reason. Once inside, I peeled off from my 'escort' and found a floor map. Looking it over, I hummed before making my choice. I moved to the stairwell and opened an empty ID on top of the door, quickly passing through and dismissing the pocket of space before making my way up the stairs to the floor where the children were kept—the same floor where I had woken up in this strange new world. Another quick ID got me onto the floor unnoticed and I walked down the hall, picking the first room I came across and immediately getting a quest notification for a repeatable quest to heal the sick and wounded, which would reward me 1000 EXP per patient healed.

While this didn't seem like much, there had to be at least 30 patients on this floor—multiplied by 1000, that would put me at level 17 by the time I finished the floor. As with most games, gaining experience was a quantity over quality thing: if you had the choice between a quest returned 10000 EXP but took twenty minutes to finish, or killing mobs at 500 EXP each and each mob took ten seconds to kill, then killing the mobs by the hundred was the right choice every time. If you could combine those two things, usually with quests that required you to kill those mobs, then that was the best possible option. In this case, however, I had a specific skill I needed to grind up which could only gain experience by being used properly—which meant that either way I went, someone was going to have to be injured for it to work. With the hospital, I had a ready source of sick and injured people that would benefit from me grinding up my skill on them since there were no negative effects to using the skill. The experience gain was just icing on the cake for something I would have done just to level the skill by itself anyway.

Like most hospitals in my old reality, this one left patient doors open unless patients were sleeping, with family, or requested privacy—this was done mostly so nurses could make the rounds easier. It also made my work here easier, seeing as I wouldn't have to open and close a bunch of doors invisibly or spam Create ID to move around—sure, I'd take the extra experience, but this way was faster. Again, it was a trade-off between time spent and experience gained. Once inside, I took a look at the patient's chart posted at the foot of the bed: some disease I didn't recognize the name of, not terminal. Observe confirmed that, going so far as to give me a rating scale for the severity of the illness: grade 1 out of 5. Taking out a soul crystal, I held it over the girl and subvocalized, "Aura Healing."

The crystal in my hand went dark and shattered into dust—not Dust, though. A quick pass with Observe showed the girl was healthy. Aura Healing had even leveled. Grinning, I moved on to the next room, my mana already having ticked back up from casting the spell. I managed to clear the floor like that with just the soul crystals in my inventory, though it had actually managed to get dark by the time I finished as some people took multiple castings of the spell. Dust, as I came to find out, worked differently depending on the type of Dust and the type of illness. Blue, water-type Dust tended to be best for generally boosting the effects of Aura Healing if I wasn't fighting something specific. The rest, it was fairly hard to tell with—I would have to see if I could find a manual or something. While I was here, I could perhaps show the healer who had given me the skill books that I had learned the skills and ask for some more help…

That plan in mind, I left to go refill my stock of soul crystals. The hospital was, unsurprisingly, fully Sanctified and Area Purged—and given the amount of death that must go on in a hospital on a daily basis, that had to be a full time job. The surrounding blocks, however, had been neither purged nor Sanctified—and with the hospital so near, turned out to be excellent hunting grounds. It was bad to the point that I encountered a far larger variety of grimm than I'd ever run across before—in addition to beowolves, I also found creeps, stalkers, taijitu, and nevermore. There were none of the giant variety of those, thankfully, and nothing over level 20. Even six levels above me, they weren't much of a challenge individually when I could either Sleep them or kite them. I even went so far as to go ahead and make a poison-based spell in Bio, which wouldn't break Sleep effects. With most things I could hit clusters of monsters with Sleep, apply Bio to each, then watch them die over time while I dealt with other enemies with different skills. It was really almost unfair—but as I've said before, I wasn't in this to be fair, I was in it to win. I would use every cheap advantage I could get or create—and in doing so, level The Strategist for extra bonuses and more INT and WIS points, two points each just for this area. Since INT and WIS were the hardest to train, I would take all the help I could get.

I was maybe halfway through clearing the area, and another two levels higher at level 19, when my scroll buzzed. Running a set of four of AP Rounds through a stalker's head area, I pulled out my scroll and had a look as it dissolved. 'I have an assignment. Why do I have an assignment? And at… 3000L, no less. Ah, crap. She really is my problem now.' Oddly, I didn't even have the ability to refuse this job. My scroll buzzed in my hand, signaling an incoming message.

'Sorry, I tried to filter it and deny the job, but the app wouldn't let me—meaning someone higher ranked than me has pretty much foisted off our problem customer on you. Meet at the pickup location. - BlackPetal.'

"Damnit. Now what have I gotten myself into?"