Moroes
"You know, when I took you in just last week, I didn't think you were going to do this." Robyn said, walking alongside me to wherever our feet took us during our walk in Atlas.
After handing out duties to my loyal underlings after our… Sudden acquisition of the Atlesian Capital, Robyn had found me admiring the view on top of a building and asked to speak.
And while we aren't particularly close by any means, she did give me a house for the 1 week that I needed it. So I obliged.
Of course, other than that, she was a huntress, and I do need someone on their side of things to ensure their loyalty…
"When I walked into Mantle last week, I didn't expect everything to fall in my favor so quickly." I said, telling the truth.
Even the mightiest of empires back on Earth needed a few years of instability for someone like myself to capitalize on the situation to overthrow a government with support and no major opposition.
So, the great question is, was it all just dumb luck, or did that Hero Player do something else insane and somehow butterflied into my fortune?
Or perhaps the situation goes deeper than what I could imagine.
…Or it's just shallow.
"I don't think anyone was," Robyn said with a hint of… bitterness?
"We all lived in one Atlas, and even though at times we didn't really like the fancy elites up in Atlas city, it was familiar." Robyn continued, looking towards the sun, still firmly in the sky, signaling the day hasn't ended.
"And now?" I said to her with a questioning tone. She looks quite nostalgic for a regime she herself just said she didn't agree with all the time.
Robyn just glared back at me, "Well, you want to unlock everyone's aura, and let the grimm destroy everything when they start to see us."
Ah, so she's a loyalist, then-
Something appears in the distance.
I raised my brow and asked, "So, a loyalist, then… Pity."
The object grows closer. By this point, I really couldn't ignore it.
"...By the way, do you know what that flying object behind you is?" I asked offhandedly before Robyn said anything.
Giving it an observe…
[Cool Flying Dinosaur - When used, creates a cool flying dinosaur that can be used to fly to any destination. Explodes when landing.
Warning! Only use with 2 people!]
…Hah?
Suddenly, 2 people, one woman who had blue hair and skin tone was oddly pale, and one man with black hair and terrible fashion sense, jumped off of the thing and landed in front of us. The dinosaur flies beyond me and causes a loud explosion I couldn't be bothered to check.
Could they possibly be…
I observed the woman first.
Mythandras
Hero Player
Succubus
Class: Hydro Mage
Level: 25
Hp: 895
Mp: 2,000
Sp: 100
Stats:
…
Difficulty: Easy
Modifiers: 2-Player-Mode, Absolute Dominance, Natural Dodger, Earlier Summons, Sentient Summons, Asexual, Message, Calming Waters, Skill: Clean, Friend Maker, Human Form, Mixed Personality, Hover, More People.
Ah… The Hero Player…
…is only level 25?
Why is she so weak? Could it have to do something with… What, exactly? Are they just slow?
Mythandras immediately looks at him and her eyes widen considerably.
"Ahh… Sicias," Mythandras mouths to her (presumable) Teammate, "I think now's a good time to realize we need to BOUNCE." She said with all the urgency she had within her.
Sicias nodded, stepping back a few steps, slight worry in his eyes, "Uh, yeah. I think we made a mistake."
Who is he anyways-
Sicias
Hero Player
Human
Class: Rogue [Subtlety]
Level: 25
Hp: 1,500
Mp: 200
Sp: 2,100
Stats
…
Difficulty: Easy
Modifiers: Consequence of Greed, Extra Villages, Ancient Ruins, Familiar Faces, Quick Dodge, Atlas Purge, Double Hp, Double Mp, Double Sp, Mixed Personality, Vehicle Mastery, Filthy Rich, GAS GAS GAS, Trusted Face, Overflowing Aura, OP Protagonists, 2-Player-Mode, Extra Stat Point, Extra Class, Get Out of Jail Free, Minor Telekinesis Ability, Disability Immunity, Message, Extra Healing, Season 2 Start, Extra Grimm, Age-Be-Gone, Talented Dancer, Garbage Singer, Unnatural Focus, Unlimited Knives, "He's The Good Guy!", Back Breaker, One True God, Gacha Luck, Longer Wait Time, Uravity's Zero Gravity, Minor Transformation Ability, Hoarder, Not Very Subtle, Weapon Mastery: Daggers, Blessed Hearing, Magic Damage Reduction, Greater Observation, Greater Semblances.
Dear god. There's two?
"Why do you have so many modifiers?" I muttered out subconsciously. Half of those words don't even make any sense to me…
…Is that 2-Player-Mode modifier the reason that there are two of them?
And now that I think of it, didn't picking a higher difficulty give me more experience? Could them picking a lower difficulty… Ah, yes, that makes sense. I do remember that now.
What a shame. Unless if there's something truly powerful within that pandora's box of modifiers, he's unlikely to be able to put up much of a fight…
Sicias glared at me, "Hey! I love my modifiers! Screw you, you overleveled cunt!"
Robyn by this point had her weapon pulled out, but nobody seemed to be paying attention to her anymore, yet she asked anyways, "Moroes, what the hell?"
"New deal," I said, using my influence skill, but still not looking at her, "Help me kill those two, and I'll let you on the new council."
"What?"
"Counter Offer!" Mythandras shouted out, pointing her finger at us, "Help us kill him and we can all pretend this never happened! We're the good guys!"
…This is becoming increasingly irritating.
I began to ready a spell, "How unfortunate you won't live to tell your own legend, then."
This should be relatively easy…
Sicias
How did things go from 'we are having fun' to 'OH SHIT OH GOD'
How the hell did this guy get to level FIFTY in the first WEEK!?
Was the shared leveling thing really this bad?! Was it the whole being stuck at beacon thing?!
Probably a combination of the two now that I think of it-
WHAT DO WE DOOOOOOO!? Mythandras kept messaging (shouting) into my ear.
As soon as his hands started to glow with the unmistakable glow of a magic spell, the decision was made for them.
"We're about to use an ancient family technique…" I began.
Mythandras just looked at me weirdly, "...Hah?"
Moroes looked mildly intrigued and on guard, "Oh?"
He picked up Mythandras by the neck and turned the other direction, using GAS GAS GAS to run and jump off the edge of Atlas.
"SEE YA, SUCKERS!"
He narrowly avoided getting hit by the laser ball of doom.
Now the better question he has to ponder while they fall down to the city below- How the hell are they supposed to beat that guy?
Moroes
Yes, of course, wonderful. Of course they wouldn't have the guts to stand and fight. Weaklings…
"Robyn, do me a favor and gather some of my soldiers to catch up to me." I said, transforming into a small eagle with a gaudy amount of glow on its feathers.
It would be a shame if the grimm caught up to them first. Even if everything scales in their favor here, it would be quite sad for them to die like that…
"You- Agh, fine!" Robyn yelled out as I flew away towards them.
Now, how do I fight two players?
While they are weaker than me, I do very distinctly remember reading that players deal half damage to each other for 'balancing' purposes… Or so it claims. So this fight will likely be drawn out.
Fortunately, I've decided to turn my mana-restoring fruits into grapes so I can swallow them easier earlier upon a bit of deliberation, so mana shouldn't be too much of an issue unless if I spend too much mana and have to spend most of my time eating to gain it back.
Although, if they do get close and have almost any amount of skill with anything melee, I might be in trouble… The scythe I have has mostly been used as a blunt weapon, to be quite honest. They could likely disarm me if they knew how to.
A bolt of water zips by my body, narrowly avoiding me due to misaim on their part.
Now that they mention it, I couldn't really get a closer look on what classes they had… What a shame, I'll have to pray that they don't have anything too dangerous.
Sicias noticeably slows down, whatever he used to make a quick getaway must've ran out by now.
Rushing down to them, I transform back and pull out the scythe from my inventory to deal a quick and brutal attack to Sicias before jumping back.
480 damage dealt.
Sicias [1,020/1,500]
"GAH!" Sicias yelps, rolling forward trying to create distance from us.
Mythandras creates 2 more blasts of water which I also avoid, but still causes me to back up. She then covers Sicias in water and…
…Is she healing him?
Sicias [1,100/1,500]
…I chose the wrong target.
Using overgrowth, vines start to appear out of the city floor, and using my modifier, I try to immobilize Mythandras.
…Only to find out my vines are very susceptible to getting cut, as Sicias effortlessly destroys the vines, essentially making me waste mana.
During the small lull after, Sicias squinted and asked, "Wait, how do you have Crescent Rose?"
"Gacha." I replied back, preparing another nature's force to hit them with.
As I threw the spell at Mythandras, she immediately threw a water bolt at the spell in order to try and break it…
…Unfortunately, I overlevel her, so the water bolt dissipates on contact and ends up hitting her.
638 damage dealt.
Mythandras [257/895]
138 intelligence, 500 mana used, and a cast time of two, divided by two…
I should've used 1,000, and she would've died… Ah well.
Sicias grabbed her again and pulled something out of his inventory, "That's unfair, we're out!"
[King Crimson's Time Skip - Legendary - When broken, activate King Crimson's time skip and skip 10 seconds of time where you can move.
King Crimson! Erase the passage of time!]
What the-
Without me even realizing it, I had thrown several spells, but they were gone.
I stood for a second, not processing what had happened.
"Reincarnation! Sir! Are you okay!? Do you know what just happened?!" Voices started to appear behind me, likely my subordinates, but right now, I can't really care about them…
…I just want to find them.
Mythandras
Life fucking hurts.
Living on just 300 health, somehow, she managed to live and heal herself after Sicias teleported them away.
"Sicias, when are we going on our training montage?" She asked while lying down in the alleyway they were in, catching a breath.
Sicias was nervously looking around the corner, but answered, "Hopefully soon? We just have to leave the city alive, which is a bit… hard."
Well, yeah, they were in a city that was probably controlled entirely by him… At least, the underlings should be easy to fight like everything else.
Both being on easy mode, every single grimm they've fought so far folded like wet paper. Which had the great advantage of looking like they're strong but in reality, everything was just weak.
As for Moroes himself…
"I'll probably use my complaint token we got earlier when we get out. I definitely want that damage nerfed." Sicias said, looking in his inventory for anything that might help them escape.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
Until the thought struck her head.
"What if that's the intended thing?" She said, "Something like, 'we're underleveled, it's your fault you engaged him so early.'"
Sicias sighed, throwing his arms in the air, "He had like, what, 1,700 hp? He'd die in 3 hits to his OWN spell!"
…Okay, that's fair. That probably wasn't balanced at all. So much for a company named 'Fair and Balanced Incorporated'...
"Also, dump all of your stats to intelligence. I can just take a tankier class to protect you." Sicias mentioned, started to walk away.
Standing up to follow him, she confirmed, "Alright. In that case… I'll probably take something else magical. What's your third class, then?"
Sicias shrugged, "we'll get to it when we get to it. Right now, we need to get out of here…"
Yeah, getting out of here… That's a nice thought.
She sent a quick prayer to God that Moroes didn't have something he could use to find them quickly.
"...We should go in the sewers, right?"
"Oh my god no-"
Moroes
Detect Life is worthless.
The stench of human life is suffocating out the life of the worthless worms I need to go after…
Flying over Mantle, I keep my eye out for the two players…
Yet, even after minutes of frantic searching, they were nowhere to be found. The many twists and turns of Mantle hides their tracks.
Shame and humiliation wrecks my body. The modifiers non-stop and urge to fight was doubtlessly taking its toll on my body for failing to quench the urges of chase and fight.
"Lord Reincarnation!" Someone shouted from behind.
Looking behind me, he seemed to just be a messenger with the semblance of flight.
Unlocking everyone's aura has done wonders for finding great and wonderful semblances. Most people don't unlock anything, but the few who do have gotten quite lucky.
Asking what he was here for, he replied, "We've blocked all exits to the city but we haven't found the people you're looking for! We think they may try to leave Solitas by going to the harbor though-!"
Immediately, I turned into the direction of the harbor, not even replying to the person who told me the information.
Offhandedly, I looked at my mana to make sure I could fight.
Moroes [Mp: 1,668/5,125]
…Flying is quite draining.
Looking towards the harbor, I estimate if I get there, I'll have around 600 or so mana left…
My grapes don't give a lot of mana, only 100 a piece, but if I get there before them…
Sicias
[Mirror of Viewing - Epic - Allows you to look at areas from a bird's eye view. Radius of 10 miles.
I see you.]
"Sheesh, outplayed."
"Yep, thank god for our lord and savior lady luck... Are we going to stay here for a while until the heat dies down?"
"...Yeah, probably. Until RWBY gets here, maybe? Then we could try to leave with them…"
Moroes
The sun has set.
The players are nowhere to be seen.
Words cannot express my anguish.
"...Moroes, was this really necessary?" Robyn asked, stepping over the corpse of a few loyalists who were at the dockyards.
After Sicias and Mythandras was a no-show, the two modifiers had taken its toll on me and I had to settle for the execution of already beaten enemies.
I shook my head, "No, but it is a good message to any loyalists still evading capture."
Staring straight at her, I asked, "More relevantly, are you loyal to the Aura Liberation Army, or to a dead man?"
Robyn stared at me for a few seconds before eventually replying, although hesitant, "...To you."
Good, good, that's good. At the very least, even if she doesn't like me that much, she'll be a fine messenger.
"Good, now go spread the word. If anyone meets those two again, Sicias and Mythandras, they are to be brought to me. Killed, if they must."
Getting ready to leave towards Atlas to consolidate my gains properly, Robyn interrupted me.
"Sure… But can I ask a question? The aura of everyone in the city must be a beacon to grimm, but we haven't even gotten a single grimm sighting in the past day… Is that somehow your doing?"
…That's odd.
I've been putting off the question for a while now, but the grimm invading seemed like an inevitability according to every source I looked at when unlocking a whole city's aura, but…
"It is not my doing. Assume it's someone's semblance somehow for now."
I'll put it off for later. The hero players take priority.
Although… There's not much I could do about that now. Although they're likely still in Mantle somewhere, actually searching for them would be impossibly difficult. It's more likely they'll come out on their own.
Absent-mindedly, I look into my inventory.
There's a whole bunch of junk that's just been sitting there, perhaps I should take a look at them…
[Ticket To The Border - Creates a portal to one of the 4 great borders of the universe.
How is it, that even when we're literal gods, we're still trapped inside of a cage?]
[Domino of Destiny - Divine - A domino that sets up destiny. Use it on one of the great walls of the universe, and you might get a prize.]
Perhaps it's a type from whoever typing it, but these two seem related.
And the flavor text on the ticket seems…
Well, it doesn't seem like anything, but it does raise my curiosity.
Yes, perhaps a quick side quest to the border will stimulate my brain.
Pulling out the ticket, it quickly dissolves into air and a portal that just exudes a dark aura appears.
Well, no time like the present.
Arriving at the border, it's clear why it's a border.
In front of me is a glass-like wall that reveals nothing behind it, and it stretches farther than the eye can see.
Above me is a great light, and below me is an unending void.
And behind me are… Bubbles.
"Yes, they're great bubbles, are they not?"
Rapidly turning behind me, I see-
Skryb
CEO of Fair and Balanced Incorporated.
…Ah.
I suppose that's a greatly important person, considering he's the owner of the company who controls the afterlife.
"...Why am I speaking in bold italics?"
Not daring to interrupt, I watched as the… Red, metallic, robot-dragon-samurai hybrid fiddle with his neck for a moment.
"Ah, there we go." Skryb says, looking more satisfied than before, despite not having a mouth, or eyes that could move.
Maybe it was the cape that was fluttering more happily, despite there being no wind here.
"Ahem," I gently interrupted, not wanting to overly upset someone likely far beyond my imagination, "I assume your appearance here is no coincidence?"
Skryb chuckles lightly, "Pfft, of course not."
Skryb teleports frighteningly close to me, "But you have the domino, right?"
Not daring to take a step back, I simply take the domino out from my inventory and present it to him.
Skryb immediately takes it and gives a hop and a swirl entirely unbecoming of his appearance, "Haha! Finally! I don't know how everyone else does it, but waiting 500 years for each domino to appear is such a pain!"
500 years? That's…
"'Not a very long time in the grand scheme of things,' everyone says, but everyone who says that HASN'T LIVED FOR 500 YEARS!" Skryb shouts, tossing a sword (Where did he get that?) into the ground(?) visibly cracking the area.
Wait.
Looking down, void.
Looking up, light.
How are we standing?
"Now…" Skryb says, looking over to me, "Would you like to be at the beginning, or end?"
Unsure, I ask-
"No."
"...I would like to be at the beginning," I hesitantly say instead.
Skryb visibly darkens, making me feel as if I made the wrong choice, "Ugh, you're boring."
He looks up into the sky, "Why are you so cruel?"
The great light in the sky gives no response.
"Ah, whatever," Skryb shrugs off, "Instead, I'll focus on my glorious future!"
He throws the domino at the glass wall.
The domino disappears.
"...In a year or two. Maybe 5. Hopefully sometime in the next 10 years."
Skryb wipes his hands clean of nothing and looks expectedly towards me, "Ah, well, you came here for a reward, right? What's the big thing happening over in your bubble?"
Ah, a reward directly from the CEO? I wonder how kind he'll be to any requests…
Still, just to be safe, I'll keep it on the realistic side, "I've found my foes, but they soon retreated and now I'm having trouble finding them again. Perhaps you could help…?" I said expectedly.
Skryb looked at his clipboard (Where did he even get that?), "Ah, well… Can't do much about that unless if He wants to end it all very quickly…"
He tosses the clipboard towards the void, "Instead, I've been looking to fix that damage system. Bonkers, the more that I think about it. Buuuuuuut…"
A large bubble soon appears beneath him and starts to swallow him whole, "I suppose I'll just 'forget' to update your particular system."
As his head is the only thing that remains, he says, "Now, see you hopefully at the finish line instead of in unfinished hell!"
As the bubble swallows him whole, there is only a small red medallion to remember him by.
[FaBI Insignia - A small medallion with a scale that's suspiciously weighted towards one side. Wearing this currently does nothing, but it could be retconned into doing something.
Fair and Balanced, as all things should be.]
…How…
…Peculiar.
Still, I believe I've helped my… Backers, I suppose. And in return, I still get to be powerful against my foes.
I suppose this has been a good outcome, but at the same time…
I feel as if I've doomed someone on the other side of the wall.
An:
3 months, I truly am an author now.
Or maybe I already was. And it just feels new because I haven't experienced it in 3 months.
Anyways, I am at an impasse. Admit I kind of don't like it here and just end the fic in like 3 chapters after getting past 'oh hey, we share the same scythes' with Ruby thing and something about the medallion getting retconned into something else.
Or just keep trudging along with the 'Moroes would win in a straight fight, but the hero players are surprisingly good at empire deconstruction because any NPC they fight is easily foldable.' thing.
It's a cool dynamic, I think, to essentially have a cat and mouse thing going on and being forced to watch as Moroes' new Aura Liberation Army crumble and start to lose allies. Meaning Moroes is on borrowed time.
But do I really want to write that for the next 10 chapters or so? This is kind of similar to the problem I had with like my 3 chapter fic 'freeloading souls' or whatever where I intended it to be kinda angsty with the whole 'i really don't wanna be a villain' type of thing.
And then I remembered I hate angst. So I threw that fic into unfinished hell.
Fortunately for this fic, the end can be whenever I want because the end goal is 'kill the 2 players' unlike gamer fics where the end goal is kind of murky.
…Despite that, I've only written to the end of 1 of my like, 8 'long' fics. Or intended to be long, anyways.
Ah well, rambling aside, I'll figure it out some other time.
So basically, unless a jolt of inspiration comes at me from somewhere, expect the fic to end in like… a few chapters.
Or if you would like a time-frame, in a few months probably.
[Maybe long fics just aren't the thing for me.]
[Wait, literally everything I've been doing is probably a medium-fic.]
[As for the last scene with my good-handy-self-insert, ah…
Well, That's the buildup for if I ever want to try my hand at another gamer-fic.]
[Where's the grimm? Only Ymir knows.]
[Self-inserts are still cool imo.]
[Maybe I should go back to the system of 'writing every chapter in 1 night at the end of the week'.]
[I just remembered I should maybe elaborate on the players a tiny bit more. Basically, I saw Moroes and I was thinking 'wow, i made the leveling all out of wack' so I just ran with it and said 'well, then the hero players probably aren't too high of a level.' but then I made them a bit too weak and had to bump them to level 25. as for everything else about them... I just made it up.]