So Apparently Reincarnation IS a Thing

[Auggie]

Creation. Or Recreation? Whatever, Just Do It​

Have you ever heard the saying about looking up words and finding someone's picture? That particular saying is very much applicable in my circumstance, as I was born to an average middle class family, did pretty well in high school, and moved on to an average public university to make something of myself. I made average grades, had average looks and intelligence and got stuck at an average job and lived my extremely average life. You get the idea.

Anyway, on my way to work something quite surprising happened. Shockingly enough, getting struck by an eighteen wheeler at a solid 60 miles an hour and being reduced to a nasty red smear on the ground registers to the brain as something well beyond average levels of pain. As the lights went out, the only thing I could think was 'Why me Truck-kun?'

I woke up on what felt like a college dorm room's crappy little bed. After opening my eyes, I saw...nothing? It was a big room of whitish walls, but there were no windows or doors that I could see. After looking around for a couple of seconds I got a sort of sinking feeling, but not quite a bad one. And then this happened.

Congratulations! You were so painfully mediocre at everything that you could not move to any of your world's afterlives! We have never had anyone so ridiculously average, and that is the most surprising thing to happen to your boring planet in its entire history! As a reward, you have been chosen to be a Gamer!

"Hell yes!" As the newest Gamer, you have been given an altered system! "What" Your system will be as realistic as we can make it! "Shit" You will deal with the consequences of every action you make, there will be no affection/reputation gains, no observe, and stats gains will fit whatever universe you go to! "FUUUUUU" That being said, you will have a tutorial that will allow you to adapt to the system and develop your skills before you can begin your own adventure. "Could be awesome. Also why am I not freaking out?" You are dead, you can have your freakout when you get a body.

Now, to start your character creation you must select one of the following characters:

Dante (DMC 4)- One of the sons of the legendary devil Sparda. This Devil Hunter boasts incredible skill in the use of guns, swords, guitars, nunchaku, gauntlets, greaves, and trash talking. His skills are further amplified by his superhuman physical capabilities because of his heritage. Upon entering his Devil Trigger, all of his abilities are given a multiplicative bonus based on his stored demonic energy which is quickly restored while fighting.

Doom Slayer (Doom 2016)- The legendary Hellwalker. He is the physical embodiment of revenge and persistence. His skills include the mastery of guns of all shapes and sizes (including very big ones), chainsaws, and his fists. His physical capabilities, while superhuman, are not as impressive as the son of Sparda with the notable exception of his unending stamina. Furthermore, he possesses an incorruptible soul and can use the Argent Energy he has taken from the denizens of Hell to further augment his power.

Sierra-117 John (Halo 3)- The legendary Master Chief Petty Officer of the UNSC. He is the greatest member of the Spartan program, a born leader, and one of the luckiest men alive. His mastery of firearms is greater than that of the Slayer, but his usage of melee weapons falls drastically short of both the Slayer and the Hunter. He is also highly skilled in the use of human and alien transportation, both land and air.

So, which do you choose?

"Can I get some clarification?" Ask, and I will answer as best I can. "You said I got a tutorial, what's that gonna be like?" You will inhabit the body of whichever of the three you pick and will complete the story of the game you are most familiar with. You will have infinite resets, but any time you die you will start over from the beginning of the game. Also, you will not have any cutscenes. You will instead be transported from fight to fight with short intermissions in between. "Oh, well that's not so bad." You will not have the chosen character's skill in combat either, instead having their muscle memory and instinct which you will adapt to with continuous use. "I'm gonna die a lot, aren't I?" More than likely.

"So will I have a plot after the tutorial?" Kind of. You will be transported to another world upon completion of the tutorial, but you will never be "reborn." You will have an official background provided, but it will likely not be accurate as far as your abilities go depending on the world in question. For example, if you were to pick the Slayer and went to the world of Pokemon your background would not be that of a divine-enhanced berserker. It would be something more in line with the average citizen, albeit one that allows you to involve yourself with the plot if you choose to do so. Before your transfer to a new world you will be allowed to choose if you desire to interact with the plot. This will affect when you can leave the world and the age you will be when you get there, so if you choose not to interact with the plot you may leave whenever you please.

"Can I tell anybody about all this and can I take people with me?" You may tell people about the Game, but you cannot take them with you until after you complete the tutorial. You will be allowed to return to previously visited worlds at will and the jump between worlds will put them on pause. "I'm ok with this. Didn't plan on telling anybody and the jump thing is nice." I do believe you need to pick a character.

Alright, gonna need to do some thinking here. All three of these are very much death worlds, but I can at least fight to survive. Honestly, I think the Chief is a no. The other two can pretty much transport themselves at will, and if I killed myself by driving a Hornet into a mountain I may actually cry. Dante is a solid pick, seeing as how he can fight with pretty much anything and I'm pretty sure he can learn some form of magic. He can. The Slayer is probably the hardest option of the three, but has some pretty awesome benefits with the incorruptible soul and Argent Energy options. Can he learn magic? Yes, but he is limited to strictly using Argent Energy, unless you unlock that option in a later world. Honestly, I'm thinking Dante is the way to go.

So is Dante your pick? "One more question, what's magic like? How do I use it?" Get a feel for your magic and see what you can do with it. Depending on your character you may have an easier time with it. "Alright, Dante it is then." Wonderful! Now then, what's your name? "My name's...uh why don't I remember my name?" You're dead. So pick one. "Why fix what isn't broken? How about Anthony Redgrave?" Nice to see some originality. "Whatever, it sounds cool. What now?" Ever listen to Andrew W.K.? "Who?" And with that I fell into a black portal that opened up beneath me.



A/N: Never written anything before, so we'll see how this goes. I do have a vague outline for what's gonna happen, but please do keep in mind that I am the noobiest of all noobs so don't roast me too hard. If you have any questions about the system, most of them will be answered in the next 2-3 chapters if they haven't already been answered somewhere in this one. As for worlds that will be visited, I have 3 in mind with a possible 4th, not counting the tutorial.

 

[Auggie]

Tutorial I. a.k.a School of Hard Knocks

There are probably better ways to start a new life than crashing into the ground screaming, but hey, at least I'm alive. As I stood up, my eyes were drawn to a familiar looking kid wearing blue that looks like he has some very mean words to say to me. If I'm being honest, I'm pretty sure that those words will be both painful and lethal. "So, fighting. Sounds fu-" BOOM. Headshot. That didn't take long. "Oh come on, the demonically empowered teen with actual combat experience just wrecked my shit, and I didn't even manage to draw any of my weapons. How the hell am I supposed to deal with that?" Get good. "Thank you, for that. Really helpful. Seriously, I barely even managed to stand up before I died. Can I get a ten count before I have to deal with that?" You had a ten count, you just took eight to get up and wasted the last two staring into his eyes. Combine those two things with your useless snark and guess what happened. "So no trash talk?" Not until you don't suck. "Fair enough."

As I fell through the portal for a second time I was much more prepared. I managed to draw Rebellion before Nero pulled out his pistol and even succeeded in moving two steps before he fired. He still shot me, but I got a bit closer. He quickly drew his sword, and things got much worse. He went for an overhand swing which I quickly blocked. He continued with his basic hack and slash combo managing to land two of his hits before I kicked him away and holy crap does getting cut hurt. I capitalized on the opportunity by initiating a stinger, but he blocked my lunge with his forearm to reveal the Devil Bringer in all its glowy reptilian glory.

"Oh don't you fucking-" was all I had time to say before I was thrown across the room. He showed off his inhuman strength by picking up a giant stone sword and throwing it at me. I avoid it by dodging to the right, causing the statue behind me to fall. "Collateral damage is fun and all, but that statue was probably pretty expensive." That seems to have annoyed him, because now he's using his Devil Bringer to try and grab me. I evade the giant arm, but I miss the sword he uses to cut off my arm. He follows up my dismemberment by smashing me to paste with the Devil Bringer. I woke up a moment later, far from happy with my painful death.

"Stupid devil arm bullshit. Eh, at least I managed to make it pretty far into the fight." You did, but this is still very much the intro of the tutorial. Things get much harder afterwards although you do seem to be adapting to your new body and skills fairly well, so you may even get past the tutorial one day. "Just put me back in." Have fun.

The fight starts with us exchanging gunfire, with not even a single bullet reaching either of us. I stop firing and close the gap. I manage to dodge his bullets and once I'm close enough start off with a basic sword combo beginning with an overhead swing that he interrupts by attempting a grab. I side roll to avoid the Devil Bringer, parry an overhead strike to break open his guard and launch into a prop then follow him into the air to juggle him around a bit before using a helm breaker to smash him to the ground and knock him out. This is a win, and I didn't even have to get impaled on my own sword to get it. Eat that original Dante. I won the fight and have now moved onto bigger and better things. I also found out that switching between two pistols and a giant ass sword is made much easier when you can magically stick said sword anywhere on your back with no problems.

After beating Nero, I warped back to what I've been referring to as the waiting room. Huh. I'm honestly surprised you managed to beat him that quickly. "I've got Dante's body and skills, it's just a matter of getting used to them. Getting stabbed and shot and all that hurts, but it makes it a lot easier to just default to muscle memory. Not complicated, but I could do without the pain. Also, still haven't freaked out. What's up with that?" You are alive, but you have not completely adapted to your new body. It'll happen, but by the time it does you should be sufficiently prepared to deal with it. Either that or you will be used to dying enough for it to not really affect you. "That's pretty disturbing." Shockingly, dying is usually disturbing to those that experience it. "If you say so. So what's next?" The next mission of course. "Alright, let's get to it."

As the portal opened, I thought about the entity's words. Dying here in the tutorial sucked, but it felt...hollow? I know that I died and it hurt, but it felt like it should be more traumatic. Hell, I cried like a baby after my golden retriever Sunny died when I was 20. Compared to dying, it was so much worse and though I loved Sunny I feel like death should be harder to deal with. I guess that's the motivational speech I needed to go on and beat all this tutorial. If nothing else, I was now ready to resume my crusade.

I fell through the portal and was yet again faced with Nero and hit him with an obligatory "Ah shit, here we go again." He seemed even more pissed than last time, as evidenced by his immediate streak and it was only at this time that I realized that I had a bit of resistance to fire based attacks as his Exceed system did precisely nothing other than boost his speed. Stopping his swing was pretty simple, so I shot at him a few times to force him to give me some space. He backed off as planned, but his next move immediately made me regret this decision.

By drawing the Yamato and gathering his body's demonic energy to surround himself with it, he activated his Devil Trigger. "Well shit." As awesome as a discount Susanoo is, the sheer physical multiplier it gives quickly took me out of this fight. That demonic blue samurai cut me in half and had me back in the waiting room in less than a second. Turns out that getting cut in half by the Yamato is even more painful than being decapitated by the Red Queen. The silver lining of this beatdown is that I got a taste of demonic energy, so I may now start operation: becoming the dragon. This is just more evidence that "family" is actually the f-word.

"Thinking about it, you said this was a sort of Gamer system right?" Indeed. "So what are my stats and skills?" Your stats are quite impressive, coming in at a solid 9 for Body, 8 for Soul, and 6 for Social. "How in the hell are single digit stats good?" The stats are out of 10, with 10 being the highest in the world. Getting above a 10 is typically indicative of reaching godhood or whatever that world's equivalent is. Oh. "So what exactly do each of the stats cover?"

Body is the overall value of an individual's physical capability. This includes the person's strength, agility, and durability, including natural healing factors. Soul is the overall value of an individual's mental capability and their use of whatever supernatural abilities they have. Social is a representation of a person's ability to influence others based on a combination of their appearance, personality, and charisma.

"Huh. So I'm a bit of a badass. Or will be once I figure out how to use my demonic energy." Probably. And with that I started working on accessing my demonic energy. I knew what it felt like from being around Nero's trigger, so at least I knew what to look for. After some trial and error, I found something similar. To best describe it, Nero's energy felt warm, but not hot and it had a noticeable edge to it much like the Yamato's own energy. Mine felt hot and flowing, not in the sense of it being airy but more like molten lava. Fitting when you consider what my Devil Trigger looked like.

 

[Auggie]

Tutorial II. a.k.a Figuring Things Out


There is nothing more awesome than setting a couple of sweet-ass pistols and a huge ass sword on fire with demonic energy. Seriously, as cool as it looks in game, it does not compare to real life. It's like a Kaioken with less screaming. I managed to figure out that demonic energy acts a lot like the Reinforcement spell from the Fate series. It's just a flat out upgrade to anything you put it on, but it acts a big odd with Devil Arms. Rebellion acts like a huge battery and seems to launch the energy channeled into it at an enemy with barely a thought, so it'll be interesting to see what the others will do once I get them. Alongside my general purpose needs, I've also managed to figure out the basics of all four starter styles. I'm ready to use my new skills, and now that I have a substitute shinigami to test them on, I am very much ready to send Nero crying to his daddy.

I fall through the portal and get ready up for the fight. He pulls out his Blue Rose, but I put several holes in both him and his plan with several shots from my supercharged Ebony and Ivory. He was not at all prepared for that, so I blitz him with a million stab, high time him into the air, and air juggle him away from me. The brief break from combat allows me to fully charge a drive, which I unleash on the airborne Nero. "Maybe next time you'll hesitate before using a getsuga tenshou on somebody." Nero's plot armor stops him from being torn to pieces and I'm sent back to the waiting room feeling really good about myself.

You are adjusting quite well to demonic energy. It will be interesting to see how your next fight with him goes. "Well he does have a trigger, so I'll have to see if I can copy it mid-fight. For this one I'm gonna have to abuse the crap out of Trickster style."

Here we go with Nero's final form. We start the fight by engaging in a heated sword fight, blades screaming through the air and yet neither of us can land a blow. I launch myself into the air with a Trickster pad and unleash a rainstorm to keep him in place while I flip into a helm breaker. He slams into the ground and I kick him away to charge an overdrive. As I charge my overdrive, he activates his trigger and takes the fight to the next level. I launch the crimson slashes of my overdrive at him, but he cuts all three in half with little apparent effort. "Devil Triggers are bullshit." He responds by seemingly teleporting in front of me and grabbing me with his Devil Bringer before throwing me up through the structure in the center of the room. As I'm flying upwards he sends several summoned swords to impale me on the ceiling. While hanging there, I can only think about how sick I am of dying to this annoying teenager and start to feel a burning sensation through my body.

I know it's my demonic energy flowing through me, but triggering feels so different. Normally when I do it, it feels like a controlled adrenaline rush, but this feels more like something the Hulk would have to deal with. "Fuck you and your stupid fire sword bullshit!" And then everything gets blown away from me with an explosion of demonic energy as I use my Devil Trigger for the first time.

I feel more powerful than I ever have in either of my lives, but at the same time really pissed off. I launch myself off of the ceiling, everything blurs as I slam my sword into the floor where Nero used to be. He retaliates by rapidly slashing with both of his swords and I catch both blades with the Rebellion. This appears to have surprised him but not as much as when I punch him across the room before following it up with a trillion stab. As he flies away, I charge forward to capitalize on this brief opening and break his Trigger with a crippling overhead swing. He falls to his knees I smack him with the side of Rebellion to knock him out. My Devil Trigger fades and I collapse to my knees, exhausted but content. "So that's what that feels like. I'll have to try out Goku's ascended super saiyan trick."

I appear back in the waiting room a moment later and take a second to catch my breath before asking "Can I get a mirror real quick?" A mirror appears in front of me and I activate my trigger. I look badass, but it'll take a while to get used to the senseless rage. I marvel at my appearance a while longer before dropping my trigger and take a few seconds to recover from the sudden bout of exhaustion. You have now finished the tutorial of the Tutorial. Congrats. "Yup. So do I get any new weapons or anything yet?" Yes. You may now have Coyote A. The double barreled shotgun appeared on my back and I took a second to look over it. It's no super shotgun, but it is a nice piece of hardware. The bigger bang might be helpful up close, but I think I'll stick with my trusty pistols.

Now then, on with the show. And with that I was dropped through the portal back to where I had just finished fighting Nero. Now all I had to do was work my way over to the bridge and go to the forest. The room locked itself down and a group of scarecrows decided that living just wasn't for them as they attacked me. I killed them by blowing them to pieces with Coyote A and went about my business. I tracked my way through the experiment disposal area and slaughtered every demon I could find with very little effort and found the wing pillar before getting on the nearby elevator to continue.

After exiting the elevator I walked over to the nearby glowing statue and beat it to summon the next elevator and dealt with the frosts that appeared inside. These were surprisingly difficult to deal with, right until I charged a drive to cut them both into pieces and got on the elevator. I made my way over to the giant spinny blades, shot up the mephistos, and acquired the key of chronos before scaling the blade pillar thing.

Up next was the laser room, which was made really easy with the ability to duck under the lasers and the power of my Stand, Za Warudo. Sadly enough, the key of chronos broke from overuse shortly afterwards. I got over to the grand hall and was rushed by a group of angelos, which were easily dealt with because of the absolute brokenness of the Royal Guard. Turns out that being able to block anything by absorbing kinetic energy and unleashing it whenever you please makes dealing with basic enemies really easy. Finally, I managed to leave the building and continue across the bridge to the forest.

 

[Auggie]

Tutorial III. a.k.a Who's the Boss Now?


Enter the forest. This place is so chock full of trash mobs it's both impressive and infuriating, but they make great dummies for my newly acquired Coyote A. The unmodified state of my shotgun is an absolute beast at close range, even managing to deal with the lizard enemies in only a single shot, but turning the chimera lizards into a fine red mist with a charged shot is way more satisfying than any video will ever manage to be.

If nothing else, the forest has more than enough mephistos for me to get practice in with the gunslinger style and its many complicated movements. Gun fu is even more complicated than I thought it'd be and I'm not ashamed to say that I did indeed put a hole in my gut but my regeneration is nothing to scoff at. Hurt like a bitch though.

Also, the purple clouds that were scattered through the forest do actually teleport you. There's no warning for it and it feels like walking through a waterfall, so I may have to look into pulling a Kurogiri at some point in the future. As I jog down the lakeside I see a couple of mephistos flying down, which is a solid indicator that I'm about halfway done with this trek through the forest. I activate my airborne bullet hell and continue onward to the lost woods.
After slaughtering yet another group of trash mobs, I make it to the wood maze. The maze's annoying gimmick of going the opposite direction of the statue's shadow managed to halt my progress for a solid ten minutes when I played the game for the first time and on my final pass through I made sure to piss on the statue and flip it off to avenge my lost time. Fuck statues and their dumb puzzles. I made it through to the ruins and proceeded onto my first real boss fight.

As Echidna flies through the sky, I grab her attention by throwing the nearby seed pods at her. She monologues about spending eternity with her children for a bit before I decide to interrupt. "As fun as this is, I have literally a million better things to do." She does not appreciate my interruption and yells out her displeasure as she dive bombs me. Before she can snap me up in that weirdly placed mouth of hers, I sidestep her charge and send a charged shot from Coyote A down its... throat? This causes her to crash into the ground stunned so I give her a moment to gather herself. She gets up and opens her petal. "Did you just shoot me?" "Wanna see me do it again?" "I'm going to-" I shoot her mid sentence with another charged shot.

She staggers back and I start to close the distance. Before I can get in stabbing distance she whips her hair at me, apparently under the impression that I like her cut. I disabuse her of that notion by removing one of her strands. "YOU BASTARD! I'M GOING TO SHOVE THAT SWORD RIGHT UP YOUR ASS!" "Don't worry about it, I'll even you out in just a second." She sends out her roots to try and slap me around but I weave through them through a combination of side rolls and Trickster platforms to get up close. As a last ditch effort she tries to close her petal and fly away, but I land inside as it closes and light her up with a charged barrage from Ebony and Ivory. The petals reopen and I fall back out as she crashes back into the ground.

At this point, she is absolutely riddled with bullet holes, down an antennae, and bleeding heavily. I lift my sword to my shoulder before asking, "So, are you gonna monologue or start begging? Cause you're starting to bore me and I'm running out of jokes." She pants for a moment before saying, "Fuck you and that overcompensating sword." I retaliate with "Ooooh, that's the closest thing to damage you've done all day. Now let's get you and my sword real close and see if I can't blow my load all over your insides."

And with that, she is officially pissed. She screams out "FUCK YOU!" before charging me at full speed without bothering to close her petals. I just snicker and blow a hole through her forehead with a shot from Ivory. That discount Poison Ivy wasn't even a hard fight and I'm feeling a little ripped off, but her body starts to disperse and is turned into a small green ball of light which I quickly grab. The remnant of her demonic energy surges and attaches itself to me before changing into the badass looking gauntlet and greaves combo that is Gilgamesh. I walk over to the nearby demon gate to test out my new Devil Arm.

The first thing I wanted to try out was using Gilgamesh with Rebellion still in my hands, but I quickly found out that they apparently shared the same "space," meaning that I could only have one Devil Arm out at a time. Oh well, I'm OP enough to not really mind that. "Guess I'll start with some basic attacks." The basic combo for these was just a simple series of punches that led into a sort of million stab group of kicks and using it on the gate left it in multiple huge pieces. As they fell I thought, 'The thing that made this Arm so devastating in the game was that they could be charged to deal monstrous amounts of damage. Here in real life, they passively leech a tiny amount of my energy to amplify the force of my attacks.' So I pushed a decent amount of my demonic energy into a Shoryuken and obliterated what was left of the gate. "Nice."

As I fell back to the ground, a portal opened up and I landed back in the waiting room. Congratulations! You have cleared your first boss! You have earned the title [Adept Demon Slayer]! Titles are non-removable and will grant passive effects. The title [Adept Demon Slayer] gives its bearer the ability to sense when hostile supernatural beings are in their immediate vicinity and their relative direction. "Sweet. That'll be really useful, especially if I can rank it up later on. But why did I not get the novice level?" The mobs of lesser demons you killed granted you the [Novice Demon Slayer] title but it was ranked up by killing Echidna. "So is it the quality or quality of things I killed that ranked it up?" Both. Killing a large number of lesser beings can grant titles, but it is much more efficient to kill stronger enemies. "Cool. So, on to the castle?" A portal opening in front of me is my answer.

Stepping through the portal places me just before the tunnel leading to Foris Falls and I prepare myself for the next step of my adventure. I quickly run up to the upper level of the grand hall and encounter the blitz. My new title gave me a very useful way to track them and after wearing down their shields with charged shotgun blasts I made short work of them by caving in their faces with a quick series of punches using Gilgamesh.

I quickly move inside and reach the gallery before a thought occurs. 'What if I use Royal Guard and buff it with Gilgamesh?' I walk into the library and collect a decent bit of energy from the angelos attacks before unleashing the stored energy on the last enemy in the room. Sadly, this test isn't very useful because all of them were one or two shot with basic punches, and the last of them is no different. "Oh well, questions for later." I navigate down the stairs, go to the dining area and devastate the scarecrows inside with a combination of whipping around Coyote A like a set of nunchucks and a series of decapitations via Rebellion.

I continue through the castle and eventually manage to find my way to the soldier's graveyard. "Hopefully this overgrown toad will give me some results for the Royal Guard/Gil combo." I walk through the door and am immediately assaulted by the worst stench I have ever had to deal with. "Unholy shit, what crawled in here and died?" Two shiny eyes upon up directly ahead of me and their owner yells out "Insult me one more time and I will make you suffer more than you thought possible!" "Oh, you're still alive. Lemme fix that."

Dagon roars and leaps forward, so I quickly step to the side while blasting him with Coyote A. Before he can turn around I punch him with Gil equipped to get an idea of how much damage I do to him and find out that I do a decent bit. I quickly leap away as he finishes turning and start to absorb energy from the anglers he sends to attack me. I make quick work of them and wait for him to leap at me. Sure enough, the toad leaps and I allow him to land before releasing the stored energy with Gil in a basic punch directed at his left forearm. Said arm in question is reduced to nothing as the demon in question screams out in pain. To answer my earlier question, Royal Guard+Gil=Insane levels of overkill. I love it. The only thing that keeps me from abusing the crap out of this is the massively increased drain. That one uncharged punch with the maximum amount of force from Royal Guard took about a quarter of my total reserves, so I'll have to make sure it lands when I do use it.

At this point, the fight is pretty much over and we both realize it. Dagon tries to escape back through the demon gate, but I'm not having any of his shit. I grab his tail and toss him straight into the air before fully charging a shoryuken and using the remaining three-quarters of my stockpiled force to finish him off. I'm now out of demonic energy, but luckily that replenishes itself quickly, even more so during fights. I take a quick breath before catching the orb containing what little remains of Dagon. The energy turns into Pandora and fully replenishes my reserves. The other toads of the fugly family make their way out of the gate and over to me. I quickly pull out the missile pod configuration by visualizing what I want to come out of the briefcase and make quick work of both them and the gate behind them.

"What in the hell were they thinking when they put a giant flying missile pod in the game? Probably thought Dante wasn't OP enough or some other crazy shit. I never even bothered with any of Pandora's other forms in the game, and I'm really not seeing a reason to do the same here. Not like I'm gonna care about collateral damage if I have to whip out that beast of a briefcase." A portal opened up in front of me and I quickly walked through.

Only one more boss before you get to the big bad. "Yup." You seem a lot less snarky. "Yup." Any reason why? I sigh before saying, "Honestly, just ready to be done with this and get some rest. I could use a break right about now." Hmm. All the more reason to finish up I suppose. As you were. As the now very familiar portal opened up I gave a quick wave and continued through.

I exited the portal into an area filled with poisonous gas and hightailed it out of there, exterminating everything as quickly as I could with a combination of Rebellion and Coyote before finding the exit to Fortis Falls and jumping through the window. I kill more trash mobs on my way to the bottom of the well before ascending using the jump pads. After running through the grand hall of the castle I kick down the doors and gulp down that delicious fresh air and make my way over to the nearby mountains.

I barely notice as the hellhounds start to attack me and make short work of them with a handful of charged blasts from my shotgun. Then I start jumping to the platforms leading up the mountain and run past all the demons in the mine before making my way out and into the boss fight with Berial.

He quickly noticies me and, to his credit, doesn't say a thing before slamming his giant stone sword at me. I immediately absorb the force from his attack before equipping Gil. He looks surprised and says "So the Son of Sparda has some strength to him. I am pleased to see it." I just look up and tell him "Sorry, but I'm in a bit of a rush so I'm not gonna bother playing around." I trigger instantly and rush him while charging Gil. "Wha-" is all he manages to get out before I leap up and punch the arm holding his sword into nothing. He is stunned just long enough for me to land on his back and jump back up to remove his head. Quite an anticlimactic death for the "conqueror of the fire hell."

I grab his orb when I land and am rewarded with the Devil Arm Lucifer. I quickly destroy the gate by throwing the lances generated by the backpack in a straight line down the center. Funnily enough the lances detonate whenever I want them to, so they may be more useful than I thought they would. The portal opens up and I walk through just as the pieces of the gate finally fall to the ground.

This time, I am immediately deposited in the next area. I'm now at the port and boy am I ready to kill that annoying scientist with the stutter. The trip through the lower districts is pretty simple, just trash mobs so I rush through it by channeling my inner Vlad and adapting to my super splody back. After dealing with all that I make it to the plaza just outside the opera house and more trash mobs teleport in. I make short work of them by herding them to what remains of the central fountain and surrounding them in a cage of lances from Lucifer. They're smart enough not to touch the cage, but that changes very quickly when I use my mobile missile pod to turn the group into a pile of ash at the bottom of a crater.

I enter the opera house, and I shit you not. Bug Boy is really and truly sitting on the stairs with a spotlight trained on him. He rises to his feet and I can feel my eye develop a twitch as he starts monologuing. "It was my assumption that those demons would prove-" "No." This moron has the gall to look surprised at my interruption. "Pardon?" "I am here to kill you. Not listen to a fucking monologue. Switch to your demon form or I swear to whatever higher being is listening that I will find a way to shove every single lance that Lucifer can generate up your ass before you die." He looks legitimately flabbergasted. I am not amused, and he immediately goes bug man when I start pulling out Lances.

Bug Boy takes to the air to create some distance but I counter this by using my good ol' missile pod. "Inconceivable!" "Funnily enough, your inability to understand isn't gonna stop me from killing you." Not sure how, but Bug Boy does indeed manage to survive my missile barrage but he is not in a good state. Unless you consider missing most of the left side of your body a good state. Picture Perfect Cell after the Final Flash, minus the regen. "But how? You can't have possibly won against me! All my calculations showed me as the superior being!" "Fuck you. That's how." He looks up at me with his jaw dropped right before I put him down with a shot from Ebony.

As he slumps over, the blue elevator takes me down to the room containing the Yamato. I take it and walk back outside before taking a moment for a breather. Then, I pull out the Yamato and make three rapid slashes at the last gate. "And then there was one." I sheath the sword as the gate falls to reveal the monolithic form of the Savior. "Time to finish this."

 

[Auggie]

Tutorial IV. a.k.a End of the Beginning

My one use of the Yamato has made me incredibly aware of how monstrously powerful it is. Obviously it can't cut through everything, as evidenced by Dante's fights with Vergil, but it is nonetheless impressive. It is not a weapon you use on people you don't want dead, and its unique ability as a Devil Arm is rivalled only by that of my Rebellion. It separates. Want to ditch your humanity and become two people? It can do that. Want to send out a quicker, more lethal drive that hits multiple times on the same swing? It can do that. I'm not a physicist, but this thing is bullshit. Also, it can be made even more bullshit by channeling demonic energy through it. More energy equals more cuts and also you get summon swords. I do not understand how Vergil ever lost a fight, but now I've got what is possibly the most OP sword ever. Even if it isn't, it still gets style points and so what if I'm a weeb. I have the power of Sparda and anime on my side.

Even though I am very much ready to beat this tutorial, I can't remember a point in my life where I was this happy. Call it a power trip or whatever, but man. Money can't buy happiness, but bullshit luck can apparently get you reincarnated and give you the chance to get one of your favorite fictional weapons of all time. "Heh. Let's do this." I walk over to a portal that just opened and drop onto the spire of a building. I still haven't managed to stop grinning and it must really show, because the Sanctus doesn't even monologue. "What are you smiling about? The Savior is invincible! A mere half-blooded son of Sparda is no match for its might!" "Does it matter?" "Hmm. I suppose not. You are going to die anyway."

"I guess we'll just have to disagree on that." I cut down his little entourage of angelos and ascend to the floating platforms facing the Savior. And so begins the fight between David and Goliath. The Savior's fists flew at me, so much like the truck that sent me here, and in that moment I got it. As much as I'll miss my family and friends, this second chance at life was everything I'd ever dreamed of having and I would never allow it to be taken from me. "I am Anthony Redgrave, and I'm gonna fuck your shit!" And then I stabbed myself in the chest.

My demonic energy exploded into being, blasting the Savior away from me and bathing Fortuna in a crimson light to announce my newfound unity. I was now truly Anthony Redgrave, half man and half devil. I fully accepted myself, past and present, and made the world aware of my presence. Every time I used demonic energy I felt powerful, and yet angry. This feeling was even more prominent when I triggered, but now that I accepted my new life I had never felt more in control. I was perfectly in control of myself and my energy and had never felt more free.

The Savior had managed to move upright and Sanctus asked "What is this?! Where did you get that power?!" I gave what I'm sure is a terrifying grin and said "You said it yourself didn't you? I'm a half-blooded son of Sparda. Both man and devil. Your Savior is just a pale imitation of the original, but I'm something completely new." And with that I launched thousands of projectiles formed of my newly enhanced demonic energy into the crystalline structures on the Savior's body. "IMPOSSIBLE!!!!! HOW CAN SOME HALF BLOODED ABOMINATION HARM THE SAVIOR?????" "Heh. Pushups, situps, and lots of juice. Now do me a favor and shut the fuck up." My part said, I launched myself toward the gem in the center of its chest and shattered it into a million pieces and tossed the Yamato in its heart. "Kid you better not lose my sword or I'll see if I can't introduce that girlfriend of yours to the wonders of NTR!" Immediately afterwards, Nero's Devil Bringer burst through the heart and he grabbed the Yamato to cut himself out. "Stay the fuck away from Kyrie you crazy old bastard!" I laughed while dodging the Savior's wild swings while Nero dealt with the old man and eventually the kid won. I let my sin trigger fade and dropped to the ground.

"This is nice. I'm a badass, you and your adorable little girlfriend are all cuddled up, and all that seems to be left is for you to return my sword and we can all ride off into the sunset." "Whatever, just stay away from Kyrie." He said before tossing the Yamato over to me. "Sure you don't want me to show her some hentai? That arm of yours may hit a few kinks?" "Fuck off." I snorted and started walking off, "Good luck kiddo, probably gonna need it." And with that I walked through a newly spawned portal to the waiting room.

Congratulations! You have beaten the tutorial! You may now visit other worlds! You ranked up your title to [Legendary Demon Slayer]! This title grants the wielder knowledge of the position and overall power level of all supernatural beings within their perception. You have earned the title [True Son of Sparda]! This title grants the wielder the Sin Devil Trigger and allows them to access all forms of Devil Trigger instantaneously.
That right there. That is the single most satisfying thing I have ever seen. I'm not sure if I'll ever be more happy over a congratulations again, but man is it worth it. Also, your stats have been updated. Your stats in the world of Devil May Cry 4 are 11 in Body, 9 in Soul, and 8 in Social. Congratulations! You have earned the title [First Steps]! This title grants the wielder the ability to speak all conventional languages and conditional immortality. Because you have attained a world's equivalent to god level status in Body, you will never get sick, age, and should your body have even a cell left, you will regenerate. However, should you wish to die at some point you may do so.

"Cool." Indeed. There have been a handful of Gamers before you, but few achieved anything approaching godhood as quickly as you did. Granted, only one had a comparable headstart to yourself, but he's a (huge) bit of a dick. When he was pulled out of his multiversal adventures things got wonky, but the guy that followed afterwards was pretty cool. "Huh. So am I gonna have to deal with any of them?" Probably not. Well, at least not until you get to their level which is gonna take a long time. Standard procedure is to give each new Gamer their own multiverse so there are no reality collapsing fuckups. "Live ya learn I guess."

"So, what next?"

 

[Auggie]

And So It Begins I a.k.a The First World


You will be sent to a new world after I inform you of a few changes. As you have now beaten the tutorial, you may tell people that you are a universe hopper and may bring no more than three people with you. Furthermore, your first world will be one where you interact with the plot. "Alright. So do I pick my world now or later?" You do not get to pick your first world, but it will be quite obvious which world you have been sent to shortly after arrival. Also, the Rebellion will keep its normal form until you trigger and will appear to be in a guitar case when not drawn. That being said, enjoy your first official world! A portal opens up before me. "Thanks, now let's see what I got." With that said, I walked through the portal and landed right outside of what looked like a Japanese Temple in the middle of a heavy rain.

I looked over to my left and saw a hooded bleeding woman lying on the ground with her hand raised to the sky. She had a bit of magic, but nothing even close to threatening. "Hey lady, need some help?" "Wha? Um, yes please." I helped her to her feet and asked her "So what happened? You've got quite a bit of blood on ya." "Just a bad day I suppose. Nothing you need to concern yourself with. I won't be here much longer anyway." She staggered and fell into my side. "Ah, shit. Lemme see if I can do anything about that." I channeled a bit of my demonic energy to my arm and tried to think about healing her. She gasped and her body seemed to devour my energy as quickly as I could give it to her. "How did you-" "Eh, you've got some magic in ya, so I thought I may as well give it a shot." At this point the bruise on her face had disappeared along with a good deal of the blood on her. Weird, but I'd seen much stranger in the last few days in Fortuna.

She straightened her back and took a step away from me, apparently fully revitalized and wary of her newfound situation. "Who are you? What do you want?" "Names Anthony Redgrave. I'd like to find out where I am and see if I can't get the pretty nameless lady next to me wherever she considers safe." "...You may call me Caster. I have no place to stay here in Fuyuki." Ah. So that's what it meant by figuring out where I am quickly. "Well, I don't have a place to stay either. Wanna walk around and see if we can find a hotel or something?" "You are strange. Quite clearly a magus, but not a Master and that 'guitar case'. In thanks for your assistance, I will allow you to escort me to the temple above." So she can identify that something's up with the case, but thinks I'm human. If that bubble bursts, it's gonna be hilarious. "Sure thing Caster. So, come here often?" I could practically feel her eyes roll. "Just be quiet and let me work my magic." Some of the local priests approach us and she quickly hypnotizes them. "Going with the discount stay eh? I can respect it."

She turns to me and says "I thank you for your help, but why are you here?" Quickly thinking up a plausible reason for my being here I tell her "The magic around this area feels pretty messed up so I thought I may as well see what's up. Why do you ask?" She frowns before replying "So you are not a part of the Grail War?" I show her the back of my hand. "No, but something seems off around the city and I usually get paid to deal with problems like this one." "I see. If you could wish for anything, what would it be?" I scratch my chin in thought before answering with "The wish I have isn't something I want to be just handed to me. I'd like to have my own adventures, find some cool stuff, and maybe have some fun with beautiful women. Granted, I don't think the grail would actually grant any wishes, seeing as how it never has before and the city around it is covered in some pretty messed up magic, so there's also that."

She slumps a bit before removing her hood to look me in the eye for a moment. She is an incredibly beautiful woman and the elf-like ears only add to that. "Will you be my Master?" Did not expect that. At. All. "You sure? I'm guessing your previous one wasn't exactly a great person going off how I found you." That seemed to be the response she wanted going by how she walked up and gave me her last Command Seal. The resulting flow of energy between us had her shudder for a moment before she asked "How do you have so much mana? You are just an average human mage, there is no way you could provide this much mana and not keel over?" "Heh. Well I'm a lot of things, but an average human mage ain't one of them. The dream cycle will clue you in and I'll tell you more later. For now, I'm pretty tired so I'mma take a nap. You can set up some defences or something and tomorrow we'll explore the town. Sound good?" She merely nods, before astralizing and seemingly leaving the room.

I lay down on a futon after removing my clothes and as my head hits the pillow behind me I feel as she finally leaves the building. I snicker to myself before saying "What a first world I got. This'll be a hell of a trip." I close my eyes and dream of a young princess and her years in her home city of Colchis.


I sigh to myself as I add another layer of wards around the temple. 'My new Master is clearly more than he seems. The sheer amount of mana he has available and his general presence seems more akin to that of a Servant than a Master. And his 'guitar' is much the same.' The information given to me by the grail suggests that magi have been vastly weakened, but he would not fall short when compared to any of the Argonauts, at least as far those two things go. 'And he's quite the handsome one too, I wouldn't mind a different form of mana transfer.' I shake my head to clear my thoughts before thinking of his words about the malignant energy here in Fuyuki. 'He is right. Something is wrong with Fuyuki, but I am not sure what. I can only hope that the grail will still do its job.' I finish the last of the wards and return to where I feel my Master. I take the room next to him and fall asleep, dreaming of a man and his many, many fights against horrendous creatures as they call him the son of the traitor.