Arthur woke up to the sound of clapping hands "Well that was fast wasn't it" Rob said from his floating chair "this must be a new record amongst my chosen, pathetically impressive but impressive nonetheless"
"Fuck you" Arthur cursed and gritted his teeth as Rob just laughed in his face again, relaxing his closed fists he laid back on his own chair and asked "Did I even make a difference?"
"Oh sure, Sophia was gonna get nuked, Jason would have starved for another 7 hours before giving up, drinking contaminated water and becoming an undead" The man started counting on his fingers "That big fire you started attracted enough zombies a couple guys were able to escape their homes and the damage you did to that giant leech made it less willing to attack a group of survivors in the sewers so more of them survived, still disappointing but at least you changed things a little"
"Sorry I didn't slay ten thousand zombies and cleared Raccoon city by myself asshole"
"Oh Arthur that's not why I'm disappointed" Rob laughed and materialized a milkshake for both of them "Let's be real here you were a teenage loser who had never gotten into a real fight, your only experience were 2 years of kung fu 3 years ago and less than six months of H.E.M.A. you were never going to be Rambo"
Arthur refused to continue the conversation, he was far too angry and annoyed with the being to be coherent so he just refused to look at him and enjoyed his milkshake, it tasted like mint, finally he asked "Why am I not angrier? I mean i'm angry but I should be screaming mad, I know I wasn't this mentaly stable when I died"
"Several reasons" Rob answered while noisily drinking the last of his milkshake "for starters I didn't bring you here directly after your death so you had a little time in the void to recover even if you can't remember it, then there's the fact that you weren't fighting your death, accepting the end makes things easier on the soul, last but not least you just don't have the biology for some reactions, much of you humans emotional responses are hormonal and you don't have a body right now"
"Shit…" Arthur threw his milkshake away and covered his eyes with his arm for a few minutes, when he finished Rob was still looking at him in expectation so he sighed and indulged him "Alright why are you disappointed them"
"I'm glad you asked Arthur, the reason is simple, I didn't put you in the middle of Raccoon city just to watch the plot play out the same way, come on did you have to start searching for the protagonists from the games the moment you entered that world? Did you really think the only ways to leave the city were by following them? Arthur I put you there to see you change things, kill the protagonist, tell them all about the plot, kill the last boss before them or leave and do your own thing but don't just watch things from the sidelines that's boring"
"Can I really change the plot?" Arthur asked with uncertainty "isn't that fate or something"
"Come on Arthur there's no such thing as 'The Plot' it's just the story of some lucky S.O.B. unless there's someone manipulating things from the shadows and, even then, they're unlikely to take your existence into account"
"You can't be serious" Arthur turned towards Rob with incredulity "People don't survive things like Leon or Valentine did in the real world"
"Oh but they do, granted there's some changes in the games or stories you read, people are made more beautiful and explosions are put in place to be more cinematic but it's quite possible for those things to happen in your world"
When Rob saw the doubt in his face he smirked "Trully, just in your so called second world war there was a guy who charged into battle with a sword and bow, another with an umbrella, one guys refused to believe the war was over and continued fighting for 30 years and there was even one who captured more than 90 enemy soldier by himself… twice, a literal one man army and all of them survived the entire war"
Arthur was about to pretest but he just had to stop as he thought about it "Seriously?"
"Yeah I'm serious, next time you're on a version of earth google it" Rob got up from his chair and materialized a piece of paper before starting to write on it "Ready for another go? Sure you can make things worse by interfering but you could also make it much better and have fun doing it"
When Rob handed him the paper he had been writing on, Arthur almost didn't catch it, then he started reading it and saw it was an improved list of options, there were only a few new ones.
Addict + 10 you're addicted to a hard drug
Persecuted +5 people see you as inherently inferior to them
Liar +5 people naturally distrust your words
25 - Take a peek - see the world you're going to and the approximate time you'll arrive
80 - Green mushroom - can recover from a fatal blow
120 - Player two - can choose a dead person from the previous world to resurrect with you.
50 - Great send off - When you die your body explodes with enough power to destroy a city blocks
"Ah… before I forget, I did interfere with that licker fight you had" Rob said with a wide smirk "so I'm gonna be giving you an extra option you don't know about to balance the scales"
Crumbling the paper in his hand he started snorted and decided to be stubborn "Fuck it I'm gonna go with the same settup"
"You sure?" Asked Rob "it's not gonna be any easier you know"
"Yeah… it can't be worse than a zombie apocalypse right?"
"Just for that I should throw you into DOOM" Said Rob shaking his head
"Wait what!" Then he made a grab for the man's arm and everything went black.
Arthur came to almost immediately his eyes could see a middle class apartment with a great view of a modern city, he took a few steps forward carefully, expecting some kind of eldritch monster to jump out and try to eat his face instead he saw a perfect round black sphere "Well shit I guess it isn't DOOM"
Approaching the window he squinted his eyes and grimaced when he found everywhere he looked was full of japanese letters he couldn't understand.
Couldn't Rob have sent him into a portuguese or english speaking Gantz team for fuck's sake how was he supposed to survive.
Then he had a very bad feeling, looking around Arthur found no sharp weapons so he lifted his finger and bit down… and found it's surprisingly hard to make himself bite hard enough to break the skin.
Ironicall that anime always made it look so easy and now that he was inside one he almost couldn't do it.
Drawing blood from his index finger he cleaned it on his ripped shirt and looked to see a few teeth wounds, after almost five minutes he noticed the flesh had slowly regrown over the marks not even scabbing "Fuck I'm still infected"
Sitting down against the Gantz ball he barely noticed as more people started getting transported into the room, instead he thought about what to do, how was he still infected, the fucking Rob must have given him the "save game" option as a penality!
Was he a carrier for the T-virus? would he become a zombie again?
"Fuck should I kill myself?" Arthur wondered, Rob did tell him to change things a little but he still wasn't enough of a monster to decide unleashing the zombie apocalypse on an entire world to be an acceptable option…
Fuck he wanted to kill aliens with superweapons damnit, resident evil had been too much like his previous live but here there were actual superhumans!
Deciding that he could always kill himself later he looked at his new teammates trying to find out what mission he had been sent to, everyone sitting around the gantz ball looked more or less japanese but were incredibly varied.
Two young guys were standing together to his right side as if they knew each other, an older man wearing a martial arts kimono sat at the back of the ball, a fat guy wearing camouflage clothes sat against the windows, another older man sat besides him looking almost as fit as Arthur himself, a guy looking like an average family man was standing on the other side of the room fixing his glasses and, finally, there was a fat japanese priest and a beautiful woman dressed in a cosplay of Lara Croff, Arthur couldn't remember any one of them from the manga.
Fuck it had been too long since he read Gantz after all, he only remembered the main characters and a few of the most memorable enemies, he was starting to push himself up when another guys showed up wearing the almost complete gantz suit and… taking a shit?
Alright, that's got to be Kurono.
A few seconds latter the remaining members of team Gantz arrived, a strong and tall boy who would make a much better main character than Kurono, a blonde girl, a sadako-like stalker, a guy who really looked like he was gay and a little dog.
Alright then, giving another look at everyone in the room Arthur started to connect the dots, no new faces who stuck around, Kato still alive and with Kurono inside Gantz, a lot of Gantz players he knew wouldn't be sticking around… "I'm gonna die again aren't I?"
The Gantz ball opened on all four sides pushing him away with irresistible force sending Arthur and the others sprawling away, the boy he thought was Kato started talking towards the newcomers but Arthur had no idea what he was saying so he ignored him and looked inside the Gantz ball, besides the assortment of weapons he found a small box with words he could read 'Interloper'.
Grabbing the box he opened it and briefly considered where he could change, then shrugged and started taking his clothes off right there. He had always been ashamed of his pot belly and weak arms but, with a peak body, he no longer cared if some strangers saw him naked while he changed.
The Gantz suit was very intuitive and he managed to dress himself in little more than a minute, ignoring the joking from both young newcomers and the screaming from the priest.
Concentrating on his arm he tried to clench and unclench his hand to activate the suit strength but failed, shaking his arm to relax he lifted it in front of his face and Willed strength into the limb, it didn't work.
Closing his eyes he pictured the zombies as they consumed an entire city, he pictured the bodies laying all around him while he did nothing, opening his eyes he saw his arm was bulging with artificial muscles, black veins covering it from the hand to the shoulder.
Turning towards his other arm he concentrated a little harder trying to capture the sensation of it and quickly saw his other arm bulge up with the same brutal strength, he nodded and turned towards the bickering room, both Kurono and the new girl were gone, some of the others were playing with the weapons but most were in some kind of discussion with the priest as the main speaker.
"Anyone here speak english" Arthur asked and then had to raise his voice "Anyone speak english or portuguese!?"
"I do" said the middle aged man with glasses while approaching him
"Good, is he telling you guys to wear the suits yet?"
"Yes he's saying they give us powers" The man said while pushing his glasses back in place "You know anything about it?"
"Alright then how do I go about this…" feeling something grab him by the leg he saw the little dog was biting his suit and fanning his little tail like mad so he crouched down and started scratching him behind the ear "the guy's right, tell everyone to wear the suits if they don't want to die"
He waited until the guy repeated his words… or told everyone he was crazy Arthur had no way to know really, then watched as the priest marched in front of him and started yelling at him in japanese.
Arthur smiled, a volunteer.
Grabbing the fat but small priest by the neck he concentrated on his arms and lifted him off the ground before pulling his clothes off him, when Kato decided to intervene and help the guy Arthur swung his arm and threw the half naked fatass towards his chest, turning around he started rolling the priest clothes into a compact bundle and grabbed it with both arms, taking a deep breath he caused his entire upper chest to bulge up and ripped the rolled up clothes in half with ease.
"I'm gonna look around this apartment, tell them if they're not wearing the suits when I come back I will punch them with all my strength" Arthur said turning towards the dumbfounded glasses guy and then, glancing at the ripped clothes he smilled "They may not survive the experience"
The man wearing a karate kimono got up and approached him but he ignored him while grabbing the small dog and lifting it into his chest, when the man got into a fighting stance he sighed and backhanded him halfheartedly, the man was good enough to block the blow and attempt to counterattack but it was useless, the impact blew right through his guard and sent him flying to hit and flip through the gantz ball.
Turning away from the dumbfounded group he made sure he was heard as he made his way outside the main room "Wear the fucking suit"
Leaving the room he turned his head and caught Kurono and the new woman nacked, their bodies filled with sweat. He lifted an eyebrow and couldn't help but appreciate the woman's well toned body, when both of them started getting frowns on their faces he shook his head and opened a side door.
He wondered why would such older woman decide to have sex with the boy when they had barelly meet, probably the fact she had just died in the outside world, it tends to leave one vulnerable.
The room was much wider than the apartment should have allowed with two vehicles in the form of huge wheels with guns mounted to the side and various sword handles spread all over the floor, he tried to get one of the Vehicles to turn on but he found no keys or any button, fiddling with the painel for a while he gave up and just gathered a dozen sword handles before leaving the room.
Outside, the pair was still going at it and a second younger girl caught them on the act. Her face becoming red she scrambled back into the main room, Arthur just ignored the couple again, it was quite possible one of them wouldn't survive the mission so they should get some pleasure before it was too late anyway.
Inside the room only a few of the newcomers were still out of their suits, the karate guy and the priest while the fat dude seemed to have trouble taking out his clothes but everyone else was wearing the things and playing with the weapons, handling one of the Gantz swords to Kato Arthur dropped all but one of them on the ground, he found a place to lock the katana handle against his own suit and approached the Gantz ball.
Laughing like a maniac and screaming some insult in japanese one of the two young troublemakers sucker punched him on the back of the neck causing him to stumble forward.
Arthur still wasn't in his right mind from his last rebirth and this idiot may have drawn blood infecting everyone here with the fucking T-Virus so he turned around and tackled the guy to the ground, mounting his body the proceeded to punch him in the face, his arms twice their original size as he let rage power the suit, his own suit may have protected the guy but he still didn't know how to fully use it so he was hopeless as Arthur continued to punch him in the face until a little icon on his neck started flashing red.
He would have probably continued and killed the guy while ignoring the three men trying to pry him away had Kato not activated his own suit and pushed him back before screaming at him something he didn't understand.
Taking a deep breath he watched as everyone took a few steps away from him giving him space so he scratched the back of his head where he had been hit and, when he didn't see any blood, relaxed his body, looking inside the Gantz ball he knew taking one of the guns wouldn't be much help for him since his aim would be ridiculously bad but took one of the handguns anyway, he could hit things at point blank range at least, he also took out all five transfer guns he found.
"Hey glasses" He called and handed him one of the transfer guns before throwing one to Kato who had been watching him, the others he threw towards the soldier and the girl trying to change into her suit while hiding behind her pajamas "Keep this one in case an enemy is too strong or fast, one trigger is to lock on the target the other is to shot, the handles will release a sword if you think on it hard"
"What are you talking about? Bakemono?" asked the salariman but before Arthur could answer the Gantz ball started playing a little song before revealing the pictures of two japanese temple statues with angry faces.
"Those monsters"
"I do not understand," He continued confused while Kato tried to explain things to the others, the soldier seemed to be analyzing his transfer gun.
"What do you mean monsters?" Asked the soldier in far better english, if still with a heavy accent.
"This thing here inside the ball has resurrected you all" Arthur decided to explain since the man had seemed the most competent even in the manga "If you survive this mission it will continuously call on you every few weeks to kill some kind of creature, the ball calls them aliens but who knows, all I know is that they exist and they are extremely dangerous"
"And how does nobody notice those things about it? the soldier asked while securing the gun to his side and taking one of the Gantz rifles.
"I have no Idea, presumably people notice but know to keep quiet about it, either that or they get hunted down by Gantz before they can spread the word" Noticing Kurono returning with the woman he decided to give some instructions before time ran out "In a moment we will start getting transferred to a different place, don't try to go home after you arrive and if you start hearing a noise inside your head immediately come back, when you got revived they put a bomb inside your head"
The soldier just touched his own head but the salaryman freaked out a little shouting in fear, Kato and the girl started trying to calm him down
Arthur started ignoring him and speaking with the soldier as fast as he could, "the monsters will probably be much bigger, faster and stronger than humans so be careful, they may also get some strange abilities"
"Monsters with abilities" the soldier shook his head with disbelief "How can you expect me to believe you"
"You got ressurected inside a room with people wearing super suits and you draw the line on monsters?" Arthur just laughed and started playing with the transfer gun to verify which was the lock trigger on the gun "I don't really need you to believe me just pay attention, as they say seeing is believing and you're all gonna see it soon enough"
The soldier nodded and made sure all his weapons were in their places when Arthur noticed one of them already starting to get transfered.
In the manga things happened on panels and the transfers seemed to be gradual and take some time but in reality Arthur saw people get transferred in a little over a second disappearing out of the room in the blink of an eye.
The transfer happened one at a time, when his own transfer started he gripped his sword and couldn't help but smile, he'd probably die again but boy was he going to try and make them work for it.