rEvolve: Rise Of The Demon King

Chapter 1

So how did I end up here? Been asking myself the same thing for the last five minutes. Where exactly is here? Good question. Honest answer: I don't know. It looks like a cave of some sort, one of the largest I've ever been in. What is this place? I just woke up here after maybe the second worst night of my life. No...scratch that. I'm pretty sure I died tonight, so this was the worst.

I'll give you some unsolicited advice right now. Never be a nice guy. Trust me. I did it for the 26 years of my life, and see where I ended up? Alone and forgotten, probably dead, in a dark, damp cave. I thought I'd atleast be going to Heaven, but it doesn't seem like that. So...even the afterlife sucks for a nice guy. Heck, the more you do things for other people, the more you get taken advantage of. Passed over for a promotion, check. Caught girlfriend cheating, check. Stepped in to save a girl from being pushed around by her thug of a boyfriend and get stabbed for it, check. Had to listen to said abusive boyfriend tell girl to back him up that stabbing me was self defense, check. Worst part was when she agreed. I think I gave up on humanity then.

The last thing I remember before everything went black was a soft robotic voice saying 'Payment Accepted.' and then 'Beginning Upload'. Your Hatred for Humanity has unlocked unique abilities. Predator, and Dominance added as Powers. When I woke up, I was here. No girl, no thug, no stab wound. Oh, and I'm also covered in scales.

That freaked me out for a good minute. Then I realized I had bigger problems. Like where my clothes had gone. Now don't worry. I'm not naked. I'm just dressed in a super weird costume. It's like something from a low budget b-class fantasy movie. I also seem to have lost all my stuff. Except my phone, thats laying in front of me emitting a soft glow.

I pick it up, and take a look at it. That's weird, it seems to be stuck permanently on that one game app I downloaded a few days ago. I tried pressing back, pressing the Home button, even turning it off and on again, but it stayed resolutely on the game screen.

I guess its not the worst thing in the world, it was supposed to be a pretty cool game. It was in beta and tested by invitation only, they had sent me the link to the game through email, along with a great trailer. So I had downloaded it, and started creating my character. Apparently it would procedurally generate the story based on your choices. Almost like a 'Choose your own Adventure' type of deal. I loved RPGs. They were my escape, when I wanted to disappear from the world.

Name, Class, Status, I had quickly gone through the usual stuff, since I had a bunch of alter egos in various other games. The race was locked at Human. It seemed like more races were going to be added in the final release, but for right now, it looked like only Human was available. The class list was quite extensive. Unfortunately when I went to click create on my character, it took me to a payment authorization page, which was weird, because the game was still in beta, but I didn't care. The graphics on the app were amazing, and I couldn't wait to play. Only it wouldn't log me in, no matter what form of payment I provided. I figured they'd probably release a patch to fix this issue, so I waited. Then, you know, I had a crappy week and forgot about it. Then I died.

This was the first time looking at the app since I tried creating my character. It was pretty much the same, only this time, underneath my carefully generated character was green flashing text, saying 'Payment Accepted'. Also, the race no longer showed Human either. It was blank, and underneath Class, in the most subtle and least flashy text, the words 'Demon King' stared back at me.

"Confused?"

It was a sharp distinctly female voice that emanated from my phone. I almost dropped it, but caught it just in time. "Um...A little."

"Press the help button for assistance." The voice continued. The help icon on the app started flashing, so I pressed it. A small faerie popped out, taking up almost the entire screen.

"Whew..finally." She said, dusting herself off on my screen. "Well hello there! My name is Faye, how may I be of assistance?"

"Um...where am I?"

"Avarellum, of course." She looked at me funny and then turned away from me, whispering just loud enough for me to hear, "Tchh. I get stuck with an idiot."

"What was that?" I ask, unsure whether I really just heard the support ai for this app just say that.

"My only desire is to serve you. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Her face is all smiles again.

"How did I get here?"

"I'm sorry, I can't help you with that question." "How am I supposed to know, idiot?"

"Er...I heard that, you know?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. Please ask something else."

"Ok. Let's see." I glance around, trying to figure out what to ask. She's obviously connected to this place, since the game is set in a place called Avarellum, but it looks like I'm not going to get an easy answer to how I got here. "Alright, what does my class being Demon King, mean?"

Her jaw dropped. "You got Demon King?" She turned around to the text on the screen, and scrolled down. "Hit accept, you idiot. That's one of the super rare ones!"

"What?"

She pointed at the bottom of the screen.

Confirm Character? followed by two buttons with a check mark and a cross.

"Ok." I press the check button, and watch the screen change behind the Help AI. "Hey, can you go back? I can't see the screen."

"You want me to go back? What a jerk!"

"But I -"

"Why don't you just turn on Hands Free mode?"

"How?"

"Idiot." She pointed to another small button on the screen. "Push that."

I did what she said, and the screen grew bright for a second. I felt the phone's weight disappear, and the light from the phone slowly took the form of the little fairy that was the Help AI.

"Much better," she said, flying around excitedly.

The screen expanded in front of me, an Augmented Reality menu in an already foreign reality. It was almost too much to take in. "Whoa. So what's all this mean?"

"Tcch. Its almost like you're a newb." She said, before flying and pointing to a part of the menu. "These will list your sub-classes. Normally, you'd only get 2 active sub-classes, but the Demon King can have 5. You have to figure out how to unlock them though."

She flew a little further down. "Skills. These are separated into Techniques and Abilities. Abilities are passive. Techniques are active uses of your abilities. Understand?"

"Not really, can you -"

"Tcch. You'll figure it out later. Moving on." She flew on. "This lists your Powers & Blessings. They're extremely rare. I'll be surprised if an idiot like you can even get one." She said with a smug look on her face that disappeared when she looked back and realized I had two things listed there. "How?! How do you have two already?"

I shrugged.

"I suppose you'll want an explanation about them then."

"That would be helpful."

"Predator allows you to learn abilities from those weaker than you that you hunt, kill, or eat. Dominance allows you to control lesser beings, especially humans."

I wanted to ask some more questions, but Faye just looked at me accusingly, and I gave it up. I'll figure it out later.

"Well...that's it for my help. Try not to call me again too soon." She said, then disappeared. The menu slowly faded away. Yea...I don't think I'll be calling her again.

So...this new life or whatever it is, seemed to be tied to the game. I can live with that. I never really felt like I belonged while I was living in that other life anyway. And now I have this second chance, and I can be anything I want to. I haven't quite figured that part out yet, but I do know what I'm definitely not going to be. A nice guy. It's time to start living for myself. And the first part of that is figuring out how I'm supposed to get out of this place.