Once the title card faded away, the scene cut to the fake Sunny living out his mundane life. It was… quite normal. He went to school, lived in a decent household, and did other stuff a teenager would do.
Sunny thought it was strange that they were calling him a sixteen year old when he had only been thirteen when he got infected by the Spell, as well as the fact that his fictional parents seemed to not have any presence in the movie, but he ignored it.
The fake Sunny was… very bland. The only traits that could be found was that he was excessively average in everything and lacked talent, while desiring a more exciting life. He had no friends — which was an uncannily accurate representation, even if it was for completely different reasons — somehow lived a middle class lifestyle despite having no parents to mention, and considered himself to be a background character.
'What a loser.'
"What a loser."
Sunny nodded, thankful that Seele voiced his thoughts… perfectly? Could she read minds?
"Yeah… wait, I'm nothing like that bastard!"
Seele snickered as Sunny shouted in outrage.
Suddenly, the actor just… went to sleep. There wasn't any build up until the fake Sunny was infected by the Nightmare Spell. No drowsiness, no loss of sleep, or any sudden detachment from the real world. It looked like whoever wrote this movie didn't really care about realism.
In the Nightmare, the fake Sunny had an Aspect called Shadow Champion, and took the role of a knight under the Lord of Darkness… whoever that was. Sunny doubted that there was anyone in the Dream Realm's history with such a ridiculous name.
It looked like he was going on an expedition with a few other forgettable characters conjured by the Nightmare as they faced hordes of Nightmare Creatures. At the end, fake Sunny faced a Dormant Demon and killed it with his bare fists… somehow? Sunny didn't think it was possible to kill a Dormant Nightmare Creature in such a manner as an Aspirant. After all, there weren't any Aspect Abilities, and he doubted that any Attributes could turn a practically mundane human into a battle-hardened warrior.
'This is so ass…'
During the appraisal, the fake Sunny gained an Attribute called [Chosen One], which caused March to carefully ask:
"You… you don't actually have that Attribute, right?"
Sunny scowled.
"Of course not! Do I look like some kind of main character?"
She nervously laughed.
"Right. After all, the great March 7th is the real protagonist of—"
"I mean, Gods might have really taken a liking to me, to the point where we're practically family, but I don't have such a stupid Attribute!"
"…Do you mind repeating that?"
"Yes."
In the end, the Sunny within the movie got a 'Legendary' appraisal, and got a Sacred Aspect. The name for his Aspect didn't change, so that's another thing that wasn't realistic. This time, the real Sunny didn't bother complaining, or else he'd be forced to spill his actual Aspect Rank.
When the fake Sunny woke up, he found himself face to face with a black cat, or whatever. Some dark creature. It started yapping about this and that, and how he is marked, and that he is destined to save the world, and that he was the lost prince of an ancient Legacy clan.
There was then a training arc where Sunny learned to wield a legendary sword, some black greatsword with a convoluted name. It had glowing runes on it's blade that seemed to absorb light.
'…Wait a second.'
Wasn't that similar to the weapon Mongrel was commonly seen using? Except while this was a greatsword, Mongrel used an odachi. Even the runes on the blade looked similar.
'Weird…'
After a short montage, the fake Sunny was sent into the Dream Realm — the Forgotten Shore.
The place was strange. At night, the entire region would be flooded by black water, but during the day, it would all be drained… somewhere. Sunny had no idea where it was supposed to disappear to.
Over the course of the next ten minutes of the movie, the fake Sunny went on wild adventures. He killed Nightmare Creatures, rode on the back of horrors from the depths, and forged legends… very naked legends. For some reason, the actor didn't wear any clothes. He should have at least had the Puppeteer's Shroud.
Thankfully, the camera was very careful with not revealing too much, only showing the rippling muscles that somehow grew overnight during that training arc. It was only a week!
Then, he found another human. A girl, being thrown around by a CGI tentacled creature in the midst of a thunderstorm. She was defenseless, only good for kicking and screaming.
A typical damsel in distress.
Meanwhile, the real Sunny was squinting his eyes, leaning forwards as a humorous thought ran through his mind.
'I—It can't be…'
As the fake Sunny easily cleaved through the creature, he shouted:
"Vile beast! You have no honor! Who would dare to attack a defenseless lady!"
From his seat, Sunny wanted to cry tears of embarrassment. What is this crap about honor…?
As the fake Sunny caught the woman with an award winning smile, the one in the real world was wondering with anticipation:
'There's no way…'
The tall and busty woman, red faced and sputtering like a maiden in love, practically swooned as she asked:
"My hero! I, Sparkle, will devote every second of my life to you in return for saving me!"
"Pfft!"
Sunny wheezed as he buckled over, holding his stomach as he laughed at the sight. Pulling out his phone, he snapped a photo. There was no way he was going to forget this sight.
'T—This bimbo… is Sparkle?! Oh… I can't take it anymore!'
She wasn't going to live this down!
Sparkle wasn't even half as tall as the actor on screen, didn't have breasts that covered half the screen, wasn't stupid enough to get caught by that grotesque tentacle monster, would never profess her love for him in such a direct manner, and was certainly much prettier!
…Wait. Sunny narrowed his eyes.
Didn't the actors look kind of familiar? Not in the way that they were supposed to be false representations of Sunny and Sparkle, but that he could genuinely recognize their faces.
'Huh.'
The following scenes were… interesting, to say the least. They mostly consisted of the fake Sunny killing Nightmare Creatures as the fake Sparkle watched in awe, cheesy romantic moments, and awkward scenes only a preteen could enjoy.
Like when the fake Sunny accidentally walked in on the fake Sparkle changing, getting kicked out in all his naked glory.
Sunny… had so many questions for the scriptwriter. At this point, it almost seemed purposefully bad.
At some point, the two horrible representations of Sunny and Sparkle had reached a place called the Dark City, a human settlement. At this point, the movie was halfway through.
The proceeding scenes were rushed, basically skipping through the actual lives of the main characters. Instead, what occurred was a general explanation about the situation of the city, describing the tyrant that ruled the city, Gunlaug, and how he gave up in his plans to reach the Gateway.
The fake Sunny came up with the brilliant idea to start a revolution and lead everyone to the Gateway… which was ridiculous.
'Realistically, I'd never try to do something like that.'
Assuming that there was any truth to the movie, then there had to have been a driving force for the real events to occur. That was completely skipped over though, since the macho man Sunny didn't need a reason to do the right thing.
So, he recruited his team.
Besides Sunny and Sparkle, there were two others:
First of which was the mysterious ghost girl that lived in the Catacombs under the Dark City, hanging out with her skeleton friends.
Her name was… H2O? What kind of name was that?
Water? Seriously?
The fake Sunny won her over with a few flattering words, and suddenly, the ghost girl — there wasn't an actor, she was just invisible — was suddenly in love with the muscular actor.
'Plot? What plot? We only have cool fights... that last for five seconds because this bastard one-shots everything!'
Anyways, they then recruited a fallen noble, a man who had been in the Forgotten Shore for a few years, Caster, a name familiar to Sunny. He remembered Saint Turks referring to him once, about how his clan was planning to cross the Hollow Mountains to retrieve him.
'Did he get left behind?'
Either way, the fake Sunny challenged him to a duel, a battle between the Chosen One and the haughty young master of the Han Li clan… surely, the battle would be one that is remembered throughout the ages…
Nope. Just one swipe, and Sunny won.
'Why is everything so easy for this bastard?!'
Once again, Sunny noticed that every actor up to this point seems familiar — even the ones in the background!
With Caster in their party, the four heroes moved onto the next part of their story.