*A static filled screen soon shifts to reveal a man wearing what could best be described as magitek power armor tapping the screen*
This thing on? Good. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Spiceracksargent001 here, bringing you my first shot at a reading fic. This one is for RWBY: Godplayer, written by one Xanothos. Before anyone even asks, yes, I got his permission for this beforehand. I'll also be using this as a means of experimenting with a set-up similar to what Phoenix Champion has as a setting for his Reading: Twin Heroes of Remnant fic. Speaking of Phoenix Champion, if you're reading this, dude, *gives a thumbs up* love your stories. Keep up the good work.
For this Reading fic, I'll be using Teams RWBY and JNPR (who seem to have become standard fare for these types of Reading fics), as well as Coco Adel of Team CVFY, Glynda Goodwitch, Professor Ozpin, and Qrow Branwen. The latter three were Xanothos' personal request for readers while Coco was added at my own discretion (just to spice things up a little). And, as always, constructive criticism is welcomed and highly appreciated.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Trans-Dimensional Factory Ship I still need to oversee the construction of, and let me tell you, it is a precarious ship-building project. Lot of science and sorcery going into this, and if even one thing isn't done correctly with the forging, shaping, enchanting, and/or construction processes, it'll mean some very bad things. Especially if it's the Trans-Dimensional Quantum Field Drive that ends up suffering a malfunction or mana overcharge/deficiency. Purely mechanical problems are easy to fix: just get a Haro and a few Karols to the site. Arcane problems are a fair bit trickier, since I'm still getting the hang of runic enchantment. Mechanical and Arcane problems in the same instance? You do not want to know how badly I'm fucked if that happens.
*Spice turns and leaves, unaware that the ship's AI had already gone ahead and accelerated one of his plans for after the ship was done to right now*
"Ugh, where am I?" the young voice of one Ruby Rose asks as she slowly rises from unconsciousness and looks around. The room she was in was rather spartan, having only 6 2-seater couches. Ruby herself was on one alongside her uncle Qrow, Weiss and Blake were on another, Team JNPR took up the next two in order of Jaune-Pyrrha and Ren-Nora, the next couch was occupied by Glynda and Professor Ozpin, and occupying the last couch were her sister Yang and, surprisingly enough, Coco Adel. It would also seem that she wasn't the first to awake. Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch were also up and looking around, and from the looks of things, the others weren't too far off.
"Your guess is as good as mine, Miss Rose," Ozpin says as he looks around the room. If anything, he thought the room looked like the interior of some kind of building, or maybe an airship. "Wherever we are, I guarantee we're not at Beacon anymore."
"Were we kidnapped?!" Yang shouts as she wakes up, bringing everyone else out of unconsciousness.
"Honestly, considering this isn't Beacon, I think we might have been," Ren says as he looks around, analyzing the room.
"If we were, then the question is, why us?" Weiss asks skeptically. "I mean, I can understand kidnapping me, I'm heir to the SDC after all, but Jaune?"
"Hey!" came the indignant reply from the blond-haired knight.
"If this really was a kidnapping, though, how do the people that kidnapped us plan on keeping us in here?" Blake asks, eyeing the room with an analytical eye.
"They don't," Qrow says as he gets up and walks over to a glass case that nobody else aside from Ren seemed to notice, examining its contents before looking to the door. "Our weapons are in here, this display case isn't even locked, and that door over there doesn't even have a doorknob."
"So… this is either the worst kidnapping in the history of Remnant…" Coco says, trailing off as she lowers her sunglasses a bit to look around over them.
"Or this person isn't all that afraid of what we could do to him," Ozpin finishes, Goodwitch nodding in agreement right as the sound of mechanical whirring follows the door opening.
What walks into the room could best be described as a person wearing some kind of powered armor. The armor itself was rather skeletal and sparsely plated, allowing them to see that the person wearing it was a male who looked to be at about his early 20s with short, somewhat messy brown hair and hazel eyes, as well as a beard, mustache, and blue memory-frame glasses wearing some kind of leather overcoat, and stylized after a Jolteon from Pokemon. A set of thrusters and vernier jets adorned the man's back, shoulders, and legs, while the clawed gauntlets occasionally sparked with what could only be described as some kind of energy. In his right hand was a clipboard and a book of some kind was currently connected to what was obviously a magnetic holding unit on his waist, while a helmet was cradled in his left arm. "Alrighty, so, between overseeing the ship's construction and writing my own stories, I should be able to squeeze enough room into my schedule for-" The person then looked up from his clipboard, his musings cut short as he looks around the room at its occupants, then lets out what the guests assumed to be an exasperated sigh while tossing the clipboard over his shoulder. "Unless, of course, ELFI got impatient."
His statement was met with the blade of Gambol Shroud's Katana being held to his throat by a certain ravenette cat Faunus. "Who are you and why are we here?" Blake growls, Gambol Shroud's Cleaver-Sheath in her off-hand in case he tried anything, the others inching their way towards the weapons case as well, Qrow's own weapon already in broadsword mode in its owner's hands.
"Would you like to know, or would you rather just attack me?" the man asks while tentatively pushing the blade of Gambol Shroud away. "I don't have an aura, so any attack you make has a high chance of fatality on my part."
Blake narrows her eyes, but sheaths Gambol Shroud and puts it away before crossing her arms, Qrow shrugging before putting his weapon back in the display case.
The young man, for his part, lets out a relieved sigh before looking at the Huntsmen and Huntsmen-in-training. "Now, I'm sure you all have questions, and rest assured, they will be answered," he says, "over breakfast. Once everyone's eaten, I'll have Orange and Red escort you all somewhere to bathe and clean up." Ignoring everyone's confusion as to why he said two colors like they're people, he walks back to the still open door and leans out. "Yo! Orange! ELFI decided to not wait until the ship was actually finished before trying the Warp Bridge! Hop into a Tenor and bring breakfast!"
"Why are you saying a color like you're addressing a person?" Weiss asks, dumbfounded.
"Wait for it," The man says simply before Orange arrives a few minutes later with breakfast.
"What. Is. That?!" Nora cries out in surprise as what can best be described as a gunmetal grey, quadrupedal, industrial work loader on sphere rollers rolls into the room carrying a large table loaded with pancakes (both plain and chocolate chip), waffles, bacon, eggs, and just about everything else one might find on a breakfast menu. Mounted in a slot in the top of the machine's torso is a much smaller, orange, ball-like machine with blinking eyes and a "mouth".
"This is Haro," the young man explains while motioning to the ball-like machine, all the while, it looked to him like Ruby was just barely containing her excitement because the machine Orange Haro was docked to was carrying breakfast. "One of several I have running around the place, anyway. Orange here is basically second-in-command among my Haros. The machine he's docked to I personally designed and named the Tenor. Think of it as similar to a downscaled Atlesian Paladin stripped of its armor and weapons and redesigned exclusively for industrial work."
"Haro! Welcome! Welcome!" Orange Haro calls out in its mechanical voice, its "ears" flapping in greeting as he sets the table down in front of everyone. A good 90% of the regular pancakes were immediately claimed by Nora and everyone else had their own food in short order.
"Who are you?" Glynda asks in between munching on a piece of bacon. "And where are we?"
"I have a few names I go by, but you can just call me Spice, it's the shorthand for the name I end up using most of the time," The now named Spice says, introducing himself. "As for where we are, this is my "home away from home", I guess you could call it, though as you could probably no doubt guess, I'm still building it. Welcome aboard the TDMF-X01A Hephaestus, name ship of the Hephaestus-class Trans-Dimensional Factory Ship."
"So this is a sort of mobile forge, then?" Ozpin asks, getting a nod from Spice. "Then why are we here?"
"To make a long story short, Professor Ozpin," Spice says while idly retrieving the book from the magnetic clamp and holding it up, "there's a tale that I, and the tale's creator, wish for you to read."
"You mean to tell me that you kidnapped two first year teams of Huntsmen-in-Training, three full-fledged Huntsmen, and me," Coco says, regarding Spice from overtop her lowered sunglasses, "just to read a book?"
"I suppose that is one way of putting it, yes," Spice admits with a shrug. "Rest assured, all, I'm not doing this to simply waste your time." He then hands the book to Ruby. "Miss Rose, since your hands are the only ones not covered in maple syrup right now, could you please read the title aloud to everyone?"
"RWBY: Godplayer," Ruby reads aloud before looking at Spice. "Wait, this takes place in Remnant? Where? When?"
"It is, shall we say, an alternate form of Remnant," Spice says as Ruby gives him the book back. "A good many tales from my home dimension are, actually. Each with as many differences to the original World of Remnant as similarities. Not even I've seen them all. There will inevitably be differences in how events play out in this tale to what you all have experienced thus far, but rest assured it may still contain some valuable wisdom that all present may draw from."
"Okay, but can I just ask one question?" Yang asks, getting a nod from Spice before pointing at Coco. "Why'd you bring Coco along with the rest of us?"
"You know any other girls who can beat multiple Beowolves to death with a handbag capable of turning into a minigun that can one-shot Deathstalkers and look stylish doing it?" Spice asks, and is naturally met with silence from all present and a smirk from the fashionista in question. After everyone finished eating, Orange Haro returns, having left a while ago to put the Tenor away (it was a spare in case one broke down on the job), with a red Haro in tow. "Ah, there you two are. Red, are the Angel Baths finished yet?"
"Angel Baths ready! Angel Baths ready!" the Red Haro chirps happily in a mechanical, though notably feminine, voice.
"Excellent," Spice replies before turning to his guests. "Alright, guys, follow Orange, he'll take you to the showers. Ladies, follow Red, she'll take you to a special area of the ship I like to call the Angel Baths. I think you'll appreciate it. Also, Orange, tell the first Haro you come across to hop into a Tenor and report to me ASAP, I'm gonna need help setting up."
-Several minutes later-
After everyone who was "borrowed" finished washing up and changing (the ladies, true to Spice's words, definitely appreciated being taken to the Angel Baths to freshen up, though they did question why he needed an artificial hot spring in what was supposed to be a factory ship), they were escorted by Red and Orange back to where they woke up, to see the table gone and a blue Haro (docked to a Tenor) helping Spice with setting up a large, flat-screen television.
"What's with the TV?" Jaune asks.
"Visual aide," Spice replies simply, not looking away from his work. He soon finished. "And done. Thank you, Blue, you can go now."
"Roger. Roger." Blue Haro says as he rolls out of the room with the Tenor he was using. Orange and Red followed soon after.
"So now that everyone's all cleaned up, we can begin with the reading," Spice says as everyone takes the seats they were in when they arrived. "I'll go ahead and read the first chapter to you all. From there, the order of the reading shall go in order of Team RWBY, followed by JNPR, Glynda, Coco, Ozpin, and finally Qrow. Any questions?"
"Yeah, I got one," Qrow pipes up. "Where the hell's my flask?"
"Confiscated, emptied, and, currently, being washed," Spice says simply. "I don't allow alcohol on my ship." He ignored Qrow's look of shock at his reply, though he did return the smirks Ozpin and Glynda sent his way with one of his own. "Any other questions?"
"Nnnnnope," Yang says following a full 30 seconds of silence, popping the 'p'.
"Alrighty then," Spice says as he opens the book while the TV turns on. "Let's begin. Oh, almost forgot, I'll be answering any questions that may pop up for any and all of you as we go about the reading."
Well, time to get this show on the road. I'm gonna need to have a talk with ELFI first chance I get though…
((I do not own any of the Gundam references, since those belong to Sunrise entertainment. I do, however, own the idea of the Tenors, and the Hephaestus-class Trans-Dimensional Factory Ship.))
