Gamer4 in. Full confession- I was really tired last night, so I kinda skimmed over the last portions of the movie. People have (rightly) called me out on it- I guess everyone wants to see Jaune finally get his happy ending. Who am I to refuse? Without further adieu, the epilogue.

Episode XIV

The Room: Epilogue

"Wait, it's still going?" Ruby pondered as the screen faded in again.

"Well, don't ya wanna see Jaune get his life back together?" Crazy shrugged.

The first thing Jaune did upon leaving the hospital was return to the beach to recover the car he'd driven out there with- it was still there, mostly untouched, aside from some mud that must have been blown onto it by the wind.

"Oh, you beauty," he grinned as he ran a hand over the hood.

"The beach is so beautiful, Ren!" Nora squealed as she bounced along, gazing at the expanse of sand and water with wonder.

"Truly, if Jaune had to go anywhere, I can understand why it was here," Ren concurred with a smile.

Nora's own smile disappeared. "So... Jaune-Jaune... why did you go?"

Jaune glanced away, shame-faced. "I... I was afraid... if I stuck around, I'd lose you... the same way I lost her."

"Never," Nora assured him, pulling him into a tight hug. "You're gonna have to work hard to get rid of us!"

The scene cut to a restaurant, the three of them gathered in one booth. "You say Team RWBY's on their way?" Jaune asked with a smile.

"We've all been waiting for a chance like this, Jauney!" Nora brightly declared over a mouthful of pancakes.

"I think you have, as well," Ren added, eying him up with that perceptive magenta gaze of his. "It seems to me that this room of yours was your subconscious, rising up and forcing you to confront your demons."

"It was quite the rabbit hole," Jaune reflected. "I even... I even thought I saw Pyrrha. It's... it's so surreal... like I just... like I just talked to her... touched her... felt her just a couple days ago..."

Nora gave an uncharacteristically sad smile. "I still see her, Jaune... every night in my dreams."

Nora reached around and dragged Pyrrha into her group hug as well. That firm grip clearly said, Whatever happened, we're not letting it happen in our world.

"Perhaps," Ren suggested, "you could make an episode about all this for your show. Make a catharsis out of it- let it all out, David Lynch style."

"David... Lynch?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head.

"I think we'll get to him eventually," Crazy speculated.

"I... don't know if I'd have the strength," Jaune admitted. "Unless... you were all with me."

Ren and Nora smiled at him. "Do you even have to ask?"

"Yeaahhhh!" Nora cheered. "Team JNPR is back together! Er... mostly..."

That night, Jaune lay awake in his bed, looking through the internet on his scroll. He was able to locate several of the articles he'd dreamed about- several of the suicides that had occurred at the Austin Hotel- but they no longer mentioned the hotel at all. They were instead scattered all over Vale, from various different causes- as far as he could tell, Ren was correct in saying the Austin Hotel had been a fabrication of his mind.

Almost on a whim, he sent a text to Weiss, asking what her brother was up to lately, then returned to sleep.

He awoke to a confused text asking why she was so interested in Whitley- as far as she knew, he was still in Atlas, struggling to pick up the shattered pieces of the SDC.

"I almost half-expected to find he didn't exist at all in this universe," Weiss admitted.

Throughout the day, he worked on the script to what he'd determined would be the final episode of his show- after this, he simply wouldn't need it anymore.

All said, it took him roughly a week to finish it- the day before Team RWBY was scheduled to arrive. The same day, he realized he hadn't checked his mail in all that time, and went to rectify that.

He approached the front desk, ignoring the many workmen who seemed to be renovating the place, and rang the bell. "Hello? Anyone here?"

"How can I help you, sir?"

Jaune faltered as a young man entered from the back- a very familiar young man.

Whitley Schnee.

"W...What?" Ruby wavered.

"W-what are you doing here?" Jaune asked.

Whitley didn't answer- a large, burly man reared up behind him and smashed the desk with a baseball bat. One of the workmen grabbed a clock from the wall and tossed it at Jaune, narrowly missing his head- it smashed on the wall behind Whitley.

And suddenly, they all had weapons- but they weren't attacking Jaune- they were attacking the walls, tearing and ripping at them to reveal different, papered walls underneath. Jaune staggered back in mute horror, hands rising to the sides of his face. Whitley sadly shook his head as he walked out from behind the counter, heedless to the destruction going on around him, and headed for the door. "My apologies, Mr. Arc- I did try to warn you about 1408."

"No... NOOOOOO!" Yang growled- hardly alone in her sentiment. Horrified looks were spread amongst all the audience- Jaune had practically fallen back over the couch.

The world spun around him- it was a struggle not to collapse onto the ground as the men ripped up the floor, broke down walls, and smashed windows.

And when he finally came to his senses, they were gone- leaving him alone in the broken down, filthy, absolutely wrecked remains of room 1408.

Slowly, shakily, he raised his hands and touched a wall- then the full reality came crashing into him. "I... I WAS OUT! I WAS OOOOUUUUUUT! I WAS OOOOOOUUUUUUUT!"

Under other circumstances, it might have been comical.

It was decidedly not in this one.

Slowly, his voice lowered to a whisper, and he clasped his hands as if in prayer, hardly noticing the return of the makeshift bandage on his hand. "God... please, God... I was out. I know I was out."

There was a soft click behind him- he turned to see a tall, polished black door, standing freely in the center of the room. He moved towards it, glancing at the front, then the back- seemingly, it would open up on nothing.

Not that he'd believe that anymore.

"I... am not... opening it."

"Good... good choice," Ruby nodded nervously.

Regardless, the knob turned without needing him, and slowly, the door creaked open.

On the other side was a black void, through which he could hear... things. Indescribable things, things he didn't wish to remember, let alone describe. Things he instantly closed his mind against, slamming the door shut with all the force he could muster- it crumbled into dust in an instant.

"That's... not something I wanted to hear," Blake murmured, pulling her knees tight into her arms.

"Jaune?"

Slowly, Jaune turned to find another person in the room with him, dressed in her pajamas- Pyrrha Nikos. "No... No..." he whispered, almost whimpered.

"Don't you dare," Pyrrha attempted to sound scathing, but tears were creeping into her eyes as well. "Don't you dare..."

"Jaune... where are we?"

Jaune was muttering very fast- more to himself than to her. "You're not Pyrrha- you're not, you're not real, you're not real..."

"Jaune... I'm cold," Pyrrha whispered. "So cold..."

Jaune's mutterings trailed off as Pyrrha walked towards him- her feet were bare, bleeding from the glass she had to walk over. His resolve was crumbling, just as the door had.

When she stood in front of him, he stepped forward and embraced her.

"I love you, Jaune," she whispered in his ear. "I love you so much."

"I know... I know," he sobbed. "I love you too- I love you too!"

What would have normally brought Pyrrha so much joy now caused her nothing but heartache.

"But... they won't let me stay... Jaune, they won't let me stay..."

"I'll make them," Jaune whispered. "We killed Salem, we'll fight anyone who tries to take you away again- I'll fight them... I'll fight them alone, if I have to... I'm not letting you go..."

"I want to stay... to be with you, Nora and Ren again..."

"We can, we can!" Jaune insisted through his tears. "I've got you right here, and I'm never letting go! Everything's fine! Everything's fine! Everything's..."

Pyrrha had turned cold and limp.

She slid backwards, her head lolling, her green eyes empty.

Jaune broke.

"That fucker..." Yang was the only one even capable of articulating anymore. "That fucker..."

Jaune broke down into silent sobs, holding Pyrrha's body as close to him as he could, rocking her back and forth. "Noooooo..." he moaned. "Not again... you can't take her twice!"

"The best is yet to come, and babe, won't it be fine?"

The second the radio flicked on again, Pyrrha's body crumbled into dust in his arms.

"You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine!"

Futilely, pitifully, Jaune attempted to gather the dust and put her back together- only for a gust of wind to blow it all away.

"Wait 'til the warm-up's underway, wait til I draw you near!"

Jaune began to tune out the music as he glanced in the direction of the radio- assuming it was a countdown to his death, he only had a minute left to live.

All his fear and despair was released by a bright, burning anger- he leapt to his feet with a scream of fury and began throwing everything within reach at the wall, attempting to break it down. Cracks were certainly appearing, through which light filtered- light of that hateful, alien color, only driving him further into his berserker rage.

But his strength also seemed to be sapped with unnatural speed- he'd only been raging for about thirty seconds before he collapsed to the ground, just within line of sight of the radio, still ticking down to whatever fate awaited him.

"The best is yet to come, and babe, won't it be fine? The best is yet to come, come the day you're mine! And you're gonna be mine..."

He closed his eyes, waiting for the timer to reach zero.

"He's giving up?" Ruby asked sadly.

"What else can he do?" Blake pointed out somberly.

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One...

...Nothing.

Jaune opened his eyes and looked around.

The room had been completely repaired around him- the odd lights were gone, all the furniture and walls repaired- in short, it was identical to the perfectly ordinary hotel room he'd first entered.

"Maybe... maybe he really is free to go?" Ruby guessed hopefully.

"No," Weiss shook her head, eyes widening, "he's not."

Jaune rose to his feet- even his body had been reset, it seemed- his hand was no longer injured, all the cuts he'd sustained from rolling around on glass were healed.

He looked into the bedroom, and his eyes were attracted to the radio.

It, too, had reset- it was counting back down from sixty minutes.

"No way," Jaune gasped, eyes widening.

"Every time I think this fucker can't get any worse," Yang attempted to snarl, but she was clearly as aghast as everyone else.

The room's phone was ringing. Jaune's face was blank as he staggered over to it and picked it up. He wasted no time, no pretense that he was speaking to an actual staff member. "Why don't you just kill me?" he demanded.

"We here at the Austin Hotel firmly believe in the power of free will, Mr. Arc- you are free to live this hour over and over again, or to take our express checkout system."

"Express... checkout?" Ruby shivered.

Jaune placed the phone down, and slowly took a lap around the room. First, into the bedroom, where a noose had appeared over the bed. Visions flashed before him of all those who had taken their lives in this room before.

He grabbed the bottle of liquor and took a sip as he headed into the bathroom- another noose situated over the toilet.

His reflection in the mirror disappeared, then swiftly reappeared, hanging from a noose made of bedsheets.

He stepped towards the door. Sure enough, the knob wouldn't turn, and he had no idea where the key might be- but of course, he knew how that would turn out regardless. The map was still entirely blacked out, except for the room he was in- and below the door was a pair of graves, complete with headstones- one, already filled, for Pyrrha, the other, empty and lying in wait for him.

He turned away from it all, still blank-faced, and picked up the phone again.

"Are you ready to check out, Mr. Arc?"

A long pause.

"...No. Not your way."

"Alright, Fearless Leader!" Nora whooped. "You're getting out on your own terms!"

"I struggle to see how he can," Weiss whispered hopelessly.

"Where there's a will, there's a way," Yang snarled.

"And you have the will, right, Jaune?" Ruby's eyes gleamed.

Jaune gave a shrug- he sure had no idea where this was all going.

If the phone was annoyed with his answer, it didn't show it. "Very well, sir- incidentally, your friends are on your way- a Mr. Ren and Ms. Valkyrie?"

Jaune's eye twitched ever so slightly. "No. You can't have them."

"They should be here in five minutes- we'll send them straight up."

"No... you won't."

"Big mistake, room, big mistake," Nora smirked a sharklike grin.

"Huh?" Weiss asked.

"Jaune-Jaune can be a bit of a pushover himself, but he'll move mountains to protect his friends," Ren explained bluntly. "By getting us involved, the room may well have signed its own death warrant."

"But how?"

"Five," the phone said. "This is five- even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room."

Jaune took the phone away from his ear, watching it melt in his hands, the voice growing louder and distorted.

"Eight... this is eight. We have killed your friends. All your friends are now dead. Nine... this is nine. Ruby Rose was eaten by wolves on the Atlesian Turnpike. Four- this is four- I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flapjaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on hairi-kairi rock. I need scissors- sixty-one!"

Jaune closed his eyes, and the phone was back to normal.

"Isn't some of that stuff what Jaune was saying earlier?" Ruby recalled.

"God knows what this room is up to anymore," Blake shook her head.

Jaune turned, grabbed his bag, and sat down in front of the coffee table. He placed the bottle of liquor in front of him, right next to the ashtray with his single cigarette.

He produced his scroll again. "I've... lived like a selfish man... but I'm not dying that way. I... don't know what's real anymore. This room... those voices... that color... maybe even I'm not real."

He foraged around in his pocket and produced a small item- a lighter. "But fire... fire is real."

He flicked it on, running his finger delicately over the small flame.

He took the bandana he'd previously used as a bandage and stuck it in the bottle, making sure that one end was soaked in the alcohol before lighting up the other. He carefully rose to his feet, walked towards the bedroom, and tossed it at the bed. "GO TO HELL!"

Everyone's jaws dropped- nobody could think of anything to say.

Jaune leaned back on a chair and watched the fire spread, casually picking up the cigarette and lighting up as if his life weren't in immediate danger. Up above, something in the radiator began thumping and moaning, as if in pain.

"Oh, shut up," he muttered, casually blowing a stream of smoke in that direction.

He was sure the rest of the hotel would be evacuating already- but he had no way of knowing that far below, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie were in the lobby, calling for Jaune, beseeching any firefighter they saw to run up to room 1408 and ensure it had been evacuated.

He had no way of knowing that Whitley was leaning back in his office, taking one last drink before leaving himself. "Well done, Mr. Arc... well done. I believe I owe you some thanks for this."

All he knew was that the room was making one last effort to fight back- the fire sprinklers were coming on, and while the fire was resistant, it wasn't spreading quite as fast as he'd like, either.

He rose to his feet, picking up the ashtray, and speaking into his scroll one last time. "The staff are unhelpful... the manager's a douchebag... but on the spook scale alone, I give the Austin Hotel... TEN SKULLS!"

He threw the tray through the window, allowing a rush of air and oxygen, causing the fire to roar greater than ever.

"He is determined to take this place down!" Weiss noted, eyes wide.

Jaune himself was caught in the fire, but was past the point of caring- he could only laugh manically as he watched each and every inch of the room fall apart. Even as he fell to the ground, the fire spreading to his beloved Pumpkin Pete's hoodie, he could only roar in triumph, even unaware of the numberplate outside almost seeming to bleed.

Then the door was being kicked open- a large black man rushed in, picking him up single-handedly and rushing him out. "We've got one!" he called. "He's been burned bad- get an ambulance!"

The audience's spirits rose- was this going to end alright, after all?

Jaune was mostly limp, but managed to raise his hands and scrabble a bit at the man's face, attempting to drag it closer. "Don't... don't go in the room," he mumbled.

"Don't you worry, sir, it's going to be alright."

"Don't... don't go in..."

"Sir, I don't understand you!"

"It's... an evil... fucking room..."

And then he knew no more.

"That better not be the end," Yang snarled.

"It's not!" Crazy said quickly, and sure enough,

The screen lit up again, revealing Jaune in a hospital once again. "Pyrrha..." he whispered. "Pyrrha..."

"Jaune!" Nora was on him in an instant, restrained from touching him only by Ren.

"Careful, Nora, he's been burned." He pulled her back, and looked closely at Jaune. "Are you awake?"

"I saw... Pyrrha..."

"I believe it," Ren nodded. "We thought we were going to lose you for a while there."

Jaune didn't need to look to know he was covered in casts.

"This... Vale?"

"Yes, yes, this is Vale," Ren nodded his agreement. "You were in a fire- at the Austin."

"I... I remember..."

"They're saying it was faulty wiring," Nora reported.

Jaune couldn't fight back a chuckle. "W...Wiring... huh?"

"Yeah... they said you're going to be okay," Ren assured him.

"Okay... Ren... is this... real?"

Nora and Ren exchanged confused looks.

"Is he... is he really out this time?" Ruby asked. "I mean, how can we know for sure?"

"Maybe there's really no way of telling for sure- for us or for him," Pyrrha said solemnly. "In the end, he'll just have to decide whether it's worth trying to put his life back together or not."

A week later, Jaune was concluding the script for his final episode. Ren and Nora saved me... like they always do. The Austin is closed, at least for now- Whitley made sure to send me anything I left behind, a complete refund, and another bottle of liquor as thanks. He may be a douche, but he's a douch ewith good taste. He pondered this last sentence, then deleted it.

As every, believe what you will- as for me, though, I'm out. No more ghost hunting for me- I've found everything I needed.

He saved the document just as Ren and Nora came in. "Team RWBY's on their way!" Nora announced excitedly.

"Just in time!" Jaune announced, smiling. "Just finished the script!"

"Oh, that was fast!" Nora beamed.

"Pretty easy- I wrote this one already," Jaune shrugged. He picked up one of the crutches he still required to walk as Ren opened a box containing what remained of Jaune's luggage from the Austin.

"I... I suppose that's true," Pyrrha smiled wanly.

"It still smells like smoke," he announced as he began unpacking it. "I'll jsut throw it away."

"Is my scroll in there?" Jaune raised his voice.

"Scroll... scroll..."

Ren foraged through it for a moment before producing a badly burned scroll- but it still turned on.

"That's Schnee craftsmanship for ya!" Nora giggled. "That thing'd survive a nuclear war!"

"Are you sure you want this, Jaune?" Ren asked. "Won't it just bring back bad memories?"

"I'm done deceiving myself," Jaune shook his head, taking it. "You have to take the bad with the good. But... go ahead and chuck the rest."

"I suppose there's truth to that," Blake pondered. "There must always be a balance, I suppose, between good and evil, light and dark-"

"Zip it, Blake, the universe is almost over!" Yang chided.

"Yeah, none of your werid philosophy!" Nora agreed.

Blake rolled her eyes, but fell silent as requested.

Jaune fiddled around with his scroll for a while, finally bringing up the recording app. He went through a good deal of static before reacing the end:

"You're not Pyrrha- you're not, you're not real, you're not real..."

"I love you, Jaune... I love you so much..."

Nora and Ren turned around, their eyes widening. Jaune met them steadily, giving a knowing look as he turned the scroll off.

The screen went black.

"Is that... really the end?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah... yeah, that's really the end. For real, this time," Crazy nodded. "I... I know that one was kinda heavy, but... it's Halloween- how'd you like to go Trick or Treating over in Gem Heights?"

"It... would be nice to stretch our legs," Weiss stood shakily.

"I'll go to the store and get a pumpkin pie," George decided.

The guests looked between each other- yes, they needed to talk about that world, but it could wait just a little longer.

"Wait, don't you guys want to know what came crashing down in the yard?" Stephen asked. "It was-"

"We can find out later, I just wanna go trick or treating!" Ruby interrupted. "Come on, let's go!"

One by one, they all filed out- Crazy hesitated, glancing at the viewers. "Sorry, but I think this is something they'd like to do on their own, alright? We'll be back next time with a more regular schedule!" Then he turned around, closed the door, and locked it tight.

XXXX

That we will, that we will. Hope you've enjoyed our Halloween extravaganza- next time, we'll return to normal programming, probably with something significantly more lighthearted- haven't figured out what yet. Maybe a universe we've visited, maybe something new. We'll see. This really is the end- sorry, couldn't resist playing a little Halloween prank. I'm off to get some candy and watch some scary movies- after all, it's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare. Until next time, please R&R, everything embraced, Gamer4 out!

PS: Sorry for the multiple reuploads- the site decided to have a seizure and not put it up properly. This WAS originally up on Halloween, it just wasn't legible until now. I cry your pardon- this time for real, Gamer4 out.