Flashy fights, inspiring words, adorable girls and despicable villains. She slumped in her chair, rewatching the best moments of the show over and over. How many times had She rewatched the Nevermore fight? Yang vs Mercury? Torchwick vs Blake and Sun? Qrow vs Winter? Pyrrha vs Cinder? She was enthralled. She poured over the forums, played the games, and left the songs on blast.
It just wasn't enough.
With determination, she soaked in every detail she could about the world and prepared herself for what she had to do. This was never easy, per say, but neither was it exactly difficult.
She created a new dimension.
Someone watching from the outside might have described it as her simply vanishing into another place, but it was much more difficult than that. With a mighty heave, she shoved the entire universe aside that she was currently in, making way for something new to be created. The old one was still there, an intangible distance away along with all the other worlds she had created since the first, each ready to be stepped in to at a moment's notice.
Now she stood in some place new, fresh. It wasn't pitch black from lack of light, as many thought it might be, nor was it basked in an omni-present and all expanding white light like many fiction writers described it. The place around her simply wasn't anything, because she had not made it anything yet.
With a flick of her wrist, a sun bloomed into existence. Next she brought out a map of Remnant, and with precision, sculpted the planet in the space in front of her. She got to work adding in the continents, then the valleys, oceans and rivers and lakes, the mountains and vegetation, the weather always came last, as she set the equator in relation to the sun itself, adjusting them until she was confident in their accuracy.
With a little speed up of time, the weather truly took effect, blanketing the northern areas in snow and heating up the equator, creating a true landscape that would have taken her infinitely longer to do by hand. With a final touch, she threw her arms wide, a scattering of stars blanketing the darkness, along with the moon itself. It was a large, elegant pearl, destined to be half destroyed in due time.
She dusted her hands off and paused, bringing out another image from her pocket. This time it was of the two gods from the show, the God of Light, and the God of Darkness. It was not difficult to create the pretenders. She kept how she imagined them firmly in her mind as she brought them into existence. They would have false memories, believing that they themselves had caused this beautiful landscape to come into existence, and they would never be any the wiser to her own presence.
The two brothers set about doing what they did best. She sped up time as she watched them, the God of Light creating, the God of Destruction then blasting it to bits. They bickered and fought, mountains toppled in the God of Destruction's wake, only for the God of Light to bring them right back. In time, they finally reached a mutual agreement, coming together to spawn humanity on to the planet's surface.
She watched eagerly as events began to take place in fast forward. Cities seemed to spring up overnight. The fledglings that were humanity found their wings and spread out across the land.
The God of Light kept his shrine of worship close at hand, easily accessible to those that would wish to have an audience with him. The God of Darkness secluded himself off into the furthest reaches of the western continent, eradicating the vegetation from the landscape and erecting huge pillars of purple crystal in their wake. The creatures of Grimm began to swarm the area soon after, not yet venturing out into the lands of man.
Time passed, and in the blur of it all, She did not keep track of the events leading up to the extinction. Humanity was there one moment, and in a purple flash that encompassed the planet, gone the next. She slowed time back down to a normal pace as she took in the devastation. She watched as eventually, Salem crawled her way out of the crater the exploding moon had left, one among many. She did not envy Salem, having to take the long way through time, but there was nothing to be done about it. She could hardly expose herself now.
She sped up time again, as Salem began her futile trek across the land.
Time continued on, and everything seemed to be running smoothly.
That is, until the entire world suddenly came to a jarring halt.
"What is it this time?" She mused in mild exasperation. Things of this nature had happened before in other worlds, only ever during their creation, on their path to the goal she had in mind. Usually it meant there was something simple, but important that she had overlooked, some detail that would help shape the future correctly that she had not taken into account.
She eyed the landscape. All seemed well. The humans had started to reconstruct their civilizations after the calamity. The faunus had sprung up, seemingly from nowhere. They were mining and using dust, building towns, fighting off the creatures of Grimm… where was the problem? She pondered her dilemma for a moment before smacking herself in the forehead.
It was about time for Ozma to be resurrected, and for the Relics to be made.
With ease, she slipped into the space between life and death that the pretenders had manifested, where she knew the God of Light would be speaking with Ozma, trying to convince him to return to the land of the living. Indeed, there they stood, frozen in time as the God of Light was putting on a show, arms outstretched around versions of the Relics that floated in mid air.
The problem was, She didn't know exactly what the Relics were supposed to do.
'If I give them some ability they didn't have before, the world could change in some drastic, unforseen way...'
She started with the easiest of them all, the one she knew. With a flick of her hand, the Relic of Knowledge appeared before her, floating gracefully as the others did.
"Jinn?"
As she spoke the name, a hazy blue mist began to coil itself out of the lamp, coalescing into a large, floating blue woman clad only in golden chains and accessories. The being that was Jinn leaned forward, gazing down at her with an expression of pure confusion.
"I do not know who you are," Jinn stated simply, tilting her body forward to get a better look at the woman in front of her, "I was created to know everything past or present."
"I am god," she replied simply.
"He is God," Jinn replied, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at where the God of Light stood.
"A pretender, one of my creations, and a god only in name," She responded, giving a light laugh.
Jinn gave her a skeptical eye, crossing her arms and looking her up and down, "Prove it."
She pointed towards the God of Light, drawing Jinn's attention to him. With a lazy flick of her hands, she ended his existence.
Jinn turned back to her in horror, eyes going wide. Her expression came across as rather muted, and She could only laugh at the attempt. Jinn had just been born, after all. She couldn't expect her to be a master of facial expressions quite yet.
With another lazy flick, She brought the God of Light back, reverting the changes to his existence, and gave a subtle shrug to the relic.
"Well, color me impressed," Jinn said, still wide-eyed.
"And what color is that?" She asked, tilting her head.
"Blue, apparently," Jinn laughed, turning back to her. "So, what should I call you? God?"
"Eh, I'm not too big on titles. Worship isn't all that fun. I don't even know why the God of Darkness was so jealous of his brother in the first place. All the humans ever do is whine for things, disparage your name, or thank you for things you usually had nothing to do with."
"So, what then?" Jinn asked, amused.
"I thought you were the one that answered questions," She asked with a light laugh, then shook her head, admonishing herself. "I have had countless names, but I suppose I will have to come up with one for the life I'm trying to give myself here."
She idly twirled her finger in her hair, looking at the color. The time she wanted to drop herself into focused on physical attributes like the color of one's hair and eyes. Her hair was cropped to shoulder length, light purple and becoming slightly more washed out towards the ends, while her eyes were a mesmerizing and vibrant pink.
"What do you think?" She asked, holding up the hairs she had twirled around her finger.
"Lucy? How about Amanda?"
She shook her head, "In the future, where I want to live, they name their children based on colors, or stuff that sounds like a color, or after something that makes you think of a color… You get the point."
"Well, I can't say I know anything about the future, but judging you as you are now, I would call your hair various shades of violet," Jinn replied slowly, focusing on her hair in particular.
"I like that. Violet," She seemed to ponder the name, testing it in her mouth, "And my friends could just call me Vi." Her face lit up, now enjoying the name more as she got used to it.
"Violet it is, then," Jinn smiled, "You have now used one of three questions allowed this century."
"Ummmm, worth?" Violet laughed, "Don't count that one, honestly."
"As you wish, Violet," Jinn allowed herself to relax a little, "Is there anything else you might ask of me, since this is probably the only time I'll be able to talk with someone so freely?"
"Yeah, actually," Violet pointed past Jinn to the other relics still floating in the air behind her, "Do you know what any of those are supposed to do, specifically?"
Jinn frowned, "The Relics are as follows: the Relic of Knowledge, which is mine, the Relic of Destruction, the Relic of Choice, and the Relic of Creation. Beyond that…" Jinn became visibly frustrated as she tried to think of the answer, "I don't know their exact functions."
"That's alright. I expected as much," Violet nodded, walking over to gaze at the relics more closely. "I guess we'll just have to get as close as we can, right?"
They both sat in silence for a time, pondering the question that floated before them, tauntingly just out of reach.
"Do you think the relics are split evenly? Two for the elder brother, two for the younger? He does preach about keeping the balance a lot."
"I… wouldn't put it past him," Jinn acknowledged, "Which do you think belong to each of them?"
"Well... what got me thinking about it in the first place is the Relic of Choice," Violet replied, "The Relic of Destruction is obvious, but choice? What could it's function possibly be? Humans and faunus already have choice, they were born with it, they live their entire lives with it. So what if the Relic of Choice was actually the opposite? What if it could be used to rob someone of their choice, forcing them down a different path altogether? That would definitely be evil, which would leave the Relics of Knowledge and Creation for the God of Light, both undeniably good things in my book."
"Is it truly a choice if the option was never on the table for you to begin with?" Jinn asked back, thoughtful, but with a hint of uncertainty to her voice.
"I suppose not..." Violet's train of thought kept chugging along despite the momentary derailment, "So, perhaps it only works on someone if there was a chance they might have made that decision themselves, but it forces their hand," Violet's eyes lit up, "That would explain why Ozma couldn't just use it on Salem, forcing her to be good, while also keeping it worthy enough of being a relic."
Jinn continued to think on it for a few moments before shrugging, "It makes sense."
"Alrighty, then! One Relic of Not-Actually-Choice coming right up!" Violet gestured as she said this. The relic morphed into existence, a golden crown with five protrusions along the top, starting with the tallest in the center and gradually becoming smaller on either side.
"That takes care of that, now on to an easier one," Violet chirped happily, "The Relic of Destruction. Easy enough, it destroys things when you swing it at them."
"How much does it destroy, though?" Jinn asked tentatively, eyes on the floating version above Ozma.
"Hmmm, that is the issue, isn't it?" Violet contemplated.
"Do you know anything more about it from the future?"
She had one finger to her lower lip, idly tapping away as she pondered the question, "Ozma did supposedly lay waste to a lot of people with it in one big battle. So somewhere between 'obliterates mountains in a single swing' and 'much better than your average sword?"
"That's a fairly wide range, if you ask me."
"I wouldn't waste a question on something like that," Violet teased, before turning back to the relic, "I don't think it matters as much. It needs to be strong enough to be useful. Just not so strong that Ozma dies while foolishly trying to kill Salem with it."
Violet gestured once again, and the empty space in front of her spit the sword out onto the incorporeal surface they were standing on, "Strong enough to take out about fifteen or so people with a single swing should do it."
Jinn nodded her agreement as they both turned to look at the last relic that did not have a duplicate sitting on the floor in front of them. The Relic of Creation floated in place, mocking her with it's secrets.
"Any insight on this one?" Jinn asked.
"This one ends up in Atlas. They easily have the best technology out of any of the four kingdoms, which makes sense if they were using it the whole time. I wouldn't be surprised if Ironwood had been doing that. As long as whatever we give it makes it put out the same results, then this shouldn't be too tough either. How about… grants the user enhanced insight into the methods of creation, making it easier to advance their technology at an exponential rate?"
"Are you sure that's all they use it for?"
Violet rocked back and forth for a moment, deep in thought before her eyes lit up, "Penny!"
"What's a penny?"
Violet scoffed, "Not a penny. Penny! She is, and I quote, 'the world's first synthetic person capable of generating an aura'. Which meaaaaannnssss," Violet let the silence hang in the air for a moment, building the dramatic tension, "The Relic was used to give her a soul!"
Jinn stood by as Violet gestured again. This time the Relic of Creation appeared before her with a pop. She stood tall, looking down at her work.
"Not too shabby, eh?" Violet said cockily, looking over her shoulder at Jinn.
"Well... I hope I was of some use," Jinn replied with a half smile. All things considered, the ghost historian seemed bluer than usual.
"What's the matter?" Violet asked, giving Jinn a closer look.
"Ah, it's nothing. I'm just savoring the moment. Now that we're done, you'll be on your way. I don't need to see the future to know that much."
Violet nodded in understanding, "It's going to be awfully boring waiting in that lamp and only being able to speak to someone three times a century…"
Jinn let her mood show, her face downcast and crestfallen.
"...Which is why I'll be sure to pop in, and keep you company from time to time," Violet announced with a firm nod, then grinned at the pleased expression on Jinn's face.
"Thank you, Violet" Jinn breathed. Violet smiled, pleased with herself. It seems there was a little bit of power left in those words. She did enjoy the banter with Jinn, and not only because she was someone that had appeared on the show briefly.
"I will need you to do me a couple favors, though," Violet said finally, eyeing the tall blue being in front of her.
"Anything for you, Violet."
"Call me Vi."
Jinn's breath caught momentarily before her expression grew into an even wider smile, "And the second thing?"
"Don't mention me to anyone. As far as they should be concerned, the God of Light and Darkness are the only deities that exist in this world. If someone asks about me, just pretend you don't know what they're talking about."
Jinn nodded her affirmation, and Violet waved as she returned into the lamp. Violet left it at that, certain the God of Light would be able to take things from there easy enough. As she left, the world lurched back into motion, time finally finding its legs again, and pushing forward with fervor as she skipped forward through time.
Keeping to her word, Violet stopped at the beginning of every year, and paid a visit with Jinn. They spoke in earnest, as Violet felt it was her duty to help assuage Jinn's boredom. They spoke little of the world as it was. Jinn could not be entertained by thoughts of things she already knew. Instead, Violet spoke of the future, and when that ran out, she talked about the other worlds she had visited, the worlds she had created. Her head was brimming with daring tales and heartbreak, and kept Jinn entertained for at least one day each year.
Time continued on, ever nearing Violet's true goal. Wars were fought, blood was shed, and the schools were finally created, the Relics hidden within their vaults to collect dust. The small pocket dimension that Ozma created didn't deter her in the slightest regarding her visits to Jinn, and she ignored the other vaults entirely, content to let them be. She did not need their power.
Ozpin was born, then after a time, Team STRQ joined Beacon. Violet watched with more interest as they fought. Qrow and Raven didn't mesh well at first, not with their true objective in mind. Over time, however, Tai and Summer managed to worm their way into the two's hearts, and Tai into Raven's bed.
Then, around two years after Team STRQ's graduation, Violet's time had finally come. Raven was pregnant with Yang. There wasn't any time to lose, Violet also need to be 'born'.