Thanks to mgman, TheShapeOfEvil, HereticSlayer69, and The Writing Pupil for the help and advice. Also thanks to the lore keepers in the reactionists discord server for giving help when I needed it. Also thanks to Twisted, Boe Jiden, and others for distracting me with video games.


Into The Sigmaverse: American Psycho

Emila was bored

The day had gone like many others. She would study for the royale selection, train with her ice brand arts, and spend time with Subaru. None of it was bad of course, in fact, she truly enjoyed the days she spent with everyone. Her life was considerably better than it had ever been. But… that still didn't help the feelings of repetitiveness she was dealing with. It felt like a change needed to occur.

"Yep!" She said, as she practically slammed the book in her hands down on her desk. "Subaru should be done with his training soon, I'll go see if he wants to go on one of those dates he loves so much." nodding her head, she walked out of her study and… into… somewhere completely different than what she was used to seeing when she walked out of her study.

It was a confusing sight, odd-looking chairs all set in rows. A weird-looking kitchen area with odd shiny boxes. And at the forefront of this image was a large stage, with a large whiteboard covering the entire wall.

"Huh? This in't ma' room?" A voice from behind her said. She spun around on her heels, not alarmed by the voice, but just overall surprised.

"Garf?" And sure enough, he was standing there with a confused look.

"Hey, princess? You appen' to know where we ar'?" Garfiel said. "Cause' this don' look like ma' room at all."

"Ah, Garf! Actually, I haven't got a clue where we are, honestly, I'm just as surprised as you are." Emilia responded.

"Hmmm. I see, if tha's the case we should be careful." Garfiel was very suddenly on guard. Having noticed that the door behind him had seemingly disappeared. "We don' know who could hav' brought us ere'." Garfiel's thinking was understandable. The only one who was even capable of that was Beatrice. She was a great spirit, who at one point was capable of destroying the great rabbit. If there was an enemy with a similar power they would need to be completely on guard. He would give 100% to protect the princess while his captain wasn't here!

Emilia would have responded affirmatively. But then the door opened again revealing none other than…

"Subaru! Beako!" Emilia shouted, happily relieved to see him safe from harm.

And of course, there he was hand in hand with his contracted spirit. A suspiciously confused look on his face.

"Emilia-tan? Beako, I thought you couldn't do the door-crossing anymore! What gives!" Subaru yelled. "If I'd known we could teleport we wouldn't need to walk ever again!"

"I wasn't the one who did this I suppose," Beatrice replied. "And you're much too lazy!"

"I'm going to ignore that! Emilia-tan, Garfiel, what's going on?" Subaru called toward the two.

"Well. We're not sure what's happening ourselves. We only just got here as well." Emilia explained to the two of them.

Garfiel, feeling more at ease with his captain nearby, felt curious about some of the objects he noticed. "Cap'n, this place is super weird looking, look at this shiny stuff!" Garfiel said as he played with what Subaru recognized as a toaster.

"WHAT!" Subaru screamed out as he looked dumbfounded, taking a better look at everything he recognized a lot of stuff. A refrigerator, cooler, can opener, microwave, and oven all lined the counter. And all of this was just in the kitchen! There were also several lines of traditional movie theater chairs, with cushions! In the center of the far wall was a large white screen. Spinning his head around he could make out a projector towards the top of the back wall.

He recognized it as a movie theater. This was completely insane! As he turned around he noticed the door they walked through had completely disappeared.

"What the fuck?" Subaru was extremely confused and understandable worried. "Emilia! Are you okay?" He knew he had to prioritize her safety, but it was hard when all he could see were references to his old life.

"Subaru!" Emilia shouted at him, "Don't use that language! That's not appropriate." She said as she waved her finger at him, like a mother admonishing a child.

"Don't talk of Betty's Subaru like that!" Beatrice complained. "Subaru is can speak however he pleases."

Garfiel, funnily enough, was the voice of reason in this scenario. "Okay! Hol' up a sec" He slammed his hand on the counter to emphasize himself. "Capn' I get why you're freakin' out. But we gotta figure' ou' how we got 'ere."

Subaru shook his head, "Yeah. Your right Garfiel. We gotta get our bearings first." He started to take a good look around the room. In the center of the room was the theater bit and off to the left side of the room was the kitchen. What he hadn't taken notice of was the bathrooms near the kitchen, with symbols indicating the men's room and women's room.

On the far right side were two separate hallways, one at each end of the room. Neither had any labels. There was really nothing to be gained from standing around here, or at least Subaru thought so. "A-alright, what we need to do is look around I guess? We should see if there's anybody else from the mansion here. Maybe they were brought here as well?" Subaru shook his head to clear his nervousness. Now wasn't the time for second guesses, he had to be sure of himself. "We also should be really careful, we don't know who or what it was that brought us here. We need to be on guard."

But before any exploration could happen…

"Hmm? Wait! What the hell!" Felt looked towards her companion as she noticed the door they came through was locked shut. Reinhard of course, as she took in the otherworld sight.

Reinhard narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but after recognizing Subaru and Emilia, he grew less worried. "Ah, Emilia-sama, Subaru, it's good to see you both."

Felt then looked over to where Reinhard directed his attention. "Oh! Hey big sis! Big bro! How's it going?"

"H-Hey, guys." Seeing Reinhard made him feel much less worried about his current situation, but even still couldn't help but feel nervous, especially with all these otherworldly objects around him! "Any idea how you got here?"

"No, not at all," Reinhard replied.

"Yeah, Rein here was forcing me to take another of my lessons. All we did was walk through a door and came here." Felt said, waving a hand back and forth, "Kinda weird huh?"

"Yeah," Subaru said, "Weird."

Emilia opened her mouth as if to say something, but was then again interrupted by another door opening.

"W-what is this?" None other than Crusch called out to the group. Beside her were the other two members of her camp. Crusch was extremely confused, she had been looking at her meeting room until she crossed the threshold of the door, then found herself here.

"Nya! Reinhard, what the hyell is going on!" Felix exclaimed.

Wilhelm merely narrowed his eyes, uncertain of what was going on, but alert to any danger that could come. Though he was slightly relieved seeing Subaru there, who he knew he could trust with his life.

"Crusch-san! I would ask if you knew how you all got here, but I'm assuming you have no idea from your reaction." Emilia said

"Emilia-san, you're correct in saying that." Crusch shifted her eyes to look over everyone and over everything in the theater. "I think I already know the answer, but are any of you aware of what is happening and how we all came here?"

"Unfortunately, none of us have any idea," Emilia responded simply.

Wilhelm opened his eyes fully. "Well, I suppose we don't have much else to do except investigate the area."

"That syounds like a good idea, but we should still be careful, nya!" Felix cautioned.

Emilia pulled Subaru to the side along with Beatrice, While they searched for an exit. "Subaru, you were being kind of weird a second ago. Do you know anything about this place?" She whispered.

Subaru shook his head, "Well, not anything about this place." Subaru thought for a moment. Then Whispered back. "But… I recognize a lot of the stuff from here."

"Really! So these are all things from your homeland!" Emilia whispered excitedly. Beatrice just looked at him, eyes sparkling in excitement.

"Yes, but please keep this quiet. The fact that this stuff is here kinda freaks me out." Subaru said, "Honestly I'd never have thought I'd have seen stuff like this again."

Beatrice seemed to come to an understanding. "You think someone from your homeland is out to get you, I suppose!" She whisper yelled.

"No! Not at all! I didn't do anything to make enemies while I was there." Subaru panicked. "But… I just want to be cautious." He finished.

Emilia nodded her head, a serious look on her face. "Alright. I'll trust your judgment here Subaru."

Beatrice did the same as Emilia. "Betty will do the same. She would never betray her contractor!"

Subaru let out a relieved sigh, "Thanks, you two!" Subaru would have continued with thankful applause but was interrupted.

"Emilia-san, Subaru-san (what honorific does she use post amnesia?) have either of you found an exit"

Emilia shook her head, "Nothing seems to have come up, unfortunately."

"I see… that's… disconcerting," Crusch said, looking slightly worried.

They would have tried to settle her worries but their conversation ended short with the opening of multiple doors. This time a multitude of people came through.

Julius had a surprised look on his face, for obvious reasons of course. But alongside him were the rest of the Anastasia camp. "What the…? What is the meaning of this?" Julius looked over to his side seeing Ricardo and the triplets walk out of a different door. "Huh? Ricardo? How did we get here?"

Ricardo responded quickly "No idea. But it seems like there are some familiar faces!" Ricardo said as he noticed the other occupants. "What's up, bro!" Ricardo said waving to Subaru.

Meanwhile, the triplets were hanging off Ricardo, not because they were scared, they were already doing that when they made their way through the door. "Hey, Big bro!" Mimi shouted, Hanging from Ricardo's arm.

"Ah, It's good to see you again," Tivey said in a calm collected voice, as he hung from Ricardo's back, peaking his out from behind him. Hetero didn't say much of anything, as he felt his siblings had said enough for the three of them. Although he did wave to them from atop Ricardo's head.

"Well, this is interesting isn't it?" Anastasia said, looking to the Emilia and Crusch camps. "I'm hoping you all might have some idea as to what is going on?"

Crusch responded, "Unfortunately not, there doesn't seem to be any escape nor is there anyone here who could be responsible."

"Ah! Of course, that's how it goes." Anastasia complained. "Well, we should all be extremely careful, not like I have to say that though."

"I completely agree, we must prepare in the event the person who captured us comes here." Julius nodded his head to her idea. "Though, something I think we should bring up is who has been brought here."

Emilia furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Felt answered her question, "Big sis, don't you think it's kinda suspicious that four of the five royale candidates were brought to this random location, without any way to escape?"

"W-well, when you put it like that I suppose it does seem suspicious." Emilia's eyes widened as she said this.

"Regardless, there's not much we can do about the situation, no use theorizing about things we don't have enough information on," Subaru said, though his thoughts were much different. 'This is bad, we seriously need to figure a way out of here stat. I definitely don't like having Emilia in a situation like this.'

But Subaru would have to put these thoughts on hold because just then another door opened up and out came…

She took a long look through the room, then spotted Subaru standing there, innocently. "...Barusu, what have you done this time?" Ram said, accompanied by Roswall.

"Nee-sama! How could you blame me for this!" Subaru shouted, "I didn't even do anything this time!"

"You might not have done anything, but regardless, you are most likely part of the reason," Ram replied nonchalantly.

"How could you know that?" Subaru despaired. Beatrice started patting him on the arm to comfort him.

Garfiel took the time to comment, "Well… Cap'n… usually 'ese things relate to you some'ow." He said sheepishly.

"He's not wroooooong, Subaru-kuuuuuuun!" Roswall said, in an attempt to tease him.

"AH, I can' believe I've agreed with 'em!" Garfiel complained.

"Ahhh! Now both of you are against me!" Subaru cried. "Emilia-tan, you wouldn't betray me would you!"

"U-ummmm." Emilia replied, being extremely helpful to Subaru's cause. "Well. They're not entirely wrong."

Subaru's face went blank. "I see. You've all abandoned me. I'll remember this." Subaru chuckled a bit. "Ahhh, TellTale."

"Syubaru, what's with the weird words all of a syudden." Felix asked.

"Huh? Oh, don't worry about it." Subaru waved it off.

Before anybody could inquire further about his odd ramblings, another door opened. This time a good number of people came through the door. As people were walking through the door, Roswall grabbed Subaru by the shoulder and leaned forward.

"Do you truly not know anything about this situation?" Roswall whispered. "You haven't looped, correct?"

Subaru gave him a look, "No. I haven't." Subaru said simply.

Roswall's face grew concerned. "I see. So you don't know anything about what might happen."

"Are you concerned we might be in danger?" Subaru asked.

"I don't know anything about this. That's what truly concerns me." Roswall said.

"Wait… You mean you've never seen some magic That could transport this many people before?" Subaru again asked.

"No, my teacher had methods, similar to this, but never to this extent," Roswall confirmed. "We must be extremely careful from here on." Roswall leaned back, ending their conversation. Luckily all the others were too concerned with greeting the new arrivals to eavesdrop.

Subaru recognized the rest of them. Otto, Frederica, Petra, Meili, and an unconscious Rem carried by Frederica walked through the door. Subaru let out a sigh of relief he didn't know he was holding. With everything moving along as quickly as it was, he hadn't had the time to think about how might have been left missing by themselves without the rest of the camp there. But knowing that the whole Emilia camp was here made things easier to keep track of.

"Oi!, Frederica, I know this is confusing, but before we explain could you tell me why you were moving Rem?" Subaru asked.

"Ah, Subaru-sama! W-we were moving Rem, well, I don't actually know." Frederica responded.

"She's right." Otto confirmed, "We weren't anywhere near her room. As a matter of fact, we were all situated in my office, having some casual discussion."

"What!" Subaru shouted, "This is really weird. I'm honestly not liking the fact that all of us are here, it's starting to become unsettling."

"Y-yeah!" Petra shouted out helpfully, "And Meili wasn't supposed to be with us either!"

Beatrice and Garfiel had, of course, already taken notice and were keeping an eye on the tiny assassin. "What are you doing out of your ce-, your room I suppose!" Beatrice called out to her. Subaru patted her on the head during her stutter, causing her to blush and slap his hand away.

Meili looked slightly nervous but was clearly trying to hide it. "Uhhhh, well, the door was open. Sooooo, I walked out." She said as she eyed the other members of the group, particularly the ones not affiliated with the Emilia camp.

"Huh?" Garfiel said helpfully. "Why was the ce- room door open?"

"Okay!" Subaru said, hoping to keep the conversation from turning into something difficult, aka explaining why they have a prisoner. "Honestly, I'm hoping this whole charade is over, it already got annoying a while ago."

Just then, a door opened.

"Oh. My. God." Subaru said, perfectly emulating a certain character.

"Hey bro!" Al said, "Ah my eyes! The light is too bright!"

"Silence, jester." Priscilla answered for Subaru, "I don't need you embarrassing me with your display of ineptitude."

"Oh no!" Felt yelled, "Not this stuck-up bitch!"

Reinhard gasped, "Felt-sama. Why would you say that? That isn't something that someone of your importance should say!"

"No no," Priscilla said, as she waved her hand about, lazily, "Gutter rats will always act as they do, there isn't much use in correcting that." She narrowed her eyes, "But I suppose a warning is in order, if you speak to me like that again, I'll have mine jester butcher you."

"Ah, Princess," Al complained, "Can we not make trouble? I don't think I can take on the sword saint." Al's voice then turned serious. "Besides, Princess. Don't you think it's worrying that we were brought here? With all the other royale candidates."

"You fool, the world turns in my favor." Priscilla said, "For a peasant, it would be worrying. We will find whoever brought me here and dispose of them quickly. And be done with it."

Al sighed, "Right, of course, Princess." Al took a look around, a real look. His face went pale inside his helmet. He thought to take a glance at Priscilla but decided not to. Now wasn't the time to be dropping bombs, he needed to keep her from getting him killed again.

Emilia addressed Priscilla, "Ah, Priscilla, it's good to see you!"

Priscilla gave Emilia an annoyed look. "Do not address me like that again, half-devil." Emilia's eyes lost a bit of their shine at that response. The Subaru of the past would have shouted out at that. But he had grown from that, he wasn't so reckless anymore. But he was still pissed off and you could see it in his expression. Garfiel on the other hand didn't have any reservations.

"Hey!, you fuck'n bi-" Garfiel would have continued, but luckily Frederica was there to wrangle her brother into shape. AKA she clamped his mouth shut with her hand and he was forced quiet. Priscilla conveniently ignored his comment.

Anastasia decided to take charge and actually get something done. "Alright! I don't know about you all. But I'm tired of sitting and waiting for no reason, while someone is bringing us here. We need to come up with a game plan."

"Well, that's not happening. Fuck you."

Everyone went silent, anyone with a shred of combat experience was already scanning the area looking for whoever it was that addressed them. Unfortunately, they couldn't find anyone.

"Listen. You, idiots, aren't gonna find me. Don't bother trying."

"Who allowed you to refer to me as that?" Priscilla demanded.

"I did of course. Again, I say, Fuck you."

Subaru called out to the random voice. "W-who are you! What did you bring us here for?"

"Now hold on a second! First, can you guys introduce yourselves? Isn't it kinda rude to ask when you're invading my home? I actually don't know who the fuck you guys are."

The cast, for the most part, looked at each other in confusion.

"What? What's up! Can't any of you introduce yourselves? Is that not a normal human thing with you idiots?"

Wilhelm was the first to respond. "I believe this charade has gone on long enough. You should reveal your intentions, now.." His eyes sharpened slightly and his voice gained an edge.

"Huh? Oh, we got a badass over here! What the fuck are you on about? I seriously don't know who the fuck you are. "

"Well, you brought us here correct?" Reinhard asked.

"Why would you go assuming something dumb like that?"

The cast was silenced once again. This development was extremely worrying. Despite this, Crusch decided to pick up the conversation. "Well, we were brought here without any foreknowledge, against our will. The people in this room are some of the most important in the current world. Why wouldn't we assume so? She took a breath after the lengthy explanation."

"..."

Emilia decided to speak up, as the voice of the man was silent. "Um, sooooo, if you really don't how we came here, can you help us return?"

"Yeah, yeah. Hold up a sec let me think." The warden said, completely ignoring the half-elf.

Emilia puffed her cheeks, "Well that was rude."

"Shut the fuck up. Well fuck, this is some right shit I've gotten myself into. I really need to be more careful with my experiments." The voice said, not missing a beat, and clearly not paying his audience much attention. He was thinking and working through this new situation, trying to understand what happened to him.

Anastasia spoke up, trying to get the man's attention. "Well, this should hopefully help with your memory. My name is Anastasia Hoshin, head of the Hoshin Trading Company. If that helps any." She said all this with a polite smile. She was hoping to gain some favor with the man, to help facilitate their rescue.

"Oh my God. Did I not just say "Shut the fuck up," Why the fuck are you talking to me, your small malnourished child." The man seemed to be the volatile type. "Now, please. Shut the fuck up and let me think. Fuck, alright. This doesn't look like the backrooms, it's not too liminal at least. Awwwww, Fuck me, man!"

Anastasia, understandably, was upset. "Ah, y-you!" She started blushing a bright red, in a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Nobody had ever talked to her like that. She must have misunderstood the man. Priscilla in the background could be seen giggling slightly, to her it was quite amusing to see the merchant get shown up.

"Alright. Listen up, boys and girls. I'm gonna level with you. I don't know who the fuck you are and I don't know where the fuck I am." The man drew in a large breath. "So. What I'm gonna need from you guys is to tell me everything."

Beatrice raised an eyebrow. "Everything, I suppose?"

"Everything. Anything and everything you know." The man was silent for a moment, humming slightly to himself. "Now, normally I would be able to tell just by looking at you. I do, in fact, have superior vision compared to any other normal creature. But something is wrong on my end, so I can't really make out any of you guys."

The group all look at each other. "Should we trust him? Is it a good idea to relay anything to this man?" Reinhard asked. Although he was normally a trusting person, the circumstances were much too suspicious to blindly trust random strangers.

"I don't believe we have much of a choice in the matter. We have no control over these rooms. Our previous warden made that clear. I believe that the only option is to go along with this stranger's whims." Wilhelm replied.

"Ah, of course, you are correct honored Grandfather," Reinhard replied, slightly wincing. The distance between the two was palpable.

Julius decided to interject, to sidestep the awkward situation. "I would hesitate to reveal anything troublesome to this man. We don't know if he's playing an act. For all, we know he could have some grudge against someone here." Julius took a glance at Anastasia.

"You guys realize I can hear you right? Like, nothing you guys say goes unheard."

The cast continues to ignore the man. Much to his dismay, they continue to discuss. Otto started the conversation off again. "Well, The facts are really, very simple. We really don't have much of a choice."

"Wow! You fuckers are actually ignoring me. The audacity of all of you is so insane that I'm actually impressed. Though now I'll have to kill you."

Petra and Mimi sprang up, fear in their eyes. "What!" They shouted. Felt narrowed her eyes, "Huh? What's with the cruel joke all of a sudden?"

"Oh… I totally thought more of you would get freaked out. Oh well."

Subaru and Al looked at each other, then Subaru said, "Yeah, this guy's just your average Reddit moderator. What a weirdo."

"Fuck you nerd. Kill yourself."

Emilia's eyes widened, then she narrowed her eyes, "Wait, I don't know what this "Nerds" is, but you shouldn't refer to my knight like that! Besides, it shouldn't be that hard to negotiate a deal."

"Emilia-tan. I know we don't have much of a choice, but are you sure about that?" Subaru was very wary of the man.

Emilia looked at Subaru, "I know this man is kind of rude. But there's nothing we can do about it. We've got to have his help."

"Alright, alright, cut the lovey-dovey shit and just talk to me! I'm starting to antsy. This place is creepy looking like some exoskeleton is gonna jumpscare me."

Subaru's face flushed, as he smiled, "S-seriously! You think so!" Despite the crass way the man spoke, Subaru was still happy to have them thought of as a couple. Emila shook her head at Subaru's actions, though she couldn't help but be confused and slightly embarrassed. While she knew that Subaru loved her, she was still unsure about what to feel about him. But she decided that since it made him so happy she wouldn't contest the statement.

The man decided to start off the questioning with a simple question. "Now first question. Is there anything special you can tell me about your world?"

"Special?" Al asked.

"Yeah, like… What might set it apart from other possible worlds."

The group looked at each other. None of them was sure what to say. It was all no more than nonsense to them.

Al and Subaru glanced at each other. Both knew what he was asking, but weren't sure how to address the topic. It was as if there was a nuclear bomb right in front of them and they were asked to defuse it. They were completely paralyzed.

Priscilla saw the two of them and had half a mind to force Al to give up what he knew. But she decided to let things run their course. From their demeanor, they knew what was up and it seemed like it would be extremely interesting, so she decided to let everything play out as it would.

"What?"

"Um…" Crusch said, "I don't think any of us really understand what it is that you're talking about."

"Seriously? Do none of you know what an alternate world is? Are you all fucking retarded? Oh, wait, no you guys are retarded."

Mimi, of all people, was outraged. "HUH! Say that again! I dare you!" She shouted as she started waving her tiny arms around.

"What the fuck did you say to me you little shit? I'll fucking kick your ass child!"

Garfiel came to her aid. "Well, fuck you!"

"Well fuck you too!"

Anastasia slapped a hand across Mimi's mouth, while Frederica did the same with Garfiel. Julius decided to start the conversation afresh. "Excuse me! I don't think now is the time to be childishly arguing with children!"

"I'll argue with whoever I want to argue with! FUCK YOU!"

Subaru decided to finally get the conversation back on track. "Okay! How about we actually discuss something instead of screaming." The man went silent as Subaru sighed with relief. "Alright! So, first off, before we discuss anything who are you? You haven't even given us a name!"

"Well, neither have you guys!" The man sighed, "Alright, I'll bite. Since you guys are so distrustful." He went quiet for a second, there was a slight rustling in the background, though it was barely noticeable. "My name is… Joe."

"..."

"What! That name has got a lot of significance you know!" Joe said, "Besides, I chose the name myself." Joe said with a smug smile

"Really going down on himself isn't he," Al said.

"I heard that cripple. If you speak again I'll fucking kill you." The man then paused. "That isn't a joke by the way. I really will kill you, painfully, extremely so."

Al decided he didn't want to speak anymore. Priscilla was too busy giggling at Al's stupidity. Though she still planned on punishing him for speaking out of turn and she was quite annoyed at Joe's aggravation of what was hers, nonetheless it was still amusing.

"Alright, besides the cripple, almost killing himself via words." Joe said, "You guys still haven't introduced yourselves. Soooo, go ahead and line up children!" Two sharp claps could be heard right after.

Felt by this point was extremely irritated by Joe's words. "Could you stop being such an asshole!" She shouted, Reinhard, doing his best to calm her down, she continued, "Seriously! Is it so hard to be nice!"

"Yes."

Felt's face turned red with rage, "Why yo-"

"Introductions?"

Reinhard decided to take one for the team as he held his hand over Felt's mouth. "I am Reinhard Van Astrea. The sword saint of the dragon kingdom of Luginica." He said simply, hand on his heart.

"Okay, gotcha, gotcha. NEXT!"

Everyone looked at each other, quite annoyed with this man's attitude. Roswaal decided to continue the charade. "Very weeeelll. My name is Roswaal L Mathers, court maaaaaage of kingdom of lugunica."

"... Right, yeah. This is starting to get annoying already, maybe I should just stop?"

Ram spoke up after her master, "Tch… I am-"

"Alright! Let's stop this charade, I was fucking with you guys the whole time. I actually know who you all are. But forget about that, I want to show you all something. Trust me." Joe was serious when he said this, there was no sign of the joking or asshole-ish persona he had before. This was business.

The cast wasn't sure how to react to that. The man was so bipolar that it was impossible to tell if what he said was even true. Roswall was the one to pick up the silence after that declaration. "Let's heeeeeeear him out. From his tone, it seems seeeeeeerious enough to warrant this behavior."

Ram looked over at him. "I agree with Roswaal-sama."

"Nee-sama!" Subaru complained, "Agreeing with him is about the only thing you ever do."

Ram's face deadpanned, "Silence." She said simply.

"Alright!" Joe could be heard fumbling around with something in the background. "Just wait there a bit. I'm gonna set this shit up." Joe then went silent. Save for the sound of papers rustling and scratching sounds. Occasionally some curses would break through the silence. Other than that he seemed to be not interested in the cast.

Subaru waved his hands in the air, he just didn't care. "Roswaal, why are you agreeing to things without discussion!" Subaru slapped his hands on the kitchen counter. He slapped it a bit too hard though, "OW!"

Crusch backed Subaru up as he blew on his hand in a vain attempt to make it stop hurting. "I agree with Subaru-dono. You shouldn't have been so quick to make a deal with this man."

Roswaal didn't hesitate to respond. "Weeeellll, what choice did we haaaaave?" Roswaal laid a hand on his face, "Aaaallll I did was make a decision that would allow us to establish truuuuuussst."

"Well, I suppose that works," Crusch said, "With that out of the way I believe we should take the time to discuss properly while this… Joe is away."

Otto decided that now was the time to state the obvious. "We need to be extremely careful. I don't get a very good impression of this individual." His shoulders slumped a little.

Reinhard nodded his head in agreement. "I as well, don't have a favorable impression of this… Joe." His eyes shifted to Felt, "I believe that for everyone's sake, we should avoid provoking him."

"Yeah!" Subaru said, "This guy rubs me the wrong way."

"Subaru-sama, it's not a bad idea to be cautious about this… Joe." Frederica said, "But we should still be willing to work with him." She took on a contemplative look, "He didn't seem as though he particularly wanted us here at first."

Julius responded, "It seems now that that isn't the case." He rubbed his hands around his cloak. "He seemed quite eager to show us whatever it is he wants to show us."

"Alright!" Joe was finally back. "This is how this gonna work. You guys are gonna watch something for me. And give me your thoughts."

"Well… What are we watching?" Subaru asked.

"Alternate universes."

Subaru wasn't sure what to think about that sentence. He'd heard and seen stuff about alternate universes in video games and movies. But… well… they weren't real. As far as Subaru knew. He wasn't sure if Joe was fucking with them again or if he was delusional. With this guy, it could go either way. "H-hold up?" Subaru asked, "Alternate universes are real! That's crazy!"

"Yeah. It's real."

"How are we supposed to believe you?" Al said, he wasn't too sure about trusting this Joe guy, but after that claim, he was sure he was a quack. "You have anything to prove that?"

"Yeah hold up I gotta source." Papers could be heard shuffling. "Uhhh, source, trust me, bro."

"..." Al wasn't sure how to respond to that. Joe was clearly a dumbass.

"If your thinking anything negative about me I'm gonna re-cripple you."

Al thought he was a really nice guy.

"Better."

"U-Um! Subaru? Do you know what he's talking about?" Emilia leaned over to Subaru. "Cause it sounds like you know what Joe is talking about."

Priscilla looked over to Al. She didn't even have to speak before Al was spilling his guts out. He was well-trained. "It's a concept from across the waterfall." Al blew the lid on the whole thing immediately.

"Huh?" Was the reaction of most of the theater. The Emilia camp was especially shocked since Subaru was able to understand their conversation. Emilia herself was confused and slightly hurt, Subaru had never bothered to mention this about himself.

"I see." Priscilla said, "Explain then, Jester."

Al hesitate slightly, now that everyone was paying attention to Al."Well… So… Um…"

"You!" Priscilla pointed to Subaru. "Explain before I kill my Jester."

"Why are you looking at me? It's not like I'd explain it any better?" Subaru shouted, to him this was really absurd. "And why are you putting his life on the line for something as simple as an explanation!?" That last part specifically got on Subaru's nerves.

"Does the reasoning matter?" Priscilla asked, "The fact that I've asked the question, means the answer will be brought to me."

Before Subaru could take any offense for Al. Emilia called out to him. "S-Subaru?" Subaru looked over at her. She was slightly nervous, she didn't want to force him, but she was also extremely curious about what he knew. "Would you… please tell us about this… Al-ter-nate you-nee-verse?"

Subaru was taken aback. Though when he thought about it, it made sense. He didn't really talk much about himself all that much, so it only made sense she and the others would be curious. "O-Okay. Yeah, fine I'll tell guys about it."

Otto laid a hand on Subaru's shoulder. "If you don't want to say anything you don't necessarily have to." Otto's eyes shifted to Priscilla. "If you're too uncomfortable-"

"No." Subaru said, "It's not like I was keeping this a secret or anything." Subaru took a second to collect his thoughts. But before he could explain, Joe interrupted.

"Alright hold up? Do you guys really not know what an Alternate universe is?"

"Yes, we totally knyow what that is," Felix said with some much sarcasm that it nearly killed Joe.

"Ow, you nearly fucking killed me with that sarcasm." Joe took a second to recover. "Regardless of this slight against me, I'll explain." Joe cleared his throat, "So essentially, imagine your world. Then imagine you make a decision and a new world is created. Then imagine you were someone else. That should about cover it."

"..."

"What? That was an adequate explanation."

"You're an idiot."

"Fuck you!"

"Alright, let me give an actual explanation," Subaru said suddenly nervous. He had the same feeling he would get like when he would stand in front of a class for a presentation. "So… Um…" Subaru grabbed his head. "Okay, so, essentially… Let's say that, ummm, Felt!" He pointed at Felt, "Is walking down an alleyway and she sees a coin laying on the road. So she picks up the coin and buys a drink with it. That's the original universe." Everyone was looking at him. He was starting to sweat a little bit. "But that moment she picked up the coin, imagine what would have happened-"

"Hold up. I'ma get a video for us to watch. Your explanation made no fucking sense. Everyone take your seats!" More shuffling papers indicated that Joe had again left them alone.

"What! No, it wasn't you bastard!" Subaru shouted, feeling slighted.

Beatrice, who had been sitting on one of the counters, patted Subaru on the head. "Yes, I'm sure your explanation was going to be very thorough, in fact." Subaru's head fell in despair and everyone made their way to the seats. At this point, there wasn't any way for them to escape. And Joe wasn't hostile in any concerning way.

"Um, Subaru?" Otto nudged, "Do you know anything about these… Vid-ee-oes?"

Subaru gave a light sigh. "Yeah, I do. It's like… A moving painting or something like that. But you can also hear what would be going on in the painting." Subaru's eyes shifted up, he was thinking quite hard about it. "Y-Yeah, something like that."

Clearly, everyone had questions for the young man, but they all wanted to take time to discuss it with him privately. At least, the people who were invested in him did. Some like Anastasia and Priscilla didn't have much reason to care for him, although he did become a passing interest. But…

"Subaru," Emilia whispered to him, with a quite serious tone. "Um… Whenever we next get a break, we need to talk in private. Okay?"

"O-Oh? Sure, yeah, Of course." Normally Subaru would be really excited by this sort of prospect, but by Emilia's tone, he could tell it wasn't for leisure. As that wrapped up the camps made their way to their seats.

The camps general stuck to themselves, with the Crusch camp and Emilia camp sticking close together. Wilhelm sitting by Otto and Crusch and Felix sitting near Emilia and Subaru. Reinhard and Felt sat near them as well, closer to Roswaal and Ram. The Anastasia camp sat directly behind them, Pricilla and Al sitting in the far back away from most of them. With everyone settled, Joe had finally returned.

"Alright! I found a video titled Alternate Universes for real people. Never seen it before buuuut… Watch it I guess." Joe said.

"Do we ha-"

"Fuck you, yes you do."

Before anybody could complain the screen lit up with a beige background. The title Alternate Universes is in black. A voice broke through, it sounded as if a middle-aged, old-timey salesman had done a voice-over for an advertisement. "Alternate Universes! The concept is one of the most interesting topics to grace the human mind. But is one the most dangerous if not correctly understood." The slide switched, and the background was still the same beige, now there was a hand-drawn image of a planet, it didn't quite look like earth but it was similar. "Here is your world. In this world, people make choices."

Garfiel looked over at Subaru. "Cap'n, is that true, that's our world?" Garfiel's eyes were slightly wide

Subaru raised his head a bit, "Most likely yeah. It looks like it would be."

"Ah, gotcha!" Garfiel responded paying a bit more attention than he normally would. At the same time, many of the Emilia camp members heard this and their interest was piqued. Hearing these new things that Subaru knew was quite the event to them. This came from a man who never quite revealed much about his past. So this ended up being extremely important to them.

The members of the other camp were also taking an interest. Anastasia, taking the initiative called out to Subaru. "Natsuki-san! Do ya know anything about that, uh, world?"

Subaru looked slightly surprised by the question. "Um, yeah. That should be our planet. Like, the place we live and all."

Anastasia nodded her head. "Really? That's super interesting." She said as she fluffed her scarf.

Normally, the group wouldn't believe what was being told to them. But with Subaru and Al backing up Joe, it was sure to be legit information. Anastasia knew that this information wasn't public knowledge or even knowledge that was available to scholars. So that only left one other option. 'He's gotta be from beyond the waterfall. Right?'

The slide switched to show two planets. "This is the result of one person's choice." The slide then switched again to show hundreds of trillions of planets. It looked more as if there was dust on the screen. "And this is the result of every one person who has ever made a choice." The screen then went solid black, "And this is the result of nature's choices joining the pool of choices."

Reinhard's eyes widened slightly. "I see! So, depending on the choices we make, we create different worlds." Reinhard looked particularly excited, something about this idea had him extremely interested.

"For the most part yeah," Subaru replied. "And in those different worlds, the choice you didn't make in this world is the difference."

Everyone in the theater, excluding Al and Subaru, were blown away. The idea that all of their choices could create new worlds was honestly baffling. But at the same time exciting.

Roswaal was especially interested. He thought to himself, 'What if there was a world where my teacher was alive? Or I had resurrected her somehow?' He was getting increasingly intrigued. 'I… I could find her. But could I bring her here?' He wasn't sure what to do with this newfound information.

The slide then came up beige again, with a hand-drawn picture of Subaru. "Here are some more in-depth examples." The slide switched to another picture of Subaru, but he was giving a thumbs-up. "Here is one of your companions normally to you."

Subaru was slightly disturbed. "D-Didn't you say that you just found this video? How am I in that video?"

"Oh," Joe said, slightly disturbed as well. "Just… Ignore it."

Subaru felt a lump in his throat. "O-Okay then."

Meanwhile, Emilia had the exact opposite reaction. She thought that Subaru looked especially cute. "Subaru!" Emilia tapped Subaru on the shoulder, "I don't think you should worry so much, the picture of you looks very cute."

Next was Subaru, but he had an upset look on his face and he wasn't giving a thumbs up. "Here is one of your companions, if you had made different choices."

Beatrice was particularly upset with this slide. Subaru was one of, if not the most, important people in her life. And while it seemed silly, seeing any "bad vibes" from Subaru would always be upsetting. Beatrice started patting Subaru's head.

Subaru was quite confused by this, "Beako, I am the one who pats." He started patting her on the head. Everyone looked at the oddly as they both were patting each other on the head.

Petra pouted, "I want to be pat on the head," She whispered to herself. Frederica looked at her with a teasing smile. Petra blushed.

Felt looked at the image, "Something about it looks… Kinda weird."

Reinhard agreed with her, "Yes, there is something…disconcerting about this image."

The slide then showed Subaru's eyes filled with horror and pain. He was cut up into multiple pieces, with blood, guts, and limbs lying on the ground. His eye was cut out of his head and laying near the corner of the screen. "And this is one of your companions if you had even more different choices."

Beatrice and Emilia were disturbed. Seeing Subaru mutilated like that, even if it wasn't real, was honestly horrifying. Beatrice left her seat to sit in Subaru's lap. Most of the Emilia camp felt similarly. Frederica blocked Petra's eyes since she felt she shouldn't view something so traumatizing. Otto felt sick at the sight and Garfiel started gritting his teeth. Ram went numb at the sight, she couldn't imagine a scenario where he died, it seemed an impossibility.

Roswaal on the other hand was extremely confused and worried. How could that even be possible? Roswaal was sure of Subaru's ability to reset. So how could it be possible for him to die? It was extremely worrying to Roswaal. 'Something must have surprised him. Or did someone else make a better decision? There's no other solution. It must have been something along those lines. There is no other way.'

While Emilia held Subaru's hand. Normally, Subaru would have blushed and stammered at Emilia's boldness. But he couldn't bring himself to. He was dead. He morbidly wondered if that was what he looked like in any one of his loops. He shook his head, if he kept up these thoughts he'd end up breaking.

Felt and Reinhard were also extremely upset. To Felt, Subaru was akin to a big brother figure that she had never had, and seeing him torn apart was not something she had ever wanted to think about. Reinhard saw Subaru as a great friend, he had hoped that they could take time to become great friends. Seeing this man, who he respects, cut up like he was cattle disturbed him greatly.

Priscilla didn't particularly care about the picture, but the idea's that were being explained to her interested her. Al felt similarly, though he felt some sympathy pain at the picture of Subaru, he was sure he had died like that at some point.

Julius, Ricardo, and the triplets were upset along with the others. Julius especially was disturbed. Even though they weren't technically friends, he still felt a connection to the young man. He was someone that he most definitely wanted as an ally.

Ricardo and the triplets thought of Subaru as a valuable ally and friend, so to see him butchered like that was not something they wanted even if it was false. Anastasia was not particularly upset, of course to her it wasn't a positive thing, but she just didn't think of him as someone close to her, so it was impossible for her to care on a deeper level.

Crusch, Wilhelm, and Felix felt sympathetic to the Emilia camp. Wilhelm was used to death, but even so, to see this young man who he would consider a grandson to him dead was not an easy thing to think about. But he would make sure that any reality like this would never take place.

Felix was sympathetic to the other members of the Emilia camp, but he couldn't bring himself to care about Subaru's death. It was sad, yes, but he was sure Subaru's death would be more Subaru's fault than anything else.

Crusch was especially saddened to see Subaru dead. To her, Subaru was someone she respected immensely. Seeing him dead was about the opposite of what she might have wanted. To her, he was someone she wanted to be friends with, based on the limited interactions she had with him after she lost her memories.

Now it showed a slide of the whole cast, but they were all dressed up in different themes of clothes and some weapons. Some were wearing business suits, others had futuristic armor and weapons, and others had different versions of their own outfits. Some had even turned into completely different races or even species. "And finally this is what you could be like if nature had taken a different course."

Subaru, Al, and Ricardo all decided simultaneously that levity was needed. Although Subaru and Al wanted to talk about these things regardless, some of the techs on screen looked cool.

"Oi, Al!" Subaru called, "Doesn't Emilia-tan's outfit look like The Doll?"

"..." Al scratched the top of his helmet. "Yeah! I'm pretty sure it's the same!" Al then noticed something. "Hold up? Doesn't your armor look like it's from Dead Space?"

"..." Subaru squinted his eyes, "Oh, My, God! It is! That's so cool." Subaru's mood beforehand had been forgotten.

Crusch and Wilhelm looked slightly disturbed, "Felix?" Crusch said, "Why do you look… Diseased."

Felix was disturbed by how he looked. He was a big and hulking thing, with pus boils and… Were those eyes on his arm? He started to feel slightly sick, he didn't trust himself to even speak about how he looked, or he might throw up.

Ricardo saw the suit he had on, as he nudged the triplets. "Now I look pretty good huh?"

Tivey sighed good-naturedly, "I can't see to understand how you even fit in those clothes."

Mimi giggled, "You look so weird, hahaha!"

The triplets looked at their other versions, they were much older and way taller than they had any right to be. They were wearing odd masks, they looked like animal masks. As well as holding some weird objects in their hands. Though they each had enough sense to tell they were weapons.

"Haha!" Mimi shouted, "I get the tiger mask, I get the tiger mask~" She sang aloud, clearly gloating to her siblings.

Tivey wasn't particularly pleased, "I suppose a bear mask is nice." He would try to be content with his outfit but definitely would have preferred the chicken mask.

Hetero was the one fortunate enough to have the chicken mask. He supposed it was nice, though he didn't feel it was really his style.

Garfiel looked at himself, he was older and had some outfit that was completely foreign to him. He was still buff though. "Hey, Otto! I look pretty good don' you think?"

"Yeah, you don't look half bad."Otto nodded as he looked at the other version of himself, He had a plain suit with a red tie. But that cocky look in his eye was something he would never really associate with himself.

Then a message appeared on the screen. It was big and bold saying "Now you try!" with a large hand pointing to the screen. "Now, take the time to create your own alternate universe."

"..."

"I'm not sure if I even want to try."

"Good! Now that you have an adequate understanding of alternate universes, you can now go out and live your life knowing that you are all beings of immense power and that your choices are directly responsible for creating and destroying hundreds of trillions of lives." The screen then proceeded to shut off completely.

They were all silent, even Joe who for once didn't have any smart remark. All they could do was sit and contemplate the information given to them. To Subaru and Al, it came across even worse, with its oddly humorous tone. Subaru himself felt sick at the thought.

"Well… um…" Joe wasn't quite sure how to recover from that video. It was obvious that everyone was… shocked at the explanation. And to be honest he couldn't blame them. "Yeah, so that's how the alternate universes work. Pretty cool right." Joe decided that his default state of Asshole would work to recover the situation.

"No, that's more horrifying than anything," Subaru responded. "My explanation would have been better than this."

"Fuck you, bro. You don't make sense in any situation." As stated before, Asshole.

"Well, I don't think it was a bad explanation," Mimi said, completely disregarding the last portion of the video.

"There we go! See?" Joe sounded excited. "I've got some good taste in videos huh?" He really did sound proud of himself.

"Can we just move on?" Ricardo said, he was getting tired of this charade, "Since you're keeping us here without explaining anything to us, you could at least hurry it up, right?"

"Ugh, fine." There were more sounds of shuffling papers, and curiously there was the sound of a keyboard typing. "Hold up, I'm gonna get this shit rolling."

"Finally, this charade can end!" Priscilla was getting tired of listening to these commoners complain here and there, she wanted to get to something exciting. "Aldebaran. Go fetch me something to eat."

"Right," Al then dutifully went to the kitchen to make some popcorn. He hadn't made any in a while, but he was quite excited to show her.

All of a sudden the screen lit up, and it showed… "Awww FUCK! I fucking miss-clicked." Then the screen shut off again. A gasp was heard. The Emilia camp's eyes widened.

"Rem?"


Yo.

This is a story I've been working on for the last long while. I don't remember how long to be honest. I've read a lot of reaction stories and they're all fun. So, I thought, why not make my own? I've also been really into the whole sigma grind set meme. So, I thought, why not combine the two?

So how this is gonna work is I'm gonna be having the cast react to a ton of sigma movies. First up is America Psycho, though I'm sure you guessed it from the title lol. I've already got a big list of other movies I want to be included, but if you guys have any ideas on what movies or sigma characters you want to be included then just dm me. Here's a small list of other movies I might do.

Blade Runner:

Fight club:

Taxi Driver:

Drive (2011):

Barbie (2023):

I've got a longer list but I want to keep some surprises. Regardless I want to thank mgman, TheShapeOfEvil, HereticSlayer69, and The Writing Pupil again for helping me with this. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have ever bothered making this blessed piece of art. If any of you reading have any criticism or critique then please feel free to put it in the comments or to dm then to me.

Thanks for reading!