Ruby Rose, the leader of Team RWBY, fell to the ground with a loud thud. Shakily getting to her feet, she noticed that beneath her was a bright red circle. To her right was her partner, Weiss Schnee, spinning around with a mixture of indignation and confusion on her face on top of a white circle. To her left was Blake Belladonna leaning against a wall, her hidden cat ears twitching underneath her bow as she tried to desperately calm her breathing on a pitch-black circle. On a yellow circle was Ruby's big sister Yang Xiao Long, her eyes widened with confusion.
Within a bright flash, Team JNPR fell to the ground similarly as the rest. Each one was on a different colored circle corresponding to their colours. Ren's being green, Nora's pink, Jaune's bright yellow, and Pyrrha's bronze.
The little rose soon began to observe her surroundings after counting the amount of people with her. The walls were covered with lines going down to the edges of the floor, changing colors with a quite noticeable pattern. That being the colours representing each circle they have landed on.
"What the-"
Before she could finish her thought, a third, fourth, and fifth flash shone throughout the room. After blinking away the spots in her vision, she realized that the three flashes brought five more people: Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch, both head staff at Beacon Academy, General Ironwood, and some white lady who looked like an older version of Weiss. (this takes place before volume 3, so they wouldn't have met yet.)
"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby leaped onto the black haired man's arm. "Did you miss me?"
He smiled despite the confusion of the situation. "Nope," this statement was followed by him letting Ruby slide off his arm.
A sixth flash shone through the room as a certain ginger android fell onto the ground. Once her eyes landed on Ruby, both of their eyes widened in excitement.
"Penny!"
"Friend Ruby!"
The robot jumped toward Ruby, sending her to the ground with a loud 'of' creating a comedic dust cloud. After getting back to her feet, Ruby walked over to the others, who had gathered in a cluster around Ozpin.
Ruby noticed that the pale lady, Winter according to Weiss, was separated from the group. She had immediately started searching the room, stopping only to exchange a quick greeting with Weiss.
"Does anyone know where we are?" Having failed to find an exit, Winter returned to the group, the slight scowl on her face making ruby shiver.
"Let me answer that, ice queen."
Everyone spun to face the new figure. They were dressed in a long black jacket embroidered with silver vines. A matching fedora sat upon their head and a cane with a hollow orb at the top rested in a gloved hand; inside said orb was a smaller black orb which bounced around as they moved. The… Man? Woman? Creature? Was pale and slim, little more than skin and bones, yet they radiated power in a way that made the idea of combat seem utterly ridiculous, even to the most reckless of the group.
After a long pause, Ozpin was the first to speak. "May I ask who you are?" He questioned, careful to keep his tone as polite as possible even as his mind raced.
"Ah yes, I apologize," the figure spoke with an obviously masculine voice while bowing in a slightly exaggerated manner. "I was so excited that I forgot to introduce myself. You may call me Broker. Before you ask, yes, I am the one that brought you here."
Broker continued to move his body exaggeratedly while speaking, and yet Ruby didn't sense even the slightest mockery in his movements. Motions that would make others look arrogant instead came across as the excited actions of a friendly child meeting new people for the first time. It was as if Broker had little to no experience with people. A sentiment that she could strongly relate to. Judging by the look on Penny's face, Ruby guessed the young android could as well.
"It's okay, but may we know why?" Ozpin asked, his tension reduced ever so slightly. As Beacon's headmaster, he had dealt with such an attitude many times.
Broker's attitude changed instantly. All Sense of awkwardness vanished as a stone cold expression covered his face.
"Yes that. I suggest that you take a seat before we talk. This subject will surprise you quite a bit. Especially you Oz-Ozpin." The slight stutter in his words briefly concerned Ozpin, but he quickly dismissed it. Not even his closest allies knew his original name, there was no way a complete stranger with no connection to either him or Salem could know.
The shift in personalities stunned the group, but nevertheless they moved to the seats that resembled those found in a high class theater. The calmer ones wondered where they came from, as they were almost certain they weren't there before. The chairs were comfortable, seemingly designed specifically for the ones sitting in them.
Once they were all seated, Broker, who was leaning on something that looked suspiciously like a screen, opened his mouth. "This might be hard for you to believe, but I brought you here because your world is dying." He raised a hand to silence the outcries of the group at his words. "The explanation of why this is happening will be long and quite frankly tedious, so I would appreciate if you would select one individual to ask questions for the group and only speak up if you need a concept explained because if you all made a ruckus every single time you heard something you can't believe it would be a massive waste of my time."
When he paused, the group looked at each other and simultaneously nodded; it was obvious who should be selected.
Stepping forward, Ozpin opened his mouth to inquire about the meaning of Brokers words when he was cut off.
"To begin there is something I need you all to accept, because unless you do, we will get nowhere, I am a god."
There was a moment of silence before the room was filled with shouts.
"Bullshit."
"I am nowhere near drunk enough to buy that crap."
"Yeah right."
"You're crazy!"
"If you're a god, make me a ship made out of pancakes."
All these complaints were silenced when Broker raised his right hand. Not willingly, but as if all sound had been banished from the room, they couldn't even hear their own breathing. "I understand your disbelief, so I will give you proof. You said something about a ship made from pancakes? Very well." He snapped his fingers and sure enough, a cruise ship made out of nothing but pancakes appeared out of thin air.
Everyone was stunned speechless, not just at the fact that he could create such a thing, but that he was actually crazy enough to do it.
"So, back to the topic at hand." Broker clapped his hands to regain their attention, except for a curtain ginger, as she was too preoccupied with 'inspecting' the pancake boat. "Yes I am indeed a god." Once again he snapped his fingers, but this time the wall behind him reacted, shifting into a screen displaying three silhouettes. One colored white, the second black and the third purple. "Gods can be divided into three types, gods of creation, who create worlds, gods of destruction, who enforce the rules that govern the gods, and gods of chaos, who preserve worlds."
While the others were gaping, slack jawed at the scene before them, the headmaster had already guessed the pale man's origin. In all his centuries of life only two beings had the same air of power around them. A presence that bent the world around them, reshaping the very laws of nature. The absolute authority that Broker possessed could only belong to a god.
However, Ozpin remained doubtful of one thing in the gods' various statements. "why-or better yet, how- would gods of chaos preserve a universe."
"You see, Ozzy, the multiverse is a lot like a tree." The screen shifted to a simple tree. "Imagine that each time a choice creates a new outcome, a new branch is created." The tree is shown growing and splitting into several hundred different branches on screen. "But if something happens and suddenly there's only one possible outcome no matter what choices you make,"
The screen zooms in on the end of one of the now countless branches. "Then a world starts to decay and eventually," the branch shrivels and snaps off the tree. "It dies. In order to avoid this, the gods of chaos introduce new variables to dying worlds to revitalize them." A new branch is shown getting touched by an unknown figure, which causes it to split into several branches. "Normally we would never reveal ourselves to mortals, instead working behind the scenes. But in this case, a certain pair is interfering with any variable we have introduced in a more subtle way."
Ozpin and his inner circle immediately thought of Salem, but it didn't line up, they couldn't think of anyone who would be her partner, she might have servants, yes, but a partner she recognized as an equal, they couldn't imagine it. When Ozpin looked back on his years of working with her after humanity's fall, it was clear that she hadn't treated him as an equal, just as a toy for her pleasure.
"Then why don't you just remove the ones who are interfering then?" Yang asked, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Because there are rules. Us gods are not allowed to interfere with the affairs of mortals directly."
"But why-"
"If these rules didn't exist, the casualties would be immense. Unlike mortals, when a god makes a choice, that's it. There is no other outcome. The world would immediately start to rot." Broker's hand clenched so hard black liquid started to leak out onto the floor.
"So that is why the Gods of destruction exist." Ozpin stated, finally understanding why beings who interacted with infinite worlds subjected themselves to laws.
"Exactly, when a god kills someone all forms of that person ceases to exist. Even worse, death is permanent. The victim's soul becomes the property of the god."
Broker's tone became more and more disgusted as he went on, his hatred radiating from every word. Noticing the newfound tension in the room, he took a deep breath to calm himself.
"Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I brought you here so that I could introduce several new options all at once. To do this, you will be watching different worlds in order to create new outcomes that normally would never occur."
"Isn't that direct interference." Ruby said in a quaking voice, the thought of her soul being property terrorfied the young huntress in training. Although in all honesty the true horror of the statement went right over her head. She just instinctively knew it was the worst of fates.
Broker leaned in conspiratorially, gesturing for them to come closer. His actions reminded the group of a child who had pulled a clever trick. "That's what makes this so good. I've brought you into one of my personal timelines. No matter what choices I make here it won't affect Remnant at all." His smile grew even wider as explained his plan. "All i gotta do is pick you up and drop you off at the exact same moment in time and suddenly, boom." he clapped his hands "a bunch of new outcomes appear all at once." He twirled around basking in the surprise of the audience. His face, a picture of self satisfaction.
"That is quite the clever way to get around." Glynda admitted, speaking up for the first time.
A red tint filled Brokers cheeks as he rubbed the back of his head. "Well i didn't exactly uh come up with it. I was getting annoyed at the constant interference so I kinda sorta decided to try it out." His flustered ramblings left most of the audience chuckling. It was hard to believe that this was the same individual who silenced them all without even trying.
At brokers encouragement, they returned to their seats.
"Everyone ready?"
The audience simply nodded.
A new grin overtook Broker's face. "Good, then let's get started."
Authors note. Feel free to request a show in the reviews but before I do any of those I will be having them react to series that I think should have been reacted to already. If you really can't wait then I suggest you write your own story, after all that's why i'm writing this, I thought there weren't enough fics where they react to shows that didn't involve them taking over the role of characters so I made my own fic.