[The survivors for now are RWBY, JNR, TRQ, Oscar, Salem, Cinder, Neo and Ironwood. More will be added later.] RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth. Bioshock is owned by 2K Boston.
Salem was tired, tired of failing, of being hated, and tired of her endless war with Ozma. Perhaps the most embarrassing part of this chapter in their eternal conflict was the fact that Ozma beat her as a literal child. It wouldn't sound so pathetic if he was still the King of Vale, but noooo he had to be a kid this time. Why were they even fighting? For their dead kids? For the fate of humanity? Or was it some convoluted suicide attempt via the Relics on her part? Maybe it was time to bury the hatchet? Heading to the curtains of her room, she opened them only to see something that would cause her eyebrows to raise, her heart to skip a beat, and trigger the RWBY version of a Vietnam flashback, a large swath of red light heading towards her. Thinking back to the last time she saw something like that(when the Brothers wiped out humanity), only two words escaped her lips before she was enveloped and destroyed, "Ah shit."
First, there was nothing but light, then darkness. Afterwards, there was a gentle light, the warmth of carpet against the skin, and the panicked sounds of multiple people. Noticing the weight of a body on her, Salem opened her eyes. It was Ozma, or rather Oscar as his new reincarnation put it. He seemed to be getting his bearings too, but when he noticed who he was on top of, he screamed like the rest and promptly rolled off of her and crawled backward.
Speaking of the rest, after the initial shock of being destroyed, reconstituted and instantaneously transported to an unfamiliar space, they calmed down just enough to start to get up. To the left of Salem(who's in the middle of the room), RWBY and TRQ were in an uncomfortable human-pretzel. To the right, Jaun was checking his surroundings as Nora hugged Ren tightly as he tried to gently pry her off of him. Qrow and Raven hurriedly separated, a blush on the face of the elder twin she had landed on top of her brother. Tai was by their side holding his sides.
"Geez Rae, did you get drunk and fucked up using Kindred Link or what?" "Shut up little brother," Raven retaliated. "I didn't do this and you know I don't drink."
Behind her, Cinder and Neo were both getting up and further back was Ironwood, now alive and checking himself to make sure it was real.
"Dad,Uncle Qrow, Aunt Raven!" Ruby and Yang ran to and hugged their other family. Except for Raven. Letting go, Yang faced her mother.
Yang's face became uncomfortable and unsure. "Mom." Yang said, finding it a little hard to meet her mother's eyes.
"Yang." Raven was having the same issue. Their relationship had improved over the month after Salem's defeat, but reconnecting was still hard. The air was certainly awkward, but it wouldn't be for long.
"Guys! S-S-Salem!" Oscar yelled. Suddenly, everyone was at attention. No one knew where they were, only that there were threats in front of them. Readying their weapons, RWBY, Qrow, Raven, Tai with his dukes up, JNR and Oscar stood in a line while Neo and Cinder backed up Salem who at the moment seemed to not care about them as she looked at the Silver Eyed Warrior, ready to destroy her before being turned to stone like a common Grimm. "Ready Nora?" asked Ren. Turning, he noticed Nora acting, well, strange. Strange for the situation at least. "Nora? Nora!" Nora was looking to the side with a fearful expression plastered on her face. Raising her arm and pointing with a shaking finger, Nora said three words with fear unignorable by all three sides. "Giant! Bald! Man!" Everyone turned where she was facing and were met with one of the strangest things they've ever seen in their lives.
A giant, 20ft bald man as described with glowing eyes stood a little ways away from everyone. Needless to say, the appearance of the stranger caused everyone to turn their weapons on him.
"Hello, everyone…" he spoke in an almost raspy, but soothing voice. The kind of voice one might find in a narrator. "I'm grateful that I was successful in bringing you all here. You must have so many…"
"Who the hell are you?" Asked Qrow, with Harbinger at the ready in sword form.
"Why are we here!"
"What gives you the right to…"
"Who do you think you are!"
"How dare you kidnap the Queen of…"
"Enough!" The stranger announced, voice booming and hands glowing cosmic energy. Everyone quieted down. "As I said, you all must have so many questions."
"You damn right!" Everyone turned to Ironwood in the back, still struggling with his restraints. "Take me back to Atlas! I want to go home!"
"I can't"
"Why not?"
"Because your home doesn't exist anymore. Nothing of Atlas, or Remnant for that matter, currently exists."
Everyone was in a shocked silence. Finally, Weiss spoke up."W-Wait, if everything was gone, we'd be dead."
"That is true." The stranger answered. You were all dead. But I used my power to save you so that I may repair your world."
Eyes glowing green, Ozpin spoke. "Who are you, and what happened to Remnant? The Brothers judged us to be worthy of existence. Why destroy their Creation?"
"The Brothers did not do this to your world. This did." Reaching from behind, the giant man outstretched his right arm and opened his hand. In it, were tiny particles of Ruby Red dust. "This dust was once a whole crystal called a Keystone. The Keystone contained the energy of your reality and when it broke, reality failed. In order for your world to be restored, I will have to repair it. As for who I am, my name is Uatu, The Watcher."
"Of what?"
"The Multiverse, now take a seat."
The dimensions of the black, featureless room began shifting. Extending into twenty rows of ten chairs with a large walking cross section between every 2 rows. The room also raised diagonally while a row of stairs appeared for each side and the lighting was now provided by now-visible LED lights on the ceiling. A Movie screen appeared on the north wall. RWBY, JNR, TRQ, Oscar and were moved to the left stair. Salem, Neo, and Cinder were moved to the right. Ironwood stood in the third cross section.
"Woah, woah, woah," Qrow interjected. "What's with the theater set-up?"
"There is little to no entertainment in this room from your world. The only thing I have to offer you until I'm done is a glimpse of the way I do things."
"Hang on, you have enough power to reconstruct an entire universe and you're just gonna leave us alone while we watch other people's lives.?" Blake questioned.
"Like I said, I do not have any entertainment from your world and I'm not going to let you destroy each other either." Uatu raised his hand. The weapons of anyone who had one disappeared. "Just to keep the Peace. Would you please take your seats? The tethers holding the corpse of your world together are getting weaker and will snap if I don't start soon." The audience didn't trust this figure, but the powers he exhibited were beyond any Semblance or magic they've ever witnessed. Not wanting to waste his time and possibly doom their world, everyone took to their seats.
Cautiously, RWBY took the 16th row. Ruby in the fourth seat, Weiss in the fifth, Blake in the sixth, and Yang in the seventh. Oscar/Ozpin took the eighth in the same row. JNR took the 15th row. Jaune sat in the fifth seat. Nora and Ren sat next to him on his immediate right. Tai sat in the fifth seat in the 19th row and Qrow and Raven sat to his right in the sixth and seventh seats.
Not wanting to sit near their enemies, Neo and Cinder sat three seats to the left of Salem who sat in the seventh seat of the thirteenth row.
James Ironwood, the loner, sat in the fifth seat of the tenth row.
"Before we start, I would like you all to know that the worlds we are viewing are not going to be alternate versions of your home."
Jaune was confused. "Why? Isn't the whole point of Multiverse Theory the idea of an infinite amount of versions of something?"
"Well, yes," The Watcher conceded, "but Remnant is actually low when it compares to the amount of worlds in the multiverse. The worlds you will be watching will largely take place on this world. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you, Planet Earth." Uatu created a hologram of a planet that got everyone interested. The planet was large, several continents could be seen that were labeled North America, Antarctica, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. The oceans were also labeled as well. The Arctic in the north, the Southern Ocean in the labeled direction, the Atlantic between the Americas and Europe and Africa, and the Pacific covering the rest of the planet's waters. "There are no Grimm in this world. No Aura. No Semblances. And no magic, mostly." The sound of a place without Grimm sounded like Paradise but no Aura or Semblances was something most of the audience was curious about. How different would their lives be without the two? Salem was interested by Uatu's words of "no magic, mostly." Perhaps these new words could inspire her.
"Finally," Uatu started. "This world viewing is dedicated to one man, one fool in our presence!" His voice returned to the threatening boom from before. "James Ironwood," Ironwood looked like he was about to shit himself as Uatu levitated him to speak face-to-face with him. "What you and everyone around you are about to see is a lesson. A lesson that when autocrats try to take control away from the people and force their vision on the world, bad things happen."
"You mean Atlas?" James asked incredulously. "I was going to save it, to preser-"
"By conspiring with Gelé to regulate Faunes to low-paying jobs? By making sure it was only the elite and powerful who lived on Atlas? By murdering a council member, Sleet, and attempting to kill a child? By threatening and trying to exterminate the population of Mantle just to save yourself? Now, be quiet before I wipe your mouth from existence, watch the world, and learn from your mistakes." Setting, well, dropping James in his seat, Uatu disappeared to go repair RWBY World. The lights dimmed, and the movie started.
"Huh, about time someone did that to him." Qrow thought to himself.
The camera shows the ocean. The horizon and the sun setting could be seen in the distance. "A man has a choice." a disembodied man's voice said. "I choose..." The camera panned under the waves. "I built a city where the artist would not fear the censure. That the great, would not be constrained by the small." A large fish is seen consuming a smaller one. "Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality."
"Such a place would be a chaotic place, if what he's proposing is an environment with no laws." Weiss pointed out.
"Adam's White Fang would love this place." Blake frowned.
"I choose to build Rapture!" The camera, now scanning the ocean floor, panned over a rock formation and revealed a city, lights on, with spotlights scanning the ocean, to the surprise of our viewers.
"Amazing…" Salem quietly gasped.
"Good thing Atlas wasn't at the bottom of the sea…" Cinder thought.
"Soooo Cooool!" Ruby yelled, jumping up and pointing. "Do you guys see that! It's just sitting there at the bottom of th-
"Yes Ruby, we all see. Calm down and watch." Blake said, standing up to sit Ruby down herself.
Nora was about to say something 'till Ren swiftly shushed her with a finger so he could focus on the marvellous sight in front of him.
"It's like an underwater atlas." Ironwood mumbled to himself in astoundment.
"I haven't seen anything like this since the God of Animals last visited Remnant." Ozpin thought in interest.
"But my city was betrayed by the weak. The voice said in a regretful, thoughtful sentence, with a hint of malice. Neon signs and large vintage-style advertisements could be seen on the outside of the buildings. "So I ask you my friend, If your life were the prize, would you kill the innocent?"
"If I had too. Survival is more important than morality." Thought Cinder.
The camera zoomed into a balcony, past a window into a hall and turned to the left where a decorative waterfall could be seen and an installation with a child-sized hole in it(a hidey hole) could be seen on the wall behind it. "Would you sacrifice your humanity?"
"I don't like the sound of this place." Thought Oscar.
Ozpin and Salem both frowned at the line "I suppose I lost my humanity a long time ago then." They both thought.
"We all make choices. But in the end, our choices make us." The camera focused on a man, but since the audience was viewing him from behind the waterfall, they couldn't get a good look at his features. They could see that he was on the younger side, probably 20's, with short combed over blonde hair. He was wearing some kind of jeans, a white-sleeved shirt with a collar and a yellow vest above that. The camera zoomed into the back of the man's head and the screen went black.
"That's it? Seriou-"Cinder was interrupted when the screen came back to life.
The camera moved, unsteadily, letting the audience know they were now seeing things from the eyes of the man. The man approached the hidey hole as, to the surprise of the audience, a little girl with brown hair, a purple and white dress and a white bow on her head started to climb out. Upon seeing the man however, she stopped and attempted to go back on the hole, but was forcibly pulled out onto the floor as she screamed, by the man, much to the viewer's disgust. Cowering and raising her right arm in a protective gesture, the girl looked to see the man idly bobbing a wrench in the palm of his left hand in a threatening manner.
"What the hell is he doing!"
"Now that's just wrong!"
"He better not hurt that little girl or I'll break his legs!"
"Damn, better start drinking now before it gets any darker than this."
"Was this how I was like?" Raven thought, thinking back to when her actions were driven by a Survival-of-the-Fittest mindset. "Is this how she saw me?" While she didn't show emotion, the girl on the screen's face haunted her. It was similar to the face that belonged to the Spring Maiden before her. A little girl. Scared. Who thought she could trust Raven and died a death that Raven always regretted in the back of her mind. Well, if hearing someone's crying and screams for mercy was a sign of regret, but that's a story for another time.
As the man approached the girl, loud footsteps and an inhuman groan could be heard.
"What was that?" Jaune was scared. Not even Grimm sounded like that.
Panicked, the man quickly looked to his left, then turned around to his right to a very regrettable sight. Some kind of man or creature in a large leather and metal diving suit with a bulbous helmet covered in portholes. The sight didn't last long as the Big Daddy struck him with it's left hand once, then again, sending him to the floor. The Bouncer raised it's right hand and slammed down a giant drill which the unlucky man barely dodged by moving his legs.
"What kind of creature is this?" Salem's interest was certainly piqued.
"Okay, when I said "...break his legs," I was just being metaphorical."
While the others were gawking at the brutish figure, Blake was having a problem. Her Faunes traits were severely triggering her flight instinct. She couldn't blame herself, that thing was terrifying.
Nearly having his lower-half destroyed, the man crawled over and picked up his wrench. He struck the Big Daddy on it's arm and an oxygen tank but that didn't seem to do anything as he was promptly backhanded towards the baluster of an indoor balcony. Not willing to let his target escape, the creature grabbed him by the legs and drug him back towards the hidey hole next to the scared little girl. The man looked up as the Bouncer approached and a chilling, mechanical sound was heard as the Bouncer's drill activated.
"This is gonna be pretty bad…" exclaimed Tai, closing his right eye and preparing to cover the left.
The Big Daddy slammed his drill down, only for it to be stopped by the palm of the man's left hand.
The imagery was enough to make many in the audience feel sick. James even winced and started rubbing his robotic hand out of sympathy for the poor bastard.
Trying to stop the drill from completely destroying his hand and eventually, his face, the man grabbed a shotgun from his person and fired it, causing the Bouncer to reel back and groan in pain as a hole was now visible in the middle of it's helmet. What happened next would catch the eyes of Salem, Ozpin, and Ironwood alike. Grabbing a syringe of green fluid, the man hurried and injected himself with the contents. Immediately, his arm began to experience necrosis and lumps began to form under the skin as the man whimpered in pain. To the disgust of everyone, a large amount of flies began crawling out of the man's arm.
Neo felt sick and was ready to vomit. Qrow was already dry-heaving into a popcorn bag he found from somewhere. Everyone else wasn't much better.
"What kind of power is this!" Thought Salem. The process she witnessed reminded her of some of the magic users from her era that would experiment with insect magic. In fact, the similarity was uncanny.
The man outstretched his afflicted arm at the enraged enemy and a swarm of red insects began to swarm the dive suited creature. They flew through the hole into the helmet, causing it to waive around in pain towards the edge of the indoor balcony. The man approached with his shotgun, stuck the barrel in the hole, and fired. The beast had died before it landed, it's body having fallen over the ledge doing nothing but damaging a corpse in a suit. There was silence for a moment, until a familiar sound followed by the sound of wet, ripping flesh filled the air and stopped.
"Aaaaahhh!"
"I thought it was dead!"
"Is there another one!"
Neo covered her stomach protectively in fear.
Vision blurry, the man looked down to see a bloody drill impaling his torso. The man could only scream as the drill turned on again in order to exit him. Turning slowly and stiffly to his right, the last thing the man heard and saw was the inhuman groan of the suited creature and a drill proceeding to pierce his face. The screen went black with the man's death, only to come back to life moments later. The Big Daddy approached the little girl, drill dripping blood.
"I can't watch this." Weiss lamented.
"This is it for the girl I guess." Cinder stated dryly.
As the creature approached the girl however, the fear vanished from her face. The creature outstretched it's large gloved hand for the girl to hold. She reached for it, and the screen went dark for the last time.
"Hmph? It didn't kill her? Why?" Salem pondered.
"Huh, I probably should've seen that coming…" Blake sighed. She'd forgotten one thing about many media in the horror genre because of the viewing, and that was the archetype of ugly brutes protecting innocent children.
"What do you mean?" Yang questioned, "There's no way I would trust that thing."
"I think that's the point. Characters being protected by things that are normally feared is a common stereotype."
"You think stereotypes matter in the real world?"
"Do you have mommy issues?"
"Dude, low blow."
A portal opened in the middle of the room as the watcher returned.
"Hello everyone. I hope we all enjoyed the viewing?"
"Yeah!"
"No!"
"It Was Horrible!"
"What kind of a lesson was that?!"
"That," Uatu said, "was a glimpse of what could happen if James Ironwood had his way with Atlas unchecked."
"But the city…" Oscar interrupted, "I get that both are miracles of engineering: a city in the sky and one on the bottom of the ocean, but what happened that could make the city serve as an example compared to Atlas?"
"The underwater city of Rapture, was built by a man named Andrew Ryan." as he spoke, a picture of Ryan filled the screen. He was a man with light skin, combed back hair, a thin mustache and wore a dark suit. He reminded Salem of her own personal scientist, Arthur Watts. "Ryan wanted a city free of the limitations of law, morality, community or religion in favor of endeavor, no matter the consequences. A city where the strong thrived, and the weak fell under." Uatu cast a glare towards Raven, who looked to the side, pretending not to care. "He created the instrument of power that you saw in the video. Called a plasmid, Ryan created many with varying effects similar to your Semblances, but with common side-effects. The majority of rapture was driven insane. Neighbor turned against neighbor, mothers strangled their newborns in their cribs, and the ones who survived, found themselves in a Hell of one man's making. This is what happens when the will of one is applied to many. This is what happens when a dreamer becomes a tyrant. I hope you remember this lesson well because as derelict and violent as Rapture became, Atlas could have become as militaristic and authoritarian."
The audience was silent. They knew that Atlas was unraveling, but to the extent of Rapture, it was almost unthinkable, almost.
"Anyways, you all would be happy to hear that I have good news."
Everyone perked up at this.
"The destruction of your universe is currently being reversed, however, the process will take some time. In the meantime, you all should get some rest." The Watcher waved towards a door on the west side of the theater with a sign saying "DORMS" on it. Opening the door for them using his power, the Watcher led them through. Inside was a hallway wide enough for four people that seemingly went on infinitely. The rooms were next to each other.
"Even though there exists no such thing in this space, good night."
The "guests" entered their rooms, each labeled for the occupants to recognize theirs from the other's. RWBY's dorm was a recreation of their dorm room back at Beacon. Cinder's room was a recreation of her Beacon dorm as well. Salem's was a recreation of her and Ozma's room from the mansion they lived in together after humanity restored itself. JNR's room, like the others, was a recreation of their Beacon dorm, except Phyrra's things were missing. Oscar would be filling her role in the room. TRQ's room was a copy of the house in Patch. Neo's dorm was her room from her days as Vanille. Needless to say, the memories that room brought were too much and she ended up knocking on Cinder's door until she was finally let in.
No one trusted Uatu yet. However, if proof was in the power, then he had a lot of it. That and the fact that both Salem and Ozpin don't know what happened convinced everyone to be patient and see what awaits them tomorrow.
Holy crap, I'm finally done with this chapter and it just rolled into the New Year as I'm writing(01/01/2022 12:00). I have a poll to see what chapter 4 will be and then afterwards I'll be doing my own thing for a while. Happy New Year, be safe and peace out!