A/N (6/1/2021): Minor fixes.
A/N (5/13/2021): OH MY GOD 200 FOLLOWERS THANK YOU ALL!1!1! Please enjoy my unpaid labour and feed me more dopamine! I need it.
I swear I'm not addicted.
Oh, and the previous chapter has been updated with Pyrrha's reputation ranks. Somehow they weren't there in the final revision…
Dr. Valentine… you are totally correct. Damn. I didn't even think about interpreting it that way.
Beta: Path of a Writer
/-A Requiem for a Gamer-/
Jaune landed softly on his butt.
Disorientation struck him, as his body had seemingly gone from falling upside down to sitting on the floor right side up. His arms, wrapped around his head protectively, frozen, stayed there locked in position as he tried to reorient himself. His body had tensed up before the imminent impact and stayed that way, every tendon and every muscle tightly strung. His heart still rapidly beat in his chest. Cold sweat covered him.
Suddenly, pain jolted up his right leg, forcing his arms to abandon their useless duties and to grab at it instead. Jaune yelped in pain, flopping to his side.
He had gotten a muscle cramp.
Holding his leg in place, causing the pain to subside a little, he could finally take a moment to take a look at his surroundings. He was in some kind of square room with blank walls, similar to the location of his and Dark's rock paper scissors match. On one of the walls, written in a large font, was "Game Over" with some smaller text written underneath it.
Unable to read the text below the alert from his angle, he took a look at the messages at the edge of his vision instead, those on his HUD.
[System]: Jaune Arc took impact damage (crit).
[System]: Jaune Arc took impact damage.
[System]: Jaune Arc took impact damage.
[System]: Jaune Arc has become unconscious.
[System]: Jaune Arc died.
"Oh, that is total BS!" Jaune grumbled. How was this fair?
This was like one of those second-person perspective adventure books he had read back in his youth - wow, and wasn't he sounding like an old man. They were usually about the length of an average novel, but instead of a linear story structure, it had branching paths. At the end of every scene, there was a series of choices, each with a page number. Choosing a choice meant turning to its corresponding choice number and continuing reading from there. They were filled with twists and turns and so many bad endings, many of them quite cheap and illogical. Like this one!
Was there anything that Jaune even did wrong?!
He took a moment to rethink his decisions over the last few hours. He stepped off an airship, talked to some people, did his real life homework, slept, then jumped off a cliff. Well, technically, he was launched, but there didn't seem to be a way for him to have avoided it. He had even stepped off the launch pad, and he was still thrown off the cliff! What was he supposed to do?
Standing up now that his leg had stopped hurting, he approached the 'Game Over' wall in order to read the fine print.
[Respawn]
Cost: 0% of entire savings. Next: 50%.
"What?! Fifty percent?!" He yelped. "What is this, Let It Die or something?!" Jaune was quite happy there wasn't permadeath, but wasn't this a bit much? You can't just slap a price tag onto respawning!
Wait…
An idea came to Jaune. Why did he even have to play this game that was clearly built to siphon off his hard earned money. If he doesn't play, then no money is lost! Take that, stup - endous god! He laid down casually onto the floor and closed his eyes. He was going to sleep the god's game away, and nothing was going to stop him!
A minute passed.
The floor was kind of hard, so Jaune tried turning over to find the right sleeping position. Worst of all, it was also just a little chilly. Sitting up, he took off the armor plate he was wearing, then his hoodie, and laid the clothing over himself like a makeshift blanket. It didn't seem to help much, as the floor was seemingly permanently cool no matter how long he attempted to warm it with his body heat.
Another minute passed.
He gritted his teeth. This time, he tried sleeping on his hoodie, hoping it'd act like an insulator. As he kind of expected, it was not enough.
He stood up.
If he can't sleep sitting down, then he is going to try sleeping standing up! Closing his eyes, he forced his thoughts to stop wandering and sleep.
Why do I have to deal with this bullshit? Go bother someone else, like that Weiss person instead. She looks like she'd have the money to throw at a game like this. A whale for sure. She would have been able to get the premium account for extra rolls for the starting weapon by spending copious amounts of cash. Imagine if she showed up with a weapon exactly the same as Ruby. How would she have explained it to her? Jaune chuckled a bit. That would have been pretty awkward, especially with the gods' no explaining rule.
He smacked himself.
You call that no wandering thoughts?!
He forced himself to stop thinking about the game. Stop thinking about the game, stop thinking about the game. Wait, isn't thinking about not thinking about the game really still just thinking of the game in a roundabout way?
What is the premise of this game anyways? Just an RPG that starts at a monster hunting school? Didn't it feel too vanilla? Jaune supposed it could be more like one of those online MMORPG's, where the player character was as generic as possible in order for the reader to imagine himself in his shoes. He took a moment to think over his own character, only to be a little depressed as he realized that he didn't have any exciting traits that would be found in a main character either. Perhaps he was the generic self-insert template for his own story. He coughed. Unless the fact I have seven sisters is supposed to be my main differentiating trait?
No. Jaune tapped his leg. There's got to be at least something more. Why is my character at this academy? How is he here? Did he need to go to fighting secondary school, or do they all just start at this age? What was even the main character's background?
Jaune opened his eyes. "Why are you here?" He whispered to himself. The gods went to such length as to copy and paste over his real life family. Who is not to say that Jaune's alternate self had not a story, then?
Something nagged at him.
He opened up the menu, then scrolled down through the options before stopping at the 'Echoes Menu.' When it had first appeared, he hadn't thought much of it, thinking it to be a prank from the gods. However, he did remember that these echoes seemed to be unlocked only when meeting new characters.
[Echoes Menu]
[Echoes of People]
[Echoes of Places]
[Echoes of Items]
He clicked on the section with people, using the usual verbal command.
[Echoes of People]
[Echoes of Jaune Arc]
[Echoes of Pyrrha Nikos]
[Echoes of Ruby Rose]
[Echoes of Weiss Schnee]
[Echoes of Yang Xiao-Long]
[Back]
He clicked onto Weiss Schnee's Echoes, having picked it out randomly.
[Echoes of Weiss Schnee]
Wgznnzy viy rmzoxczy,
Wz ocz nijr-xgvy wjpiyvmt
Wzorzzi ocz Adzmt Fdibngvtzm viy ocz Wvmji ja Dxz.
Meaningless rabble. Same with the others, just like the first time he opened these. Or some kind of code. He closed it, never being into Alternate Reality Games much. Best way to piss off a creator - don't engage with his hard work at all!
He slammed his fists into the ground.
Not engaging to his content?! Then what the hell was I doing in the last ten minutes!
"Fuck this." He pressed respawn. First respawn is free anyways. "You win, Light! You get that? You win!"
[System]: I always do.
He flipped the sky the finger as he slowly dissipated into particles of light.
Only to reappear flailing through the air.
"Why did you choose here to respawn me?!" He screamed.
[System]: I have my reasons.
"Your reasons are stupid!"
Calm down Jaune. What happened last time? Uh… I fell and died. Literally nothing happened! No, wait, there was an object aimed at my head that I dodged. Jaune pulled himself into the fetal position. A second later, an object went straight over his head, again.
"Horray for time travel," he mumbled, "Now if only falling to my death could be prevented by foresight as I was falling to my death."
Still, he couldn't do nothing. He looked at himself. He was currently equipped with a sheathe, a sword, and armor. Nothing that could act like a parachute. He narrowed his eyes in thought. Didn't he unlock an ability at one point?
Right! It had almost passed him, but he suddenly remembered unlocking 'Sprint' during the event with Dark. It could be just a passive, but with nothing else to try, he spoke the word out loud.
"Sprint?"
[System]: Error. Aura insufficient.
Aura! That's the magic system! Of course, the protagonist starts with so little he can't even sprint!
Wait, the protagonist is so weak he can't even sprint?
There wasn't time for more thought as he broke through the tree cover again. This time, there were no large branches in his way and he burst through the upper foliage and into a clearing. Sadly for him, there were no convenient mattresses to land on or conveniently-placed, magical pools of water to absorb all his falling momentum.
[System]: Rolling dexterity… Success!
"What?"
And then the world lurched.
Jaune's body instinctively flipped around, or perhaps twisted itself, or maybe decided to make a barrel roll. He couldn't describe it really. An impossible movement, made in an impossible way, shattered his sense of direction, and yet he was still falling. And falling.
The black rectangular sky, filled with holes, was moving further and further away above him. Had… had he landed?
Is this death version 2? He hadn't felt pain the first time around, but maybe this time he was lying there on the forest floor, dying slowly? That would explain why he felt a little numb. He pinched himself. Nope. No numbness actually, the current feeling probably coming from him still falling. Where am I falling to? Are my senses broken?
He took a glance below him.
An endless void.
He glanced back up.
It was clearly the underside of a video game map mesh.
Jaune was currently below the map, having clipped through the ground.
"Ah'right what the fuck."
/-/
"Light. Let me get this straight. Remnant, the planet, counts as a projectile?"
"In this case, yes. It's a round object, hurtling through space. It counts as a sizable meteor."
"The planet counts as a projectile."
"Isn't that what I just said?"
"For the mercy of everything, fix this!"
"I am."
/-/
Jaune kind of just sat there falling, stupefied.
He wasn't sure what to say. The game had felt so realistic until he fell through the map. He wasn't expecting any bugs, since it was a god's creations, heck, it was made by two! But in hindsight, he should have expected it. Games were a complicated creation after all, so having no bugs was a very improbable thing.
He wondered if this was what his characters felt, hurtling through the endless void, having realized their existence was just a game, and then, a puppet on some god's invisible strings.
Of course, they weren't capable of thought, so it wouldn't be a problem.
He flailed a bit so that his body changed its orientation, allowing him better sight of what was below. Midair control was pretty hard without some extra video game logic. Alas, the sight below was what he expected. Just an endless void. Is this my fate for the rest of the game? He thought. At least I don't have to play this stupid game anymore. Guess whenever I sleep, I'll just be back here, contemplating my existence for eight hours until I wake up in the morning.
With nothing else to do, he decided he might as well just count the black dots in the void. There were many of them, decorating the mute white void like sprinkles on a cupcake.
"One black dot, two black dots, three black dots..."
On closer inspection, they weren't just dots. Some of them seemed to have different shapes, but since they were so small, they had looked all the same to him at first. He wondered what they were. He was especially curious about the one directly below him, that was increasing in size ever so slightly.
His eyes locked onto it.
As it grew bigger, it became more rectangular. No, more like a box. A rectangular prism. Some kind of large room? And with rooms, came his favorite thing… a floor. A floor he was about to fall onto at terminal velocity.
Jaune braced himself, screaming as he entered it by, of course, clipping through the ceiling.
Everything became black.
[System]: Error caught.
[System]: Method of entrance is not within normal operation parameters.
[System]: Resetting spatial coordinates of actor to default gateway.
[System]: Loading…
The darkness faded away, and suddenly Jaune was inside an elevator. Without time to allow him to process it, the doors opened.
Through the doorway, he could see a large spacious hall, much of it being unused. It was best described as barebones, with the only pieces of decoration being fire pots high on the walls. A huge symbol was drawn onto the marbled floor, reminding Jaune a little of a compass rose. And -
The elevator doors attempted to close.
Jaune quickly rushed through it without a second thought, barely making it. The doors slammed shut behind him, before hearing the characteristic sounds of an elevator rising. He may have just sealed his fate.
He nervously inspected the sides of the elevator for a button to call it back. There was nothing except a keypad.
He sweated a little.
Was he somewhere he shouldn't be?
Slowly turning around, he peered through the darkness, coloured green by the ambient light reflected off the walls, and saw a strange machine at the far end.
He paused.
"I… I know this place." He whispered.
He paused again.
Jaune blinked, before laughing at himself. "That's what I'd want to say. Who wouldn't want to say that in some dark mysterious cave, with a mysterious humming machine?" His echo was his only reply. "Tough crowd."
Do the gods really have nothing to say about all this? You'd think they would react more when one of their worlds bugs out.
He stepped forward, turning side to side. The flicker of the fires were his only illumination, causing shadows to dance in the corners of his vision. Was this some sort of villain's lair? Was he about to fight the final boss... Again?
[System]: Error caught.
[System]: Cutscene requirements unfulfilled.
[System]: Attempting to recover.
[System]: Unhandled Exception:
World Line Segmentation Fault
"World Line Segmentation Fault?" Jaune repeated. A feeling of unease washed over him. Looking down at his own body, he realized it was more literal than figurative, as a layer of sparkly white film-like material snaked up it.
[System]: Recovery successful.
[System]: Warning: 'JauneArc' Actor mesh failed to load.
[System]: Warning: 'MysteriousPod' Static Actor failed to load.
[System]: Warning: 'JauneArc' Rigidbody failed to load.
Hurriedly, he tried to scrape it off. However, instead of it enveloping him, on closer inspection it was actually himself turning into dust. Panicking, he tried to stop it by flailing his arms, as if he could throw it off.
He raised his dissolving hands in front of his face, hoping to no avail that it had worked. However, instead, he got a closer view of the phenomenon. Inside of his fingers, instead of flesh or bones, he saw nothing. His body was entirely hollow, with the thin outer shell being either his skin or clothing, depending on whichever was the visible layer.
There was no pain. Even while disintegrating, his hands felt like normal. In fact, as he touched his ghostly fingers together, the feeling of fingers touching together remained, as if his digits were still there. Is this what they call phantom limbs? Jaune looked down. His entire lower half was gone, but the upper half of his body was still standing there, floating like some kind of genie without half the charm.
Jaune could only stand there stupefied as in the wind as the dusting completed itself. For some reason, even though his eyes didn't physically exist anymore and thus shouldn't have been able to capture any light, he could still see. Taking a few steps forward, he could also still move. He was just... invisible?
He took a few moments to calm his racing heart. The god of Light had technically never said RWBY and the Marvel Cinematic Universe didn't share a universe. Great. That meant he didn't have to lose 50% of his poor, poor college student savings, by dying again! Instead, it looks like he had just lost his entire character model? That did seem like a problem if he had to do anything social, but for now, it was a very convenient bug when he thought about it. He confidently strutted forward, his footsteps making very loud, obvious sounds on the well polished floor.
The large machine that made up the entire end of the hallway was huge. On the far left, there was a human-sized capsule that looked similar to a cryogenic tube with a brown haired woman inside, and on the far right, a similar one, but this one empty. Connecting the two was a bunch of cables that also linked both to the ceiling, where the rest of the machine lay.
Jaune stepped up to the holographic screens located between the two capsules. They were clearly on, but no text or anything was displayed.
He nervously looked around. This clearly looked like… He took a moment to make estimations, using his vast past experience as a guide. ...This looks like at least Act 2 material. Should he spoil it for himself? He should probably save it for later, but this opportunity probably won't come again. Plus… not like anyone would find out, with him being invisible. Spurred on by the freedom of his current state of see-throughness, he poked one of the screens with his invisible finger.
Wait, what if they have invisible laser grids? Or pressure plates? Jaune suddenly realized his idiocy.
Luckily, nothing happened. His finger went through the light projection and that was it… or so he guessed, since he couldn't see his finger. He tried a few more times just to make sure.
Thinking he missed a button somewhere, he strolled around the machine, inspecting the machine itself. He made sure to look at every nook and cranny, and investigated anything out of place, from strange protrusions to cables that even looked a little different. At the end of a few minutes, he was able to piece together the basics pretty easily.
My hypothesis was right. This… yup. This is definitely a machine.
He wasn't wrong.
Still, even if he wasn't about to make heads or tails of the sophisticated construction, he was at least able to guess certain properties. Since there were two human sized pods, and a human inside one of them, both connected to a central machine, there were only a few answers to what this could be.
A cryogenic sleep chamber, something akin to a bacta tank that heals or keeps heavily wounded people alive, a machine that switches people's bodies for eternal youth, or a freezer where you keep the dead bodies of people you murder.
Jaune supposed that any of the choices above would make sense, though he wasn't sure at all how that related to the main story of the game. All he knew about the game was that they fought monsters, that this woman called Salem was the antagonist, and that everyone was seeking these plot forwarding macguffins called 'relics'. Or, perhaps this wasn't even part of the main story.
He stepped up to the woman. Peering through the glass, he couldn't see any visible wounds. The brown haired woman looked like she was just asleep. Additionally, he couldn't see any condensation or frost forming, so it looked like his guess at a cold-related machine was incorrect.
Jaune attempted to touch the glass to make sure of the temperature. However, the moment his fingers were supposed to touch, he felt nothing again, similar to what happened with the hologram. I'm intangible too?! Then why aren't I falling through the floor? Again.
Something answered him, but it wasn't an answer he expected. The moment he retracted his hand, a game window opened up before him.
[Quest]: The Maiden and Her Knight.
How cliche.
[Quest Objective]: Objective Revealed.
Jaune tilted his head. A second objective, already? He hadn't even finished the first one yet!
[System]: Error. Prerequisites not met.
Oh no.
[System]: Unhandled Exception.
[System]: World Line Segmentation Fault.
Jaune didn't like the sound of that. Again.
[System]: Attempting to recover.
[System]: Caught error.
And now, something weird was about to happen, again. Again. Jaune rolled his eyes. The gods have certainly made a really buggy game. Makes one wonder about all the bugs they have left in reality. Like the platypus.
[System]: Recovery has failed.
What? That didn't happen the first time.
[System]: Load Backup Save?
[Yes] [No]
Backup? Backup save? When did they create a backup save? Or even a save system? It was certainly not something mentioned. Perhaps something automatic? Something itched at the back of Jaune's mind. A strange feeling of uneasiness, just like when his character mesh failed to load in. But this time, it was different, more pin-point. A thought tried to come to the surface, unable to pass through the murky oil of consciousness, leaving Jaune grasping at nothing at all.
What is it?
What is it?
What is it?
He could almost feel it at the tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember.
What couldn't he remember?
Jaune took another moment to look around him. There was that sense of deja-vu again, the same one he had gotten and brushed off when he had first arrived in the elevator. He had never visited this place for sure. He knew that. Was this like that psychological phenomenon, when visiting a place for the first time feels like they have been there before? Oh wait, that's exactly what deja-vu was.
He shook his head. His mind was clearly playing tricks on him. Turning back his attention onto the prompt, he clicked the 'Yes' option. Good thing that the gods had the foresight to install backup saves.
[System]: Warning: Accessing memory that has already been freed.
What was memory that was freed? Jaune frustratedly thought.
[System]: Backup has been integrated into current save.
[System]: Continuing from last interruption.
Jaune watched the messages continuously pop up on the side of his HUD. He wasn't certain if he should take this pseudo-creepypasta seriously. How was he supposed to decide how he should be feeling, if there wasn't background music, special effects, or canted camera angles to tell him how to feel?
[System]: Loading…
[System]: Success. Prepare for t
[Main Obs̷̢̈́e̷̞̐r̴̲͊v̵̰̒A̸̝͋t̷̛̺i̴̻̓O̵̻̾n̶̳̊]: Why... me?
Oh.
He did not like this one bit. "Er… hi?"
The text hung there in midair in the middle of his vision, swinging bonelessly, suspended like the body of a hung man unlike every other notification he had received.
Successȯ̵̠͍̉̍̋r̸̦̰̖̈̇͋̔͠: Why me?
The expected line that would outline the rewards for successful completion of the objective was suddenly invaded by extra letters. The impostors snaked themselves in, crushing the original letters and severing some of them from their rightful spots.
Failure: Jaune Arc.
[Accept] [Reject]
Jaune stared. He gulped.
A trick from the gods?
He had a distinct feeling that if they wanted to mess with him, they would have been a lot more straightforward about it.
[Accept][Reject][Reject]
He blinked. It was the same line as before, but this time, 'reject' had duplicated. And then both copies duplicated again. And again. And again, until -
[Accept][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject][Reject]
- filled his screen to the very brim.
/-A Requiem for a Gamer-/
"You don't think the mortal could have gotten into trouble while we are gone from the controls, do you?"
"Impossible. Plus, whatever happens, we can always reset it. The priority is getting to our destination first." The God of Light grumbled.
The two gods were walking down a hallway. An ethereal hallway, floating above a sea of writhing chaos, that slowly morphed like a rotating four-dimensional rectangle. It stretched on to infinity, where it ended just before it hit beyond.
The God of Darkness glanced through the warping, translucent walls of the hallway. Out of the clouds of chaos was suddenly birthed a towering colossus of liquid madness, before it dissipated before an ocean of soothing white light. Then, an angry shadow tore through the light, savaging its remains till nothing was left. An ocean of eternal change.
"Ah, it really is a Tuesday." Dark remarked.
"Only in the timezone of our current lodgings."
Outside, chaos reigned its breathtaking beauty. Silently.
"So, why do we need to handle it from there, rather than our usual control room? It takes so long to access it."
"The error caused a cascade of failures." Light responded from the front, without looking back. "I must manipulate it with greater precision. As always, wait for me outside."
"Yeah, yeah. By the way, I told you so."
Light grunted. "We have arrived." He braced himself and spread out his arms. At the place right before infinity, he stopped, and his being, and consciousness, both spaghettified into unimaginable lengths. Stretching far beyond the reaches of the world, his perception gazed into the whole of the universe, and he saw his target.
The World Engine.
These towering, monstrous creations, were the central command centers of reality. Every cycle had one and each was just as unique as the last. For most of his immortality, he had slaved away on them. Making sure every universal constant was perfect, carving the right laws into every crevice, and etching his very will into existence took him an eternity past. To Light, the Engines must have been his most precious craft.
Dark followed suit and arrived beside his brother, before the barrier that protected this fake world's World Engine.
"Why did you build a World Engine for something that doesn't exist, anyways?" The god of Darkness wondered out loud.
"This World Engine isn't a real one either. However, using existing models as inspiration made it much easier to create this delusion. It's easier managed with a familiar system."
Dark had seen many World Engines during his time at his brother's side. It had always made him gasp in awe at the sheer complexity of it. Standing before one was to stand before creation, and to take a moment for the weight of the entirety of his - their work to sink it.
Technically they did build it together, but there was a reason Light was the God of Creation, after all, and he, the God of Destruction.
Dark and Light were truly as different as night and day.
"Still, I can't believe you would go through the effort of making one of our greatest creations for what amounts to a whim."
"No." Light, who was about to raise his hands, stopped. "The World Engines were just a stepping stone."
"Right," Dark crossed his arms. "Your greatest creation, the one thing you are the most proud of, was life, wasn't it? You were so happy. It was basically your obsession. Your purpose."
Light glanced over his shoulder at his brother.
"Yes. I was content."
"Was?"
He turned back. "Enough. We can speak of this further later, this is cutting into our dedicated humanity supervision time."
Dark frowned. "You mean watching tv?"
Light stepped forward and raised his hands. The barrier before the two gods, tall enough for it to stretch into infinity, parted. Rays of light escaped from the inside, painting Dark in the glow of the morning sun. As the light dimmed, the World Engine was revealed.
Behind the barrier was... nothing.
"What?" Dark deadpanned.
Light turned to face him. "What?"
"Where's the World Engine?"
Light looked at him like he was stupid. "It's right there." He walked deep into the huge room and pointed at the middle of the floor.
"You are pointing at nothing!"
"I have no idea of what you speak of. It is right here."
Dark slapped his hands onto his face. "No wonder this world is a delusion…"
"Stop being dramatic and come over."
Dark's eyes widened. "Wait, won't the world destroy itself if I, the God of Destruction, walk in there? You said some errors cascade - what if… what if I knock over a pebble and cause the entire collapse of the multiverse?! What about Marvel Phase Four?! I waited so long for X-men to come in!"
"Shut up and come over here."
Dark carefully tippy-toed to the edge of the barrier. Gently, he placed a toe over the line. Then, his hoof. Then, his ankle. Then, his pastern. Then, his cannon.
"Brother, changing your leg into a horse's just so that you can have more segments to cross over is the most worthless waste of time I have ever seen."
Dark laughed awkwardly and crossed the divide with a little more courage. The cylindric, spacious room inside the barrier wasn't that different from one of their usual spontaneously created rooms, being featureless and white, but strangely filled him with giddiness. As if he was trespassing into uncharted territory. It's been years since he had ever entered one.
"Here." Light pointed.
Now that Dark was closer, he could see that in the very center of the room was a TI-84 graphing calculator. It had the ability to do one hundred digit numerical calculations, graph splendous graphs, and fulfill every high schooler's wildest mathematical dreams at the click of a button. Oh, and it can run the universe.
Dark pushed a hand through his black hair. "I - I… Sorry, I need a moment to digest this. W-Where's all the usual tubes that connect it to the physical plane?"
"This one uses 'Wee-Fee'."
Dark wasn't sure what to say. He took a moment to contemplate the meaning of life and everything. There was clearly something egregiously wrong with that statement. A moment later, he figured it out.
"So, you added a network adapter? Didn't the TI-84 Plus only have LAN?"
"There's a difference between LAN and Wee-Fee?"
Dark face palmed. "Yup. This game world is fucked." He sighed.
Light didn't take kindly to that. "There is no need to learn the terminology of mortals." He replied dismissively. Instead, he kneeled before the calculator and touched it.
/-A Requiem for a Gamer-/
[System]: Patch has been applied. Please wait for scripts to fix database errors.
Jaune fell softly onto his butt.
But this time, it was onto soft forest floor.
"Oh! Thank god!" He cried. "It was cursed! Cursed! Horray for sweet, sweet, normal, grass! Sunlight!" He kissed the ground, before spitting out to the side a bug he accidentally almost swallowed.
[Admin]: Are you alright, Jaune?
[Admin]: There is no need for you to concern yourself with him. He is, as expected, fine.
Jaune shook a fist at the sky where he assumed the gods were spying on him from. What about the mental damage?!
[Admin]: Mental damage? I assure you, if falling through the abyss was enough to scar you, then perhaps you need to - cough - grow up.
[Admin]: Light…
Jaune blinked. Making sure his thoughts weren't directed at the gods, he considered the possibility that they had no idea about his previous predicament.
[Admin]: As recompense for the temporary loss of service, please accept this gift.
[System]: Received transfer of 2 cents.
[Admin]: Goodbye.
He chucked a handful of blades of grass skyward in spite. The wind blew it back into his face.
Composing himself, Jaune took a look at his environment. It was clearly a forest with a bunch of deciduous trees and thick bushes, just enough to block distant view, but not forested enough to have difficulty walking.
Great, now I can go and…
And what?
Jaune had been a little too busy worrying over meaningless things, like falling off a cliff and breaking his legs, and had thus missed what the headmaster had been saying. He pulled at his hair. "Wait, wait, all's good, I have the objectives menu."
He opened it up.
[Objective Menu]
[Main Objective]: Pass Initiation
Thanks, gods.
He took a double take at the rest.
[Main Ob?]: ?
[Back]
Uh, hey, Light, it's still bugged.
[Admin]: …
Are we seriously going to just ignore that?
Silence.
Yes? Mmmkay.
Deciding that he should be ready for monsters, he unsheathed his sword and held it with both hands, firmly this time. Then, he confidently strolled deeper into the forest, completely aimlessly. It was the first combat situation, so everything's got to be level 1. What does he have to be worried about?
/-/
Oh, so that's what I had to be worried about.
A whole tree was flung way above Jaune's head, spinning wildly before it crashed back to earth, snapping multiple of its brethren into halves somewhere in front of the young adult. He made sure to avoid that way, using his sword as a glorified machete against the vegetation as he sprinted as if his life savings depended on it - which they did.
The monster chasing him roared.
It had looked so easy when his other self carved through them like butter in the cutscene. In reality, compared to a regular human, these 'Grimm' were actually insane! The one behind him was clearly based on a bear, but it seemed to have the strength and speed of a goddamn terminator on roller blades! Which wasn't that fast, really, but it was enough to allow the monster bear of darkness to slowly gain on him.
What happened to balance?! Aren't strong creatures supposed to be slow?
That wasn't even the limit to the creature's abilities. In fact, it had clairvoyance or something! Jaune had attempted to sneak up on it from behind, heart beating in his chest from nervousness, and then it suddenly turned one hundred and eighty degrees and stared straight at him! How OP was that?!
From the sounds of the destruction behind him, it sounded like the bear was uncomfortably near.
Shit, shit, shit, I'm gonna die!
Suddenly, shapes appeared in the side of his vision. Oh, was it a rescue? Usually, at this point in the plot, the weak protagonist would normally get saved by some mentor type character, or discovers an internal power of some kind.
The dark shapes jumped at his face.
Fuck.
He tried to duck, but his body didn't react as quickly as his thoughts. Still, rather than sharp claws tearing him limb from limb, he was instead smacked by a heavy body and was sent rolling on the forest floor.
[System]: Gained 25 XP
[System]: Gained 25 XP
[System]: Gained 12.5 XP
[Echoes]: Common Ursa UNLOCKED
[Echoes]: Common Beowolf UNLOCKED
There are Echoes for Grimm too?
He scrambled to his feet, realizing that somehow the bear had accidentally hit the other monsters instead. The shapes from before, three wolf-like monsters, dissipated into black particles upon their death, having taken the full brunt of the bear's attack. Jaune turned to run again, but the bear pounced with a mighty roar.
And then its head was cleaved clean off.
Roll for your partner!
[Yes]
Time had stopped again, for another god forsaken gatcha pull.
He waited for his racing heart to slow down a little. He took a few deep breaths, before moving his attention to the game window.
Jaune groaned. "I'm going to get total shit again, aren't I?"
He clicked anyway.
Congrats!
You get:
[Ruby Rose]
[Legendary]
Description: A talented young huntress who was fast tracked into Beacon Academy. Oh, and she has a secret Sharingan. Shhhh, don't tell anyone.
Other stats hidden.
[Accept] [Reroll for 10$, 5/5 remaining] [Drop Chances]
Holy shit, praise the Instant Booster Card! Ruby seemed nice and he'd take a hack Sharingan or two thank you very much. He instantly accepted.
Time restarted as the window disappeared, revealing Ruby stood on the other side of the small clearing created by the bear's destruction, her scythe poised clearly at the end of a swing. The body of the monster collapsed bonelessly and turned into dust.
[System]: Gained 200 XP
"Nice, some more xp again."
Ruby did a flashy spin of her weapon before turning to him. "What?"
"Nothing. Thanks for the assist."
"Don't mention it! I guess we are partners?"
"Partners?" Jaune blinked. "Uh, yeah. Sure." He really should have listened to the speech.
Ruby ejected a spent casing from her sniper scythe and loaded another into the chamber. "Isn't it kind of stupid our partner for the rest of Beacon is decided like this though?"
"Yup. I agree, uh, this method, yup, very bad."
"Imagine if you made eye contact with a complete stranger!"
Ah, I see, so the first person we made eye contact with upon landing was our partner or something. That random event was simulated using the slots. "Well, like my mother had always said, strangers are just friends you haven't met yet." Jaune didn't see anything bad about that. He supposed that these 'huntsmen' would have to work with others on the field, so working with strangers at the drop of a hat is part of the job description. "So, how about this way?"
"Sure." They walked in a random direction. "But what if it's someone we really don't get along with?"
"Like Weiss?" Jaune said.
"Like Weiss."
"Or if they're really unfriendly, and don't even want to be friends?"
"Like Weiss?" Jaune said again.
"Likewise… oups, wrong word, but it still means the same thing." Ruby tilted her head. "Guess you've met her too, huh?"
"Ha… haha…" If I had a penny for every Weiss I've met… I would have two, but isn't that actually already kinda weird? "Well, even if you absolutely hate them, sometimes you are going to have to work with them for the greater good, you know?"
"Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it… I wish I was with Ya… er… with a cool person, who you are. Also."
He clearly heard the 'maybe' in her voice and was very mildly insulted. Then again, he was a guy with a sword in a hoodie and shorts, compared to Ruby's… goth… short… sniper… scythe… thing.
Whatever that theme was.
He blinked. Squinting his eyes, he could see through some trees what looked like a vertical wall of dirt. He looked up. The foliage was pretty thick, but it was pretty clear where he was. "Fuck." He swore underneath his breath. "We're back at the cliff."
"What?"
"Nothing. You know, I think we should actually, haha, let's just go the other way…" He put his hands onto Ruby's shoulders, spun her around, then pushed her back towards where they had come from. "This way suddenly looks great!" I suppose it could be some other cliff… Jaune hadn't seen any other cliffs from the launch pads, however.
"Huh?"
"So, why are you learning to become a huntsman?"
"Why I want to be - well, I - hey, wait, are you trying to distract me from something?"
"No, of course not. Tell me about things. Interesting things."
"I can't believe I am saying this… but aren't you being a bit childish? Didn't we just get lost - "
"What? Pfff. No. That's crazy. Crazy."
"Hey, that's my line!"
Jaune laughed. "Really, really. Tell me about your dreams, your character archetype - er, I mean, why you became a huntsmen. I mean, it's a dangerous job, right? People die and stuff."
To his surprise, Ruby became silent.
"Ruby?" Jaune walked a bit faster so that he was now in line with her. From there, he could also see his friend's embarrassed expression.
"W-well, I'm just like everyone else. To save people and because it's cool." She fidgeted. Ruby wasn't a very good liar. Jaune could see it from the way she fingered the collapsed sniper rifle on her back, or the way she looked askance very suspiciously. "Who wouldn't want to wield babies like Crimson Rose?"
"It has a name?"
"Of course it has a name!"
Jaune raised his hands to placate her, even if he had no idea why she felt so deeply about something like that. "So, all you are here for is the glory then? I can't say that it's not a bad - "
"It's not for the glory!" Ruby shouted. She took a step straight into his personal space.
Jaune stumbled back, a bit surprised.
"I can't believe you'd say that!" She looked insulted, though Jaune noted that on her face, with her puffed cheeks, didn't look very intimidating.
"Er… could you not point that thing at me?"
Ruby and Jaune both looked at the giant metal scythe in between them.
The girl awkwardly put it away, collapsing it onto her back. "Huntsmen are far more than glory seekers. You shouldn't be a huntsman if that's all you want! Huntsmen should be protectors. Defenders. The fame, the money, and the recognition, are so that we can do our job better."
"I'm sure there's plenty of people who are just there because it's a job."
"Yes, but that's not the ideal huntsman, is it?"
"I… I suppose not?" Jaune thought about what the real life equivalent of huntsmen would be. His first thought was police officers, but that wasn't a good comparison. The police enforces order in the human population, rather than subjugating faceless monsters of pure evil. In a way, they are supposed to be heroes, but since they deal with people, their image is… not clean. Especially if you mix in racism, police brutality, and authoritative regimes. Huntsmen, fighting murderous beasts bent on destroying humanity, on the other hand? Wasn't it a lot more black and white?
"Jaune, why do you want to be a huntsman?"
Her question surprised him, even if it shouldn't have. He should have expected his question to be reflected back to him. He scratched the back of his neck. "Eh… no reason."
She stared.
Jaune hurriedly tried to think of a reason. Wasn't there… a description somewhere that said that his family had been huntsmen? "I guess I've never really thought about it. I just kind of did it because it's just what you do. I've never really expected much from my future."
Jaune supposed he'd do the usual. Find a (better) job, marry some girl, start a family, grow old and die. He'll take life #1, no onions, with a side of video games, please.
He'd never thought about it too hard, even if the future was rapidly approaching, because… it wasn't here yet, was it?
He still had time. There was no real Grimm, no darkness encroaching on humanity. Real life was not so fantastical.
Real life was not a fairy tale.
/-/
"Ozpin… this is madness!"
The headmaster of Beacon calmly sipped his coffee as his deputy hurriedly followed behind him. "I've always been thinking of it, Glynda. I just wasn't sure when to do it."
"I tell you that we need more time to rough out the edges. This curriculum… it's rather Darwinian. Brutish."
"I'd say Mendelian, actually."
"That's not any better!"
Ozpin tuned out the complaints of his deputy and long-time friend as he continued to his office, leaving other professors like Professor Oobleck to watch over the students. He had already convinced enough councilmen by pulling a few very important strings and calling in some heavy favors. He knew that whatever resources he had, now was the time to use them.
He sipped his coffee.
Salem's forces had been moving for a while now. Pawns of… significant weight. The reports from his agents had said so. Additionally, the Grimm had been a little too quiet. Not even a single settlement had been destroyed in the past year. It was clear that his long-time nemesis had something planned.
But all that was familiar. He had seen this pattern thousands and thousands of times before. This time, however… there was something new.
Usually, to keep her actions under his radar, she used mainly the Grimm or human agents. Both were undetectable to him unless he heard reports or saw them by his own eyes. But this wasn't Grimm or humans.
This disgusting smell in the air. A scent of death, decay, and lavender… I can't tell where it's coming from, but it's near.
Her magic, that is.
To make such an overt, wild, unconcealed action of aggression, it could only mean one thing.
Checkmate.
And what scared Ozpin most, was that he had no idea how.
/-A Requiem for a Gamer-/
A/N: That's all, folks! A bit of a serious chapter for once!
Note that I didn't randomly throw this last bit of Salem's magic in here for no reason. This actually logically follows from the previous events in the last few chapters.
Next chapter: June 27, 2021