Billy: Uh, so are we gonna…?
Anon: Later, I decided that we need to put our explanation/announcements/other important shit down at the end of the chapter
Billy: So what's this part of the chapter for, then?
Bunny: Shitposting
Billy: Oh….. right, gotta think of something witty or something
Anon: Something witty or something
Billy: What?
Anon: Exactly. On to the chapter
Disclaimer/Shitpost Alert: RWBY are belonbings to RoosterTeeth and Monty Oum (RIP). This obligatory shitpost is brought to you by multiple writers suffering from Post Traumatic Swag Disorder and maybe a few too many doses of Copium from not having enough free time ;)
[PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA AIN'T THAT BAD, BUT IT IS, BUT IT ISN'T, SHUT UP! BADASS LINEBREAK]
….
….
Um, hello?
"Wait, what was I saying?" Billy asked towards no one in particular.
"Your line was "It's Renny time." in all caps." Nora spoke up in a oddly flat tone, wearing glasses and reading what seemed to be a… wait a fucking minute, IS THAT A SCRIPT!?
"Uh, y-yes! I did say that!" Billy scratched the back of his head before clearing his throat.
"Uh…."
Should we uh… run that back again?
(WHAT? But we just got back! To be fair, a cliffhanger that lasted for this long is bound to be dangling like a loose ballsack. Touche, alright let's try this again, READ THE DAMN SCRIPT THIS TIME)
Alright, take 2 aaaaand…! ACTION!
"IT'S RENNY TIME!" Billy burst into the scene, his typical grandioso shining through as usual.
"YEAH!" Nora cheered as she shook her partner's shoulders.
"You hear that Ren!? You're gonna be a freakin' star!" Ren started to turn as green as his outfit, greener in fact.
"Well, you're feeling much better." Anon commented, unfazed at the speedy recovery of his twin.
"Yes, well our medic bots have done a splendid job as usual!" Billy replied before turning to the guests.
"But yes, for our next viewing, it's gonna be the last of our teasers for the big world I'm sure everyone's excited about." This brought, as one would expect, excitement from some of the younger audience, as well as curiosity to some of the newcomers.
After some much needed exposition from the others and the Hosts, the lights in the room dimmed and the screen showed Ren's lotus emblem before it darkened once more.
Rain and the rumbling of thunder could be heard as the screen lit up to a view of a small fishing village at night, dimly lit by lanterns.
Kozakana Village, Dragon's Tail Peninsula, Mistral
The name and location brought curiosity to most of the people in the audience.
"I didn't know they had villages that reach the southern tip." Sun commented.
"To my knowledge, they mostly function as fishing villages, like the one on-screen." Neptune said, Ren nodded in agreement.
"Dragon's Tail?" Ruby asked, confused about the name.
"It's what the locals call the southern tip, mostly 'cuz Anima looks like a dragon." Anon answered, earning an "oohh" from the reaper.
The scene changed to a street view of the village. However, the deafening silence amidst the pattering raindrops felt a bit off. It was as if the village was a ghost town.
Just then, a blood-curdling scream was heard.
A silhouette was briefly seen as it passed, and the scene changed once more. An armed man ran, his breath was quick, he seemed to be in a hurry, fear and dread etched on his seemingly unrecognizable face.
"Is this a horror movie or something?" Jaune gulped.
"Nah, it can't be." Yang waved his worry off.
"Ren's in here, so there's gotta be some action, right?" That last part was said with some nervousness so you can tell Yang's trying to keep a straight face, hehe.
A flashback then occurred, the same armed man was accompanied by several more. They entered the village, intent clear in their eyes, they were bandits and moments later in the flashback, they had mostly rounded up most of the poor villagers at a nearby fishing boat, and had gathered all the loot they could find at the village square.
The scene earned some glares.
"Wait, so why was that one guy running?" Oscar asked.
"I think we're about to find out, kid." Qrow replied with a frown.
Some had brought their loot from the village's storehouse and several of the homes, however… a faint and sharp whistle was heard.
Followed by the sound of a gurgling throat as one of the bandits, a large one dropped his bag of loot and had his hands on his neck as an arrow had lodged itself in his trachea.
This shocked both the bandits and the viewers in the Theater, as the former started searching for the one responsible.
"Bring me the head of whoever did this!" A voice, possibly the leader's, said.
Then, another whistle…
SQUELCH!
And another throat was lodged.
The flashback skipped, and a fight occurred between the bandits and a dark figure, their features barely seen.
One bandit tried to attack from behind, only for the strange figure to turn and the screen zoomed in on the latter, bow in hand and arrow nocked.
The arrow flew…
THWACK!
The bandit screamed in pain as he clutched his one eye, struck true by the arrow loosened. Another bandit, sword in hand, charged towards the figure.
But the figure was quicker, they ducked under the swing and pulled out a sleek and elegant looking dagger, and sliced it across the poor grunt's belly, its contents would've been seen scattered on the grass had it not been for the flashback's grittiness censoring it.
Despite this, the sight brought terror, to both the bandits on-screen and the audience, as they witnessed this mysterious figure off the bastards with brutal efficiency. As expected, some had their lunches (?) thrown up into buckets.
Blake observed the whole scene and could only be reminded of Adam Taurus, probably the only other person she knew that could commit these atrocities.
Ren, however, could only widen his eyes at the sight of the dagger being used and turned towards the Hosts, trying to seek an answer, only for Anon to nod discreetly towards the jade ninja.
"I, I see." Ren gulped silently.
"Ren?" Nora turned to her partner in concern.
The figure then cleaned the blade with the crease of their elbow before sheathing it, just in time to lean back to dodge an oncoming downward swing from a large bandit wielding a large Kanabo club.
Rolling under another swing from the same bandit, the figure thrusted their bow against the side of the large bandit's face, followed by a brutal swing to the back of his head, effectively stunning the bandit.
The bandit let out an enraged yell before swinging wildly with his club. But the figure once again rolled out of dodge before nocking another arrow, one that had a pellet attached.
Losing the arrow, the bandit saw it coming and caught it just in time, letting out a throaty chuckle before the pellet exploded and smoke covered the entire square.
Sounds of arrows flying and metal hitting flesh could be heard, as screams all the while permeated the village square.
As the smoke cleared, the large bandit waved his hand around as he coughed before he was swept to the ground by the figure from behind.
He tried to get up, only for a foot to slam down on his shoulder, the speed and suddenness caused it to dislocate as he let out the same blood curdling scream from before.
Most of the guests winced at the pain the bandit felt, as well as the scream. Hey, say what you want, but a dislocated shoulder is a pain in my nonexistent ass.
"Well, now we know where that scream came from." Taiyang joked morbidly.
Ren shivered briefly, which brought concern to some of his teammates and close friends.
"Ren?" Nora asked once more.
"I'm fine." He said through gritted teeth.
The flashback ends with the same view as before, now without the gritty, flashback filter, as the mysterious figure's appearance was much clearer to see.
They donned a tattered straw hat and a tattered cloak over a dark and dilapidated kimono, with worn cloth wrapped around their forearms and hands, a pair of dirty white hakama pants and protective cloth shin guards with fastened boots and a rope belt around his pants.
On one side of the figure's waist rested an ornate but worn out quiver with some arrows left remaining and on the other sheathed that same elegant dagger. Lastly, their, or rather his face was obscured by a simple dark bandana, but one can clearly see the cold and dead magenta eyes of this now recognizable figure.
Just seeing the eyes of Ren's alternate self was enough to frighten the friends of Ren in the audience, even Ren himself was a bit scared. What in the hell did this universe do to this ninja, I, and the audience, had yet to learn.
Nonetheless, they continued watching, speechless at the identity of this magenta-eyed archer.
The large bandit could see the eyes of his would-be killer and could see the arrow trained to his skull with more detail. More specifically, he could catch a glimpse of a small etching on the arrowhead.
A small, single sigil of a lotus flower.
The bandit let out a small chuckle.
"Jade Lotus." The bandit groaned out in his native tongue. "So… the stories were true…"
"I am more than a story." Ren replied evenly, his tone was much more dead and much colder as he let the arrow loose, killing the bandit.
Nora let out an "eep!" and clung on to her Ren (*COUGHING INTENSIFIES*) as tight as possible.
"Make scary Renny go away!" Ren, meanwhile, could feel his oxygen running out.
"I'm curious as to what language they spoke, it seemed Mistrali of sorts." Oobleck asked.
"Yes, for some reason I can understand it." Yatsu added, the same thought was true with the Belladonnas but it was fainter in comparison.
"AH YES, that was yet another language of another nation that we shall unveil to you all in due time." Billy said.
"Said language is called Japanese." Anon added, making some curious at the aforementioned nations that were to be unveiled to them.
Ren sighed in silence as he pulled out the arrow from the corpse's skull and placed it back in his quiver. Raising a hand, a faint purple glow could be seen from within his cloth wraps and within a second, all the arrows he let loose came flying back to him and with a swing of his hand, the arrows flew to his quiver.
"Woah! What was that!?/That was cool!" Nora and Ruby asked in unison.
"Embedding Gravity Dust onto arrows." Weiss mused to herself. "While it would be a pain to wait, you wouldn't need to spend any Lien buying more arrows."
"It is quite similar to my Floating Array, which is all the more amazing considering the time period!" Penny chimed in with an innocently awed look.
He could hear the faint voices of the villagers as they exited the boat, surveying the carnage. Without another thought, he turned heel and walked away.
"Wait!" A voice made Ren stop in his tracks.
"Who are you?" A humble fisherman asked him.
Turning his head to the man briefly, he replied. "Just someone passing by."
"How could we ever-"
"I don't need anything." Ren cut him off and was about to walk away when a woman called out.
"Please, at least take one of our boats! Your journey might be long."
Ren hummed to himself before he spoke.
"Can it take me west? Towards Vale?"
With that, the screen turned dark before the panels showing a third of JNPR was shown and the final panel lighting up revealing Ren with a badass looking-behind pose and the letter R just below him. COMPLETING THE PANEL, WHOOO.
"Well hey, that's everybody!" Sun said.
"Yeah! Time for Team JNPR to take to the stage!" Nora did a little dance while waving Team JNPR banners. Typical Nora shit.
"I don't think the viewing is over yet, children." Ghira interrupted, making some confused as the viewing continued on.
The scene opened back to the bandit from earlier who was running as he was now just at the outskirts of Kozakana, fear and dread still etched in his face.
"Oh yeah, it was this guy." Yang commented.
He took refuge under a bamboo tree when an arrow just missed him by a hair, making him jump in surprise.
Looking around to be sure, the bandit carefully removed the arrow and took a good look. His eyes widened as he saw the lotus sigil on the arrowhead.
With a frightened scream, the bandit booked it, running as fast as possible. All while shouting two words like a chant of utter terror.
Jade Lotus.
With that, the screen dimmed and thus ended the viewing.
"SOOOO, how's that for a comeback, HUH!?" Billy asked to no one in particular.
"I'll admit, you took a bit too long." Nora deadpanned. "Like that was too long a cliffhanger and too long a HIATUS."
Anon gasped. OH SHIT, FOURTH WALL BREAK ALERT.
WEE WOO, WEE WOO!
Bunny then came running out of nowhere and SOUNDED THE AIRHORN.
…
…
…
Ahem, anyways, BILLY DO IT AGAIN.
"U-uh, yes! SOOOO, how's the viewing?" Billy asked the AUDIENCE.
"I am a bit curious at the nature of Mr. Ren's epithet." Ozpin mused.
"Not to mention that whole "the stories were true" type of thing." Yang added.
"WELLLL, besides the obvious factor that is Mr. Ren's emblem, the Jade Lotus, also holds a very significant weight and history to it." Billy explained.
"How significant are we talking here?" Sun asked.
"Ren's whole ass backstory and how he's like… that, which is very spoiler territory so we won't say anything more." Anon piped in.
"I see…" Ren placed a hand on his chin with troubled thought. If the title of Jade Lotus was that important, it could explain how his other became the way he was. But then came several questions: How he got the name, how he got his father's dagger, was the fate of his own parents the same, but most importantly.
If Kuroyuri happened or not, otherwise… would he still have met Nora?
Strangely enough, Nora asked that same last question to herself.
"Yeah, I definitely see Ren using a bow if firearms aren't a thing yet." Jaune said. "In fact, have you ever considered it, Ren?"
"Now that you mentioned it, I just might." Ren smiled slightly before grinning cheekily. "Just be sure to get better armor though."
"Hey!" This earned some laughs.
{BADASS BREAKING OF THE LINE, now with.. fancy brackets~~}
Billy: Okay, so a lot of things happened, first and foremost
Anon: I know you've all probably heard of the same shit like "School and Work" but yes, that happened as well.
Billy: Added to that, we had some family issues to work out on, but now they're sorta resolved
Anon: And our PC broke, which meant we had to borrow Bunny's laptop 'till we can get a replacement wire for our PC
Billy: And while she was here during our Shitpost Notes, she went to work right after so if you see a cameo of her, it's probably her on break
Anon: Anyways, don't think that this fic is done and dusted, 'cuz while we may be busy with some stuff, we won't abandon this fic…
Billy: Unless it's in need of a reboot, which it doesn't for the moment
Anon: So yeah, we'll still be posting some hot garbage here, just let us collect some first before we burn them and sort through which stanks the most
Billy: We already have one burning right now, we just need time to execute it
Anon: So anyways, how's today's chapter for the first time in a hot minute? Be sure to, as always, Read and Review
Billy: FAVORITE AND FOLLOW
Anon: Stay Cool and Anonymous
Billy: AND STAY BOMBASTIC!