King: This was fun to write~ I'm concerned that makes me twisted... Oh well! I had fun and I hope you all do too~!
Inspiration: Team Fortress 2
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As the room calmed again, King popped back. "Alright! I've got the next one ready when you all are."
Ozpin looked around and found no one objecting among them. "I suppose we're ready."
"Alright. Buckle up. This is a weird one. Or fun. Depends on your view. Any who~! Let's go!" King faded out and started the next scene.
When the screen popped back, they were met with a title screen. It was a large red rectangle with the words [Meet the Pyro] in a light beige, a small box of matches leaning on one side. This was accompanied by jazzy music to set the style.
"Meet the Pyro?" Nora tapped her chin. "Sounds like Yang…"
Said hot head turned toward Nora, "Hey!"
Neo turned toward Cinder but didn't allow it to last. She had a survival instinct after all.
The display burned away, showing a familiar pair of boots walking along a scorched earth. They could see a fire ax hanging in his hand, slowly moving back and forth. He walked slowly, stepping on a pair of glasses.
"I'm getting a bad feeling about this." No one was sure who said it, because they were all thinking it, save for the villainous group among them.
The screen changed again, showing a familiar silhouette of one Ruby Rose. She was sitting in an office like setting, possibly for an interview given the camera angle. "I'm not afraid of anybody!"
Ruby's arm shot up in excitement, "Yeah!"
"But that thing…" Ruby looked to the side for a moment before she moved forward slightly. "It scares me."
Ruby sunk down a little, "Oh no…" She was seeing where this was going. She didn't like it.
The screen changed to show people running away from a head of blonde hair, straps of a gas mask peaking out from his locks. This new angle showed that Jaune was walking through an old, wooden mining town. He continued to move along the road slowly. Was it for intimidation?
The screen moved back to the office again. This time showing Blake. A key difference was that this Blake's attire was a bright red. She was leaning forward with one held toward the interviewer. "Look, I'm not talking about that… freak! Alright?"
A shiver ran up Blake's spine. The idea of her calling anyone a freak was foreign to her.
Blake started to fiddle with the microphone on her shirt. She froze for a moment, a realization hitting her. "He's not here, is he?!" She looked around in a panic. She stood up, knocking her chair over in the background, still trying to remove the microphone, "How do I get this fucking thing off?!"
That sunk team RWBY into seriousness of the situation. Blake rarely, if ever, got emotional enough to let a curse slip. Even before the dance, when she was in an emotionally driven state of consecutive consciousness, she never let a curse pass her lips. Whatever she thought of this guy, likely Jaune given the point of these shorts, it must have been pretty bad.
The camera changed to a seen with someone hiding inside a house. The smoky air and dark atmosphere made it difficult to see their face. They recoiled as their door was kicked in. A nozzle slowly came through the doorway, a flickering flame resting on the end, and accompanied by a bone chilling hiss. The flamethrower gave off a small vapor that shifted into smoke, which was used to show a close up of Ren sitting in the same interview room.
Nora excitedly point to the screen, "Ren's finally got a part~!"
Ren wasn't sure this was a good thing, given the tone of the reality.
Ren let out a deep sigh, "One shutters to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask…" As he spoke, the scene changed to show Jaune turned away and unleashing the torrent of fire from his weapon. As he torched the building, Ren continued from off screen, "…What dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty."
Now they could see Jaune's mask. His black gas mask reminded them of old war-era masks. It was a cold and unnerving form he cut. A terrifying figure of death.
Cinder shivered a little. This was everything she could want. The destruction and the, ironically, cold exterior! It was what she needed in an ally! What she demanded but never received. If she could just twist this Jaune to her side, could she have this destructive force for herself? The though excited her.
The screen morphed through the world and showed a pair of white dots where the goggles of his mask had occupied. They began to swing around and morph together to the screen. It was time to see the world through Jaune's eyes.
~Do you believe in magic?~
No one was ready for what they saw. Three people in particular formed a sequence of words that perfectly summed up the group consensus. Emerald, Mercury and Cinder (in that order) spoke the inner truth for them all.
"What…"
"The…"
"FUCK?!"
The world was colorful, almost painfully so. Everything looked like it was made of candy and rainbows. Cute things were scattered about the world. Jaune's flamethrower was replaced with a massive bubble gun that shot rainbows. He was standing atop a hillside, happily spreading joy to the world below.
No one really had any words for that. It was a very jarring transition from point A to point B. The disconnect was very concerning to everyone involved. Those who cared about Jaune saw a poor man with a mental disorder. Those who didn't care about anyone saw an unhinged psychopath with a flamethrower. In this case, neither were particularly wrong.
A little chibi version of Ruby looked up a half-eaten cookie. All the red in her design had been replaced with blue. Noticing Jaune, she jumped over cookie and laughed.
Yang placed an arm over Ruby's shoulders, "That's so cute~!"
Jaune picked a lollipop out of the ground and started to skip toward Ruby, who in turn ran toward the lollipop. As Jaune jumped up with a spin, the screen cut back to reality. Jaune leveled his fire ax into the head of a blue Ruby as she screamed for mercy, blood splattering the camera. It lasted only a second, but it was enough to shake everyone again.
Yang recoiled, her grip over her sister's shoulders released. It was a horrifying sight. The idea of Vomit Boy being a murderer was bad enough, but killing Ruby? That just made things worse.
The colorful world returned to show the chibi Ruby with the lollipop stuck in her mouth. They both noticed something approaching and looked toward the camera. They saw a chibi Blake in blue blinking between spaces between them. She giggled and landed on his bubble gun. Jaune chuckled and pulled out a bubble wand. He blew into the wand and blew bubbles toward Blake. Reality hit again, showing the moment in slow motion as the blue Blake was shot in the face with a still burning flare.
Roman let out an uneasy chuckle. His weapon fired explosive flares, but his attacks were never more powerful than a firework. Huntsmen and the police could tank a hit like that. Which was fine, since it was primarily a distraction measure, requiring a direct hit to be an effective weapon. But shooting someone in the face point black with a flare? Yikes.
Jaune chuckled then heard something off to the side. He turned to find a pair of brown bunny ears sticking up from a gift box.
Velvet shivered at what was to come, "Oh no…"
A chibi Velvet popped up from the box. She was dressed like a sort of combat medic with a pale blue medical coat. She happily waved to Jaune before ducking back into the box. The lid of the box didn't sit correctly on the top of the rest.
Coco wanted to tease her partner. She wanted nothing more than for this to just be a cute scene, so she could mess with her teammate. But she noticed the pattern of this reality. She knew what was about to happen.
Jaune ran to the box and adjusted the lid to fit correctly. Reality returned, showing Jaune placing a fire ax between the door handles of a barn. A blue Velvet tried to get out of the building, noticing she was trapped. She tried to cry out. Tried to convince the masked man to leave. All to no avail. Jaune unleashed the flame toward the barn. It would take only a few seconds to set the building ablaze. Within minutes, the prisoner within would be burned to ashes.
Ruby was clutching her stomach, "I think I'm going to be sick."
The colorful world returned, showing Jaune joyfully skipping along with his bubble gun. As he passed blue chibi versions of Yang and Ren, he fired a rainbow to them, creating a living, inflatable unicorn. The two hopped onto the floating creature and flew off next to Jaune. Jaune skipped along passed the screen, showing a group of seven chibi people behind him, all in blue: all of team RWBY, Nora in the lower right corner waving at the camera, Ren still on the balloonicorn, and Velvet.
Reality hit again, showing the waving as the blue Nora was on the ground reaching her hand out while crying for help. The screen followed as the blue Blake ran passed, her arm covered in shards of glass. Suddenly, a blue Pyrrha jumped out of an upper story window of a burning building.
Pyrrha shook in her chair. No on was speaking anymore. No one could even imagine of saying anything toward all of this. That made her nerves worse. Someone, say something! Break this tension with a stupid joke! Someone bring them out of this version!
Pyrrha crawled forward, grabbing onto the leg of someone standing. She leaned up crying out, "Help!" She hoped for a savior. She found her devil.
Jaune looked down toward her with his cold masked face and brought the flamethrower toward the injured sniper. A sickening hiss was replaced by the sound of the screams of a person being cooked alive. Jaune simply tilted his head, almost as if he no idea what was going on.
The screen changed to show a complete red set of the nine figures included in the short, including Jaune. All stood in a coordinated line, making it clear they were a team. The jazz music hit a loud hook as the screen moved back to show the full team behind a title: [Team Remnant 2].
Ironwood put two and two together first, given everything he's been through as a military commander, "Okay… So, Jaune is a part of that red team, and we've been seeing him fight a blue team…"
Glynda thought for a moment, "But why would the blue team look exactly like the red group?"
"Hardware limitations?" Head turned toward Neptune, who just nervously cleared his throat to prepare himself, "I mean… this kind of looks like a commercial for a video game. So, both sides would look the same except for their color, to tell teams apart." Everyone was silent a moment, still watching him. Neptune chuckled nervously, "I had a part time job back home helping a local business with their advertising. I didn't really do all that much, but I picked a few things up." What he said certainly made sense. In truth, that made a few of them feel better.
The screen continued, showing Jaune jovially walking along a candy pathway as the music continued. As the screen pulled back, they saw a descended chunk of spine. A bit farther back and they saw the whole in a blue shirt. Then they saw Yang kneeling on the ground with a hole in her abdomen. All the while, they could see Jaune walking in the candy land through the hole. Her situation finally hit and she coiled up, falling forward. Now Jaune was slowly walking through the burning town. His work was done. The Blu team was dead and burned. But they'd be back. They always came back.
Neptune pointed to the screen, "See? Respawning enemies."
Weiss's eye twitched, "But… why spell blue as B-l-u?"
"Likely as a counter to the color red. That way they'd both had three letters? Or maybe there's a backstory and they're both nicknames or something, I don't know."
Jaune walked on. He allowed himself a moment to indulge in a job well done. As a nearby windmill collapsed, he let out a whistle. A haunting song carried through his mask, as he sang to the music in his head.