King: This one's a little weird. Perhaps a little wild. But if you're from 'round here, enjoy this dimension~!

Inspiration: Star vs the Forces of Evil.

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The screen was alone again. Without King to stop it, it started the next world, just to be like that.

The world was a beautiful hall of crystals and stone. So many crystal spires reaching up through the caverns. A figure stood in the hall, a man in a blue-green, almost crystal-like armor, tapping his foot with arms crossed. Ironwood groaned and tilted his head back. "What's taking so long?"

Ironwood blinked, "Okay? So, I'm opening this one. Question is, where does this go now?"

Ironwood perked up hearing a portal open. Stepping through was a young woman with white hair. Her deep blue dress gave a sense of regality. One oddity was that she had a pair of purple diamonds on her cheeks.

Ruby smiled, "Weiss's turn!"

Ironwood bowed, "Welcome, my queen."

The white-haired girl shook her head. "Stop Ironwood… Please… I need to speak with you."

"What do you require Lady Willow?"

Yang raised an eyebrow, "Willow?"

Weiss took a breath, "My mother."

Team RWBY heard the stories about the Schnee family, straight from the source. It was not a nice story.

Willow took a breath. "I need to speak to one of your prisoners."

The camera focused on one of the crystals, revealing a man sealed within.

"I…" Ironwood held his tongue. Willow had just lost her mother and became a Queen at only 17. With the war going on, she had too much on her shoulders, "Which one, my queen?"

Ruby's gaze fell slightly. She felt this Willow's pain. Especially now that she was a leader.

Willow looked over to one particular crystal in the background. She walked up, allowing the audience to see the man beneath. A blonde in his thirties, sealed beneath crystal. His blue eyes were blank within his prison. He dressed in a dark purple regalia with dark accenting, long sleeves, and gloves. His cheeks were adorned with pink spades.

Nora laughed, "Oh my gosh! Look at Jaune! Those little spades are adorable! Ooh! Maybe they should be hearts! That would be even funnier!"

Ironwood's face paled, "No! No no no no no! No!"

"James…"

"With all do respect, your majesty, no God damn way!"

"James."

"Do you know who that is?!"

"Of course I do."

"Then how could you ask me to let him out?!"

Ruby shrunk in her chair a little, "I don't like where this is going…"

Mercury grinned, "I'm having fun, at least."

"Oh! Good for you!"

Emerald rolled her eyes, "You people make this too easy."

Willow turned back to the crystal. "Then just free his head. I need to speak to him."

Ironwood groaned, "Fine. You are the queen now, so I have to take that into account. But I will step in if I think things are going badly."

Willow nodded.

Ironwood swiped his hand and a section of the crystal started to melt away. He backed away so as to not interfere with their conversation.

Jaune was free. Well, his head was. His eyes fell down toward Willow, who had a wand raised and pointed toward Jaune. Jaune took in a deep breath and collapsed forward.

Willow jumped a little. "Oh my gosh! I killed him!"

The way she said that got more than a few of them to chuckle. They doubted that h was dead, so it was funny.

Jaune groaned, lifting his head up slightly. "B… 4…"

Willow raised a brow, "Before? Before what?"

Jaune motioned to something behind her with his chin.

Willow turned to see a vending machine. "Oh! You want a…"

Jaune nodded quickly.

Yang chuckled, "How long was he in there?"

A few others laughed as well.

Willow got him his requested snack, a chocolate bar, and walked back. She freed the candy from its wrapped and held it up toward him, "I'm sorry if this seems out of nowhere, but I needed to talk to you."

Jaune grabbed the bar in his mouth and lifted it up. He struggled a bit and freed his left hand from within its prison. This ended up leaving his glove behind, revealing his extremely dark purple hand.

Nora recoiled, "What happened to his hand?"

Pyrrha looked around, as if to find an answer among the others, "I… don't think we're supposed to know yet."

Jaune used his newly freed hand to snap a section of the bar off from his mouth and ate the small chunk left in. He let out a satisfied sigh, "Terribly sorry about that. I've been craving one of these since they put in the machines." This time, Jaune sounded more sophisticated, adopting an accent similar to that of Velvet.

Velvet blushed a little, but not nearly as much as usual. It was interesting to hear Jaune speak like that, all thinks considered.

"You… could see? The whole time?"

"Nope. But I never got to try one when they were put in. Speaking of, how long have I been…" He looked around his crystal prison, "Crystalized? Oh! How is old Ironwood? Is he still fighting with Glynda? No! No. I'm getting off topic. Timelines. How long have I been in here?" Jaune waited for her answer, taking a bite into his bar.

"Um…" Willow considered lying but decided against it. "Three hundred years."

Jaune's eyes went wide and he nearly dropped his snack. "Three hun- Really?"

Willow nodded.

"Huh…" He was silent. After a moment, he just took another bite from his chocolate.

Glynda was able to repress a chuckle, "He's taking that rather well."

Ozpin was about to respond, but was cut off by Oscar, "On the surface. It's likely he's freaking out on the inside."

Jaune swallowed the last of his chocolate and crumpled the wrapper. He tossed the foil into the trash bin by the vending machine. "Nailed it." He turned his focus back to Willow. "Now, you said you needed something from me." He paused, noticing that Willow had a wand in hand.

The wand had a sleek handle with a crystalline heart set at the top. It was a symbol of the Atlassian royal family and a source of powerful magic. With each hand, it would change form. Jaune thought back to his own version of the wand; a dark metal staff with a spade at the tip, making it resemble a spear, with a thorn-covered vine wrapping around the form.

Nora chuckled, "So, she has magic! That's so awesome!"

Ruby smiled as well, "Jaune's version of that wand looks pretty cool."

Penny nodded, "It is rather esthetically pleasing."

Jaune looked into Willow's eyes, "If I may… Why do you have the wand? If I remember correctly, that is only supposed to be wielded by the rulers of Atlas. And, unless you were able to perfect an anti-aging spell, you seem a bit young to be a queen."

Willow's hand shook, "My mother… she…" She couldn't find it in herself to continue.

Thankfully, she didn't have to. Jaune picked up on this rather quickly, "Oh… I'm so sorry young one."

Willow shook her head and wiped away forming tears, "It's fine."

"Far from it, child. But I understand you wish to move on. You said you wanted something from me. Let's start with that."

Coco leaned back in her chair and propped her legs up on the back of the seat in front of her, "This version of Arc kind of reminds me of… How do I put this?"

Tai chuckled, "Your father?"

"Yeah! That's it! Why is that? My dad was never like that."

"He's acting kind of like the universal father figure." Oscar pointed out, "Or, I guess, the ideal King."

Weiss blinked. "Wait… He had that wand before my mother in this world. A wand that is supposed to be a symbol of royalty."

Ruby turned to her partner, "So… Old King Jaune?"

Yang was in a laughing fit, "More like Grandpa Jaune, right Weiss?!"

Weiss's eye twitched. "My 300-year-old ancestor… That seems to be where this is going… I don't even know why I try to understand any of these worlds."

Willow took a breath before looking back up to him, "I need a spell. One that can kill something immortal."

Jaune raised an eyebrow, "You realize what your asking for, right? That kind of magic is considered the darkest of dark magics."

"I don't care."

"A vengeance mission then… Alright. I'll help you. But the magic you seek is too powerful to be simply learned. It requires a magical contract to pass on."

"I'll do whatever I need to. What do you want?"

Jaune smiled, "Isn't it obvious? My freedom."

Weiss's eyes narrowed, "I've a feeling that there's more to this than meets the eye."

Jaune held his free hand down toward her, "Do we have a deal?"

Willow nodded and shook Jaune's hand. A light emanated from their grasp as a purple ribbon appeared and wrapped around their arms. After a moment, the ribbon disappeared, absorbing into their skins. Willow released her grip and looked down to her hand. "So… what now?"

Jaune chuckled, "All you need to do, is point your wand toward your enemy and recite this incantation. 'I call the darkness unto me, from deepest depths of earth and sea.'"

The screen faded as the words continued, now showing Willow standing before a rather angry looking Sienna Kahn, "From ancient evils unawoken, break the one who can't be broken! To blackest nights I pledge my soul and crush my heart to burning coal! To summon forth a deathly power! To see my hated foe devoured!" The world echoed in that moment.

In a flash of light, the scene became a tapestry. Upon the stitching was the scene of Willow wielding her wand against Sienna. A spell cast against the immortal being.

Sienna smirked, "Immortality sounds rather interesting actually."

Ozpin and Oscar went deadpan. Neither said a word. Both knew of the immortals' curse.

But this would be a wound that would never heal. A hand ripped from the woman who killed her mother, Willow be forever immortalized in this moment. So much so, that her tapestry's accompanying plaque read as follows, [The immortal monster will be forever haunted, by the darkest spell of Willow the Undaunted].

The camera pulled away to show Ozpin in a golden robe. He took a deep breath, looking up to the tapestry.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow, "Okay? Am I important in this somehow?"

Oscar shrugged.

Ozpin started to walk to the right on screen. A new tapestry came into view, this one adorned by the image of Weiss with her snowflake-themed wand in hand and ice blue snowflakes on her cheeks. Ozpin stopped and read out her plaque, [Weiss the Underestimated was Queen for all of four days. Her only act while on the throne was to give it all away].

Weiss's eyes fell. She considered giving up on the SDC and devoting completely to being a huntress. But she couldn't leave her grandfather's company as it was, nor her family name.

Ozpin shook his head. "You showed real promise. Still do. Probably the most talented of the Royals I trained. But in the end, you gave it all back to him…"

The banner hanging at the end of the hall was a portrait of Jaune sitting in a throne with a woman to his side. A true monster, her ashen skin and midnight hair held a real contrast, but her piercing amber eyes seemed to burn into the soul.

Cinder raised an unimpressed brow. She supposed it only a matter of time given how so many in the audience were already paired alongside the boy. And it was interesting as she resembled Salem in this world, just slightly more human and less Grimm. But she couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. Something that made her skin crawl.

Ozpin looked down to the plaque accompanying Jaune's banner, [Jaune, King of Atlas, to a human queen was wed, but took a monster for his love and away from Atlas fled]. Ozpin remembered those years. When Jaune ran away from this throne to pursue a love no one believed could be possible. Then he remembered how things became after his return.

Scenes began to flash on screen.

The first was of Weiss meeting Jaune in the castle garden. The two were like family within minutes. They laughed together. Jaune offered Weiss advice for her troubles. "I can't speak for what you should do. All I can say is walk with your heart and have no regrets."

Qrow sighed, "Sometimes, that's the only advice you can give."

Yang smiled, "Oh? So, Uncle Qrow, you're saying we should just… wing it?"

Cue set of groans and one parental high-five.

The scene swapped to an underground bunker. He walked along with Willow, who now seemed a few years older than him. They searched through records, Jaune becoming desperate over time. "There has to be something here! There just has to, Willow!"

"What do you think he's looking for?" Coco asked.

"I don't know. But it must be important." Velvet felt sorry for this scene. She couldn't quite tell why yet.

Finally, a court scene. Jaune's hands were bound. He glared up to his judges: Willow, Ironwood, Glynda, and Leonardo Lionheart (as seen through a crystal ball). Jaune's eyes were filled with sorrow, anger, and a demand for answers, "What happened to Elizabeth? WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTER?!"

Eyes fell on those involved as angered glares, though only for a moment.

Cinder was unmoved. She personally never cared for the idea of attachments.

Ozpin opened his eyes an took a breath, looking to a second plaque. Because of a tangled web of subterfuge and insanity, Weiss felt it best to return the throne and wand to the old King. He now had a new banner for his second rule.

[Returned from the past, he set upon Atlas in hate, truly heartless. So began the second reign of Atlas's King of Darkness].