King: I just... I can't wait for 100. It's getting me too excited to write the rest in between. I'm still going to have fun with it.

Knox: You're weird.

King: I'm aware. Let's do this and hope you enjoy.

Inspiration 1: n/a

Inspiration 2: Zero Punctuation

/\

The screen blinked to show the usher version of Jaune again, signaling an intermission. Everyone stood and stretched again.

Jaune cracked his back a bit before twisting around. "I think we could use some exercise… A bit of training might be good."

Yang stretched her arms up over her head, "That actually sounds good. I could use a good workout."

Nora jumped up among the seats, "Let's do this!"

The students all made their way to the arena for a bit of practice. The rest of the viewers split up depending on their interests. One notable interaction was Emerald and Mercury. Emerald had pulled the silver haired assassin to a side room to confront him.

She glared daggers at him with arms crossed, "What's going on with you?"

Mercury raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about?"

"Don't bother Mercury. You already know what I'm talking about. You've been ignoring us and outwardly challenged Cinder."

"So? Not like she can do anything to me here."

"That's not the point, Mercury. You need to get your act together or…"

"Or what?!" Mercury snapped at Emerald, causing her to recoil a bit. "I didn't kill my old man just to end up under someone else's boot! The only reason I followed you two was because it made sense at the time. You needed my skills, I needed somewhere to go. I'm not some blind little lost puppy like you. I see Cinder for what she is."

"What?!" Emerald moved to slap him, but he caught her hand.

He looked in her eyes, silent. After a moment, he shoved her off and back into the wall. "You do know… don't you? That she doesn't give a shit about us. We're just her pawns. She'll just use and toss us when she's done. Well fuck that. When we're back, I'm going to do things my way." He turned and walked off, leaving Emerald stunned against the wall in shock.

Mercury left her behind and up to the library. It was the last place they'd expect to find him, with some good reason. He looked over the shelves and the books resting atop them. He raised his eyebrow at seeing a book that appeared out of place. The rest of the books along the shelf were white with two golden lines across the spine, likely a reference to Arc's symbol. But this book was black with two red lines instead. It was the only one like it, so it stuck out like a sore thumb. So, he decided to pick it up and take a look. It had no words on the cover, only a black surface with two red arches like a palette swap of that kid's symbol. But once he cracked open the book, he knew a little too well what it was.

Within its pages were profiles of men and women he knew by name, mostly through his father's rantings. Some of them had a large red X over their pictures. This was a hitlist, or a collection of Most Wanted profiles. His father had a collection of these books that he kept as trophies of the people that tried to hunt him down. Though he'd never seen one like this. He flipped through its pages and found his reason, Marcus Black wasn't in the book. Mercury smirked to himself out of spite for his father, that he wasn't good enough. But, he did find something rather interesting.

Within the book, four names stuck out: Arthur Watts, Tyrian Callows, Hazel Rainart, and Cinder Fall. Each one had a full profile and motivations. At least as complete as they could. Tyrian was a serial killer in Vacuo known for his brutality and the fact he was never caught, supposedly disappearing. Arthur Watts was a political saboteur that reveled in bringing the smaller cities outside the kingdoms to ruin. Hazel was the least criminal of the group, apparently going on a revenge mission against Ozpin because his sister died during Beacon's initiation.

Then, there was Cinder. He was well aware he know next to nothing about her before joining her cause, but it was jarring how little he actually knew. According to the book, she was orphaned at a young age after burning her family home to the ground. After that, she burned down the orphanage. She disappeared and everyone thought she finally scorched herself to cinders. Reappearing later with more self-control over her pyromania, she had joined Salem's group and did her bidding until reaching the inner circle, though the book only knew she was alive and dangerous.

Mercury sighed and nodded, "That explains a lot." He closed the book and placed it back among its contemporaries. He looked over to the side plate of the shelf, confirming it was his reality and not some weird parallel version. Sure enough, it was his. He smirked to himself, "I might be able to use this."

\/

The students decided to spit up today. Teams RWBY and JNPR spent the time in the training arena. Coco and Velvet, though, decided to wonder. As they walked the halls, they found a new room, door opened slightly. It was labeled [Relic Room]. Coco was too curious not to take a peek and Velvet didn't have the will to be able to stop her.

Coco opened the door and too a step into the room. She let out an impressed whistle, "Well now…"

Behind the door was a large room filled with various displays with items from across the multiverse. The room itself resembled a high-end museum people would pride themselves for merely existing. Tile flooring and tapestries formed together like a wonderful piece of art. But the real attraction was those displays.

Coco passed by a display with a large brick of solid gold. Arc's symbol was etched into the bar, and it came with a bit of lettering to indicate weight and purity. She turned to the plating at the side that told its story. It was an Arcadian gold bar and old as hell. It went back four generations. "Why would this be here, though?"

Velvet shrugged and looked around. She blinked seeing a gold of a different variety. Within the glass case was a trio of golden triangles formed together into a larger triangular form with the center missing. "Huh… Hey Coco!"

Coco approached and raised an eyebrow, "What is it?"

"It says here it's something called a Triforce."

"That's a dumb name."

"Apparently, it's made up of three key aspects: Courage, Knowledge, and Power." She ran her finger over the plate as she read from it, "'When brought together, the Triforce can grant a wish to one who wields its might.' So, there's that."

"Huh…" Coco looked over the golden trio, noticing that she couldn't see her reflection within. "That's pretty crazy." Coco moved away, getting a weird feeling from that thing. She found her gaze falling on a red teardrop-shaped gemstone with a vinyl record wreathed in gold on the outer edges. She leaned down and looked over the plate.

[Umbral Tear and Angelic LP]

"Okay… So, what are these supposed to be?"

Velvet looked over to the side of the case to fine four pistols in blue metal with gemstones embedded into their sides. "Not sure… Why four pistols?" Something caught her eye to the side. She turned and found a new display. On the far wall was a bright neon sign. It was a glowing red outline of three words, Devil May Cry.

Before they could ask anything about it, the PA system popped to life, "Five minute warning, everybody~!" It was Knox's turn to use the microphone.

Coco and Velvet turned to one another and nodded, leaving the room.

\/

As everyone gathered again, Knox and King were mid-argument.

Knox floated to the side, "I'm just saying, it doesn't seem like our style."

"Isn't that the point?" King remained motionless in the air. King sighed and turned to the group of viewers, "Sorry about that. Knox and I need to discuss something. We'll play a short reality for you to tie you over."

The two disappeared into flickers.

Yang leaned back and kicked up her feet, "Let's see what we've got this time."

It won't be very long, but the screen started to glow for the next world.

The world opened as a blue screen with white lettering. [Zero Punctuation reviews Painkiller]. A simplified cartoon was sitting behind a desk in the lower corner. He was solid white, with no neck, arms, or mouth and detached legs. He was also wearing what looked like a fedora on his head.

"A review?" Yang raised a brow, "Really?"

Ruby shrugged, "Maybe it'll be fun…"

The cartoon appeared atop a strange imp-looking creature's back as they heard him speak, revealing it to be Jaune, "Now that we've left Grand Theft Auto 4 in the dust and MGS 4 is an overly verbose speck on the horizon we enter the season known as 'Bugger All's Coming Out.'" He spoke rather quickly, similarly to Oobleck, but still at un-caffeinated human standards.

Velvet blinked a bit in surprise. She'd not heard a phrase like that in a while. "Huh…"

The picture moved to show an arrow from Jaune's cartoon to a version wearing a Christmas hat. "Too far from Christmas to be of interest to any publishers to the point where games stop trickling out and reviewers like me can indulge themselves in strange retro reviews of games that interest them and no one else."

The new picture showed Jaune sitting next to a pile of game boxes. He pulled out a game from his desk with a sort of smile. Again, no actual mouth. The picture moved to show him running with a game over his head, "Either to bring attention to an under apricated gem, or to add a few bitch slaps that managed to escape the first time around. So let's talk about a game I found in a bin."

Yang nodded slightly, "Okay… I have to admit, as a review this is a good format."

The screen swapped to show the game box, "Painkiller is the latest game by Polish developer People Can Fly, perhaps best known for their previous game E.T. for the Atari twenty-six hundred."

Everyone felt a shiver run up their spines. It was like a twisted omen of doom that could bring ruin upon those within its reality.

"Not really. Painkiller is the only game by People Can Fly."

Everyone felt a certain relief hearing that, but they weren't sure why.

"Which makes it all the more amazing that Painkiller is fucking awesome!" The picture swapped to show the game with a set of the cartoony legs like Jaune's and a pair of very muscular arms mid flex. "And can kick the ass of most big mainstream titles and can have them for breakfast afterwards."

Nora snickered a bit at the picture of the game with arms.

Yang grinned a bit. "Oh?" She enjoyed games in her off time from time to time and was looking for a new one… Why not see if this one's any good? She can go back to look if there's anything like it back home.

Jaune hung his head at his desk, "Because if the game blew goats I could have made a joke like 'Painkiller, you'll certainly need one.'"

Yang and Tai let out a small snicker.

"Painkiller is in the same bucket as Serious Sam and the original Doom games, a fun antidote to fancy pants modern FPS-ing. There are no stealth missions, no escort quests, no key hunting, no dorky support character dribbling in your ear hole, no mission objectives besides kill everyone… There's just you, some guns, and the entire population of Murder Town between you and where you want to go." The screen showed Jaune with several weapons standing amongst a hoard of the imp creatures, "It's pure genocidal fun," The cartoon of Jaune blinked to be wearing a familiar red and white mask, but it was short lived as the picture swapped as soon as it appeared, "that most triple A developers seem to think is beneath them.

Blake, Ilia, Sienna, Kali, and Gira could see the joke, but didn't think he'd turn out that badly… right?

The cartoony Jaune now had a long grey beard and a cane, hunched over, "Now, I'm not about to shake my walking stick and complain that shooters were better before they started putting on airs, but sometimes you just want to enjoy the old school catharsis of action games with the immersive greyish-brown of modern gaming technology. And that's a niche Painkiller fills beautifully. That's not to say that Painkiller is nothing but murdering tons of dudes. There's a card system that makes it easier to murder tons of dudes. There's a soul collecting element that results in new and interesting way to murder tons of dudes…"

Nora snickered, "I'm starting to see a pattern here~"

"Okay… maybe it is nothing but murdering tons of dudes, but it does it so well, what more could you want? You can hunt through the levels for secrets and treasures if you really must, but if more than a minute passes without a dude and a murder you're not playing it right."

The new scene showed what was supposed to represent People Can Fly, "It's like after the developers resigned themselves to making an unsophisticated shooter, they decided to make the most stylish unsophisticated shooter ever and spent the rest of the escort quest money on tarting it up."

Velvet shook a little, laughing silently to herself in knowing the meaning where no one else did. They could infer based on the conversation, but they didn't know what he means when he says 'tart.' So, you know, fun.

"Levels range from giant cathedrals to military bases and it all gives me a big, fat architectural stiffy."

This got a chuckle out of those with the dirty minds.

"There are 50 distinct types of dudes to murder, all amazingly well designed."

The new scene showed Jaune at a counter with [Getcha Weapons] on the side.

This got Ruby's attention. Games like that usually had crazy weapons that could give her new ideas.

"The weapons are a bold effort to escape the usual line up of melee, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, over powered exotic thing you can never find ammo for and only use in boss fights anyway. The default weapon is the titular Painkiller, a rotating blade arrangement perfect for forecasting light showers of body parts and reinacting the lawn mower scene from the movie Brain Dead. That's Dead Alive if you're American and fat."

Ruby blinked and got a bit excited at the idea. A multi-bladed spinning wheel of death! That was pretty cool.

"As for the guns, I could mention the hugely satisfying penis extension gun that pins baddies to walls with entire trees,"

Cue another set of snickers.

"But all you really need to know is that there's a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning."

Everyone went quiet. That just sounded too awesome of a concept and make Ruby drool a little.

"I wish I could make something like that up. It shoots shurikens and lightning! It could only be better if it had tits and was on fire!"

Jaune brought his hand to his face in sheer bewilderment and a hint of embarrassment. Hearing those words flow out from his mouth was just weird.

"Surprisingly, there is a story here, contained within overly long cinematics wherein a man resembling a shaved bear has a lovely life of sunshine and rainbows until he takes one too many lingering looks at his sexy wife and barrels straight into a truck. Wife-y goes to Heaven and our hero goes to Purgatory because God wants him to kill the demon generals from Hell trying to invade and blah-di-blah-di-blah! The story is unimportant. Now, I advocate for games as art and thus enjoy a good story, but any game where you can separate a dude's limbs in separate directions is already an art form. There are certainly criticisms besides the story can go fuck itself. The requirements to unlock of the cards are asinine, souls take forever to show up, so you end up twiddling your thumbs waiting for them to appear, the AI is pathetically thick getting stuck behind bits of scenery. But any criticism I have is immediately quashed when I remember it has a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning!"

Ruby grinned, "Still sounds so awesome."

"And that's Painkiller. The best way to blow off some steam is to blow off someone's naches."

Velvet froze up, a grin stuck on her face and her eyes wide. Yikes…