King: Guys... I have a problem.

Knox: How so?

King: So... I make mention that Jaune in this has a custom deck of cards. And I may have come up with who was on which card and what they would look like... I have themes and who's doing what. It's completely supplementary and wholly unnecessary. But I did it anyway. Maybe in the future, we'll reveal who was what.

Knox: To bad we're not very good artists...

King: Moving on. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Time to test your luck!

Inspiration: N/A

Note: I'm noticing that Fate chapters get me to write longer stories. Weird. Anyway, I am thinking of sort of re-doing the Install style Servant stories. But I'd do it as a separate world with a longer form story. But I don't want to do so as long as Fate/Remnant is ongoing here. I'll get out of your hair now. Enjoy. I wonder how many get why I named the chapter "Paradise"?

/\

King popped a tablet into existence and tapped the screen. "Let's see… What'll we get this time?"

The screen opened to show Jaune shuffling a deck of cards. This Jaune was dressed in a black button up shirt and white pants. He shuffled the deck from one hand to the other before pulling a card from the top. He raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Oh? So, the Queen of Hearts, huh? Alright then." He placed the card back and looked up to a brightening source of light. "Guess I have to win for the Ice Cream Dream."

Neo raised an eyebrow. Ice Cream Dream? Queen of Hearts? What's that mean?

The light covered the screen to transition to show the inside of the Amity Colosseum. Jaune was raised up on a platform. Opposite him, Mercury Black was raised up as his opponent. Jaune looked up to the scoreboard. This was the third round of the Vytal Festival, the first of the single combat rounds. And Jaune was tasked with taking on this challenge. He took a deep breath and smirked to himself. "Here we go."

In the booth, they heard Port shout, "BEGIN!"

Mercury took the advantage and jumped forward for a big kick. It was telegraphed, obvious, and easy to dodge. It was the kind of thing that he led with for a follow up strike. The follow up might not be as powerful, but it would be harder to dodge. So, he was naturally surprised when Jaune took the attack and was sent flying back with a solid five percent of his Aura lost.

Mercury scoffed, "Damn, he sucks. How could you not dodge that? Hell, the smart move would have been to block and push me off balance. But that? That was just sad."

Emerald turned to glare at her former associate. She wanted to knock his head off for a while, but she felt the urge to attack again. But the theater prevented her from doing so.

But, as Jaune rolled against the ground, he pushed up and landed on his feet with a little flourish. He started to clap in an exaggerated fashion, "Bravo! First blood is yours."

Mercury felt his eye twitch. "Little shit. You're mocking me."

"Of course not! How rude of you to say such a thing. It's simply common courtesy to give the player encouragement for their winnings."

"Winnings?" Nora asked, head tilted slightly.

Penny thought for a moment (read: searches the internet) before speaking, "I believe he is referencing something regarding casinos? I think. I can't be sure."

"Sounds like it." Clover nodded. "It's like when you win a game, they smile and say well done to get you to stick around and try to get more winnings."

Qrow raised an eyebrow, turning to the man, "Speaking from experience?"

Clover just nodded again. "Early on, before I joined Atlas, I tried to test the extent of my Semblance since it's luck-based. I won a lot of chips, but I got found out and banned so I couldn't cash out."

"That's pretty bad luck." Qrow raised his flask in sympathy before taking a drink.

And that line got the rest of the Ace Ops to look to each other, confused and concerned. They couldn't believe that 'bad luck' and 'Clover' could be used together.

Mercury just got more confused. "The hell are you talking about?"

Jaune grinned and brought his hands together. "Welcome one and all to Paradise!" He swung his arms out and a shimmer of golden light erupted around him and over the entire field area. When they could see again, the field had transformed into a glittering, golden hall filled with shot machines, card tables, and so on. As Mercury looked around in confusion and shock, Jaune snapped his fingers before pointing to the sky. "The Floor is open!"

"Woah!" Nora's eye's were just as glittery as the golden world on the canvas. "What is that?!"

Pyrrha tapped her chair in thought, in competition mode now, "An illusion semblance, likely."

Mercury looked around, "An illusion, right?"

"How droll. Where's your imagination?" Jaune jumped onto a table before leaping up the golden walls and onto a platform sticking up off to the north side. "But that's fine! There's enough glitz and glamour around us to make up for how dull you're being! Now then! Let's play! First game is Slots!" A large trio of holographic panels appeared in the sky behind Jaune. With a pull of an invisible lever, they started to spin.

The panels spun for a few seconds before snapping into form one at a time. They ended as three sets of cherries. The slot machines on the ground all started to glow before shooting out coins like machine guns. This caught Mercury off guard for a second before his assassin instincts forcibly kicked his ass into moving. One of the coins struck against his leg and pushed him just off balance enough to confirm something. They weren't an illusion. This was actually happening.

"Okay," Harriet remained skeptical, "how though? I've never seen a Semblance that could do something like that."

Clover tapped his chair in thought. "I can't help but think this is a bit more than a normal semblance."

As the coins petered out, Jaune pulled the 'lever' again. This time the panels had three BAR symbols. This time, the coins shot out like a group of shotguns.

Yang started snickering, "Talk about a buck-shot!"

Tai laughed before responding, saying, "It looks more like a hundred-buck-shot!"

Cue the groans by the others around them.

Mercury had to knock over and duck behind a table to block the coins. He growled in frustration before noticing a crack starting to form. He leapt away in time for the table to shatter apart from the force of the coins' onslaught. He ducked away behind another table, but found no coins following him. He heard the sound of the panels spinning and snapping in place again and looked around the table. A shadow started to loom over him as he looked upward, "You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

A wave of coins loomed over like a wave of gold. The panels above showed three 7s and lights around them were flashing [Jackpot]. As the wave hit the ground, Mercury tried to outrun the coins. As they rained down around him, he glanced back at the coins before kicking a slot machine off the ground and into the wave. The machine seemed to 'float' on the wave and that's all he needed. He knew he couldn't outrun the wave, but this might work. He jumped up and onto the machine and used it like a surfboard to keep out of danger.

Yang slammed her hands on her armrests, "Damn it! He's a jerk, but that's really cool!"

Mercury swung the machine around and used the momentum to jump off the top of the wave. Using a shotgun blast, he kicked off the machine and up to Jaune. Jaune was surprised long enough to get kicked off his platform and down onto the coins below. Jaune hit the surface and flew into the pile like water.

Weiss nearly had a conniption, "That is not how that would work! The surface would not give way and he would land on the pile like concrete!"

Jaune flinched at the idea.

Jaune popped up from the pile and up to the platform where Mercury had taken his spot. Jaune pulled himself out of the golden pile of coins and stood on the surface as he looked up.

Weiss nodded, "That's better."

Jaune smirked, "I must admit, that was impressive. But it's time to move on to a new game~" Jaune clapped, the sharp sound echoing over the arena. The coins started to glow before suddenly snapping out of existence. The platform disappeared, causing Mercury to have to parkour down to the floor again.

When he landed he found the slot machines had disappeared and the card tables had taken over the floor. Jaune flicked his wrists to the side before a series of poker chips appeared in his hands. He tossed them up into the air and scattered them around Mercury. Aune swung around and held his hand up to one side, snapping his fingers. After a moment, the chips exploded around him into chips of different colors. Like the coins, the force behind them was enough to cause quite a bit of damage.

"The versatility of this ability is actually impressive." Port crossed his arms as he observed the match. "Though I imagine things aren't as clear as we've seen so far."

Mercury rushed forward and knocked Jaune aside before noticing a pile of chips on the table next to him. If he was right… He picked up the chips and tossed them at Jaune. After a moment, they blew up in the blonde's face and knocked him onto his back.

"So it works against him, too." Coco tapped her finger on her cheek.

Jaune staggered back, but smirked. He struck the table next to him and a deck of cards flew up into the air. He drew a set of five from the air and threw them toward Mercury like throwing knives. Mercury jumped away as the five struck the floor, sticking up on their corners. The camera showed the backs of the cards. They had a red, patterned background with Crocea Mors down the length of the card. They were copies of the cards currently in a pouch at his side, all made from steel.

"So, those cards from the beginning were custom, huh?" Qrow chuckled.

King nodded, but also gave a so-so motion. "They're custom, but not quite. They're partly created by his ability. Basically, he has special cards with interesting… designs."

Neo raised an eyebrow before she had an epiphany moment. She used her Semblance to create a sign asking, [Is that the Ice Cream Dream thing before? Is that supposed to be me?]

After reading Neo's question, King nodded again. "A lot of you are designs on the cards. He doesn't know or has yet to meet you, but his ability set you all on the cards."

Nora was suddenly in front of the Theater's owner. "Oh! Oh! Can we see them?"

"Tell you what, next intermission. If you still care, I'll have a copy of the cards set up in the game room."

Jaune used this distraction to jump back and reassess the situation. He landed behind one of the tables and pulled the top card. "Jack of Spades. Okay then!" He clapped his hands again and the field swapped again.

This time, the field was covered in a red and black tile-like pattern with a series of numbers from 1 to 36. There were small sections of green that could be seen between the tiles. In the air, they could see a roulette wheel looming above them with the face toward them. It started to spin before the ball 'fell' up onto the wheel as it spun.

Mercury glanced up but didn't hang on that as Jaune charged forward with a punch. Mercury was able to dodge and moved onto the red 8. After a moment, another of the red tiles erupted with a large explosion before the impact flowed out over the other red tiles, causing damage to Mercury. Jaune, who was standing on a black tile, was unaffected.

"It's not just a minefield." Watts smirked as he rubbed his chin in thought. "It's effectively a fifty-fifty chance that you take some damage."

Mercury shook off the stun and looked up at his opponent. Damn it. All these dumb games are getting annoying. But maybe… He looked up to the wheel as it spun again. As the ball began to slow down, he smirked and charged at Jaune. Jaune blocked the first attack, but was pushed back onto the black 23. Suddenly, the space exploded with Jaune in the middle of the square. The impact force caused him to lose half his total aura.

This made his friends and teachers recoil from the effect. They knew he had a lot of aura, so losing half in one attack would require a lot of force.

As the smoke faded, the viewers could see Jaune covered in soot from the blast. Jaune blinked before shaking off the residue. "So, you can read where the ball will fall? Not bad. But that also means, I'll have to move on sooner than I'd have preferred." Jaune looked just as annoyed as he sounded. "But fine. If you want to play that kind of game, we'll play your way. Let's play a different roulette, then. One you can't figure out so easily."

Jaune held his hands up before clapping loudly over the arena. The golden lights all shut out one by one until only two remained. Two spotlights, both set on the two fighters. Jaune drew a golden revolver from a table beside him and picked up a single golden bullet. With a flourish, Jaune opened the cylinder and placed the bullet inside. He held up the gun a bit before spinning the barrel only to snap it in quickly.

Qrow took in a sharp breath. "Oh."

"What?" Ruby turned to her uncle. "What is it?"

Sun tapped his heel on the floor. "Raizer Roulette. You put a bullet in a revolver and spin it. Then you'd put it to your head and pull the trigger. If you're lucky, you get an empty chamber."

Blake turned to him in shock, "What the hell?! Why would anyone do that?"

"Back in Vacuo, it used to be a criminal torture tactic or something. If you got an empty chamber, they let you go. Something like that."

Jaune smirked and looked up, only to find Mercury leaping up with a big kick. But, on impact, Jaune didn't even budge or take any damage. Seeing the confusion on Mercury's face, Jauen smirked. "Sorry, you can't hurt me like that. And I can't hurt you either. We can only hurt ourselves in this game." He tossed the assassin the gun and crossed his arms. "Go ahead. You should know this game. And it's the only way this is going to end. So take that six shooter and get to it."

Mercury looked down at the weapon. He knew about Raizer Roulette, but why would he bother. He growled and looked up at Jaune. Technically, this was the best time to risk this. There's only one bullet in the chamber, ergo a one in six chance to 'lose.' He decided to test if he really couldn't this guy a few more times but found no reactions or damage dealt. With no other options, he growled and put the gun against the side of his head. With a pull of the trigger, there was only a click. With that done, he tossed the gun back to Jaune for his turn.

Nora sunk into her hair a little, "This is kind of tense."

Jaune picked up the gun and put it to his head like nothing was off. He pulled the trigger and found no reaction. "Two down."

When Mercury got the gun back, he pulled and found no bullet.

Then Jaune went again, finding an empty chamber. "Four."

Mercury grabbed the gun again and looked at the golden weapon. Fifty percent chance.

Yang and Tai smirked, knowing something even Ruby wouldn't. After all, Ruby never watched a Western.

Mercury put the gun at his head and narrowed his eyes. It was faint, but he could feel enough of a difference in weight in the gun. The bullet wasn't next to fire. He smirked and pulled the trigger, finding a click. With a smug smirk…

That pissed Emerald off

… he tossed the gun back to Jaune. "Go ahead."

Jaune picked the gun up and hesitated a moment.

"Oh… that's not good." Velvet said, worried.

Jaune took a breath before bringing the weapon to his head. Everything went silent before the sound of the gun echoed out over the area. A click.

"What?" Nora blined, confused.

That was when Ruby's weapon knowledge finally kicked in. "Oh! Old revolvers could have seven chambers! And one would be used as a safety when not in use! That's why they're six shooters!"

Yang clapped a couple times. "Nice work, sis."

Jaune smirked toward Mercury. "Welp, that's the game then."

Mercury, who didn't know about the number of chambers, took a step back in shock.

"There's only one chamber left. And it's your turn now, isn't it? But don't worry. You weren't going to win anyway. No matter what you did, this was the only way it could end. The game was rigged from the start for one simple reason." Jaune slowly pointed the gun at Mercury. "You could be the luckiest son of a bitch on Remnant. You could be the most subtle and masterful cheater. But when push comes to shove, the House always wins~" Jaune fired the gun and the screen went white.

"Holy crap that's a good line." Qrow grinned. "And it ain't wrong either."

Clover nodded, his own experiences playing back in his mind.

Mercury huffed, annoyed he lost. But then again, losing to some magic casino isn't exactly that embarrassing compared to the alternatives.