Chapter Text
“Hey Weiss?” Ruby asked her hero partner and girlfriend as they looked over the new options and perks for leveling up.
“Yes, Ruby?” Weiss asked as she contemplated if she should move onto the next row or max out her current perk. It had already proven it’s worth by saving her mother with a bonus item it had granted them earlier and while the newly opened talents were enticing she hated to leave it unfinished when she could simply ‘max it out’, as Ruby would say.
“Have we ever really looked in the options menu?” Ruby asked, sounding confused as Weiss opened her mouth before she closed it realizing she couldn’t recall ever actually doing that before.
“I don’t think we have,” Weiss admitted after a moment before she turned away from the perks to focus on her girlfriend.
“There’s some interesting stuff in here,” Ruby said as she turned the display toward Weiss and enlarged it.
“A lot of this looks fairly standard from what I remember from your games,” Weiss said as Ruby went through the various menus.
“Yeah but some of these options just make me wonder what effect they’ll have you know? Like here’s a difficulty slider!” Ruby said with a gasp as Weiss reached past her in an attempt to move it since it was currently placed almost entirely to the right on the next to hardest setting.
As soon as she pushed it all the way to the easiest setting confetti popped up as the box displayed a message.
You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
You didn’t grow, and you didn’t improve.
You took a shortcut and obtained nothing.
You experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and therefore nothing was gained.
It’s sad you don’t know the difference, but it’s about what I expected from the least useful Schnee. Grats or whatever.
As Weiss growled the box vanished and the difficulty slider was instead placed all the way to the right and attempts to alter it didn’t make it budge a single inch.
“This wasn’t where it was!” Weiss shrieked at the box in frustration.
“I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further.”
“It’s ok Weiss I’m sure it’ll be fine. Let’s uh look at the other options though,” Ruby said as she took and rubbed the back of Weiss’s hand to calm her down.
“Oh hey look we can pick our own theme songs, or even music when we’re training or just hanging around. Looks like we unlock more by just listening to it or finding music. That makes sense,” Ruby muttered as she flicked through the menu absorbing information far faster than any normal person would be able to.
“Anything interesting?” Weiss asked as she placed her other hand over Ruby’s and just savored her closeness to her and reveled in the fact that Ruby was alive and healthy. Not only that but they were shadowing several absurdly strong heroes and were being mentored by Maria Calavera, an older but extremely deadly huntsman.
Granted her father was out there and likely still smarting from mother being saved but Weiss couldn’t find it in herself to care. She had her beloved with her, and she was slowly but surely gaining more mastery over her newfound abilities.
She or her family would find him and put him away for good, new abilities or not.
That uplifting thought in mind she turned back to the various menu options on display as Ruby looked over some and discarded others out of hand.
“Field of View? Yeah, not changing that. Controls? Hard no. Oh graphical options neat,” Ruby said, pulling up a new options menu.
“Anything interesting?’ Weiss asked as she looked over the basic menu which was now playing some peppy upbeat background music she assumed Ruby had chosen.
“Yeah the graphics settings. We’re on ultra graphics right now so that’s pretty good but it says there are different ‘styles’ we can go with,” Ruby informed her hero partner as she clicked on the drop down box and looked it over.
“Two D sprites with pre-rendered backgrounds. Huh let’s see that,” Ruby said as she clicked on the option and suddenly everything felt…weird.
“Ruby what did you do?” Weiss asked, her voice dangerously calm as she looked at herself and the world around them.
“Is, what even is this?” Weiss said as she tried to pick up a book only to find it wouldn’t budge. She tried again with the same result.
She then tried to go sit on the bed only to find herself sitting…wrong? She was lying upside down.
Why was this happening?
“Ok, nope let’s try another one,” Ruby said deftly, flicking her finger and suddenly Weiss felt herself ‘pop’ for lack of a better word. Wait, why was she so…strange?
Her hands were squares now? She rushed to a mirror and looked at her blocky and squared head in horror before she heard another click and suddenly it was nearly thrice as big as before as she struggled to keep standing without her head bobbing back and forth.
She ignored Ruby’s snicker as her head went back to a normal size although now her hands were more circular but appeared to function more like a claw from a crane machine?
Wait, now she was more flat? Was the box mocking her somehow? Oh she would make it pay dearly if it was.
“Ruby what?” Weiss’s question died on her lips as she looked at her girlfriend before she snorted.
“Sup?” Ruby asked as she looked up from the options and giggled as she saw Weiss.
“We look like some of those retro games we play!” Ruby said excitedly as she walked over to Weiss and held out her hand which Weiss wasted no time in supplying.
“Weird,” Ruby said looking at their joined hands.
“It still feels right. I can still feel your fingers in mine even though it just looks like two pieces of paper touching,” Weiss mused.
“We clearly need to test this!” Ruby said excitedly and before Weiss could ask what she had in mind Ruby leaned over and pecked her on the cheek.
“Just as amazing as always!” Ruby chirped as Weiss sighed fondly.
“You’re such a menace,” Weiss said with no heat.
“Yeah but you’re stuck with me. No take backs!” Ruby said even as she pulled up the reputation screen to show Weiss again.
“Trust me I’m well aware that I managed to find the best partner possible early in life. There’s no take backs happening,” Weiss said.
“You’re so sweet!” Ruby praised her partner who put on a faux smug look for a moment before they both giggled.
“Are you gonna turn it back to normal?” Weiss asked curiously.
“Probably, but I’m not gonna lie. I kinda wanna know how Uncle Qrow looks like this, and your sister too!” Ruby said slyly.
Weiss giggled at the mental image as the world went back to normal around her, graphically that is.
Achievement Unlocked “Just because you could doesn’t mean that you should”
Mess around with various graphical settings in the menu before setting them back to normal.
Reward: Preview of one of the Bad Endings for each party.
“That doesn’t…seem like a good reward,” Weiss offered as she looked at it.
“I mean if we know the bad ending maybe we can find a way to make sure it doesn’t happen?” Ruby offered although she also sounded uneasy about it.
“You’re right. Last time it helped show us a way to avert my mother’s fate so despite how…morbid this appears we’d probably gain more by viewing it,” Weiss said.
As if her words were the catalyst the box began to suck Ruby into it as a mighty wind pulled her partner into the screen before Weiss could so much as blink.
Before she could even think to screech at the box Ruby was deposited back next to her where she’d been standing moments before.
“Oh wow that was…not great,” Ruby admitted. Before Weiss could follow up or press her on what that meant she felt herself being pulled somewhere .
Weiss barely managed to control her fall and rolled before coming to her feet as she’d been shown.
She frowned as she reached for her weapon on instinct and came up empty. She looked around and saw the ruins of a city.
A few houses were standing, such as it was but most appeared to be in horrible disrepair.
Ruins stretched out as far as she could see, and was it her imagination or was the sun larger than it should be. It was certainly hot, if nothing else. It was so bright she couldn’t even look in its direction and instead averted her eyes to the rest of the colorless world.
“How strange,” a chilling voice came from behind Weiss.
Behind her was a woman if she could even be called that. She appeared to be a woman, but every instinct in Weiss’s body was screaming at her that this was someone who could, and would kill if given the slightest reason to do so. White skin with black veins and equally black almost soulless eyes stared back at her.
“I remember you,” the voice said. “I was sure I killed you. Right over there,” the woman mused as she pointed down the street before she reconsidered. “Or was it that way? No matter, I suppose.”
“W-who are you?” Weiss finally managed to make herself ask.
“I, dear child, am Salem, and clearly you are not the one I remember although you do look the part. You’re lacking the killing intent. The resolve to do what was needed. Yes you’re a pale imitation at best.” Salem concluded disregarding any threat Weiss might pose.
“What do you mean?” Weiss asked before she could stop herself.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Salem asked amused. “I rule this desolate world. There is only myself and a handful of others who can’t be killed left, but even then I am the master of them. I’ve been working on rebuilding the city in my spare time,” Salem confided as Weiss shot her a strange look.
“Everyone needs a hobby, and after I’d hunted down and killed the last of the so-called heroes there was precious little else for me to do,” Salem admitted.
“You killed all of them?”
“Every last one. Your sister fought well, but I had to kill her if only to enrage Qrow and see how truly deadly he could be. When you’re as old as I am, new experiences are to be savored after all.
He was magnificent. A pity he was mortal all the same, but there are precious few fights I was ever forced to exert myself to win. A shame really,” Salem said as she put her hand on one of the intact fence pieces near a still standing home.
Suddenly a bright flare erupted from her hands and demolished the house in an instant.
“It was two feet to the left of where it should have been,” Salem mused as she stared at the ruins of the house. “I’ll get it next time.”
“Your...mentor?” Salem queried with a tilt to her head as if she couldn’t recall or wasn't sure it fit. “The old woman was similarly skilled. A shame she was so old she couldn’t keep it up for long though. Perhaps I should have attempted my attack earlier.”
“We’ll stop you!” Weiss promised as she tried to keep her hands from shaking as Salem slowly walked toward her.
“I do hope you try. At least make it more interesting this time,” Salem said before her eyes flicked over Weiss’s shoulder and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Weiss demanded as she felt herself being pulled away again.
Salem merely continued to laugh as Weiss found herself stumbling back into the room.
She must have looked rather ill as Ruby smothered her in a hug.
“Bad for you too huh?” Ruby asked and Weiss nodded.
“D-do you think we could just stay here for a little while?” Weiss asked.
“As long as you want. The rest can wait,” Ruby assured them as the world remained frozen around them.
The box hovered nearby silently as it waited on their inputs for new perks and other choices.