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"Not where, but when…" As the Blacksmith said that, Jaune spoke up.
"Wait! There is one thing we should grab before heading back to Remnant." Jaune felt his face, missing his scraggly beard like most of the RWBY fans had.
"Hmm?" The Blacksmith inquired.
"You sure this is a good idea, Jaune?" Ruby asked him as she carried a basket full of literal clockwork oranges.
"Positive! If we use these perfectly, we won't even need to wind up here in the first place!" Jaune smirked as he plucked another clockwork orange from a tree.
"Wouldn't that just cause a time paradox?" Blake asked Jaune. Jaune turned around and stared blankly at Blake before giving her the coldest response he could muster.
"… Shut up." He then led the group outside to Remnant. While they would marvel at the presence of almost the entire world (or what's left of it, anyways), Jaune decided to wind the clock back. Having had some idea of how it worked now, he warped back to…
SLICE!
"GODDAMN IT! NOT AGAIN! REEEEEEEE!" Cinder screamed as her Grimm arm was chopped off just as she was about to impale Penny with it despite it being Grimm and Penny having Aura and-
"Huh?" Penny looked to see a slightly altered Jaune with a broken sword having lopped it off.
"We'll be right back." Jaune took out another clockwork orange. "If we've done this right, we won't even need to get to this point anyways!" The clock suddenly goes backwards.
"Hey, Ruby, why don't you stay here and tell Ironwood the truth? Oscar might benefit better being out in the battlefield and not having a target on his back with the reli-" Jaune asked.
"Wait, how the hell does this work because I'm time travelling with you… Where the hell is Weiss and the others? And why are you still stealing my screen time!?" Ruby shouted before kicking him in the balls and taking his stash of oranges. "Speaking of Ironwood…" She takes one of the clocks and activates it.
"Hello, General." Ozpin greeted Ironwood.
"Please, drop the formalities." Ironwood warmly welcomed his old friend and shook Glynda's han-
BANG!
Ironwood suddenly had a bullet enter his head as he dropped limply onto the ground. While Glynda was in complete shock, Ozpin just sipped his cocoa like this was every day bro with the Disney channel flo.
"Hey! It's me!" Ruby shouted from across a building, saluting Ozpin and Glynda as she was mounted on the roof with Crescent Rose.
"W-wait… YOU FUCKING ASSASSINATED IRONWOOD!?" Glynda asked.
"Don't mind me, just cleaning up the troubles." Ruby said.
"TROUBLES?! YOU JUST KILLED A HEADMASTER!" Glynda shouted, ready to give Ruby the whipping that ironically can't be shown in the state RWBY was made in.
"Dude was an asshole. He brought a whole army to what was basically a peace conference." Ruby shrugged.
"Does that give you the incentive to commit assassination!?" Glynda gritted her teeth.
"Hol up. Let her cook." Ozpin said.
"Of course, if I go back further enough, this won't even need to happen! Oh, Ozpin, please don't gaslight Pyrrha into getting herself killed." Ruby said before taking out a clockwork orange. "It's gonna make a lot of people cry." Ruby lets out another few shots.
BANG! BANG!
Ironwood's body flopped a bit as two bullets pierced his fleshy bits.
"Sorry, venting some anger at him." Ruby said. She paused, then did a couple more shots at Ironwood before travelling back.
Ruby's final destination was a simple baby crib. There, no parent stood watch over the seemingly innocent infant as Ruby went over to her.
It seemed almost like a contrast that this blonde child would one day be the author to all of Ruby's pain, the reason why so many of her friends had suffered hardships, and why Remnant became a shithole whose slim hope of salvation rests on lazy gods.
It would be all so easy…
And yet…
"Okay, Ruby… Deep breath… You're gonna kill someone who will become an immortal witch who becomes the leader of all the Grimm and plots to genocide all of us…" Ruby tried to take control of the situation, breathing in and out…
"Yeah, I couldn't bring myself to kill a baby myself."
"WOAH!" Ruby jumped in surprise at the presence of a red ninja next to her.
"Red ninja? I've been called worse… Anyways, hi, name's Deadpool, couldn't help but notice the blatant plagiarism that's happening… I'm surprised you skipped the part where you kill a real-life person though."
"Well, it would be a little too dark and-"
"Didn't you commit suicide after getting beaten up by hallucinations of people who died by your actions?"
"First off, that wasn't suicide, that was ascension, and second off, I didn't-"
"Shh, do you hear that? It's the sound of me not caring. You want to hear another sound?"
"Uhh…"
"LAWSUIIIIIIT!"
"AHA! And because I own Fox, that means I own Deadpool, and because I own Deadpool…" As Mickey Mouse explained to the Warner Brothers (and Warner Sister) in the court of law, with Deadpool and Ruby standing in front of the trio.
"It means that I own the exclusive right to that montage that your show just ripped off!" Deadpool said.
"Aaah, jeez, well, we don't actually own the company anymore, we sold it off to Ol' Sleepy Zaz. Hey! What's the judgement for them?" Yakko shouted up at a large, old, decrepit vulture creature who was shook off from a nap in its nest of burning money.
"Aaah… The punishment can be summed up in a single word: Terrayvtugibyhzrgraqvqabgjbexbhgabjqvqvg." Zaz rambled.
"… Uuuuuh… I'll take that to mean I get to prune RWBY!" Deadpool stabbed RWBY (and Jaune) with a small stunstick that caused them to disintegrate into a sort of light fire.
"Dude!" Deadpool noticed Mobius standing next to him. "Did you check if you had the setting to 'send to TVA' this time?"
"Huh? Oh, thought I did…" Deadpool looked, only to notice… "Ah well. They'll be fine."
RWBY (and Jaune) found themselves stuck in a proverbial wasteland with rolling storm clouds and a dark filter. The area was chock full of Earth's wonders, all compiled into this land lost to time and even space…
"Great, we've gone from one crazy world to another! Things just can't get any- WAAAAAAHHHH!" Weiss commented before she went back to being comic relief as a swirling orange-yellow portal appeared under her feet and fell through.
"My Weissfu!" Jaune cried out as a floating sorcerer approached the group.
"AHA! I have captured your friend and now you must help me get out of this void!" He said.
"Who are you?!" Ruby asked.
"I am the Doctor Strange who lost his feet instead of his hands!" There was a pause before he frowned. "Look, Marvel's What If is, like, the only Marvel IP pulling in the Plus subscribers and now it's not by a lot… We really had to scrape the bottom of the variant pile to get a villain even close to Strange Supreme."
"Wait, is that the one who was with the Illuminati that jobbed to Wanda?" A plus sized man in a suit rocking a small beard – which Jaune almost tear up now that he could barely feel a stubble – came up to him with a box of donuts.
"No, Happy Hogan from What If Marvel Ripped Off the Worst Die Hard Movie Instead. That's Supreme Strange. Strange Supreme was the Doctor Strange Who Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands." Doctor Strange said.
"Oh, you mean that guy?" Happy Hogan said, pointing to a Doctor Strange with a gaping hole in his chest who waved.
"No, that's the Doctor Strange Who Lost His Literal Heart Instead of His Hands." He looked back to RWBY. "Sorry about that awkward conversation. Didn't mean to detract from your importance."
"Oh, don't worry, I'm used to having my screen time being taken away." Ruby smiled, hiding away whatever resentment she had since the last time she vented her anger, Yang and Jaune yelled at her and then she got beaten up to the point of Not-Suicide.
"Well, we ain't!" Yang said before she and Blake started beating up Feetless Strange. Eventually they got him onto the ground and started stomping on him. While normally something many fans would pay for, such an experience was so painful for Strange that he was forced to cancel the spell and Weiss fell out of the portal and onto some mud.
"That was… immensely satisfying." Blake smirked.
"UGH! I was falling… FOR A FULL MIN-" Before she could finish stealing Loki's quote, a large serpent made out of storm clouds came and devoured her whole.
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Ruby swore.
"WOAH! RUBY SWORE!?" Blake's eyes widened.
"UH, THE MORE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT WEISS GOT FUCKING EATEN!" Ruby screamed.
"HEY!" Yang stepped in front of Blake like the big protective sister she i- wait, Blake isn't Yang's sister.
"Yeaaah, best we avoid that. That will just eat you whole. We had two other Stranges before it ate them. Granted, they were assholes… One was a Doctor Strange who lost his Head instead of his Heart and another was a Doctor Strange who lost his Di-" Suddenly the storm serpent devoured the feetless Strange.
"OH CRAP! Guys, we have to run! Now!" Ruby turned to see Blake and Yang were too busy making out to notice. "OH COME ON!" She yelled before she saw the serpent eat them too. "No!" Ruby frowned for just a moment, then nonflippantly turned to Jaune. "Jaune, we have to work together. It's just you and me!"
"… No. It's just me." Jaune said as a choir chanted 'YOU ARE MY SPECIAL' in the background, followed shortly by psychedelic music.
"W-what?" Ruby asked him.
"Isn't it obvious, Ruby? When it was your time to shine, who was it that got the screentime instead? Who else was getting the pizza while you and your team were just get the crusts? Before SSSN, CFVY, your family, the White Fang, the Kingdoms, Ozpin and Salem… It was JNPR, featuring Penny and Pine. You may have believed that we were on the same team, but Ruby Rose…" Jaune went up to her, the light in his eyes fully gone and instead were just flat disks of blue. "I never considered you an ally. Not even for a second."
And then suddenly the Alioth devoured the two of them too, leaving behind Crescent Rose and Jaune's Pyrrha's armor melted down onto Jaune's armor. Yet, the music continued as Hogan found himself being the only one left save for the literally heartless Strange who made a new friend in the Doctor Strange who Lost his Kingdom Hearts!Heart instead of his Hands and the Doctor Strange who Lost his Pure Heart Crystal instead of his Hands.
"What are you waiting for?" Hogan asked the Alioth. "Kill me, I'm here! Do it! I'm supposed to be on vacation, damn it!" And yet…
It left him to go devour the three heartless Stranges instead and abandoned him entirely.
"COME BACK HERE! FINISH ME!" Hogan screamed into the literal void as it left to go devour more pruned variants.
"And that's how I saved the multiverse!" Deadpool declared to Superman and Batman.
"So, you basically condemned the main characters," as Superman talked, Deadpool interjected,
"And Jaune,"
"… Main characters, of RWBY to have their existence be eaten by some giant smoke monster?" Superman asked.
"… Yeah, pretty much." Deadpool shrugged.
"You crossed a line, pal!" Batman grabbed Deadpool and put him in a headlock.
"Woah, woah, woah, you guys barely know them! It's not like they're your friends or anything!" A moment of silence passed before Deadpool realized, "oh shit, you guys are from the RWBY crossover…"
"Yes… And some of us never fully recovered…" As Superman frowned…
"Pleasecomebackjaune pleasecomebackjaune pleasecomebackjaune pleasecomebackjaune pleasecomebackjaune pleasecomebackjaune pleasecomebackjaune…" Jessica Cruz repeated to herself as she rocked back and forth in a fetal position, huddled in a bathtub. She cried, her eyes not having a single light in them ever since Jaune left her.
"Aaaaaah… Don't worry, I got just the solution!" Deadpool took out a glowing green pill. Superman, realizing what it was, nodded and opened his mouth wide as Deadpool tossed. Once it dove into Superman's mouth, he choked and, soon, his head slammed onto the plate, shattering it.
All the while, Batman was rambling, not even realizing that Superman had died.
"You know how I would have saved Atlas?" Batman still had Deadpool in a necklock. Perhaps it was just the mere fact that he's from a recent DC property, but this Batman seemed to have the hold so tight that he's ready to snap Deadpool's neck if he wanted to.
"Let me guess, sus out Watts and Tyrian with obvious clues that everyone overlooked except for you?" Deadpool asked.
"What? No, that's too clever! I'd just dump a lot of money and resources to plug a single hole in Mantle's walls. You know why?" Batman asked.
"… Yeaaaah, no…" Deadpool rolled his eyes.
"BECAUSE I'M BAT-"
BLAM!
Batman let go of Deadpool as he fell limp, with Deadpool calmly getting up and brushing himself off.
"Another satisfied customer! You know, I should talk with the real Superman and Batman for some cheesy debrief, but… Sssshhhh…" He cringed upon seeing the two bodies. "You know, I think I'm good waiting for the real HISHE guys to animate me chatting with them when Deadpool 3 comes out." Just as Deadpool created a portal to take him back to his home dimension, suddenly Harley Quinn showed up, though he saw that she was glitzed up in gaudy clothes that could be best described as nonfungible clothes bought with small coins.
"Oh, so when you kill Bats, it's totally fine, but when I kill him, suddenly people get angry at me!" Immediately, Deadpool knew who she was.
"Ah, good to see you! Taking care of you is also part of my job!" Deadpool said before he put one between the eyes. "Damn, guns are really effective in this world when the plot needs to be. Well, goodnight, sweet baby, and may flights of pricks sing thee to thy rest." With that, he went home.
But this is how it really should have ended…
"Well, it's a good thing you are here." Theodore just finished giving RWBY (and Jaune) a tour of Shade Academy.
"I'm just surprised we're not immediately trying to murder you given the last three Headmasters backstabbed us." Jaune said.
"Well, that's thanks to the magical powers of off-screen." Theodore said.
"DO YOU KNOW WHO ELSE HAS THE POWER OF OFF-SCREEN!?" Suddenly they all heard the last voice they wanted to hear…
And the last voice they will ever hear.
"AL~~~MIGHT~~~Y PUSH!" Salem shouted before she flattened the whole of Shade Academy (and part of the refugee camp), squashing nearly 90% of the collected forces and with it, humanity's hopes for not just redeeming their lives, but redeeming themselves in the eyes of the Gods.
As Salem waltzed through the destruction and casually picking up the Sword of Destruction, she noticed the rubble of a nearby wall… A destroyed mural depicting Ruby Rose. Her face had residue of graffiti on it, but what made Salem smirk was there was some wording among the rubble that arranged into a new message:
Remember her mess.
"I will. I. Will." With that, Salem walked away. If she wasn't going to meet her end at the hands of the Gods, then she will find someone else to do it…
"Absolutely not." Thanos said to her.
"WHAT!? BUT WHYYYYYY!?" Salem whined to Thanos as she sat in the Villain Pub.
"Well, for one, I reduced the stones to atoms." Thanos was busy cleaning up the floors. "And for another, I'm not gonna do you a favor when you stole my schtick."
"Oh, come on! I didn't steal your schtick!" Salem said.
"Let's see," Palpatine interjected, "you're gathering ancient relics of vast power that can be boiled down to a single word, for the first two phases of your story you let others do your dirty work before deciding to do it yourself in which you easily gather them up like… why didn't you do that from the start?" Palpatine looked at Thanos before going back to Salem, ", which included destroying a major city off-screen and the main reason you came so far is because the heroes were divided by a civil war between a humble home-grown superhero associated with peace and freedom and a cyborg tech-powered showoff associated with politics and control."
"W-well, I'm different because I'm immortal!" Salem smugly said.
"Tried the immortality thing, did not work." Palpatine shook his head.
"Me too…" Voldemort walked in.
"I mean, we're all immortal to some extent." The Joker added.
"So… no one is going to give me a quick and painless death?" Salem asked.
"Well, there is one person… You may want to check the ghost kitchen. It's quite the malevolent shrine." Palpatine said.
"Thanks…" Salem got up and went over to the kitchen.
"Wait, a g-g-g-ghost kitchen?!" Voldemort shuddered.
"No, moron, some other restaurant is using our kitchen to cook their food for delivery. It's how we were able to survive the Pandemic." Palpatine said.
"What's the name of this restaurant?" Zod asked. Just then, the theme song for the restaurant played:
SUKUNA-MATATA! WHAT A WONDERFUL PHRASE! SUKUNA-MATATA! AIN'T NO PASSING PHASE!
"Ah, seems the usual customer has placed his order." Palpatine noticed a receipt being faxed to him. "Hope Lecter likes his meat extra grimdark." He chuckled before going into the kitchen just as the group heard several slashes.
"… Sooo, to distract ourselves from whatever is going on in the kitchen, anyone else wondering where Loki went?" Joker asked the group.
Loki held the reins of many multiverses, holding them tightly so that they won't spiral out of control and-
"Atatatatat!" Deadpool suddenly appeared at the End of Time and patted Loki on the back.
"Uh, what are you doing here?" Loki asked him.
"Marvel just got off the phone with the judge, they're dropping the Kang storyline." As he said that, Loki dropped his hold on the threads.
"OH COME ON! We spent the past three years hyping up this multiversal story and then suddenly we're just throwing it out because we can't be assed to recast the villain!?" Loki said.
"I mean, it's kinda hard to hype up your next Thanos when he was beaten by ants and Mr. Electric. If it's any solace, we're considering replacing him with someone who got beaten by squirrels, so that's a step up!" Deadpool said.
"You realize you murdering RWBY, their universe's Batman and Superman and another universe's Harley Quinn…"
"And Jaune,"
"Were for nothing now, right? I could have just let their universes flourish and go off into the land of non-canon where we wouldn't even be assed to ponder it!" Loki said.
"Eh, we can always reboot. Everyone's doing it nowadays. DC and Sony had been doing that a lot whenever a movie flops at the box office. Not saying we should give it a shot, but…" As Deadpool said that, Loki sighed and looked to the endless strings unravelling into the vast reaches of the multiverse.
"Sometimes, I wonder… what could have been for RWBY, you know? If people had just tweeted harder or given it more of a chance, if people didn't make a two-hour video pointing out how the show has racist messages or if people just bought enough subscriptions…" As Loki continued to lament, Deadpool shrugged.
"Or, you know, RoosterTeeth was a better managed company. And you know, one of these strands has that possibility, right? What if RoosterTeeth was competent?" Deadpool asked.
"… Yes. In fact, I can see it… right there." He pointed to a specific strand, though, it is far from either of their reach. As Deadpool tried to grab it, Loki placed a hand over Deadpool's chest. "But it's a possibility, one of many. The same can be said for DC, Marvel, even Warner Brothers and Disney. However, we can't pick the cards we're dealt. We can't convince everyone to buy a subscription or defend the show from all criticisms and network decisions. The most we can do is just… watch how it all unfolds."
"…" Deadpool suddenly sees a strand labeled 'RWBY Supreme' and grabs it. "Ooooooooooor!"
"ODIN DAMN IT!" Loki shouted as Deadpool was suddenly empowered by the strand of that universe.
Deadpool and Loki were suddenly at Beacon Academy, though they saw that the school and even the characters were all two dimensional and even anime. Like, not even anime-like, just outright anime.
"… Wait, this is just Ice Queendom." Loki said.
"Huh, so RWBY Supreme does exist!" Deadpool tilts his head in the most unrealistic manner that only SHAFT could animate. That was when RWBY (and Jaune) approached them.
"Hey, what's up?" Ruby approached Deadpool.
"Oh, nothing much, just enjoying the sunset." Deadpool said.
"But… it's noon." Weiss said.
"My friend means that in a metaphorical sense…" Loki smiled, though, he seemed hesitant.
"What's wrong? It looks like you've seen an old face." Blake asked.
"… I have, Blake… I have…" Loki said, as the group slowly introduce Loki and Deadpool to their version of Beacon.
"Uuuuhhh… Anyone gonna comment on how Loki knew Blake's name?" Yang asked.
"Anyone gonna comment on how no one knew Blake was the daughter of the White Fang Founder?" Deadpool replied.
"Good point." Yang said, quickly followed by everyone laughing.
And that is one of many ways RWBY could have ended and for some, how RWBY should have ended.