[RWBY] A Character Arc: Jaune Arc RWBY SI BS Revised

[AJ_Talon]

[RWBY] Jaune BS Self Insert

A Jaune Arc self insert. How original.

forum.questionablequesting.com

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Everyone knows the story of an isekai. Some loser gets transported to another world where he can be a hero. It's a tale that's over a century old, from The Wizard of Oz and A Princess of Mars to modern-day Japan. And it can be a hell of a lot of fun, or terrible, or brilliant.

This? I don't even know what the hell kind of story this is, because the original never finished in my world… and frankly? It kind of sucked.

I do know how it began. With a loser.

Well, not a total loser. Okay, I was a thirty-something American man who didn't have a wife or kids yet because of a number of reasons. Being a socially awkward nerd who obsessed too much over anime and science fiction (and struggled to be a novelist while writing a lot of fanfiction) was definitely one of those. But I did have a good job, good friends, and had dodged a bullet by not marrying some illegal immigrant after a green card. So no, I wasn't some awkward Japanese high schooler or businessman.

I had admittedly struggled a lot in life for various reasons—some my fault, some the fault of genetics, some the fault of this twenty-first-century hellscape we call civilization—but I was a proud American, a (mostly) good Christian, and I tried to be a good, kind person. Nothing really out of the ordinary.

So when I saw a kid from the daycare at the college campus I worked on rushing into traffic in front of a speeding Uber… what else was I supposed to do but try to save him?

I wasn't really thinking about anything other than saving the kid. I winced when I felt the car hit me, cried out… and everything went black.

When I came to, I was hanging from a tree in a huge forest in a truly magnificent valley. I blinked.

What.

I looked at my hands… hands wearing gloves with white greaves.

WHAT.

I rummaged around. I had… a cellphone that unfurled? I did so, saw a lot of messages and apps I didn't understand… hesitated… then checked the one I could make sense of—the camera.

I stared into it.

Jaune Arc from RWBY stared back.

"…WHAT THE HELL?!"

I gaped at… My face. Opened and closed my mouth. Turned my face back and forth.

Reached up to ruffle my hair. Yeah… Yeah… That was me. This was me.

This was all me.

"WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!" I screamed again, panting desperately. "Nonononononono…!"

How… Why… What in… WHAT?!

I saw a sliver of white below. I focused. A beautiful, white haired girl in white picked through the forest. She looked up at me, her gorgeous blue eyes staring up at me. Even with a slight scar over her left eye didn't diminish her beauty-Enhanced it, really.

The jumble in my brain of memories and emotions managed to crystallize. Weiss Schnee.

From RWBY too… Just as she was in Volume 1… In Initiation…

I held up a hand and waved frantically.

"H-Hey! HEY! Help me! Help! Get me down!"

The girl's nose wrinkled like she'd smelled something foul. She shook her head.

"Nope," she stated succinctly, before turning and walking right back.

I gaped at her. The jumble of my memories and feelings pulled together.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-?! ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!"

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Pyrrha Nikos moved through the forest with the quiet confidence of someone who had already decided the outcome of the day. The trees were dense here, the canopy thick enough that the midday sun only filtered through in scattered gold. She had thrown her spear with perfect accuracy, pinning a boy to the trunk of a massive oak before he could hit the ground. That should have been the end of it—simple rescue, simple team formation. Instead, the boy was still up there when she arrived, and the look on his face was not the usual mix of gratitude and embarrassment she expected from him.

He looked terrified. Like his world had collapsed around him.

She tilted her head, offering the same small, practiced smile she used on cameras and interviewers. "Hello, Jaune… Is there still room for me on your team?"

The answer came out strained. "…Yes."

Pyrrha's smile faltered. She stepped closer, reached up, and carefully pulled the spear free with her Semblance. The boy dropped to the ground and immediately folded, hands on his knees, breathing hard. His whole body shook.

Pyrrha's frowned deepened in concern.

"Um… Sorry about the—"

"Saving me?" He cut her off, voice cracking. "No, thanks, that was great. Holy shit, what was this idiot thinking?! That was terrifying! And why do I have sneakers?! WHAT FUCKER BECOMES A HERO IN SNEAKERS?!"

Pyrrha blinked. He kept muttering under his breath, words tumbling out too fast for her to catch all of them. Something about Hell. Something about God's punishment. Something about starting over in a show. Then he groaned, both hands flying to his head as if something had just slammed into the inside of his skull.

"…Holy shit… So that's canon. I don't even know what the hell to think about that… Or that… Or… Wha…?"

"Um, Jaune?"

He jerked upright like she'd startled him out of a dream. For a second he just stared at her, eyes wide and a little wild. Then the panic settled into something quieter and more exhausted.

"Ummm… Look. I know we just met and I was kind of a douche, but… Can I please have a hug?"

Pyrrha felt heat climb her neck. She had been hugged by fans, by teammates, by her parents. This felt different—raw, almost desperate. She hesitated only a heartbeat before stepping in and wrapping her arms around him. He was taller than she expected up close, and he smelled like forest and fear and something faintly metallic she couldn't place. He relaxed the moment she held him, a long, shaky breath leaving his body.

"Thanks…" He pulled back carefully, looking suddenly self-conscious. "Oh crap, now this feels creepy."

"Why?" Pyrrha asked, "Did I-?" Jaune shook his head rapidly.

"Nonono! This is… Ugh… Um…"

He cleared his throat, straightened, and met her eyes with deliberate seriousness. "An-Anyway… Um… Pyrrha? I'm gonna level with you here… My Aura is not unlocked."

That stopped her cold. She had suspected, of course… But for him to come right out and say it…

"Oh?"

"Yeah. My mom was… Holy shit, that's canon too?! I just made that up! How—Questions for later. Anyway! My mom was going to unlock it for me when I went to medical school… Which is where I'm supposed to be right now, but I wanted to be a Hunter and so, uh… Here I am."

He winced.

"You… Can probably guess a lot of the rest… And if you want to blow me in… I get it."

Pyrrha studied him. Defying parents was something she understood more than most people realized. She'd defied hers to come here.

She nodded slowly. "I… I see. Defying your parents is… Is difficult."

"Yup…" He looked almost hopeful. "You do have parents, right? Like, you know their names? Faces? History?"

The question was strange enough that concern flickered through her again. "Yes?"

"Oh thank God…" Relief washed over his face so strongly it was almost painful to watch. "Anyway! If you could do me a solid and unlock my Aura, I promise I will not slow you down. I just… I really want to be a Hunter and help people, like my family before me. Can you help me, please?"

Something in the way he asked—honest, almost pleading without being pathetic—made her smile for real this time. "I'd be happy to, Jaune."

He smiled back, and for the first time since she found him, the terror in his eyes eased.

She pressed her hand to his chest, and recited the chant she knew by heat, surging her Aura into Jaune's. Their souls briefly touched:

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee…"

Strange… For a moment it felt like two souls inside him… Yet the power unleashed was unmistakable. She released her hold over his chest, as he panted for breath.

"I… W-Wow… That… That is a rush," he murmured. He smiled so warmly it made her heart pound, just a little. "Pyrrha… Thanks. I promise… I won't let you down."

Pyrrha smiled back, the warmth of their soul connection lightly pinking her cheeks.

"I know you won't."

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Sooo… I was Jaune Arc. Jaune. Fucking. ARC.

The accidental main character of the (at best) mid CGI action anime-esque show.

Created by the talented and sadly deceased Monty Oum. In a world written by idiots and with the most radioactive and toxic fandom that ever existed until Hazbin Hotel came along.

The guy who was the first choice for a generic harem lead in RWBY fanfic.

(Which I was familiar with because I had written more than a few of them. And maybe 2 percent of them weren't terrible!)

Holy shit… How? Why?!

I had no idea… But I wasn't just me anymore. I was him.

I mean… I had this Jaune's memories.

And the memories of the universe were merged with my fanfiction worldbuilding. Or at least some of it. Maybe? I wasn't sure about all the details, and just based on my memory I couldn't make any assumptions.

(It wasn't hard to fill up worldbuilding when Rooster Teeth had only done the bare minimum-And the dumbest possible way.)

That said… Damn… I hadn't expected this after death. Not some kind of weird isekai…

"Jaune?"

Shit, at least I didn't have a cellphone. Well I did, in the form of a Scroll. Shit…

"Jaune?"

Maybe I was more like Kazuma from Konosuba? Lucky but also unlucky?

"JAUNE!"

I started and looked over at Pyrrha, who looked concerned and was pointing her weapon to my left. I looked where she was pointing.

"Yes Pyrrha-?"

A dark, monstrous-looking wolf thing lunged out of the underbrush and snapped onto my wrist.

"What the-?!"

Oh, that's a Grimm, a part of my brain pointed out. It looked… Way scarier than I thought it would. A monstrous parody of a wolf all in black, little… Ethereal bites waving from its fur, its red eyes glowing in the white bone mask. Its razor sharp teeth digging into my gauntlet.

I expected pain, agony…

Only for it to just… Gnaw at my wrist, an energy field glowing against it around my skin, like glass. I felt… A warmth in my chest, that was also my arm…?

Woah… Aura… I felt a little detached. Like it was happening to someone else.

"JAUNE!" Pyrrha shouted urgently.

Oh… I need to deal with that… What do my instincts say?

I beat the Grim in the face as hard as I could with the pommel of my sword. Then again, and again, and again-

"MOTHERFUCKER! LET! GO! YOU! GODDAMNED! ASSHOLE!"

The bonemask shattered. The damn thing kept holding on. I smashed it again, and again, until the braincase shattered. The Beowulf dissolved into smoke and ashes, blown away in the wind.

I took deep breaths, glaring at the remnants. Pyrrha rested a hand on my wrist.

"Jaune? Are you okay?"

I shook my head.

"WHY THE FUCK DO THEY LOOK SO MUCH SCARIER?! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FREAKING ANIME CGI!"

Pyrrha blinked, staring at me like I was insane. Which, from her perspective, was pretty much the case. I slowly nodded.

"I'm fine… Fine… Just uh… I'm… I'm okay." I paused.

"... Pointy end goes into the Grimm, right?"

"Well," Pyrrha smiled, nodding at the pommel of my sword, "That works too?"

I sighed.

"Right, right…"

More Grimm roared out of the underbrush. I held up my shield and sword.

I knew what I was. Even with Aura unlocked… I was not much more than a target. Especially compared to Pyrrha. The Grimm couldn't hurt me as easily (At least the small ones) and I could hurt them… But that was it.

Well then… There was only one role my gamer ass could play.

"I'll draw them to me, you knock them down!" I shouted. "And let's keep moving!"

Pyrrha smiled and nodded. "Yes!"

It wasn't much, but it was a plan. And that's better than nothing.

I'd have my existential freak out later. There were monsters to slay.

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