RWBY Story Idea #6
Main character-Jaune Arc. As it begins the characters will be similar to their canon selves, but small tweaks are fine, and as their future unfolds it might wind up at very a different point than canon. It will loosely follow canon and gradually diverge.
Jaune fed up with his dream being stifled and unrealized left home with his family's ancestral blade Croacea Mors. Leaving only a vague note that he is off to follow his dreams, and seemingly completely either blocking his family and friends numbers or getting a new scroll/changing his number. He leaves in the dead of night, ironically still very much in the dark about what a hunter is supposed to be besides an enemy to Grimm and a hero-like figure to human and faunes-kind. Before he left he managed to find Juniors number/website(?), and somehow found out that he could make him a convincing enough background to supposedly fool Beacon(the hunter schools).
So far, this roughly lines up with what went down in canon, I think a bit more fleshed out, but just about that. Here is where I'm gonna start introducing some changes, small and large.
Jaune manages to book a train ticket heading toward Beacon, more specifically a town just outside of Vale City. He used up almost all of his money he saved up from his 17 years of home life buying the records from Junior. (He got some money from doing chores and babysitting his younger sisters. And he also helped out a bunch around his town when he wasn't in school. One of his friends that he cut off contact with was called Emiya Shiro, because he knew Shiro would stop him from leaving. They are school friends since they were 12. Shiro is known as the school's unofficial janitor and someone who helps anyone who asked.) Jaune only has enough money(lien) left for about 2 or 3 weeks of meals, and the price of a train ticket. His plan was to hopefully arrive at Vale city, and pick up a part time job before the new school year starts in a month. It didn't quite work out like that, he only had enough for a ticket to the town like ten or twenty miles out from Vale city.
Part-time jobs I think Jaune could do:
General Part-Time Roles:
Retail:
Many small towns have local shops or boutiques needing part-time sales associates.
Food Service:
Restaurants, cafes, and bars often have part-time positions like servers, cooks, or dishwashers.
Customer Service:
Local businesses may need part-time receptionists or customer service representatives.
Education:
Schools and childcare centers may need part-time teachers, teacher's aides, or after-school program staff.
Specialized Roles:
Skilled Trades:
Hospitality:
Hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts may need part-time housekeeping staff or front desk personnel.
Agriculture:
If you have experience with farming or ranching, there may be part-time opportunities in those areas.
Artisan/Crafts:
If you have a craft or artistic skill, you can sell your goods at local shops, craft fairs, or online platforms.
Service Industry:
Pet groomers, pet sitters, and dog walkers are always needed.
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Skipping ahead for now. Eventually Jaune starts feeling a time crunch, and realizes he won't be able to make enough to safely get to Vale city in the time he has left. He spent 3 weeks of his month in that town trying to make enough for safe passage to the Capitol of the Vale Kingdom(vale city). Before he decides to gamble that he can make it there by himself. Keeping in mind he is still completely a relatively normal civilian for this world. He still has no idea that Huntsmen have handydandy superpowers or any real impression on how strong the Grimm can be. Sure he had world history class in his highschool, but alot of the information he learned there was severely watered down, and some white lies. Since Grimm are attracted by fear and negative emotions in general. The top levels of the Kingdoms decided to restrict how much civilians know about this stuff. With pretty harsh punishments for those who leak too much. Keeping in mind that Remnant does not have long term jails as we would recognize them.
So back to Jaune. Jaune does not know how strong Grimm and Huntmen can get, he would just think they have to rely on combat dust, swordsmanship/weapon mastery, and modern like weapons/and Mechashift. So back to earlier, he decides to gamble that he can make it the sort distance to vale city by himself. He makes it just a bit more than halfway. Mostly by sheer dumb luck, and because Jaune-ney boy here is not one to brood too much.
Jaune did not have any real training with his sword, he generally could not train at home because his father forbid him. And he was kept quite busy with his chores and part time jobs he had over the years. The most experience he had was when he was hanging out with Emiya Shiro and he would usually spar with him with wooden blades.
Jaune got ambushed by four rather wimpy beowolves. Still enough to push Jaune into a life or death struggle though. He managed to take down two with his sword, before he lost it impaling the second one and not having enough time to retrieve it. So there he was with just his sheath/shield left and a semi serious wound to his side. Regretting that he didn't listen to Shiro's advice more seriously.(Shiro suggested he enlist in the army, and after a few years he could try and shift his career into being a Huntsmen. But Jaune was determined to try and get into Beacon as his Grandfather the local war hero taught there for a few years. Though if Beacon didn't work he would try the others and only really see Beacon for the Vytal Festival.)
Feeling his strength and blood leaving him fast, Jaune manage bludgeon the third Beowulf to death. But on the 4th one he was at the end of his rope he was getting lightheaded from bloodloss and his stamina was pretty much tanked from his fast paced march of trying to get into Vale c. before nightfall. And the high intensity (for him) combat he was in with previous 3 foes. And the 3rd one took most of his remaining strength. So he only really had enough strength to angle his shield left and maybe one or two more full strength blows. In the background he was also starting to despair because even if he won this battle, he wasn't optimistic he would last long enough for emergency aid. Which he would toggle on his scroll when he had time.
Halfway through his fight with his final foe, he released with a sinking feeling he was losing. He just had to keep defending until it showed an opening he could exploit. Just as it was dragging on, he lost the last of his strength in his legs and crumpled into a kneeling figure, half supporting his self with his shield.
The Beowulf gained a crafty glint in its hellspawn eyes, it new its victory was at hand, and it would get to gorge itself on its preys dying emotions/wisps of soul essence.
Just as darkness was closing in on Jaune's vision he remembered his dreams of being a hero like his grandfather, he remembered all his family and friends who would be devastated to find he went and got himself killed so foolishly, he recalled his burning desire to just help people as a huntsmen, and finally he recalled his burning spite to prove his father wrong. Just as the last of these thoughts flashed through his head, he saw the Beowolf was mid pounce, and he dug as deep as could within himself for energy to survive and realize his dreams and ambitions. And he found something within himself, and so in that moment on the brink of death he awakened his Aura and it give him just enough oommff for one or two final strikes. And so he shifted his shield so the sharp edge was at right angle and just as the Beowulf was within 9 inches of him, he struck the sharp edge of his shield into its throat and half beheaded the unholy beast.
Its carcass still rammed into him and sent him and it tumbling a few feet, with him half under it and probably getting a full body bruise. It would still be about ten minutes for the one to dissolve into the atmosphere. The first one was already gone, and the second one was about halfway gone. He heaved it off of him and started crawling to his sword and travel pack he had shucked off to the side so he could fight unencumbered. The second beowulf after he impaled it and it took his sword stumbled off in a haze howling as to slowly died, and ended up collapsing only 3 or 4 feet away from his pack.
At the same time that Jaune awakened his aura his Semblance also awoke, but it did not have any immediate use so it faded to the back of his mind, until he would later do enough introspection to find instinctive instructions on it.
Meanwhile, a freshly graduated 4 people huntsmen team, was doing a pretty easy mission of hunting down a line alpha Beowulf that hasn't yet gathered underlings. Their team leader was named Kamina Digger(from Gurren lagan).
The alpha Beowulf was pulled to Jaune's location because it could sense intense negative emotions, even if starting to fade, and it also heard the dying calls of its lesser kind. And just about out of the A.B.'s eyesight Kamina was hot on its heels as the fastest of his team as he just got a distress beacon from right where the A.B. was going. And trailing behind kamina by about half a mile was the rest of his team.
Jaune was sitting beside his pack with his medical pack open and putting pressure on his biggest wound to slow its blood lose. He had activated his emergency beacon about 5 minutes ago. And was trying to stay awake until help arrived with his sword returned to his sheath right beside him.
Jaune suffers a breakdown under the intense malice of the A.B. , Kamina swoops in to rescue him, and gives Jaune a motivational speech on belief and not giving up. As he touches Jaune to start helping him(after either killing the A.B. solo or scaring it off), unknown to either of them Jaune's semblance activates for the first time by Jaune's subconscious/automatically. And it binds Kamina to life as long as Jaune has aura and Kamina doesn't lose his willpower to live/belief. Forming a kind of spiritual/soul based contract between the to of them. And others eventually, Jaune's Semblance doesn't work on himself rather he gets some kind of percentage increase to to his 'stats' for how many connections he has.
Once the contractee dies they are returned to life with their aura refilled to the brim, and if they have wounds they are either fixed, or part of their body was destroyed they get a temporary (3 hours) aura based replacement. It also suppresses their wounds, but each one can only be brought back like this in a short time twice before their minds/souls are overloaded and they perish for good and Jaune is hit wit a backlash from the contract being forcibly broken. If the contractees willingly give up and chose to pass away there is no backlash, just a gentle dissolution. As long as week or two passes in between deaths they can keep coming back, as long as Jaune still acknowledge it, and they dont lose their willpower/belief. They can also force their bodies to heal with Jaune's Semblance(/help) but it ages them, so most would only use that part as a last resort(most would just get Prosthetics), more aging for most serious wounds.
Once Jaune figures out what his Semblance is roughly capable of, a few weeks or month into term. He will go to Ozpin to tell him. Ozpin would start supporting Jaune more directly and probably have most of his staff and Qrow form contracts with Jaune. As basically a super safety net. Ozpin himself would be unable to, as he already knows he is immortal as long as Salem is around. So he would already know he is coming back, so wouldn't be able to meet the belief/willpower level to come back. He would just have to continue his parasitic cycle.
Glinda would qualify, Qrow would, Ironwood would, Taiyang wouldn't, Ruby would, Yang would, Blake wouldn't, Weiss ?(half and half), Pyrha would, Nora&Ren ?(as long as the other one is still there yes), Traitor Lionheart wouldn't, Shiro Emiya would.