So a bit of context:
I have never watched 'RWBY' or consumed any official media from the series. A majority of the knowledge I have comes from fanfiction, as strange and embarrassing as it is.
This story was written as a sort of 'counterweight' of my main fic, 'The First Cycle', which features a severely underpowered (in the context of the fic) OC (Matthius 'Cycles' Oreion); So this fic will obviously feature a super buffed Jaune Arc in a setting with little in the ways of worldbuilding (because fuck you I'm tired), a more simpler description (as opposed to the more analytical and hard diagnostic description of Matthius) and hopefully just a lot more dialogue.
Yeah, I'm really writing this entire thing to improve my ability to write dialogue, that's my weakest point right now.
Am I good to go? Yeah I think I'm good to go.
Disclaimer:
I do not own anything except the following:
-Any Matthius Oreion (The characters, not the name)
-《Parallax》
Prologue One: The Kid in the Forest
[Random Forest, Vale. Where exactly? That's what I want to know. | Third Person; Following Matthius | Early Afternoon | Rem-English]
((1))
Matthius Oreion was… stumped. He had already finished his story and just wandered into a new world… universe? ((2)) He didn't know yet; probably wouldn't until something plot convenient was thrown his way.
He came to a stop under a tree, and realised that there was one way to confirm his suspicions.
"Alright, let's see if Parallax is still working."
Matthius slowly placed his right hand over the trunk of the tree and waited as the modified Suunto Core watch ((3)) on his wrist blacked out and was replaced by an entirely new display.
[/Warning: Current display size is too small; proceeding is ill advised./]
Matthius stared blankly at the watch on his wrist as he pulled it from the tree. "Why do I even use you?" He sighed.
Seeing no other option, he simply displayed it in his 'HUD'. ((4))
[/《Interactivity Quick Menu》:
Target: "Tree"
Operation: 'Classify'
Taxons Identified:
Kingdom: Plantae (Plants)
Subkingdom: Viridiplantae (Chlorophyllic/Green Plants)
Infrakingdom: Streptophyta (Terrestrial Plants)
Superdivision: Embryophyta (Embryonic Vegetation)
Division: Tracheophyta (Vascular Vegetation)
Subdivision: Spermatophytina (Seeded Vegetation)
Superclass: Pinophyta (Conifers)
Class: Pinopsida (Specific Conifers?)
Subclass: Pinidae (Uh?)
Order: Pinales (Pines)
Family: Pinaceae (Wait…)
Genus: Pinus L. (The Pines?)
Species: Unknown
Conclusion: Planet is either extremely similar to Gaea or it is Gaea following a different QSS./]
Huh.
"I wonder why they came up with so many taxons if they were just going to mean the same thing."
He was broken out of his musings by an almost feminine, high pitched scream; Which sent various birds—most likely passeriformes ((5))—out of the trees.
"That sounds like it came from a HUMAN larynx, and there's no sign of any settlement nearby. A local tribe or some lone wanderer?"
Matthius dismissed the menu and began to run towards the location of the disturbance. Stopping outside a clearing he was somewhat amused by what he saw.
It was a child, definitely a human one, waving around a sword too big for him in a panic.
What was this child waving a sword at?
Some sort of bone armoured kinda glowy werewolf thing. Matthius was having a hard time registering how the hell such a thing came to be–the thing looked like it belonged to the lupine taxons but he struggled justifying the higher clades it would have to fill in order to qualify as such.
"A new phylum? Perhaps a new subkingdom altogether?"
Matthius stared at the beast for a few seconds, before deciding its best to leave the taxonomy to the taxologists; It's what they're paid to do, apparently. ((6))
The beast in question was also staring at the child for the same amount of time, before deciding it was just as defenseless a prey-item with or without the sword; Honestly, it was just a pointy stick in the hands of a kid.
The kid let out another terrified scream as the beast came in for a swipe with its sharp claws.
This raised several alarms in Matthius' head. You see, predators don't often swipe at their prey—actually, most of them don't even have that option—since it would let the prey run away. They would rather just bite their food and be done with it that way. Not only that, but it clearly recognised the weapon in the soon-to-be-lunch's hands.
"That's not a regular memetic trait for an animal." ((7))
Matthius realised that this thing wasn't hunting for food; This would be bad enough if the beast was simply an intelligent animal that liked to hunt for sport or fun–like whales, birds, cats, dogs, elephants, monkeys, and by extension, humans. ((8)) This thing seemed to be almost programmed for this purpose.
He whistled and the noise immediately caused the beast to halt in its movement; The child it was terrorising peeked to look at him (when did he close his eyes?) and a look of relief immediately washed over him… before it was replaced with another look of horror.
Was it because he wasn't carrying any weapons? ((9))
The beast sneered at Matthius for a few seconds, before it turned to the child and resumed its previously interrupted attempt to kill him. The kid let out a shriek and swiped at the werewolf-like monster–and to Matthius' surprise, left a visible wound.
"That definitely has to be the sword."
Before the beast could retaliate and kill the kid, Matthius was already behind it.
*BANG*
And he killed it with the single shot of an M45A1. ((10))
"Note to self: Still killable, though probably not with normal point-forty-five {.45} ACP."
He stared at the corpse of the beast, which seemed to just disintegrate into nothing.
"Monstrosus Fantasma?" ((11)) Matthius thought to himself before realising that it was impossible; even ghosts usually left some trace of their existence after death. The only thing this thing left after it died was the incomplete components of a soul.
"So… just a new kingdom altogether. Great.". No complete soul meant that it literally had no will of its own, no self-determination; even members of a hive-mind had simple blank-looking souls at the very least.
"Look out! It's the pack!"
Matthius was broken out of his thoughts when a large group of the beasts, which likely belong to the same species as the one he just killed, barreled into the clearing and rushed towards him. Raising their claws as they prepared to kill him in a single collective blow.
He was faster however and simply 'vanished' into thin air. Being able to move at mach thirty speeds was pretty much cheating when dealing with such mundane enemies. ((12))
He counted twelve of these werewolf-looking creatures and glanced at his pistol's magazine. There were only seven bullets in the magazine–excluding the one he just shot, of course.
Matthius just let out another sigh and decided that it was better to just do it the hard'n'easy way.
He strolled around and just punched through the necks of all the creatures, his current speed made it so that his fist traveled through like a hole puncher through the weirdly thin-feeling paper they used in bibles all the time back on Earth.
Without any more drama, he 'appeared'; his supersonic movements coming to a complete halt.
"You!". Matthius turned his head and realised that the child was still there, and then he winced mentally; He may have been used to gunshots but this child certainly wasn't… probably… hopefully. ((13))
"You saved me! How did you get behind the beowulf so fast! And you killed it with only one shot! And then when the rest of them came, you just disappeared and they all died!" The kid prattled on, "Are you a huntsman?".
"English?… Well, I suppose it's a cosmic joke that English is the universal language of all space." ((14))
"Woah woah woah, settle down." Matthius tried to placate the young boy; He was going to say 'Hold your horses', but there was a good chance that phrase might not carry the semantic meaning he intended here. "I'm going to need you to elaborate on each of those sentences.".
"E-lab-or-ate-" The kid sounded, unsure of the word's meaning. "Oh, you mean explain right?".
"Be calm. They just might not have a well established system of education here; It's not the kid's fault." ((15))
"Yes… explain."
"Well. I was trying to train by fighting some grimm, but they were a lot stronger than I thought, and then you came along and killed it. And with only one bullet; I thought only hunters could do that, so you have to be a hunter. Not to mention all the stuff with the other beowulfs." The kid explained as best he could.
"Train? Grimm? Hunters? What are hunters? People who kill these monsters? Theses 'Grimm'? They train to fight these 'Grimm'? So it's an occupation? Are they a part of a larger military force? Or are they just militia? Mercenaries, perhaps?" Matthius asked and answered question after question in his head before he realised that he had a suitable backstory.
"Do they even have a Geneva Conventions equivalent here? Because if so I should be really careful about calling myself a mercenary." ((16))
"Yeah, I'm a huntsman–but I'm more a… freelance… sort of huntsman." Matthius hastily said.
The kid—and Matthius realised he left him nameless—looked confused. "Freelance? Like… a spear?".
"It means that I don't belong to any one government, institution or contractor." Matthius elaborated with purposefully higher grade words in hopes that the child would simply just nod along with it in an attempt not to look dumb in front of an older person.
"Oh… Yeah, I totally get it now!"
"No… you don't." Matthius mused, though he was happy that the kid just went along with it. "If that's all, I'll be leaving now.".
He turned around and made to leave.
"Wait!"
Matthius stopped mid-step and almost tripped over. "What?".
"Can you train me?"
"Oh fuck."
He stared into the kid's hopeful ocean eyes.
"Sure… kid. What's your name?"
The kid's smile was enough to make the forest look like it housed a second sun; "Jaune Arc; short, sweet, rolls of the tongue, and mama always said the ladies would love it!". ((17))
"I don't know what hunters do in training–but if they train to kill 'grimm', then I will teach this kid how to kill."
Prologue One End
Author's Notes:
This chapter's probably extremely short, I know, but this isn't my main fic; I will try to aim for a constant 3-5 thousand range like my main fic for the following chapter's but this is just a test so who cares. I mean… I haven't even named this fic or even written a summary.
→ For those of you who don't know how I operate (ergo- all of you), here is where I put more of the post chapter stuff.
You may have seen that I have put numbers in double brackets like so; ((x)).
These are just markers that allow you to return to certain parts of the chapter for reference.
1- I'm not sure how time works on Remnant, or exactly what language they speak; so I just went the easy route.
2- Matthius can do this, yes, but we won't be going beyond RWBY in this fic.
3- This isn't an advertisement, he just has that on him; It'll be important later, though.
4- Yeah- I'm not explaining this, read the main fic if you want to.
5- Passeriformes are any bird which perches (most often on the branches of trees).
6- I mean, scientists get paid to name stuff like 'Gorilla gorilla gorilla' or 'Daddy Long Legs' or 'Boops Boops' or 'Colon rectum' or 'Slippery Dick' or even, and I shit you not, the 'Cockchafer' (I get it's Old English but you can't just do that and expect people to take it seriously).
7- Memes
8- The more intelligent an animal the more cruel they become; and Humans are by far the most cruel things out there.
9- Wait…
10- Where was he keeping that gun out of view? His ass?
11- 'Monstrosus Fantasma' literally just means 'Monster-like Apparition/Illusion'
12- Yeah, Matthius here can solo the entire RWBY universe but he's not what you're here for–you're here for Jaune Arc.
13- Hooray for child soldiers.
14- As I said before, too lazy.
15- I mean, in most fanfics Jaune was bullied, so he probably didn't do as well as he should have in school.
16- Given that child soldiers exist, Matthius is pretty safe.
17- Thus Jaune Arc proceeded to get so many fanfics portraying him with a harem that I'm not sure whether to follow that trend as a joke or just make him not get one in spite of it.
True Word Count: 1700~
Total Word Count: 2150~
Date of Upload: 8th of January (8/1/2020)