Best possible version of yourself, chapter 5
AN: welcome everyone, let's hope this chapter is a good read I'll be addressing something that was shown as somewhat unclear from the reviews I got in, that I was only intending on handling in-story a chapter or two down the line, but might as well make some basic info of available now and to handle any possible idea of Oscar replacing Jaune. Straight up, he's not going to, I'm explaining why both here and in this chapter. If you wish to not get the slight spoiler or just don't mind not knowing further for now, start reading at 'Harbour area nightlife district, Vale'.
Okay good, so here's two things to make very clear, Ozpin didn't exactly know about the magic because before the ritual, Jaune himself didn't have the amount of magical capacity to do anything with it. Unlike the majority of Remnant, because of one of his ancestors, he did have a small bit of magical potential by nature, but it was so small he would never have gotten anything out of it, which will also be explained in this chapter.
What I was implying in that chapter wasn't his own magic doing the whole ritual, it was that something else had awakened and strengthened it, because it wanted the ritual to happen. This will be something of a plot point later on in the story, but some of you might already have a rough idea what it is after the whole Ozma – Salem clue of it usually being on Ozpins side but only interfering if things are potentially about to go downhill fast for him and humanity as a whole, all the while the brother Gods are none the wiser. Further explanation will be given in the chapter and in answers during the reviews on this part.
Also something I thought was a bit more obvious, the main reason why in canon Oscar outshines Jaune, is largely down to Ozpin/Ozma being in his head. In this story he has the luck that instead of an age old wizard that will eventually assimilate him, he's in a similar situation to Jaune. But unlike Jaune, who is already a self trained 17 year old potential warrior from a family filled with heroes and a decent tactical mindset which is then strengthened by an either 19 or 20 year old version of himself that has far more experience and actual proper combat knowledge plus worldly experience, the main things Jaune was lacking….
Oscar is a 13 year old farmhand who just got a 15 year old with some training and more experience in his head but who spent a lot of the actual extreme experiences he went through being on the backseat in his own body watching an immortal wizard do the things that actually would have given him the experience to help his younger self more. Yes due to sharing a body with an immortal wizard, he'll have gotten glimpses of very useful things from the past and how Ozma handles situations, possibly the locations of stashes Ozma creates that he can easily access in case his new re-incarnation is very down on his luck and possible snippets about ancient artefacts and secrets.
However this is unlike Jaune who had an almost full year of actual formal combat training compounded by what seemed like months of travel through the continent, fighting off small Grimm invasions on towns all the while and learning how to fight with a team by his side which was further compounded by continued self training with now an actually decent base to start off from. In comparison again I have to remind you, Oscar is a 13 year old that spent all his previous life on a farm with the thought of staying there till he one day woke up with a voice in his head. Without Ozpins magic or thousands of years of skill to directly assist and make up for the differences between him and his enemies he is now with the older Oscar helping only slightly better off than canon Jaune is shortly after Beacons initiation, if for very different reasons.
Yes he can take on some thugs that are only used to intimidating civilians or a few Beowolves without too much trouble, but if you put him in say the situation Jaune was in at the outpost, chances are high he would not have won the fight with the Alpha Beowolf without far more assistance from the miners and guards in the blockhouse, simply because even enhanced with Aura, his strikes would simply do too little damage to take it out before it started getting multiple hits in itself. And that is the end of the rant, apologies if it was too long.
'Harbour area nightlife district, Vale'
As the two walk towards Oscar's hotel they continue their small talk while walking through the city before they reach the street the hotel is in, with Jaune being slightly surprised to realize it's the same street where the club the goons they just kicked around operate out of, still being under repair to some degree from Yang's violence the week before. As he chuckles a little Oscar turns towards him with a raised eyebrow.
He elaborates ''That's the main base of the thugs we just fought, it's a nightclub that Yang ripped to pieces last week.'' Oscars eyes widen slightly more ''And before you ask, yes she herself proudly boasted about it while my future self was in Beacon. Made for a funny night, especially when Ruby then started berating her for going off on her own and fight a criminal organisation without much reason to, a thing they later had problems with Blake about.''
The young man shakes his head, believing him from what his own future self had told him about Yang. As they reach the door Jaune opens it for them and walks in after Oscar as he talks to a fairly short man with brown hair that looks very similar to Oscar behind the counter, at which point he notices Jaune walk in, causing him to walk away from behind the counter before reaching up to give Jaune a clap on the shoulder while smiling at with gratefulness in his eyes.
''Hi there young man, the name's Rodger Pines.'' Jaune returns with his own greeting before the man continues. ''I wanted to thank you for helping my nephew with those thugs, honestly if I knew there was a crime syndicate down the road I would have started my hotel business somewhere else. ''If you're staying here I'll give you a room and complimentary breakfast for 70 lien a day.''
Jaune easily agreed, knowing he'd not get a much better deal anywhere else, with it also being useful to be able to keep in contact with Oscar. As he was handed his keys he heads up his room, finding a small room with a bed, closet, a nightstand with a lamp on it next to the bed and a small bathroom with a sink, shower and toilet. He takes a moment to put his stuff away before pulling the spellbook out of his bag, at which point there is a knock on the door.
He opens the door and sees Oscar standing there ''So are you ready settling in for now? It might be a good idea to talk the situation through and my room is a bit larger and has two chairs for us to use in addition to a small table.'' Jaune makes an accepting sound, following Oscar down the hall to a somewhat larger room, where he sits down on one side of a small coffee table, prompting Jaune to sit down on the other side before Spirit takes the chance to manifest at which point Oscar looks surprised. ''Wait a minute, we can do that? Since when? How?''
It is by now fairly clear that the older Oscar is in control of the body, with both of the Jaune's being somewhat surprised ''It's fairly easy to be honest, considering this is how I first appeared,'' begins Spirit ''You just project yourself out into the world using your own carried over aura, it stops the slight boost to aura regeneration and total aura capacity we give to our younger selves, but other than that has very little to no effect. Is also visible for everyone, as proven when our younger sister walked into the forest and could see me while we where having a training session. The projecting outward part is little more than putting forward the image of yourself in the place you want to appear in, after that you behave essentially like fictional ghosts do.''
The slightly older Oscar apparently takes the words to heart as only a few seconds later he appears on the bed, with the differences between him and his younger self quite a bit more apparent than the ones between the Jaunes. ''Okay, good to see you again buddy.'' As Spirit says this he claps the older Oscar on the shoulder, the younger man feeling strange to have his own body again, even if it is a partially see-through one. ''Now that that's over with, let's get to the meat of the matter: if neither of you has intentionally brought Oscar back to this time period,'' at this both Oscars shake their heads ''Then its probably the other Jaune's fault you're here. For ease of conversation, refer to me as Spirit, while him as Jaune.''
At this point both Oscars stare, first at Spirit, then at Jaune before the older one turns to Jaune ''Okay so first things first, I'm going to throw the nickname Oscar gave me when we first figured out what was happening into the group: Wizard.'' At this the younger Oscar looks a bit embarrassed but regains his pose after both Jaunes just give a small smile and agreeing nod at him about it ''In addition to that, my ability to use magic was fully reliant on the combined soul of Ozma, as such I don't have magic myself anymore but from his mind I did figure out that a number of the other members of our travel group did have a bit of latent magic, including you Jaune, but it was nowhere near enough to actually use for anything and the ritual to awaken it would weaken you for long enough for it to not be worth it.''
He then turns to the younger Jaune ''So please describe exactly what happened and what the ritual is so that I can help figure out how you managed that.'' As Jaune pulls open the book and opens it on the correct page before lying it down on the table and then starts his explanation Wizard walks over all the while listening to the explanation, with Spirit chiming in occasionally on what he could figure out from his perspective of the events. After asking for slight clarifications on some aspects, he seemed to have figured something out.
''Okay so first things first, what I'm about to tell everyone here can't leave the room, the moment Ozpin hears anything about this he'll assume we're in league with Salem since to his knowledge the only people alive that know are himself, Glynda, Ironwood, Jinn and Salem, with Glynda and Ironwood having no reason to talk to us about this.'' He sighs, shakes his head and readies himself for a probably fairly long explanation ''You all know about how the brother gods wiped out mankind once out of a grudge for them siding with Salem right?'' they all nod, wondering where this is going ''Well the thing is, the brother gods aren't the ones that remade mankind afterwards, it was reborn from the will of the now dead humanity to exist once again.'' At this all three of them look at him, not understanding fully.
He seems to think for a moment before coming to a realization ''You guys all know how aura is the very manifestation of our soul, our will to live and fight right?'' as they nod he then continues ''What you probably don't know is that due to this method of using our souls, we are essentially projecting power outwards through our will, which heavily empowered an entity that can be considered the collective will of mankind, Alaya. Of course since it is the collective will of mankind, it is filled with all kinds of conflicting ideals, however it has one thing at its core that almost all humans with active aura wish for: the survival of the human race and with this Faunus are actually included in this collective will as part of the 'human race', before you ask why, I don't know and Ozma didn't find it important enough to elaborate on.''
As they all sit there thinking for a moment Spirit figures it out as well ''And since this collective will of mankind saw how badly it could go into the future it supplied Jaune enough additional power for the ritual to actually work to a greater extent than expected, where without her it would probably have done nothing more than give him some shards of information due to him not having the magic to actually achieve it, but with the supernatural power available to something representing the collective will of mankind, this would be little more than a drop of water out of a bucket filled to the brim, while it will likely give humanity a far better chance at surviving since Salem's main reason for success was just how off guard Cinder caught everyone and just how much luck she had in most steps of her plan.''
At this Wizard nods before continuing ''Correct, additionally for an entity with that much power, it would take little effort to extend the effect of the ritual to more than one of the people present in your last moments.'' At this Spirit starts smiling even more, though Wizards next comment puts a damper on it ''Yes, there is a chance of Nora and Ren also remembering, though sadly enough since they were already gone from this world when you died while I was still alive, the chance isn't too high. Sadly enough chances are higher of Cinder coming back then them due to her dying at pretty much the same time as you, meaning we'll have to watch very carefully once we get to Beacon on how she reacts to us.''
At this point they were all silent for a moment, thinking the situation over, potentially two friends who would be able to help them and who would get a nice reunion, or a horrible villain who was willing to sacrifice the entire human race just to get more power for herself, not even for a true purpose, just power for powers sake. At this point Jaune broke the silence ''We'll get no further in knowing just sitting here and it will be several weeks before we can really do something about it, so first things first, Wizard, Oscar, what were you guys planning on doing in Vale for now? No, offence Oscar, while I could ask my sister in law to use the same falsifications as she did for me to get into Beacon, but you look way too young to enter Beacon any way other than getting the headmasters personal invitation, and even then Ruby was already an unprecedented case at 15, you're even younger than that.''
At this Oscar spoke up after exchanging a look with the older version of himself ''Well we had planned on training here and helping Beacon students in stopping the crimes you all had talked to Wizard about, trying to get Ozpins attention or at the very least befriend your teams so they would trust us enough to let them assist when they would need it most. But now with you here, we don't need that, we can just have you introduce us and call us up whenever we need the assistance. It would probably be best to share scroll numbers now as a precaution.'' As he finished that sentence the younger Jaune drew his own scroll and they added each-other while Wizard continued.
''So now its probably for the best for the two of you to train with each-other while we give pointers and assist, in addition to me giving Jaune some ideas on how to train with the Magic he now has.'' At this his expression turns thoughtful ''While I'm unable to cast anything myself, I still know some of the more basic things Ozma could do with it, which might help you figure some things out,'' after this he points at the book ''Though this book will also be very useful have you already used any of the spells?''
At this both Jaunes nod ''Yeah I used the spell to turn wood as strong as iron, pretty useful for improvised weaponry or if we need a pole-arm or Javelin of some kind to deal with a specific type of Grimm, we can just carve it from a branch before I enchant it instead of having to keep lugging something we'll only use sparingly around the globe. Was very useful while hunting on the journey to get a train to Vale.'' At this point his expression changes somewhat ''Any chance we can go get some food before we continue this? I haven't eaten anything other than some bread and cheese all day, would like to get some more food since its already late in the afternoon.''
At this Oscar nods in agreement ''I also wouldn't mind getting something to eat, I was originally going out for that when those thugs found me, but after that we had to handle this situation first. Any recommendations on a good place to eat near here?'' As he poses this question he looks at Spirit, who thinks for a moment for a response.
''There's a pretty good noodle shop around the corner, owned and occasionally manned by one of the more powerful businessmen around the city, called the 'simple wok'. The guy seems to switch between his shops every once in a while, sometimes he mans one of his dust stores, other times his wok stands and again at other times his library.'' At this all three of the others look at him in surprise at that seemingly random fact, causing him to shrug ''The guy owns like a third of the cities establishments of the three named categories, so it's a fairly well known story for everyone who spends a decent amount of time in Vale.''
Oscar and Jaune look at each-other, shrug their shoulders and stand up, with Jaune moving back to his room to grab his coat in case it starts raining while they're out while Oscar grabs his from the closet in his room. Afterwards, the two of them walk downstairs, exchange greetings with Rodger and walk outside, drawing some attention with their openly carried weaponry, but not much since it is only a few weeks till Beacon starts its semester and young potential huntsmen have been flocking to Vale to be sure to be on time for the various initiation tests or otherwise use that as an excuse to just spend time with their friends in the big city without parental supervision.
As they head over to the wok place they see a few suited thugs glaring at them as they walk past the club, probably having heard of what happened to their allies, only for Jaune to glare back all the same while bringing his hand to rest on his sheathed sword, having no fear anymore for people like them after everything he had learnt and seen in the past few weeks. The immediate response of most of the men is to take a step back in fear of him drawing it upon them and delivering the same fate as their friends, before Jaune and Oscar turn around the corner with one last look over all of them to make a message clear 'stay out of our way, if you know what's good for you.'
Intimidation of local criminal elements done for now, the two make small talk, mainly revolving around Oscar asking for good places to visit and do things at in the city, while Jaune answers them as best he can with Spirits assistance ''There is a public sparring arena a few streets down at Gardners Street number seven, its not much special but it's where a number of graduates from smaller combat schools that didn't get accepted into the various huntsman academies or didn't apply to them practice, usually the people there intend to enlist either in Atlas's foreign legion or as part of the heavy assault strike teams of the Valean militia, which also functions as the main anti-huntsman section for Vale's law enforcement. Should be a good challenge to train against whenever I'm not available.''
A short while later they arrive at the wok stand, with Jaune pointing out from a distance that they have the luck to be there when it is being manned by the chains owner, causing a light chuckle and shake of the head from Oscar before the two of them go closer, with Jaune buying a noodle bowl with chicken while Oscar buys one with Salmon, with Oscar paying for the both of them in spite of Jaune's protests, which are somewhat silenced with a ''I need a way to pay you back for helping me in that alley, next time you can pay for the both of us.''
As they wait and make some small talk between themselves and the man before getting their bowls both of their spiritual companions freeze for a moment as they recognise somebody walking up through the corner of their eyes, both of them turning slightly to see a black haired girl with a bow on top of her head walking in their direction, looking at them suspiciously before ordering a bowl with Salmon while the both of them see the bow on top of her head twitch slightly as she can smell Oscars bowl, causing Jaune to quickly figure out who it is, before getting confirmation from spirit.
As they stand there eating Blake keeps switching her gaze between the two of them with suspicion before she gets her own bowl and quickly leaves, going back the way she came at a relatively fast pace. Oscar waited until she turned around the corner before turning towards Jaune to open his mouth only for him to hold up his hand and count down with the fingers going down once per three seconds then he brought it down ''My apologies, Spirit had me count down that way, with her superior hearing she could have just stopped around the corner and heard us that way. However with the ribbon on its slightly less effective than usual so as long as she wasn't directly around the corner she won't be able to hear us.''
Oscar nods ''Okay that is confirmed she looked different enough that we thought I might simply be assuming any black and white dressed cat Faunus is her. Though I do have a question, Wizard had never seen her this suspicious of a pair of random humans she meets on the streets, not even in Atlas itself. So this is how she was until team RWBY was formed?''
Jaune shakes his head ''Once at Beacon she wasn't so bad, more just fairly withdrawn, especially early on. However we are two armed humans in the middle of Vale, with one wearing a Valean military surplus shirt with a great war greatcoat draped over his shoulder that just so happen to be eating at her favourite food stand probably only weeks after she quit the White Fang. She might have thought us members of some paramilitary group who managed to pick up information released by some of their members wishing for revenge.''
As they look at each-other they then both shrug and continue eating before handing the bowls back to the stall owner. After this Jaune turns towards Oscar ''So shall we go look at that training arena I was talking about, we could both probably use a good spar right now?'' Oscar thinks on it for a moment before nodding, at which point they start walking.
Once they arrive there Jaune pays for one of the smaller sparring rooms, while unlike the main arena these were not so cheap it was almost free, however they had a singular large advantage: they were private and were thus not available for public viewing, meaning they could go ham without drawing suspicion about how a thirteen year old farmboy was somehow putting up as much of a fight as a below average combat school graduate. Once there they connect their aura meters on their scrolls with the central machine, before they put the scrolls down and draw their weapons instead ''Okay, so first things first, since I probably got a bit more training by now than you due to more available weapons and such, lets do a match between you with Wizard actively assisting, while for me Spirit only gives advice once the match is over, deal?''
Oscar hesitantly nods, what with Wizard having handled all fighting up to this point but with his future self supplying encouragement, Jaune pushes a button starting a countdown timer while both move into position on their end of the sparring ring, 5…4…3…2..1.. and as the bell chime sounds to indicate the start of the match Oscar rushes forward and starts attacking in an attempt to take and keep the initiative, but the first sideways slash gets blocked by the shield before he jumps to the right on Wizards command, narrowly dodging a stabbing counter-attack from Jaune before he slashes another time only to again get blocked, but this time Jaune uses his superior strength to throw Oscar back with a heavy push of the shield.
Oscar moves back a bit and looks at the screen, Jaune has only used up one percent of his aura so far, he himself five percent. Neither a big amount, but so far he has a heavy disadvantage. Wizard offers to partially take over, to essentially show Oscar an example of how to move in a fight and give him a feeling of it, so that he can use it later on, with Oscar quickly accepting. The moment he takes control he shifts his sword into its gun form and takes a few shots at Jaunes upper body who quickly brings up his shield to cover and starts moving forward only for Oscar to switch back to his sword and move behind Jaune as he is still moving forward, only now having lowered his shield enough to notice Oscar flanking him who then feints at hitting him in the leg while rushing forward, causing him to bring his shield down to block only for him to quickly turn it into an upwards slash at the man's shoulder.
Though it does connect it only does so slightly and very shortly as Jaune rushes his shield up and essentially bashes the sword upwards so it only skims along the top of his shoulder, bringing their aura levels down to equal while Jaune tries to hit the younger man in his back only for Oscar to perform a combat roll, the sword sweeping above him while he quickly moves out of the roll and stands back up just in time to parry a downwards slash from Jaune, with his attempted counter-attack getting blocked by the shield before he jumps to the side to dodge the bash of the shield heading for him.
As they move back and forth it quickly becomes apparent that while aura wise Jaune is now at a disadvantage due to facing a body controlled by a more skilled combatant, he still has the advantages of superior physical strength and endurance, allowing him to roughly keep up, as by the time his aura has drained down to 51%, while Oscar still has 57% the younger man is visibly starting to get tired while Jaune is still more than fine to continue. A mistimed jump to the side due to this tiredness quickly earns Oscar a shield to the face, throwing him back into one of the arena's walls, before he has to parry a downward slash of the sword only to get hit in the side by a follow up aura enhanced kick, throwing him a back into the wall before he manages to get a skimping hit in on the younger mans shoulder while he finally manages to get out of the cornered position.
Oscar holds up a hand to stop the fight and as Jaune looks, they're now both at 50%. ''It's clear that after this you'll quickly start winning due to getting the advantage more and more, but I think that was a good sparring match and enough for today, we need to get back to the hotel soon and I'd rather not go back with low aura in case those thugs from earlier start another fight.'' At this Jaune nods his acceptance and after disconnecting their scrolls and mentioning their leaving to the receptionist they walk out of the building, to find out it has started raining softly, prompting both to put on their coats on the route back.
After hurrying back to their hotel, they greet Rodger before going up to their rooms, completing their evening rituals at which point Jaune decides to looking through the book a bit. 'Hmm okay so a spell to create a small ball of fire that has a thrown range limited to a few meters, however it also costs fairly little in the way of magic and doesn't need blood or some other catalyst. Useful in case we need to light something on fire, whether it be a campfire, torch or something more along the line of lighting an improvised incendiary bomb. Not much use as an offensive weapon of itself though with how short range and weak the fire apparently is.'
At this he turns a page 'Okay not interested in a spell on how to turn a rat into a tiny dog, what kind of use what that even have.' As another page is turned, he shakes his head 'Nice spell if I were to take over an apple orchard but I don't think a spell on how to speed up the growth of an apple tree by half is any use to me.' Turning another page he comes across another spell 'How to set fire to a cornfield with flames that only harm corn and their plants, not harmful to animals, humans or any other form of plant life… why would this even be useful besides sheer pettiness…'' at that moment he remembers the writer was a human, of course sheer pettiness was a valid option for reasons behind designing/searching for a very specific spell.
As he turns another page, he now finds something more interesting 'Sacred weapon, channel magic into a blade with the chant 'For the ones I love, the world shall be burned clear' all the while thinking of the people you care about and wish to protect, the blade will gain a visible sheen of white light that can then be brought upon the enemy by a slashing attack, where it will, if the blade hits a Grimm, create a thin wave of magic that surges forward for between twenty and forty centimetres depending on the intensity of the emotions used, creating openings and wounds in the carapaces of even the most well armoured Grimm. Now that is useful.'
At this point however Spirit reminds him that its almost midnight and that tomorrow they will have to go search for a decent gym to train, since unlike back in Ansel you can't just go into a nearby forest and start lifting tree trunks or run 10 kilometres as physical training, since the only thing even close to an actual forest nearby is the forever fall forest near Beacon, which is always filled with Grimm drawn in by the negative emotions of the nearby city.
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Following morning, Oscars room
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As the two of them are eating a breakfast of scrambled eggs, croissants and slices of cheese with some orange juice and a cup of coffee for Jaune, the two suddenly hear shouting out on the street before gunfire can be heard, causing the two of them to put down their food and since they where already armed they immediately rush down and ram open the door where they rush several streets down only to find Roman Torchwik in a gun battle with Vale's police force with several thugs at his side, for once not those belonging to Junior though, instead they looked far more at ease with the weapons in their hands, all dressed in dark uniforms with purple spider signs on the shoulder.
One of them is pulling out a Winchester cocktail just as the duo get around the corner, causing Oscar to bring up his weapon and start shooting the man, hitting him in the arm and causing him to drop it. The man only survives because he stumbles back, causing the incendiary to only happen in front of him and lap at his feat instead of burning him alive as he rushes back further.
Meanwhile Jaune is taking shots at Roman, forcing him back into cover and keeping him from finishing off a wounded and exposed officer, allowing his comrades to drag him back just as Jaune's rifle runs dry, causing him to drop it before pulling his sword and transforming the sheath into a shield as he charges forward with aura enhancing his legs he reaches the nearest thug before the man can do anything more than turn around and rams him in the chest with the shield, throwing him several meters to the side and breaking his already damaged aura in addition to possibly some bones, though he remains alive in an alley to the side as his groaning and muffled cries of pain can be heard.
Meanwhile as Jaune rushes towards Roman his body is instead taken over by Spirit who jumps to the side, having seen a glint in the air that couldn't have been there, in doing so dodging a stab from a short brown-pink haired girl that he quickly identifies as Neopolitan. She rushes him to try and quickly win the fight only to figure out almost immediately that her opponent, while not fully her equal as a technical fighter is close enough that his advantage in raw strength allow him to easily keep up with her in straight up fight like this where she constantly has to dodge or parry at best while he can simply take her hits on his shield or block them with his sword whenever he needs to.
Annoyed now at the problematic situation this supposed to be easy break-in has turned into, she tries to flank him to the right and stab him in the side, feinting going for his leg only to aim towards his shoulder, however he parries and heavily pushes her blade out of position before turning it into a downward slash, only for her to jump to the side dodging the hit and turning to hit him instead only for him to alter the direction of his slash and use it to block the hit. A similar pattern develops, with him not being able to get around her agility and ability to straight up dodge his attacks while he has enough of a strength advantage to just block or parry anything she throws at him.
Before long instead she is being pushed back, before visually at one point an overhand slash breaks her defence and throws her back as she stumbles backwards, causing Jaune to step forward only to feel a stab in his lower left leg as the empty air in front of him is pushed back slightly with his shield revealing her to have used her semblance to hide, only for him to smash his shield forward through the surprise and pain, this time truly throwing her back before she becomes invisible again, with Jaune looking around for any changes, any falsehoods in the environment to reveal her interference only for Roman to also become invisible. As the two criminals flee the scene, Jaune turns to see Oscar fighting one of the grunts, hitting the man in the back of his leg forcing him down and then smashing the pommel of his sword in the back of the mans head with all his strength, throwing him into the wall next to him.
As they regroup and Jaune picks up his rifle the police moves in only for them to also start aiming at the two young men ''My apologies, but the two of you need to join us at the police station to answer some questions. While we're thankful for the assistance, we need to make sure you're not just some rival gang looking for opportunity, especially after us getting a report yesterday of individuals fitting your description fighting a brawl with some unidentified gang members.''
The two look at each-other and shrug before Jaune hands his rifle over to the closest officer and sheaths Crocoa Mors before handing it over all the while stressing for the man to be careful with it since it's a family heirloom. Oscar has done the same with his still relatively new weapon, after which the two of them are brought to the nearby police station, where they end up in an interrogation room together.
Only shortly afterwards another officer enters ''Okay so we've run the both of you through our data-banks and while we now know you'' at this he points towards Jaune ''Are a registered huntsman in training that is a Beacon prospect,'' he then turns towards Oscar ''You on the other hand are an unknown, while yes you're registered according to your Visa you're here to study agriculture at Vale's Fontario Academy, which is a job you most certainly aren't going to learn at how to beat experienced criminals in a swordfight. So in short, why were you there?''
Unseen to the man in front of them, but noticed by Jaune after having witnessed it and experienced it himself several times, Wizard takes control at this point. ''Well officer while my aunt is trying to get me to follow her steps in becoming a farmer and taking over the family business, I've always wanted to go to a combat school and learn how to defend people from the Grimm. Jaune is an online friend who gave me some basic tips and who I met up with here in Vale yesterday to train further trying to become strong enough to apply for a combat academy, the brawl with the thugs yesterday was caused by me going towards our meeting point only for them to try and rob me before Jaune stepped in.''
At this point Jaune nods along, Spirit having taken control to smooth out the story ''Yeah, we originally met online after he showed interest in a chatroom in buying 'learn sword fighting from Samuel' DVD's, I advised against it and afterwards we got into a conversation about the how and why. In the long run this caused us to befriend one another with me giving him some advice on training and promising to meet him at his uncle's hotel here in Vale to help him along, only for us to meet before getting there with him surrounded by thugs trying to rob him.
As the officer looks at the two young men he looks uncertain on whether or not to believe this, before turning towards Oscar with concern ''Just so you know, while this time you had the luck of it actually being a teenage huntsman student that you were communicating with, this is almost certainly the exception. Don't trust people that way online again, it is far more likely for them to be lying in an attempt to meet with a young teenagers far away from parental oversight from a far older man or woman with vile intentions. You were very lucky, in addition to also being lucky that he found you in time to help you against those thugs.'' Now looking between the two of them he sighs before continuing ''I'll let you both just go, especially with how you helped us in a situation where we might have had to hold out against huntsman level opponents without our own support for at least ten minutes.''
As they step outside they get their weapons handed back to them, where a young brown haired rabbit Faunus officer stops them for a moment ''Thanks for the assistance, without it I might have been toast. Here's my number, if either of you is ever in need of assistance, call me.'' As he says this he winks at both of them before walking away.
Jaune, still under control of Spirit shrugs it off, having had to get used to far worse with all the Atlesian mothers flaunting for his attention while he was guiding their children, while Oscar turns slightly flustered, since neither Wizard nor the Oscar of this time have much if any experience with this type of behaviour. As they walk out and the Jaune of this time gets control back he stumbles and blushes slightly as well, not used to this kind of attention before shrugging it off as well, since the situation is already over.
Once they're a bit away from the station Oscar asks ''How exactly did Spirit deal with this kind of attention in Atlas, while there Wizard was slightly envious of him, but now that the both of us have had to experience more of it ourselves we just don't know how to deal with it and would rather it be toned down, badly.''
Jaune shrugs, not fully knowing himself ''Apparently a mixture of experience and confidence gained through both age and experience.'' He stops for a moment as if listening to somebody ''Also apparently this was somewhat tame compared to how far some of the women in Atlas and Mantle were willing to go, since unlike there here at least they weren't … feeling him up under the guise of complementing his strength…as such he needed to get used quickly otherwise he'd be a constantly red wreck.'' As both of the Oscars and the younger Jaune process this they shiver for a moment before Jaune starts up again.
''Okay, that's enough of that, lets just deal with finding a good gym. We still need that one and we might as well do that now.'' Oscar nods in return, causing them to start walking around, with Oscar quickly finding one nearby, calling Jaune over as he starts looking the place up online. A banner hanging above the door reads 'The Jade Dragon', with a dragon spewing fire etched in the doornob.
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AN: And that's the end of it. I hope it was nice to read for everyone, please send reviews in it helps me improve. Have a nice day everyone.
Aelmellin: Awwww, I love the little brother angle and can't wait to see how you progress it. But now I absolutely want to find out the justification and explanation for why Oscar is in the same boat as Jaune. resonance from Jaunes ritual? found his own ritual book? Someone from the future did it to send him to the Past? Very curious indeed.
Answer: thanks for reviewing again, and yes your first guess was correct, as you can read in this chapter him being sent over was caused in part by external forces enhancing the effect of the ritual as such also dragging Oscar along, though Ozma got left behind, but potentially some of the others nearby might have or might not have joined, which one will be revealed later
Gonsmoss:
1. Not to sounds to hateful but a ritual? That's kind of doesn't make sense.
Mostly because it's way too convenient to start series but also implies that magic still exist, arc possess at least some form of magic powers and Oz and Salem knows about it, yet Oscar/Oz never told older Jaune about it to harvest it and give himself an edge in fight? (summary says "time travel" so i assume both Jaunes are from same world but different time)
And you make older Jaune look like an idiot who is roasted by his younger self. Shouldn't older Jaune give younger this advices? Like: "Listen kid, get yourself a gun, don't ask questions, just do it, don't be an idiot like me" which portay older Jaune as somewhat reliable adult figure, source of into and mentor.
2. Damn, that was cool chapter, that's for sure.
I'm always sucker for this type of writing in stories. A lot of them tend to give basic overview of things but not give detail.
Like Jaune traveling, cool but what about small details like food, sleeping etc. Even canon how did it. Yet you put it here. Even talked about other outposts, small details to make world alive and realistic.
I'm suprised how interaction between Jaune and NPRRWBY will go. Him showing any knowledge about them they he shoudn't have will surely be a red flag for them. Or knowing Pyrrha, she will surely not be as eager to be his partner if he will show that he knows her.
Tho he should as Ruby to either upgrade his rifle, give crocea mors upgrade or something.
Also Jaune and Jaune should make a plan to survive being launched from a cliff. They simply can't hope that Pyrrha will save him, again.
3. Meh, not the biggest fan of Oscar being in the same position as Jaune or being here at all.
This gives to much protagonist vibes to be used on two guys especially when they are roughly similar, also Jaune now is pretty much useless to be honest. I can't see bringing anything new that Oscar can't do and do it better. Future knowledge, combat support, all that stuff.
Unless you will keep him around as glorified healing bot, aura booster like canon did.
Reply: Since you made 3 reviews, my reply will be fairly long and detailed, so watch out.
There are a number of reasons behind using a ritual and the implication of magic still existing to an extent, one of the ones I can be open about now was because I needed a way for somebody from the past to get the people from the future back, and then I thought of the fact that we know that a lot of the families like the Arcs, the Schnees etc. have famous ancestors but we know very little about those ancestors. At that point I thought of the fact, a lot of the characters are parodies or changed versions of figures that actually existed, some of them heroes.
What if that is because their ancestors were either those heroes or very heavily influenced by them (i.e. their siblings, nieces and nephews) and as such had a family that to this day acts very similarly. Like with the Arcs, Jeanne d'Arc was somehow brought to this world after dying and she grew close to a peasant family, essentially becoming one of them and then at some point used some form of blood magic to save the son of the family, who then became her brother in both the emotional and blood related sense.
Then when the country she had come to adore as a second home began collapsing around them, she took up the sword and became a hero again, out of familial love said brother followed her and fought by her side, with him eventually becoming the ancestor of the modern day Arcs. A few generations later, somebody records all the things they did and the magic they used while also creating their own spells with the limited magic they have themselves, using blood a lot because their blood is the only really magical material in the world that they have access to.
Later on in the family tree, while most of the magic is lost through the natural dilution of blood that comes with you know, having children with people on a planet where normal humans are cursed to not be able to have magic by gods, the potential is so diminished that on its own it has become useless.
However the unified will of mankind sees how bad the situation becomes in various possible futures (what with Vale falling and still being crippled as an entity by Grimm months later, hundreds of towns and small cities being destroyed due to Grimm attracted from the fear that seeing that happen on live TV creates, a lot of huntsman dying due to the traitorous actions of Lionheart and you know, potentially the entirety of Atlas+Mantle being destroyed) and influences things just enough for Jaune to instead sit slightly to the left from where he would be in the original timeline once he despairs in the library, where then instead of just hitting part of the shelf, he hits a hidden button.
Then when he's doing the ritual said force augments his magic and supplies part of the magic used, in doing so greatly enhancing and rejuvenating the weakened, atrophied power he's already got, making him actually able to do spells. He's nowhere near prime Ozma, hell he's actually still weaker than Ozpin currently is however he has a few advantages over him, one of the major ones of which is that unlike with Ozma's magic which is only carried over through the soul that joins into the body, with Jaune it's a natural, if enhanced, part of his body. Meaning that unlike Ozma, he can potentially grow stronger and use magic related to his blood.
This all in addition to the information explained about Oscar both before and during the chapter should calm your fears of Jaune being replaced, while Oscar will play an important role he is, especially to the outside world, a child. He will be a close friend and confidant, somebody with shards of useful knowledge gained from sharing a body with an immortal wizard and play a major role in the story however he will not just bump Jaune out of the way.
Instead I'm going to try to write them more as supporting each-other and covering the others weaknesses, all the while their younger selves help the other in having somebody to confide in that is in a similar situation with themselves from a horrible future just jumping into your head. Jaune's reactions to seeing his friends again will be interesting to say the least, especially with the added uncertainty of whether the to him two most important ones will actually remember him, or just see a stranger that is far too affectionate of them and become guarded and suspicious.
As for the initiation, well something is already planned but describing it would kind of ruin a lot of the next chapter, so bear with me until then. Phyrra however will be an interesting case, as while I do like the pairing, on the other hand for him, she's either a new face that he knows far too much about when meeting somebody for the first time(younger Jaune) or somebody he has grieved the death of and slowly moved on from only to see her alive in front of him again in addition to seeing all her flaws again after having put her on a pedestal in his mind(older Jaune, people tend to either heavily diminish or embellish the flaws of a person after their death, depending on their overall opinion of them), neither of which is the best thing when trying to start a romantic relationship.
All the while she, while possibly interested due to the whole not treating her with hero worship just because she's a tournament winner will be very conflicted about him still most certainly knowing all kinds of things about her he should never know, especially since she won't know why he knows those things, meaning he in her mind he might possibly be a heavy stalker that is just good at hiding his emotional reactions or trying to get her on his side like Weiss did in canon for his long term benefit.
Okay honestly that was far too long, but I hope it answered all your questions Gonsmoss, thank you for asking them, also thank you Aelmellin for your return review after last time.
