Hello, everyone who's still reading or following up on this.
I'm sorry that I haven't been updating at all these past two years, even if some people really like this story.
For the most part, I liked this story too, and even if some things might be disagreeable to some, I don't regret them at all.
The truth is, while the premise of the story is a wacky take on the standard Drunken Marriage fanfic, it was also fueled largely by my dissatisfaction with certain elements to Volume 5's ending, when it came out.
Between the (now blatantly unneeded) ambiguity behind Cinder's "death" against Raven, Jaune's whole deal of attacking Cinder, and a bunch of other things, I found myself wanting to write a scenario where those plot elements were addressed and resolved more quickly.
Primary among these things were character development for Jaune, and the start of a redemption arc for Emerald.
Of course, while the primary setup follows something of a 3-Act structure, a large portion of this story is more light hearted setup masking a much darker story in the backdrop of things.
Much of Emerald's development in the story is made with the express purpose of being themed around the concept of abuse, and how she gets out from that.
For the most part, my plan was to have Jaune and Cinder's characters organically represent opposing ends of different extremes for the greatest possible contrast, without making Jaune a man with a messiah complex instead of a broken hero complex.
While, again, the rape would be tasteless to some, it's still something I wrote for that express purpose, to pretty much establish that Cinder is, indeed, a needlessly cruel monster in human flesh who embodies much of everything wrong with humans who abuse their own power as much as they abuse others.
This was when I was under the impression that I had at least a decent handle on what the characters' personalities were to be.
Come Volume 6, however, and I gradually felt that Jaune didn't really "fit" the vision I had of him at all, especially in regards to the whole "Ozpin is a liar" situation.
For that matter, pretty much everyone outside of Emerald, Salem included, did not actually "fit" the vision I had for this story.
Irrelevant tangent incoming, so one can skip if they want to, I'll put a bolded line further down to say when.
My initial assumption was that Volume 6 would just be a cold open to everyone being evacuated from Haven IMMEDIATELY after things calmed down, because Salem is just sending waves upon waves of Grimm monsters to murder everyone and take the Relic, which she freely does because, with all the legitimately qualified Huntsmen dead (barring Qrow), and most of the student body still gone for vacation and unable to be contacted in time, much less brought over the defend, what's actually going to stop them from wreaking havoc anyways beyond the new White Fang, seven odd Huntsmen/Huntresses in training, Jaune and an unconscious Oscar, who the heck is there to stop her?
I just assumed Qrow would hike it alone up ahead, or just make getting to Atlas at the highest speed the biggest priority, since Salem wants it badly anyways, and while that DID accidentally line up with canon on how it's a Grimm attracting device, it's something I'd assumed would have happened anyways because that's the all-important MacGuffin now.
But instead it's kind of just not addressed how Haven took the report about all the top fighters being dead; everyone kind of just seems all hunky dory instead of it being a mad dash to get to safety, and they even had enough time for Neptune to get to Haven to make a cameo.
Add that to Emerald being named as being a wanted criminal across Haven, alongside Cinder, with local news broadcasts showing their faces, and the logic that dictated this story sort of just falls apart, because then the inn owner wouldn't harbor a blatant fugitive and terrorist in his business and... yeah, I just figured it wouldn't really be worth it.
I personally am not sure what it actually is with RWBY as a whole, but I often just find myself sympathizing less and less with the characters. A major part of that is that I feel invested to see how these characters grow and develop more than I am interested in the actual fight scenes or in it being a fight against good or evil.
Come Volume 6 and 7, much of the plots that I felt investment in, whether it be the Faunus Discrimination subplot, the school setting, or even the actual overarching plot about fighting Salem, all feel like I WANT to see where it could've gone, but the few characters that could bring it to fruition kind of just... don't.
I lost all investment in the Faunus Discrimination plot when it became apparent that, instead of the more morally gray Black Panther equivalent for Remnant, it was revealed to just be a riff on Adolf Hitler with a dash of irony in it turning into a reverse equivalent of the KKK of Remnant.
The whole school setting in the beginning is part of why I stopped liking team RWBY by Volume 2's ending (among... other reasons) and wished team JNPR were the main characters at the start, because it didn't seem like anyone in RWBY actually NEEDED to learn anything, combat wise, they seemed about as strong as they needed to be go out into the world and face whatever challenges hit their way. Even the whole montage about the team re-evaluating their life missions was more about *character* building rather than *power* building, because the whole task of clearing out the Grimm is given sort of a blasé detachment in how easy it is for the team.
I say all this to say... I don't really consider myself a fan of RWBY, as much of its initial potential, once it worked out its kinks. I have no passion for the characters or the themes, because the more time passes, the more I see that what I thought most of the characters were going to be is nothing at all like how they turned out.
Okay, rant mostly over.
Provided all of that, I won't be continuing to write the story, but I'll just be summarizing the process of events from the last point of the previous chapter, then posting what I wrote for the last bits up.
Something that's worth bearing in mind though: I wrote much of this entire story from the perspective of trying to emulate a visual novel. As with most visual novels, when you pick any choice that strays from the "True" path a player's meant to take, you get less ideal endings, in which case you are usually netted either "good" or "bad" endings.
One's mileage may vary in these things; some visual novels will give you a mostly satisfying good ending if you made most of the right choices, some will lead you on for like ten hours like you did everything okay, then roundhouse kick players in the face by saying "Ha, you actually thought you did good? Yeah, no, that TOTALLY not important choice you made ten hours ago KINDA fucked you over, go back and change it for the better! Oh, you don't have a save file for that point anymore? Welp, sucks to be you, but good news! If you just start AAALL OVER again and do that ONE THING differently, you can get a better ending!"
*angrily shakes fist at Doki-Doki Literature Club and Undertale*
Other novels of that sort just do a random bad ending to immediately say "hey, you fucked up here, so go back just a smidge, fix it and you'll be good", and others just give you a decently good ending if you decided you wanted it to end faster.
*stares at the Possessed Issei Bad End of Fate Stay Night and the White Room ending of Song of Saya*
In this story's case, it was planned to have four different endings, the first of which was the "Get out of the story quick" route. Most people seemed to assume I made that an actual vote, and the story itself was dictated by the votes, but no, each one is just one distinct ending because it does all I set out to do with this story.
You could see the remaining two endings as that plus benefits.
So I'm just going to summarize things.
From the point of the last chapter, the story was to continue as such: Jaune and Emerald go about getting food, they converse a bunch, Jaune tries to gently prod about the nature of Emerald's burns, but though they can foot the bill, Emerald has some things she needs to take care of back at the hotel.
While she initially says she wants to just give Jaune back his weapons so he can be on his way, she also has a small favor to ask, which involves making pancakes.
Jaune is confused, not really sure how to take this, but after some prodding, Ren joins in and helps make the pancakes, upon which Emerald explains her reasons to them, specifically that, in the process of Rosario giving her ointment, he also gave her two small vials of liquid, one red and one dark, each of which being designed to, respectively, either VERY heavily intoxicate someone or murder them outright.
She explains that her plan is to just give it to Cinder, since it's odorless and tasteless, and would easily gel with food such as strawberry or maple syrup.
She figures she wants to use the black murder liquid vial wholesale to get the job done, but follows her gut and uses the red instead.
Cinder, being part Grimm, can actually sense the nervousness present inside of Emerald when she actually brings the food up, but due to her raping Emerald and burn-scarring her for life just to correct a nonexistent power imbalance just the day before, she dismisses it, although she has Emerald taste it for her, which she does, and satisfied, Cinder eats it all, only for get sleepy. Because Cinder's concentration is faulty from how much of the vial she's taken, where Emerald only had a small amount, she can't actually project the concentration needed to project her aura, which swiftly leads to Emerald knocking her out before dumping the poison vial down Cinder's throat.
Of course, she'd just put a bullet in Cinder's head in other circumstances, but with there being many viable witnesses who'd at least hear a shooting, and the whole point of this plan being to inconspicuously murder Cinder, Emerald just starts doing hard pumps on Cinder's heart to make it stop, succeeds, still sees that the Maiden power transfer hasn't occurred yet, but thinks it best to just cut her losses, grab Jaune's things and get out of dodge.
When she gives Jaune his weapons, she convinces him to go about following her into the forest, and though Jaune's suspicious immediately upon understanding that she wants him to come alone with her to a secluded, not exactly accommodating part of the forest where no one could easily find them if they called for help, he manages to get Nora and Ren to track them and move along.
When they get deep enough in the forest, Emerald tells Jaune flat out the truth about the last few days, about how she'd been deceiving him, and a slew of other things, and though Jaune doesn't act surprised, she admits that she didn't think it was that good an idea anyhow.
She then goes on to say that that wasn't the whole truth of it either, that she had worked with Cinder for a long while prior to then, but that she'd hopefully died by then.
On that front, Emerald discards both of her weapons, tosses them at Jaune's feet, then promptly confesses the full magnitude of her crimes, of how she'd manipulated Yang into "injuring" Mercury, and of how she'd used her semblance to manipulate Pyrrha into accidentally killing Penny, for everyone to see, which had, in turn, led to the Fall of Beacon and all the associated casualties.
In essence, she tells him that she was just as responsible for Pyrrha's death as Cinder was, and that, if he wanted to take revenge, he would be able to do so by killing her.
Jaune, for his part, is shocked, but how he responds was itself a choice to be made.
If this were indeed a visual novel, the trick of it all would be to give two seeming choices for what Jaune would do: "Kill Emerald" or "..."
Making the choice to kill Emerald leads directly into the "Bad" Ending of the story, but it's not exactly a bad ending in the normal sense of the word beyond Emerald dying, and Cinder, despite the poison REALLY fucking her up, not being dead because Maiden aura is keeping her alive. Quasi-immortality, what can I say?
The issue being, should a person choose it, I would've worded it in a very short, nondescript manner, specifically:
Emerald, gazing transfixed at the ground, felt no fear as the steps of her executioner drew near.
She had always envisioned herself as being the object of terror in the face of her own certain demise, but never had she felt so calm, so at peace with what was to happen.
With this acceptance, she closed her eyes, there only being the sound of her flesh being violently cut through, and, in the next proceeding moments, the footsteps Jaune had as he walked away from her.
Of course, the other option is different.
To choose the "..." option leads to Jaune not saying or doing anything, and Emerald, not understanding his hesitation, tries prompting him to kill her, goading him, reminding him of the grief that wouldn't have been possible if she hadn't been involved.
Again, if this were in visual novel form, the same choice would present itself, again and again, with each choice always meaning the same thing: Emerald's death or Jaune hesitating.
In my mind's eye, I just imagined it all taking place at night, with them in this small, secluded forest clearing, but the more Jaune hesitates and does nothing, and the more frantic she becomes, the more one would be able to see pairs of glowing red Grimm eyes shining in the darkness just behind Emerald.
Up to this point, the same two choice prompts would have been provided, but from that point on, it starts to change.
First it becomes "Kill Emerald" and "Warn Emerald". The first gives the same text as before, but the other prompts Jaune to go about trying to warn her to get away, to grab her weapons and help him fight his way out because more of the Grimm monsters from before had come.
Emerald, for her part, quickly deduces that they had been drawn to her negative emotional state, but makes no effort to leave. Where she had grown increasingly frantic before, she is now very, very calm about the prospect of Grimm monsters killing her.
From that point, the roles are reversed between them, Jaune trying to convince Emerald: Though players would have the same choices as before, the wording of each choice would change over time, with Jaune trying to convince her to come with him.
It starts as "Kill Emerald" and "Convince Emerald", and each take on different variations the further down the rabbit hole they go.
Choice 1 goes from being worded as "Kill Emerald" to "Leave Emerald" to "Abandon Emerald", and my imagine spot would have Emerald very calmly sitting as more and more red eyed monsters started emerging from the shadows, before, upon getting into strong enough numbers, they start pouring out, but are still completely focused on Emerald, who, having a great amount of depression and emotional trauma from what Cinder did to her, is a prime target for the Grimm, who always attacked more heavily against people with strong negative emotions.
If Jaune were to decide to leave at this point, Emerald would get the same description I used above, telling of her dissonant surprise and poise in the face of her own violent death before they started, all while Jaune just walks away without saying a word.
However, at one point, it becomes clear that the Grimm monsters are poised to attack, and she won't budge no matter how much Jaune warns and pleads with her, and the last choice is brought to light: "Abandon Emerald" or "Protect Emerald."
Choosing the latter causes a pathway to the True Ending, at least as I wrote it, wherein Jaune fights against the Grimm monsters as they come in waves; as most are low level Grimm, he can take them on reasonably well, at least according to my assumptions (I really have no idea how strong anyone's actually supposed to be in RWBY).
As the waves of Grimm monsters come, they are attracted mostly to Emerald, and as he fights and cuts them down left and right, elsewhere, RWBY tried going about checking Cinder to make sure she was actually legitimately dead, but though the poisons that Emerald gave her did a good job of hurting her, she was still alive.
When RWBY try fighting her, Cinder finds herself outmatched, and proceeds to run away, with them trying to pursue, but Cinder's actions lead to a giant, widespread forest fire that keeps them at bay for a while.
Where she'd normally try to fight through it all, and just run, Cinder's Brain has been severely bogged down by the red poison, to the point that she couldn't even properly fight the first time anyways.
As a direct result of this, Cinder is reduced to a very bestial state of mind, with the Grimm implants overpowering her reason, and this leads to her running around to the same clearing where Emerald is because of her emotional state at this point.
This leads to her trying to attack Jaune and Emerald, but Jaune gets immediately overwhelmed, leading to Nora and Ren both jumping in and them overpowering Cinder's brutality with their wit and teamwork.
Despite that though, she's still not going down, and though she'd come to attack Emerald, she shifts her attention to them, the Grimm monsters still coming, and Emerald, which upends much of the area with all the widespread destruction it causes.
Ultimately, however, it isn't JNR, the Grimm, or RWBY that ultimately does Cinder in, but it's Emerald, who, amid all this, sees Cinder bearing down upon her, which prompts her to try grabbing her weapon instinctively and shooting, no different than when she'd killed the same men who'd tried to assault her in the alley all those years ago, and with a singular bullet to the head after her aura gets depleted, Cinder dies trying to kill her, which, in turn, makes Emerald become the Fall Maiden.
The realization of this horrifies Emerald, the knowledge that she'd murdered Cinder, even knowing how awful a person she was to others and to even Emerald herself, making her become overcome with grief, but with this happening, JNR finally manages to get her out of harm's way, her only calming down after a long period of time, during which Jaune eventually takes her to the same bar they'd gone to before.
That is about how it goes until the next chapter.
I'll just post the next chapter though, because this has been going on for a while.