"...My heart still exists, Jaune. I am simply not eager to reclaim it, or the pain it has brought me. And, I would wager that you feel the same way. I am living proof you don't need a heart to live - though I hope people don't follow my example. You, my boy, are proof that you don't need a heart, to have heart."

"...I bid you: hone your spirit. Refine it. Free me of this endless chain!"

He wouldn't have been recognized if they could see him now. He didn't move the way he had, wasn't supposed to be that fast, that purposeful or refined. His feet were supposed to trip over each other and he was to fall, groan in shame, and continue on. That soon became the norm, the expected, of one Jaune Arc.

And being unrecognized had its perks.

The Reaper's scythe fell with a shriek of cut wind and in the frozen fraction of a moment, and his chest glowed. Somewhere deep within the darkness of its cloak, the Reaper glowed as well, a cold and pale argent to his halcyon. It gave the Reaper pause, but only for a moment.

That was all he needed. He stabbed his sword into the ground and darted to the side with his shield out, the momentum causing him to blur and his shield to batter the air itself with enough force to make a shockwave.

A bubbly voice cried out in shock, its owner bulldozed away from the swipe and into ageless water. The pawn crashed into the water, auburn hair coming up for air seconds later, and the scythe cut inches too short away from him as the Reaper continued its swing with a dreary monotony.

He kept his momentum going, the movement from his shield carrying him into an expert vault that landed him on his feet. The scythe gouged through stone and earth and air like they were all butter, whistling through each like the swiftest arrow. His stride broke out into a pace. A jog, then a run, then a sprint. His hand lashed out and yanked at his pawn's collar, trailing her after him without effort. She was heavy, and her hammer heavier still, but not heavy enough.

"Master!" She cried. "Your sword!"

He did love that sword."Get to the riftstone! Now!"

Before she could protest he lobbed her forward, over a rickety old bridge that cleared the gap between one side of the cistern and the other. She landed in the clearing by dimly lit stairs, her form rolling in the murk with a loud, cold splash.

It was an implicit order, one that she couldn't, or at least he hoped she couldn't disobey. He turned to face the towering form of the Reaper as it floated up to him, every cold, eerie billow of its cloak bringing nightmares to the person he used to be, Jaune Arc. Its frigid indifference met his determined scowl, and there was an impasse.

The billowing of its hood froze and its movement ceased as it regarded him. For a moment, a single moment, it held the scythe like something cherished, and the haunted, forsaken voice that chilled the very waters he stood in reminded him of someone else, somewhere else.

"J-Jaune?" A very frightened, very quiet and confused voice called out from somewhere deep inside the cloak. "Jaune?"

Then hell started to break loose.

The scythe slashed outward in a stance change, and the quiet, meek voice became distorted, his name giving way to chilling incantations. The world lit in an eerie red pallor and the reaper started to swirl. Roses flitted through the air until it was a cyclone of red, and then dead flowers. The lantern became scarlet and its hood suffused with old and dried blood down to its very tatters, which hung limply to the floor like clothes off of a hanging marionette.

It looked almost familiar to him, but the little reaper he had known wasn't that... big.

His eyes darted to his sword. It gleamed in the new light like an arc of blood stuck in the ground, all the way to the hilt. Working quickly, he lashed out with his hand and a sigil, a single orb of darkness darted to the blade, landing inches away. It sucked at the air and ground with a hunger to swallow everything it could, whirring as loud as the engine of a bulwark, and what wasn't firmly implanted in the ground came tumbling toward the miniature black hole.

Bricks and stone and bone, roots and bark and abandoned weapons, fungi and flesh all came rolling into its center. Yet and still the blade didn't budge - It was firmly implanted into the ground, almost to the hilt. It shook and budged, but didn't free itself.

Annoyance was past him now. In the scant seconds that followed the Reaper's incantation, a veritable cavalcade of refuse had collected in that one spot. Retrieving his blade had never been the plan.

Another sphere shot out with a wave of his hand, and he was already moving. This one sucked him in ravenously, ignoring all else and calling to him with the wail of a dead lover as the incantations became more human, more noticeable, and his name more prevalent amongst the distressed calling.

"Let me be your beacon! I will save you! Jaune?" A choked noise. "Jaune!?"

The darkness swirled and quickened his pace until his feet could no longer keep up. Then he was in the air, vaulting, and his hilt directly beneath him. With a swift and straining tug he wrenched the blade from stone and dismissed the sigil, ducked behind the collection of refuse, and started his own incantation.

Three. Two. One.

Darkness gave way to a glow, and light erupted in a show of gold that streamed in vicious licks to anything before it. In appearance alone the tongues of light were anything but benevolent, taking upon the appearance of anything from scaled and fierce dragons to charging, fallen soldiers.

It hit the boulder of waste first, passing through it harmlessly. Then it collided with force into the reaper, and the light show that ensued showed arcs upon arcs of vicious, draconic shaped light attacking the Reaper on all sides they disappeared in a sudden and blinding absence of light. It did nothing.

The incantations continued. Grunting, he kicked the boulder as it started to glow, first a faint ember color as burst-rock began to ignite from the inside, and then it became as heated as magma. It collided with the Reaper in an explosion that rocked the cistern and the walls started to crumble sealing off the only exit.

He'd need to find another way out now.

Chapter 3

Jaune was hardly the smartest of his siblings, but he had learned how to observe; it had been easy, watching them spar and train and sitting on the sidelines as much as he did.

The wheel spun like a dragon, and the head of the ouroboros, which was decidedly draconic, disappeared into scattering embers as the head emerged from it to start the cycle anew. If the fire wasn't enough to jog his memory, the wings were.

He could see it again. Big, red, and… nothing. What he was sure would have been fear, an emotion that Jaune was unfortunately too familiar with, died before it could become anything. He could see the dragon - the big fucking dragon, he stressed inwardly - and that was all.

The dragon of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. The dragon that split him open and plucked his heart out.

What was the best way to describe losing your heart?

Eviscerated, maybe.? Disorgan-ified. 'Dead off his feet'.

He shook his head and looked at Velvet, interrupted from his thoughts. The game was called Dragon's Dogma, and there was the dragon, and he was the Arisen destined to slay it… In a matter of seconds Jaune came to the conclusion that he was the main character.

All things considered, that was a pretty cool deduction.

Then, what Velvet had called him clicked. "Wait, did you just- Ser Jaune?"

"Y-Yes?" she asked, more than said. "You are a knight, yes? Your sword- well, Chief Adaro said you had a sword, and your shield, and-"

"No," Jaune said, "I'm not a knight, just… Just…"

A wanna-be , would-be huntsman. When Jaune had told his family that he wanted to be one, like them, like his mother, father, and eldest sisters, they had laughed. "You don't have to be, Jaune," one of them had said. In hindsight, he felt as if running away from home to be one would have ended, as badly as it began.

A cursory inspection of the room led him to believe that there wasn't any electricity, and from that, other deductions came about. No electricity meant no technology, no technology was related to a lack of dust, which meant a lack of huntsmen and huntresses, which meant no academies, which certainly meant no huntsmen. No huntsmen, no… No grimm.

Which meant that he wasn't on Remnant. The floating messages that Remnant certainly didn't possess just gained even more credence.

Jaune recalled how his choices had led him to where he was. Falling to his death… in front of a dragon. It seemed to be his luck, all things considered. But, at least he hadn't died before the game started. Unless losing his heart counted. In some games that did, but those had at least three hearts. He didn't even have that much.

"…I'm stupid," he said, and Velvet frowned at that. "I was… falling, and fighting this big, flying thing with my- some others, and-"

"Then you fell." Velvet finished. "You were… fighting the dragon?"

"Nevermore, actually." Jaune nodded to himself at her expression. "You… don't know what that is."

It was her turn to nod, and she observed him with large, attentive doe eyes. They reminded him of someone, but weren't silver enough.

"How about a grimm?" He asked, a last ditch effort to reconcile his state in the world, and almost because of that, the message popped up again. Integration in process, it read, almost as if it were trying to make a point.

Velvet's smile was hesitant. "A dark circumstance?" she joked.

"Not a soulless monster hellbent on preying on man and Faunus-kind, right…"

"Faunu- What… Ser Jaune, what a-are you doing?"

Jaune reached over and touched the tufts of her hair and found that they were not ears, but they were very, very soft, and she was not a Faunus. Remnant had Faunus, Remnant had White Fang and the Grimm and the SDC. This place didn't.

The message appeared again, and even blinked twice this time. Integration in process… World integration error, parameter REMNANT_SDC invalid. Parameter REMNANT_WhiteFang invalid.

Well, there was that.

He cleared his voice, but did a double take when her hair fell in exactly the same shape, which was that of two large rabbit ears that sagged due to their weight, or in her case, her hair. "You said I'm in Cassardis?"

Velvet nodded, sparing a glance at her hair and then at him before smiling, and Jaune could swear he heard her mutter under her breath, "Why do boys always like to touch my hair?" and Jaune would have said, "Because they look like extremely cute bunny ears," but in a moment of foresight he wondered if it was appropriate. His father's advice about blind confidence hadn't really done him any favors in… ever.

"Yes, Ser Jaune. Cassardis, we are a fishing village on the coast of Gransys," Velvet said.

Consulting his knowledge of games, which were the only thing he could hope to best his siblings in, even though the uselessness of it in comparison never failed to fill him with a lack of pride, Jaune gestured vaguely as he said, "…Not Vale? Or Mistral, or Atlas? Vacuo?"

He already had his answer, but Velvet's frown drove it home. He doubted they even had- of course they didn't have cars. "I… I have never heard of any such… places? Ser Jaune, are you alright?"

Jaune stared at the little whirling circle that decided it was a good idea to move to the corner of wherever he looked, and that was now down and to the right of his left knee. His mouth opened, but for a long stretch of seconds, nothing came out. "I… feel fine…" he said slowly, and he looked pointedly at his chest, tilting his head.

Cassardis, game, dragon, Dragon's Dogma. The string of thoughts came clearly to him and Jaune remembered that first, peculiar message he had seen that was… likely the beginning message of a game. That meant that this was the beginning of the game, and Cassardis was the starting area and-

Velvet watched him patiently. As his eyes started to move in deep thought, she looked at the scar on his chest and slowly placed her hand on his shoulder.

Outside of his mother or sisters, the latter was only when he was being teased, his contact with the opposite sex was woefully limited. Jaune jumped at the contact and she recoiled, muttering a quiet, "Sorry."

"I think I'm…"

He looked at her expectantly, and Velvet squirmed. "Yes?"

"I don't think I'm dreaming, or dead, do you?" He asked.

For a moment she looked confused, then horrified, and then just confused again before finally shying away from his view as he continued to stare at her. She tried to laugh it off. "You're certainly not dead, Ser Jaune," she said. "Which I, and everyone in the village, are grateful for. I doubt you're dreaming either - you've been asleep for nearly three days."

"Huh," he grunted, blandly. "Then I'm… definitely not in Vale anymore."

Velvet tilted her head. "Vale?"

"Just for reference, what is the name of this planet?" He asked, and then cringed. "I mean the planet?"

She blinked owlishly at him. "…Earth?"

"Right, right… Never heard of it," he muttered and rolled his shoulders. "Not Remnant, or even 'That Remains'? Nothing ringing a bell?" She shook her head, and to her right, Jaune found that the little message continued to swirl smoothly. It did not stutter, nor were there hang ups, it and it's blinking elliptical dots simply continued to load, like a game.

Integration in process. Jaune narrowed his eyes at, to Velvet, absolutely nothing.

When he started to grin again, Velvet gave him a single, worried look before rising to her feet. "I'll… I'll go get Chief Adaro." As she did, the color faded from the world and all movement except for Jaune's ceased. Another message had popped up.

Integration error: character model mismatch. Realigning world state…

Velvet returned with someone who defied Jaune's expectations. He wore a worn looking burgundy coat, his hair and mustache impeccably groomed. Somehow, Jaune expected him to be portly and short, but he had a powerful build, and his eyes seemed to be closed no matter what. Jaune had the feeling he was supposed to recognize the man.

"…Goeff?"

"My boy!" The man boomed, and next to him Velvet cringed and her hands went to her ears. Jaune doubted the man was the beloved but surly sock purveyor to children and employees everywhere. The distinct lack of the scent of alcohol was the biggest clue.

Jaune was swept up and placed on his feet, and then he felt a pressure just south of crushing as the man bear hugged him and pat him on the back with enough force to make him stumble. The man pulled away and even this close Jaune couldn't even see his eyes, only white hair and a mustache.

"We're all glad you're back into sorts, lad!" The man cheered. "It was a brave thing you did, charging that beast like that! It reminds me of myself, actually. In my younger days, why I-"

"Chief, I don't think Ser Jaune needs to hear the story of how you saved Cassardis yet," Velvet interjected, gently ushering Jaune away while simultaneously wincing.

The man wasn't put out in the slightest. "Why Miss Scarlaquina, the lad's obviously going to have a wide and exciting life ahead of him!" He boomed. "Hearing about how to defeat a chimera and a saurian mage with only a lantern, a poison flask, and a stick is a valuable lesson!"

Jaune looked between the two and didn't see Velvet's expression in time. "Saurian?"

Velvet's eyes widened in horror. "No-!"

Suddenly a large, heavy hand clapped Jaune on the back and this time he did stumble. Staggered. As you level up your stagger resistance increases, although depending on your vocation you gain base bonuses to it. Current Stagger resistance – 95 (+40 due to perk: Lackluster Arc).

Rolling his eyes at the name, Jaune caught the tail end of an exchange. "…Professor, he just woke up after-" Velvet started, her tone placating.

"Yes, he has!" The large man said, and clapped Jaune on the shoulder again. "If he is to be Arisen then he must learn the valuable skills from a debonair warrior such as myself!" Jaune looked at his mustache and thought that was patently untrue. "So there I was, just a lad of 17, when I faced off against an entire pack of dire wolves, and-"

"Professor I thought you said this was going to be about the saurian mage and the chimera, again?" Velvet asked, looking tired.

"Nonsense! Have to work up to that, first. The lad is nascent!"

"Wait, what?" Jaune did a double take. "I thought your name was Chief Adaro?"

Velvet's look was what could only be described as 'survivor's guilt'. "Chief Professor, Peter Port Adaro," she said, and the large man nodded once, amicably.

"At your service, my boy!"

"He's… my teacher."

"And now yours as well, lad!" The Chief Professor boomed, and Velvet started to pat at her ear to get the ringing out. "Now, where was I… oh yes, the wolves. Well, you see, at the time the Duke and I were simply lads, or gents as we were known back then, because we were quite attractive to the ladyfolk! I still am, of course, but I fear Ozpin has lost his touch."

Velvet looked down at the ground with a far off, weary look.

"Ozpin?" Jaune blinked. "Did you say Ozpin?"

"Yes, Ozpin! An old and dear friend of mind. Very old, too, unfortunately the man ages like a rock. He never got to experience the joys of being as a refined wine, like myself," Port added, grooming his mustache as Velvet coughed. "We were East of Gran Soren then, just by the waycastle, and I was recalling about the time I saved an entire convoy of merchants when…"

Another message popped up, and the world went black.

Status: Asleep.

The large man blinked. He shook Jaune lightly, to no avail. "Must be more tired than I thought."

Velvet sighed.

Jaune was woken up several times as he was told different stories, though what he gleamed most from them was how the status effect screen looked. A pixelated version of his head snoozing with drool running down his face was admittedly appropriate, but he was glad he wasn't actually drooling.

Port went from how he got the position of village Chief, to how he had started to train some of its people to fight monsters which, he said, were an ever present threat to civilization. This parallel wasn't lost on Jaune, nor were the implications.

In addition, Ozpin was here. Professor Ozpin. He was an Arisen.

For a moment Jaune wondered if he had he ended up here, in this… hewasn't sure how to describe it, this game, this world, as well?

Nevertheless, the thought wasn't as believable when he considered the messages. The way they popped up, being that of something he would have only ever seen in a game aside, meant that his life – save REMNANT_JauneArc – was being mixed with the game, and when pieces didn't match up it forced them in, and 'realigned' the world, which could lead to corruption, and Jaune hadn't gotten a say in the matter.

That was pretty unfair, but so was being pit against a dragon at the beginning of a game.

Ozpin was not a headmaster, he was a Duke. Jaune didn't even know what a Duke was, but it sounded important, if a little less flashy than Arisen, which, he learned, was the title given to everyone marked by that 'big fucking dragon', and that he wasn't the first.

Duke Ozpin the Dragonslayer wasn't the Ozpin that had flung him off a damn cliff, but the Ozpin of this land. …A land called Gransys, and not Vale, Mistral, Atlas, or Vacuo. On a planet called Earth, not Remnant. In a game.

And Jaune's afternoon was turning out quite swell.

In a land in a game where Beacon was only known as the Duke's castle, where the grimm were supplanted by creatures like goblins and harpies, saurian (which he found were lizard people as large or larger than men), and faunus referred to the animal life.

In a world where life was a game, and he was the only one who could play it... Jaune found it rather hard to complain.

Port hadn't stayed long. Velvet convinced him that Jaune needed his rest, to which he replied, "Of course! The lad has saved us all! He has a bright-" and Velvet shut the door on him, with respect.

She turned to Jaune, her expression visibly brighter, though she was visibly more tired. "Chief Adaro is a good person," she defended more than said, and sighed, "but just know that if he ever starts to say-"

And at this she paused, smiled at him and raised her finger before she took a long lock of her hair and placed it on her upper lip, and acted as though it were a big, hairy mustache. Jaune snickered. "'I remember in my younger days a battle I had with a mage, a goat, a lion, and a snake. Only it wasn't just any run of the mill mage, goat, lion, or snake! It was a saurian mage, and a chimera! And all I had was a stick, a cedar branch, a flask of poison, and my lantern. I gave those ne'er-do-wells such a thrashing!"

She groaned. It was a cute, quiet noise. "He's great and all, but… he talks so, so much." She tried to keep from smiling, but couldn't manage it. "If you want a bedtime story, he's the person for it."

"I am pretty tired," Jaune joked, smiling softly. Only he wasn't, and his mind was still running wild with his thoughts. "Did that really happen, though?"

Velvet's look softened. "You're really… not from here, are you?"

"I'm pretty far away from home," he said after a moment.

She gestured around them. Jaune thought she meant the room, but realized she was pointing outside. Jaune looked, and noticed for the very first time that the sun was down. It was pitch black out with sparse lights, lanterns, he surmised, dotting the murk. He didn't remember ever seeing a night so dark. It was just too dark.

And then he realized why.

Jaune's eyes flicked up to the sky. Save for thousands of lights too faint to even light the ground, there was no moon in the entire sky. Not a fragment, not a crater. Nothing.

"Far, far away from home…" he said quietly. Velvet took his awed expression for something good, and she wasn't entirely wrong. Any worry Jaune had quickly faded like a water droplet on a hot pan.

"Most people don't manage to pay attention long enough to hear him tell this part, but the gist of it is that Duke Ozpin granted Chief Adaro this village for protecting us during the last Wyrmhunt. While Duke Ozpin was hunting the dragon, our villages and encampments weren't very well protected. Then, I'm told, one day disaster struck and monsters attacked. Chief Adaro came along and saved everyone."

She gestured again at the darkness, though it was almost a pointless gesture. Jaune could see a single, barely lit street that climbed a hill. In the far distance he saw a church. "This is… Cassardis, it's… home."

The gratefulness with which she looked at him wasn't something Jaune expected. He knew for a fact that he had never had someone look at him like that in his life. Not his sisters, or even his parents.

A faint, pink aura emerged around her. "It still is because of you," she said, and paused for a moment. "I do not know where you come from Ser Jaune, and I won't invade your privacy about asking, but if you should ever require a place to stay, I don't think anyone would object if you decided to make Cassardis your home."

Altogether inept at dealing with such sincere emotion, due to never having been faced with it, Jaune distantly recognized that, in the past, he would have blurted the first thing to come to mind. His father's advice had been summarily useless, so all he had left was humility, which he was good at that due to an amazing lack of anything else.

"I… got lucky," he said quietly. "And really, really lucky that I didn't get anyone killed, or get in the way. " He looked at his chest and shrugged, causing Velvet to frown. "Well, I did get in the way, but- you know."

"You saved us, Ser Jaune."

"I think my family would have done better," he shrugged again, inwardly noting that before, there would have been no 'think'. It was fact, and now it wasn't.

Velvet shook her head immediately at that, and those ear-like tufts of hair bobbed. "I don't know your family, Ser Jaune, but… I am glad to have known you. And I'm glad you were there. For us. You saved us all at the cost of yourself, and in the entire history of Arisen such a thing…. I don't think it's ever been done.

"The dragon always leaves a path of destruction in its wake. Broken villages that come under attack of monsters in their weakened state… they never recover. You saved us from that, Jaune. That makes you a-a hero."

The word that would have made him feel higher than a cloud – Hero, strong, like his family! Like an Arc! It immediately fell flat and fizzled, and Jaune felt nothing. "My great grandfather was a hero."

Velvet's smile widened and Jaune could swear he heard a chime as she nodded. "I'm sure he would be extremely proud of you… Ser Arisen."

"Jaune," he said, smiling. "Just Jaune. Not Ser, not Arisen, just…"

"Jaune," she finished, laughing. "Would you… like something to eat?" She asked. His stomach answered her for him, and she giggled. "One moment."

She walked over to the fireplace and retrieved a cooked piece of meat that Jaune couldn't exactly recognize, but it looked delicious all the same. Then, as she placed it on a simple wooden plate and handed it to him, the world froze again.

Inventory, the new message that appeared said in large letters at the top, and beneath it was a menu. Jaune could see a picture of the meat there and found it was no longer in his hands.

You have received: scrag of beast x2!

This delectable portion of an unnamed beast restores a portion of your stamina. Time sensitive. Don't ask where it came from.

"Uh… exit?" He offered when the menu didn't disappear, and then it did. He sighed. That was going to take some getting used to. "Water would be nice."

Velvet bowed to him as if nothing had happened, and he supposed that, for her, nothing had. "Good night, Se-" she stopped and she smirked. "Just Jaune."

He smiled at that. "Thanks, Velvet. Good night."

He watched her go from the room, and then watched the lone, retreating light of what could only be a lantern recede into the darkness before laying down on his bedspread and looking up at the ceiling, left with his own thoughts.

"Dragon's Dogma, huh?" He asked to nothing, and nothing answered him. It was quiet, save for the rushing of the waves out in the dark, murky night.

"Inventory."

The world was replaced with a menu. Jaune could see the food he had been given by name, and upon reaching for it he saw its appearance. He found he could easily grab it from… nowhere, and while it made his head spin at how that worked, he couldn't bring himself to care. He took out one, the other piece being left behind, almost a copy of the one he had retrieved, and started to chew on it. Smoky, salty. Delicious.

Then something occurred to him. "Do I get to play the tutorial?" He muttered. "A game usually has-" he frowned and looked at the menu before him. "Exit," he said, and the menu disappeared.

"…Play the tutorial," Jaune said, with marginally more confidence.

The world froze again and another message popped up.

Would you like to play the tutorial?

Yes/No?

He grinned. "Yes."

And before the world went black, he saw yet another message appear.

Prologue complete! Quest Complete: Harbinger of Change! Gained: 1500xp! A flask of water! A new home! Title: Arisen!

The perfectionist in me refuses to let me skip to the parts I want to write the most. Parts with Mercedes, or the court Jester (guess, go ahead, guess!). But, I have a weak spot for character interaction.

After the 'tutorial' things will speed up, I hope. Jumping through levels, choice battles, getting mopped, and then mopping. Of course, I'll have to change a few things to keep it interesting. Who doesn't like taking those stat points to the bank, after all? Dragons Dogma would have been so much better if you didn't have to grind vocations you didn't want just to get the best stat allocation and augments. Looking at you, Warrior, mage.

Coughmagickarcknightbestcough.

Thank you so much for the review, favs, and follows!

Diaconsecond: Hey thanks! Worrying about what I'll do next is much less scary than worrying about how. Like, 'he'll fall of a cliff', but how will he? Very difficult.

EiNyx: Hope I didn't disappoint on that front. Jaune is determined, stubborn if only to prove people wrong. But things are different now. The lack of his heart functions like an in-universe Gamer's Mind, but it also… well, you saw. Still, losing your heart isn't all red hair and rose, wink.

It will be taking part in Dragon's Dogma, intermittently.

Dazac: I sure hope so!

Featherine: Grigori is awesome, in both senses of the word. It'll take a while before Jaune can hold a lantern to a drake, much less Grigori (I'm not going to take that long). Fortunately he has time, and a reality skewing game, on his side.

Unkindled One: I definitely will not be making Jaune go quickly back to Remnant. The reason why this idea interests me so much is essentially, "That poor level .5 character right there? He's screwed. Level his ass up in a world with cursed dragons and dragonmen, and that freaky jester that looks frighteningly like JDoolz."

Galabrax: To answer your questions in order: He'll get back the same way he left, albeit under very different circumstances, and he'll be strong enough to solo Bitterback Island.

Garoorar: I was hoping someone would notice! Unfortunately, this will be focusing on the DD aspects. It's very fun for me. I still haven't got past season one of RWBY, yet, so I know very little in comparison to other writers and have a distinct dearth of ability for that.

Also, how dare you forget Mercedes and… Aelinore (strangling/hugging motions intensify, you little-).

I don't plan for this to be very long, so he won't be in Gransys forever. The question is if he'll want to return.

As to staying overlong, that's typical for the ever turning wheel. Jaune's going to take it off the wagon and shatter it.

I hope you enjoyed!