This is just me needing to post something in order to get back into the mood of writing.

Thanks for that, university work.

Another time travel fic! (This is starting to become a running trend, isn't it?) Only this time, we're riding off of the coattails of canon itself!

Thank you Volume 8 for your unlimited fanfiction potential!

Black Cloaks

(Inspired by Batman, Halo: Infinite, and Boku No Hero Academia)

At the end of Volume 8, Team RWBY, Jaune, and Neo are sent through the void, only they do not go to the island...

They go back in time, finding themselves in their younger bodies, right at the beginning of Volume 1, back when Team RWBY and Jaune were on the Bullheads to Beacon Academy.

Armed with new knowledge from the future, the protagonists begin to make plans and strategies to influence and change the future. Neo begins accompanying Roman Torchwick to all of his heists and operations, and begins taking matters into her own hands when it comes to incidences like Tukson and others. Team RWBY, meanwhile, would make efforts to meet up during the initiation in the Emerald Forest, and make plans to counter all of the obstacles and enemies that they know that they will be going up against in the future, as well as debating on wherever to inform Ozpin on what is going on, continuously going over the possible pros and cons, and deciding that they would need solid evidence in order to back up their claims, and would need Jinn and the Relic of Knowledge from underneath Haven.

But Jaune?

He would abandon Beacon Academy entirely.

With the blood of Penny Polendina on his hands, as well as all of the added stress from fighting against Salem and Ironwood, survivor's guilt, regular guilt, trauma from everything that he had done and what Cinder had done to him and his loved ones, as well as the sudden revelation that he had been sent back in time to the point where it all started...

Jaune snapped.

Deciding that the fact that Penny had died by his own hands- Now warm and sticky and covered in blood- Meant that he was already damned for hell, Jaune would decide to abandon any chances he had to joining Beacon Academy, and go up against Cinder and her allies on his own.

That way, he wouldn't have to worry about harming anymore of his friends. He wouldn't have to fear about hurting any of them. He would be able to protect any of them, without drawing any of them into his fight once more.

And so, with his decision made, he used his prior knowledge of Beacon Academy to infiltrate the lower levels of the school, and eventually the Vault, and used his unlocked semblance to heal Amber in the aura transfer machine, before making his way back to the airships parked at the edge of Beacon Academy, sneaking onto one of them, and taking the ride back down to Vale below.

Once in Vale, and with the help of Junior and the Malachite Twins (Upon paying them enough money to do so as well), Jaune would adopt a brand new look, reluctantly getting rid of his old clothes and spray-painting his armour and weapons a messy black, as well as enlarged gauntlets with clawed hands, a helmet that had been scavenged from a mix between old rugby headgear and a battered Atlesian helmet that also incorporated a gasmask with blue optical lenses to counter illusionary and visual semblances, random armour pieces scavenged and utilised more for practicality and function over form and fashion, all of them rusting and painted over, utilising a grapplehook on each arm for added movement (Despite his own motion sickness), And finished with a tattered black cloak over an old trench coat, finished off with the emblem of a white and yellow chrysanthemum on his back.

(For added context, Jaune's new outside- The Edgefit- Should look like a cross between Ozen the Immovable from Made in Abyss, Deku from the latest arc of Boku No Hero Academia, Batman from- Well, from Batman, and completed with rusting metal for patchwork armour.)

Adopting a new codename for himself- 'Fulcrum'- Jaune would take to the streets of Vale as a vigilante, and would begin a one man crusade against the White Fang and Cinder's allies, becoming a violent thorn in their sides as he begins to bust their robbery operations and incapacitating their members, never killing them, though leaving them with frightful injuries as they are hauled off by the police, and earning himself a spot on Vale's wanted list as a rogue Huntsman.

However, to the eyes of the disenfranchised within the depths of Vale, Jaune would become increasingly known as a hero to them, albeit a violent one. Because of his guilt and constant need to pay penance for it, Jaune would begin to devote all of his time to vigilantism, stopping rapists and murderers before they can take their marks, and saving many more people from muggings and car accidents, to even cliché stuff like rescuing cats from trees and helping old ladies across the street. To the forgotten and let behind of Vale, both human and Faunus, this vigilante that they would begin to call the 'Black Cloak' would begin to serve as an inspiration against injustice, and this image of him would begin to encourage not just these disenfranchised fellows, but also younger generations as well, to take to the streets and fight against that same crime and injustice themselves.

Soon, dozens of vigilantes calling themselves the Black Cloaks would begin to patrol the streets both at day and at night, beginning their own crusades against crime alongside Jaune, and creating more unrest and unease within the walls of Vale.

But this crusade would begin to take a toll on Jaune, both physically and mentally.

Physically, he would begin to collect scars and wounds that even his immense amounts of aura could not heal, and thanks to a close encounter with Cinder and her fire powers, Jaune's entire left arm was burnt and seared by flames, and turned a permanent red as the flames burnt his skin, and forced him to have drills and metal plating placed into his arm, so that it didn't break apart as his muscles became more exposed underneath, and as he continued on more and more with his crusade against Cinder, he would begin to grow weaker and weaker, his body becoming thinner and more fragile than ever, worsened by the wounds he took and the blood that he lost, and he would begin to forgo sleep, eating, and even any kind of rest in order to continue his vigilante crusade, which would draw concern from the few people that know him, including even Junior and the Malachite Twins.

But mentally? It was much worse for him. Thanks to the violence of his vigilante crusade, Jaune would become more and more traumatised by his own actions, and the means that he would need to go to in order to fight against those that seek to do wrong, but he would only continue to force himself further down this road, out of that same guilt that would rule over him, forcing him to continue to burden this responsibility alone and by himself. This would continue to direct his actions and ravage his mind continuously as his crusade continued on and on, and continued to grow more and more violent.

Until he attempted to kill Cinder and her inner circle by blowing up the warehouse that they resided in.

He would fail, of course, but his actions would only spur the White Fang further into violence as he inadvertently did Cinder's work for him, and began to regret everything that he had done as the White Fang and Black Cloaks began to war with each other in the streets, drawing Atlesian forces into Vale, meaning that Jaune now had to contend with not only the White Fang, random thugs and street gangs in Vale, and Cinder's cabal, but Atlas' robotic forces as well...

And the teams of Beacon Academy.

At the same time as he is being hunted by not only Adam's men, but an irate Neo and the Ace-Ops, he is then forced to contend with not just Ozpin's inner circle, but also Team RWBY and their allies, including CFVY, SSSN, Penny and her team, as well as Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren, all of the people not travellers thinking him to be a terrorist and villain.

And that's what Jaune is unintentionally becoming. A villain. This is a villain!Jaune fic. That's the big twist.

Thanks to his actions and his quest to stop Cinder from doing anymore harm to anyone, Jaune is becoming the wrong type of revolutionary leader. He is becoming the very thing that he swore to destroy, and now thanks to his actions, Cinder is coming even closer to getting what she wanted, and she didn't even have to do anything about it.

Jaune finally realises this, and as he sees all that he has done, and all of the blood that is being spilt in the city below, he breaks down, and reveals to Team RWBY all that he wished to do, and why he was doing it. He wanted to stop Cinder, and he wanted to protect everyone, without ever having to worry about bringing them to harm. But for it to end up like this? How?

How...

Here, we finally see what is under all of the armour and rusted gear that he wears. Underneath this façade of a ruthless anti-hero, Jaune was still himself.

Jaune was still Jaune. He wasn't a ruthless monster of a man. He was just a boy that wanted to be a hero.

And now, he was traumatised by all that had happened in the future, and he was letting that survivor's guilt and trauma rule over his actions.

Jaune Arc was lonely and frightened, and he thought that he had to atone for his sins by shouldering the entire fate of the world all by himself. He was like a sick dog lashing out at the world...

And now because of him, he had become to the most wanted man in Remnant, and had allowed Cinder to get what she wanted to begin with.

This is a deconstruction fic of the common time travel subplot 'Character goes back in time to fix things', where when he does, it only serves to make things worse. Not only that, but it is a deconstruction of two other common subplots:

'Stronger Jaune', in which we see that it is not a good thing that he's strong, and it actually makes him weaker with his current running mindset.

'Darker Jaune', in which we see that Jaune being darker and moodier and probably jerkier as well is not a good thing at all, and that deep down, underneath all of that, he's still the same kind and bumbling Jaune Arc underneath all of that, and unlike all of the other fics where his jerkier attitude draws women and people towards him, it only serves to push people away from him as they grow to dislike his attitude, and it leaves him more and more guilt-ridden and traumatised than ever before.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Jaune Arc had the best intentions of them all. It's not entirely his fault, but it was his pushing all of his friends away from him and allowing his trauma to rule over him that only served to play into Cinder's hands.

And it is only when he learns to let go of the pain and trauma within him, and allowing other people to stand besides him, share his burden, and end the violence in Vale together, that he can finally defeat Cinder, and finally move on, though he must now serve a life in prison for it. A bittersweet ending, but in his mind, a good one.

This is the reverse of a 'Jaune gets stronger' fic, where he turns from Jaune Arc into a darker anti-hero badass. Instead, this is him turning from a darker anti-hero badass into Jaune Arc.

This is the reverse of those stories.

Well, this became a lot darker than I thought that it would.

Huh...