Author's note: I would like to accredit "Greatcow" (a.k.a. "thegreatcow") for commissioning the drawing of Future Jaune Arc and granting me official permission to use it as a literary basis for this story (and the story's cover picture) and also the artist "dishwasher1910" for actually drawing the incredible sketch of Future Jaune Arc. Thank you.

RWBY and all of its characters and concepts are the licensed property of RoosterTeeth and the creation of Monty Oum. May Monty rest in forever peace.

Future Restructured

Prologue

Cold. Nothing around escaped the cold. Blistering winds skewed across the jagged edges of the mountain range and raged across the forsaken tundra, spreading the blizzard's fury over the tundra plains. Frigid snow ghosted throughout the air with an endless haunting howl. The rocky wilderness ground had been coated by the frost for weeks now. Such was the typical climate of Atlas this time around.

It wasn't always like this. I can remember a time long before all of this.

A lone figure stood out on the icy tundra. Silence clung to him like how his tattered cloak clung to him in the billowing wind. Snow pelted against his marred white armored body as he stood there looking onto the obscured horizon. His sight could barely pierce 25 meters into the wintry winds but his sensors could detect thrice fold. Power coursed through the hardened wires that made up his artificial body. Forever damaged, the right remaining half of his helmet still functioned properly and still glowed with energy, the left half having been lost years ago in a battle he still remembered. Wind tussled the dirty blonde hair that stuck out from his asymmetrically exposed head. The environment brushed against his exposed left face and modified eyepiece but it did not bother him.

Hardly anything bothered him anymore. Hooked onto him and dangling across his chest-piece was a broken piece of a circlet. Its shape and splendor turned to rust and grotesqueness beyond recognition.

A time when everything seemed innocent. A time where humanity thrived. A time that held a future for everyone.

His blue eyes squinted at what his helmet and connected eyepiece simultaneously detected ahead of him. A clawed hand grasped the hilt of his giant sword and another tightened itself against the plated shield latched to his left forearm. Trembles shook the ground beneath him. Black masses started to appear amidst the blurred snowy gale. Dozens of glowering red eyes bore towards him; ravenous murder and bloodlust lacing each of their gazes.

A time before the Darkness.

Tightening his robotic jaw, the cybernetic knight stared back at the horde of Grimm and reached into one of his armored compartments with his left hand, maneuvering enough to not let his shield get in the way. Several of the Grimm eyed the white Dust crystal that shined in the faint lighting. Raising his sword, the knight slammed the Dust crystal into a slot in the guard. The giant sword christened to life and the blade itself radiated with the bright white of the Dust crystal. The knight raised up his sword and shield and shifted his stance. An alpha Beowolf howled before the creatures of Grimm surged at their prey.

We were foretold that one day the Darkness would return.
Legends, fairytales, the duty of all Huntsmen and Huntresses…even our music warned of the coming Darkness.

The frontline Grimm were cleaved with a swipe from the icy blade followed by the next line behind them. A lone Beowolf ducked beneath the slash and lunged, but its head caved from the brunt of the knight's shield smashing through it. He lashed out his sword to cut down another Beowolf adjusting his palm to twirl the hilt into a reverse grip and decapitating another Beowolf with a curve of his arm. Dagger claws rebounded off his repositioned shield and a followed up kick blew out a solid chunk of the Beowolf's torso. Using the momentum of the kick, he spun completely around and impaled another Grimm in its head. The piercing blade and the icy Dust running through its metal were enough to deliver instant death.

Letting go of the sword impaled in the Grimm, the cybernetic knight reoriented himself and raised his shield to meet the claws of the snarling alpha Beowolf. Before the Grimm could react, he had rotated the opposite way beneath the alpha's claws, wrenching the sword from the slain Grimm and batting aside the alpha's claws with his shield. The alpha Beowolf released an anguished roar as it was cleaved in half by the icy blade. Leveling his shield and beckoning with his sword, he braced for the oncoming wall of Beowolves and Ursai.

The Darkness…the creatures of Grimm…unyielding and unrelenting in their desire to extinguish humanity.

As the bodies of the dispatched Grimm evaporated into ichor, he glanced up to see more Grimm rushing, ignorant of the fate that befell their fallen kin. Boarbatusks charged forward curling into their signature ball forms and spin dashing right at him. Tightening his glowing blade in a reverse grip, he too dashed forward across the snow to meet them head on.

The ice-powered sharpened edge pierced through white bone plates and cut straight through the curled-up Boarbatusk like note paper. The other spinning Boarbatusks met the same fate as the cybernetic knight blurred between them one by one, slicing them up before they could even uncurl themselves. One of them managed to uncurl itself and stopped to see its fellow Grimm decimated before a whiff of wind from behind stabbed its sword down through the Grimm.
Dying squeals and grunts were silenced as the blade was drawn from the body.

An eruption of white and black from the ground made him leap away. Rearing his head upward, the two heads and four eyes of a King Taijitu glared down upon him, their tongues flickering out in anticipation for the kill. The black head of the King Taijitu lunged at him with its jaw agape and sword-sized fangs barred. He thrusted the tip of his sword forward and successfully stabbed the giant snake's head right through its nose, the head releasing a hissing screech akin to a cry and stopped a foot away from biting his body.

Leaping onto the impaled Grimm's head, he grabbed the hilt and wrenched the sword upward, cutting deeper into the Grimm's skull. He became a blur as he ran down the King Taijitus' spine with his sword in tow. The sword split through the Grimm snake's spine as he ran pulling it behind him. Sensing the death of its other head and the immense pain tearing up its spin, the white head of the King Taijitus reared up to face the attacker, but by then the knight had already leapt with a twist and decapitated its head.

Millions have died because of the Darkness…

The fangs of a Beowolf bit down from behind on his left cybernetic arm joint before he could backhand it with his shield. Before he could break its piercing hold on him or raise his sword, an Ursa took the opportunity to ineptly swipe its claws at him, three of its claws landing their mark on his shoulder armor piece. Gritting his teeth, he yanked his left arm joint out from the mouth of the Beowolf, shattering its teeth with the motion, and clubbing the Ursa's head with his fist. The Ursa's head blew apart from the force as he hacked the broken-teethed Beowolf with his sword. His systems blinked a warning across his vision.

He quickly raised his shield and felt a heavy-caliber Dust round impact against his defense and buckle his arm. The shot itself shattered several layers of his shield and left a sizable bullet impression. Had he not blocked it would have taken his head off. Peering around the edge of his shield, he could see black humanoid silhouettes shambling their way across the snow with their weapons dragging beside them. The leader, however, stood with their sniper rifle aimed at him with one hand. The crimson red glow in their eyes shined through the torrent of snowfall.

…and hundreds have fallen to it.

'Wisps.' his mind seethed before he broke into a charge towards them. The leading wisp fired off another sniper shot, but he deflected it with the flat of his blade. A millisecond later and he was gutting through the wisp leader and bracing for the immediate onslaught of the other wisps that animated to life and sprung at him.

I fight for all of those that have gone before me.

Breath finally caught up to him as he watched as the last wisp's ichor body disintegrated. He craned his vision over to the last Grimm of the horde. Significantly few remaining Beowolves and Ursai, flocks of Griffons, and a Nevermore perched atop a Goliath. The Goliath bellowed through its trunk as the Grimm around it bolted into action. The Griffons descended upon the knight with cawing screeches, the Beowolves with howls and Ursai with roars. The Nevermore cried with fury and took to the skies, dive bombing at the knight that stood before them. Letting out a visible breath, he ran towards them all.

I fight on for my friends.

Thrust, twist, slash, block, counter, kick, deflect, slice. The last Beowolves fell to pieces around him. Raising his shield to buffer back the jagged claws of another Griffon swooping past him, he threw himself at the few Ursai remaining. The icy blade bisected the first one's torso, the shield broke the second one's swiping paw and a followed up head-butt caved in its skull.

I fight for the one I loved.

As the several dead Ursai disintegrated around him the flying Griffons started to encircle him. Snow began to rise off the ground and pull into the cyclone of Griffons encasing the knight in the eye of the twister. Black silhouettes streaked across his vision ahead of him and dry screeches reached his earpieces. He braced his footing and gripped the hilt of his blade with both hands. The sword's glow shown amidst the vortex of black. His systems detected motion from behind.

Pivoting around he cut down a Griffon mid-screech as it flew out to attack him. More motion detected made him twist around in one movement and cut down another Griffon trying to take him from behind. More and more Griffons broke from their encircling torrent and dove for the knight with their claws and beaks hungry for prey. Each of them were cut down by a fluid flurry of connected swipes and slashes.

Massive movement and projectiles were detected. He barely had time to turn and lift his shield to block a volley of giant piercing feathers, the rest of them imbuing themselves in the snow around him. In the moment he took to block the range attack the giant Nevermore emerge through the whirlwind of Griffons and snapped its beak around his body. Its prey crushed by its mouth, the giant Nevermore arched and ascended into the air, the Griffons eagerly cawing after it.
He fought against the excruciating pain from the beak that chew viciously around him and the rapid height gain disorientating of his senses.

Prying the Nevermore's beak open with his legs and back, he managed to orient his sword and jab straight into the roof of the Nevermore's mouth, punctuating into the bird's brain and rendering it lifeless as it released a dying murderous caw. Momentum carried the two a bit higher until gravity finally took hold. He tumbled out of the Nevermore's beak and freefell towards the ground. Had it not been for the flock of Griffons flying up towards him it would have been a smooth descent. Readying his sword, the cybernetic knight plummeted at the Griffons, his sword a white blur as he hacked through every one of them on the way down.

By the time he had cut through the last Griffon he was about a hundred meters from the ground. Cerulean blue above locked onto the menacing red belonging to the Goliath below. Electricity surged through his cybernetic arm and channeled into his weapon. The sword already powered by Dust cackled with raw energy as he fueled his own power into the sword. He tightened his grip as plummeted downward and stabbed the Goliath with his energy enhanced blade. Brilliant white light erupted from contact.

…and I will keep on fighting till the day I fall.

Cold air whistled across the now silent battlefield. The slashed bodies of Griffons finally stopped raining down into the miniature crater, the Nevermore not so far away. At the center of the depression lied the unmoving and dead mass of the Goliath. Frigid snow whipped through the air and intertwined with the ichor leaving the fallen Grimm. A lone sword stood embedded in the middle of the crater. The wind nipped away entrails of ice from the thick blade still glowing from the Dust crystal that powered it. An armored hand wrapped its clawed fingers around the hilt and drew the weapon from the ground. The scathed cybernetic knight stood with his sword and battered shield. Despite being torn and mangled, his cloak somehow still clung to him. His cerulean blues regarded the carnage of Grimm around him.

Suddenly his systems detected an incoming transmission. Data processed through his head relayed the caller's identify and he opened the channel.

"Jaune? Is that you?" a female voice sounded on the frequency. Her voice was laced with static and the roar of engines in the background.

"I read you, Reaper." Jaune acknowledged as he yielded his shield to its placeholder on his back.

"Uuggh, don't call me that." the voice groaned in response. "You were suppose to wait for me!"

"Any further delay would have allowed the Grimm time to move in closer than they already were." Jaune answered stoically as he began to walk out of the crater he had placed himself in. He could hear the whining of a bullhead's engines close by and raised his sword, its glow acting like a homing beacon. The ice Dust crystal had nearly run out of power and his sword's glow began to dim significantly albeit still identifiable through the blizzard. His scanners identified the bulk of the incoming bullhead's frame flying carefully towards him, the wind and snow trying to obscure its flight.

"You were suppose to wait for me…" the voice pouted.
Jaune let out a sigh as he climbed out of the crater and treaded through the snow, he knew how much she loved fighting Grimm.
Undoubtingly a horde such as this one would have given her the thrills she energetically sought for.

"The next horde we come across I will leave to you then." Jaune consoled.

"If we ever get the chance again." came the solemn reply.

The response piqued his curiosity.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, watching the bullhead touch down meters away from him.

Silence was all that greeted him as he approached the aerial vehicle opening its hatch for him.

"Ruby?"

He could begin to see the outline of the Reaper herself waiting for him in the hold as he drew closer to the bullhead. His best friend's continued silence began to put him on edge. Whatever news she had it must be important.

"Jaune," Ruby finally forced herself to speak, "it's ready; Project: Continuum is ready."

Author's note: I am basing this future off of dishwasher1910's other works of the Future RWBY characters. As much as those commissioned artworks may allude to a major plot element within this story, I promise you that it will not spoil anything, so go check them out whenever you can. Again, thank you Greatcow for the official permission to use Future Jaune Arc.

Reviewing and critiquing is highly appreciated, especially with the battle scenes. It has been a long while since I have done any sort of fighting scene and would like some feedback on them. It's not necessary, but any criticism will surely help me enhance this story as it progresses.

I should also mention that I will be continuing this story soon, I must first finish up another major story of mine before I can direct my focus onto this one. Why am I uploading this now then? Just to put it out there and get started.

Thanks for reading and thank you for leaving a review if you do so. I welcome praise, critique, and flames.

Stay tuned people.