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Extra I: About Mantles and the inspirations for the story.

First of all, this is not really a story chapter, but this is written to explain more about Mantle users, the story's inspirations and some story elements which might not be too obvious, especially with the characters, considering that there are no drawn images of what they, especially Jaune, looked like in my story, and I can't really draw that well.

Consider this like a commentary audio track on a DVD or Blu-ray but instead of talking about the scenes in the movie or what have you, you have me talking about the elements in the story, particularly about the things that I've altered from canon and 'original' concepts that I've introduced.

I will talk about three things in this chapter: First, about the title of this story and how that came to be. Secondly, about the concept of Mantle itself and the names of the characters' Mantles. And finally, about some of the OC characters I have that are important to the story.

Let's start with the title of this story.

About the title: "Jaune's Epic Journey: Mantle of Heroism"

As you might've known, one of the influences of this story is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. With that said, I made this title with said series in mind and as you can see, it fits the arrangement of the title.

(A name/nickname)'s (Adjective) (Words that can be equated to 'Adventure')

As for the Mantle of Heroism part, it's a play on word and a reference. Mantle can mean a cloak/cape, or it can mean a role, both of which reference Jaune in the story, considering Jaune's power and that he's a hero of the story, referencing his role and how his power manifests itself.

To those of you who have read the reasoning for the title, this is why I named it as such, it's a bit of an homage to one of the series that has become one of my favorites of all-time thanks to its strange but compelling charm.

And speaking of the title, I have created a poll in my author page. It's about whether or not the 'Jaune's Epic Journey' part from 'Jaune's Epic Journey: Mantle of Heroism' should be omitted. Quite a number of people have voted on it and though the majority said that I should, the number of people who voted that I shouldn't do it has made me a bit hesitant to change it. Should I do a reverse-Steel Ball Run and omit the first part of the whole title? We'll see.

Now, with this done, let's move on to a story element: Mantle.

About Mantle

The inspiration for this particular concept is based on Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's Stands. For those of you who haven't read or watched Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, particularly Part 3 onward and thus don't know what a 'Stand' is, it's basically psychic power that is an extension of a living being's soul depicted as some sort of stylish astral projection or, as some call it; punch ghost, though I have to remind you that the punch ghost thing isn't a universal trait among Stands themselves, but it's the one trait that stands out thanks to the famous Stands from the series such as Star Platinum or The World, both from Part 3.

Of course, Mantle isn't exactly a Stand, but the basic concept is still there: The manifestation of one's soul, which in RWBY universe is Aura and Semblance, so Mantle is also an extension of the canon concept, one that augments the characters' Semblances while also giving something new to the table, so to speak.

Instead of having them manifesting humanoid/creature-like figures to prevent it from being too blatant of a crossover, I decided to go with either clothing (Jaune's cape/Weiss' diadem/Nora's mini-wings apparel) or inanimate objects (Blake's shadow/Yang's fire jet/Glynda's Third Eye construct etc.) and have them be more like ability-based Stands, Stands that give its user some sort of ability without the punch ghost part, which are present from Part 3 onward, but are more common in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run.

As to how Mantle itself came to be, the linchpin here is Jaune's very nature. In this fic, his nature is changed due to some tragedy that happened in his childhood, which many of you have noted to be similar to Shirou Emiya's own origin story from Fate/Stay Night. Just like how the Fuyuki Fire distorted the boy that would later become Shirou Emiya, what happened in the town of Winsnow also changed Jaune's nature.

How did it change Jaune's nature, exactly? Well, that would be a spoiler, so I won't reveal that just yet.

Fun fact: The name of the town where Jaune experienced the tragedy is Winsnow, which I took from [Fuyuki] by separating the word into two components: Fu, which is commonly used to refer to wind in general in Japanese and Yuki, which is commonly used to refer to snow in Japanese, so Win(d)Snow.

And speaking of Jaune, now I want to talk a bit about him and his Mantle, everyone else's Mantles and also their names.

And before you ask, no, none of them are named after singers, bands, songs or music albums. Why? Because, as much as I really like Jojo's naming convention for the Stands after Part 3, I don't have a wide and diverse musical knowledge. Sorry...

But if you want to give them nicknames in such a way, that's fine, for example, Nora's Mantle: [High Voltage]. That's the only good one I had, and naming just one of them like that doesn't sit well with me, so I abandoned it altogether.

Jaune Arc – Mantle form: White Cape (Name: Hero Icon)

"Hmm... I'm not really good with naming... but since a cape has a heroic connotation to it, I guess... Hero Icon?"

This one is very much on the nose, the Mantle is inspired by One-Punch Man's Saitama's costume, and it is supposed to convey the imagery of other powerful caped heroes such as the aforementioned Saitama and the original caped superhero, Superman.

The Jaune Arc in this fic can be likened to both Saitama and Archer in his personality, a mix between the two in fact, as this Jaune shared Archer's zeal for chasing a particular goal yet also Saitama's nonchalant, slightly relaxed attitude, which made him far more mellow and more well-adjusted than Archer or Emiya Shirou but more focused and less apathetic compared to Saitama.

The main costume that he had, which I described on the Chapter 9 of this story is based on Josuke Higashikata's costume, the protagonist of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4, not the protagonist of Part 8 (Both of them has the same name written in different Kanji, which can be confusing if you're not up-to-date with the series), so if you want some reference, you can look at what Josuke wears in the anime and change it a bit to how I described what Jaune is wearing.

Penny Polendina – Mantle form: Viridian strings made up of numbers. (Name: Root Matrix)

"My Mantle's name is Root Matrix!"

Her Mantle is basically the line of codes akin to what you see in the movie [The Matrix], shaped into literal strings. The way she can turn herself and anything into strings are based from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6's protagonist's Stand's power, Stone Free which is thematically fitting due to the inspiration for the character Penny herself: Pinocchio, a living puppet, no longer controlled by strings.

Being a gynoid that can harness Aura, it annoys me that she's very under-utilized in all of her very few appearances in canon. Not to mention the fact that her existence opens up a can of worms about Atlas and their military experiments. Is she the only brainchild of Atlas' military scientists or are there anything else that they dabble in? If there are a couple more of those experiments, how inhumane are they?

Penny's Mantle allows her to examine and manipulate the properties of everything that she accessed with her strings or something that she unravel to be strings, which made it a manifestation of her natural curiosity.

Her main body has yet to be seen, but that's because she has a lot of them, like Tony Stark has a lot of suit of Iron Man armor to use. Considering her power and nature, her Mantle allowed her to expand her knowledge and improve her gynoid abilities to the point that she's self-sustaining and developed her character a bit.

Glynda Goodwitch – Mantle form: Purple Third Eye Construct. (Name: Regent Influence)

"Considering its color and power, I think Regent Influence would be an appropriate name."

Her Mantle is based of the idea of a third eye being the symbol of psychic power like clairvoyance and telepathy, and considering her telekinetic Semblance, my thought basically went: 'That's the way her Mantle should manifest itself.'

I have this idea about telekinesis or telepathy that the two powers are basically similar, in that it is the power to enable the mind to interact with things outside of it without the need for the physical matter of things as the middle-man, to be able to reach out and affect the physical world without requiring physical touches, so her Mantle expands on this concept and her Semblance, increasing her range of influence and lifting power while also expanding her capability, allowing her to use telepathy.

But telekinesis and telepathy are not the limit to her power, which will come up in future chapters.

Neopolitan – Mantle form: Mirror-like amorphous Mercury. (Name: Mercury Lights)

Neo simply summoned her Mantle above her head in a long rectangular shape with glowing letters on it that slid from right to left which said: 'MERCURY LIGHTS'.

I have a theory that Neo's Semblance is light-based, considering that its appearance is akin to that of a mirage, and it wasn't a mind trick like Emerald's, which is why her Mantle comes in the form of mirrors that can cast and store light as well.

The basis of the Mantle's appearance is how her Semblance appeared; a mirror, and as for her power, when it becomes Mantle, her Semblance turned into the power to generate and manipulate light any way she wished. In addition to that, she is also able to enter her Mantle, scattershot it and then reappear from the pieces that were shot. This particular ability is done by covering herself with her Mantle, allowing her to become her Mantle, moving with every piece that she shot, which is where her mobility is enhanced.

Ruby Rose – Mantle form: Silver lightning discharge from red rose petals. (Name: Lightning Roses)

"I'm gonna name my Mantle... Lightning Roses!"

"Isn't that a bit too on the nose?"

"Well, Rube's never one for subtlety. I think it sounds cool and on the point though, so why not?"

The inspiration for her Mantle is also a bit on the nose: The Flash, particularly how Speed Force is often depicted: with supernatural lightning. I just changed the color from golden to silver to match Ruby's eye color and how it is produced: From the rose petals produced by her canon Semblance.

What it does for Ruby, other than increasing its power and speed is to also give Ruby necessary secondary powers, such as enhanced balance and navigational abilities so that she'll be able to turn and see where she's going while running. In addition to that, her silver lightning can also coat her Crescent Rose and what it does is that it increases the frequency of its molecular vibration, making its edge deadlier while also keeping it stable.

As for the whole Silver Eyes Power thing, well I'll see what I can do when it's revealed more, but I already have a plan for Ruby's powers. Personally speaking, I think it's a bit of an asspull, foreshadowed only by Ozpin who said in Volume 1 Episode 1 that she has silver eyes and is then immediately used two volumes later to solve the chaos that Cinder made without any other hints other than the aforementioned one.

Weiss Schnee – Mantle form: Cyan diadem (Name: Frost Authority)

"Frost Authority. It references both my family name and what my Mantle does, so it will do."

For her diadem itself,the inspiration came from... nowhere in particular. It's mostly because Weiss is an equivalent to royalty in Atlas due to her being a daughter of a man who had a very powerful and influential company, and a diadem is a symbol of power, so I chose that to represent Weiss' power, which is inspired by a concept in Fate/ series known as Reality Marble combined with how Schnee's hereditary semblance is Glyphs and Summoning.

In Fate/ series, Reality Marble is an ability in which someone can impose their will on reality, but this kind of ability can only be done by someone whose worldview is warped enough, or as it is said in Fate/Stay Night, 'distorted'. When her Semblance became Mantle, her Glyphs is able to emulate any kind of effect she wished and inflict it on others by warping reality to answer her will, but it is region-locked to the glyph itself

In essence, she's a reality warper for a locally assigned space, which is why the name for the Mantle has the word 'Authority'. As for her Summoning, when it becomes Mantle, it is also enhanced, but I can't really talk about it without spoiling anything, so let's continue...

Blake Belladonna – Mantle form: Animated Black Shadow (Name: Degrees of Darkness)

"Degrees of Darkness fits I guess."

"..."

"What?"

"Is it a reference to that book you-"

"No."

"I mean, I'm pretty sure that-"

"No."

I decided to focus more on Blake's whole 'shadow' theme and decided to amplify her Semblance by focusing more on its 'shadow' aspect and making it a literal shadow, a material one that she can animate at will, turn into anything she wants and one that has a hammerspace that she can use to house herself in.

Not only that, her Mantle allows her to use other people's shadow as well, as evidenced by how she used Ruby's to latch on to her. The extent of her ability is that so long as there is a shadow, her own or other's she'll be able to turn it into a part of her Mantle so that she can weaponize it..

Yang Xiao Long – Mantle form: A pair of golden fire jet. (Name: Goldjet)

"Well, since it's color is gold and jet-like, Goldjet will be its name."

The imagery for her Mantle is based on a certain flaming bird that has been depicted many times in stories: The Phoenix, a golden one in this case. I know that dragon is more often used to refer to Yang, but her golden hair that glows whenever she used her Semblance reminds me more of a phoenix than a dragon, so that's why her Mantle is based on the mythological bird.

Her golden fire is destructive, just like any fire, but like the bird that I decided to use as a base for her Mantle, there are more to this than meets the eye, it's not just a fire of a different color than its usual one.

June Arc – Blue M-shaped head-plate (Name: Sacred Blue)

"I think I'll name my Mantle... Sacred Blue."

There was a long silence that followed as June simply smiled, almost too innocently, and then, Yang slowly raised her left hand up, and June reciprocated it with a high five while the others, save for Nora who was grinning from ear to ear, shook their heads in disbelief.

I have to talk about June's Semblance first before getting to her Mantle. Her Semblance is based on Fantastic Four's Invisible Woman's force-field, flexible yet also durable. I chose to give her this Mantle so that she can match Pyrrha's polarity Semblance in terms of 'Absolutely broken Semblance' and one that completely counters Pyrrha's, because should they ever fight seriously, June can just discard her armor and Crocea Mors and use her highly-malleable yet durable force-field to defend herself and attack Pyrrha who'd be unable to do anything to disarm June or protect herself from June's attacks due to its nature.

Speaking of 'Broken Semblances', these types of Semblances, in my story, are referred to as 'Killer Semblance'.

Interlude: Killer Semblance

I derived the name Killer Semblance from the term 'Killer App', which is a marketing term which is used to refer to any computer program that is either necessary or desirable that it becomes a core value of the larger technology to which it belongs to. For example: The first Halo for the first Xbox console or Pokemon Red and Blue for the Game Boy.

With that in mind, as not all Semblances are equal to each other, Killer Semblance means that it's a Semblance that stands above all the rest in terms of either utility, versatility, destructive power or all of them at once. June's Force Field and Pyrrha's Polarity would be considered this due to how they can be applied not just in battle, but in everyday life and how powerful it can be once its user really gets serious with them.

Interlude Ends

June's Mantle and her physical appearance is based from a character in Fate/ series and what she wore. She first appeared in Fate/Apocrypha light novel and then she's summonable in the mobile game Fate/Grand Order, Jeanne D'Arc/Ruler. June's headpiece is basically the same as Ruler's, except much less decorative or ornate.

For her costume, it's based on canon-Jaune's, except that she's more laid back and has more blue in her color scheme than canon-Jaune such as her blue top. Just imagine a much taller Ruler with shorter hair styled into a ponytail and you'll get the idea of her basic appearance.

Nora Valkyrie – A pair of pink wings above her ears. (Name: Wingspark)

"Well, since it's made of wings and allows me to emit and control lightning, I'll name it Wingspark!"

The appearance of her mini-wings above her ears is inspired by how Thor from Marvel Comics has wings on his helmet above his ears, and considering that the mythological God of Thunder Thor is the basis of Nora's character as evidenced by her personality, weapon of choice and her Semblance, I think it's appropriate to have a piece of his costume as her Mantle.

In the show, her Semblance allows her to just absorb electricity to multiply her baseline strength, so when it is changed into Mantle, she became capable of harnessing electricity and lightning like Thor when he's wielding Mjolnir. Now she is, as she said in Chapter 13, a 'Lightning Queen'.

The power she now has through her Mantle is inspired by both Thor and Cole MacGrath's from the videogame series InFamous. She is now more than just electricity absorber/conduit, she's a full-blown electrokinesis user capable of calling lightning storm from a clear blue sky and more.

Pyrrha Nikos – Crimson halo floating behind her. (Name: Magnetia)

"Magnetia. It's an archaic word, but I think it fits."

The halo is based from Asura's Wrath where the main character and the bossess all have halos that are on their backs instead of on their heads due to them being based on the deities of Hindu mythology. It also shows both her ego and demeanor, in that she is quite competitive yet also kind and compassionate.

And speaking of her competitiveness: What kind of a competitor is she, that she would hide the fact that her Semblance is powerful enough to render any weapon-wielding enemy helpless? The kind that likes to win no matter what, no matter how it's done.

I have a theory that she's a four-time Mistral Champion not just because of her stellar combat skills. After all, it's not like she ever showed some reluctance in using her Semblance when she had or wanted to, so my thought is that despite her own bitterness at her status as a worshiped celebrity, she hated the idea of intentionally losing a fight even more. If this side of Pyrrha does exist in canon, then it's too bad that it's never explored before she's killed off.

As for how the Mantle extend or amplify Pyrrha's Polarity Semblance, now she possess magnekinesis almost at the level of Magneto, who can control the magnetic field of a planet to fly and protect herself by coating herself with an amplified personal magnetic field that can repel any attack before it even touched her skin which also augment her weapon and shield.

Yes, she's now a She-Magneto. Or is that Magneta now?

Ren Lie – A collection of floating magenta-colored spheres that surrounded his neck as if it were a necklace. (Name: Symphony of Chaos and Harmony)

"Symphony of Chaos and Harmony. It's a bit long, but it's the only appropriate thing that comes up."

"Why Symphony?"

"...Because it rhymes with harmony..."

This Mantle is made before the flashback that showed what Ren's Semblance actually does, and even then it's not properly explained, so I'm doing my own thing due to this story being an AU and all.

Its appearance and the way it works is based on Zenyatta's 'balls' from Overwatch as it can inflict 'Chaos' or 'Harmony' to those that Ren choose to affect. 'Chaos' basically disintegrate the target, making them more fragile or even outright consumes the target, and 'Harmony' is the reverse; restoration, or in other words regeneration, which can make someone stronger in addition to inducing high regeneration rate for them to get healed up fast. His Mantle also works on inanimate objects, as it is a concept-based power.

Ren is basically a support-type character with this ability, but by combining the spheres or turning the spheres into beams of energy, the effect of either 'Chaos' or 'Harmony' is amplified several folds, allowing someone or something to disintegrate in seconds or for a wounded person or a destroyed object to be restored in an instant.

Amber – Orange-colored tribalistic tattoo/lines (Name: Elementalism)

"Elementalism. Mantle isn't a philosophy or an ideology, but then again, there are no specific rules to this naming thing, right?"

Considering that Amber was made to simply be a plot device, expanding her character beyond her being a vessel for the Fall Maiden power is something that I want to do through this fic.

So to do that, I made it so that she ended up relinquishing her Maiden powers in exchange for her Mantle. I am of the idea that Amber was not really okay with her status as a Fall Maiden but she continued as one because she felt it was her responsibility to bear the burden.

The full extent of Maiden powers and whether or not a Maiden power differs depending on the season they represent are still very unclear since the only confirmed Maiden that we've seen before Cinder got her powers was Amber, so I'm assuming that being a Maiden doesn't allow her to actually control nature, but to emulate natural phenomenon.

Her Mantle on the other hand, allowed her to control nature in a way that is inspired by both Storm from X-Men and the element-benders from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It allows her to actually manipulate nature, thus making her Maiden-like.

Even without being a Maiden, she still couldn't escape her fate of having Maiden-like powers... You know, I was kind of hoping they'd expand on the 'Maiden' concept more in the show instead of having some other Macguffins for the characters to chase...

Now for the last part of this chapter...

About some of the 'OC' characters

Dea/Giorna Starr, Miss N/Lucy, Brie and some others. These OC characters are basically a reversed gender equivalent of some characters from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure if it weren't so obvious. The only thing that can make it even more obvious is if they were drawn as I described them.

First, let's start with Dea/Giorna Starr

Dea/Giorna Starr

This character is based on two characters from Jojo, first is the overarching antagonist of the series; Dio Brando/DIO and the second one is the protagonist of Part 5, Vento Aureo; Giorno Giovanna, who also happened to be DIO's son. Her demeanor is more in line with DIO yet it's a bit softened by combining it with Giorno's while her occupation as a mob boss is completely from Giorno.

The way she is dressed is a combination of how DIO looked like from Part 3 (Orange formal wear with black bodysuit) and Giorno (huge heart-shaped cleavage/emblem on the center of her chest) and both her 'boss' name and her real name are derived from Dio and Giorno, which is turned into Dea (which means Goddess in Italian) and Giorna from Giorno to make it sound more feminine. As to the claw she let out of her nail-less fingers in Chapter 8, I have five words for you... Diego Brando and Scary Monsters.

The claw is not part of her Semblance, as her Semblance is based on Yoshikage Kira's, -the main villain from Part 4-, power, which is to make things explode through contact, so what do I mean by Scary Monsters? Well, to those who aren't Jojo fans, please read Steel Ball Run or find info about Diego Brando or Scary Monsters and you'll get where I'm going with her.

Miss N(ox)/Lucy

Her power is based on Vampires/Pillar Men from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1 and 2 along with a little bit of Alex Mercer from the videogame Prototype. Her appearance however, is largely based on Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5's villain Diavolo and to a lesser extent, his 'alter-ego' Doppio (being a younger counterpart of herself and all, along with the scanty clothes Nox/Lucy wear).

However, her personality isn't fully like Diavolo. She's arrogant to a fault, somewhat effective at her job, likes to hide her identity and ruthless, all of which I took from Diavolo, yet unlike him, she likes a good competition, which was why she killed Roman Torchwick because as she saw it, he didn't contribute to the competition due to him being a passive mob boss who, -in canon itself states that he does his best to survive-, does not compete the way she wanted him to.

Her role in the story will be quite big as it goes on, so this is where I will stop for now.

Brie

Dea/Giorna's right-hand woman. To those of you who have read Vento Aureo, this character is based off of Bruno Bucellati (bob haircut, white-colored ensemble), Giorno's closest companion, google him and you'd have a good idea of what Brie looks like.

Josephine Starr

Giorno's sister whose name is based on Joseph Joestar, the protagonist of Jojo Part 2, which makes her a Jojo, right? Well, in the next chapter, you'll see that the inspirations that makes the character Josephine Starr is more than just Joseph, so please wait for it.

Fun fact: When the first syllable of both Josephine and Giorna's first name is combined with their family name, it spells out Jo(e)star.

Josephine Starr

Giorna Starr

It's all deliberately done because to give them the name Joestar would've made the crossover too obvious and no longer 'pseudo'.

End of Extra I

This marks the end of this extra chapter. I hope you're satisfied with the commentaries and some of the new information, such as the name of the Mantles. I know it's not really a new chapter that continues the story, I am still working on that, to try and get ahead for at least ten chapters before I upload the new one, but I felt that a chapter like this is needed so that this story and its influences can be explained.

Again, thank you for reading, and if there are some elements of the story you want to be explained in more details, please review or PM me about it so that I can get some input on what the next 'Appendix' chapter will delve into.