Art by Kegi Springfield
"Jaune wasn't exactly Blake's type, but giving him a hand was the least she could do after he helped her out... it didn't have to mean anything - no matter what Yang implied! Also would Ruby cut it out with the knowing looks, I'm just returning a favour!"
— Fanfiction Dot Net summary
One Good Turn Deserves Another was the first-ever RWBY fanfic written by Coeur Al'Aran, begun in the interim between volumes two and three. The main draw is the Jaune/Blake pairing, which was a rare pairing at the time and was intended to be treated "realistically" according to Coeur himself. Of course, while the romance is front and center throughout the fic, the plot does creep its way in, culminating in the Beacon students being caught in one of the worst Grimm sieges in human history.
Can be read at Fanfiction.net here.
Tropes are:
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
- The entire premise of the story begins with Jaune and Blake bonding after he saves her life during a training mission gone wrong, which eventually leads to friendship and romance.
- Ruby's feelings for Jaune in this fic are explicitly romantic, whereas in canon the two have yet to be anything other than very good friends.
- Ren and Nora's relationship here is treated as Like Brother and Sister rather than as Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Early in the war, the CCT goes down, and with it all long-range communications, meaning the forces in the city lose contact with the forces in the capital and with Atlas's armada. Soon enough, with utilities down and no opportunity to recharge, all the heroes' scrolls simply run out of juice, reducing them to vocal communications only. We learn in the end that Cinder's foiled mission into the CCT damaged it into nonfunction and took weeks to repair.
- Characterization Marches On: Nicholas Arc makes his first impression in this fic and he is incredibly different from how Coeur later characterized him. He's introduced essentially mocking the Beacon students for their inexperience, cruelly rubbing Summer's death in Ruby's face, showing a Hair-Trigger Temper, and with Blake and Weiss even speculating that Jaune is such an awkward mess because Nicholas neglected him. While he sheds these negative traits as the siege goes on, later fics (including Professor Arc, which was published concurrently) dropped these traits entirely, leaving him a family man first and foremost who, while willing to make harsh decisions, is not overly harsh himself.
- Death by Adaptation:
- Russel Thrush and Team CFVY are killed during the siege of Magnis.
- Cinder is revealed to have been defeated and killed by the professors of Beacon after the sabotage of the CCT.
- Dramatic Irony: When Nicholas and Jaune can no longer get a call out from Magnis, they begin to speculate what must be wrong; one of the presented ideas is that someone sabotaged the CCT in Beacon, but Nicholas only responds "who would want to do that?" The answer, of course, is Cinder.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Even as his organs are damn near falling out of him, Nicholas goes down taking down a gigantic Grimm horde to buy Jaune time to get to safety. He even briefly considers giving up early, but keeps on going as long as he can.
- Ear Ache: Jaune and Blake get taken down trying to kill the giant Nevermore not by being hit, but by being too close to its giant squawking for their ear drums to survive. Blake in particular needs all the dry blood cleaned out of her cat ears during her recovery.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Given that this was Coeur's first fic, plenty of elements that would become commonplace in his later works are missing here.
- Coeur would later become known for his Deconstructor Fleets, as his works tend to take genre conventions and flip them on their heads in order to play them relatively realistically (Not this time, Fate in particular is famous for doing this to a Groundhog Peggy Sue). Here, while the story's elements are still realistic, especially the romance at the center, there's no real deconstructive element to them.
- As the siege of Magnis goes on, various named characters begin dropping like flies, something that would be considerably toned down in his future works in order to make character deaths more genuinely shocking.
- A big part of his future fics would be their worldbuilding aspects, with even ground-level fics like Service with a Smile taking a deep look at things like Remnant's economy and the world outside of the Kingdoms, eventually creating his own universe of his unique version of Remnant. This fic begins the process, with Blake's past in particular being used to further connect to the White Fang and the climax taking place outside of the Kingdoms, but there is nowhere near as much worldbuilding taking place.
- A key point of the future stories would be his treatment of the various villains, especially Roman, Neo, and Cinder, whereas here most of the conflict comes directly from mindless Grimm.
- Fire-Forged Friends: One of the things that bring Blake and Jaune together is they repeatedly get themselves into near-death situations with only each other for backup, culminating in the two of them having to survive for a full day alone in Grimm infested woods.
- Foreshadowing: Not for this work, but for his future ones. An offhand line from Jaune indicates that he got his forged transcripts from Roman Torchwick; while it isn't focused on in this fic, it would eventually become a key plot point in several others, most notably Professor Arc and Service with a Smile.
- For Want Of A Nail: As Nicholas is dying, Jaune begins to blame himself, as he stole the much stronger Crocea Mors and left Nicholas with a subpar shield that broke on him. As he begins to wonder whether Nicholas would've survived if he hadn't taken the heirloom, Nicholas counters that the more likely result is just that Jaune would be the one dying instead.
- Giant Flyer: One of the first challenges of the siege at Magnis is a giant Nevermore, dwarfing even the one from Initiation.
- Handicapped Badass: Nora loses an eye during the siege, but Ren notes that it never did anything to slow her down or curb her energy.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Knowing that he's already going to die, Nicholas Arc gives his life creating a diversion so Jaune can run to the town hall to safety.
- Hope Spot:
- As the situation in Magnis first starts getting bad, the students are elated to get help from a group of approaching bullheads, who begin ripping the attacking Nevermore to shreds. Unfortunately, the Nevermore retaliate and end up crashing the bullheads, who weren't just their backup - that was also the students' evacuation, so they're now stuck in the siege.
- Just as the Grimm horde starts to die down, a group of Goliaths attacks the wall. Two of them are felled with no incident, and the third one ends up dying as well, leading to the Hunters celebrating - right before the corpse crashes into the wall with enough force to break it, collapsing the last line of defense.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: The basis of Blake's initial attraction to Jaune is that underneath his awkward bumbling exterior is the attitude (if not the competence, but at that point the difference is academic) of a focused, intense, dangerous warrior that would be right at home in Blake's fantasies. When he shows that side of himself, she can't help but have intrusive thoughts. Then her feelings become more confused when he snaps back to normal and the spark snuffs out.
- Insane Troll Logic: The construction workers RWBY, JNPR, Sun, and Neptune are protecting are all fine in spite of a Grimm incursion - until one of them gets the bright idea to run away, causing the whole group to scatter and getting several of them killed. Naturally, the workers blame the people protecting them for this, accusing them of breaking their promise to protect them.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Nicholas does have a valid point when he says that Ruby's innocence and naivety can only last for so long, especially because she's a leader who needs to keep her head in the game. It doesn't make it any less cruel of him to break said innocence by rubbing her mother's death in her face just because he got mad at her.
- Kick the Dog: When Ruby tells Nicholas that Huntsmen are heroes, he decides to spit on her innocence by asking her what being a hero did to her mother. Even Jaune gets angry enough to call him out for it.
- Killed Offscreen: It's revealed that Cinder was killed after she sabotaged the CCT.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Deconstructed; after Blake and Jaune crash into the woods, Blake complains of mild chest pain but otherwise hides her injuries so as to not appear weak. Because she doesn't seek treatment, by the time they manage to get back to Beacon, she's coughing blood and her lungs are on the verge of collapse.
- Mundane Solution: The Beacon students throw everything they can at the Giant Nevermore, ultimately culminating in Jaune and Blake jumping on its wing to break it before they're defeated. After that grand and borderline suicidal play, Nicholas ends up defeating it by slicing an artery and then kiting it while it slowly bleeds to death.
- No Hero to His Valet: After the siege, Jaune becomes well known as the "Dragonslayer" for having led the mission to kill the Grimm dragon. The only person who doesn't buy into the hype is his daughter, who Jaune notes with some disappointment has never thought he was that cool.
- Not What It Looks Like: Glynda catches Blake and Jaune in a compromising position inside her sparring arena late in the evening. In this case it was kind of what it looked like — they really were just there to train, but the moments before Glynda walked in ignited some sexual tension and, in spite of herself, Blake was about to lean into it.
- Obviously Not Fine: Blake tries to pretend that she's alright following her and Jaune's crashland, but her claims become inherently transparent once she becomes unable to walk and starts coughing up blood.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After Jaune and Blake have sex during the siege of Magnis, Yang suddenly bursts into the room. Blake naturally yells at her for walking in on their compromised position without knocking, but when Yang completely ignores that to focus on the final barricade falling, both of them realize they're probably about to die.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Yang was the star of her year at Signal and is comfortably in second place at Beacon. Perpetually in second that is, for she's in the same year as one Pyrrha Nikos, undefeated tournament champion. Yang keeps being selected to spar with Pyrrha because no other student can stand up to either of them, yet Yang is frustrated because fighting Pyrrha is like a brick wall.
- Poor Communication Kills: An apparent simple miscommunication delays the evacuation bullheads from arriving to retrieve the students on time. When they do arrive, the Grimm have air superiority with a cloud of Nevermores, which brings the ships down and strands the students in Magnis to ride out the war with the adults.
- Pre-Climax Climax: With the cast holding down the fort for one final night of rest before the assumed Last Stand, Blake finally accepts her feelings for Jaune and decides to sleep with him. Ordinarily she wouldn't 'put out' so fast, but with their possible deaths only hours away she wants to share comfort and pleasure with him as a couple at least once.
- Riddle for the Ages: It's never revealed why the Grimm gathered and moved in such numbers as to threaten Vale as a whole.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Nicholas reveals that he knew Jaune was planning to run away from home and left Crocea Mors out for him on purpose - he wasn't exactly being subtle packing his bags and withdrawing money to use, and if Jaune was going to run, then Nicholas was going to ensure he had the right weaponry.
- So Proud of You: Nicholas finally admits that he's proud of Jaune before he goes off to die, both of the fact that Jaune had the guts to pursue his dream and of how strong he's gotten as a result.
- Steel Eardrums: Pointedly averted. The largest Grimm are threatening even if you can avoid being smashed or stomped by their giant limbs, as their lungs and vocal cords are just as giant as the rest of their bodies. Too close, and their roars and cries can burst ear drums or rattle your brain in your skull.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: After the final barricades in Magnis fall, RWBY and JNPR are separated, and RWBY gets the idea to either take down the Grimm dragon or die trying. By the time they get on its back, they realize that JNPR not only had the same idea, but managed to beat them there.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: When the students are blamed for the loss of several construction workers, Jaune pretends that he'll have Neptune break anyone's limbs if they refuse to cooperate in order to make them listen to him until they're back safely.
- Took a Level in Badass: With a little extra sparring with Blake and some field experience, not to mention being thrust into a disaster where his weak martial arts skill matters less than in class, Jaune starts to seriously come into his own as a warrior, a far cry from getting injured killing a single Grimm in the first chapter.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In the decades since the siege, Cardin has mellowed out completely, gaining a notorious hatred of both bullies and racists. He works at Beacon, after being recommended for the job by Jaune, one of his former victims.
- War Is Hell: While canon RWBY mostly glossed over the true threat of the Grimm and the full extent of violence implied in a show about superpowered kickass teenage girls (at least for a while), this fic pulls few punches. War is dirty, unglamorous, unpleasant, exhausting, and quite likely lethal. It's also a logistical nightmare, where your ability to secure food, ammo, and rest is just as, if not more, important than knowing how to kill enemies in the moment. Just to top it off, the survivors are all traumatized, with Jaune noting that Beacon's students spent weeks after the siege jumping at slight noises and barely being able to sleep in a proper bed.
