History DarthWiki / RWBYKnight

* AdaptationalBadass:
** Thanks to his Semblance, Jaune goes from the weakest person in the cast to easily the physically strongest character in the setting. Even when he's forced into hand-to-hand, he's able to stand up to Pyrrha, Yang, and Blake all at once.
** In the game, the Knight's Militia were completely unprepared for the Batmobile's combat capabilities, which was shown to be a natural consequence of Jason's in-depth information being several years out of date and led to the drones largely only needing one shot to blow up. Here, they know all about the Paladin Car, so the drones' armor can take more than one shot.

** Both the Batsuit and the Batmobile (the Paladin Car) were originally designed for military usage - the Batsuit was a stealth suit while the Paladin Car was designed to be both an offensive and defensive ground vehicle that could actually be piloted.
** The context behind the Cloudburst directly connects it to the fall of Vale. In ''RWBY'', Vale fell because Cinder stoked tensions during the Vytal Tournament and culminated it in revealing Penny's robotic nature to the world; in ''Batman: Arkham Knight'', it ultimately only ended up being used on a city filled with criminals, with the blast not having any long term dangers. Here, the Cloudburst going off doesn't just drive people mad with fear, it triggers the Grimm Dragon's release, causing the long-term fall of Vale.

** Both Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight are worse than in the game. In the game, they gave Gotham a chance to evacuate first (albeit because the bomb was big enough for it to not matter), which kept everyone but the thugs out of harm's way as the rest of the attack raged on. Here, the attack comes with no warning, meaning that the bomb, the occupation, and the Cloudburst are targeting far more civilians than before.

** Weiss combatting several of the city's supervillains, including Mr. Freeze, Bane, and Black Mask.

* PowerAtAPrice: Hazel is able to inject Venom directly into his veins due to his Semblance, which severely upgrades his strength, resilience, and speed. The problem is that once it wears off, all of his base stats are lowered, meaning that the more Venom he uses, the weaker he gets whenever he's off of it. Part of his desperation to get more Venom is the fact that if he doesn't, he'll eventually shrivel up into a husk, and that's ultimately what happens once he overdoses himself on Venom in the final fight against Jaune.

* SpannerInTheWorks:
** Cinder's plan to bomb Vale would've gone off without any hitch had a random police officer not noticed an unauthorized military vehicle heading toward ACE Chemicals. The fact that the vehicle's driver is working for Scarecrow kicks off the events of the night, especially when it prompts Pietro to give Ozpin the Batsuit and Paladin Car.
** Taiying agrees to lure Pyrrha to the Arkham Knight's HQ by sending out a distress call and banking on her coming alone, hoping to hand her over to Scarecrow in exchange for Ruby. Unfortunately for him, Blake and Yang tag along, and the trio ends up defeating the Arkham Knight anyway, rendering the entire trade pointless.

** Cinder's plan to bomb Vale would've gone off without any hitch had a random police officer not noticed an unauthorized military vehicle heading toward ACE Chemicals.

* AscendedExtra: In ''Arkham Knight'', Catwoman was ultimately a side character whose own story didn't pick up until the night after the main game. Here, she proves crucial to the Arkham Knight's defeat.

* TheOnlyOne: By the night of the Vytal Festival, trying to control the chaos largely comes down to teams RWBY and PRN, even though they're just seven first years up against an army. Ozpin points out that while they may be woefully unprepared for this, they're literally the only option:

** In ''Arkham Knight'', the Riddler's racetracks were a last-ditch effort to finally best Batman that ultimately showcase how pathetic he is. Here, they're all a giant distraction from Watts's real plan, and their simplicity combined with his supposed breakdowns are all genuinely part of an ObfuscatingStupidity image.

** Dr. Merlot is both the creator of Scarecrow's Fear Toxin and the scientist who turns himself into a bat-like abomination.

* ThrowTheDogABone: After everything Penny goes through throughout the fic, Jaune finally grants her a reprieve by replacing her Aura with his own after she sacrifices it, thus letting her save the day without losing he personality and memories in the process.

* BittersweetEnding: With a heavy emphasis on the "bitter". Ultimately, Jaune, Nora, Sun, Neptune, Ironwood, Winter, Glynda, Qrow, and countless innocents are all dead or dying, Blake has become disillusioned with both sides of the law and is now striking out on her own, Jaune is BarredFromTheAfterlife so he can guide his friends from purgatory, and Salem isn't defeated permanently, so she's going to strike back at some point. However, Jaune completes his redemption by killing or otherwise permanently defeating all the supervillains he's responsible for creating, Vale is recovering within the year, and heroes like Ren, Weiss, Ruby, and Yang continue to patrol the city, so it will be protected for the future.

** When Weiss learns that Jacques not only helped Scarecrow with the Cloudburst but personally tested the Fear Toxin on a child, she completely abdicates her role in the SDC because she can't stomach the thought of working for an organization that perpetuated such a horrid crime.

* ForgivenButNotForgotten: By the end, the survivors of Jaune's crusade are able to admit that he at least did what he could to fix his mistakes once he came back to his senses, but that doesn't erase all of the atrocities he committed. Ruby is the only one who still misses him after his death; Ren in particular doesn't hate him anymore but has no intention of ever visiting his grave.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: At the docks heist, Blake showcases some stunning stealth abilities, managing to take out a large amount of the White Fang present before anyone knows she's there. This affinity for stealth proves vital not just to her later career as a cat burglar, but also to the effort to depower Jaune, as her ability to sneak up on him gives them an opening to wrap an Aura dampener on his neck.
* FourLinesAllWaiting: The night of the gas attack is told from a multitude of perspectives depending on the chapter, with one segment focusing on the main plot against Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight and the others showcasing whichever side missions the others are occupied with.

* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Roman begins the story has the undisputed crime lord of Vale, but his alliance with the Knight ends up completely shredding his reputation in the underworld until he's reduced to an independent arms dealer.

* MortonsFork: As Pietro details to Ironwood, the Arkham Knight's attack on Winter puts her in the most medically dangerous situation he's ever seen. The bullet put her in a coma but didn't take out her Aura, meaning she's subconsciously keeping it activated and fighting off any attempt to get it out with lethal force, forcing the doctors to cryogenically freeze her to stabilize her until they can figure out how to get the bullet out. Mr. Freeze's crusade then revolves around trying to unfreeze her without her Aura activating and attacking everyone.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: While Ren is patrolling for Militia checkpoints in the Founders district, Yang, who no one has been able to contact for an hour, nearly runs him over with Bumblebee. The next time we see her, we see the brief meeting from her perspective, where we learn she was on the way back to the Orphanage for the next stage of Watts's game.

* AchillesHeel: All of the Militia's gear is specifically made out of non-magnetic metals so that Pyrrha's polarity Semblance can't affect it.

** Thanks to his Semblance, Jaune goes from the weakest person in the cast to easily the physically strongest character in the setting. Even when his Aura is locked away, he's able to stand up to Pyrrha, Yang, and Blake all at once.

** It's noted that Watts somehow managed to get one of his trophies into Beacon's vault and that he made a point to ''not'' provide Cinder with any info that could help her gain the Maiden's powers. Notably, Cinder already had different goals than finding the Maiden, so the only person who even knows about the whole situation is Watts.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Cinder violently reacts when it's suggested that she personally dose a child with Fear Toxin, but shows no reaction whatsoever when she's reminded that she intends to gas a Kingdom where ''thousands'' of children live. It's the personal image of hurting a child that affects her - when she can distance herself from it, she does so.

** Taiying's plan to betray Pyrrha in order to get Ruby back gets shredded when Blake and Yang decide to tag along with her to the Knight's HQ. Yang's presence in particular is what forces him to eventually back out of the plan outright, as he simply can't bring himself to threaten one daughter to protect another.

* StrongButUnskilled: The Arkham Knight is perhaps the strongest foe anyone has ever encountered due to his copying Semblance, but as the heroes soon discover, underneath that strength is Jaune, whose combat abilities are average at best. Once the heroes are able to force his Aura dormant, he's no longer a physical threat.

* FourLinesNoWaiting: The night of the gas attack is told from a multitude of perspectives depending on the chapter, with one segment focusing on the main plot against Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight and the others showcasing whichever side missions the others are occupied with.

** Once Cinder, the Arkham Knight, and Roman's alliance comes to light, almost all of Roman's men flee his service en masse. The general word on the street is that what the Knight does to his enemies and to the people who fail him is so horrid that almost no one is willing to work for him, even tangentially. Junior refuses to lend Roman any of his men even under the threat of death, which is when Roman realizes just how far he's fallen in the underworld.

** Taiyang is willing to betray Pyrrha to Scarecrow if it means getting Ruby back, but he simply can't go through with it once Yang enters the fray. As much as he wants Ruby back, he refuses to hurt his other daughter to do it.

* ChekhovsGun: An offhand joke early on in the attack reveals that the gears inside Ozpin's office is the answer to one of Watts's riddles. It's later revealed that this was a key piece of information to deducing the Arkham Knight's identity, as the office's design is not public knowledge and thus someone who had once been in there had to have told him about it.

* EveryoneHasStandards: As selfish as Blake acts during Scarecrow's attack, she feels incredibly guilty when she and Yang are led to believe that Ruby died while Yang was focused on saving her.
* EvilIsPetty: Yang happened to foil Watts's first death trap by complete accident because she happened to be the one to investigate it. Watts is so incensed by the idea of an "irrelevant bimbo" like her outsmarting her that he then dedicates the rest of his supervillain career to spiting her specifically, including arranging Blake's kidnapping within an hour or so just to draw Yang out.

* AdaptationalVillainy: In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', the Thinker's ultimate endgame of "reducing humanity's intelligence so that he can rule over the rest of it" is not portrayed as particularly threatening to civilization and was done in an attempt to reduce humanity's reliance on technology. Here, Watts uses the Enlightenment to make himself the smartest person alive and live out his narcissistic fantasies, and he shows no hesitation when he's reminded that the threat of the Grimm could lead to humanity's extinction if his plan worked.

** In ''Arkham Knight'', because Batman is the only person fighting all the threats, they all get taken out one at a time and rarely crossover with each other. Here, with more heroes taking on the supervillains, the events all take place simultaneously, meaning that they also directly affect each other far more; in particular, Blake being freed from Watts's death game allows her to join the fight against the Arkham Knight.

** After employing some cruel irony by breaking Nora's legs, the Knight grabs her hammer and smashes her head with it, using one of the grenades at the same time. Ren describes the top half of her body as simply not existing from the sheer force of the disgusting blow.

** Qrow goes through an ungodly amount of trauma, losing his beloved teammate Summer, his former tribe, his sister, his crush Glynda, and ultimately getting half of his face blown off by the Arkham Knight after getting a dose of fear toxin. The result is that he goes completely mad and declares revenge against the wrong people, targeting the few members of his family he still has left like Yang and Ruby.

** By the end, Blake has been thoroughly disillusion with Huntsmen after seeing Ozpin's system up close and gives up on serving the law entirely. She now [[Characters/CatwomanSelinaKyle serves as a cat burglar who sometimes helps out if it benefits her]], though Ren and Yang believe she'll see the light again one day.

** In ''Arkham Knight'', the Riddler's racetracks were a last ditch effort to finally best Batman that ultimately showcase how pathetic he is. Here, they're all a giant distraction from Watts's real plan, and their simplicity combined with his supposed breakdowns are all genuinely part of an ObfuscatingStupidity image.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Salem is very careful to ensure the Knight never learns that Tyrian works for her, as she knows he would immediately leave her side if he did. She's right; after his arrest, Jaune refuses to admit to anything he did until Pyrrha reveals their allegiance, at which point his mind completely breaks.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The vision of Nora that Jaune receives just before his death is not explained. Though she doesn't appear on the security camera, Jaune's spirit is still tied to Remnant after his own death, so it's not clarified if he was just hallucinating or if it was actually Nora's spirit.

* PragmaticVillainy: Cinder notes that the only reason Salem's cabal ever tolerated Tyrian was because he was very good at killing the people that needed killing; otherwise, they all did their best to stay the hell out of his way.

* SelfHarm: The stress of trying to lead her fracturing team while the Arkham Knight begins dredging up horrible memories drives Pyrrha to attempt self-harm. She gets away with it once and is distressed with how relieving it feels, but Nora catches her the second time, and neither she nor Ren let her out of their sight after that.

** The second is the night of the Vytal Festival when Scarecrow's attack begins. The various supervillains Cinder create all break out from Salem's grip and begin simultaneous attacks on Vale, eventually ending with Scarecrow's defeat and the Arkham Knight's incarceration.
** The third is around six months after, when Tyrian/Joker stages a mass-breakout of all the supervillains, forcing the heroes to release Jaune to fight by their side. It chronicles Jaune's attempts to achieve redemption by killing all the supervillains he's responsible for creating.

* ThrowTheDogABone: After all she goes through throughout the fic, Jaune finally grants her a reprieve by replacing her Aura with his own after she sacrifices it, thus letting her save the day without losing he personality and memories in the process.
* ThouShaltNotKill: Downplayed; Ren does support killing the supervillains, but only because he realizes there's simply no way to contain them that doesn't risk future escapes. Once they're all gone, however, Ren is a firm believer in non-lethal crime fighting, refusing to use his weapons unless he knows the attacker has Aura. He specifically cites Jaune's brutality in dispatching the supervillains to explain his reasoning, saying that the average mugger or thief doesn't deserve that kind of punishment.

* AntiVillain: The loss of Sun combined with effectively being left out to dry on the night of Scarecrow's attack leave Blake just as disillusioned with the law as she is with the White Fang. As a result, she now prefers to go solo, usually by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Ren and Yang believe she'll eventually come back to the light, but while Blake misses her friends, she has no intention of ever serving their cause any time soon.

* AntiVillain: As shown in the epilogue, Blake has now become a directionless cat burglar who largely steals from the rich to give to the poor, but she's still on good terms with her former allies and is even willing to help them if the stakes are high enough. Ren and Yang firmly believe that she'll eventually come back to the light completely.

* HeroicSacrifice: Sun tells the Knight to kill him in order to save Blake's life.

** Having finally had enough of Cinder's attitude, the Arkham Knight provokes a fight with her in Merlot's lab, and it causes her to ingest a prototype Fear Toxin. This leads to her becoming the Scarecrow, going rogue from Salem, causing the Fall of Vale (thus kickstarting the Age of Heroes), and leading to several more supervillains being created in her wake.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Though the Red Hood is unscrupulous when it comes to killing anyone in his way, when it comes to Qrow, he recognizes his role in turning Qrow to villainy and instead tries to talk him down. He only resorts to violence when there's no longer a choice, and though Qrow does die in the scuffle, it's genuinely an accident.

* BigBadWannabe: Salem starts the story as the biggest threat besides the Knight himself, as she's directly in charge of her cabal and seeks to destroy Remnant. The rise of supervillains gradually reduces her threat level as more and more of her forces end up going rogue, and soon enough, she's the absolute last thing anyone is worried about. By the end, while she's still on the loose, she's gained no ground on Ozpin, and with the world now aware of her existence, humanity is more than ready to counterattack.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: As a result of using Tyrian's Semblance, Jaune's attacks are all able to pierce his opponents Aura.

* BigBadWannabe: Salem starts the story as the biggest threat besides the Knight himself, as she's directly in charge of her cabal and seeks to destroy Remnant. The rise of supervillains gradually reduces her threat level as more and more of her forces end up going rogue, and soon enough, she's the absolute last thing anyone is worried about.

** Neo's abuse from her parents combined with her dissociations about her imaginary friend mean that she has a crippling fear of abandonment, which is why she latches so hard on to Roman and never leaves his side. Roman's death in a bullhead crash combined with a dose of the Fear Toxin drives her mad with a desire for love, and this leaves her wide open for Tyrian to latch onto.

* MeaningfulRename: Jaune named himself the Arkham Knight because Arkham was the name of the village he "died" in and he knew it would hurt his former team that much more. After coming back to his senses, he refuses to be called either by his name or by the Arkham Knight because of the shame both names bring him, so he takes the name Red Hood instead.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Jaune only dies after he's killed or otherwise permanently disabled every supervillain he created; his final target is Tyrian, and Tyrian gets in one fatal stab before he dies. Jaune then walks through the Emerald Forest reminiscing on his Initiation, falls at the feet of the tree Pyrrha pinned him to, sees Nora's spirit telling him he can let go now, and dies in peace having done everything he could to right his wrongs.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Having finally had enough of Cinder's attitude, the Arkham Knight provokes a fight with her in Merlot's lab, and it causes her to ingest a prototype Fear Toxin. This leads to her becoming the Scarecrow, going rogue from Salem, causing the Fall of Vale (thus kickstarting the Age of Heroes), and leading to several more supervillains being created in her wake.

* AdaptationalVillainy: In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', the Thinker's ultimate endgame of "reducing humanity's intelligence so that he can rule over the rest of it" is not portrayed as particularly threatening to civilization. Here, the threat of the Grimm means that the Enlightenment could lead to humanity's extinction, something that Watts does not care about at all.

''RWBY Knight'' is a ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' fanfic with crossover elements from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'', primarily the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', written by Tropers/STARCRUSHER99. In it, the events of canon are pushed back one year - but in their first year, Team JNPR was on a mission to a village outside of the Kingdom before it went horribly wrong and Jaune was forced to sacrifice his life to ensure the others escaped. It's been nine months and the students are just beginning to move on when a mysterious figure calling himself the Arkham Knight begins targeting them for "revenge" for something they didn't do.

* AccidentalMurder: The only person that Jaune genuinely doesn't intend to kill was Qrow; he only intends to get him away from his nieces and get the gun out of his hand. Unfortunately, thanks to Qrow's Semblance, the tackle goes wrong and Qrow falls off the side of the building.

* ShoutOut: The scene where Weiss recruits Jaune from his cell borrows much of its dialogue from the scene in ''Series/{{Arrow}}'''s "[[Recap/ArrowS5E23LianYu Lian You]]" where Oliver Queen recruits Deathstroke.

* AssholeVictim: Subverted. Team CRDL are all asshole bullies as usual, but the characters and narrative make it clear that they did ''not'' deserve to die, much less in the horrific manner that they did. Jaune in particular considers his his "original sin" once he comes back to himself and never forgives himself for it.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Jaune is horrifically fond of dishing these out.
** In the first chapter, he freezes Russel Thrush completely solid in a manner that leaves his Aura behind despite his death, quickly kills Sky and Dove, crucifies Cardin before slicing open his stomach so his insides spill onto the floor.
** After employing some cruel irony by breaking Nora's legs, Jaune grabs her hammer and smashes her with it, using one of the grenades at the same time. Ren describes the top half of her body as simply not existing from the sheer force of the disgusting blow.