RWBY Retold (A VagueZ/Kei Collaboration)

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Retelling of RWBY with a lot of its own twists. Heavily AU. More to come when the quest actually goes anywhere. Collaboration between @VagueZ and @Kei .
1.1 Seventeen Years Ago

Kei

absolute disaster of a person
The wind lashes against your face as you soar through the air at somewhere around a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, altitude five hundred meters by the time gravity takes hold and you begin your oblique downward arc towards the ground.

You're not terribly concerned. Gazetteer Academy - the preparatory combat school you were enrolled in prior to your acceptance at Beacon Academy - had long prepared you for a "landing strategy". And even if you make a stupid mistake, the landing conditions are ideal, or at least as ideal as things are going to get: It's broad daylight, you're falling towards a woodland area where the foliage will slow and cushion your fall, and your Huntsmen instructors with medical training are on hand to deal with any unfortunate accidents. Which - if you really botch your landing - may include funeral services.

Still, you did not expect your initiation at Beacon Academy to begin by being thrown skywards by a catapult. Valeans are insane.

You scan the skies around you, squinting as air resistance assaults your eyes, assessing your surroundings for danger. It isn't flying Grimm that you're looking for, specifically; you already scanned the sky just before the creaking museum piece sent you on your way. Rather, it's for "navigational hazards", as you've heard sailors call them. The initiates were launched in rapid succession but ultimately one at a time, reducing the likelihood of a chain reaction of midair collisions. However, the eighty-or-so other dots in the air - initiates, each and every one and of them - are now attempting to speed up or slow their descent, and the sky is now being increasingly crowded.

You suppose you're lucky, though. Yours is not the only initiation; Beacon Academy is holding three separate "entrance exams" at once. You're jealous of the eighty initiates who got a lucky draw and are currently undergoing their initiation on the Azure Shore, but at least you aren't the unfortunate eighty currently suffering at the foot of Mount Glenn.

One out of twenty people on the planet pursues a career in a defense-related field, whether that's soldiering, law enforcement duty, or defense logistics. Of those, one out of twenty trains to become a Huntsman. Every year, two to three hundred young adults enroll at Beacon Academy, even though not all of them end up being Huntsmen. Remnant is a deeply militarized planet.

It's not as if you have a choice. The People must contend with the creatures of Grimm, the monsters from the dark, the demons without souls, the abominations of the Rotten Wings. They prey upon our inner light, running over our towns, besieging our cities. We have lived under their shadow for as long as history has been told. Our homes are surrounded by high walls with heavy gun emplacements. Our trains are heavily armored. Our ships host cannons.

Sometimes, they disappear without warning, only for the wreckage and corpses to be found years later.

It's for this reason you have come to Vale. It's for this reason that you have decided to become a Huntsman. It's for this reason you are at five hundred meters and falling.

You prepare yourself for your own landing strategy. At two hundred meters above ground level, you feel comfortable tucking yourself into your preferred position for a low-altitude, low-deceleration maneuver that would see you landing safely on both feet.

It's a shame, then, that you don't see a red-and-gold spear flying towards you in time, with a gunshot its self-propulsion and its guidance system the most uncannily accurate of throws.

*****​

Seventeen years ago, there was a war: The Great War.

The world had changed. The supremacy of the Kingdoms of Mistral and Vale no longer went unchallenged. The Kingdom of Mantle - a small, second-rate country in the freezing wastes that became the heart of the Industrial Revolution - had shifted the balance of power, and the Kingdom of Vacuo was all too eager to exploit this upset. Remnant had become a mess of contradictions: The rise of competing nationalisms, the demand for rights by communities of faunus with irreconcilable visions for the future, the conflict between progressive and conservative forces. The world became a powder keg, and the Great War was its spark.

Battles would no longer be fought with only sword and Dust. Firearms became commonplace. Airships took to the skies. Cannons tore down city walls.

But the Grimm reminded us that we were but children railing at the heavens. From the skies came Graula: its great black wings, its ivory-bone talons, its terrible violet flame. The dragon - the giant creature of Grimm that laid low the Four Kingdoms - reminded us of the cost of our hubris.

Yet even in the darkness, there is always a single flickering light: The Huntsmen, sworn protectors of light, defenders against the Grimm. For years, they had warned the world that the Great War was but child's play before the might of the Grimm. For years, they had been ignored. Yet it was at the end of the Great War that they brought the Four Kingdoms together in the Armistice of Vytal, slaying Graula in the skies over the Emerald Forest.

That was twelve years ago. Remnant is once again at peace, guarded by its protectors.

But it could never last forever.

*****

VagueZ and Kei Present
RWBY Retold


*****​

The Kingdom of Vale is not your home. You came here a few days ago from the Kingdom of Atlas, formerly known as the Kingdom of Mantle a mere twelve years ago before a military coup changed things. You are a child of the eternal snow. You are a scion of the Industrial Revolution.

You are a faunus.

The faunus - a humanoid species with animalistic traits - have experienced centuries of discrimination at the hands of humanity. They were the unclean, the undesirables, the slaves. They were proof of the superiority of humans, that knowledge would always triumph over savagery.

Never mind that the faunus are no less sentient than humans. Never mind that the faunus have been denied the same education opportunities as humans. Never mind that the faunus have often been afforded little more than manual labor. For centuries, maybe even more, they were the underclass, the foundation upon which civilization was built, but never to be at its core.

But times are changing, as they do. The Great Compromise of Saint Tabitha's Square started swaying hearts and minds. Yes, the Unrest and the Decade of Barricades that followed spelled some of the worst turmoil prior to the Great War. Intercommunal violence defined the early tenth century. Rival militias roamed the streets and murdered each other. Armies maintained their dubious status as peacekeepers. Walls were erected between communities as a desperate attempt at peace.

Yet that spark, that one dream of a more equal, more diverse society, started taking hold in Remnant. Thirty years ago, the last few unemancipated faunus slaves still served uncompensated human masters. Today, the faunus are increasingly folded into the nationalist identities of the Four Kingdoms.

The situation is not perfect. But it will get better. You must believe it will get better.

You are...

[ ] Write-In
First name only. Name must abide by Color Naming Rule.

[ ] Male
[ ] Female
[ ] Non-Binary


Specifically, you are a faunus with the traits of a...

[ ] Write-In
Choose an animal.

...with the ability of...

[ ] Write-In
Choose one trait commonly associated with selected animal.

Votes will be tallied as a single set. While we will do our best to respect the popular vote within the limits of reason, the open-ended nature of the vote means we retain final veto power over which vote is chosen.

*****​

Kei: For my longtime readers: Hold on, wait, please don't kill me, I can explain.

RWBY is a franchise that I have a level of weird fondness for, despite my recognition of its subpar writing (and disagreements with other people about where it is worst). Part of it is that I was familiar with its late creator Monty Oum's previous amateur YouTube work (ridiculous but awesome fight scenes with no actual real plot), and so I came into RWBY with a slightly different set of expectations than most people. Part of it was that it was a throwback to some of the stuff I loved most about anime as a child: Fantasy combat school settings, a world of danger and adventure, a cute cast. I think even most people cynical of RWBY concede that - regardless of whether or not it was thrown in because "it seemed cool" - the show had a promising combination of ingredients with squandered potential.

Doing a fan rewrite of RWBY - that is, taking its core ingredients and doing something that I hoped would utilize them better - has always tickled the back of my head, although for obvious reasons, I had never gone through with them: I had transitioned into original writing, I have my commitments to On the Road to Elspar and Intercessor, I could barely take on another project I don't feel super serious about. But I've hit a pretty hard writing slump lately, and @VagueZ - a very old friend - offered to help with that slump by doing the heavy lifting (AKA "most of the writing") for something that's hopefully a bit different and lighthearted to get my creative juices flowing again.

It remains questionable as to whether or not I can do "lighthearted", but.

Rewriting RWBY as what we feel could be not only a better work but also a fun quest means that, frankly, we need to work in a lot of changes. By and large, we want to abide by the spirit of RWBY, in the sense that a "rewrite" isn't just an attempt to tell our own story with a RWBY skinner pack. Realistically, though, not overhauling the plot and the setting is quite difficult. There are simply too many core conceits that weren't simply ill-handled but also ill-conceived. What to do with Remnant's tacked-on creation myth or its deities? What to do with Ozpin and Salem's shallow motivations? What to do with Qrow and Raven's misgivings about being given the ability to transform into birds?

Obviously, having to address these core conceits means fundamentally changing Remnant as a setting and RWBY as a story in many far-reaching ways, especially since we want to take worldbuilding at least a little more seriously than the franchise. On a more practical matter, running this as a quest gives us the added incentive of writing up new content with which we can keep our questers excited and on their toes when it comes to your participation. We don't want you to go through a one-for-one retreading of canonic content you're already familiar with anyways. We're still abiding by some of the broad strokes, but the devil is in the details, and we think it would be best if you approached this quest as something akin to a new story, with a completely fresh take on characters, plot threads, and setting conceits. The most obvious change revealed thus far, for example, is that rather than being something that took place eighty years ago, the Great Backstory War Great War was something that ended only twelve years ago, fresh within living memory, something that almost everyone in the cast lived through in one way or another, and which plays an immediate effect on the setting. We will certainly be writing the quest as if this were a new setting that we need to ease you into.

We hope you will enjoy our own interpretation of RWBY.

P.S. I blame the Number None Discord server.

*****​

VagueZ: As Kei has said, blame me for the fact that we started kicking around several ideas and ended up harmonizing enough of them that we think there's something neat to explore here, now. I love writing overblown, over-the-top action scenes, and this is an excuse to do so. For me, as well, there's a point where I love to create, but sometimes some projects end up stalled, mainly due to the fact that I hit bits where things need to percolate as I plan things out.

Thus, I hit on wanting to do something new for me, and this is a piece of media that Kei and I share not only the fact that we consume it, but similar approaches to what we think is wrong with it and what can be done to improve it.

Kei has already hit on several of the other points I'd want to say, so the only additional note I have for you right now is my own wish that it be something to help spark creative impulses in you, whatever format that takes.
 
[X]- Plan Reester Sharker Teether
-[X] Write-In: Yarkiy
-[X] Non-Binary
-[X] Write-In:
Shark
-[X] Write-In: Constantly Regrowing Teeth

Consider this: In this vote we can have Alexy rip out their own teeth and use them as throwing knives
 
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[X] Plan Bee:
-[X] Name: Kohle.
-[X] Gender: Female.
-[X] Animal: Honeybee.
-[X] Trait: Has exoskeleton.

Name open to change. Kohle is German for coal, and heavily associated with black. Atlas has some German names in canon. Bees are black and yellow, and yellow is just too obvious.

Kinda sorta a fairy.

Bees can fly.


Bees are insects and have an exoskeleton. Can have a cool aesthetic with seams in-between plates going on.
 
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[X] Plan Bee:
-[X] Name: Kohle.
-[X] Gender: Female.
-[X] Animal: Honeybee.
-[X] Trait: Has exoskeleton.
 
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[x] Write-In: Alexy Yarkiy
[x] Non-Binary
[x] Write-In:
Shark
[x] Write-In: Constantly Regrowing Teeth

Consider this: In this vote we can have Alexy rip out their own teeth and use them as throwing knives
[X]- Plan Reester Sharker Teether

Fucking SOLD
 
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[]Marigold
[]Female
[]Cat: Russian Blue
[]Catnaps

Instead of sleeping through the night, Marigold sleeps throughout the day with catnaps. She gets the same amount of sleep as everyone else, but it's spread out instead of a single time causing her to sleep seemingly randomly throughout the day but also has her be up at weird times during the night.

I am completely open to changing the name and cat breed, or even having a cat breed in the first place. I just love the Russian Blue fur color and Marigolds are the first flower name I saw that sound like a person's name that also come in a gray/blue.
 
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[X] Plan Bee:
-[X] Name: Kohle.
-[X] Gender: Female.
-[X] Animal: Honeybee.
-[X] Trait: Has exoskeleton.
 
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sod minor change

I did not see the first name only vote

it's just yarkiy now

(i don't care if it's just bright in russian they've got yang xiao long up there)
 
Lets see... Anime bullshit themed quest? Check.
Systematic oppression and struggles? Check.
Trying to be more light hearted then the previous work? Check.

This sure looks like a Kei story to me. I'm onboard.

[x] Plan Stay Gold, Foxy Lady
-[x] Latón
-[x] Female
-[x] write in: Fox
-[x] Magnetic field targeting. Yes, it's a real thing.

Foxes are amazing

Laton was me looking for something that could be roughly to mean 'fools gold' and ended up with a brassy sort of thing. I am open to other suggestions since names are not my strong suite.
 
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[X] Plan Bee:
-[X] Name: Kohle.
-[X] Gender: Female.
-[X] Animal: Honeybee.
-[X] Trait: Has wings.
cute little bees~
 
[X] Plan Bee:
-[X] Name: Kohle.
-[X] Gender: Female.
-[X] Animal: Honeybee.
-[X] Trait: Has wings.


much as i love catgirls i'm going to have to go with this one.
 
[X]- Plan Reester Sharker Teether
It has everything, shark teeth, shark teeth, and shark teeth!
Shark teeth are endlessly adorable. But more adorable is the gag potential! Turns out having replacable teeth gets awkward when a tooth goes loose halfway through dinner and you accidentally spit it onto the table.
 
For me teeth that grows back also seems to make us vulnerable to losing teeth via slapstick comedy.
Though I won't deny it would be a flavorful choice to make...
 
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