Team CLVR (silver)

by Teller Graves

The journey of a young girl trying to earn her place at the famous Atlas Academy to begin her training as a Huntress. She and her brother are slowly drawn into the conflict in Vale as they begin to uncover the secrets of their own past. This is an OC fanfiction that starts in the kingdom of Atlas two years before the start of RWBY, and runs parallel to the canon plot.

1. Foreword

Even after all this time, the passing of Monyreak "Monty" Oum still weighs heavily on the hearts of his fans. I am one of them. I never met the man personally, and I knew him only through his work, which started for me in late 2007, when I was browsing GameTrailers and happened upon the first video of his now-famous Dead Fantasy animation. I was awed at the spectacle, and had been quietly following him ever since. I was thrilled at the announcement that he was going to work for Rooster Teeth as an animator on their Red vs Blue series, which was something else I had been a silent fan of when they made their Internet debut back in 2003 when I was still in college. To be honest, I had lost track of the series sometime around Season Three, and up until that moment I wasn't even aware it was still going on.

When I first read the announcement that Monty was going to helm his own series, I wasn't sure what to think. For lack of a better description, the first trailer was very "Monty", and contained many of the hallmarks I had come to attribute to his signature style. I couldn't tell you for certain when exactly I became so enamored with the world he had created, or even why. Perhaps it was the heavy fairytale inspiration, the curious blending of Japanese and Western style animation, or the sheer audacity of the spectacle as only Monty could conceive. What I can tell you for certain is that this story began in response to the Twitter post made by Monty, in which he outlined the rules that were to be followed for character creation in the RWBY universe:

"And I like that you think about these things because I was the same one day, watching someone else's work, dreaming up my own. Setting rules for yourself that are difficult to overcome is hard. But that's why we do it!"

Challenge accepted, sir.

This story started out as the creation of an OC team. As I followed the plot of the show, I surmised that, with a big tournament coming up, the production staff at Rooster Teeth would host a contest with the intent of generating teams for the main characters to compete against. I wasn't about to let the fact that I can't draw for shit get in the way of a chance to make a contribution to a world that I had grown so fond of. So I began to create a team. Even though my prediction for an Original Character contest no longer seems to be accurate, I couldn't stop myself from wondering about the journey that would bring these individuals to the tournament. Any story can be interesting, after all. It just depends on how you do it.

There is no futility in death, Monty. And this journey is for you.