Hello! Welcome to my first ever RWBY fanfic.

Iiiintroduciiiiiing: Team BSTN! (It's pronounced 'bastion', by the way). First chapter is just the prologue (or prologues; rather than make them separate chapters I just put them both here, especially since the first one is so short). It's kind of just to introduce my main OCs a bit (aside from the first part), to give you a bit of their background and stuff.

Is there any way in heck that I could ever own RWBY? (Psst, the answer to that question is 'no.')

Twenty years earlier

The boy stumbled through the dark forest, panting heavily, limbs leaden. His clothes were torn and ragged. His stomach growled and his throat was parched beyond belief. He couldn't have been more than fourteen years old.

As he ran, he cursed the people he had left behind. If they wanted him gone, so be it. But he wouldn't stay gone forever. Someday he'd be back. Someday he'd make them pay.

Suddenly, a large group of Ursi erupted from the underbrush, snarling and snapping their jaws. Any normal boy would have been terrified, particularly since he was unarmed.

But the boy was not afraid. He was nothing more than annoyed. These pathetic, soul-less creatures were going to stop him from seeking vengeance? Ha!

The boy smirked maliciously. They couldn't get in his way, but perhaps they could be useful.

The boy's eyes turned completely black and almost seemed to glow somehow, darker than midnight. The Ursi froze in place. Slowly, tendrils of black began to creep through the red of their eyes, until at last it overtook the brighter colour completely. Then the fearsome creatures crouched down submissively and lowered their heads to the ground.

The boy's laughter began as a chuckle. Then it became a chortle. Then a cackle. It grew and grew until he was shrieking manically at the top of his lungs.

The woods echoed with the sound of insanity as the creatures of Grimm bowed.

Nine years earlier

"Stop it!"

The gang of boys cackled and moved in closer, circling Nathaniel, water balloons bouncing up and down in their hands. Nathaniel clenched his hands at his sides and snarled, baring his teeth and standing up straight, trying to look intimidating. But a dripping eight-year-old boy with his hair and clothes plastered to his body was not a very intimidating sight. The lion ears on his head were flat against his scalp, betraying his fear, while his tufted tail stayed ramrod-stiff and bristled in agitation.

"Did you hear that, fellas?" one of the boys sneered. "The faunus rat thinks he can order us around."

One of the others cackled. "He won't be so cocky when I do this!" Before Nathaniel realised what he was planning, the boy had reached forward and yanked sharply on Nathaniel's tail. Tears sprang to the faunus boy's eyes as he yelped in pain, making his tormentors laugh.

"The little rat is crying!"

"Not so tough now are ya, faunus mutt?"

A new voice rang out from behind them. "Leave him alone!"

The group glanced up, some looking over their shoulders. Nathaniel turned to see a blue-haired human boy with glasses standing a few metres away, supported by a pair of crutches.

One of the bullies snorted. "Get outa here, pipsqueak."

"Yeah," chimed one of his buddies. "We ain't got time for some cripple. Scram!"

Satisfied that they had successfully put the boy in his place, they turned back to their faunus victim.

A small stone cracked against the head of one of the bullies.

"You let him go!" the blue-haired boy yelled, another stone in his hand, poised to throw.

Gritting his teeth, the boy who had been hit turned around. "It looks like the cripple wants a beating, boys."

Nathaniel could only watch helplessly as the gang surrounded the newcomer, shoving him to the ground and pelting him with their remaining water balloons. One of the boys snatched his crutches and threw them across the yard while the others tugged him to his feet and shoved him back and forth, landing slaps and punches every so often. As a parting gift, the boy he had hit with the rock dealt him a resounding slap in the face that sent his glasses flying off.

"That'll teach ya, cripple," the boy snorted, before turning and marching away with his cronies in tow.

As soon as they were gone, Nathaniel hesitantly approached the boy, who was groping in the dirt for his glasses. Finding them, he slid them back onto his nose and peered up at the boy standing in front of him. He smiled. "Are you okay?"

Nathaniel blinked. This boy had just taken a beating, and he was asking if Nathaniel was okay?

"Um, yeah, I'm okay," Nathaniel nodded.

The boy smiled again. "That's good." He looked around for his crutches and, spotting them lying several metres away, he sighed.

He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled towards them. Nathaniel just watched, unsure what to do. No human had ever been nice to him before. He was surprised to see that the boy actually made it halfway there. Then his legs gave way beneath him and he fell to the ground. Gritting his teeth, the boy began to pull himself forward on his stomach.

Nathaniel made a decision. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he walked over to retrieve the crutches himself. Then, shyly, he offered them to the boy on the ground.

The boy smiled again and accepted them, propping himself back up onto his feet. "Thank you."

Nathaniel rubbed his head. "Um, why did you help me?"

The boy looked surprised, like he hadn't even thought that needed to be asked. "Because they were bullying you."

Nathaniel frowned. "But I'm…" Silently, he waved his tail to get his point across.

The boy smiled yet again. "You're still a person. My mama told me that faunus are people too, and that we should always treat them like equals. Besides I think your tail's cool."

Nathaniel just blinked in shock. No human had ever complimented him before. "Um, thanks."

The boy tilted his head back and gazed at the clouds. "Know what I want? I want a world where there's no war. I want a world where everyone is safe, and people like you and people like me can all live together and be happy. That's a good world, mama says. So when I grow up, I wanna be a hunter. So I can try and make a good world."

Nathaniel was speechless. Who was this strange boy?

The boy turned to him. "Hey, do you wanna be my friend?"

Nathaniel stared in disbelief. He'd never had a friend before, much less a human one. His family was quite well off, which was unusual for a faunus, but even so most of the humans treated him like dirt. But now this strange blue-haired boy with his big dreams had spoken up for him, had taken a beating for him. And for the first time in forever, he was offering Nathaniel the one thing he'd never had; friendship.

Nathaniel decided then and there that he would be the best friend ever for this boy. Anything he needed, Nathaniel would give. Anything he wanted, Nathaniel would do. He would follow this boy to the ends of the earth.

Four years earlier

Taka Kaneshiro was miserable.

He sat, desolate, on the bench outside his father's office gazing at the blueprints in his hands, suit-clad shoulders sagging. As the heir to KaneshiroCorp, his father's weapons and engineering company, he had been tasked with designing a new product to prove that he had what it took to take over after his entrepreneurial father.

He sighed as he recalled his earlier meeting with his father. He had been so excited at the chance to prove himself, to impress his father, but that was all up in smoke now. It was clear that his father had been disappointed by Taka's designs. He was always disappointed with Taka's designs. He was a kind man and made no secret that he loved his son very much, but he was often disheartened by his son's sub-par skill as a mechanical design engineer. All Taka had wanted was for his father to be proud of him, just for once.

Angrily, he balled up the paper in his hands and tossed it viciously over his shoulder. Then he dropped his face into his hands.

A moment later, there came a tap at his shoulder.

"What?!" he snapped, whirling around.

A slightly nonplussed, bespectacled boy with blue hair stood behind him, leaning on a pair of crutches. "Er, sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. Is this yours?" He held out the paper which Taka had just thrown away.

Taka sighed. "Sort of. It is, but I don't particularly want it anymore."

The boy glanced at the drawing, which was of a new motorbike design, with a critical eye. "It's not that bad. It could use a few tweaks and refinements, and you might want to change the wheel design, but it's not bad."

Taka raised an eyebrow. "May I ask who you are, exactly?"

"Oh, I'm a new intern," the boy smiled.

Taka's eyebrow rose further. "Aren't you a little young to be an intern?"

"I guess," the boy laughed, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "But I applied and they hired me. I'm good with design and mechanics and stuff, so…"

"I see," Taka smiled. It was nice to see someone his own age around a place that was usually filled with people several years older.

"You're Taka Kaneshiro, aren't you?" the boy asked. "Your dad runs the company."

Taka blinked, surprised at being recognised. "How did you know?" Many of the staff knew him, on account of him often spending the afternoon around his father's business, but he hadn't expected a newcomer to recognise him so easily.

The boy shrugged. "Your picture was in the introductory booklet I got given. I guess 'cause you're the heir to the company. Besides, I can't think of any other reason a thirteen-year-old would be wearing a tailored suit around here." The boy glanced at the picture in his hands. "Was this for your dad?"

Taka sighed and nodded. "He asked me to design something, as a kind of test. I think he was disappointed."

The blue-haired boy frowned. "Why did you choose to design this? It's not bad, but it's not very original."

Taka went still. He hadn't even thought about that. "They're my father's biggest seller at the moment. I thought if I could improve the design and make them even better, he would be happy."

"Maybe that's not what he was looking for," the boy said thoughtfully. "Maybe he wanted you to be completely original, to come up with your own ideas." His eyes met Taka's. "What do you want to design? What interests you? That's where you should start."

He held out Taka's blueprint. "I think you should hang on to this though. You could still do something with it later on if you wanted."

Taka nodded, accepting the paper. "Thank you."

Just then the boy's watch beeped. "Oh, my break's over." He smiled. "See you around, Taka." Then he turned and hobbled away on his crutches, leaving Taka to wonder if he had just made a new friend.

Three years earlier

Silas sat crouched in the shadows, his wooden quarterstaff propped up beside him. He watched with narrowed eyes as a large pack of men closed in on a pair of human women, forcing them down a dark alley. Straight in his direction, he noted with satisfaction.

Tugging hood of his cloak up over his head, he rose and positioned himself on the ledge at the end of the building, staff in hand. As the group got closer, his now concealed wolf ears picked up the sound of loud, lewd comments and lecherous laughter emanating from the men, with quieter whimpers of fear coming from the women. He scowled. Human or faunus, no one deserved to be treated like that. Those arrogant asses were about to be taught a lesson.

The alley beneath him was a dead end, and soon enough the women could not go any further. The men laughed and began to close in. From the way some of them were stumbling, they were clearly more than a little drunk.

"Nowhere to go, sweethearts," one man slurred.

The women cowered against the wall. "Please, just leave us alone!" one cried.

Another man, this one sporting a scraggly goatee, smirked lecherously. "Now why would we want to do that?"

As a group, they began to advance on the women. That was Silas's cue.

Silent as a whisper, he dropped from his ledge. He landed with a sudden whump directly between the men and their targets, his cloak fluttering mystically to the ground around him.

The men and the women behind him jumped, startled. As far as they could tell, he had just dropped from the sky.

One of the men growled. "Who're you?"

From behind him, one of his friends yelled, "Scram!"

Goatee man grinned. "Get lost, kid. This is grown-up stuff."

"I think you should leave these women alone now," Silas said evenly.

A vein popped in Goatee's forehead. "Did you not hear me? I said get lost!"

He took a step forward and swung his arm at Silas. Silas simply twirled his staff in one hand, calmly knocking aside Goatee's blow. That seemed to push the man over the edge and he lunged at Silas, who side-stepped smoothly and brought his staff around to crack sharply against the man's skull. Goatee crumpled without another sound.

The other goons stared, dumbstruck, at the boy that had just taken their friend down with little effort at all. The alcohol that many of them were obviously inebriated from may also have played a part in slowing their brain functions.

The trance was broken when one yelled. "Get him!"

Everything fell into chaos as the men surged forward. Silas swung his staff from side to side, jabbing and delivering sweeping strikes with all the speed and skill he possessed. Due to their drunk state many of them were easy to take down, but it seemed like no matter how many fell, more rose to take their place. And it seemed that a few of them had not been as inebriated as they had appeared.

One man produced a knife out of nowhere and swung it clumsily at Silas's face, narrowly missing the tip of his nose as he dodged back nimbly, darting out of the blade's reach. He used the longer reach of his staff to his advantage and cracked Knife Man on the wrist, causing him to yelp with pain and drop the blade in his hand. A swift jab to the solar plexus with the butt of the staff drove the breath out of him and sent the man crumbling to the ground. Silas immediately jerked the staff back into the stomach of a man behind him before whirling it from side to side and whacking two more in the head. He was forced to leap backwards, executing a flip as he did so, to avoid another man, this one holding a broken beer bottle.

Silas cursed. He had underestimated them. He had been relying on the majority of them being so drunk that they couldn't think straight. He hadn't considered that most of them might still be in possession of their fine motor functions, or that so many would actually be close to sober. Without that advantage there were too many for him to handle alone.

As if some god had read his mind, another person came barrelling into the fray. Silas saw a boy with lion ears and a tail land a punch in a goon's face before his attention was stolen by a sharp 'bang!' The man in front of him fell, his bottle shattering as it hit the ground, a new scorch mark smoking on the back of his shirt. Beyond the fallen man, Silas caught a glimpse of two human boys standing in the mouth of the alley. One, a dark-haired boy in a suit, seemed to be holding a pair of gun-like weapons while the other, a blue-haired, bespectacled boy with crutches had his brow furrowed in concentration.

The men surrounding Silas turned to see what was going on. Taking advantage of his opponents' distraction Silas took down four more, even as the boy with the guns took out three of his own. The lion-faunus boy seemed to be causing havoc in his corner of the fight as well. It could have been Silas's imagination, but his opponents seemed to be moving slower than before, as if the air around them had thickened into water. Against the combined efforts of the three boys, the remaining thugs went down easily and it was over before Silas knew it.

When all of their opponents lay on the ground groaning, Silas looked around at his unexpected assistors. The human boys had abandoned their post at the mouth of the alley and were hurrying over, while the lion-faunus attempted to soothe the women cowering against the wall. When they batted away his outstretched hands in apparent disgust, he retreated with an injured look on his face. Silas knew that look. It was the same look many faunus bore their rejection with. Silas himself had worn that face once, before he'd learned to hide it.

The lion-boy turned to his friends beseechingly. The one in the suit sighed and made his way through the prone bodies of the defeated thugs to coax the women away from the wall. Once they were convinced he was human, the women allowed themselves to be led around the battlefield to the end of the alley,hesitantly re-telling all that had happened and shooting distrustful glances at the lion-faunus boy the entire time. When they reached the alley mouth, the boy in the suit urged them away softly. As they turned to go, Silas heard him say, "He just helped save you. Remember that." Then he turned and sauntered back to his companions.

The blue-haired boy looked at him. "Are you okay?"

Silas nodded mutely. The boy smiled. "That's good then. You're a pretty good fighter."

Silas shrugged. "I've taught myself a thing or two."

The boy in the suit ran his eyes over Silas's tattered attire, taking in the heavily patched cloak, the ragged clothing beneath and the beat-up sneakers. "Homeless?" The question wasn't accusatory, just neutrally inquisitive.

Silas nodded.

"What's your name?" The lion-boy asked.

The hooded boy was silent for a moment. Then he muttered, "Silas."

The boy with the crutches nodded. "Well, Silas, it's nice to meet you." He shared a glance with his friends, then looked back at the boy in the patched cloak. "Say, do you want to come hang out with us?"

Silas's hidden wolf ears twitched in involuntary surprise. What kind of question was that to put to someone that you'd just met? And to a homeless ruffian no less.

The blue-haired boy seemed to read his mind and grinned. "As far as I know, that's how you make friends."

Silas's eyebrows rose. This boy didn't even know him, yet he wanted to be his friend?

When voiced his thoughts out loud, the boy simply shrugged. "I know you risked your life to help those two humans, even though you're a faunus."

Silas's eyes widened in shock. "How…?"

The boy in the suit gestured to Silas's head. "Your hood twitched."

Silas sighed resignedly. Then he reached up and tugged his hood back, revealing his face, hair, and most importantly his lupine ears to the world.

The lion boy grinned. "Nice to have another faunus around."

"So anyway," the blue-haired boy grinned again, "How about it? We were on our way to see a movie when we heard your fight. If we go now we can still get there in time."

Silas raised an eyebrow at the other two. "And you're okay with this?"

The boy in the suit shrugged. "You put yourself at risk to save innocents. That's good enough, at least for now."

The lion-faunus nodded. "Taka's right. Plus, our friend here is intuitive about these things. If he trusts you, so do we. He hasn't been wrong yet."

Silas felt a smile tug at his lips. "Okay then."

One day earlier

Bastion gazed at the objects laid out on the table before him, the fruit of his labours, and smiled. They were complete. They were functional. And to him they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. What lay on the table were no ordinary tools, no ordinary weapons. To their craftsman they were his finest creation. They were his key to a world of possibilities. They were his hope.

He took them in his hands and his eyes burned with renewed fire. With these, he could accomplish what everyone had said he couldn't. He could excel where everyone had said he was doomed to fail. These were the manifestations of his purpose, his determination. These were his resolution.

Behind him, the clock chimed. It was time.

He turned to the photograph on his dressing table. From within the frame, an auburn-haired, blue-eyed woman smiled at him. He pressed his fingers to his lips and brushed them against the picture. "I'll make you proud, Mom."

Tucking his creations under his arms, Bastion turned and walked out the door.

Present time

Taka gazed out the airship window at, his meticulously styled black hair gleaming in the early morning sunlight, his chocolate brown eyes fixed on the approaching form of Beacon Academy. His customary tailored suit sat comfortably on his frame, the navy fabric augmented with designs in the shape of flower petals along the cuffs and hem in shades of silver. On his breast pocket was emblazoned the silver image of an upside-down katana sword with a guard in the shape of a pair of wings, over the top of an eight-petaled flower. Emblazoned on his lapels was a similar symbol, though the details were slightly different and they were without the wings. This suit had become something of a signature for the young heir in recent years, and he was quite fond of it, going so far as to have three identical copies made. Everyone at KaneshiroCorp, even the newest interns, knew their CEO's son immediately on sight, partially because of the distinctive suit and partially because Taka had all but become a solid fixture at his father's company in the last four years.

Ever since taking the blue-haired boy's advice and coming up with his own original designs, Taka's life had taken a turn for the better (not that it had been bad before mind you). Once freed of his blind desire to do nothing more than please his father, Taka's ideas had begun to flame up with a vengeance. With him enthusiastically applying himself to his work with all his heart, it hadn't taken long for his skills as an engineer and designer to blossom. His father now trusted Taka's opinion on mechanics more than almost anyone else's. The only other person whose eye for machinery he trusted more than his son's was the boy who had quickly earned a name as one of the most naturally skilled engineers the company had ever seen; the blue-haired boy that had eventually become one of his son's best friends.

"We're almost there," Taka commented, not taking his eyes off the approaching silhouette of the academy they were to call home for the next few years.

Beside Taka, Silas smiled. "It almost doesn't seem real, does it Nate?" He addressed his question to the other faunus boy in the room, who was standing on the far side of Taka.

Nathaniel smiled as well. "No, it doesn't. Seems like only yesterday we were only dreaming about this chance. And now it's here."

Silas smiled. It had been three years since he had first met the trio on that dark alleyway. Since that day they had developed a firm friendship. He'd met Nathaniel's family a few months later and a month or so after that they had officially adopted him. With no family of his own to take care of him, Silas had gladly moved in with the Rome family. They had given him all the space he needed, never asking him to call Nathaniel's parents 'mom and dad' and even building him a small cabin of his own behind the house that he could use when he wished. Nathaniel's brothers and sister treated him like one of their own, teasing him as mercilessly as they did their birth siblings. It had been the best three years of his life.

Now seventeen, like the rest of his friends, Silas had grown in more ways than one. He had long ago left behind patched cloaks and wooden staves and now favoured a long, dark grey trench coat with the symbol of two crossed bolts of lightning stitched into the collar, over a grey shirt, black pants and combat boots. His long hair, so dark grey it was almost black, was pulled into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. The choppy layers of his haircut made it difficult to pull it all back, so the hair retained a slightly spiky, ruffled appearance that complemented his grey ears just fine. His emerald eyes gleamed and his fang-like canines showed as he grinned in anticipation. His own custom designed weapons, made with his own hands, were slung across his back in the form of a pair of sleek, straight canes no more than a metre long.

Nathaniel had also grown. He was far from the scared little boy from nine years ago. He was now the tallest in the group, his sapphire eyes gleaming under a mane of golden-brown hair that exactly matched the honey coloured fur of his lion ears and tail. His broad shoulders were clad in their now customary sleeveless purple hoodie, the hood pulled up halfway across Nathaniel's head, stopping just behind his ears. The stylised golden image of a roaring lion's head was emblazoned at the bottom of the garment. White stretch jeans clad his legs, and golden sneakers covered his feet. A golden bracer was clasped shut over his left fore-arm, and a golden armband rested on his left bicep. Over one shoulder peeked the head of his custom-designed trident, collapsed so that it looked almost like a spearhead. The trident's shaft had also been shortened to allow Nathaniel to carry it.

Though he had grown a lot since that day nine years ago, Nathaniel had never forgotten the promise he had made to himself. And as the years went by the little boy with the crutches, now Nathaniel's best friend, had only continued to prove himself a worthy benefactor of such a promise, though Nathaniel didn't tell him that said promise had been made for several years. When he finally had, the boy had just laughed and told Nathaniel that it was up to him to do what made him happy.

Nathaniel turned to the chair in the middle of the group where said boy now sat, his new crutches leaning against the arm. "Well Bastion? Ready to start this adventure?"

Bastion laughed, his blue hair falling in bangs around his eyes, or rather his glasses. They now resembled safety glasses more than spectacles and were secured to the boy's head by an elastic strap.

"More than I've ever been, Nate," the boy grinned. His eyes, the same forget-me-not blue as his mother's, gleamed in anticipation of the coming journey. His favourite blue jacket clothed his upper half, his lower half clothed in a pair of white jeans, the blue symbol of a chess piece, a castle, sewn onto the right front pocket. Blue sneakers covered his feet.

The four friends lapsed into silence and watched the looming figure of Beacon Academy grow closer by the minute. When at last they approached the landing pad, Bastion straightened in his seat.

"It's time."

TA-DAAAA!

So, what'd you think? Did you like it? Do you want to see more? Do you hate it already?

Our beloved Team RWBY should be here next chapter.

If you want to see more of this, review! And even if you don't wanna see more, review anyway and tell me what sucked (but be constructive about it please). Any feedback is appreciated feedback (unless it's a flame).