A/N: Dear Reader, if you have been paying attention to the Rooster Teeth, RWBY or RedvsBlue community you know that Monty Oum was driving force and inspiration in animating their creations. His unexpected death has caused much sorrow to the ones close to him, his co-workers and fans of his work. At the end of Matt Hullum's announcement he encouraged all to be inspired by Oum's life and to be creative in their own.
As such I would like to dedicate this story to the late Monty Oum. I'm not sure how long I will continue this story, but after writing this first chapter I doubt I will let it end after only one chapter.
Recommended musical accompaniment from youtube for this chapter: watch?v=sa9CvDPXYNI
2/14/2016 EDIT:
!RWBY Volume 3 Chapter 12 Season Finale SPOILERS!
!Go watch V3 C12 Season Finale before reading the following. SPOILERS!
(Volume 3, Episode 12) A/N: To new or returning readers if you are a fan of the RWBY series then you know in Volume 3 events took a drastically dark turn. Penny is offline, Ozpin is disappeared, Yang is mopey, Blake ran off, Weiss was 'kidnapped' by daddy, Ruby is searching for answers with the remains of team JNPR and Pyrrha Nikos is dead.
When I started this story in respect and inspiration to the passing of Monty Oum things were (naively) happier in the RWBY universe. As such, I assumed the canon story would progress in the same 'good conquers evil' theme. However, it seems evil has come out victorious in the 'Calamity', 'Battle of Vale', 'Fall of Beacon' or whatever they are calling this events of Volume 3.
After witnessing Pyrrha's death I was convinced that I would cancel my story. The drastic events to the canon storyline now made my 'one year later' story no longer viable via canon. After some thought and brain storming I've decided to modify my storyline to accommodate the events of Volume 3 up to episode 12. In episode 12 I will use my artistic license to change some of the events so we don't have some of the before mentioned character 'conditions'.
To new and returning readers you will learn about these changes in a future chapter. I don't know how this will affect my overall 'vision' of this story, but I look forward to seeing what I create. For one, in my 'reaction'/'grief' to Pyrrha's death I wrote an 'intimate' piece which will probably bump this story up to 'Mature' if I use it in later chapters. I hope you, reader, will stick around as well.
-Saberpoint
Disclaimer: The following is a not for profit fan based fiction. The RWBY universe is the property of the late Monty Oum. Please respect and support the original work.
Chapter 1: An Old Story
Despite the chaos, action and destruction caused by the unexpected Grimm attack in Vale and the 'Calamity' that followed, the peaceful life finally returned. Even afterwards cells of the aggravators remained hidden, still causing trouble a year later. The 'Humans First' and White Fang movements had lost momentum as well as the majority of their members but still held the public's fear as race relations where still rough. Extreme acts of terrorism and cruelty from both sides of the conflict encouraged new members to continue the hateful battle.
As always, the Grimm were a real and present threat that continued to stalk humanity and faunus alike. The role of hunters and huntresses continuing to be needed as protectors of life and civilization. At Beacon, finals were coming up and this year's Tournament had been scheduled to follow a while after. Even with several months away Vale was in preparation for the event where visitors from all across Remnant visited their city. The faculty of Beacon recognized the importance of Vale's image in the world and had created extra circular classes to help Vale prepare. Some areas of Vale still showed signs of the Grimm attack and 'Calamity' from last year and needed volunteers to help repair the damage.
Free time for students was at a premium. The main activities during 'free time' for student was either studying or sleep. Few had the energy or time to do anything they considered fun with so many other activities dominating their schedules. It had become impossible during class to catch a quick nap as teacher were now getting down to brass tack on what would be on the finals. The combat and aura classes were revved up to such high energy for the tournament that students were napping in the hallways. Too tired to make it to their dorm rooms.
The teams of RWBY and JPNR had come up with a strategy to combat the dominating oppression that school now had on their lives; group study. While classes and events already controlled a certain percent of their time. The amount of time it took to do homework and study could be diminished if they worked on in groups. Opening their schedule for trips to the bakery for cookies, meditation in the garden, visits to the gym, pleasure reading, doing something fun or the all-time favorite: sleeping.
The two teams had taken their favorite table in the back corner of the library with books and papers scattered everywhere. Ruby's board games hidden underneath one of the library benches nearby had not been touched in weeks. Weiss was surrounded by Nora and Yang as they went over a paper on Dust. Pyrrha and Ren where helping Jaune understand a chapter on aura manipulation in a textbook. Ruby was writing a report on weapons for her combat class while Blake sat quietly reading a book.
Ruby was getting frustrated with her paper. She liked weapons. Reading about them, looking at them, wielding them, taking them apart, putting them back together, modifying them, accessorizing them… yeah, she liked them a lot. However, her passion for the mecha-shift awesomeness had become her bane. She could talk about her favorite hobby until people's ears fell off. She was probably knowledgeable enough to become a teacher at Beacon. However, suddenly narrowing all her thoughts down to the point of a pen. It was exhausting having to put all her words in order with proper grammar and restraining herself from jumping onto a random tangent.
Since Blake was probably the most read member of the two teams most of them found that she was a good editor for their papers. Once Ruby was finished with her first draft she was going to hand it over for Blade to 'dunk it in neon blue ink'. Ruby liked the color red, but when it was all over her writing assignments; she didn't like her favorite color so much. Thankfully, Ruby had given Blake a neon blue pen to correct her writing assignments. At least then the corrections didn't look like someone had bled on her paper.
Ruby gave out an exhausted sigh, putting down her pen. She looked up a Blake briefly behind a brown leather book. The book looked kind of old, like really old, compared Blake's usual reading material. She didn't see any title on it. Neither on the spine or the covers. Instead there was a glyph of a lion's head in gold print on the front cover and on the spine.
"Wha'cha reading Blake?" Ruby asked. Blake's eyes continued to follow the line of text she was on before glancing up to looking up at Ruby.
"A story," Blake responded in her monotone voice.
"What kind of story?"
"Mythology or maybe fantasy about before 'The War'. Maybe during, it's hard to tell."
"What's it about?" Pyrrha asked suddenly interested in the conversation.
"Are we playing twenty questions?" Blake raised an eyebrow at Pyrrha, then Ruby.
"No," Ruby said shrinking in her seat a little, "just wondering."
"It's about two noble housing fighting for power, mostly." Blake explained.
"Why are your reading it?" Blake shrugged.
"One of the professors said that he was accepting book reports as extra credit. He had a list of recommended titles and this was one of them."
"So what's the title? It's a very pretty lion on the cover," Nora said looking at the gold lion on the cover. Blake tilted to book so Nora could get better view of it.
"The title is "The Lion's Fall". I'm assuming it's referring to one of the noble houses in the book, but I haven't figured out which one yet. Just started it today. The author really likes his songs and poems though."
"Oh?" Pyrrha asked somewhat surprised.
"Yeah."
"Let's hear one," Nora said with a smile.
"I don't," Blake started to protest.
"Come on Blake," Yang said, "let out your inner minstrel."
"I…" Blake soon realized she now had the entire group's attention. Blushed a little bit from all the eyes looking at her in anticipation. Finally, she sighed in frustration. "Fine, there was a pretty good poem in the prologue." Everyone watched as Blake flipped to the front. Her eyes read over the passage a couple of times before she started to speak. Her voice was her standard monotone, however she did try and add an upbeat meter as she spoke the words in syllables.
"And who are you, the proud lord said,
that I must bow so low?
Only a lord of a different code,
that's all the truth I know.
In a coat of gold or a coat of red,
a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord,
as long and sharp as yours.
And so he spoke, and –"
"HEY!" Blake was surprised when the book disappeared from her grasp. Looking up she found in the hands of Jaune of all people.
"Rude," Weiss said with one her signature glares. However, Jaune didn't respond intently studying the page that Blake had been reading from.
"Jaune, are you going to let Blake finished," Pyrrha asked her partner. Jaune still didn't respond. Everyone was confused what was going on as Jaune's brow scrunched in concentration.
"It's not a poem," Jaune said slowly and softly. "It's a song." To everyone's surprise Jaune started humming, a slow and very melancholy tune. His humming cracked a few time on some of the higher notes. As his vocal cords began to warm up the tune became clearer and louder. Everyone now stared at Jaune in wonder as he slowly sat down. Then in a very deep baritone voice Jaune began to sing.
"And who are you, the proud lord said,
that I must bow so low?
Only a lord of a different code,
that's all the truth I know.
In a coat of gold or a coat of red,
a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord,
as long and sharp as yours.
And so he spoke, and so he spoke,
that Lord of Malison,
But now the rains weep o'er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall,
and not a soul to hear."
Jaune hummed the melody one more time through then stopped. The library now seemed even quieter now for some reason. The amount of emotion he put into just that short little song had everyone stumped.
Everyone, was always amazed at the potential locked away in Jaune as those doors began to open further and further every day. He had become a very competent and confident leader of JNPR. A year's worth of Pyrrha's combat lessons make him unrecognizable from the young man who first stepped into Beacon. Besides his combat skill, the added muscle and very proud way he held himself the only thing that hadn't changed was his passion for helping others and goofiness.
However, that was hidden potential; not hidden talents. Skills he already had and had yet to expose. His talent of dancing at the party a year ago was one such hidden talent. Or his surprise knowledge of cooking when Ren was sick and Nora would was in dire need of pancakes. Or his skill at sewing when Ruby had ripped her favorite hooded cloak. Or his mastery of metal working when Pyrrha had bent her circlet while sparring. Singing wasn't probably one of his strong suits, but the way he had sung this song was so…well done.
"That was really sad," Ruby said with a frown. Everyone's mood was now noticeably more melancholy. Even Nora with her bright as rainbows smile and candy store addiction bounciness seemed to have wilted a little bit.
"How did you know it was a song?" Blake asked.
"I heard it as a really young kid. I only knew the first eight lines though," Jaune was still looking hard at the song. "Where did you find this?"
"In the mythology section," Blake replied.
"You check it out yet?"
"No," Jaune suddenly stood up and walked over towards the librarian's desk. His friends watched him as the proceeded to check out the book. Once he was done he walked back to the group and handed the book back to Blake.
"Here you go. I checked out under my account," Jaune said offering the book to Blake from across the table. "When you're done, I want it."
"Okay," Blake accepted the book back from Jaune. Blake was a little curious, everyone was a little curious. Over the past year or so they had known Jaune they had never caught him reading anything besides comic books for pleasure. Most of that reading material wasn't even considered mature enough for their own age group. Maybe Ruby's age, but that was pushing it a little.
"So ah," Jaune nervously stated looking around the group realizing everyone was staring at him. "So Aura manipulation through objects…"
"Right," as if someone had flipped a switch everyone's nose was back to the grind stone. Just as their thoughts began to focus back on their school work they all filed the event of Jaune singing under 'odd'.
-Elsewhere-
Sitting behind his desk Ozpin was reading through one of the many, many reports piled on top of his bureau. Even a year after the attack on Vale and the 'Calamity', newly discovered bits of information were still being unearthed from the rubble. One such bit being the funding of the White Fang movement. After certain files had been seized by the authorities, the hounds had been let loose. Following the trails of Dust, influence, blood and money. While in a war it is foolish to fund your enemy's activities, it was some sort of sick irony that the 'Humans First' movement had been funding the White Fang.
It was common knowledge that all of the economic power was held my humans with faunus entrepreneurs only amounting to small local businesses. So the White Fang's funding mostly came from theft since the supporting faunus could not foot the bill. However, some higher ups in the 'Humans First' movement wanted a reason to eliminate not just the White Fang but all faunus. They discreetly funded their enemy in order to make their opponent a more viable threat so they could then justify committing genocide. While Ozpin kept his calm and stoic demeanor it sickened Ozpin to his core that such people existed.
He was just finishing a section on how a dummy company had been setup to purchase warehouses were the White Fang could amass their forces when his scroll chimed that he had received a message. Giving a heavy sigh he took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. Taking a long swig from his coffee cup Opzin opened his scroll to view the new message.
He was actually surprised, for once he didn't expect to receive this for a while. It was a just an automated notification message, something that most people would delete without a second glance. It was sent from the librarian's desk informing him that the book "The Lion's Fall", had just been check out by a "Jaune Arc", with a time stamp and a date when the book would be available again.
"So," Opzin whispered to himself, "the young lord now knows of the lost Hall of Malison."
A/N: That's all for chapter one, I hope you enjoyed and are looking for more in the future. Please comment, critic, etc. If any of you are aware of the HBO series 'Game of Thrones' or the book series 'A Song of Ice and Fire' then you might have recognized the poem. Changed some words around to hopefully fit the main story I thought up while writing this. For the original poem listen here: watch?v=-FF2fBRKxtk
Disclaimer2: The original poem edited for this story is the work of George R. R. Martin from the book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" also know by the HBO television series "Game of Thrones". Recommended musical accompaniment was produced for the HBO television series. The above mentioned sources are not my property and are credited to their original creators.