Hello everyone! I have waited to do this story for a long time. I have always found the great war interesting and wanted to do a story set in that time period. I have been wanting to do this for years and figured I would finally get to it here. This will be set a little over 80 years before RWBY proper.

"Legends…stories passed through time. Many of mankind's stories share similar elements, stories of heroes and villains, of great conflict. Great stories that help to lighten the awful reality. Man, born from dust was strong and resourceful, they soon met their first enemy. Creatures of darkness, creatures of 'Grimm'. Who seemed set on snuffing out mankind's existence. Mankind were able to harvest the elemental power known as 'dust' to fend off the Grimm and build their own societies…Sadly, while mankind could hold off the Grimm, they set their sights on themselves. Many tried to conquer others, used their power to bring about dominion. Countless wars have been fought over the millenia, constantly divided…perhaps, mankind will be resourceful enough to find peace. Or, more likely, this war will be enough to return them to the dust where they came…"

"Perhaps mankind will struggle, but throughout all the pain and death, hope and kindness still persist. Perhaps you have forgotten such things…"

Captain Tom Featherston looked in the mirror. He adjusted his uniform, it was a white uniform with black accents, with a golden badge on the right side of his chest, the Mantle symbol for 'captain'. He was a handsome man with blonde hair. He contemplated the current situation.

It has been 4 years since the war started. The alliance of Mistral and Mantle just wanted to offer a better form of living to these savages. But instead Vale and Vacuo, those who controlled this continent, had to make it a big fight. This town had been conquered 3 days ago, he had been enjoying sleeping in the former Burgomaster's bedroom. It was quite comfortable. He slept all day today, as he could see through the starry night outside the window.

He figured tonight it was time to finally make some announcements and set down terms for this town.

He walked out of the door and went down the stairs, before he was finally able to walk out to the front of the building. The townsfolk had gathered at this building, they looked fearfully at the captain's troops who held rifles. Featherston looked at the clothes the Valian civilians wore, it was quite the contrast to Featherston. These people wore clothes that made them seem like they were from an entirely different time period than he and his men.

"Hello, I am Captain Thomas Featherston. I have gathered you all here to discuss things with you, it has come to my attention that many of you view the alliance as conquerors, as warmongers. I wanted to assemble everyone here to ensure that we are truthfully liberators! It was difficult, and it took many sacrifices, but Mantle and Mistral were able to crack the code of society. We found ways of life that ensured peace and prosperity, that has made the grimm far less of a threat! All we seek to do is share this advancement with the people of this continent. To finish our mission and truly bring peace to the world. Now….as I mentioned, this involved some sacrifices. I must inform that we are to get through the dirty part tonight. Every piece of art? Will be turned in. You will bring any art of yours to my men so they can be confiscated. I recognize this will be tough, but one day, I am sure that you will thank us for-"

"And they say I am a comedian" a voice said.

Tom stopped his speech, looking around for whoever could have said that. It was rather dark, sense it was nighttime, so he tried to squint.

From the shadows, an arrow flew straight at the captain. The man gasped, crying out in a manner one would call simular to a small child screeching. He fell on his butt and his cap fell off of his head. He panted and felt up his head, sighing in relief once he felt that he missed the arrow. He then looked at the townfolk, who looked at the embarrassing scene. Some looked like they were desperately holding back laughter.

As a result of both the attempt on his life and the humiliation he just endured. He quickly stood up and cried out

"Who did that!?" He questioned, screaming at the subjects. The townsfolk looked at each other, terrified and trying to find who amongst themselves did this. "Hmmm? No one wants to come up? Well then, why don't we just beat the ever-living hell out of everyone until someone spills it, everyone like that idea!?" He threatened . The natives talked to each other trying to question one another about who did this. Then one of the guards cried out in pain, he looked down and noticed there was a knife lodged into his foot. The guard dropped his gun and fell to the floor to hold it and the rest looked around trying to find the one doing this. Soon after that, a female solider had been hit with an arrow on her shoulder. Some in the crowd, namely the children, giggled at the misfortune of their occupiers.

Captain Fatherston looked at the crowd, he was looking for a person who was running between them. Instead, something caught his eye once he looked closely.

A shadow was moving.

Featherston pulled out his pistol from his right hip. He then shot a nearby house, it was made entirely of wood and the bullet was laced with fire dust. The house instantly set on fire, this shocked everyone looking at the seemingly random action. The scene was much more illuminated with light now.

He could see it clearly, a shadowy silhouette amongst the crowd

"The shadow! That thing has a semblance!" Featherston called out. The soliders were quickly able to detect the shadowy individual and approached him. The young man in the shadow cover was formidable, punching at the soliders as they tried to grab him. However, one of them hit the silluate's head with the butt of his rifle. It knocked the dark one down onto the floor. The guarda grabbed his arms and lifted him upwards. They dragged him over to the captain.

The captain inspected this figure curiously. He was completely covered in black, resembling a shadow that was capable of crawling off the wall and walking about on its own. The figure panted. Before the semblance finally gave out…

The black faded off. The boy was a red-headed young man who looked around his late teens. He had red hair, and bat ears at the top of his head.

"Ah, a Faunus" Featherston said with a tone of disgust. He then placed his hand on the boy's chin. "We knew to put your people in your place in my kingdom. I am going to enjoy putting you to work" he said with a slightly sadistic grin.

"...Is this a kink?" The boy asked, the captain looked at him confused for a few moments before his mind processed what the boy accused him of.

"What? No! No nothing like that" the captain defended.

"I don't know man you like, stroked my chin talking about putting me in my place and like…you know" he accused sarcastically. The soldier on the right gave a slight nod, apparently the 2 soldiers holding him thought that was weird too.

Suddenly, all 4 of them heard the sounds of grunting and violence in the background. Featherston looked to the side and the 2 soldiers turned around, still holding the Faunus boy.

And they saw them.

4 knights, led by a distinctly feminine one. They were laying waste to the soldiers. One of them tried to shoot the female knight….and she turned intangible, with a semblance. So the bullets flew past her. The soldier trying to shoot at her stopped once the bullets were not working, and just looked at her shaking. She turned physical again, and she grabbed him before flinging him all the way to the top of a 2 story building. Knocking him out cold. The townsfolk erupted in clapping and cheering, they had been saved.

"Man, what a woman" The Faunus said quietly. He then grunted once he was abruptly dropped on the ground. He looked back and saw Featherston and his 2 remaining soldiers fleeing the scene. It made the red head chuckle a bit.

Then he heard footsteps, and saw the female knight standing above him, looking down

"...Hi"

—-

"Rory Kane"

The female Knight looked at the Faunus boy in the cell. She brought him to an airship and was currently holding him in its brig. He stood in its corner, crossing his arms

"Oh, am I famous now?"

"I saw you when you were younger. I was friends with your mother" the mention of his mother seemed to make the boy recoil. She sighed. "She was a good knight, Rory, she helped people"

"I helped people, and now I am in a brig" Rory said.

"You were reckless, Rory. Doing vigilante work alone in occupied territory is shortsighted at best. You know the alliance's tactics, they scorch towns if they prove to be problematic. What you were doing put dozens of people in danger! You can be flogged for what you did" she said

"Promise? Sounds kinky" Rory asked with faux- excitement. The Knight just sighed.

"Maybe I should let you take it then, teach ya to think about the people in those towns" she said.

"I should think about them? Hm? What about the kingdom? The kingdom that took all the good men for the war effort. Do you know what it was like in that town before the alliance seized it? Thugs mistreated them, the Grimm were a nightmare for them with no defense. I was the only one there to help them through that" Rory stated. The female Knight looked down, pondering that.

"Your both right"

Both of them turned their attention to the side of the room. And they saw the green haired man, with armour and a golden crown atop his head.

"Lord Ozymandias" The Knight said bowing to the man. Ozymandias walked inside and gestured for her to stand.

"No need for that Spectre…..But anyways. You and Rory both have a point. Rory is correct that abandoning towns throughout our kingdom to fend for themselves was a bad idea. I should have shot it down more firmly when the generals came up with it. But….Rory? You should have thought things through more. Come up with strategy instead of going into things with no plan. And don't do it alone, it is incompetent and puts too much stress on a young man like yourself" Ozymandias said

"So, what, did you come all the way from the castlel just to scold us?" Rory asked.

"No….I have heard of you helping out townsfolk. And I always felt you sounded like you had potential. This gave me the opportunity to meet you in person. I want to recruit you to be a knight. You can gain training, allies, and you can learn to truly help people" Ozymandias offered. Rory seemed to blink at the offer, he considered for a few moments.

"...How do I know you're not trying to trick me into being another stooge for you?" Rory asked, Spectre glared at him, taking such a tone with the king.

"It's your best way of avoiding consequences for endangerment. You could get 30 strikes of the flogger like Spectre said, and be thrown in jail for the next year. Does that sound preferable?" Ozymandias asked.

"...Fine, I'll join up" Rory said reluctantly.

"Excellent, set us on course for the capitol" Ozymandias told Spectre, she nodded and walked off to see his instructions through. He then looked back at the troubled Rory.

"If it helps, you will still be choosing your destiny. You can choose what type of knight to be….I know of your history, you are the son of a hero, and of a soldier. You can choose which of your parents paths to follow" he said as he begun to walk out.

"Personally, I would prefer if you became a hero" Ozymandias suggested as he finally left.

Rory contemplated the situation, before he decided to get some shut eye instead of processing all of this right now. He walked over to the brig's bed and laid down.

Now this might not be perfect, I did spend a while going 'Hmmm, could something be wrong here?' but I have wanted to really get to this story for years. So I decided to just get this out to get started and I can simply improve any flaws later.

There is a lot of interesting sorts of 'what could have been's in regards to this story. Rory was going to be a girl at one point, I changed it for reasons that will not really become important until much later.