Uncaged Cat - (Pre-RWBY, SI)
Twenty years ago, the terrible Great War finished in disaster.
What should have been a conflict bound to reshuffle the order of things between the major kingdoms finished with various previous facts altered into a state of decay. The Grimm happened, the idiocy of ambitions unfolded, and the Faunus people spilled their blood in trying to secure themselves a home.
The Vytal Treaty was meant to do that, to give my people a chance to have their own homeland rather than be split in communities, sheltered in ghettos, and discriminated upon for their animal features. And Menagerie was supposed to be our spoil.
It was not.
My father, Govind Belladonna, had to swallow the bitter pill as our people were tired. What little 'friendship' born in the battlefield between Humans and the Faunus was shattered by the peace treaty. And Menagerie became, in the eyes of the other kingdoms, a dumping ground for the Faunus.
This was basic lore for anyone that was familiar to RWBY, but for me, someone that was suddenly reborn as the only son of the first Chieftain of Menagerie? It was the story of my life. Sorta. I guess I can brag about that claim since I was indeed born anew by the end of the Great War. It was a sign of life in the eyes of many, but the death of my mother due to the strain lessened that sort of view in the eyes of my father.
Govind was someone that could be defined as a hard-worker, and not a social person. He was a gifted administrator, and a wonderful planner as Menagerie was able to successfully deal with the migrations of the first ten years by preparing housing and shops in advance. But one can do so much with a third of what the huge island could offer: the rest of the place was a desolate desert with aggressive Grimm monsters lurking under the sand.
When the other decade came by, Govind's popularity experienced a serious decline. The man was not a people's person, and he struggled to find the right timing to held speeches and announcements. He came off as clumsy, and as a 'mild peacetime leader'.
In a sense, the blame was both unwarranted and deserved. Govind should have stocked his staff with more reliable people, but the bureaucracy was so minimal to offer the best autonomy that taxation was inefficient, and the criminality was on the rise.
It was around the time I was fifteen that my father finally acceded to my ideas.
The 'Square Deal' program was introduced as a robust legislation to expand housing, codify taxation within a clearer bureaucratic system, establish a national bank, establish a 'secondary currency', and then create a proper military force.
The last node was where I had to clash the most with my father: the man had seen a decade-long war, and he didn't want to see the Faunus to be responsible for another one. The harsh truth was that the way the Vytal Treaty was structured forced us to either concede to a steady decline, or prepare for conflict.
Kuo Kuana was the only settlement within Menagerie that could be sustained- other efforts to colonize the island had failed miserably. We needed more land and we were not going to be pushed around by those pricks.
Still, I suppose it's high time to deliver an introduction: my name is Dasra Belladonna, and I am currently 20 as I am writing this entry in my journal. I am a Cat Faunus with dark hair, black eyes, and a fluffy tail- I am a swordsman as I was trained by my father in the art, and I am... well, the supposed heir to Menagerie.
If I have to draw correlation with the more known members of the Belladonna family in the lore, I should be the grandfather of one of the protagonists and... I have to admit that the idea that most of the hot ladies in the show have yet to be born is sadge.
Still, beyond the layer of abysmal sorrow in my heart over this fact, I was also very concerned with the current status quo.
The Great War has happened and it ended the same year I was born a second time. The tensions in the human-Faunus relations have been growing in those dreadful years considering that Menagerie was what one could consider a 'Greater Ghetto' experiment.
Instead of implementing laws to bring equality of law for the citizens, the Faunus were ousted and expelled from the kingdoms, some earlier than others. Those with relevant skills were usually 'held back' for 'technicalities', but would still get the boot once they had been milked enough.
The sudden brain drain the kingdoms suffered was missed by all those politicians while Menagerie was initially unable to provide the right kind of jobs to these skilled workers. It was only through some early steps I made with my father around the time I was twelve that we got our main research facility.
Menagerie Technical Works was a state-owned business... it was owned by the Belladonna family. The legal circumstance is murky, but Menagerie didn't have that strict of a business law at the time, and due to the size of Kuo Kuana it made sense that the first corporation had to be born from its leading group.
Spots in the higher workplace were opened, and a focus was put on the various teams: let's start with basic work tools. Agriculture, mining, fishing- the point was to bolster the yield of the land, the sea, and even the rocks.
In a five years-long sprint, Menagerie managed to rapidly pace itself to introduce green houses, products to preserve plants, and even new drills to dig Dust out of the few mines available near Kuo Kuana. When the Square Deal hit the market, the overall GDP of the island soared as the new taxation system allowed for less confusion, more money in the national coffers, and a change in trade policies.
This last one was a decision that equally got verbal spars with my father as it was for the creation of a proper military force. In his eyes, despite Mistral's efforts to rob our merchants in broad daylight through their 'preferential fees', it was unfair to embargo the bastards.
The truth is that Mistral's economy had been on an artificial boost. One that was slowly waning off due to how little effort had been put in expanding the national input. Mistral had been put in life support through Atlas' own desires to exploit the Dust mines it had in the northern region. Hence why some of the newer settlements in the northermost areas of Mistral held a less-Asiatic and more 'Western' naming system.
While Mistral was still defined a 'Major Kingdom' due to its size and politics, the ousting of Faunus had severely damaged both their military and their economy. And we had enough informants that had migrated to Kuo Kuana to have a complete perspective on the situation: a war would not be a terrible idea... if it had a limited reach.
A war for 'Faunus Rights' was not doable even after two decades have gone by from the Great War and Menagerie had a growing military might within its shipyards and landing strips. We had two large war-tier airships that were indeed formidable and modern pieces of the airforce, while the navy was mostly built around small ironclads that were manned by experienced sailors.
If we were to tackle Mistral, we had to use an excuse that wouldn't bring Atlas in the conflict too early on - or maybe never if possible.
And the excuse came around the time I hit 20, and a diplomatic incident unfolded within 'international seas': A merchant ship had been 'attacked' on its way to Vale, the trade route having a few Mistral-owned islands along the way, as it was confused for 'pirate ships' by the coastal guard.
Which is a hilarious and blatant attempt to demean Menagerie's naval reputation since our flags hardly looked like fucking Jolly Rogers.
The accident came at a time where my father was facing a severe case of cold, and had been confined to bed. As the news was first relayed to me, I was the one that personally spoke with him by his bedroom. He had a haunted look in his eyes as he understood one thing.
"War is inevitable."
The man may have been a pacifist after facing a horrible war in his years as a young adult, but he could tell this wasn't a war for some shallow honor, it was a matter of being stomped by foreign countries or not.
"Indeed. I wish to take charge of the war council as you rest, father."
The request was met with a mixture of surprise and... resignation. What I had thought would have been another verbal battle turned into a full-fledged endorsement.
I left my father's bedroom with a displeased look. I wasn't angry at him, or upset by what he said or how he behaved on the matter...
It was the way he apologized to me for burdening me with a war, like his father did with him.
AN
Ah yes, nobody expect the random 'interesting' RWBY idea coming out of nowhere! Also, as mentioned early on in the chapter, this unfolds decades before RWBY. So, there may not be the girls from the canon present... but their ancestors are around, I guess.
Next time, the First Menagerie-Mistral War starts!