Not too long ago, someone in the review sections asked me why I keep writing Ruby to have mental issues of some sort?
My answer?
Because it's fun, and because it actually seems entertaining enough to write and read, in my opinion at least.
This time, however, there's been a bit of a flip...
Children of Remnant
(Inspired by Star Wars: The Bad Batch)
It is around the beginning of RWBY canon, during the famous Emerald Forest initiation, and the Grimm are acting strange.
Instead of attacking Team RWBY in particular, they're staying away from them. Running, even. Something has them running scared from that team in particular, and the four girls are just as perplexed as to what is going on as everyone else.
Immediately, rumours (Some good, some... Not so good. Quite unpleasant at that) Begin to circulate around Beacon, not helped at all by the reactions of the Grimm in Forever Falls, as they seem to cower in fear at the sight of Ruby and Yang, and turn tail almost immediately.
All around Remnant, the Grimm are exhibiting strange and unusual behaviours, pulling out of their old territories by the dozens, then the hundreds, leaving millions of people scattered across the Grimmlands in safety, and yet also in confusion in what will become known as the Great Exodus.
It would be an event which would bring a wash of confusion over Ozpin and his allies, as they struggled to come up with a solid answer for why this was happening, before coming to the conclusion that Salem was gathering her Grimm for an all out push across Remnant's kingdoms, which they labelled as the Coming Surge.
But none of that explained why the Grimm were avoiding Team RWBY.
Meanwhile, across the kingdoms, a social and political vigilante movement known as the Children of Remnant was growing in popularity, spurring communities within kingdoms to protect and govern themselves in the face of Grimm incursions, White Fang attacks, and police and Huntsman unreliability. It was a movement that would begin to weep into the Huntsman academies themselves, and soon, Beacon Academy held Huntsmen in training that donned the white and red armour and symbols of the Children of Remnant.
It was a movement that was beginning to demand and enact both violent and nonviolent change within and without the kingdoms, and it was becoming clear that amidst the protests and riots spurred on by its members, sides were being drawn and taken.
And nowhere was this made more clear by the split between RWBY and JNPR.
RWBY would find themselves disagreeing with the actions of the Children of Remnant, stating that whilst somethings in the system needed to change, the group were blowing them out of proportion and were beginning to rely more and more on violence in order to achieve it, but whilst JNPR didn't deny the fact that the violent actions of the CoR were growing more and more needless, the fact that they were resorting to it showed that the problems in the kingdoms were there, and that they needed to be addressed and solved, and the majority of CoR were on the way to solving them.
It was a topic that would explore and deal with themes of sexism, racism, classism, and discrimination of all kinds within the kingdoms, CoR's response to it all, the deescalating threat of the Grimm, and so on, and would cause a line to be drawn between RWBY and JNPR as the actions of the movement began to grow more and more publicly aware.
It was a conflict of interests that would bring up many topics of grey morality, and none of them were shown as morally superior to the other.
But getting back on track, the plot around Cinder and her plans would begin to unravel as more and more Huntsmen sympathetic to CoR would partake in vigilante crusades against Roman Torchwick and the White Fang, and Salem would mysteriously go dark, leaving her allies without direction or purpose, leading to Cinder's plans falling apart, and her own circle of allies splitting up as she was unable to do anything.
It would be Team RWBY who would lead the fight against Cinder, working with Ozpin to get ahead of them and stop the bad guys before CoR could swoop in and use the situation for their own means.
And it was all going fine, until they were arrested and sent back to Beacon with criminal records.
Meanwhile, a government inspector- With sympathetic ties to CoR- Simply known as Argent would arrive at Beacon Academy to assess the needs and usefulness of the Huntsmen as a whole, and would begin to take a liking to Team JNPR, bringing the team into her own fold of allies as they were swept up more and more into the movement.
And then Haven was attacked.
Cinder and her few remaining allies, in a desperate attempt to gain power, assaulted Haven Academy in order to acquire the Relic of Knowledge, only to find that it had already been taken.
By Raven Branwen, under orders from a mysterious benefactor within the Children of Remnant.
Ozpin, fearing for the future of Remnant and realising that the safety of all of the relics was not at stake, brings RWBY fully into his circle of allies, and prepares to take them across the world, with Qrow and Glynda, to recover the relics from their vaults and bring them somewhere else for safety, beginning with Amber, the Fall Maiden, and the Relic of Choice.
And that's when Argent reveals her true motivations.
She presents Team JNPR with the Relic of Knowledge, and brings forth Jinn to answer a question.
It is not shown what that question, nor the answer, was, but it is enough to completely shatter Team JNPR's trust in Ozpin and the Huntsman system.
And when RWBY- At the landing pads at the edge of Beacon, preparing to take a Bullhead out into Remnant with Ozpin and his allies to gather the remaining relics- Sees JNPR again, they would be accompanied by over a dozen CoR members, and decked out in armour that made their defection to the Children of Remnant official.
A violent firefight between the two sides would break out, and RWBY and co would be barely able to escape as the Children of Remnant tightened their grip over Beacon and the kingdoms, with JNPR at the head of it all, and the true face of the movement would be revealed.
Argent was the leader of the Children of Remnant.
Argent was behind the Grimm movements.
Argent had killed Salem- Somehow. No one else besides her and her inner circle would know how- And made herself Queen of the Grimm.
Argent, the one with Raven Branwen and her entire bandit clan under her thumb, wasn't even her real name.
It was Summer Rose.
From here on out, it's a race against time as RWBY and co moved to gather the remaining relics ahead of Summer, JNPR, and the rest of the Children of Remnant, all the while an increasingly desperate and unhinged Cinder would continue to make moves of her own, and constantly bringing all sides to clashes in her constant bids for power as Team RWBY works to try and uncover the truth behind Summer Rose, and how she was somehow able to kill Salem.
But more than that, the story itself becomes an exploration of a conflict focused around grey and grey morality, as both sides are awash with their own moral failings and successes, with Team RWBY, the heroes, being forced to commit more morally dubious acts in order to survive, all the while trying to balance their actions against the greater good, and the Children of Remnant, the baddies, being genuinely altruistic in practice a lot of the time, but also having to deal with more violent parts of its own movements, and balancing them out against any meaningful progress that they make in a fragile game of politics against the other kingdoms.
At the end of this fight, neither side will have clean hands.
There! See? It's not evil!Ruby this time! Score one for me!
This fic is something a little special for me, as I have always enjoyed stories where the moral lines between goodies and baddies is called into question, and this story idea in particular has a lot to say in terms of greying morality on both sides.
But, it's no longer my place to say anything about it, so with all of that said and done, if you want to use this idea, send me a PM about it, and it's all yours!
Titanmaster117 out!